You can make all the art house films or continuity heavy sub-textual masterpieces you want. Problem is that for as much as we would enjoy it, that wont make money to be worth the investment nor will the GA be thinking about it as much as we do when it's over. We are also in an age where we can market the shit out of a product and Disney is going to be looking at the opportunity for that as well. You can't do an ALIENS style marketing maneuver with the Prequels.
At this point, Disney has to play it safe because the GA was not invested in the prequels. If that was the case we would have a trilogy by now, but now we are under new management. Now yes the Murdoch's would've sold regardless, but we would've kicked things into high-gear assuming the prequels had been a smash hit and we didn't. That trilogy never happened. It never sold or was as well received as it should've been and it for damn sure wasn't as marketable. As much as it hurts to hear, ALIENS was a marketing juggernaut and still is. That is what the GA thinks of when they hear "Xenomorph" and so in order to get people in the theater, you just gotta bite the bullet.
