What is considered Canon in the Prometheus storyline. . .

It's Ridley's sandbox, he just let a few others play in it. I'm fine with him ignoring anything that happened in the films after Alien. The xenomorphs are such adaptive creatures anyway you could pretty much explain any discrepanices however you like...

Very true! As going by the trailer possibly, we may see mutation into Xenomorph-like creatures. Much like the original footage on Alien, of the crewmember being turned into an egg like thing. . .

The way I see it, in Alien, based on the size of the crew on the ship there was no need for the number of eggs that might require a Queen so the method of mutating one of it's victims into an egg for reproductive purposes was enough to fit the creature's needs. In a largely populated area such as in the second film mass egg production was necessary, I guess the creature would mutate into a queen, or I guess it would have to mutate a few victims into eggs to spawn a few drones before it turned into a queen.

Hmmm perhaps. . . In Prometheus though I think that the crew will unintentionally rewrite some DNA stuff that the SJ's are keeping stored away. I read on a wiki site that perhaps the Xeno's were actually the original species we've believed all along to be "Space Jockey's", but something went wrong along their evolutionary path. . .

no, as much as it may be better without the queen i don't think they can just ignore it like that. us fans would be fine with it but to the general public they would be like "whats happening? who? what?" i understand ignoring the avp series (they are predator cannon not alien cannon) and alien Resurrection (that movie was not only bad but it was f****** weird to) but ignoring aliens and 3 would be confusing, this is not a reboot right? just a prequel? that would make no sense that would mean alien was part of to different cannons and there is not time travel involved so no split time line like zelda and yeah. not to mention that aliens is the most widely known and famous to the public, so yes, this is confusing.

Scott can ingore anything he wants......look at the Spiderman reboot that's coming out.....look at Nolan's Batman reboot........even if this isn't a reboot, Scott isn't obligated to stick to anything outside of 'Alien'.......Scott has always come off as dismissive of the sequels to date; he can blow the whole thing up if he wants to......and also, [b]we won't be seeing any xenos, classic aliens, whatever the hell you want to call them[/b], only the progenitor....so, there's no reason at all for Scott to even approach that part of the so called "canon".

The new nolan batmans and the new spiderman aren't canon, in regards to comic book characters their canon is in their original format, the comics... in other words only the batman/spiderman comics are canon because that's the source material. The new films are adaptations!

@craigamore i am not saying that he needs to acknowledged the other movies in Prometheus, he can ignore them all he wants, i am just saying that if this does spawn a new series, it should follow the rules set by the old series, or at least not contradict them. Scott is not god, he can erase all of the series history or none of it, not some of it. not to sound mean or anything, just my opinion :/

Based on Giger's unused alien lifecycle mural I always figured that the ship played an essential role in the alien lifecycle. I see the eggs, facehugger, etc as being standard ship equipment for the engineers. The ship manufactures eggs from its existing biomass (explaining why the Prometheus version looks "full" and the Alien version appears "depleted".) The facehuggers are originally introduced to willing apprentice pilots so they can be "infected" with a benign parasite which, because it is part of the ship, allows them to interface with the ship in a more effective way. The parasite shares DNA and memories with the host so that it can also serve as a "black box" for the pilot. In case there is some sort of shipboard emergency and the pilot dies, the parasite, having "downloaded" the host's consciousness, emerges from the host so that it can attempt to effect repairs and allow the recovery team to know what exactly happened leading up to the accident. Then the pilot's preserved brain is decanted from the parasite into a new body. If no recovery team arrives, the parasite eventually grows into a miniature ship, like a probe or escape pod, and attempts to return with the pilot's consciousness to a place where it is likely to be picked up and rescued. If a facehugger encounters a species which has "unauthorized" DNA it assumes that the ship is under attack and goes into a different, more aggressive mode to defend the derelict from other species trying to salvage the technology. The parasite kills the host and emerges as a "soldier" hybrid incorporating the intruder's DNA and memories and proceeds to defend the ship as best it can. When the recovery team arrives they can use the "black box" feature of the parasite to learn more about the intentions of the would-be intruder. What I am suggesting is that the alien is actually an essential part of the ships and that the engineers use them as a user interface, authentication mechanism, intrusion prevention, and lifeboat. All we have seen so far is the intrusion prevention mode. The parasite that emerged from the original space jockey after he/she died contained a "backup" of the jockey's brain, inspected the ship and determined that the damage was too severe to repair successfully, waited for rescue, and when that did not occur matured into a spaceflight-capable form which carried the jockey back to his people to report the incident. What happened in the first movie was that when Kane encountered the egg it recognized him as a potential host and did what it was designed to do - it interfaced with him and implanted the parasite. When the parasite encountered non-engineer DNA it went into ship defense mode, recorded what it could of Kane's mind, and began aggressive growth designed to kill the host and neutralize any other potential threats in the area. If all had gone according to plan the parasite would have cocooned the remaining intruders and used the knowledge it gained from it's host to attempt to pilot the Nostromo back to the engineers so they could study the technology and learn more about the humans.

also Scott did not write alien, he just directed it, if anybody did have the right to change things like that it would be the original writer, Dan O'Bannon. he even wrote the characters throughout the series, and the avp movies making him the longest lasting alien series guy or whatever. oh yeah he is dead so yeah that's sad :( he would probably be helping scott if he was still alive. WHERE DOES [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman/Aliens]BATMAN[/url] FIT INTO THIS?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

I hope the Queen ideal is omitted from the new films, I never like the ideal of a Queen Alien.

I think you should not --well, you could but --- be too concerned with whether the movie will be canon or not, whether the Derelict is of the right dimensions, whether the alien species is modeled after an ant colony. We should look at the word "derelict" itself. Generally it means "a stranded ship" which fits into the idea that the Space Jockey comes from somewhere else and infected with the Xenos. Another meaning for the word is "deserted, or abandoned" which fits into the original Dan O'Bannon's idea that there was once a thriving civilization that existed on LV 426 before it self-destructed through a culture of cruelty & exhausted itself through over-exploitation of resources. The last idea sounds a lot like what befell the Rapa Nui culture on Easter Island, or whatever wiped out the Aztecs, Mayans or the Egyptians. I think Ridley Scott is more intrigued by this sociological angle rather than with texture of the Eggs or the detailing on the SJ chamber etc.

I think you should not --well, you could but --- be too concerned with whether the movie will be canon or not, whether the Derelict is of the right dimensions, whether the alien species is modeled after an ant colony. We should look at the word "derelict" itself. Generally it means "a stranded ship" which fits into the idea that the Space Jockey comes from somewhere else and infected itself with the Xenos. Another meaning for the word is "deserted, or abandoned" which fits into the original Dan O'Bannon's idea that there was once a thriving civilization that existed on LV 426 before it self-destructed through a culture of cruelty & exhausted itself through over-exploitation of resources. The last idea sounds a lot like what befell the Rapa Nui culture on Easter Island, or whatever wiped out the Aztecs, Mayans or the Egyptians. I think Ridley Scott is more intrigued by this sociological angle rather than with texture of the Eggs or the detailing on the SJ chamber etc.

True Snorky, but I just get the vibe that he'll be passing over all that other stuff that happened post 'Alien'......it's in the air......can't you smell it? @invaderzim42....of course he's not God, but any artist, in a sense, possesses that kind of power over what they create and of course he can ignore the rest of the franchise if he so desires.....a writer, director, artist can do whatever he or she chooses creatively, so long as they possess the tools to tell a proper story..................and, again, considering that [b]we won't be seeing any xenos, classic aliens, whatever the hell you want to call them[/b], there is absolutely no reason, story wise, for Scott to entertain the queen concept, if he so chooses.......... ...in giving us a look in to the world of the SpaceJockeys and the progentior of the xeno, so long as he does it with intelligence and a reasonable attention to his audience's willingness or ability to suspend disbelief, Scott can tell us any tale he likes and completely ignore everything in the "canon" he doesn't................that's the beauty of writing, and in Scott's case, directing; gifted storytellers can create with the scope of gods over their creations with total right to proceed as they see fit......whether we agree with their choices or not is entirely up to us....... Now......don't take what I just said as any kind of a proclamation that Ridley Scott is God or that I worship the man in any way....that would be ridiculous....I merely speak of the kind of power a writer or director has over the world in which their story takes place.....when one tells a story, they, by default, create a world that operates as they ordain it should.....that's the power of storytelling and thus, Ridley can proceed with the finer details in 'Prometheus' any way he and Lindelof see fit..........if that means a complete kibosh on the queen concept, then so be it....

Good points @Engr101

@ Engr101 - The one story subplot that I do not want to see in this movie is any hint of Earth pillaging/Amazon tree cutting/air polluting/acid rain falling/ozone depleting/global warming/ice caps melting/oceans rising/polar bear drowning/spotted owl dying/nuclear radiating/solar panel subsidizing/Cap and trading leftist rehash of an eco-disaster anywhere in my most beloved sci-fi horror series or so help me I will burn every one of my VHS, DVD and bluray copies of the alien franchise in a most ecologically unfriendly way! Whew! Glad I got that off my chest.

I really hope the queen concept is ditched, egg morphing is far more disturbing, unnatural and Alien. I'm also hoping that the movie sticks with the lovecraftian cosmiscism of the original. Aliens for all intents and purposes killed everything that was terrifying about the organism to begin with. The perfect organism doesn't stand up well against a pulse rifle.

I think it is shameful to trash the concept of the Queen. If you take a minute to analize its impact on the series you would notice it adds new depth and sentiment to the creatures. The original Alien, though mysterious and very terrifying, had no discernable measure of purpose besides that of reproduction. With the Queen, we have indications of structure, order, purpose and perhaps even an identity as a race. Aliens showed they had a certain degree of 'reason' and as for the Queen, feelings. Yes, I said feelings. Jaws the revenge and Porcayo, both had an animal that was hell bent on vengeance. They acted with cunning and tenacity. That behavior opens up an argument that they were driven by more than simple instinctive responses. Just my thoughts. Plus the Queen is one Bad Mother...

personally, i hope there are Z E R O traces of anything that Cameron suggested, or ANY other silliness that was put forth in all the "Alien sequels" that followed this is Ridley's universe, as well as timeline, so i am confident that there will be none of the absurd "cockroaches / termites in space" plot dynamics. i am hoping for a truly A L I E N experience when i see this new film it's going to be a tough sell for some, there are folks who scoff at ALIEN (1979) and hold that film in low regard compared to the A.D.D. action shoot-em-up that "Aliens" turned out to be i think Scott is intelligent enough to walk the fine line between his ALIEN and all the inferior sequels that followed his groundbreaking film in 1979 first it was "truckers in space", then "soldiers in space", "prisoners in space", now, it's "scientists in space", so i am hoping for not only some truly profound concepts here, but also some really strong dialog, and amazing visuals to match definitely something to look forward to..!

I am in total agreement with @shardy.......first off, the whole ant colony/bee hive social biology Cameron brought to the series is famialiar to human eyes......we all remember what the title of the franchise is, right?....'Alien', ergo......the alien and any aspect there of should be foreign to human eyes........nothing about Cameron's hive/queen nonsense is foreign, therefore isn't frightening and, frankly, is pretty damn lazy...... .......second, nothing Cameron suggested made the alien any more intelligent or have any more "discernable measure of purpose" than Ridley did....Ridley's alien was cunning, discerning in its choice of when to attack and far from mindless or simply instinctive........why didn't it rip into the carrier to go after the cat, the closet living thing at that moment?......It rarely showed itself and was more ghost than animal...which made it that much more bizarre and terrifying....where the hell was it? and when would it [b]choose[/b] to show itself.... ....as to your statement, @Nuone, "The original Alien, though mysterious and very terrifying, had no discernable measure of purpose besides that of reproduction"......I recall everything the queen did having the survival of her progeny as her one and [b]ONLY[/b] concern....it's why she ordered the drones to leave the egg chamber when Ripley threatened the eggs and it's why she chased after Ripley once her young were all destroyed.....that seems pretty much to be all about reproduction...doesn't it?