Honestly, i'm very let down by Covenant as i think it's just a huge turdpile. Frankly, i've really lost a lot of hope in this movie, and it's more or less destroyed the franchise forever.
still, have to deal with it and accept it. i dont want to, but there's not much choice.
anyway, focusing on then what i personally think is one of the things that all other movies, except Cameron's, have failed in, is the ambience/atmosphere of the first movie.
the first movie was essentially a combination of 'sad, emptyness, lost, loneliness / desolation, darnkess, nightmare, worst case scenario, betrayal, constant danger, vastness of space'.
it was very dark, and very earthly/basic in hitting all the right negative emotions.
It was above all, the very opposite of what was going on in Hollywood back then, when everything sci-fi was more or less 'fantastic, fabolous, marvellous'.
Light, happyness, grand things.
Alien, then, was the opposite. cold and grim. A vast, empty space. following a absolutely normal, could say boring, standard, crew, of people doing nothing impressive, but doing labour work for little wage; mining. cliché work in space, but well, fitting. space exploration not of interest - mining resources ; thus business, trade, money. a ship that looked old and worn. nothing fantastic, nothing faboulous.
down-to earth, realistic stuff.
then first contact, nothing ever before, an ALIEN signal. wow. something that is completely not like anybody has ever seen, or seen designed before.
and it's also very, very dark. nothing fantastic, nothing magical. something dark and grim. realistic. and then shit happens. a parasite. not a battle of good vs evil. not a case of sudden interstellar war. not a case of humanity vs something else for planets or exploration or territory.
basic; survival when facing danger from a parasite, which is alien, and not a tiny thing, and all of that in the worst possible location; space. metal hull around you that could get damaged and you'd die. not a case of swordfighting, not a case of gunfighting, not a battle of equal power, but a battle against a creature, something, never seen before, that is dark, supernaturally strong, and fully hostile.
not a dumb crew, just a damn normal crew that faces stress from the situation and taking it's toll. just like in real life.
prometheus, covenant however are miles away from that.
marvellous, amazing, super high-tech super comfy ships and stuff. a wonderfull world with advanced technology, advanced medical technology,
space exploration goals, not sudden, unexpected contact with alien lifeforms, no, not a question of are there aliens, other lifeforms, or are we alone?
no, some cave drawings that claim humanity has been in contact with aliens for millenia, it's just a good while ago that it happened last, so, let's check out where they come from as that is what they seem to say / invite in those drawings.
an adventure story. not horror. not darkness. not scary stuff. not something new or interesting, just, a friggin adventure story that uses already existing stuff and smashes it into the storyline to grab viewers through hyping, instead of quality.
and then the adventure story is not at all about what we think, it's about a friggin mental robot, both in prometheus as in covenant.
characters we care about get killed off without honerable mention.
the elements that originally made it so mysterious and interesting, discarded and disregarded. the derelict ship? yeah, here it is, nothing to see here, normal. let's get in and out and not give attention. lets also not focus on an alien civilization, that seems some human parallels in romanesque architecture, nah. just a minute or so and lets implement bad cgi unneccesary murder and change it into a gay rape/violation movie.
