"[Alien Romulus] joins the prequel series"

[DavidIsDaddy]

It's worth noting, IMO, that nearly all the major Hollywood trades have noted the same thing (specifically here with Variety) stating:

The untitled project joins the prequel series, which first premiered in 2012, with "Prometheus," followed by "Alien: Covenant." The prequel series is the latest iteration, and follows the original series which began in 1979, with "Alien," followed by "Aliens," "Alien 3," "Alien Resurrection," and then the crossover series which began in 2004, with "Alien vs. Predator" and "Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem."

Now these trades usually are given keywords and details by studios to include in these articles, so this should be something to note, at least to me.

[Kimarhi]

It makes the most sense.  If you are going by chronological order, then the aliens post Aliens movie are all but dead.  And officially dead when Ripley kills the runner and bites the big one. 

Having them beforehand until they run whatever kind of storyline ends up with Aliens on the engineership is really the only way they can go if they are trying to keep canonicity with previous movies.  Which should make some people around here happy.

Technically you could do the same thing post Alien Res and just have the Aliens found somewhere else, but nobody likes that movie enough to continue a franchise based in that era. 

Prequel era, Alien-Alien3 era is where the interest has been. 

[RidgeTop]

Everything I've been reading has referred to this as standalone. Might just be poor wording there.

[Corporal Hicks]

That said, I do get Engineer vibes from Romulus/Remus, given the Rome inspiration that went into their city in Covenant.

But it's too early to know with any certainty at this point.

[Nightmare Asylum]

It is worth noting here, this was Variety's wording, and they aren't the ones that got the exclusive/broke the news (that would be Hollywood Reporter, which had no mentioned of this being directly tethered to the prequels), so this could very much just be their own incorrect terminology being used here.

Still, as has been stated in other threads, I certainly wouldn't be upset about the idea of a long-abandoned Covenant factoring in! And I would LOVE if this was something that they knew on their own and slipped into their report.

[PAS Spinelli]

I will be very upset if David shows up and says some dumb shit to suggest that he made the Xenomorphs again

[Nightmare Asylum]

I don't think I'd want to see David here either - I like the idea of this being pretty standalone and focusing on new characters, and really, David is Ridley's baby at this point; he should be the one to get to end David's story, if we're lucky enough to ever see that - though I wouldn't at all be opposed to seeing some allusions to his further work on the Covenant or on some other ship or world where he may have later set up a laboratory and continued his experiments.

[𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔈𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱𝔥 𝔓𝔞𝔰𝔰𝔢𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔯]

Yeah, there's been no reports of Fassbender, Waterston or McBride being involved in this. It might end up being a very loose sequel without their characters at best, but that is still wild speculation.

Just reposting some stuff from another thread in a more appropriate section.

Ended up moving that bit of speculation over to the catch-all thread – seemed like a better fit there – but aye, I'd really be all over the idea of the long-since-abandoned Covenant showing up on some random colony's doorstep at any point in the timeline.

Still, I'm not expecting any explicit, direct connections to the previous films like that. But... one can hope and speculate a bit during these early days!

I would kind of imagine they might try and tie up the prequels without actually making a direct third prequel consisting of Alien Covenant's surviving cast. It's kinda messy leaving Alien Covenant hanging while raring off to make a new Alien film.

As a loose sequel to Alien Covenant, perhaps The Company sent out a new colony ship to Origae-6 but after several decades, the missing Covenant finally arives at it's intended destination. The salvage crew then gets to explore this veritable house-of-horrors filled with David's gruesome failed experiments with Daniels and Tennessee perhaps having suffered the same fate as Shaw.

The final showdown could involve David's ultimate creation, the biomechanical Alien, for which he sacrificed his own body. But has he uploaded his own consciousness into the ship's AI?

[Nightmare Asylum]

Also putting it out there that if this does end up picking up on some of the dangling David/Covenant threads, I would love for it to do so later in the timeline. Post-Alien would be nice. Post-Alien 3, even nicer.

[𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔈𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱𝔥 𝔓𝔞𝔰𝔰𝔢𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔯]

What they might go for here is an attempt to tie-up Covenant's loose ends while also making the movie stand-alone.

So anyone who hasn't seen the other two prequels can still watch this as the prequel links will be ancillary, but fans of the prequels will also get some closure.

[Nightmare Asylum]

Yeah, at most, that's the extent of prequel connection I'd potentially expect we could see in this.

I like to think David is still scuttling around out there, though. Just doing his thing, living his best life, setting traps and luring humans into whatever his next horror show may be...

[Corporal Hicks]

I like to think David is still scuttling around out there, though. Just doing his thing, living his best life, setting traps and luring humans into whatever his next horror show may be...

I've not read Enemy of My Enemy yet, but that series seemed to be steering towards David's involvement so I wonder if it's actually come up in the finale.

But I agree with you. I think the best continuation of the prequels in this we could expect is them coming across a ship or something similar that David or someone connected to him has had involvement with. I really don't expect any direct carry on from Covenant. And I hope we don't. I'd rather it be it's own standalone thing.

[PAS Spinelli]

I'd rather we forget the prequels ever happened, Scott is a stingy person and loves taking credit for all the work other people did in the original movie while shitting all over it and saying that the Alien is the reason his movies didn't do well, when infact it was his own mediocre script and ideas

[Nightmare Asylum]

Nah. Prometheus is interesting, though immensely flawed, and Covenant rocks. I'll happily keep them around.

And Ridley Scott has been on a real hot streak these last few years, too.

[PAS Spinelli]

Prometheus is boring and Covenant is mediocre, this franchise would be better off without Ridley pretending he was it's creator and having such control over it