What would make a "perfect" Alien movie prequel to you---ignoring A:C?

@Sherris and Starlogger

One of the very great difficulties in these discussions is for us as individuals and Fox as an organisation to gain a really meaningful sense of how you attract a much wider audience. I am not convinced that deep fans reflect with any real accuracy the broader audiences needs. Here are some broad strokes which I think Fox should think about and apparently they are looking at all of this.

1) As the Alien is a special effect rather than a potential flesh and blood character that a new actor can breath life into and give a new interpretation, its cooked merely as an antagonist and makes for a decent size cult audience rather than a tentpole. The questions which Ridley raised for making prequels are the right ones you just need good and coherent answers.   

2) You will attract a good deal of adverse feedback with a modern audience if you do not make the characters and situational narrative drive adhere to some rules. You need look no further than the novel of the film to see what is needed to counter the smart ass feedback.

Note

I have to say personally I accept humans in crisis are deeply flawed and even the rules they use in real life are amazingly stupid cf the recent tragedy in the UK where people sat in their apartments for two hours (following the rules) after a serious fire broke out on the fourth floor and yet almost like a movie three people got out from the 21st floor 2 hours after the fire started by descending the stairwell.  

3) Ridley with his visual clues alone is not capable of world building. There has to be properly thought through exposition to draw an audience in particularly with prequels. Did Ridley pass the world building exam with A L I E N no, he created suspense had a great gift from Giger and offered the most amazing texture without answers. He is now trying to give those textures meaning and make that the story and keeps on going off to use an English expression "half cock'. Indeed I think that lays bear the dichotomy. He is applying interesting textures again when he should be giving interesting answers.    

Fact 

Most directors are not good at everything and ones that are given permission to own a franchise exclusively will inevitably be found wanting if they do not get the very best and appropriate support. 

I thought with the Martian and John Logan writing Covenant would  take all the themes from Prometheus and drive them through a person centred story. I knew we would only see the Engineers through David but in the end David blocked the view.

What I did not expect was the over reaction to A 5 and pitch the 1st and 3rd act as straight re runs of earlier movies. You can see a hint of what happens when your fresh with the solar sails that and the way it was handled was fresh and made you focus rather than what happens when you feel you are on the same ride as before.    

Michelle - 

Can i ask a question ?

How do you see the next instalment panning out ? Do you think Fox would risk 2 movies leading in or just 1 more prequel ? 

I think 1 more is needed, even then it will be almost a decade from Prometheus until the 3rd film. It just seems A:C stuttered the story and the open universe we had post Prometheus was kind of closed a bit since A:C.

I would love the Engineers mythos explained to some degree but i just dont see how considering what is needed to bring the prequels to an acceptable close.

Hi Sherris

Ridley openly talks about the prosaic side of the equation as well as indicate that the story can grow (or shrink) depending on the reaction to Covenant. Lets see how it goes/possibly one more possibly two with any number of contradictions (Fox the second in a trilogy). So given that Covenant hasn't taken the box office by storm and the ALIEN prefix has not guaranteed a bigger audience I think one is much more likely.

What he has said :-

1) The Xenomorphs will break lose from A I control.

2) There will be several players incoming to the planet.

3) It will be a bit War of The Worlds (ish).

4) The Engineers will return from their intergalactic seeding to find their home world devastated.

5) Its quite a complicated story the Engineers are just a superior species (thats from autumn 2015) so who made them.

Given the reaction to Covenant is mixed/underwhelming I think Fox will want to be able to market it as :-

1) The answer to the big question.

2) Xeno's cut lose who can stop them ?

3) Incoming Weyland Yutani and Engineers.

(so all the key iconic motives are all in place for a big confrontation).

I can imagine them wanting to sell a trailer like that

This time its war (again ha ha) ! 

You can imagine an "ahead of the game David" manoeuvring his way out of the mayhem, we know he can pilot a Juggernaut,  leaving to exact his revenge believing himself superior to all the players. 

Ridleys remarks about the returning Engineers is I think the element that propels them into the story as a reaction to what David has done. They come after him and in that exchange and confrontation we could learn more about the intent of the Engineers and their relationship to mankind. But the Engineers I am certain are only there to feed the Jockey story and Davids end game which could easily be one and the same thing.

Its also interesting to think in War of the Worlds the incoming die of a virus and the story collapses, is this an allegory for the infected jockey who brings the Juggernaut down in the same way.

Several people have referred to Covenant as a link film rather than an event in itself in which case its a link to the end, you can not have another link or more to the point risk another one.    

At its simplest like you I do not feel expansion and endless vistas. Personally I feel contraction with David being the spine of the story.

The black goo got into the site and generated a double post.

Michelle, thank you very much. You are a brilliant person.

Michelle -

Thanks for your time answering that. 

It was interesting to read your take on RS quote about The War of the Worlds and the demise of the invaders through a virus. Perhaps this is the piece of WOTW that RS was leaning to. My thoughts were around all out war but this could be interesting especially after A:C when the Black Goo is looking like some plague.