"Eggmorphing"...can we PLEASE put that concept to death????

I wouldn't say its without merit. Have you watched the "deleted" scene in alien? Looks a hell of a lot like a human being turned into an egg, which I gotta say is a damn cool concept. A perfect organism.

No, I would like to see it stay in.

It's a great idea and adds a lot the Alien universe.Like DirtyMeat said you have to see the deleted scene in Alien.Brett is obviously being morphed into an egg.Over all it's a pretty grotesque fate to befall anybody.

I think the egg-morphing option is great. It's extra creepy and I feel it's totally in line with Giger's creations.

I agree with the others. It's more gruesome with this plant like concept of egg-morphing. In the deleted scene, Dallas begs Ripley to end his life because he is already partly disintegrated and is turning into an egg (He can also see Brett on the other side almost fully transformed).

It's a horrible thing to happen to someone - especially if they're alive.  And it allows a sole non-Queen to perpetuate the species.  Great concept I'd like to see worked into a future film.

I definitely hope they explore this further. I hope they keep it in. It's one of the best things about the original ALIEN 1979 that they barely touched on in the deleted scene. Ridley put it back in the Director's cut. I think that he thinks he should explore it further too! If they don't it's a wasted opportunity IMO.

Yep, I agree with others, it's a very interesting (and creepy) concept in keeping with the original Alien concepts. I think the introduction of the Queen and 'hive' in Aliens has given some the impression that xenos are essentially alien versions of ants or bees. I think there is room for both concepts. Don't get me wrong, egg morphing utterly disgusts me, but I've got a perverse interest in seeing that happen!

Yes, a xenomorph can then choose between eating or transforming the victim. A xenomorph can therefore create many eggs (depending on the supply of victims). Once an egg is created it can just wait for a living creature to pass by. In AC we will also se a similar concept with fungi releasing spores when a living being passes by . . .

I agree with most in this thread that egg morphing is horrific, and has it's own fantastic flare. With that being said, I'm not sure the concept should be preserved. Can't say I'd hate it if we saw the concept incorporated in future films (or AC for that matter.)

With that being said, there are two things worth mentioning here.

1. I have no confidence Ridley would want to bring the concept into these particular films he's currently working on.

2. There is definitely a heavy fandom of the concept in these threads. In terms of using egg morphing as a baseline for speculation about what Ridley is most likely to do in these films: it seems there are many who prefer to speculate with their own hopes and desires rather than reasoned theories about what Ridley (and Fox) are likely to do.

I could be wrong, and if the films make me so, I will stand corrected.

Bottom line, as cool as it may be to see a clever incorporation of egg morphing, I doubt it's something Ridley and Fox want to do now (especially in AC.) I will say however, if egg morphing is included, I'm putting my money on it being in one of the later films (not AC)

Definitely should be explored more. The eggmorph is a totally transformative concept. Not quick like being chestbusted, it's slow, agonising, horrific, with total recognition and time to understand what is happening to your body.

It's totally ALIEN. 

I'm sick and tired of hearing about the Alien Queen, it is not a part of Ridley Scott's ALIEN Universe!

You heard it here .....there will be NO [Cameron] QUEEN IN ALIEN COVENANT! Eggmorphing please!

There probably won't be a queen in AC, but Ridley said in interviews that he likes the queen concept and doesn't see why you couldn't do both queen and egg morphing.

Egg morphing is really necessary to the life cycle of the Xenos in order to be able propagate anywhere. I'm a fan, honestly. 

I don't like the egg morphing idea because I always preffered the Xeno outright killing their victims on the spot (like in Alien the theatrical cut), rather than "kidnapping" people.

I can't visualize the latter in a serious way, with a Xeno basically carrying/dragging their victims.

Without seeing it doing this, the end result is scary in its own though, showcased in the Director's cut with Dallas waking up in a terrible state for a great horror moment.

Again however, I like the instant killer idea/action more as it makes them way more terrifying imo.

I think it is good to explore how the xeno can adapt to its enviorment to survive.. by eggmorph or a queen and know spores. which adds to the story line in detail. I like detail.

it shows that what we are dealing with "is" the perfect organism and how it reproduces can be in many concepts.

IMO

honestly i think that the introduction of the queen and not using egg morphing adds more to the perfect organism trope of the xenomorph because it does make them more insect like which when you look at the natural world insects are the closest to perfect organisms that you can get to microscopic organisms that are animals, the structure of insects such as ants and bees and wasps have lasted for over millions of years compared to the human form and when you break it down the parisitoid nature of the xenomorph is seen in actual nature were organisms such as wasps will paralyze a organism and lay there eggs in them for the eggs to hatch and devour the still living organism, egg morphing while such a alien  concept is also less reliable then a single drone molting into a queen due to a hormonal change due to adapting to its environment 

petrified
While I do agree with a lot of these guys that egg morphing is extremely disturbing and kicks up the horror a few notches, I think you are making the most stable argument against egg morphing that is presently in circulation.

The Alien has always been a creature that matures physically at a rapid rate. The AVP games (as much as I didn't really care for them) did a decent job at attempting to convey that a drone can become a queen through metamorphosis (a typical process in the insect kingdom).

While it's true that the egg morphing concept has a plant-like aspect to it, the xenos are much more similar to insects than plants. That's not even something that takes effort to argue. There is little to no similarity between xenos and plants which would make it somewhat silly to give them ONE plantlike quality when everything else is so insect.

Now I'll play devils advocate and argue with myself.

The choice to bring something like black goo into the process (and furthermore, plant spores in AC) DOES allow Ridley and co a creative space to bring back the egg morphing concept. If we are going to allow humans to be impregnated with plant spores, the opportunity to introduce plant tendencies DOES become an option.

That being said, if the xeno is to have plant qualities, this means we would need the neos (who currently seem like they will be created by spores) to be part of the xeno ancestry. Either this or we'd need some dialogue explaining that whoever engineered the xenos incorporated plant DNA.

All musing aside, I still doubt we're actually going to see egg morphing resurrected. But we shall see  :)

@Neomorph. There's a lot of implied death in Alien, but not a lot seen on screen. I think the massive scare is the realisation that the alien actually wants to take 'you' for something else (as seen in the deleted seen). I think we know now that, at least in the Alien series so far, the primary driver appears to be securing hosts for reproductive purposes, with a secondary use as food (or straight out killing). Although, there hasn't been much 'eating' seen - that sounds like it may change in AC!

more egg morphing please, that's only my opinion. its horrifying right to the very bone, even more so than the queen but I don't see any reason why we cant have both. egg morphing for situations of a lone xeno in a situation with very limited hosts and a multi laying egg queen for situations such as hadleys hope where there r multiple hosts for the species. the egg morphing makes sense when theres only a lone xeno and limited hosts as we have seen the eggs can survive for a considerable length of time. means that the eggs can lay dormant until long after the xeno has died or been killed, waiting for more hosts to replenish the species.

Bizarre, hideous, gruesome, incomprehensible, terrifying, a fate worse than death, certainly worse than being killed outright by a Morb. The egg morph raises the stakes considerably and makes the Morb all the more horribly unique. What's not to like? Bury the queen along with Ripley, I say, and give me an egg morph any day!

agree, id give ripley her glorious death, let her go with dignity but has to be caused by the xeno in some way, going out an old woman on her death bed just doesn't seem fitting

ali81

I think you are right. We sort of got this with Alien 3, because she sacrificed herself (in a way) to end it. In her view the queen inside her was the last survivor of the species. She gave up on her own life (whatever chance there was Weyland could save it) to ensure there would be no further xenos.

The only true glorious ending I can imagine for her at this point would be eradicating the xenos from existence (she would need to do this to one-up what she did at the end of 3). The problem with that is, you never will really know if she's destroyed all xenos in existence unless you involve extreme concepts like time travel. Such concepts that would ultimately feel like a stretch in the alien franchise.

I will backtrack on that slightly and say I have come up with perhaps one way she could go out in style.

She would have to die protecting a new born baby (or several) from being facehugged, taking the facehugger herself.

OR

There is the option of a similar situation (protecting human youngsters) by ripping a facehugger/xeno apart with her bare hands and dying by the bloody acidic mess that follows.

Watching Ripley die in a deluge of acid would be quite satisfying.

Forget egg morphing. At this point would contradict the alien hierarchy and hive we been told all along..it goes against the alien nature and process.

I could see however the concept pass to neomorph reproduction or to deacon.

But thats something they will decide if they tackle or not. In xeno story we must take it as a concept only that was surprassed to a more suitable idea and process and we must accept it.

I would not think it would contradict the Franchise, i think the Alien is a very Alien Organism and the ability to Egg Morph could be explored if its done better than it was in Alien.

But i agree Tiago they could go for the Egg Morph or similar as a way for the Neomorph to procreate or even how those Eggs got on Paradise....  meaning it involved a experiment with the Black Goo on Genetic Material as opposed to a Alien being able to perform this task.

I think the Egg Morph makes sense... if its applied correctly.

This brings us back to the idea of personal canon, which I think can't help but apply in a story being told by so many disparate sources.

For example: why should I accept story points in a video game as canon? I don't. Why should I accept story points in the Fire and Stone comics as canon? I don't.

Do we accept that anyone who can get their idea published can permanently alter the storyline, no matter how pedestrian, dull, insipid or outright dumb their ideas are? I sure hope not.

I personally don't even want to view the movies as canon. I never thought about this until I saw Prometheus, and then realized that the vision I want to inform this universe is Ridley's.

I don't expect anyone to share this view, it's personal. But I do think that, after 30 years of movies, books, comics, and video games, we can't be told by any one source what is or is not a valid story element. And that includes Fox, art is a product of artists, not those who finance them.

The queen process is boring. While I don't necessarily reject the Queen, I don't need to see it again. But I would like to see some humans broken down into eggs. That is horror.

i don't see why both forms cant exist, for me makes the species even more horrifying and harder to eradicate. in situations where there is a lone xeno where there is no queen maybe due to her death and limited hosts, the species can still rebuild with egg morphing. the eggs can sit dormant for a lengthy time waiting for more hosts. where there is a large number of hosts, the queen makes sense as she can lay countless eggs in a shorter period of time.  adds wait to threat the species pose s u haveto kill every singne and destroy every egg as even just one lone xeno can repopulate the species

I don't like the egg morphing concept, either. I think the idea of the egg to queen metamorphosis with the queen being parthenogenetic makes more sense, as its something that happens in nature, and it also makes the species more formidable. You only need one alien to end up with an infestation.

Personally I can't see the relevance in both existing because then what is the purpose of the Queen in the first place?

If anyone has read the original "Alien" and "Aliens" novelizations by ADF, they go into this subject a little bit. The basic gist is that Ridley explains that she believes a lone xenomorph can continue to propagate the species, because she has seen part of the process, when she encountered Brett and Dallas.

The xenomorph has the ability to create an egg, and thus a facehugger. She doesn't know or understand the exact process, but she just speculates on what she saw, which was Dallas and Brett being cocooned and/or transformed. One was going to serve as the egg and facehugger, and the other probably as the host, to create another xenomorph.

The importance of this concept is major, because it fits perfectly with the overall terror of the alien. It can exist on it's own, survive in almost any environment, and it can continue to propagate... on it's own.

that's why both forms make sense. the species is the perfect organism. even when obliterated down to the last xeno the species can thrive again over time through egg morphing. the queen makes sense when there is an abundance of hosts such as hadleys hope or on a planet. eggs r mass produced which makes the queen relevant, but where there is such a limited number of hosts, such as the nostromo, a lone xeno using the egg morphing form makes more sense. morphs the 7 crew members and then either dies or goes into hibernation. the eggs can survive for lengthy periods of time till disturbed and thus replenishes the species. makes the species so much harder to kill. where only the queen method is suggested, the species is vulnerable. kill the queen and the hive dies.

Starlogger

Would you be open to changing the topic of this thread to

"Can we please stop trying to do away with the queen or egg morphing and let the concepts co-exist as two sides of the same horrific coin?"

I'm honestly tired of the desire to put either concept to rest. As anyone can probably infer from my user name and sig, I'm a big fan of the Queen.

That being said I do see where egg morphing adds depth to the horror of the organism (assuming it's as many have stated "the option for procreation in limited circumstances").

The only thing I find obnoxious about the talk of egg morphing on this forum are the advocates of the concept who have been or become Queen haters.

Do we need to see the Queen in AC? Not at all. Can we have her origin explained? I don't see why it'd hurt.

Queen haters need to get over it while at the same time, Queen fans should stop seeing egg morphing as a threat to the Queen concept. To much time and brain power is being wasted trying to have a "this or that" argument

well said. the truth of it all is both forms exist and there is absolutely no reason why they both cant remain. ridleys' concept was the eggmorph. aliens came out before the directors cut so Cameron came up with the queen concept which ridley liked, but that doesn't mean the egg morphing idea doesn't have any traction within the xeno life cycle depending on circumstance. egg morphing in my opinion, is more horrifying than the queen. to actually be captured and physically altered by a foreign species while alive sends a shiver down the spine. it also, as iv said many times, makes the species as a whole harder to eradicate but the queen also makes sense as a way to bring order to a large hive and produce eggs on mass for planetary situations. keep them both is what im saying.

QueenElizabethShaw

I don't see hate anywhere, maybe people have different opinions? 

for me both aspects work. the queen is the goal for the lone xeno though some situations don't require a queen such as the limited number of hosts on the nostromo. the lone xeno uses egg morphing to start with until a more sustainable source becomes available then the queen is required as she can quick produce on mass the required number of eggs which would take egg morphing a lot longer to accomplish. but in the event of the queens death and the destruction of the hive, egg morphing kicks back in to sustain the species. I don't see any hate, just people with different views and all equally valued. I just think having both forms of reproduction makes for an almost undestructable species/ infestation 

eww lol

@Dirtymeat @dk I've seen EVERY deleted scene. I'm well aware of them. I just think it's a damned stupid concept, and makes ZERO sense. May as well say "let's just turn this pup tent into a chicken" because we are too lazy to think out a better story.

I wouldn't say it was lazy in any way, its an original and horrifying concept

the egg morphing concept also ties the xenos origins to the black goo in Prometheus

I agree ali81. I think the goo came from the Xeno, not the other way around. The engineers just got it wrong when they tried to reverse engineer it.