I'm so confused

If I didn't follow any news of the A:C plot prior to the release, I can't imagine how different the movie would have been compared to what I was expecting lol.  You'll want to watch all of the viral videos, prologue/epilogue videos, and maybe even the deleted scenes that are popping up online to get more of an explanation on what you were expecting.  A lot of the David and Shaw timeline is explained through narratives in the extra shorts.

Ridley Scott said that Prometheus was a "mistake" because he didn't listen to the audience, so with Covenant he gave the audience was he thought it wanted. Unfortunately, things didn't turn out so well and Covenant ended up being more unsuccessful and disliked than Prometheus.

Your question is a great one...  We have all asked that.  I feel like we skipped a movie when we got to AC.  A proper Prometheus sequel should have had David and Shaw landing on the planet...  David starts experimenting, Shaw is trying to communicate with a neutral Engineer...  Then David's crazy black goo experiments start tearing up the Engineer temple/city...  Shaw is hiding out.  Engineers battling the creations...  David wins, Shaw sends distress signal and gets killed...  so forth...  Give us the link between the two.

The Good thing with a bunch of Questions from someone who was not following things about any sequels well enough..

Is you get some very straight forward questions confusing from their perspective and so answering these for you will indeed HIGHLIGHT some very Good things you bring up.

First of All... The CGI Engineers, in Prometheus they was not so CGI they was Practical affects where after effect lighting and touch ups to make it look more glossy and shiny and so indeed there was a element of Computer Generated After Effects used to Polish up the Engineers and add few details and they looked very interesting.

The Alien Covenant ones, appeared to now have as much detail, even as far as not using black contact lenses, but this was a Scene that was a Flash Back and only a Short Scene and Alien Covenant had a $30M+ Less Budget than Prometheus which with Inflation would be at least $40M less.  And so maybe some cuts had to be made and for showing thousands of Engineers (many was duplicated with Digital Effects) then having to show many close up Engineers for just less than a Minute maybe FOX/RS with Budget cuts felt that bypassing on some details would not be noticed.

But then RS had said these are Engineers and he is hinting the route that their may be many different versions of Engineers and the Engineers are not a RACE but a Civilization and so the Engineers in Prometheus and Alien Covenant are connected but are also Genetically slightly different... either one was created from the other, or one is above the other in the Hierarchy or they are operated by a Genetic Engineering Evolution.

so the difference is likely one of these castes if you would predates the others, are above the others or created the others or one of them is Genetically Evolved more than the other.

The Xenomorph in the other Prequel the Alien at the end of Prometheus is not a Xenomorph as per say... it is Genetically related due to the Black Goo where they either both come from the Black Goo, the Black Goo comes from one of them as in a previous ancestral Form.

Prometheus had Xeno-DNA clues, just they was not enough for a number of Fans, and we did not see anything like the Xenomorphs as a far as a Alien Attack.... Prometheus started life as Alien Engineers by Jon Spaights which was more Alieny, it had more Xenomorph connections and more kind of clues to the Xenomorph and Derelict on LV-426

FOX decided the idea about the Space Jockey/Engineers and the Curve-ball Creators/Gods idea was very Bold and interesting and as the Xenomorph had been done over and over, they chose to focus on the Engineers more and got Lindeloff in to tone down the Xenomorph connections.

Ridley Scott had not directly said Prometheus was a mistake, he had said that in Hindsight taking the Story away from the Xenomorph and trying to set up a sequel that would distance its way from the Derelict/Cargo in Alien and tone down the Xenomorphs was a mistake in Hindsight...   So basically they felt Prometheus should have had a closer connection to the Xenomorph and set up a sequel to get to WHY those Eggs got on the Derelict and WHY/HOW those Eggs were Created.

The Above is the Reason that Alien Covenant was made, FOX/RS felt it was a mistake to take a route that would go away from those Direct Questions regarding the Eggs and Xenomorph, and so they now wanted to give us a movie that would now take a Step by Step more direct route to ALIEN and the Xenomorphs and even introduce the Xenomorph back into it.

Rather than a movie Franchise Prequels that would Step Further away from the Xenomorph Eggs and Creation in Alien.

I would also Bank on the Hype and Antisipation for Blomkamps Alien 5 which gave us Eggs and Xenomorphs and Queen... i think FOX saw the reaction to Alien 5, and the criticisms at Prometheus as far as going away from the Xeno and Space Jockey Event, and following Dr Shaw and her Philosophical and Faith related Quest and Questions and to explore this Humanoid Creators.

"What changed exactly to make Ridley decide to abandon that aspect and go more towards the actual Alien that we were gonna see anyways at the end of the last prequel? "

That certainly was not the original direction the sequel was going into. What changed is that a lot of people who disliked Prometheus whined on forums that they wanted the familiar old aliens back, not Engineers and androids. They whined and whined, and Fox and Ridley finally decided to cave in and change the direction of the story to give them what they were saying they wanted.

Unfortunately, that was not who they should have been catering too. They should have stuck to their guns and given the fans of Prometheus the next chapter they had been waiting for!

well said kethol. too many people whined n so we get AC. the movie we deserve. maybe in future people will learn to just let a director tell the story. the Prometheus story is the one I want to see. ridley was right I think, the xeno has been done. nothing wrong with seeing some new creatures but its time to move into the engineers world

Well Said Kethol

The Plan would have been that by showing us the Engineers Culture and Hierarchy and revealing a bit about the Black Goo, should have provided more clues to the Xenomorph no doubt once Ridley Scott had done a Prometheus Trilogy...

But some fans would not have accepted this, because they would need a Movie with the Egg, Face Hugger and Xenomorph from Alien in it and a Movie that Tells people Step by Step where the Alien came from and Spoon Fed Space Jockey/Derelict Event.

Prometheus and its Sequel was setting up those answers, clearly the Black Goo was connected, clearly the LV-223 Outpost Proximity was connected, clearly the reasons the Engineers wanted us destroyed and the experiments they was carrying out that back fired are connected.

Just not Spoon Fed enough.....

So Ridley Scott has gone back and given them more a Alien Connection, with these movies drawing us more closer and closer to LV-426... rather than explore the Engineers and were else they are from and their Agenda.

So now Fans who wanted Answers have been given them but again some Fans feel AC did not do enough, they are in protest (well some are) about Davids creation of it.

End of the Day the Answers was connected to the Black Goo.. just with Fans Wanting Aliens so RS gave them F£!^$&" Aliens has he put it..

Now they have gone to indeed show the Black Goo = Xenomorphs the Xenomorphs came from it but they just showed us that David uses this stuff to create  them.

So all thats mainly Changed is RS/FOX have maybe felt Fans wanted the Xenomorph back rather than explore those beings who had played a hand in the Black Goo that created the Xenomorphs and how they did so in a attempt to wipe out Mankind because they had became Displeased and Felt Threatened by us.

So RS and FOX have just taken the Peed Off Engineers attempt to destroy Mankind with the Black Goo... to now a Peed off Android attempts and successfully creates the Xenomorph to wipe out Mankind and the Engineers.

"ridley was right I think, the xeno has been done"

This is not Longer the Case... it appears FOX feel the Franchise was about the Xenomorph... and RS agrees and plans are now to make it more about the Xenomorph, but RS also likes the Curve-ball about David and the effects of AI getting out of control and In Control....

I am just waiting to see what the AC Backlash does and see if FOX/RS decided in Hindsight David creating the Xenomorph and the Derelict Eggs thus being on LV-426 for no more than 10 years or so...  was a MISTAKE

Then see FOX backtrack and have it that Actually David just recreated it, and the Originals came from a Queen and then bring the Queen and Ripley back to please the FANBOYS..

I am concerned they could go this route ^^^

I feel you'r pain, I loved the direction "Prometheus" was going.

It's sad how "Covenant" turned out :(

bigdave, when I say that I think the xeno is done I mean that in the the sense of it being the focal point of the movie. just as the david character could be in danger of being worn out as the only focal point in the prequel series, I think the weight should be spread more. the series NEEDS the engineers to come into the frame big time. they need to take a chunk of the focus off david. sure have xenos and different versions of it but for me, I wanted to follow shaws journey for answers. Cameron may be right in the fact that maybe spending so much time and energy on a character then just binning them has had a negative effect. shaws character was different to what came before. many didn't like her n I don't think she was the greatest but she gave us something different other than just survival in the franchise. by all means I think that her death to advance davids works was a must, but I think she should have seen through the second movie before we see her showing signs of anything sinister happening to her and then we could have seen an on screen 'hand over' if u like, between shaw and daniels.

people are fickle things and most of the time either don't know what they want or think they want one thing when in actuality, something else would have been better. I think this is the case with Prometheus and AC. I was like many. outraged that we wernt going to get the alien style prequel we had been told we were getting. then I watched Prometheus n thought 'u know what, hes right. I want to know whoo that big guy in the chair was and why those eggs were there. what happened?'. Prometheus opened the door to vast possibilities for the sequel to go on and explore a deeper alien universe. I couldn't wait for AC. don't think iv ever been so pumped for a film EVER. then bang, RS bows to the masses and we get a f****g alien film. that's what I mean when I say I think the xeno is done as the focal point of the franchise. I don't have a problem with davids character or his motives. by all means let him tamper with what the engineers have already done but for me, too much is focused on david.

we got engineers in the trailers and I thought 'yes here we go' n it turns out that what we see in the trailers is pretty much the screen time they get. I wouldn't have minded if the film itself was a well done movie but, imo, its not. I love RS and every film hes made has been visually stunning, even AC looks great. but there is no structured pace to the film and no character building. they released the prologues just to cut down on screen time set for building up the characters imo. too many things just logically don't make sense (see david/walter identity swap) and though people are fickle at times their not stupid.

AC has bombed and quite rightly. its great that some do like or love the movie, I so want to like it but I just don't. its a badly done film and id say Ridleys worst behind the camera. im looking forward to awakening though. 2 films left and time running out to see the origins of all this so it has to start to be addressed in the next instalment or ridley wont have enough time to do the engineers and the whole reason he got back into the franchise in the first place any justice. its amazing but a credit to the man that a film nearly 40 year old is still held in such high regard. but he needs to tie the prequel series into alien in a way that does that film justice aswell. expecting nothing but hoping for the best

First I would like to say that having Prometheus as a favorite movie is alright, we all like different genres and movies.

There was probably the case that many had very different opinions so maybe many disliked the Shaw character so they decided to write her off. I did not have a problem with that since I very much disliked Shaw but I can understand that people might have liked her or think that it is a bad continuity thing.

Unfortunately it seems like Fox thought that the lack of Xenos was what people were complaining about. Yes I had a problem that there were not too many of these but it was far from the worst thing about Prometheus. My main problem with Prometheus was the lack of good characters but I think that Fox is mostly to blame.

A lot about the Engineers didn’t make sense in Prometheus at first but I understood more about them after repeated viewings. They could have been made more lethal and their motifs about killing humanity could have been explained better in Prometheus but maybe they can be explained better in the next movie. I would rather see the connection between the Engineers and the Xeno rather than a movie about a crazy android but they got to make the Engineers make sense and to get better human characters compared to AC and Prometheus. Hopefully they won’t make David as the creator of the Xenos, that would suck.

Hopefully they will explain in the movie that David found some black goo that the Engineers had left and that he fond some sort of way that the Engineers did their Xenos and so he repeated that. David would not be the creator of the original Xeno.

I like that they killed Shaw, she was annoying to say the least. My main complain about Prometheus is the lack of good characters but they could also have had better Xeno connections.

that's the part iv been saying for a while thoughts, Prometheus was only the first instalment which seems to be overlooked by so many when they bash Prometheus. any half decent director, writer or studio would never give out the answers in the first movie. Prometheus was used to raise the questions and maybe tease some answers but was never going to answer anything fully.

I love Prometheus and think it opened so many doors for the rest of the prequel series. Fassbender is awesome and the only consistent positive in the 2 movies. where Prometheus and to a greater extent covenant come short is any really relevant dialogue and character building. but my biggest gripe is the lack of screen time for the engineers. ok I guess they don't want to show them to soon or too much straight away but their really the only original thing in the franchise now. ok we have different types of xeno and while really really cool (I love the protomorph and neomorph) once wev seen them that's it. the engineers offer hours upon hours of story telling and have yet to be utilised.

Ali81:

I see what you mean but they could at least have given us some answers in a less ambiguous way in Prometheus. For example, if a movie raises 8 questions then I would like them to answer at least three of them in a somewhat coherent way in the movie, in that way they have five left that they can answer in a later movie or two but these answers got to be satisfying. Unfortunately it seems that Lindelof as a writer is better at asking questions rather than answering them, this is just my impression. When you don't get satisfying answer and at the same time have very thin characters you get a disappointment.

Fassbender was good in Prometheus but they made him a bit too evil in AC even though he was OK.

"where Prometheus and to a greater extent covenant come short is any really relevant dialogue and character building."

Exactly, this is my main problem with both Prometheus and Alien Covenant. It was like they didn’t learn enough from Prometheus but at least they felt more like real people in AC.

The thing is they got to have the Engineers making sense. Unfortunately they were not made very well in Prometheus but they could have been. Hopefully they will be better written in the next sequel if we will get one.

thoughts, def agree with u. some answers or even half answers in Prometheus probably would have gone a long way to making a better movie. my fear is that after the reactions from Prometheus and covenant, fox and RS may be thinking about making awakening in a way that if the reviews and returns r bad again they can ditch a 4th film. this would spell disaster for the engineers as their wouldn't be enough time to show anything of them other than chasing david. we would learn very little more about them.

the reason RS returned was them plain and simple. he has allowed outside forces to change his mind and where the engineers r concerned, I feel he has lost a film to show case these beings the way he would have originally wanted to imo. for me, I want to return to the Prometheus feel of the series and address them in much more detail than what david is doing. I don't think it would hurt davids character by him taking a slightly lesser role in awakening.

the xeno is not done. The Ripley story is. The reason Fox studios should have let RS kill Ripley off in Alien is so the franchise could focus on the xeno, NOT RIPLEY.When there is a creature designed with acid for blood, does not give off body heat,(thanx to Aliens), can breath in space, no eyes etc, there is so much to explore. That's why Underworld is a disaster. Instead of focusing on a Vampire, wolf hybred they focus on a wolf killer. The hybred is something never seen before. And of course the whole storyline of the wolf, vampire connection...

Imo, A:C didn't abandon anything. I think people were just expecting a straight up sequel as opposed to what would have naturally happened. Shaw was never gonna get her answers and most of the questions posed in Prometheus were answered in film but not straight forward. What did you think was gonna happen on the Juggernaught with David on board? David detests all mortals and self-proclaimed gods. Prometheus was always meant to be an Alien prequel and Covenant was the logical next step. We'll get more of the Engineers in the next film but I think Ridley brought the Xenomorph in sooner due to fan whining and to create a better next film. If Prometheus 2 was just about the Engineers and no Alien people would flip out that there aren't any Xenos and then the 3rd film with Xenos would come around and people would be up in arms like now. These prequels are about expanding the lore and the Alien and why things are the way they are in the original films.