Ridley Scott goes through the complete timeline of all his movies.

On Alien- "That was a rare experience and I think we got it right". Indeed, lightning has not been documented to strike at the same place twice. Perhaps it makes sense to not try. Take the series elsewhere or end it. But please connect to Alien like the original intent was stated.

dk, wev lost that natural connection to alien I fear. the intended impression Ridley was going for in alien was the derelict had been there for thousands of years which is what created all the mystery and wonder in the first place. after Prometheus, I was looking forward to seeing an expanded universe, seeing what happened at the lv223 facility and the fact it took place thousands of years ago, the natural conclusion is that the facility and fate of the derelict are connected in some way. loved the way Prometheus opened all those doors into the alien universe and the sequel shouldv carried the ball to even greater hights. NAH, lets shit on all that and make a bladerunner spin off and u know that derelict, FUCK the wonder and mystery, a synthetic Attila the Hun did it all , TA DA. didn't see that coming did ya's  

ali81  FUCK the wonder and mystery

I am all for connecting to Alien, but I am also good with leaving it a mystery and letting us simply imagine...

with the way its going, I am in total agreement with u dk

I think its sad indeed how THEY gave in to what Fans want, or so they felt fans wanted, we see the same thing with The Last Jedi... they should have had a Plan A-Z with Star Wars EP 7-9 and if Fans moaned about EP7 do not change the plans....   The same applied to the Alien Prequels.

In Hindsight Prometheus toned down the Xenomorph connection to much, it also lacked any Alieny Attack Scenes, Zombie Fifield did not cut it, neither did the Hammerpede Attack...  They FOX felt ok so we need the Xenomorph and they did and this did not work... it was not due to the Xenomorph why AC did not work as well as it could it was again down to HOW it was used.

Sadly for FOX/RS they had to tell a Plot for both movies and introducing more Alieny Elements and Attack Scenes would require either a extra 20 min run time or taking out at least 10 mins of other things that the Stories were covering.

I totally understand the Direction of the Prequels from the Inception..  Lets go back in History

Ok so your doing a Alien Movie, which will be a Prequel because the Franchise never showed us HOW the Xenomorph was created or WHAT the Space Jockey was doing with that Cargo and WHY

RS had mentioned years before Prometheus about the Space Jockey and we had been told the Xenomorph was a Bio-Weapon the Derelict a Bio-Weapon Cargo Ship and the Space Jockey the Pilot.

so the set up is... the Xenomorph is a Bio-Weapon the Derelict was carrying it and we have to ask WHY/WHEN and WHERE was it going. The Space Jockey Race thus had been using these for Biological Warfare and so in regards to the Space Jockey we have to ask WHY

The WHY/WHAT/WHEN and HOW were the Bigger Questions, that the Plans was to Answer, once we tackle these Questions in this Paragraph, all we have to add to this is.. WHEN/HOW was the Xenomorph Created/Discovered. Once all of these are covered thats it... you Answered the Questions to ALIEN

But RS/FOX felt that in order to answer these, the WHY is the Big Question, Why Create/use the Bio-Weapon, for this they gave us a Plot to reveal the Space Jockey are Humanoids and not only that they created Mankind, and they then chose to DESTROY Mankind...  this was the WHY

FOX/RS  then came to a conclusion that actually the Engineers/Space Jockey Race are more interesting they have never been covered at all, and to explore them more would be the way to go as the Xenomorph is just a Weapon... it would be like Aliens coming to Earth to ask/want to know WHY we created the NUKE then the Process and showing what the Nuke does is not that important... the WHY it was created is, and then are NUKES and the reasons for them everything Aliens need to know about Mankind?  NO there is much more to us than that.

so this is WHY they chose to follow the Engineer/Creation Tale, the Xenomorph was a Bi-Product of a Bio-Weapon Experiments they had created to use on Mankind... simple as that... so Prometheus gave us clues to this but they was not SPOON-FED enough a direct link to the Xenomorph or the Space Jockey/Derelict Event...   But they felt enough clues was given and they then can explore the Engineers more but then not have to Spoon Feed the HOW/WHEN for the Xenomorph Eggs in Alien

The back lash for Prometheus, kind of made FOX think ok we need to bring the Xenomorph back, this is what Fans want and they are not interested in Shaw and Engineers, so they was by-passed.  So AC went on to start to connect to Alien, as far as the WHEN/HOW the Xenomorph came to be... with the WHY being the Big Question... but then RS threw in a Curve-Ball that the WHY is because of David as far as WHY he would do such a thing.   But this follows his Story Arc Set-up from Prometheus as far as Philosophical Creation Elements pertaining to David/Weyland.   But this route has upset a lot of Fans.

Prior to Alien Covenant.... Prometheus had the Answers, you just had to dig deeper but for a lot of Fans, ambiguous clues are not enough even though Prometheus clearly shows a Connection between the Black Goo, Xenomorph and Mural it does not EXACTLY say what this connection is, we can see the Derelict is related to the goings on that happened on LV-223 but it was never EXACTLY shown or told of as far as the Exact date but clues are there to say its about 2000 years ago....

Ridley Scott had to then go on record and explain EXACTLY but a bit vaguely the Event, and indeed it is directly connected to LV-223 Event only it happened within a few hundred years... THUS the Derelict Cargo either Led Directly to the Experiments a few hundred years latter on LV-223 or the Derelict Cargo was a result a few hundred years after the LV-223 Experiments/Outbreak.  

You could worked this out from Prometheus all apart from the Date... which RS then shown was either between the 2200-2100 years ago, or 1800-1900 years ago. 

But alas.... all this changed with AC.

my issue with RS and AC is more along the path of them dumping the expanded universe Prometheus opened us up to. all the theories and ideas we all talked about prior to AC about civil wars, engineer civilisation, higher powers etc just got scraped for David. wev been told the engineers will return so am I the only 1 who thinks hhmmm wonder whats gna happen to the ship they arrive on? oh wait, its the derelict from alien and David is responsible. its like thanks Prometheus but everything we could have got has been flushed n wer going in the easiest cheapest direction and all that wonder and mystery from the derelict scene gets ruined.

I think we can still explore those, if Disney do go ahead and makes a number of movies as RS intended.

While they was brushed under the carpet in AC, the likely hood that Planet 4 and LV-223 are the only places the Engineers are based on is slim. Even if they was, there are still Engineers out doing their duties on Ships.

And then who knows who created the Engineers... so its not the end of the Plots Prometheus was setting up.

From an artistic POV, one shouldn't really try to give fans what they want since different fans want different things. There are three basic groups- ones that want Engineers, the AI fans, the Xeno fans and everything in between. then there is what the studio wants and he who holds the purse strings has a big say. In an ideal world, the artist should persue a vision with studio support.

BigDave

And how can you explore Engineer planets without people? They killed off the character who wanted answer so how? Introduce new humans who stumble upon those planets?

Of course they won't do it and if they reappear will be to "fist" fight the xenomorph.