Ridley Scott’s Most Controversial Movie Officially Rewrote Alien’s Canon

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Although the movie Prometheus significantly altered the backstory of the Alien series, later films have managed to refocus the story. While every Alien movie has fans, some have received more critical acclaim than others. Ridley Scott’s original Alien from 1979 is generally considered a classic and a masterpiece of the horror genre.

James Cameron’s 1986 film, Aliens, is widely considered the only sequel that captured the magic of the original Alien. David Fincher’s Alien 3, however, marked the first letdown in the series. Alien: Resurrection from 1997 was inconsistent and frustrating, and the Alien vs Predator films were largely dismissed by fans.

Next up is Prometheus, the 2012 prequel to Alien, which proved to be the most controversial film in the series. Some people found it too slow, overly complicated, and lacking in thrills, while others appreciated its deliberate pace and thoughtful themes. Whether or not the film’s focus on ideas rather than scares was a good thing really depended on what viewers were hoping for.

Prometheus Changed The Xenomorph’s Life Cycle and Origins

Despite any other opinions, Prometheus significantly changed the established story of the Alien films in just a few scenes. The film’s opening showed the Engineers – a race briefly seen in the original Alien – and hinted they were responsible for creating both humans and the Xenomorph.

Movie Box Office Rotten Tomatoes
Alien (1979) $204 million 93% Critics / 94% Audiences
Aliens (1986) $183 million 94% Critics / 94% Audiences
Alien 3 (1992) $159 million 44% Critics / 46% Audiences
Alien Resurrection (1997) $161 million 55% Critics / 39% Audiences
Alien vs Predator (2004) $177 million 22% Critics / 39% Audiences
Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007) $130 million 12% Critics / 30% Audiences
Prometheus (2012) $403 million 73% Critics / 68% Audiences
Alien: Covenant (2017) $240 million 65% Critics / 55% Audiences
Alien: Romulus (2024) N/A 82% Critics / 88% Audiences

The black goo in Prometheus was shown to be essential to the Xenomorph’s life cycle, but the movie didn’t fully explain what it was or how it connected to the creature. Later, Alien: Romulus provided a more detailed explanation of this substance.

The Black Goo was identified as Z-01, a substance developed by the Weyland Yutani Corporation. They hoped to use it to create hybrid creatures – a combination of humans and Xenomorphs – that could endure the challenges of long-duration space travel and harsh environments. The Corporation originally obtained the Black Goo during the dangerous mission depicted in Prometheus, as it was originally created by the Engineers.

While later films, like Alien: Romulus, clarified the connections, Prometheus didn’t fully explain how the Xenomorphs, the mysterious black goo, humans, and the advanced race known as the Engineers were all related. The sequel suggests the Xenomorphs were originally created by the Engineers as a biological weapon to enhance their own strength, and were later taken over by the Weyland Yutani Corporation.

Alien: Romulus Explained Prometheus’s Canon Changes

It’s important to note that the frightening creature in Alien: Romulus, called the Offspring, provides key evidence for this idea. Because the Offspring looked like a distorted Engineer – a result of combining human and Xenomorph DNA – it strongly suggests that the Engineers were the original creators of both humans and the Xenomorphs.

As a huge fan, I thought Alien: Romulus was a much tighter and more focused horror movie than Prometheus. Prometheus had all these big ideas about where we came from and what it means to be human, but it felt kind of messy. Romulus took those ideas and made the story way easier to follow. We still don’t know why the Engineers created us, but a lot of the confusing parts of Prometheus finally got explained in this new movie. It really felt like it tied everything together!

Watching Prometheus again confirms that it still leaves you with a lot of unanswered, though thought-provoking, questions. The film aims to explore the universe of Alien in a more intricate way than Scott’s original, simpler horror film from 1979.

While attempting to deepen the Xenomorph’s origins and development, Prometheus ended up with a somewhat complicated plot. The film essentially ignores the events of the Alien vs Predator movies, establishing a different history for both the Weyland-Yutani Corporation and humanity’s initial encounter with the Xenomorph, even before the main story truly begins.

Alien: Earth Finally Fixed Ridley Scott’s Prometheus Retcons

Thirteen years after the first prequel, the FX series Alien: Earth revised the Xenomorph’s history once more. Thankfully, this change returned the story to its original roots, rather than creating yet another new version. Alien: Earth completely ignores the ‘Black Goo’ storyline, essentially making the Engineers unimportant to the narrative.

The story of Alien: Earth happens before the events of Prometheus and shows people encountering Xenomorphs. This proves that the android David didn’t create the Xenomorphs through experiments, as suggested in Prometheus. The show also ignores the Alien vs. Predator movies, effectively removing them from the official Alien storyline.

The storyline of Alien: Earth doesn’t connect the Xenomorphs to the Engineers or the Black Goo, suggesting they’ve existed as a species for a long time, completely separate from humanity, before the characters encounter them. However, the secretive Weyland Yutani Corporation helps make this separation feel believable.

Because the company in the Alien universe frequently keeps its unethical experiments secret, it makes sense that the characters in Prometheus are unaware of what happened in Alien: Earth. While later Alien movies have changed some details established in Prometheus, the film hasn’t been completely rewritten out of the story.

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2026-02-19 18:41