The COMPLETE Alien Cinematic Timeline 

Saw your Alien comments and questions. And replied to some: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-m31-KDCmJg8.html

"Heavily implying that Jesus Christ was an Engineer. Which is false. He was a carpenter." 😂

Ripley finding out her daughter Amanda is dead "doesn't add anything"? Are you serious? It adds everything to the central relationship in the movie, that of Ripley and Newt!

There is the theory that cyberdine used Dutch as the model for the T800 because of how good he was at defeating the Predator

I love the idea of a shared universe between Aliens and Bladerunner

Never once have a watched any of the Alien movies and thought "sexual violence".

Taken over by Walmart is nearly as good as Taco Bell surviving the franchise wars in Demolition Man. XD

The scene where the hybrid gets sucked out through the window literally scarred me mentally for a while. As it was screaming you could hear it say "help me". That scene haunted me for quite a while afterward, I remember going to school the next day and it was all I could think about, lol. Just a truly horrific scene.

Aliens is my favorite movie of all time. My older brother introduced it to me when I was too young. I cannot hear the motion tracker beeps without getting anxious. Hudson is literally an all-timer.

The multiple cuts of Alien 3 answer so many questions for me. I could have sworn that ripley grabs the alien as it bursts out of her chest at the end of alien 3. But then when I saw the film, that scene was missing. For years, I just figured it was the mandela effect... until watching your video.

Dude the writing and delivery of this timeline summary is top-notch. Entertaining and hilarious. Well done

Jones the Cat: still the smartest character in the entire Alien universes

I like your coffee on the couch narration style, dad jokes, and old school scene intro effects.

My daughter is named Rebecca (Newt) because the first movie my wife and I watched together as a couple was Aliens on Video.

“ wetland yutani is bought out by wal mart “ I love that text on the timeline spreadsheet just sitting there lol

Thank you for translating the Predator, I always wondered what he was saying.

A little easter egg that indicates a long future of the alien universe is Firefly. Ex: In the pilot episode Mal (Nathan Fillion) activates an AA-gun, the aiming display that comes online has a clearly visible Weyland Yutani logo at It's top. I know its probably not canon, but still a fun tidbit. 😊

Alien cubed lmao

Great video, my one minor nitpick is this: I'm not sure the alien world that David destroyed was the actual engineer homeworld. Seems to me that this was another Engineer-seeded planet as the humanoids don't look exactly like Engineers, plus their civilization and technology came across as rather under developed. I took that scene as David embarking on a "scorched earth" attack on their "legacies", he's attacking any and all Engineer-seeded planets while on the way to their homeworld. Just my opinion.

I think the Alien franchise has really lucked out, in, their monster is SO cool, that the series can be a mess of retcons and changing directors, but it will always have a spark of appeal because the Xenomorph is just that cool. You're braver than I for trying to untangle this mess of Christmas Lights.

Blade runner is my favorite movie of all time and I had NO idea they were dotted line connected. That’s awesome!

23:56 the “spooky Tuscany” is in fact a visual hommage to a painting by HR Giger “Hommage a Böcklin”. Which in turn is a hommage to a painting from Arnold Böcklin “Isle of the Dead”. He painted multiple versions of this and one of them was owned by Adolf Hitler, hung in his office.

Weyland-Yutani: "Crew Expendable" Walmart: Our business plans are so similar, we'd like to make an offer...

Just an FYI the Kurt Russel movie Soldier released in 1998 has a number of ties to Bladerunner, which would then mean that it too is connected to and part of the Alien Franchise universe.

The difference between Brian David Gilbert and everyone else: he actually reads all the novels for his research.

This is amazing. As a hardcore xenomorph fanboy that would be the first to die because I think they are so cool, I fully appreciate this video. Thank you for not hating on the Prometheus bits. I was born in 78 with original Alien, and really loved the David as surrogate father tapping into something already there lore. Also thank you for tapping into the Blade Runner connection (though should have mentioned Kurt Russel's Soldier lives in the Blade Runner/Alien multiverse too)

This video was sponsored by the Weyland Yutani Corp...

Fun side fact: the aliens are silicone based and not carbon based. That came out of the colonial marines table top role playing game.

Alien in 2024?…. LETS GO!!

Wow, that's a lot of info packed into 43 minutes. I love all these franchisees mentioned and did not know about all these connections. Great job.

The fact that after finding David he changes his appearance into Walter and no one questions it makes me mad to this day. Both Prometheus and Covenant do the movie sin of "The only way anything works is for everyone to be legit f**king stupid."

that first engineer was SHREDDED

"Alien cubed" and "Dunce Olympics" (and probably more, I'm still watching)- thank you.🙂

I think you can put the cup down. You really dnt need a prop held up the entire video. Maybe just a sip once in a while …makes you look less like a robot. That’s a pro tip. Just tryin to help. Good video though. Thumbed up.

I can't believe I'm just finding your channel - what a great tone to listen to, and the vocabulary? Chef's kiss choice. "Face down in Danger Eggs." Hilarious.

Yes, autoplay brought me here. Glad I stuck around. What a ride.

This just came up for me and I can't remember having seen you channel before. I love these kinds of timeline and retrospective videos. Even though I like them, they can occasionally get longwinded and tiring but this was compact, well put together with a splash of humour. Great vid.

Bro youre holding the living fuck outta that cup! Give your hand a break 😂

It was mentioned in the Prometheus movie that the beginning of the movie was how Earth was seeded.

i wish nolan woke up one day and said "im gonna do alien movie using animatronic 100% and 0% cgi"

Excellent job to the whole team behind Alien Cinematic Timeline!

Great video. Killer time line explanation/breakdown!

I always think of Ripleys perspective. From the first meeting with a xenomorph, to her death, her whole life is consumed by xenomorphs. The only reprieve is her hyper sleep, but every time she wakes, she’s back in at the deep end every time, loved ones dead and fighting once again.

The Alien timeline starts at the opening scene of Alien, and ends at the closing scene of Aliens. Later movies that may bear a resemblance to Alien are purely coincidental. Craft talks, Trash walks.

It's nice that you called him Charles S. Dutton, but he will forever be The Roc.

God I fucking love Gary Busey

That Bill and Ted clip was perfect, for the Aliens movie.

My God! At what point do the IP crossovers stop? Bladerunner, Terminator, Robocop, Predator, Alien. Next, you're gonna tell me that Die Hard, Indiana Jones, and Underworld are somewhere in this!

Being the about-faced kinda guy I am (aged 52) I tend to need to write things IF, and definitely when I remember them so apologies Mr Nerdist if you mention this at some point. An oft unmentioned and for-sure hushed-up influence on Alien was the short story by Clark Ashton Smith - 'The vaults of Yoh-Vombis'. Set on Mars, an expedition to an ancient city mysteriously vacated over 40,000 years ago by "an unknown pestilence or agency" results in a chance discovery of an underground system of tombs. Finally, a pictogram that has survived the ages depicts a earlier species of Martian that, although apparently normal in form "seems to be in the process of donning or removing some sort of face covering". If you don't read much, here is the story in audiobook form. Remember that this was written and published in 1932... and then ask yourself why it never gets mentioned or at least acknowledged by the Alien movies as a whole. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-VZgiDWMy12k.html

1979 was a VERY good year! It gave the world McDonald's happy meals, the Sony Walkman, Aliens, and ME! 😂👍

Sig Weaver carried these films for the most part..her performance in the regular cut ( ext cut scenes honestly should have been left on the cutting room floor) are so good I don't think another actress can fill her shoes. Each actor did a fantastic job selling the characters they were portraying.

The fact that AVP is non-canonical used to be irrelevant before the release of Alien Covenant, because it could still be included without disrupting the canonical timeline. It somewhat became like a missing jigsaw piece. If Karl Bishop Weyland saw the aliens that early on, it would explain his and his company's unhealthy fascination with the xenomorphs. It would also explain why there are two versions of the xenomorph. The eggs found on LV-426 would then be a batch The Predators probably stole after also probably gunning down that Engineer ship on LV-426. And then they probably brought those eggs to (among other planets) Earth. The xenos that David created would then likely be based on the description from Weyland's previous encounter with the lifeform, preserved in their old data files. That's a canon that would make sense to me. But since it's not, we'll just have to settle for a confusing canon that's all over the place. But I love you for including the AVP-franchise in this video. :)

what about Outland with Sean Connery and Soldier with Kurt Russel? first on looks exactly like alien pretty sure it had a lot of the crew make the sets for it and it shows, as for Soldier its kinda like an unofficial Blade Runner spin off

Despite him having red blood, Lance Henriksen has said that he believes that his character in Alien 3 was actually another synthetic. I've actually heard him say this at conventions.

I’m giving you a thumbs up for the Gary Shandling mug…..

Man what are the odds this video was made a month ago when I just decided to watch the main films. Thanks!

Thank you for this! As someone who bought and treasures the Original Alien Quadrillage (just unfold all the cardboard parts out onto your living room floor...it never gets old!). Thank you for all the research you did and the comedic way of telling it. Heck, I even forgot Walmart bought everything in the end... I really should get around to watching that "other" movie with the David android in it. Oh and I wished you would have touched upon the sighting of the Military ship in Bladerunner 2049 that some say linked the 2 Universes further.

Thank you for this awesome timeline! As big of an Aliens fan that I am, there were parts in Prometheus and Covenant that completely confused the shit out of me. This helped for sure! Btw, nice Gary Shandling mug! lol

Splendid work bud. Great video

Good information, what a lot of hard work.

I will always wish that Neill Blomkamp movie had gotten made.

Awesome - I love listening to fellow nerds nerding out on the details - fantasic video!

Those edits were hilarious lol😂. Very good vid Nerdist

Love this deep dive, you give me major John Milis vibes (meant as a compliment) the coat, the beard and glasses, bring a loaded gun to film sets.. . That vibe 😊

Amazing rundown of the timeline mate, I can imagine the research that went into it. YES! The amount of bonehead decisions made in Prometheus by the crew was some Idiocracy levels of clueless.

Ripley is one of the best written female protagonist

That earl reference was unexpected. First time ive been genuinely surprised about the connection. You sir just earned tourself a sub

Amazeballs. Awesome summary of events/trivia

I was hoping someone would do this.

Always just assumed that the engineer that drank the seeds at the beginning of Promethius was the implication for life on Earth.

Love it! You did a good job! 👏🏻

In the original script of prometheus, the engineer tells david that they took a child from their mother on earth and brought them back to their home to teach them how to lead their world on the right path, but humans punished him instead. It lines up with the timeline of the engineer being in stasis for about 2000 years before they woke him up.

You earned a subscriber through this video. Very funny video; great writing!

Such a classic. Finally

Damn!!! Didn't know the connections to robocop, terminator and blade runner were soo close!!!!😮😮😮😃😃🤟

I saw _Alien_ the weekend it came out and it was a bigger deal than Star Wars in many ways since it was like _Jaws_ but with an even scarier beast. We were exhausted and exhilarated after, especially from scenes like when Brett (Harry Dean Stanton) is in the evaporation chamber looking for the cat and the camera zooms in on his face as he closes his eyes and lets the rain hit his face. We were clenched, waiting for that jump scene for sooo long while the film took its sweet time. Theatrical release better than Director's Cut there.

Technically there are two canon timelines. Ridley Scott said he did not like Aliens and Alien 3 and Ressurection. In making Prometheus and Covenant he was erasing Aliens and the sequels. So there is the original canon timeline of Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, Alien Ressurection. And the Ridley Scott canon timeline of Prometheus, Covenant and Alien. The recent video game Aliens: Fire Team Elite did a really great job of merging both Timelines into a fairly cohesive alternative timeline. I'm fairly sure it was believed and backed up somewhere that the opening of Prometheus is an Engineer seeding the oceans of Earth with the first microbial life that eventually left the oceans crawled up on land and evolved over millennia into man. Edit: it is my theory that the feral predator in Prey is also a female Predator as it does look vastly different to a Predator seen 260 years later. And I don't think they would've evolved that much in 260 years. even with their gene splicing in The predator, they haven't changed much. I think the much smaller cranial plate is indicative of a female Predator. And it just adds a little more cool to the story. I will not be taking questions or comments on this theory except from those who like and agree with it. Edit: You guys know xenomorph is just Greek and means strange shape and is another word for alien, right? It's not a type of alien, and when Gorman uses it in Aliens, he has no idea what they are about to face. And his character uses it in the dialogue just because the character thinks his university education makes him better than the grunts.

1997...damn, imagine how wild people would go if if just 3 of those films were released today with that level of originality and creativity. Modern Hollywood is an absolute wasteland.

We need more stuff with the geopolitics of the UA, 3WE, UPP, and Megacorps.

42:23 "oh god.. no.. I slept too looooong!!"

"Join a union." perfectly stated

I came for Aliens... stayed for the mug 😁

the Alien³ assembly cut is quite underrated. The mood and setting are really great! What David Fincher and various screenwriters went through feels similar to the development hell that messed up the first big attempts at a Dune adaptation

Thanks for making the explicit connections to the 79 and 95 Seattle Supersonics.

Alien Isolation is awesome.

I'm kinda curious as what would happen if a Viltrumite stumbles upon a Xenomorph egg at sometime later we know its gonna pop out its chest in a viltrumite and i have some questions like: 1. After it pops out of its chest does the Viltrumite live cuz of its healing genes or dies in the process? 2. Does the Xenomorph still becomes a xenomorph or does the Viltrumite genes kick in and takes over the Xenomorph genes making it the superior Xenomorph¿🤔? And man do i wanna see a crossover of Invincible vs. Aliens comic just to know what would happen🤔

This video has been sitting in my “Watch Later” list since it dropped, but I finally got around to watching to today and it is awesome! As a big fan of the franchise it was like a big trip down memory lane with these films. Great work! And for anyone that hasn’t seen the 40th Anniversary shorts, they are well worth the watch and you should definitely check them out.

Dude!!! Super well done, enjoyed it start to finish.

😂😂 …..”they take a severed Engineer’s head with them back on the ship, which is one of like a dozen stupid things this crew of dum-dumbs gets into..the whole mission is a like a Duns Olympics” OMG SO TRUE I can’t… rotfl 💀 💀

Yeah that's the hollywood mainstream time line. But whats so great about this IP is that many outlets have put their fingers in the pot and so there are MANY different time lines. My favorite is... 1. There was NO avp movies that are canon. It just messes everything up that modern people were exposed to the alien and predator before WY had the ability to travel to far planets, colonize them, and then discover the alien species. 2. The 2 pre alien cameron movies are part of the time line but there is a movie missing to connect the original alien movie to the pre alien movies. COME ON NOW CAMERON!!! GIVE IT TO US!!! 3. (and probably the biggest part of my preferred timeline is...) After the Aliens movie I switch over to the DARK HORSE alien comics. in this time line Newt, Hicks, Bishop, and Ripley not only survive Newt, Hicks, and Bishop (Ripley is MIA at the moment) return to Earth and experience life after the alien experience. WY tries their best to either silence them or put them back to work like Hicks continuing his military life. But the word is out...an alien supreme being is out there and the different companies want to obtain it for different reasons. At one point WY convinces Hicks to go on a mission to destroy the aliens "Home world". Whats crazy is Hicks is able to free Newt from the company and brings her as a stowaway on the mission. while newt and hicks are away from earth one of the companies does get their hands on a queen and stupidly brings it to earth for testing. As you would expect at some point they lose control of the aliens (how is kind of complicated and really the weak part of this particular timeline) and BAM the aliens are now on the loose on earth. It doesnt take long for the outbreak to spin out of control and we humans lose earth COMPLETELY. few are able to escape earth to far off planet colonize or floating space station. Billions die, massive swarms of aliens roam earth for food and/or vessels for new aliens, and the remaining humans try their best to survive day to day in the absolute hell that is now earth. The absolute mind fuck comes when Newt and Hicks return from the mission (which was deemed a success) to earth only to find out that the mission meant nothing and accomplished nothing because the WHOLE EARTH is now a blood bath from the creatures they believed they destroyed. The story continues (mainly side stories and stories of what it is now like on earth) until the original Aliens band gets back together (including Ripley) and they find out there is a an ultimate alien leader called the Queen Mother on a far off planet who has the ability to control all of the aliens across the whole universe (yes it's a plot devise so dont think too much into it). They are able to capture the creature and bring it back to earth. They use the Queen Mother to horde the vast majority of the aliens on earth into one location and basically "nuke the site from orbit" (kind of a lame climax but whatever). With the aliens population cut down extremally it gives the colonial marines the ability to come back to earth and reclaim it over time. THIS IS THE DIRECTION THE MAINSTREAM ALIENS CONTENT COULD HAVE GONE. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN VASTLY BETTER than what we got. Sorry for plugging another channel but there is a channel called "ALIEN THEORY" that recalls the Alien Earth War from the dark horse comics. He is amazing at narrating the summarization of the comics from start to finish. His vids is the BEST at not only getting the whole story in a bites size manor but also the FEELING of the story as well. Check him out!!!

The Weird Al is on the plane joke had me 😂

Fantastic video thoroughly enjoyed it throughout great work

And then the Borg showed up.

Here is the complete Alien timeline: - Alien - Aliens The end

That coffee mug though :D It NEEDS to be in picture!

Well done video, Nerdist cares about the topic and it shows.

What's the story with the Garry Shandling mug?

Not to quibble, but the black goop the engineer drank out of the little cup isn't the same black goop in the vials. The black goop in the vials was the result of the engineers trying (imperfectly) to recreate the goop the engineer drank out of the little cup. Great video, though! :)

That was one of the best things I have seen in a long time.

O M G This was so good man, thanks a lot. I never knew there was so much to it, and the format you delivered it in was awesome, good production :)