biggest worries and hopes about alien awakening and advice to ridley scott

 BigDave

What I believe FOX sees as a disappointment is how conservative the fanbase is. They don't like change, reestablished lore, and not seeing the big picture all at once. What I've taken away from the fanbase is they didn't like the mystery being expanded on, they were upset with the lack of Engineers and Shaw (which I don't understand because what answers did you want to be answered? Why did they want to destroy us? Also the Engineers weren't wiped off the board as their presence was still felt in A:C and Shaw's death was expected if you understood Prometheus), and the focus on David being the creator of the Xenomorphs instead of it being some space animal (which I don't understand since the Alien is biomechanic and was always intended to be a bioweapon). I find it funny how most of the fanboys cried for the Xenos in Prometheus but then Ridley compromises, gives it to them, and now they are out for his head because of a lack of understanding. The creature is still an Engineer product or at least the ancestors were until David got a hold of their work and improved it into the Big Chap. What the fanbase wants is too out there, how do you make a movie about foreign space aliens with no relations you can't understand and grab the audience? It's just not as compelling as the mythology we have being setup because it lacks a connection that these prequels do. Yeah, the universe is shrinking but in the context of the Alien universe (throughout the entirety of the saga humanity has not found any sentient life) and as a story Prometheus/Covenant are just more clever and sensible. I believe Ridley is still keen on this arc because he only makes films he's interested in and it's too late now to change what he's already set in motion without destroying the narrative. Ridley should stick to his guns and tell the story he wants to tell or else it's gonna feel like a cop-out.

I also somewhat understand the indifference to a more AI centric storyline but something different for a change isn't a bad thing, it's not like the synthetics have never had a major role before in the saga and this only expands the mythos. Did we really wanna see another Ripley-esque female lead again so soon? It would just be more of the same and the franchise would stagnate imo

Post-Alien Covenant, it seems that the logical options are as follows..

1. Awakening doesn't bring back Daniels and Tennessee, but carries on with David's war with the Engineers

2. Awakening brings back Daniels and Tennessee, and also carries on with David's war with the Engineers

3. Daniels and Tennessee don't come back, and David's war with the Engineers is just the backdrop

4. Daniels and Tennesse don't come back, and David's war with the Engineers is the main plot.

Assuming Daniels and Tennesse come back, this would force the Engineers to be part of the main plot

Post-Alien Covenant, it seems that the logical options are as follows..

1. Awakening doesn't bring back Daniels and Tennessee, but carries on with David's war with the Engineers

2. Awakening brings back Daniels and Tennessee, and also carries on with David's war with the Engineers

3. Daniels and Tennessee don't come back, and David's war with the Engineers is just the backdrop

4. Daniels and Tennesse don't come back, and David's war with the Engineers is the main plot.

Assuming Daniels and Tennesse come back, this would force the Engineers to be part of the main plot

BigDave The focus need to change. Covenant made its point about the dangers of sentient A.I. You cannot do that all over again. Whatever David does next if he continues on the same path will be predictable. A movie about that would make half as much money as Covenant did (if lucky). So they have to shake things up storywise, and delve deeper into the Engineer/Alien mythology. It's good to have several parties involved, and you can even make one of this parties something completely unpredictable, even poignant. The only thing that probably you cannot do is bring back the elephantine SJ, everything else is up in the air now.

joylitt

"So they have to shake things up storywise, and delve deeper into the Engineer/Alien mythology."

I agree, which is why they are back on the board with Awakening. Though I would still like some of their culture to be left shrouded in mystery. I believe the 3 to 4 parties involved will be David, humans, Engineers, and the aliens themselves. We still need to see David's journey in perfecting the perfect organism to bring things full circle.

joylitt  I agree that Awakening needs to move away from David, because the theme he presents has been covered. The literal theme is that David wants to destroy the universe, which of course shouldn't be referenced in the script. However, if David is censored, does this make it wrong to bring back Tennessee and Daniels? The duo are linked to David, and so it be strange to focus on Daniels and Tennessee but not David. Something tells me the film will repeat Alien Covenant; Alien Covenant ignored Shaw and David, and so maybe Awakening will ignore the immediate aftermath of Alien Covenant

Lawrence of Arabia It seems we have found a middle ground. Let's raise our glasses to that lol. I have no doubt David will continue to try to develop what he perceives as "the perfect organism". However, I think it would be interesting if that meant one thing for the Engineers, and another for humans. Regarding the Engineers' culture, what if instead of leaving it shrouded in mystery you show it but making it so weird that is hard to comprehend...

trokanmariel You could be right although it would be jarring to start Awakening with little or no follow up to the end of AC. Maybe more short videos/teasers will be released prior to Awakening, but I think that approach is sort of weak. It is almost like saying "We couldn't shoe horn this into the time limitations of the theatrical release, so we will show these shorts to build hype." I think Cupanator3000 was correct that as long as it is enjoyable then all is good.

trokanmariel Daniels cannot be back. She knows too much. Now everything depends whether we are going to see David back or David pretending to be Walter. I think we got enough of the latter in Covenant, so it will be just David in the open.  That means Tennessee will be gone as well.

joylitt

I'll raise my glass to that :) 

"Regarding the Engineers' culture, what if instead of leaving it shrouded in mystery you show it but making it so weird that is hard to comprehend..."

I'm down with that as long as it's executed right. Whatever Ridley has in store I'm sure we'll be in for a treat.

I also don't think we'll be seeing Daniels or Tennessee either if the ending of A:C meant anything.

Ridley Scott has apparently confirmed that Waterston and McBride will be back, but at this stage it's difficult to say if their return will be a red herring; bringing the crew members back would likely hurt the symbolism of Covenant, but it's not a foregone conclusion that bringing them back would be bad. 

How the hell would they get out of their pods? 

id agree about not killing daniels off between movies like they did with shaw but I say this only so we can see how she is going to be used in davids experiments. for me she cannot live for both the good of the story and the fact that her character sucked. the character was just awful imo and ended up just being another member of the crew as far as I was concerned. shaw had more direct connection to the prequel storyline.

my advice to RS would simply be to give the engineers a real meaty in depth backstory and to not show them in the same weak and easily dispatched species they have been portrayed as so far. iv pretty much given up on the rest of the film so all I want is for the engineers to be able to play their part and be given a respectful place in the movie.

I for one if Daniels and Tennessee will be back, I'll straight out skip the movie without a second doubt (even now I am very skeptical of what story is left to be told in the prequel series). I am in the minority that don't want to see her/them being experimented upon.

I think we need to see what david does especially with daniels to tie into the next stage of the xeno evolution. its obvious ridley is going with the 'david created the type of xeno we see in alien' path (which I hate with a passion) and given that the xeno in AC is not the same, there has to be something that david does to create the next form of xeno so I think we need the holes filled in. we didn't get any concrete answers in AC as to what he did to shaw and I don't see them being able to just skip the process a second time.

ali81

But is it not obvious from the fact that this xeno is less of a robot (without the tubes and such) that a synth will merge somehow with the "beast". The perfect candidate is David himself. Do we need to see this? No, because it is predictable and unoriginal.

So what he does to Daniels it is whatever. 

red0guy If a flashback to Shaw is used in Awakening, perhaps the flashback can be used for the benefit of Daniels and her connection to David

Is it known that David brought black goo on board?  Did I miss that in the movie?  If no, then creating a queen won't be on the menu for the next film.  

What worries me is that we will get another AI-focused movie. Now the damage is done but they can at least try to reduce it. Some people might like the focus on David, I don't. Fassbender plays the role well but it should be about the human characters.

Prometheus was more balanced in that aspect and David wasn't as evil as in Alien Covenant. Alien Covenant was good until it became the David show. They can keep him but put him more in the background compared to Alien Covenant to give more room for interesting human characters.

It should be more about the humans and they should be better done compared to AC and Prometheus. More character development sure and I also like that you mention the Engineers but they need to be made better compared to Prometheus. Before Alien Covenant I imagined an Engineer city with military stuff, religious ceremonies, and so on. The small things with the Engineers was actually interesting in AC so I hope that we will see more of that. Hopefully they will make the Engineers menacing and not like everyday people.

Keep the character development in the movie, not in clips on the Internet. This goes for the main characters so I hope that it won't do the same mistake as they did with AC. When you get more character development in a clip on the www compared to the movie you know something is very wrong.

Daniels and Tennessee could be kept in the movie but they need to be better written compared to AC. Maybe they could add some stuff to their personalities to make them more interesting. I am not sure how that would be done, I am not a script writer.

Getting the general audience to watch it is probably what is the most important when it comes to getting money to Fox so we will get another one. A lot of people that like the alien movies might watch it but they might not be that many compared to the numbers of potential moviegoers in general. I don't have an answer to how this will be done but it is something to think about.

Big Dave: I would have preferred if David wouldn't have had anything to do with the Xeno. I am happy that Shaw was handled the way she was. She wasn't as bad in the Crossing compared to Prometheus though.

The Engineers could be interesting but it is a bit disappointing that they are humanoid. I wish that they would have been more different, like space aliens or at least not as human like but that could change if they get them right in the next movie.

". . .  but they can merely Change David as a Re-creator of the Xenomorph and have him Evolve something that actually ends up being less Xenomorph than evolving more Xenomorph."

I wouldn't mind that. They idea of the Xeno as a result of a mad android just makes me so disappointed. I agree with Joylitt when he says that they need to change the focus.

Joylitt: "Regarding the Engineers' culture, what if instead of leaving it shrouded in mystery you show it but making it so weird that is hard to comprehend..."

I think that it would make a lot of sense and it would also follow the idea of Giger in that it will be difficult to tell exactly what it is. We didn't know a lot about the SJ after we saw Alien or the Xeno for that matter.