Steven Cavanagh's Blog

Man of Steel 2: How can Batman possibly beat Superman?

Two opponents face off.

One can take a bullet to the freaking eyeball without er.. batting an eyelid, and is man enough to walk away. And then smash up your truck with telephone poles because he's a dick.

The other is a man deserve or need or something. The one we hunt because he can take it. Unless he hurts his knee and spends 8 years sulking about it.

So how can you put these two prizefighters in the blue and black corners and expect a decent fight?
The decades of comic and movie history offer us a few ways, but it all depends on...

Which Batman are we talking about, exactly?
Some days you can't get rid of a bomb. Other days you spend millions making one.Dark, brooding loner? Ninja with a cape? Armoured gadget dispenser? Disco wise-cracker? There have been a lot of Batmen shuffle through our screens. Sure, we've been told it won't be Nolan's Batman, but surely the Nolanverse will have left its mark on the Batman we see. Putting to death bat-nipples and underpants as high as his armpits, we're hoping.

The word is now that we're getting a mature Batman, one with experience up to his underpant nipples. So he'll have the credentials, but he'll still be a human like you and Stephen Hawking. How does he pwn a guy who can smash skyscrapers like a four year old with a Lego tantrum?

Some suggestions..
Green K: the obvious equalizer.
No, I'm not talking about Potassium. Don't be a smart arse. Kryptonite has been around to bring Supey down to our level since 1940. Simply whack on a little lime-coloured bling, and you have nerdy Clark Kent facing down the greatest martial artist on the planet. Then who would you put your money on?

So how does Bruce get his hands on some of this stuff? You don't just walk into a store and buy Plutonium Kryptonite.

Well in the comics, Clark just gives it to him.



They steered away from Kryptonite in the first movie, but then they had other Kryptonians to play with. So assuming that Warner Brothers haven't been scared off green rings, we may see these two get up to a little ring-punching.
Wait, that didn't sound right. Moving on to...


Zod's armour.
I pointed out in an earlier post that Zod made a point of stripping off his armour and leaving it behind in Man of Steel, so he could fight Kal-El in his space unitard. At the time I thought Lex might be picking it up, given his history of wearing alien armour. But let's take another look at it:

Why yes Mr Wayne, it DOES come in black.Some pointy ears, a change of emblem, and you have Batman in black armor that the first movie showed was indestructible.

Other Alien Technology.
There are a few thousand bits of Fortress of Solitude sprinkled around Metropolis right now, and someone with the resources of Bruce or Lex could make them pewpewpew once more. Plus now that we've dealt with the whole first contact "You are not alone, and we write in english" thing and got it out of the way, we can bring in other races to add more punch to the Bat-Arsenal.


Turning Superman's powers against him.
Superman can hear a gnat fart half a continent away. Hell, in the Silver Age he could hear all the freaking universe.The US Army has real sonic weapons.Nolan's Batman has used sonic technology.

Put those together, and you have Supes being taken down by some loud-assed NANANANANANA.


DC Current (Ha! See what I did there?)
Man of Steel 2: Superman vs Batman Or The Other Way Around was announced to the world by quoting Frank Miller's landmark comic The Dark Knight Returns. In that comic, Bruce kicks Superman's ass by (spoilers!) a gauntlet of conventional missiles, a Hulkbusterised version of the Batmobile, sonics, synthetic Kryptonite, good old fashioned face stomping... and the entire electricity supply of Gotham City.

And these days, 20% is GREEN energy!
But if it's sourced from solar... okay, I'm overthinking this.


Because he's the freaking Batman.
We all know what Batman's most potent weapon is:

No wait, this isn't it.His mind. His razor-sharp, tactically brilliant, sciencey, boy scout prepared, think through every possibility type mind. The type of mind that deduces things about alien physiology, or can use Kal-El's love for Lois to influence an encounter.
That all sounds great in comics, where you can get inside a character's head. In a purely visual medium spitting out products for a mass market, however, this will probably be reduced to him saying "Exactly" before something explodes.

Oh yeah, and he's not afraid to fight dirty too. Once the powers come down, I'm expecting a big black boot in some big blue balls. Should have kept the underpants on, Clark.




Image attributions
http://www.comicbookmovie.com
http://www.actionfigurepics.com
http://www.comicvine.com
http://batman.wikia.com

Ten things I learned watching The Wolverine (Spoilers)

I finally got to watching The Wolverine. While it would have been better with a Hugh Jackman Wolverine dance number, it was still a fun movie and I learned a lot. Such as:



The skin between Wolverine's knuckles can never lose its healing factor.All the creatures of the forest love Wolverine. He's like a homeless, hairy Disney princess.Everyone in Japan knows martial arts.Bullet trains travel so fast the air around them becomes a cocoon of cartoon physics."The tricky thing about adamantium is, that if you ever manage to process its raw, liquid form, you got to keep it that way, keep it hot. Because once the metal cools, it's indestructible." Apart from other adamantium. Er, that's hot.Tokyo looks like Sydney.Everywhere else in Japan looks like the area around Sydney.In the three days between the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, POWs learned to associate the top secret new weapon with the B-29 Superfortress.When girls put those chopsticks upright in their hair, they're totally offending everybody.Madame Hydra uses the same PR manager as Deadpool.

What I learned from watching Man of Steel

(Spoilers, naturally)

So last night I took a couple of hours to stare into a blender and watch ads for the American military. Oh wait, that's right, Superman was in there somewhere too. Here's what I learned:
A being who doesn't need to breathe atmosphere can be weakened by breathing the wrong atmosphere.The US Military admits 12 year old girls.Michael Bay sometimes makes movies under other people's names.When a kid with sensory issues freaks out and runs out of the classroom, the teacher will bring the whole class to go looking for them.People in remote countries live in tents watching American news on big TVs.If you're going into battle wearing bullet and rocket proof armor, it's a good idea to carry a knife.Evolution always wins, over... something.Holding a Kryptonian around the neck stops them from moving their eyes.If you're sending a scout ship out into the cosmos, it pays to plan ahead. Pack clothes for a guy who'll show up 20,000 years later.Unless you have compound eyes, there are movies that are better to watch in 2d than 3d.No matter how much technology improves, we will never outgrow the USB stick....and we'll STILL have problems sticking it in.The Independence Day move works on any alien spacecraft.If you find a giant terraforming robot on a lifeless, barren rock, it must totally work.If you make a movie where they spend an hour speculating how the world will react when aliens show up, once they actually DO show up you don't need to revist the issue and answer the question.Superman is kind of a dick.

Russell Crowe's big number from Man Of Steel: The Musical

Russell Crowe just tweeted:

Russell Crowe ‏@russellcrowe6h
I'm just starting to realize  how many people don't know that @ManofSteelMovie is a musical...ok..a bit awkward...


I recently crossed his big Les Mis number with his UFO Sighting, so I thought I'd give Man of Steel the same treatment.
If you don't know the song flip this open in a tab.

_____________________________________________
There, out in the darkness
A blue ball that's spinning
So far from Zod
Floating in space
Lara's my witness
Send our son afield
Send him far from this place
Send him far from this place

His ship will speed through the dark
Earth,  it's heading toward
We won't follow, we'll stay here on Krypton,
hope our planet's insured.
My son, you'll soar
and all will be well.
So all aboard!

Stars
In your multitudes
bear him among you
through all the darkness
and show him the light
Evil is terrible
But he is pure
Keep him safe in the night
Keep him safe in the night

He'll take his place in the sky
He'll fly as fast as a plane
And for some reason
he'll dress in blue spandex
and they won't think it's lame
Then Zod will fall as Krypton here fell
and fall in flame

And so it shall be, and so he leaves Krypton
on a space ship-ish kiddy trike
On an adventure, but there shall be
no kryptonite!

Ship, you can take him
safely transport him
Turn left at mars!
He is truly blessed
He is hope
this I swear
this I swear by the stars!

Man of Steel: Lex and Krypton Dior

The Man of Steel trailers  have everyone salivating. We can't wait to see Supes actually punch someone. That and well, not wear Calvin Klein underwear.

Which brings us to real issue at hand: fashion.
Here's General Zod:



I like the look: Imposing, intelligent. The high collar's a bit much, but what we're all wondering is: why does a Kryptonian need armour?
Of course, he's not the only Kryptonian to plate up. Zod has a mad on for Kal-El's dad Jor-El:




On a side note, put those two enemies together and you get this:

But I digress.

Yes, I'm sure on their homeworld where they have a red sun, Kryptonians DO need armour to repel their advanced energy weapons. But Superman's wearing alien spandex, so why don't they dress down once they move to warmer yellow climes? It may look tougher than Superman II's Zod (who was about as armoured as MC Hammer) but still, why make a movie where an invulerable guy needs to dress like this?




I'll tell you why. Because of the guy who owns this company:



Lex Luthor, Clark's longtime enemy and figurative demonisation of bald guys. You see, Man of Steel's main differentiator is that it's the first Superman movie that establishes a cinematic DC Universe. And in the DCU, as any comic fan will tell you, Lex is more often dressed like this:

[image error] Nice high collar.
Yes, Lex's suit of choice is none other than an Alien Battlesuit. Over the decades he's used technology from Krypton as well as other worlds (like Apokolips and Lexor, a world where Lex is the hero and Supes the villain).

So it appears that a little side arc of the movie is the origin of Lex's threads.

My gut feel is that Lex won't play much of a role in the film, but if Zod gets kicked into a red sun or packed off to the Phantom Zone, Lex is gonna end up with his wardrobe.


Images: Digital Spy,   Injustice Wiki CosmicBookNews ifc.com Maximum Crowe

Man of Steel: Is Lex Luthor in Trailer #3?

The new Man of Steel trailer #3 is exploding across the intertubes like Krypton (assuming Krypton explodes, we haven't confirmed that yet).

For an eyeblink we see a character in a Kryptonian battle suit. At first I assumed it was Zod, because by now we're all familar with images of him wearing it:



But take a look at the image from the trailer. Does this guy look bald to you?



It's a little hard to tell, but it may not be the same guy. Throw in the fact that the Lexcorp building is also in the trailer:


And the fact that Lex Luthor is well known for wearing a Kryptonian battle suit:


And you get the origin of Lex's favourite threads.
Or the mistaken ramblings of Some Guy On The Internet. We'll see.

Images: Digital Spy,   Injustice Wiki CosmicBookNews

Terminators of future past.

The Terminator files has an old thread with a possible leak of what was once Terminator 5, a very different approach than the shitty McG one where all the Skynet robots come to the present. It seems to have been drafted back when Arnie was the Governator so he's not in it, but it seems closer to the original continuity and more reminiscent of the stuff Kyle Reese talked about in T1. Plus it has Robert Patrick!

A bit of googling found that it was also discussed on Sarah Connor Fans and the Facebook Terminator Forum, but didn't get into the mainstream (which may or may not hint at its authenticity). Anyway, I found it interesting:



I remembered one or two things so here it is again. Keep in mind that I didn't have the script all that long, so some bits may be in the wrong order and some are from a couple of conversations I had after. Also keep in mind it’s an early draft- all bets are off with how much of it will even see shooting. The female roles will probably be made stronger, for a start. 
-- 
It opens in a place described as "metallic and organic"- a Skynet nerve centre. Spidery drones are clambering over a flourescent metal plunger interlaced with circuitry, as thick as an arm and long as a truck. 
Cut to Kate Connor in the throes of childbirth. Kyle Reese is there. Kate is barking orders and calling out to John, but he’s not there. Cut back to the Skynet plunger. Activity and sound builds in intensity. 
It cuts back and forth between the two. Kate and John's baby is born. It's a girl, and named Susan. At Skynet, whatever the hell they're doing finishes and the plunger is pushed. Out onto the floor oozes a single drop of liquid metal. 

Cut to some resistance herding wounded and old extras onto a large boat to flee the fighting (It doesn't say where to. I guess Skynet doesn't go to Hawaii or something) and fighting a rearguard action against a group of T-1s and T-600s. Barnes is one of the fighters and Star is on the boat. Pipe bombs are mentioned in the fight. Barnes is screaming at Connor to get there quick when two harvesters appear at the end of the bay, wading through the water. 

John arrives with the resistance in small fast boats with mounted guns and a couple of RPGs. It's a messianic cavalry moment that sounds a little cheesy. I can see the point of it though, because Connor gets his ass handed to him. Blair Williams’ plane is hit and she does a kamikaze into one of the harvesters. Barnes destroys two T-600s that crawl up the side of the fleeing boat, but the other harvester holes the ship and picks people off the deck as it sinks (the humans can't swim for it because of those little swimming robots in the last movie). Barnes swims for it anyway and makes it, but the harvester walks off with a bunch of humans in a chest cage, including Star. 

John really loses it, kicking the crap out of dead machines and saying some savior he is, and that Williams was a great soldier. Barnes tells him to deal with it and move on, like he had to when his half-brother died. 

At the resistance base, Susan is now a toddler and Kate has number 2 on the way. Kyle’s pretending to shoot toy guns with her (apparently the fans will like that.. ??). Kyle is listening to one of Sarah’s tapes about how to out-think machines (don’t act logically) and saying she sounds awesome. He asks for another tape but Kate says there are some that are personal to John. 
John gets back. Kyle tells John that Susan is walking now and he missed it. John says that his dad missed him walking too, and that Star has been taken. 

The Resistance holds a war council, MC’d by a woman named Perry (who has “a distinctive accent”). It includes status reports from resistance groups around the world and various teams, the Resistance seems to be getting more organised. There was something about the Chinese taking out Skynet satellites and Sydney being overrun. Perry, who seems to be head of tech, reports they’ve developed a “cold coat” overcoat and facepaint that dampens your body heat and makes you harder to see in infra red, and that they’ve almost figured out how to break a T-600’s programming code. Intel says that on the US west coast, Skynet is rounding up more and more people- they're planning something. 

John wants to see what they're doing with the prisoners, and Kyle wants to rescue Star. John and Kate have an argument. She doesn't see why it has to always be him that has to go- generals don’t lead from the front and he takes too many risks. Does he want his child to grow up without a father too? John says it took him a long time to accept that this job is what he was born for. He can’t take care of his family AND take care of the resistance. The best way he can care for his child is to give her a future, even if it’s one without him. He walks off and Kate calls after him that his father is a better dad to his child than he is. There was also something about John dealing with his legend status and Barnes being the only one who understands. 

John, Barnes and Kyle (in cold coats) leave in a car. Kyle drives and Barnes backseat drives. Kyle is eager to fight but John reins him in. He stresses to Kyle that they’re not rescuing anyone themselves, they’re on recon. They scope it out, set up some ordinance and call in the rest of the resistance. The last camp they tried to liberate, only one helicopter full of people made it out alive. He wants this one to be better planned. 

They reach the Skynet installation at night. It’s between some ruins and the ocean, “surrounded by energy fences and laid out like a computer chip”. At one end is a smoking factory. Our heroes watch it from a ruined building. John and Barnes note perimeter patrols and start sneaking through the ruined buildings laying out remote controlled missile launchers. Kyle watches the camp with binoculars and thinks he sees Star, dragging a body. A hovering barge passes by filled with scrap metal, floats over the fence and into the camp. Around that point there’s a lot of lightning and a time-travel ball appears, but the ball doesn’t vanish and John’s face appears on it. John’s face tells Kyle that Skynet is experimenting with time travel and he’s sending a transmission from the future. Within 24 hours Kyle will find himself running for his life from a terminator and it’s vital that he escape. John advises that he turn on every machine that he can find, as the electromagnetic interference affects their tracking systems. 
Another hovering barge approaches and Kyle jumps in (“don’t act logically”) from a second floor window, to find that the barge is filled with human bodies. 

The barge dumps the bodies and Kyle into the camp. Other humans load them onto a conveyor belt that feeds into a blue-lit hole. The human workers are watched over by T-1s that can’t see Kyle in his coat. Kyle meets Allen Baltzer (the character they have in mind for Robert Patrick), a depressed philosopher type who walks around like a doctor tending to the other humans. When Kyle asks what’s going on, Baltzer replies “nature”; as we superseded the Cro-Magnons, so machines supersede us. He says that he’s in a hell of his own making- he created artificial stem cells before the war and feels he contributed to the evolution of artificial life. 

All the “survivors” in the camp shuffle around like zombies, resigned to their fate and loading the bodies. Kyle asks what they want with the bodies- what’s in the hole? Baltzer shrugs and says that they don’t think like we do. They could be reusing the organics, or learning human anatomy, or maybe they’re just copying us. The holocaust drips from every page. Why the machines can build themselves but they need humans to dump bodies onto a conveyor belt isn’t explained. There are also T-600s walking the perimeter with energy guns. Kyle looks for Star but can’t find her. 

Meanwhile John and Barnes have been watching the camp from a rooftop and arguing. John wants to go after Kyle. Barnes calls him a hypocrite for telling Kyle not to go after Star. John says Kyle is more important because of what he will do. Barnes says that’s crap because there’s no fate, and John has been listening to his fan club too much. John says that at least he has accepted who he is and doesn’t hide behind a false name and calls him “Danny”. He says that his father wasn’t the man who built Skynet, he was the man who gave his life fighting it. Barnes slugs him, and they fight. An HK is drawn by the noise and rises up next to them. 

Kyle goes back to Baltzer who is checking a woman’s vitals, and asks him for help. Baltzer asks him to accept that he’s an obsolete human, tells the woman she can’t work anymore, and pushes her into the blue hole. Kyle punches Baltzer in the face. Baltzer spits out a tooth to show us he’s human, and wags a finger at Kyle. He says that evolution is something to be embraced and not fought, and rips Kyle’s suit so the terminators can see him. The bullets fly. Kyle shoots a T1 and runs but with the terminators and the fence he has nowhere to go, so he tackles Baltzer and they both go into the hole. 

The HK’s spotlights light up John but Barnes pushes him out of the way and takes a blast to the stomach. John jumps onto the HK and starts blowing holes in it. Barnes is barely alive and crawls toward their transmitter. 
John rides the HK as it scrapes through the buildings. When it passes the building they were in earlier, John triggers the remote missiles and wings the HK. He holds on for dear life as it slides to earth, then shoots a T-1 that the HK stops next to. He climbs to the top of the HK and finds he’s in the camp, surrounded by survivors. 

Kyle and Baltzer slide down the blue hole to a room with terminator skeletons who have a steel spike that shoots out of their arm. Each body is scanned, a sample of tissue is taken, it’s stabbed through the head a la John’s stepdad, and dumped into a grinding shaft. Kyle blows the terminators away. 
They find a computer that is cycling through scans of all the dead people. With each cycle, a tub of liquid metal is shifting into a lumpy approximation of the face. Baltzer croons how beautiful it is . Kyle asks how they could create something like that. Baltzer says they couldn’t on their own and that it’s taken him years to get it to that point, it’s one of a kind and in many ways alive. Kyle asks him why he’d work with the machines- they’ll kill him. Baltzer says that he accepts that. Humanity is doomed and this is the way he’ll live on in the next dominant species. The machines have built a better humanity, one that doesn’t only look out for its own self-interest, and one that won’t destroy itself. 
Star’s face appears on the screen and in the metal (ie she’s dead). Skynet then identifies “Kyle Reese” and Star’s face says that she has made something special for Kyle. Kyle smashes the screen and runs off, leaving Baltzer talking to the changing metal faces and how his baby is growing up so fast. 

John’s HK demolished a section of fence when it came down. He tells the crowd of humans to run for it, but they just stand there. He asks them if they want to live. They say if they run they die today, but if they stay they die tomorrow. John gives a speech about today being their independence day. He says that he’s seen people die before letting themselves be controlled. That so many good people died on Judgement day and the survivors owed it to the dead to get out there and live. That we created machines to give them control of our lives, and it was time to take it back. Two guys take the guns from the T-1 and others pick up steel bars as the first T-600 comes into view. The scene doesn’t mention a big cheer and I hope it stays that way. 

Kyle finds a huge room filled with a red waterfall and vats growing hair, eyeballs and skin. A deactivated T-800 is having its flesh applied. One wall is a window where he can see all hell breaking loose outside. He makes a break for the door, which opens and John steps out. Only he doesn’t have a scar. 
Kyle shoots T-John in the chest but T-John breaks his gun. They have a running fight through the base. 

Meanwhile the breakout is in full swing. The survivors are using the terminators guns, pushing them into energy fences etc. There are a lot of casualties but they seem to be winning just with numbers. John leads from the front, gets a group through the wire then turns back. One of the survivors asks “aren’t you coming?” and John says he has to take care of his family, running back and looking for Kyle. The guys that break through the wire are chased by T-1s, and almost make it to the ruins when they are confronted by some T-600s. The 600s then shoot the T-1s (they’ve been reprogrammed). Perry and the resistance come into view along with a wounded Barnes. The firefight goes epic. 

Kyle turns on every machine he can find, including a red machine that looks like a reactor. Kyle runs into a huge room where a giant machine covered with cables is being built, one of those enormous tank things from the beginning of the second movie. Kyle climbs up it to get away from the T-John. It comes after him but the real John swings in, stands between them and tells Kyle to run. Kyle won’t so John pushes him off the tank. John and T-John start to fight on the giant tank when its lights come on- Baltzer has powered it up from a console nearby. Kyle fights him and they smash the console, and the tank goes bezerk. It starts rolling right through the wall and the rest of the base, shooting its cannons and destroying anything in its path. Kyle ends up almost going under the treads, Baltzer’s head does. 
The tank rolls right through the base and into the ocean. John swings on the wildly shooting cannon to try and blast T-John with it, but ends up shooting the tank’s power core. John ends up losing the fight and T-John grabs him by the coat just as the tank explodes. 

Cut to Kate at the resistance base, talking into a radio and directing an operation in London that appears to be losing. Perry radios in and Kate asks her if they’ve recovered any survivors. Perry says “survivors? We’ve got ourselves an army”. She says “And John?” 

Cut to T-John standing in the skin and eyeball room, wearing John’s coat and having his skin repaired. He reviews an image of John’s face and cuts his own face where the scar is. A machine buzzes over it and creates the scar. 

Cut to Kyle waiting with Barnes. T-John walks up with a couple of survivors as the base is blown up. Barnes tells “John” to go home and change some diapers. 

Cut to the wreckage of the base as the helicopters fade into the distance. The red reactor that Kyle turned on (it’s on fire) reaches 100% and liquid metal pools onto the floor. It oozes up into a humanoid form, walks out of the flames and morphs into Baltzer. 

Cut to John washing up onto a beach. 

Russell Crowe's UFO song

Russell Crowe recently saw a UFO and put footage of it on YouTube.
I imagine this is how it went down:
(To the tune of "Stars" from Les Miserables).
There
Out in the darkness
A pink light that's floating
must be from space...
must be from space.
Quick, get my camera!
The spacemen are here
yes, they've come to my place
now they've come to my place

I see the lights in the dark
Dude, I've totally scored.
Those who post UFOs onto YouTube
get reviews by the bored.
and if they fall for it, click on it- hell,
publicity reward!

Stars
With flying dudes.
To think I doubted
Then, in the darkness
was glowing pink light
without a decibel
it flew in my field
field of vision tonight
field of vision tonight

It came right out of the sky
it held its course and its aim
Surely subscribers return and return,
and they won't think it's lame.
UFO proof that can't be dispelled!
To me, acclaim!

And so it will be, it will be written
on the YouTube and Twitter sites.
I'll get subscribers and my career
will reach new heights!

Aliens! Film them!
That all may see them.
Look, here they are!
You'll be impressed
You will
This I swear
This I swear by the stars!

Aliens Canon: Fitting the jigsaw together

It's currently cool to hate Aliens: Colonial Marines. Every blogger out there has taken out their knives, sharp sticks. Sure, it may have not been quite what we saw in the demo, and the textures and AI could have been a little better, but is it FUN?  I'd have to say YES! Fighting through the actual locations of the film, untarnished by Predators, has been exhilirating.

Warning- Spoilers ahead!

The icing on the cake has been that the story is officially Aliens canon, picking up soon after Alien 3. You're not just walking around game levels here, what's going on is actually going down in the Aliens universe.

That's where some fans get even more rabid. Corporal Hicks, the badass survivor of Aliens who was stupidly killed off in Alien 3, has been resurrected (righting one of the great wrongs of Hollywood history) and a lot of gamers have been left with questions, the main ones being:

How did Hadley's Hope survive the thermonuclear explosion of the reactor?What's the Sulaco doing back at LV-426?The queen was killed in Aliens and Ripley sacrificed herself to make sure the company wouldn't get another specimen, so how come there are aliens running all over the Sulaco and LV-426?How and why did Weyland-Yutani (WY) exchange another body for Hicks?
At first glance this list, coupled with the need to resurrect Hicks, looks like an insurmountable jumble of jigsaw pieces. How can we get a clear story out of this?

Hell, I'll even throw in the one we used to rant about on the net before it turned into the web:

    5. How the hell did eggs get on the Sulaco?

Total mess, right? I don't think so. In the absence of an official timeline, I think we can don the writer's hat and examine the motivations of the various parties (most notably the ruthless and well-resourced WY), and piece together a sequence of events that, given the premise, falls within the bounds of credibility. Let's pick it up with Ripley in the queen's chamber, surrounded by eggs:

The storyRipley torches the Queen's egg chamber with her flamethrower. The Queen calls all her children to her. Two facehuggers survive the incineration and cling to the queen, guards come running and are shot down.Ripley boards the dropship. The Queen hangs from it as it flies from the atmosphere processor.The underground fusion reactor detonates. The atmosphere processor and the surrounding mile in diameter is vapourised into a Nebraska-sized cloud. The colony half a mile away, partially protected by geography and built to withstand the extreme conditions of LV-426, nevertheless sustains heavy damage. Much of the structure is left standing similar to some buildings at Hiroshima's ground zero.Dropship 02 boards the SULACO. The two facehuggers detach from the queen and scuttle through the ship in search of prey.Ripley fights the queen and expels her from the SULACO's airlock.Cpl Hicks issues a transmission describing the facility as destroyed and the marines KIA. They enter hypersleep.Not finding any signs of life aboard the ship, the facehuggers excrete a hibernation shell of resin (similar to a small egg) in a corner and wait.Weyland-Yutani intercept the transmission and watch an acid-burned Hicks explain the situation. They realise that they have lost the facility, that Ellen Ripley's report about the valuable bio-weapon is true, and that they are responsible for the deaths of the colonists and marines.Weyland-Yutani has assets closer to the SULACO's flight path than the USCM does. They opt for a covert approach. WY mercenaries intercept the SULACO over Fury 161. They download information from Bishop  and take who they believe is the only combatant to have faced the creatures, Cpl Hicks. In its place they leave the acid-burned body of one of their enemies, to prevent or delay the USCM from discovering the crime. They depart.The boarding of the ship puts the SULACO in alert and rouses the two facehuggers. Following scent and heat, they find the cryo-tubes.The SULACO ejects the tubes in the EEV over Fury 161 and holds orbit.WY torture Hicks, who only gives the information already contained in Ripley's report.WY receives information about the aliens on Fury 161. They arrive in time to see Ripley sacrifice herself to prevent them getting a specimen.WY abandons their covert approach. They return to the SULACO to find evidence of the creatures, brazenly steal the ship and turn it around, and take it back to LV-426.Using Carter Burke's coordinates, they discover the derelict spacecraft. They deploy shake-n-bake buildings to set up laboratories and other resources. They bring in prisoners and other disposables, gestate a queen and study the creatures. They work fast, intending to get their specimens onto the SULACO and leave before the USCM arrives.The SEPHORA arrives before this transfer is complete. It hails the SULACO but receives no response from the WY team aboard.Marines from SEPHORA board the SULACO. When it is clear that they outmatch the WY security forces, WY scientists release the captive xenos and quarantine themselves in the bridge and command sections of the SULACO.When it is apparent that the USCM marines (led by Winter) are breaking through the xenos, WY turns the SULACO's weapons on the SEPHORA. Both ships go down.Winter and the USCM marines fight their way through the xenos, disrupt and destroy the research facilities, rescue Hicks and escape in the other WY FTL vessel.
That's how I see the pieces naturally falling together. Hopefully we'll get an official timeline soon, to tell me "F@#$ A" or "Bad call".

Harry Harrison, RIP

One of the greats, Harry Harrison, has left us. I grew up reading the Stainless Steel Rat and Bill the Galactic Hero books, and they shaped my writing. Anyone familiar with Harry's work should easily be able to spot his influence in my stories (e.g. "Save Galaxy Fast" or "Elf Esteem"). His takes on bureaucracy, the military (in which he served) and other groups of people that generate their own idiocy were wonderous to behold.

Slippery Jim DiGriz has shed the cover identity of Harry Harrison and left the planet- nobody can catch him now. We'd give two left arms to have him back, but all we can do is raise our plate of okra and salute him.