Help me out here... is it right the main issue with Prometheus and Covenant is that they're neither one thing or the other. As I say, above, I'm watching "Furious Gods" at the moment (it's really long!).
The mission statement seemed pretty clear: this has the DNA of Alien - it could be taking place in the same universe, running parallel... something like that, I can't recall the exact quote. But it wasn't Alien. It was... like Alien.
Certainly, Ridley Scott was interested in creation - where do we come from... Chariots of the Gods (I'm surprised there wasn't a character called "Erick" or ship called "The Von Daniken")... all that stuff.
As far as I know, the Spaights story was much more about Xenos proper, but Scott pushed against that till he got the draft from Lindelhoff .... the draft that he wanted? (Spaights was fired according to the documentary).
So both Prometheus and Covenant are falling between two stools aren't they? At least that's what it feels like to me. One of my mates said that they basically both suffer from the milestone of Alien being hung around their necks and it seems like Scott didn't really want to have anything to do with the Alien anymore (at least directly).
So both prequels quite confusing in that regard and I don't think anyone wanted to have the origin of the xeno be revealed as it was.
Perhaps it would have been better for Ridley to divorce entirely and stick to his "has the DNA" guns and not go down the route he went down (or maybe he was told go down that road - I don't know).
And I think - despite the arguments about retcons (please, I'm not wanting to start that off again - let's just say some are for it and some aren't on these boards) there is sometimes (dare I say) a substantial dollar value to bringing back beloved characters if done well.
I think an Alien 5 that had the characters from Aliens in it could ride a hefty nostalgia wave in the same way that Star Wars did (people were going mental about Han Solo in the first one). Conversely, it didn't quite work out for the Terminator!
But these few images from NB have garnered massive traction - I'm not sure we can discount Rippers and Hicks NOT being part of that ground-swell.