Reading up on Alien lore ?

In my opinion the movies are all that you need. Everything else is just sophisticated fan fiction. But the extent of the "Alien Lore" is a subjective matter. In order to fully understand Prometheus you just need Alien. And maybe some bits of Aliens to understand a bit more about some technical, bureaucratic and scientific aspects.

I have probably watched all the movies, played almost all the video games, but I haven't read any of the Dark Horse comics, as well as silly crossovers (e.g. "Superman and Batman vs A&P") I can't really decide what and what not to consider canon. The AVP movies, especially Requiem, are sacrilege IMO, while some earlier AVP video games, like AVP 1,2 and Extinction, all look and sound like they could be considered true. They have that Alien(s) look and feel, barely focusing on the Predators. Or Predators never happened ? Hell, the newest video game which has yet to be released, Aliens: Colonial Marines lists itself as the true sequel for Aliens, discarding the 3rd and 4th movie, who weren't really on par with the first two. IMO. How does the "official" timeline go ?

I know this is not what you want, but to get you in the spirit of things, The History Channel(s) has been showing "Ancient Aliens" all week. I thought that was rather apropos, considering where this film seems to be heading.

Snorkelbottom posted this the other day and I found it a good read http://www.anchorpointessays.com/

All you need is the films, which are in themselves "canon", everything else - books, games, comics etc. are adaptations and/or extended universe, therefore not canon.

@ Timestreamer - The game 'Alien: Colonial Marines' uses the movies Prometheus, Alien, Aliens and Alien 3 as canon.

Canon - Alien, Aliens, Alien3, Alien Ressurection and Prometheus. Non canon - AVP and AVPR (horrible movies) Just for fun - games novels and comics

I'd agree with thefacehead, give the novels a go, even if they are non-canon, they are quite the entertaining read ^_^ Again, as other said, the early games (AvP1,2 and Ext, hell, if Ext had a skirmish mode I'd still be playing it ^_^) have some nice little inclusions that are very much in line with the movies, but for true canon, then you will be stuck with the first two official movies (In my mind) before they start leapfrogging through time or going to other worlds, 3 was a remake of 1 in my mind, so I dont really care for it as anything beyond showing what the bugs are really capable of, IE: changing what they are based on hoste