Reasons why Alien Covenant has been a failure

I don't accept your premise. I loved it.

You know what they need to do..?  ...put in some shocking twist.

As in, the Engineer's homeworld was going shit, so they were going to kill us all off, and make earth their home planet.  Something greedy and cruel.

Or, all of earth's societies are just a reality TV show for the engineers to watch.  The show got cancelled, and now we're all toast.

1) Dismissal of the Alien lore and the chance of providing answers to questions raised in "Prometheus".

2) Focus on android and neglect of human characters and xenomorph.

3) Characters are morons. The science in the movie is nonexistent.

4) Not scary, not suspenseful, predictable. Forced action sequences.

5) Unnecessary repetition of old tropes. (crew awaken from cryo, respond to distress signal, get in trouble, escape.

6) Unwelcome crossover with gothic horror, over-abundance of literary references.

7) Visually unimaginative, lacking atmosphere. Ship is not futuristic or complex enough, planet landscape is not alien enough. 

8) Bad CGI.

9) Misleading advertising.

10) Bad word of mouth.

I liked the movie, but indeed, there are some mistake...

* the questions from the Prometheus were absolutely unanswered. I liked that film, so I miss that story. But of course, it's not a Prometheus movie but an Alien one... 

* It wasn't scary at all. But they promised, i'll jump out from my chair :D it's also okey, just in the inrerviews I read the scary line a lot. So I was waiting that feeling.

* And oooo, godness. The characters. Except David and Walter, aaaand maybe Oram every character is very very schematic. 

*Well, joylitt wrote down everything :-) good points, well summarized. I just can't agree with the 8 and I don't have problem with the 2. But indeed, maybe they emphasise the importance of AI in this storyline too much. But I liked the idea.

Misleading advertising did bring it down. If I knew what I was getting into, I would have enjoyed more.

The poster of the aliens attacking the engineers had nothing to do with movie and that breaks my heart.

I loved it...(But I love all the Alien movies so you can throw my vote out.) 

A:C is over 200 million. vast majority is overseas...domestic hated it.

'The Mummy' flop is @ 170 million!!! vast majority is overseas...domestic hated it.

(Star Trek 'Beyond' made 160 million. space movie. The highest grossing Star Trek movies fail to match the budget of the superhero movies!)

I'd say r-rated space horror movies are performing about right?

^Not really fair to compare The Mummy's box office after a week, with A:C that's been in theaters a month.

Why it failed? I basically made the same mistake a lot of movies are making these days. It's so worried about a franchise it was willing to cram for this movie. We have a combo psuedo prometheus movie with something that seems to be rushing to get to the next chapter and this is just kind of filler to that point.

Also David being the creator of the Xeno......the less said about that the better.

what a lovely topic!!

For me it was several factors.

I hated the fact the poster mislead us and had nothing to do with the film.

I hated that the marketing lead us to believe that it was a sequel to Prometheus. My opinion is that it could be a standalone movie and has virtually nothing to do directly with Prometheus.

My main issue was the lack of answers, especially as it was billed as a sequel to Prometheus. RS also said so. Prometheus opened up the universe and suddenly the franchise was alive again, then we get this action flick. 

ALSO the fact that RS could of made THIS film AND gave us some answers in small dialogue as the film progresses, small comments around the city and in the hall of heads. Not the picture I had in mind when these answers were unveiled but I would of taken it. NP. We are realistic fans, we not asking for classic after classic. No. Just the continuation of the story you told in Prometheus and promised us on film we would get.

They billed it as a scary film and it had nothing close. Why tell us something else to expect that doesnt exist.

"I learned of their ways....." David. Trouble is he kept it to himself.

Finally, money! Why waste money on these grand sets to just ignore them? City,Hall of Heads. Total waste if you not going to acknowledge the wonders in front of you.

That will do.

Apart from that a:c is a decent enough action flick set in a universe i love (well, try to!)

I was very disappointed with Alien Covenant, it didn't feel like a the sequel to Prometheus or a prequel to 1979 Alien, I felt like Ridley scott rushed into making the film after Alien 5 was becoming very popular, things i felt let the film down was 

1) It cut Prometheus out of the picture, giving that it is cause of Prometheus that alien covenant is made ?

2) killing off DR SHAW, everything she went through in prometheus, just to die before the film even starts.

3) There isnt any scenes that i will remeber cause theres nothing good, like prometheus had the ship crash/roll scene and alien had ripley at the end trying to kill the alien.

4) Just completely boring, visuals, music, plot and actors .

5) mis led advertising, i thought there was gonna be loads of aliens from the posters and trailers and many questions being answered

To be honest im not looking forward to Alien awakening or any other prequels ridley scott has in mind, if anything i would like to see a alien 5 or a alien isolation like movie.

Alien Covenant, imo, is NOT a failure. For a Sci-Fi/Horror that's rated R, I thought it did pretty well especially with the competition it was up against.
The movie was a love letter to the franchise that encapsulated everything about it. To the dark corridors of Alien, the action of Aliens, the nihilism and Necropolis of Alien 3, the experimentations of Resurrection, and the existential philosophy of Prometheus. It was an homage to the original but there is a lot of easter eggs and subtly if you look. Shaw's death for example was a nice nod to Alien 3 and the fate of Newt and Hicks, abiding the legacy. I know people were upset with her fate but 1.) Her story was over, she was never going to get the answers she was after because that's not the point of Prometheus (the answers were there if you looked hard enough), 2.)The Alien universe is a bleak one where the futility of it all thrives so finding out David kills her in pursuit of his obsession with creating is the natural course. Her eggs which weren't capable of birth giving life to destruction incarnate is dramatic irony at it's finest. To those arguing that the scientists were idiots, I argue that they were acting like normal people under such circumstances. They are scientists, not trained soldiers, they are fallible humans which I think is the point Ridley is driving home since Prometheus. There is a reason that David thinks humans are inferior. Speaking of David, Ridley stated he's the "Ripley" of the prequels, he's the main character so of course he gets a lot of screen time. I find the argument that there is too much of him silly, did anyone ever argue there is too much Ripley in the originals? He's the best character in the franchise since Ripley and the titular Alien. Him being the creator of the Xenmorphs is brilliant, idle hands are the devils play things. Remember Ash stating that the Alien was "The Perfect Organism", how he and Bishop were fascinated with it? It makes sense that a synthetic would create this, especially David who is fed up with humanity and their "creators". I feel Ridley is building him up to eventual confrontation with Uber Ripley but that's my theory lol As to those who feel they cut off Prometheus plot threads in favor of Alien I say be patient. I'm sure Ridley has stuff he's holding from us and that it isn't the last we've seen of the Engineers. Idk, I feel like everybody is missing the point of these films and its so sad because they are so good and intelligent and oh god the dark humour! The answers are there but nobody is looking for them but instead knee jerk complaints or wanting it all at once. That's my two cents. Ridley is playing the long game and Alien Covenant is the best Alien film since Alien.

Hardly a failure. Just not the overwhelming success that was hoped for.

Seems really silly to list "misleading poster or trailers" as a reason to dislike the film. That's just the film itself's fault...that's the fault of the marketing team.

This is why I'm glad I go into movies blind and not with expectations. Then I can judge the movie on what it is, and now what I'm expecting it to be.

AlienOG - i stand by my decision that "misleading" poster was an issue for me. Me personally. 

It had nothing to do with the film. If a poster for a film is released for promotion, surely it has to have some relevance to the film. Put Darth Vader on a poster and their is no Darth Vader. Or whoever. Some people will find it dumb that they felt the need to depict something with no real relevance.

You go to movies blind. I normally do too, unless it is something of real interest to me. Thats this franchise and 1 or 2 more

@Joylitt hit it on the nail.  I think the editing and the action at the end was poorly executed.  

1) Move away from the female heroine.  If she would have died at the end or even mid-way and put Tennessee in the lead; that would have been an excellent twist.

2) Could of confined the action of alien attacks in the engineer ship

3) I am glad that the Engineer story is put to bed but some better narration from David's part would have closed some ends.

4) End action could have put her in an environment suit but she had to go outside in it; to deal with the problem (similar to the movie to LIFE but she succeeds).  Again, I would have preferred her killed as a surprise.

"The movie was a love letter to the franchise that encapsulated everything about it. To the dark corridors of Alien, the action of Aliens, the nihilism and Necropolis of Alien 3, the experimentations of Resurrection, and the existential philosophy of Prometheus."

I agree with you and could not have written it better than above Lawrence of Arabia. I also agree that Ridley Scott is playing the long game. Just look at the amount of associate directors on Alien: Covenant.

Scott has said he plans on many movies after Alien: Covenant...so, I expect the broad strokes on plot. Alien: Covenant felt like a good "half" movie and I believe that so much will clear up with the Alien: Covenant prequel novel and movie.

To me, it just seems like a lot of the complaints are because what happened to Dr. Shaw and David 8 after they left LV-223 wasn't explained (along with every Alien secret) in Alien: Covenant.