Fox trust Ridley Scott to break new ground with Alien: Covenant sequel!

I think it means they see our support and know what changes should be made to satisfy every fan.

I think Scott will get the money.

Thank you every fan here and everywhere for your positive and constructive work.

This sounds exciting.  I took it as meaning they think Ridley Scott may have been on the right track with the Prometheus story line and expanding to the Engineers and history.  Maybe they are admitting that just doing the horror movie where everyone dies from an Alien attack is getting old.  I'm really hoping this is Fox's way of saying "Prometheus was a good change of direction, so lets go back to that expanding universe."

Sir Ridley Scott is the guy with the right ideas, and FOX - along with  the fan base (yup, we, guys!) - know it.

Mind it: "One thing is for sure - the saving grace for this franchise will not be a nostalgia-driven rehash of James Cameron's Aliens set."

Thank you my Lord for small (FOX) favors! :D

I echo what drucea and ScorpioStar said above.  No more rehash of 'Aliens'... more Engineers from 'Prometheus' with the intelligent horror and better story-telling/pace/character development from 'Alien'.

Oh yeah! Previously there were rumors about Engineers return in AC siquel. Maybe any Engineer will be a new villain who want take David's xenomorphs and finally crash the mankind. But he died on LV-426.

Perfect siquel-priquel.

Hallelujah!!!

...this is the news we've been waiting for! 

PROMETHEUS broke new ground and set up so many fresh avenues, please let Sir Rid continue with them...

I cannot stand the Engineers.  They ruined the Alien franchise going that route.  Just the way the Fast and Furious (also Stars Wars, Saw and Annabelle series) can spin 8 car action movies but keep the theme similar; Alien could do that same.  Engage Blomkamp on his ideas or bring Isolation into the fold as a movie.  For the record, I am a true Alien fan that saw the original in the movies when I was a teenager.  I bought the novelizations and movie souvenir book, but as a fan, if I am disappointed in someone's work, I will call it out.  Fans have different tastes and many fans of the series were very disappointed in this film and the last one.  We have high expectations from Ridley Scott and expected better output.  In my opinion, he has was sold by awful screenwriters that do not take their due diligence seriously.  And the results show.

This is the best news I've heard all year! Thank god he gets to finish what he started. He more than deserves it imo

Excellent news!

Love the Engineers... A breath of fresh air.

Re-reading 'At the Mountains of Madness' Hp Lovecraft, is basically Prometheus/AC...freaky sculptures...passageways...so cool. 

GREAT news!! WOOOOOHHOOOO! This statement definitely SEEMS to hint at Fox allowing Ridley some breathing room. 

Great news, let Ridley finish the story he started. I love Prometheus, AC was not bad but had its flaws (RIP Shaw x_x), hopefully the next one will be better (in Prometheus style/sense).

This is amazing news. Now Fox will have to convince the audience the sequel is a real departure from the disappointing Covenant.

YES!!! :)

We need a fight out in space.  There is none of that in any of the alien movies and I want to see what those writers can come up with with futuristic space ship design and weaponry.  That could really bring a completely new environment to the franchise.  I've seen members post pictures of different futuristic environments on A:C and I think if the writers took time to develop more ships and their environments, we could get a completely new atmosphere than the lone ship out in space (like we seem to always get with any Alien movie).  The fight doesn't have to be the whole movie, but I would like some.

ALSO!  I want David to somehow survive Alien: Awakening so when the recently purposed reboot of the Alien franchise could happen, David can make the return since Michael Fassbender will still have his looks and skills.  I think that would make a great first reboot movie.  Of course, David wouldn't be the main character or villain.  He could just be a strategic adviser against killing the Xeno because maybe David switches to being with the good guys?  Or maybe he just tries his best to teach somehow how to make more alien variations or something like that.  Or maybe he's in pieces and he can only advise.  I could go on, but you get the point.  I WANNA SEE DAVID IN THE ALIEN FRANCHISE REBOOT! (not much of the movie, but just a small amount so the story can be its own thing different than the prequels)

I wonder how this will turn out, if it does. 'Groundbreaking'. It could expand to anything really. 

I wonder if we'll see David again. The poetic, evil yet softly erotic, smooth-talking, flute-loving android scientist.  

...

Please let him drift into space and disappear. 

*hopes in vain*

Neomorph said, "Please let him drift into space and disappear."

I think Fox has a very unique opportunity with David and the Alien franchise, the opportunity is linking future Alien movies that take place around a half of a century after David was first brought to life to the prequels.  A chance like this for the Alien Franchise probably wont happen again anytime soon.  Well, that's the advantage in concise terms...

Plus, I want to see the line between the Prequels and the main story blurred a little.  I think David can provide that opportunity in a very small and restricted role in the possible reboots.  If Alien: Awakening doesn't give David a small role, it would be nice to see what that is like in the possible reboots.

Also, I don't know if there is a death good enough to kill the almighty creator, master flute player, and so on, David.

Great news!, I will cheking out where this source coming from because all this is confusing, I mean the timeline on the story and where it will end this time, David logbook new endevours or a drastic change, Engineers striking back...

Roger55 The source is an interview to Fox's CEO published by Variety. The Alien franchise is addressed in one single question. But the rest of the interview is interesting too to put things into context.

http://variety.com/2017/film/features/stacey-snider-21st-century-fox-first-year-1202563799/

I Moon Girl

I dunno what FOX has planne but yeah I'm with you, especially on the points of ship-to-ship combat.

I make a deliberate point of putting that into ALIEN: Manticore 'Paradise', and just to assure people it is NOT going to be:
STAR TREK: OMG we're hopelessly outclassed and they're using us for gunnery practice!

I establish in ALIEN: Manticore's prologue that the ship is pretty heavily armed.
Time to get the guns firing.

if one looks at the entire interview and its context then we have :-

1) A new CEO who has taken over within the last year. 

2) A recognition that the Alien Universe, one of Fox's franchises is rich with potential but that essentially you can either

a) Retread.

or 

b) Come up with a fresh invigorating story, setting or villain.  

She acknowledges that A:C was disappointing at the box office.

It is therefore entirely logical to take the view that she believes to capture that additional larger audience way beyond the core fan base you need a terrific story that is fresh and that the reason that A:C was disappointing was because it was none of those things. 

That seems to me the only logical explanation and if so it is encouraging because A:C was a well made well executed film which did not capture the wider audience because it was routine and predictable. (Everyone dies because of a Xenomorph supported by a robot)

I am quiet sure she believes that what captures the wider audience is not pulse rifles or dealing with a perceived lack of risk protocols but a fantastic story where the jeopardy and proposition is genuinely unique so that we are genuinely immersed and genuinely frightened and we can identify with the character(s) and desire for survival.

The only issue she did not address is whether a franchise like Alien is the correct place to weave in a philosophical underpin to the story I hope her view is that a crucial part of the Alien Universe is its unique and uncomfortable view of creation. Otherwise its just another "Bug Hunt".  

Clearly it is recognised that A:C was a disappointment and she identifies how a franchise to survive and grow needs to deliver, thats a good place to start.  

Michelle Johnston Exactly. This is promising, it suggests more creativity will be invested on the next project. And this is the first official confirmation I see that Ridley Scott is still on board. However, I never saw his name along with that of Emma Watts, production president and vice chairman for 20th Century Fox. I wonder what that means. Snider also said something like "you are in trouble when you stay in a too familiar groove". I predict there will be a lot of discussions and negotiations and Fox won't greenlight the first pitch they get.

joylitt

Two matters came into my mind after I had written my post.

1) The next film will not come quickly.

2) They must not make the same mistake as Covenant and listen to an element of the fanbase. Deep fans of all franchises share a commonality of view. I have been associated with three and they all share a very strong repeated behavioural quality they are highly conservative and essential demand more of the same a handful of people recognise the need to "stay in the spirit AND move on".

For the much bigger audience unless it is fresh, vigorous, creative and audacious they would much rather just go back to the original. Repetition in commercial terms is the law of diminishing returns.

There is nothing wrong being passionate about our hobbies but it is much more difficult to add to that perspective and put yourself in the broader audiences place.

The next film needs reviews which basically say "Yes I recognised the world in which it was set but boy was I surprised go see this film its fresh!!" 

The dumb scientist arguments are right for the wrong reasons. The audience see it coming so they assume the players will to, its not about protocols, its about repetition makes everything ironic. Kane was as stupid as Oram or Milburn its just he was first.

You have to make a film where no one sees anything coming... or not go in that direction go in a direction no one is expecting.  

On one hand, I get that the franchise is RS' baby. I mean, Alien IS Sir Ridley Scott for the most part - however, I do think that he's fallen into a groove of having the movie be more about the Android and this psychological and complex connection between creator and created that has sort of created a distraction within the movies. You want to go there, do an AI/Android movie and let that be that. I want a movie about Aliens to be a story based on Aliens and humans and hey, if an Android is there, fine! but not in such an overwhelming capacity.

I think we all get the importance of these artificial beings in Alien. One has been around in every single movie in some form or another and they've all played important roles. 

I'm definitely a fan. It was a bit before my time to catch it in the cinema but I sure did enjoy them as a kid. I'm sure saw 3-current at the cinema. Perhaps I'm too forgiving, I love all of the movies. My favorites are 2 and 4 (yeah, can you believe I love 4?!).

That being said, a major letdown for me was the fate of Shaw. I almost needed her to be another Ripley or at the very least make it out alive, somehow. I'm pretty high on the empathetic spectrum, which simply means I'm susceptible to certain scenes in movies if I really get 'into' the movie. If I care about the character. Not particularly stuff like gore or whatever, the psychological and "can you imagine how that feels" kind of thing. It's one of the reasons this franchise appeals to me so very much. It's genuinely frightening and terror inspiring in me due to the nature of these things and these poor space faring folk. Finding out what happened to Shaw not only ruined the movie for me but almost wrecked me. In my mind I can just imagine the sheer terror she must have felt. First of all he completely betrayed her. Then he experimented on her. We don't know how far he took it before she actually suc***bed to the pain. For all we know she could have been ripped to shreds before he finally let her die. That got to me. It's not something deserving of a character who is caring enough to put him back together and has the survival instincts to staple a gaping wound back up and then carry on carrying on.

Anyway, as I was saying, on one had I want to see him finish his vision. I want him to tell his story. I'm just worried about the characters involved, lol. 

On the other hand and moving on somewhat, I'd love to see Neil or James do another movie. Their movies have heart and this is what I want out of the whole thing. My dream and hope - if not for the very next movie then perhaps the one after that, is to give the series a bit more heart whatever that would entail. I want to invest in a character and have this character move on from movie to movie until they get some kind of happy ending, lol (naive, I know!) and then pass the baton to someone else. 

I've listened to some novelizations I really loved and would love to see those turned into movies. One was based on what happens between Alien and Aliens, claiming that Ripley was actually found by another crew before the ones that actually rescued her. I won't go into details but yeah, they went through some hell and it neatly wraps up without messing with Aliens. The other is based on what actually went down on LV-426 before Ripley and the Marines get there. I'd love to see this brought to the screen too. The former would be difficult since SW while still extremely great looking (imho) is now aged, so that could only happen if she was recast or the franchise got some kind of soft reboot, but the latter could work with some minor CGI magic. 

Finally, I would vote for NB doing either a reboot or perhaps some offshoot of Alien. Give him a chance. I love almost all of his movies and think he has great ideas, he's def. a scifi head - plus, his movies tend to have heart. Sure there may be some political dust in them, but all of these guys seem to have a need to do this, it is a part of their art, this isn't just shooting a movie to shoot a movie and make money. They are also making a statement. As long as it's not heavy handed, it's ok in my eyes. I'd also as I said previously, vote for James Cameron but he likely has his hands, feet, etc. full with Avatar and that world, which is his baby.

Neoprimal Empathy and heart. Covenant was lacking in those departments. I also had a much stronger connection to Elizabeth Shaw and her strong will, her quest for answers. I would add that the next movies need more conflict and less conspiracy.

Neoprimal

Wow it always appeals to my vanity to see someone act as a proxy for everything I have been saying in my own particular idiosyncratic way. 

The lack of empathy and heart which is responsible for the absence of mediation on the one hand and counter balanced by the emphasis on "bladerunner hijacking alien" narrative is in terms of connectivity central to the issue of the movie. 

Its also really crucial when you judge a movie to do something very novel for a fan site, critique the movie, not the shorts or the narration or the special additions or the books or the novelisation. A movie should work as a coherent whole in its own right. THATS what gets people to the cinema.

IF you view Shaw's arc from that perspective alone the movie is indecipherable. I can talk about the crossing, the full scale library of ****ographic imagery the novelisation until the cows come home but it ain't in the movie and if ain't in the movie it means didly squat. What we have is a message, a grave, memorabilia, some drawings and a cadaver and a eulogy to love, and the only way to make sense of that is to say it makes no sense and David is a mad robot and your supposed to hang the entire series on that and care about it, now that is nuts because thats not how story works for most human beings.

joylitt

You have probably read some of my speculations about how this should have gone and they are about adding drama and conflict in real time rather than off the screen conspiracy. 

Good to see the debate has moved on to sensible well thought out critique rather than empty defence and rationalisation or on the other hand micro analysing supposed plot holes and people being people which includes being stupid.  

It is always important to remember that it wasn't all bad either, a good deal of hard work is on the screen it just could have been a good deal better.  

Good post!  Totally agree and can't wait for the next installment!

From:  ATI

I think it means they see our support and know what changes should be made to satisfy every fan. I think Scott will get the money. Thank you every fan here and everywhere for your positive and constructive work.

Stoked FOX is moving ahead with Ridley's plans :D Best news all day! I hope they stick with the Covenant plot and what happens with David and the Engineers on Origae-6.

This is what should happen: Space jockeys return to their destroyed Capital/Holy site. Space Jockeys are pissed but have no idea how this happened or who did it. Space Jockeys fix and reboot Walter (who is himself, 'pissed" at David and in love with Daniels). Walter helps the Space Jockeys find David which is also his best free ride to Daniels. They find The Covenant on LV-246 (It has to be LV-246 because that will tie the story into the lost colony in "Aliens") and find themselves in a similar situation as the Space Marines and Ripley in "Aliens". This will only work if the Space Jockeys Characters were developed before their arrival and during the fight by giving them some Subtitled dialogue and even names . Otherwise no-one will really care when they get killed (even though it will have a "COOL" factor regardless). This would lead to a lot of amazing sequences of xenomorphs struggling against Space Jockeys. Each side Led by, or working with, their own robot. David on one side and Walter on the other. One added touch would be to introduce some alternate creatures developed during David's experiments on the Covenant and on LV-246. Whatever happens, it just has to end with A Space Jockey ship full of face hugger eggs and the Covenant has to have plenty of colonists still in cryo sleep so they can eventually be awoken by Walter or the ships computer so they can go on to be the colonists who get overrun in "Aliens". Boom! I like it. "Number One..... Make it So"

I like the general direction of your idea, JONDERSPUP-69!. There's one problem. A:C takes place in 2104 while the Hadley's Hope Colony is established roughly 50 years later by Weyland-Yutani, in 2157.

Not to mention the Nostromo-Incident in 2122, when there was no colony yet.

It would need quite the "story" to make that work. ;)

I Moon Girl and Blackwinter-witch and Lawrence of Arabia - YES!

Unadan - Thank you!

Twaz, Thanks, All great points. But a little suspension of disbelief could make most any tie ins work if they had to. The Nostromo Crew's landing and Space Jockey ship in "Alien" could have been far from the Covenant site from our theoretical "Alien Awakining/Covenant 2" Movie. And Cryo sleep can usually explain just about any time-length and covenant colonist survival issues. And everyone involved in Weyland industries throughout the franchise are perceived as less than forthcoming about the truth in order to get what they want. So Weyland-Corp and Burke's pitch to Ripley and the Marines in "Aliens" could always be explained away or thought of as lies. Not at all arguing with you. Just thinking out load. It's quite possible your points above just can't be worked around. Thanks, 

All's good JONDERSPUP-69!, you didn't come across arguing. No worries. :)

Of course the points in question could be explained with a fitting story. But one can't overly rely on "suspension of disbelieve". Otherwise we may end up in a mess of loose ends and holes, again.

To be honest I'm not fond of the "David created them" arc. But alas that seems what they're going for. The Derelict on LV-426 being indeed old and found by David. Or something along those lines. He then somehow "places" the eggs there and the connection to Alien is made, cheap and easy.

I still hope it will rather be something hinted in the latest novels. Something much bigger than a robot who lost a butt load of screws. 

Ati

Glad to hear you're looking fwd to some ship-to-ship action. :D

As a 'Teaser' regarding ship-to-ship action here's a couple of small excerpts for you all from
ALIEN: Manticore 'Paradise'

*************EXCERPT 01***************
Doverson King had the bridge to himself as he worked out course plotting to maximize the use of what planets they could as cover to hide their approach, the ship’s AVI ’Vesta’ could handle it easily enough but it lacked intuition, and he wanted to ensure the best possible work was done to avoid any nasty surprises that might be waiting.
Like the rest of the crew, he was acutely aware of the scale and scope of what they had stumbled into. He didn’t like it one bit, and liked the idea of a weapon built by some incredibly advanced species having a chance to turn Manticore into a floating cloud of shredded wreckage and flotsam even less.
His eyes swept the main monitors on the bridge every minute or so, with glances out the bridge’s two side-mounted bay windows.
He wasn’t nervous, but he felt the need to be thorough in his watchfulness, and it was slimly possible that the eye could see what might be masked from the instruments.
King double-checked that the point-defense weapons were on ‘standby’, ready to act at an instant’s notice. The defensive countermeasures systems were also at ‘standby’, the shields were charged as well, and they’d have a good chance of stopping any projectile that might breach the hull.
The technology of shields was simple in concept and practicality, having it‘s origins in the early twenty-first century to protect tanks and apcs‘s from armor-buster man-carried rockets and missiles: Two charged plates with dielectric silica-cubic boron-carbon nanotube aggregate honeycomb between them. Anything that penetrated through the outer plate and contacted the inner plate closed the circuit, triggering a massive discharge of electromagnetic energy, an intensely powerful electrical arc and an associated outward magnetic pulse of momentary and extreme power. Thus an impinging projectile would be vaporized and the magnetic pulse blew the resultant plasma out and away from the ship. Time and again they’d proven their worth just in dealing with high-velocity impacts in wreckage fields during salvaging and the few times they’d had to deal with hostile vessels intent on piracy.
The two new combat drones that Manticore carried were also on ‘standby’, and added immensely to the ship’s combat ability. They were GenDyne-LockMart Wyvern models, the latest and meanest of their kind available. Each of the two carried twinned fifty-five millimeter magnetic accelerator cannons in two articulated mounts along with a complement of torpedos, three missile launchers and comprehensive arrays of point-defense/close-in-engagement weapons.
He’d greatly enjoyed looking through the manuals and information that came with them, and had plans to work up a couple of models of them for his self-made collection. At the present though, his musings were strictly concerned with attentiveness to what the ship’s sensor arrays and the scout drones found. There was little of interest at the moment aside from some small asteroids and a few cometary remnants that showed strong suggestions of heavy metals and reasonably valuable chemical compounds.

*************EXCERPT 02***************

On the bridge, Selina eyeballed the magnified telescopic image of the other vessel that was sixty-five light-minutes away from them, approaching the planet that Manticore orbited. It was making it’s approach in a similar manner as they had previously, and along the same general vector. The only reason they’d detected it was due to the recent upgrades and augmentations done to Manticore’s sensory systems, which had even previous to such had been considerably superior to what commercial starships usually were equipped with.
Also, in space stealth was a very difficult thing to accomplish.
Selinaehra studied the image, zoomed in, used software to enhance some parts of the image.
“No transponder, no hull registry humbers. At least two MAccelerator cannon turrets visible and running an approach to stay concealed as much and as often as possible. I would say they’re likely not going to be the friendliest of people.” She commented to King.
“Who do you think they are?” King asked as he continued with the task of deploying the compact, multi-function satellites along their orbital track. Each of them moved on it’s own power to assigned orbital positions and sent diagnostic telemetry before coming online fully.
Selina pondered the question, considering the most likely answer.
“Hmmmm…Pirates are damned unlikely, given how far away from settled space we’ve travelled from, but I‘m not ruling that out. Corporate, probably one of the big players I’d say. Or it might be one of the smaller ones making a play for something big to build themselves up as a true player in the bigger corporate arena. They could be some paramilitary bunch, sent by some corporation to secure things ahead of a research vessel, presuming there was a leak somewhere while we were prepping for this trip. It doesn’t shake out as anything ‘nice’, that’s a given. We‘ll keep an eye on them for sure.” She replied, sending her husband’s phone a feed of the information about the unexpected vessel they’d detected, and instructed the computer to keep the other vessel under constant surveillance using passive sensors only so as to not give the other vessel a tip-off they’d been noticed.

Michelle Johnston Yes, I am very well aware of your insightful  philosophical musings and analyses about where the arc started by Prometheus should take us. I love your "Blade Runner hijacking" expression relating Alien Covenant, because that is exactly what it was. Being "Blade Runner" my favorite movie ever (no kidding!), that connection should have made me happy, but it did not. I think it was just something the writers brought up just to stroke Ridley's ego. The "homage" was ok in Prometheus but it went way out of control in Alien Covenant. I think it is time to bury the axe because there will never be a consensus about Alien Covenant, but I have hope that the future will bring the much needed conflict and resolution, as well as a new angle, for this engrossing saga.

joylitt

The phrase comes from Marc Komode a well respected critic in the U.K. Blade runner is one of my top ten movies and I never fail to receive something from it when I view it. 

I think Ridley recognised the success of the Martian was in returning to a character driven story. The scripts on the table for Prometheus 2 were probably, for want of a better word to emblematic, rather than character driven (multiple davids and infecting a machine powered society). That combined with bringing back the beast lead to the screen play that John Logan wrote (simple by the numbers, more traditional sci. fi, Shaw hugged from David's creation).

But whatever they do they must not listen to the fan base. The reaction here and on AVP is more of this less of that (preferences, anchors, repeats) . What it needs is a great story, characters we can invest in and what you can guarantee with Ridley a visual aesthetic which captures the otherworldly view of the A L I E N franchise and that means as close to Giger as you can get and you can not scare anyone by repeating a 40 year old oft repeated trope beyond those joined at the hip to the iconography.  

Well, I really doubt it especially with how Prometheus and Alien Covenant ended up. I am not sure if I have a lot of hope for the rest of the movies since both are disappointments but in different ways.

It could be interesting if they get the Engineers right. They were not really that interesting in Prometheus because of a lack of explanation of what they were about but I will probably give them a second chance.

Less of the AI thing, they didn't succeed with that in AC. They could be a part of the story but shouldn't be the focus.

The Engineer society could be interesting to see as far as the religion and political structures are concerned. They must be done in a menacing way to be a real threat.

Better human characters is a must, they didn't get that right in either Prometheus or AC. No matter how good environments that you have or how interesting monsters that they have, if you will have disappointing human characters then the movie is a failure.

“a fantastic story where the jeopardy and proposition is genuinely unique so that we are genuinely immersed and genuinely frightened and we can identify with the character(s) and desire for survival.”

Exactly this, which is why we need characters that we care for and that are well made. Alien and Alien 3 in my opinion got this right and also in a way Aliens. I am satisfied that Shaw ended up the way she did in Covenant but to be fair she was far from the only problem that Prometheus has.

I would like to see the biomechanics and organic science of the universe expand before they go off and do that fox should first finish the prequel series as well as do a film on the book out Alien:Out of Shadows as for the Prometheus/Covenant trilogy it would be cool to see two more films tie it up maybe the next step is to put the engineers in the humans place at some point  create characters through the engineers we can get to know and understand then see the be hunted like we have with the crews of past films I don't think the planet in Covenant is the home world so maybe a ship shows up and see's what happened and they bring in what is accentually a detective or black ops crew of the engineer species to interrogate Walter assuming he is still alive and alone in the planet then from there search the universe for David and the Covenant that way when David is not in the picture or specific movie you are still presenced with the talented Fassbender and what he brings to the films and then expand maybe do a film where a ship gets boarded like in Out of Shadows and mix things up have that crew crash on to the planet which the aliens just came from or be forced in someway to abandon ship to the planet there is so much that can be done from a action , thriller , drama and science point of view

Also forgot to add it would be cool to see a situation where the Humans and Engineers come across each other and need to group up for survival or even just answers there are many ways to keep traditional sci if horror and Alien movie elements in there while making it fresh

Thoughts_Dreams, NotoriousShorty

I think the key for success as you say is to get the Engineers right, and find human characters that are not the usual marine or clumsy science officer. Another key element is to buy the rights for the HR Giger designs that the artists have been unable to use so far.

Thoughts_Dreams

"The Engineer society could be interesting to see as far as the religion and political structures are concerned. They must be done in a menacing way to be a real threat".

The interesting element to this request is you only to have to listen to the  writers commentaries on Prometheus to understand that is precisely what they had in mind for the follow up. 

The awe filled wonder of the creation myth in the prologue.

The implications Pietro said that underlying the state of LV 223 was Paradise Lost.

The really interesting element was the creation myth designed around consensual sacrifice. From that it was very easy to see how at some point that had become corrupted and lead to non consensual sacrifice which is hinted at in the Covenant Mural but plays no part in the film.

Sacrifice 

A Fall Paradise Lost 

Retribution 

Those were the themes hinted at in Prometheus all that needed to happen was for Shaw the ultimate survivor whose faith was going to be tested in an even more horrific way and David the ultimate passive aggressive personality who hates humanity and loves Shaw to arrive at Paradise Alive and alive with the most horrendous truths hinted at in discarded lines from Logan's drafts.

That is not me also defining my fan entitlement its simply pointing out they looked through the opening to a really interesting foot path and stopped turned left and turned up at the Xeno Fix Bar. 

Getting the Engineers right is key. Their holy city has been desecrated....thousands dead...Who knows what important leaders have been killed.....remains of monkey like creatures are found and one buried on holy ground!! A large statue of the founding father has been decapitated! 

They should also explain why it took 10+ years for the Engineers to arrive at planet 4 and survey the devastation.....is 10 years like 10 seconds to a eon spanning race?  Maybe they left for other galaxies and it takes decades to return or even receive the news.

Making the Engineers completely menacing and evil/bad guy like is not the right way to go because to make this chapter of the universe as well as the universe in whole more interesting and progressive in its story telling we need to see the Engineers as good guys or neutral at certain points of the story to really feel attached to the science , emotion and story but having different groups , clans or states within the species that over the existence of the species have disagreed , dissolved and disappointed there culture and beliefs so that there are good and bad engineers based on politics , religion and power that causes rogue actions like the theory that the alien wall in Prometheus stands for crucifying part of the species and there leader that went its own way or turned on the human race and was stopped by its own there are endless ideas and possibilities but I don't think it should go way of totally menacing then it feels like we are just replacing Xenos  with Engineers as for Prometheus and Covenant I enjoy both films I like that Prometheus has helped Alien be more than just action/horror but Covenant lets you stray just long enough that while you know it has to do with Prometheus it's more traditional and keeps you hungry for more story you could just think of AC as a spinoff film that happened around the same time/years the Prometheus trilogy was or will happen and Prometheus is a cross roads film and the start to the film universe where you watch and think if I go left I will run into AC and if I go right I will continue on to watching Prometheus 2

NotoriousShorty No, the Engineers shouldn't be exactly the villain. I agree on that.

When first posted I did not read all the posts just the most recent ones before I decided to express idea I have read a handful more since and have a few thoughts on spaceship battle AC/Xeno origins first I would say ship to ship battles probably not a good idea for the prequel series tie in because this needs to be more about character , science and Q&A then action spectaculars right now let's not let the series grow a new found integrity then blast it out to space but a two or three movie spinoff trilogy about a secret war with the Engineers fighting each other or galactic species could be a awesome foundation for ship to ship and even massive planet battle ground battles hell they could even fix the Alien Resurrection movie by discounting it and starting fresh with the galactic war Ripley clone soldier approach when and if they intend to go that far down the timeline again these battles could and probably would be insanely cool butt I personally would shelf that for later and as far as AC go's what if when David got to the planet he found research , testing and ideas for breeding and weapons the Engineers intended on creating and using and David collected thier research added his science and efforts to it and came up with what we were delivered in AC as far as the Morphs go and Davids ego maybe decided to claim their ideas for himself or even destroying that evidence only leaving his research to be discovered in AC basically the Xenomorph could have already been in existence at one point but different then Davids creation and it was killed by Engineers when they saw what it was and the uncontrollable threat it is or maybe they never got to finish what they started so David took it upon himself to do so and for all we know the Xenomorph is more ancient than we know this is why I enjoy expanded united movies so much because it never ends when the credits role you start to think and ponder and discussions are born ideas more embraced and that is why I love Prometheus because it took a great franchise and made it so much more as far as AC goes everyone is always hating but something this big always have mistakes and achievements and look at MarvelCinematicUniverse or any other for that matter not all there movies are good he'll most of the DC Universe sucks Ridley Scott and Fox will work there mistakes out and from Prometheus and AC they will create great things

I will get back to this post hopefully tomorrow... Nap Time again for me to give my Brain a Rest.... hopefully it can be more active like before ;)

Oh well past few weeks gave my keyboard a Rest and other Members Scroll Buttons ;)

BigDave

I hope your feeling better, thats way more important than anything written about here. 

Something I have not said to you is you were right about one thing and I was wrong about the effect of going Alien Prefix. You predicted the outcome of the movie whereas I thought that David would mediate the exposition and all the answers either voluntarily or by coercion. I did not fore see what Jollity calls the atmosphere of conspiracy.

Either Matt or Dane recently compared the ambiguity of act 2 (what happened to Shaw) to Deckard (is he a replicant or not). With great respect to that answer it is an inappropriate comparison. The entire Bladerunner theme is about not being certain who are the replicants and who are not, its central to the overall narrative. Shaw's fate, who drove the Prometheus story to its conclusion, required completion there was far to much invested in her to leave it ambiguous or as others have said she deserved closure. One is part of the creative mythos the other is a narrative necessity. We needed to see the David/Shaw relationship played out on screen in the film, the Crossing which is absent from the UK Blu Ray release simply produces more questions. 

But to focus on Shaw and say it was ambiguous is a deflection from the other failure of Covenant reducing the Engineers to ants. The narrative used would compare with killing off all replicants in the BR sequel and saying I am in charge whereas the replicants will be central to the story and their story will grow.  

I'll be happy, if they'll bring back Elizabeth Shaw.

End of article, noomi rapace and alien franchise futur. 

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/noomi-rapace-interview-netflix-what-happened-to-monday-prometheus-alien-covenant-bright-dragon-a7897946.html

1st make a DIRECTOR'S CUT ON Alien Covenant. Stop relying on fans to make stuff for you. Stop trying to fit it (stupidly) in 2 hours. You left out too much as 'deleted scenes'. Poor editing (transitions) in 1 or 2 places. Do that 1st!

Joylitt: It is nice to see that we agree about this (that it is important to get the Engineers right but what that means can really be discussed).

Michelle J: I haven't listened to the commentaries to Prometheus, I am too much of a casual fan to do that. Never the less it seems that it is an interesting way to move forward with this. As AC showed a Xeno and related monsters are not enough to make a good movie. My complaints about AC is a bit here and there on this forum so I won't repeat them here, or at least try to avoid that. Hopefully this reply will be a bit more constructive than it becomes when I discuss with someone that I very much disagree with.

I would like to see the Engineers creating things that they try to use to conquer other worlds but that  turn on them. This would be a lot more interesting than to see David's connection to the Xeno because:

1) AC made David less interesting, I like that he was more ambiguous in Prometheus
2) The SJ looks more like an Engineer and since there were alien eggs on the derelict it seems to me that the SJ and the Engineers are related and that both of them have ties to the Xeno.

The Engineers should be menacing as F (sorry about the swearing, that is just the way that I talk) and we should also get some explanations of why they do as they do something that Prometheus was lacking or at least the answers were too vague and could have been done better. I don't mind the Engineers as an idea but it lacked things in Prometheus, that is what I am trying to say. As you probably know I have issues with Shaw as a character in Prometheus. I wish that they would have done a better character and let that one survive so that one would be in AC that we could follow but it is what it is. Daniels wasn't  disaster of a character but she could have been done better but at least she wasn't as annoying as Shaw. Maybe Daniels will die, I am judging from what we saw at the end of AC. If they will get rid of Daniels they got to make a lead character that is better than her and Shaw someone that isn't as anonymous, that has clearer character traits and that is somewhat likable. This doesn't mean that we got to be given a Ripley clone, just someone that is likable and that feels like a human and not a archetype.

I wold like the Xenomorphs or Xeno DNA being closer linked to the Engineers and not David. I am fine with the explanation that David created is own version of the Xenomorph by using tools and DNA from the Engineers but I refuse to accept that David created the original monster.

MonsterZero: Getting the Engineers right is important but they also need better human characters. I like your idea that they get back and see their city in ruins. This could be interesting if they get it right. Just imagine an army of pissed off Engineers out for revenge!

Daniels

I do not pretend to read many threads here particularly those about monster design so this may have been dealt with but I haven't seen anyone deal with Daniels other than whether she tropes Ripley. 

John Logan obviously tried to give her an emotional context as a survivor and Katherine, who is a very accomplished actress capable of nuance, played that grief well. Right up to the point when she recognised the silence of Paradise she was disquieted and gave a cohesive performance but from that moment on she was the bleary eyed, numbed, out of her depth widow who ends up doing a Matt Damon turn swinging around on the rescue ship. Thats not Katherine's fault but unlike Elizabeth who gathered herself through endless tragedy got it, knew what was happening and survived (that incidentally is why it is so crucial for us to know how matters changed after David was repaired) Daniels was constantly outwitted and never once said "Hold on one ****ing moment whats going on here". Daniels was a golden opportunity to wind her in to the original plot "the search for our creators". She had lost her husband and she finds evidence of the crew who left on a mission to find her creators. Why did she not ask David once what they find on LV223, how they got to Paradise and why they went there. Reason because the story logic is wafer thin and is over burdened with getting David on board and the troped third act. Walter would be programmed with the Prometheus mission and as the surrogate husband of Daniels rejecting David's advances would have got ahead of David and worked it out. The third act could have been a tense and terrific stand off between David/Neomorph and Walter/Daniels having found out the truth of Elizabeth and the Engineers.

The final scene would be Tennessee bringing down the lander and being met by one robot and Daniels comatose. Completely enigmatic with the audience unaware that Daniels is fine but David has ingested embryos which can be revealed in flashback in the next movie but the key is right up until that final moment we are rooting for her having discovered the truth of the Engineers and Elizabeth and survived. 

Those are just random thoughts but her character had to be our eyes and ears until the twist rather than what we got, the school teacher dealing with unfamiliar events and not sure how to react. The moment she became aware of Shaw's tags she and Walter should have been much more knowing rather than David's lambs.