I’m a big fan of the Alien, Predator, and Bladerunner franchises, and the fact that they all apparently intersect in a shared universe is really great to me. The Alien and Predator crossovers is obvious (there are plenty of visual indicators in the Predator movies, plus there are even a whole series of Alien vs. Predator films), but the connection to Bladerunner is somewhat more obscure. In Aliens, when they show Dallas’s employment record with Wayland-Yutani, one of the lines says he used to work for the Tyrell Corporation, which of course features largely in the Blade Runner franchise. The whole theme of synthetic people of Alien fits in perfectly with the replicants of Blade Runner, too.
It’s also worth noting that Blade Runner itself has a connection to the 1998 film Soldier. Not only does the writer of the film, David Webb Peoples, consider it a “spin-off sidequel” (Peoples also co-wrote Blade Runner), and in the film itself, you can see one of the flying cars from Blade Runner, but in Kurt Russel’s character’s (Sgt. Todd) military record, he is shown to have fought at the Shoulder of Orion and Tannhäuser Gate, both of which Roy Batty had fought in.
Honestly, the only “corporate sci-fi” film that is missing is Sean Connery’s 1981 film Outland. With its themes of corporate greed, it would fit right in with the Alien-Predator-Blade Runner universe. I keep hoping for an Easter Egg reference to the Con-Am corporation somewhere.
That said, here’s a comprehensive list of all the films and TV shows in chronological order. I’m not including tie-ins such as comic books, novels, and video games. In cases where a film spans different eras (such as Prometheus), I’m using the year that most of the action takes place. Also note that as of this writing Alien Badlands has not been released, so no definitive dating is possible, but it is assumed to take place after 2179.
As an aside, it’s fascinating to lay this all out, as several important contradictions present themselves, but not everyone is as concerned with cross-franchise continuity as I am.
SPOILER ALERT!
841: Predator: Killer of Killers, The Shield. A Yaujta hunts during a war between Viking clans led by Ursa and Zoran.
1609: Predator: Killer of Killers, The Sword. A Yaujta hunts during a quest for vengeance between the two sons of a Japanese samurai, Kyoshi and Kenji.
1719: Prey. A young Comanche warrior named Naru must face off alone against a Yaujta.
1942: Predator: Killer of Killers, The Bullet. World War 2 pilot John Torres confronts a Yaujta fighter pilot who is taking out both Japanese and American flyers.
1987: Predator. A military rescue mission in Guatemala goes awry when Alan “Dutch” Schaeffer and his team are hunted in the jungle by a Yaujta warrior.
1997: Predator 2. Police Lt. Mike Harrigan and his elite team encounter a Yaujta who is killing both sides in a vicious drug war between Jamaican and Colombian gangs.
???: Predator: Killer of Killers, The Battle. The Viking leader Ursa, Samurai Kenji, and World War 2 pilot Torres are awakened from cryogenic suspension to fight to the death in an arena by a Yaujta leader. (Note: This is undated, but must take place after Predator 2, as there is a cameo of Mike Harrigan in suspended animation.)
2004: Alien vs. Predator. An ancient pyramid under the Antarctic ice is the arena for a fight between the xenomorphs and the Yaujta. A scientific expedition sent by the Weyland Corporation is caught in the middle.
2004: Alien vs. Predator Requiem. A Yaujta ship carrying xenomorph facehuggers and the body of one of the Yaujta bodies from the previous film crashes outside of Gunnison, Colorado. The xenomorphs quickly begin to overrun the town.
2010: Predators. A group of professional soldiers and killers finds themselves hunted by the Yaujta on an alien planet.
2018: The Predator. A Yaujta ship crashes on Earth, and the locals soon find themselves in the middle of a battle between two sub-species of Yaujta; the regular type and a genetically modified Upgrade Predator.
2019: Blade Runner. In Los Angeles, Rick Deckard, a retired Blade Runner (a specialist who is expert in finding and terminating (“retiring”) replicants who are on Earth, where they are forbidden), is brought out of retirement to track down a group of Nexus-6 replicants who have staged a violent revolt and come to Earth. He tracks down three of the four, but not before the brilliant creator of the replicants, Eldon Tyrell, is brutally murdered by them. Deckard is spared by the fourth, Roy Batty, as Roy dies due to his planned obsolescence. Another replicant, Rachel, who did not realize she was not human, using implanted memories as a test by Tyrell, is allowed to escape.
2022: Blade Runner Black Out (short film). The entire electrical grid on the west coast of North America goes down, with catastrophic results.
2032: Blade Runner Black Lotus (animated series). In Los Angeles, Elle awakens with no memory, a lotus tattoo, and an encrypted data chip. She is, in fact, a Nexus-8 replicant, and after enduring a number of fights and adventures, including a “doll hunt” where replicants are hunted for sport, she eventually gets revenge, killing the person she believes killed her friend Selene, killing Niander Wallace Sr. and blinding his son. She escapes on a motorbike.
2036: Soldier. A psychologically conditioned super-soldier is decommissioned as obsolete, and saves a colony of innocent humans from being slaughtered by his replacements.
2036: Nexus Dawn (short film). After perfecting the Nexus-9 series of Replicants, Niander Wallace seeks to have the prohibition on replicants on Earth overturned.
2048: Nowhere to Run (short film). A day in the life of gentle, but potentially violent, replicant Sapper Morton.
2049: Blade Runner 2049. In Los Angeles, Blade Runner “K” (himself a Nexus-9 replicant) accidentally discovers that at least some replicants are capable of reproduction. Investigating at the Wallace Corporation (successor to the now-defunct Tyrell Corporation), where CEO Niander Wallace desperately wants the secret, and sends a replicant, Luv, to follow K. K meets Dr. Ana Stelline, who creates implanted memories for replicants, and he goes to the ruins of Las Vegas, where he meets Deckard, who is the father of the child and works with the Replicant Freedom Movement. Rachel, now deceased, was the mother. Luv attempts to capture K, but is thwarted by the Replicant Freedom Movement. Deckard is attacked by Luv, but K rescues him and kills Luv. Deckard is reunited with his daughter, Dr. Stelline.
2093: Prometheus. After discovering a star map in a prehistoric Scottish cave 4 years earlier, a Weyland Corporation expedition arrives at LV-223. The crew, including the synthetic prototype David, finds ancient Engineer ruins and various hostile life-forms. An Engineer ship arrives and helps defeat the proto-xenomorph, but his ship is disabled to prevent him destroying Earth. David and Elizabeth Shaw escape in another Engineer spaceship.
2111: Alien Covenant. The colony ship Covenant, en route to Origae-6 carrying 2,000 colonists and 1,100 frozen embryos, is severely damaged by a supernova. The android David awakens the crew and they decide to investigate a signal coming from a nearby unknown world. The android David is there, creating genetically modified xenomorphs based on the specimens from LV-223, which he intends to replace humanity. It is also revealed that he destroyed an Engineer colony on the planet. The crew returns to the Covenant after seemingly destroying David, but it turns out that he has disguised himself as Walter, and has xenomorph embryos that he intends to introduce into the colonists while they are in hypersleep.
2120: Alien Earth (TV series). The Weyland-Yutani survey ship USCSS Magniot, carrying specimens of five different dangerous life forms, including a xenomorph, crashes into city of New Siam after a 65 year journey (launch date 2055), controlled by the rival Prodigy Corporation, which has several prototype hybrid synthetics with human (child) minds. Weyland-Yutani demands the return of the specimens, but Boy Kavalier, head of the Prodigy Corporation, refuses.
2122: Alien. The crew of the commercial towing vessel USCSS Nostromo are awakened early from hypersleep to investigate an alien transmission on LV-426. There they discover xenomorph eggs, and one of the crew, Kane, becomes implanted by a face-hugger. He is taken back aboard the Nostromo due to the actions of the secretly synthetic Ash, who is under orders to return a xenomorph specimen to Wayland-Yutani at all costs. The Nostromo is destroyed, and the only survivor, Ellen Ripley (plus her cat Jonesy) escapes in a lifeboat.
2179: Aliens. Ripley’s lifeboat is finally recovered and she is revived from hypersleep. She is asked to return to LV-426, to act as advisor to a team of colonial Marines who are being sent to investigate the radio silence of the Hadley’s Hope terraforming colony that had been established there 20 years previously. Ripley, a squad of marines, and company representative Burke go to the moon on the USS Sulaco, only to discover the colony wiped out by the xenomorphs. A marine expedition to the colony’s reactor is nearly wiped out by the xenomorphs, but in the battle it was damaged and will detonate. Ripley, a child survivor of the colony Newt, the synthetic Bishop, and corporal Hicks all manage to escape before the reactor explodes and destroys the colony and the xenomorphs. Unbeknownst to them, a xenomorph facehugger has survived on the ship, however.
2179: Alien 3. The USS Sulaco is destroyed while the survivors from LV-426 are in hypersleep. The survivors are jettisoned in a life pod, which crash lands on the decommissioned prison world of Fiorina 161, inhabited by a caretaker staff and a number of all-male prisoner trustees. A facehugger was also aboard the lifeboat, however, and a dog is implanted, turning into a quadrupedal xenomorph variant. The prisoners manage to destroy the xenomorph just as a team from Weyland-Yutani arrives, and Ripley kills herself in a vat of molten lead rather than let them take the xenomorph embryo she carries within her.
2381: Alien Resurrection. Samples of Ellen Ripley’s blood, taken from Fiorina 161, are used to create a clone of her, Ripley 8, complete with alien embryo, aboard the USM Auriga. Military scientists on the Auriga create xenomorph specimens and eventually a queen. The crew of the Betty arrives to deliver a cargo of humans in hypersleep, which the scientists hope to implant to grow more xenomorphs. Inevitably, the xenomorphs escape and murder most of the crew of the Auriga, and the queen gives birth to a xenomorph-human hybrid, due to genetic cross-contamination with Ripley 8. Ripley 8 and a few survivors from the Betty escape on that ship while the Auriga, now on automatic pilot heading for a crash-landing on Earth, is destroyed.
