What I actually kind of like from the Alien prequels

[The Old One]

No, as I said- it wouldn't be "Covenant" but it maybe would still have been Paradise Lost.

[Highland]

Covenant is also good til the Alien shows up, it's a very similar movie to Prometheus. Pretty identical until Davids lab.

Bunch of people land on mysterious planet, find dead jockey's, can't figure out whats going on, android main character. Everyone dies.

[Immortan Jonesy]

Covenant is also good til the Alien shows up.

Agree.

it's a very similar movie to Prometheus. Pretty identical until Davids lab.

Yes, the visuals are quite similar until that very moment, but such similarities are merely superficial as we are talking about two different films with different atmospheres and tones. However, and for the sake of the creature feature, David's lab it's an awesome set piece. I think the only set that can match David's lair is Weyland's white room.

Bunch of people land on mysterious planet, find dead jockey's, can't figure out whats going on, android main character. Everyone dies.

Man, with such a vague description, even Alien is the same movie and yet we have three different films. I think the key is in the tone, the atmosphere and quality of the writing:

Alien: pure claustrophobic / Lovecraftian horror or in better words "Ridley Scott's haunted house in space".

Prometheus: beautiful Star Trek-like space opera about creation & ancient aliens mumbo jumbo (ridiculously ambiguous and messy).

Alien Covenant: gothic sci fi movie about evil AI, which tackles some philosophical / Blade Runner-like themes to raise the Alien mythos towards an existential level.

[Highland]

I don't think the tone or atmosphere of Covenant is that different up until the slasher part in act three. The Covenant crew stumble upon the Planet by accident. You have people going down to scope out a planet with some staying behind, a crew investigating a Jockey ship, groups split up, people getting infected by black goo things, people getting killed due to black goo things, David double crossing humans, a female lead character that ends up saving the day.

I guess imagine when they go back to the pyramid in Prometheus, it's not the Jockey they wake up, but an Alien. Then the movies probably play out in similar ways outside of the creation themes in Prometheus.

Really covenant should have played out like it does, but when Davids lab comes up (which is a cool scene I agree), it still continues onto weird Alien like stuff (like maybe a slightly different version of the Neo) then at the end David chokes up the Facehuggers and we are all like " ah ha" the Alien will be in the next one.

I mean we don't even need a film after Covenant, it's done. People only want another film to see David and to see the original Alien, but honestly it's probably just more of the same stuff. David made the Alien - then the Alien killed a bunch of people, then David dies - not even sure if you need to tie in the old derelict either. You can just leave ambiguous.

The end of episode 3 should have been the Alien. I'm perfectly fine with David floating off into space and that's the end because I mean whats left to know? The Alien comes from black goo that the Engineers made.

I'd rather a reboot now or a sequel in a different timeline.

[Baron Von Marlon]

Screw the tie-in to the original, screw the xeno, just give me Planet David.
A beautiful, yet horrible place filled with all kinds of creatures and plantlife. New WY crew arrives, shit happens, Engineers arrive, more shit happens, everyone* dies, the end.

*in case you want a tie-in to the original Alien: one character flies off in the soon to be Derelict.

[Highland]

Screw the tie-in to the original, screw the xeno, just give me Planet David.
A beautiful, yet horrible place filled with all kinds of creatures and plantlife. New WY crew arrives, shit happens, Engineers arrive, more shit happens, everyone* dies, the end.

*in case you want a tie-in to the original Alien: one character flies off in the soon to be Derelict.

I'd buy that too and you can still do that with what I said - Reboot into new series thingy using David as the reason for things being the way they are on said whacky planet.

Might happen....in 5 years.

[The Old One]

Ridley Scott's not going to do anything that isn't somehow a new development on the nature of creation.

[T Dog]

A lot of aspects of the prequel films Prometheus and Alien: Covenant by Ridley Scott bother me greatly, but I'll tell you all what I personally feel was done well in them: The revelation that the Engineers/Space Jockeys, beneath their totally otherworldy exterior, are virtually identical to us. Somehow, I feel this almost makes the initial concept even creepier. I'm also not entirely opposed to them having created us along with the Alien. But yeah, that really is just about all I like. Just wish the writing and a lot of the other concepts were better handled.

It's literally the thing I hate the most. Ridley took Giger's Gold and took a shit on it.

[The Old One]

How would you have approached the concept on film?

If you were approached by R.S:
Maintaining the otherworldly, lovecraftian nature of the SJ-
Whilst also allowing Ridley Scott his marble statue Engineers?

[SpreadEagleBeagle]

To me it makes the concept/premise and very title of ALIEN extremely un-alien. It's an oxymoron if you like, which makes it quite anticlimactic when you think about it; the Space Jockeys are literally humans and the Alien was created by a machine designed, constructed and produced by humans, just as the "black goo" (for all that we know) was created by our fellow human albino big boy baldies from outer space. It's all HUMAN in one way or another, all demystified and relatable with a clearly staked out track to where everything belongs and fit in (with the the black goo filling the gaps). They should just go ahead and rename the entire series FAMILIAR (which would be a fun spin on the myth of witches and warlocks summoning or bethrowing creatures and critters to serve as their magical pets of sorts), because at this point there is very little that is alien about the creature and its supposed creators and origins. It's a bummer.

[The Old One]

To me this:

Maintaining the otherworldly, lovecraftian nature of the SJ-
Whilst also allowing Ridley Scott his marble statue Engineers?

& Recontextualising David's creation of the Alien pose an unusual story challenge.
I don't believe the entries damage the franchise forever as others do.

[Immortan Jonesy]

To me it makes the concept/premise and very title of ALIEN extremely un-alien.

That's exactly the way director Ridley Scott wants you to feel: the new Alien is more alien now coz it has been alienated from the original Alien (jk).
   

It's an oxymoron if you like, which makes it quite anticlimactic when you think about it; the Space Jockeys are literally humans and the Alien was created by a machine designed, constructed and produced by humans, just as the "black goo" (for all that we know) was created by our fellow human albino big boy baldies from outer space. It's all HUMAN in one way or another, all demystified and relatable with a clearly staked out track to where everything belongs and fit in (with the the black goo filling the gaps). They should just go ahead and rename the entire series FAMILIAR (which would be a fun spin on the myth of witches and warlocks summoning or bethrowing creatures and critters to serve as their magical pets of sorts), because at this point there is very little that is alien about the creature and its supposed creators and origins. It's a bummer.

I feel your pain, the albino people are just albino humans. So yeah, even such things as xeno-like-beings (neomorph, deacon, whatever) are now humans creations *sigh*. But it's fiction, and as @The Old One has point out, a proper recontextualisation can fix it.

[SM]

The deacon and neomorph are human creations?

[0321recon]

Screw the tie-in to the original, screw the xeno, just give me Planet David.
A beautiful, yet horrible place filled with all kinds of creatures and plantlife. New WY crew arrives, shit happens, Engineers arrive, more shit happens, everyone* dies, the end.

*in case you want a tie-in to the original Alien: one character flies off in the soon to be Derelict.

Use that as a mid credit scene for the hardcore fans, and be done with it.

[Immortan Jonesy]

The deacon and neomorph are human creations?

In the Prometheus context, the mankind was looking for aliens, but it turned out that we were the aliens all the time (Elizabeth Shaw: "is us, is everything"). It seems like a time travel paradox in which I'm my own creator, we comes from the stars, we were the ancient astronauts and we're going to be the ancient astronauts in the future as well. The ancient humans that we call Engineers, might be responsible for the Deacon-like-beings.

Even the actual Deacon was conceived through a convoluted chain of events that involve humans (Shaw and Holloway) and a human creation (David). Also, the black goo might be a creation of primordial humans (until the canon says otherwise, of course). The same goes for the neo. Plus, we just learned that (in fictional universe) the biomechanical designs were based on the native flora and fauna from Planet 4. 

On a side note, I'd point out as I did on another thread that black goo might be the last truly alien thing from the prequels:

*Is Black Goo more alien than the Alien itself?*