Alien Awakening Timeline

bigdave. I have heard the rumour of a covenant prequel very similar to what u mention above. its focused on the mission and someones desire to sabotage it. in truth, if this is the case, ill not be watching. that's not what the alien universe is about. if he wanted to explore the diversities of A.I, he should have done it well away from the franchise. he should have done something new and original. oh wait, he did Bladerunner. the alien franchise is about the beast. ok tone the beast down a bit in one of the movies and explore the engineers with a taste of the beast but to ditch it all for David's or the companies story? not for me. im actually really gutted and deflated by what RS is doing to the franchise. I can see myself just disregarding AC and follow up films and just look at the franchise as alien through to Prometheus and sit in hope that someone with passion and vision for the franchise comes along and takes off from where Prometheus left off. it isn't perfect but it laid the foundations for the sequel to be an epic. I am actually asking myself as I type, ''how the hell could someone as talented screw the sequel up soooo badly when it was laid on a plate for them'' 

The one Prequel was the ADF Prequel book that deals with the Covenant Mission Preparations, this however wont never become a movie and i dont think we will ever see any prequels to AC or Prometheus, we may get some dialect, flash backs to explain stuff from the past.  Unless the Engineers Turn up and basically are as talkative as the Predators lol (ps i dont mean the new Movie)

The Problem we have is where does the Franchise Go...

Here is the Basic Set Up.

*David is in control of the Ship, it appears he is off to Origae-6

*Daniels is aware David is David, she surely wont let him do what he pleases.

*With Daniels Dead, Tennessee would be suspicious

*The company eventually find out what David has done/plans as he sent them messages.

*Origae-6 is very likely uninhabited

*The Covenant still has nearly 2000 colonist and 1000 Embryos

*David has just TWO Face Huggers

*The Engineers Arrive at Planet 4 and discover what has happened and are not pleased.

*The Engineers will be one of a number of Parties on their way to Origae-6

*Davids Experiments end up in their Thousands on a Engineer Ship a long way from Origae-6

Thats a Pretty Linear route to take a movie never mind TWO.

Bigdave, one or two films will get funding in your opinion? 

I think that is actually the BIGGEST Question of them all.... 

Where do they go now, how many movies would it take as if the set up is TWO and RS makes the next one very little regarding the Xenomorph and more about AI and this does not sit well with Fans and also Bombs a bit or disappoints at the BOX Office, then it leaves FOX in a very difficult place.

Do they then invest in another movie and hope this one recovers some of the financial burden or do they just leave the Franchise alone with no Answers to the events of Alien as far as HOW/WHEN those Eggs get on the Derelict.

They would have to show enough IMO in the next movie, so that if they dont do a 3rd, then we can gather enough information to paint a picture of what happened.  They also maybe have to have the next movie end in a way that leaves it open... rather than needing a sequel much like how Alien Covenant has left it that it needs one.

Just in case the Next Movie proves to be a disappointment and turns more fans off the Franchise, it would be a shame if FOX just leave it as it is....   Imagine if FOX said they are making NO sequels to Alien Covenant.

The Purpose of the U-Turn was to  connect to Alien and Introduce the Xenomorph, by brushing Dr Shaw and the Engineers under the carpet its made it harder to go back and do a movie that covers the Engineers more than other themes/plots.   Now they have gone the path of the literal events leading to Alien they need to stick to this.

A good topic, and lots of interesting views!

Personally, I think RS's age and the moderate performance of Pr & A:C means that we may well only see one more movie directed by RS. Scott's a busy man, with multiple projects on the go, and it takes time to get a big movie planned, shot and in theatres. I'd like to see more than one, but I predict the next one will be his swan song in the Alien universe.

More than anything, I'd like to see him make a movie free of the influence of fans, producers or money-men. Prometheus was more interesting than Covenant, despite its failings. Covenant was fun but pulled in too many directions to hold itself together. If Ridley is free to make the movie HE wants to make, we may not get a movie we had hoped for or thought we wanted, but we will get one that takes on a journey full of surprises, visual beauty and dramatic punch. . .

Great points Bigdave. A few nightmarish possibilities. 

Cheers Critters5 i have 1-2 ways i would deal with it all....  lets just see if Logan is just as imaginative

@murnau

Excellent Points...  indeed RS is getting Old, and i think FOX either should give RS Full Reigns... or have someone else come in and use their ideas so if the next movie disappoints and least we can figure where it went wrong.

I think RS and Logan had a rough idea where to take us next, Logan had apparently had a draft finished at the time AC was released, but then another interview claimed they are working on it... But all comments seem to hint at seeing the Next Installment in 2019 which would be fitting with the 40th Anniversary of Alien.

But for this to be TRUE.. we would have to start hearing  some more News/Pre-Production by Spring 2018 as in One Interview made after the Pre-showings of AC he said that they would be shooting within 14 months which is July 2018

But the Reaction to AC may have prompted them to look at a few changes.

Yes I think that the way that they have treated the characters like pieces in a chess-game is probably the worst of the ways imaginable that they could have chosen. I don't find any excuse for this, it is just bad. One time might be acceptable but to totally fail with that twice it makes me wonder what really goes on. Maybe they can look at other movies where the characters have been better written and find inspiration from there. They just have to find genres where they usually have well written characters that they can get inspired by, I mean they are movie makers right? It is not that they should have to go back to school to re-learn that I hope although Prometheus and AC makes me seriously wonder.

A religious person that discovers that her faith doesn't help much is a potentially interesting character but they should have written her better before they released Prometheus. If I don't get positive or interesting perspective of a character in the beginning I get bored or annoyed and so I don't get an interest for that character, that is what happened with Shaw. This is even more important in horror movies since it is about that person's psyche, how that person reacts and thinks.

It could have been interesting if they would have written Shaw better in Prometheus but since she came off as annoying and irrational that didn't really help. They could at least have given her some rationality and some likable traits but I didn't find much of that, unfortunately.

The case with the Engineers is a bit different, their purpose was too vague even though it could have been interesting. This could have been explained with better clues and subtitles to when Weyland and David spoke to the Engineer that was in the cryo-chamber or what ever the word is (the thing that was like a coffin). It is a mistake to automatically assumed that people will be interested if you keep things vague, that was a big problem with Prometheus if you don't watch it many times.

Yes I see that you wrote about something of a covenant between her and David. I wouldn't trust David for a second if I would be Daniels. I would try to shoot him as quickly as possible because he is dangerous. How will they use the character of Daniels now? Will they kill her as they did with Shaw? Will she be out of the picture? Will they show us a dead Daniels in the next movie? I don't know. If she will be dead then they got to give us a really well written lead character in the next movie, hopefully there is room for that. By looking at the ending of AC I wonder if they thought about that at all?

Living in the minds of other people as memories is a possibility but that is not like living physically.

Look at ye mighty and despair, I understand what that meant in the context of the Engineers but I didn't think about Weyland in that scene but it makes sense. So if David wants to leave his legacy the wouldn't that mean that his would also be forgotten as many things that people leave after them when they die do?

Sure they could have showed more of the Engineers but they just got bombed out of the picture. I hope that we will see more of the Engineers in the next movie so that the city we saw in AC was just one of many cities in their civilization. Maybe there were Engineers at other ides of that planet that were not affected by the goo. Hopefully we will see their home-world, that would be interesting but they got to get that right though. Perhaps they can look at how Lord of the Ring did with different environments and that? I think that this is a place where they can find inspiration from and mix that with some sort of Giger aesthetic. The Engineers could be really interesting with a clear connection to the Xeno (that could really make David envious or what ever that is with an android, ha ha).

I hope that the next movie would be more about the Engineers and their connection to the Xeno. They don't have to show the Xeno a lot, I mean Alien didn't do that but they could give it a bigger role. Another movie focused on AI would suck.

Oh yeah about incoming Engineers, I hope that they will go berserk for David and kill him. It would be interesting to see how the Engineers would reply to the destruction at the planet where David was. How will they find out who did this? Do they have advanced technology that we don't know about? Those are not rhetorical questions I am honestly curious to see how they will do this.

David as the leader “a king has reign and then he dies” so maybe this will mean that the humans kill David? I hope so. Maybe he will manage to murder some of the colonists using his monsters but it would be nice if the monsters would turn on him. Look at this as being a case of hubris and punishment and what ever you mentioned as being themes.

Maybe the feeling will be a bit like Alien 3, that would be a nice nod to it. A second version of Alien 3 would be lame but there is a difference to be inspired by and to copy. I think that they could find some good parts from 1-3 and throw into the next movie although I hope that we will see a new one.

A Dave cave? Ta-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da Dave cave! (Batman melody, LMAO!) Maybe it could be like death cave like a lab of an evil being. This is probably not something new (they idea) but it could work if it is being done right. Maybe he could use some Engineer things if possible.

Some flashbacks could be alright but only if they are necessary to the story. This is something that they managed well with in AC to its credit.

“... certainly i feel the Engineers turn up on Origae-6 towards the End... which would lead us to the Next Movie.“

I think that could be a fitting ending of the movie.

I don't want David to kill the Engineers, I would like the Engineers to kill David.

“The Backlash for Alien Covenant could indeed have him and FOX reconsider what plans they had at the time of Alien Covenants Release.“

Hopefully, if it means less artificial intelligence/robots and more and better human characters. A bit more about the Engineers would be nice. If they will make the next movie more about AI and less about humans I will become very disappointed, I would probably throw it out of the window figuratively speaking. If I would have to choose between a movie with Xenos and one about AI's I would choose the Xenos but the humans are the most important thing. The reason is the way that they have written about the AI's in the prequels, it has gotten too much attention which is bad. If they will make a movie like that then it deserves to bomb if you ask me because I would not be interested in it.

“They would have to show enough IMO in the next movie, so that if they dont do a 3rd, then we can gather enough information to paint a picture of what happened”

Sure but then that part of the movie has got to be well done, without spelling it all out if you ask me. I would prefer an answer that is vague compared to one that is spelled out and is done in a bad way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1A7IDUKPqI

"How will they find out who did this?"

This is a good point, one that logically has to be what can the Engineers make from the Carnage, a lot depends on what they know about the Black Goo and LV-223, or what they dont know.  They would then also come across Human Remains, those Eggs, all of Davids Experiments.

if they investigate the Crashed Juggernaught, they would discover it came from LV-223 and discover what appeared to be TWO Humans on board.

But the biggest clue for those Engineers would have to be the discovery of Walter, then they would noticed he looks Human but is not, and i think logically it has to come from Walter to how those Engineers could ever possibly know where David is now off too.

Characters are important, Prometheus and Alien Covenant they was just throw away ones apart from the Survivors...  but the way AC ended does not bold well for Daniels and Tennessee, which is why good character development has to come from either the Colonist which means we have to see a Colony set up where these guys are none the wiser about what happened in AC until they discover really what happened and that Walter is not Walter.

Or it has to come from a incoming company Ship...

But the set up now is to link back to ALIEN, they have to have some Human Characters Survive to move onto the next movie for it to work, so it will be tricky for how this is handled, because if the Engineers turn up we have to ask would they want any Humans to Survive?

I think if awakening is set on origae 6 with davids experiments in full swing then id say the engineers and any company ship will have to arrive roughly about the same time. perhaps have the humans arrive only to discovery what hes been up to then for the engineers to arrive and try and wipe everything on the planet out only for david to escape. I don't think they can tie into alien in just one more movie. they need at least one more after awakening and to me, the final one sees david return to the area around lv223/ lv426.

It would be cool if they return to LV223 and find the deacon on their backtracking search for David...

I agree, id love to see what became of the deacon. its a fresh inclusion into the franchise and to have leave it as is would be an opportunity wasted imo, same if we don't see more neomorphs. but I don't know if it will be lv223 we see. logic would suggest lv223 would be the desired location for david or the engineers to head for as there isn't anything on lv426, or is there. im confused. do the weyland files exist? or will it be a case of they existed just for them to entice ppl to buy the blu ray for the bonus material but now their farther along wev to forget that? im hoping there is and the derelict is already on lv426. please give the fans that at least

I meant the Engineers might go to LV223 following clues, while trying to find out where David is headed. They could have an awesome adult deacon scene even if its only a 5-10 min thing long their journey to find David. I'm interested in seeing what Orgae 6 is all about. It was described as less hospitable than Planet 4. 

don't see how going to lv223 would lead them to figure out david is headed to origae 6. only walter would be able to mention origae 6 or maybe the engineers have tech sats in orbit that captures the covenant leaving the planet.

by less hospitable u mean after david arrives or its naturally inhospitable?

My basic overview from what we have seen recently of the franchise is this, Humans discover a facility that was planning to destroy Earth. One human and an AI go and find the planet where they think the Engineers come from and destroy it by using Engineer technology.  The AI we know as David has then hijacked a colony ship and headed off to Origae 6, or maybe not.

What I think stands out here is that there is a chance the Engineers could be left with the impression that humans are more advanced than they think and are quite capable of destroying them. I think there is a case that the Engineers could over estimate human capability and might not want to seek a direct confrontation with humans.

I personally think that AC is a giant plot device and something of a filler that can be used to place David somewhere in the universe to carry out his fiendish experiments and reappear at some point with his results.

When Ridley said the beast was cooked, and looking at the role of the xeno in AC, I’m left thinking that maybe he felt that for his purposes of telling the story he wants to tell, inclusion of the xeno would not really add anything to the story apart from satisfy those that wanted to see it.

I don’t really see the next movie putting all of its spotlight onto David’s adventures on Origae 6, but I do think it will appear to some extent. My guess is that WY will send out some exploratory exploration/investigation unit to establish what happened on LV223. Something like this could imo come off as a mash up of Event Horizon and Predator. A rescue mission done as a futuristic black op for WY. Something like that could open the door to create action scenes, whilst being able to explore more about the Engineers and ending up with David’s experiments appearing on the horizon just in time to present an opportunity for the next movie down the line.

I don’t really think that the franchise has been written into a corner. I think there is still plenty of scope to recover things and keep most people happy. I just don’t expect to see many xeno’s, but more of something different.

Indeed it all goes to show how they have written themselves into a corner with AC.

When David sends the messages in the Advent Prologue, if the company had not followed up what happened to Prometheus you can be sure they would do so NOW.. They would surely send one mission to Origae-6 and find out what David was on about, and then send another to where the Prometheus went missing.

In order to try and work out where we are going next we need to look at what Alien Covenant had shown us, and then Ridley Scotts comments....

*Does it appear David is responsible for the Xenomorph?  YES

*Does it appear these sequels will link to Alien? YES

So at some point Davids Creations in their Thousands have to end up on LV-426, and in a Engineer Ship, so we have to logically ask the following.

*How does Davids TWO Face Huggers lead to Thousands of Eggs?

*How do they end up on a Engineer Ship?

*Why is a Engineer Ship in the LV-223/426 System when its far from Origae-6

These Events that Eventually will Yield us the Answers to the Derelict, and right now it appears David is off to Origae-6, with Thousands of Colonist... However he may not plan to initially turn them all into Eggs. This is because RS is pondering what kind of a World would David Create?  But this could mean he will set up Shop on Origae-6 and create THOUSANDS of Eggs from the Colonist... but this would make it a very ALIEN movie. And RS said the Xenomorph wont feature as much as AI

The Advent Prologue has set up that the Company would be in the know... we dont know how long before they receive the information, but i will assume they do so before David arrives at Origae-6, will the company send in innocents to fall foul to Davids Creations?  This makes little sense unless AI is pulling the strings.

So the company will be arriving at Oriagae-6, but also the Engineers and i feel THIS is where the Derelict will surely come from, its interesting to suggest they go to LV-223 first, but i think they would again like i said with the WY company.. Logically the Engineers would send ONE ship to Origae-6 and another to LV-223

I do get what ur saying and I agree toning back the xeno a bit would probably be in its best interests but it is the alien franchise. he could have made AC with just the neomorph. tone back on the xeno but give us something fresh and show us that david is progressing with his experiments. plus shitting on the engineers wasn't a great move in opinion.

@ Big Dave. I find it all too easy to agree with what you are saying, and that’s what bothers me. What you have pointed makes a lot of sense and appears to be a very logical progression for the general storyline. Maybe it is a little too predictable for me and that’s where I have a problem. Has Ridley really become that predictable in his story telling, or would he look for a different way to tell the story?

“…..you can be sure they would do so NOW..”  When exactly is now?

When the Prometheus did not return, was anything done about it soon after? The reason for asking this question is that if a mission went to explore what had happened to the Prometheus, surely it would have happened before the Covenant went missing. This is where I feel there is room for introducing another aspect to the overall storyline. I think it might be a big enough window of opportunity to introduce something different

One of the pilots said that Orgae 6 is less hospitable than Planet 4 while the captain was deciding whether or not to go to Planet 4. 

@ali81

Indeed the introduction of the Xenomorph, was done so poorly because it was never given enough time to do justice and the time taken on it, really did just take away time to explore either some of the Prometheus themes or the Neomorphs...

Oram should have been infected late on,  and have the Neomorphs replace the Xenomorph attack Scenes, and then have Oram taken to the Lander with David (pretending to be WALTER) and have the survivors think its Walter too.

This would allow TWO 3rd acts... either

1) Have it when the crew are settling in for their last hours on the ship before going into Cryo-sleep, that Oram then Chest Bursts and David keeps it Secret, then allowing this Xenomorph to go and hunt down Hicks and Upworth in the Shower, then give us more time where the Xenomorph can hunt down and kill LOPE before  getting killed off by Daniels...

2) As above (have LOPE Die in the Lander Escape Scene vs Neomorph) but have the surviving crew make it back and then David checks on Daniels as she goes into Cryo-sleep and have her ask how Oram is and Walter (David) say he is doing fine, i have placed him in Cryo-sleep)..  Then Proceed with the rest of the David tucking Daniels Scene in and replace the Face Hugger Embryos, with a Chest Busting Oram as the closing Scene with David looking on.

THESE would have allowed more time to be given between the build up of Characters, Neomorph Scene or the scenes that reveal what happened when David and Shaw arrived. I feel ONE of these kinds of Xenomorph Encounters, plus a extra 30 min run time would have allowed other areas of the movie to be explored in more depth and made a MUCH better movie.

@Critters5

Indeed Origae-6 must have been less ideal, but still a World that would require very little Terra-forming and this place apparently would have had Water etc, and been Habitable just maybe not as suited as Planet 4. Pretty much like on Earth certain Continents are less Fertile than others.

Big Dave:

I wonder how the Engineers would react when they saw what David had done and so on. I guess that they would not be happy but I would like to see a short scene connected to it at least. They don't need to spend a lot of time on that just some minutes (maybe two) with some dialogue that makes sense so we get some idea of what they will do next. Hopefully they will be featured in the movie enough to make an impact on the story so we don't get a movie that is totally focused on David.

It doesn't matter to me who the main characters are as long as they are sympathetic enough and well done. To me it would be a surprise if Daniels or Tennesee will survive into the next movie. My guess is that they will have to try something better with the characters that will show up in the next movie.

My idea is that the revelation that David is not Walter could be a starting-point for some interesting action scenes when that happens. Let's say that they believe that David is Walter and for some reason David starts to act suspicious so they sort of find that out and when that happens David goes crazy so we might get some action scenes like some of those scenes that we have in Aliens for example when they try to get from the Xenos in Aliens in the end when Gorman, Vasques, Hicks, Ripley and Newt try to get to the ship as far as the pacing is concerned. To me some more scenes like that could make up for the slow parts in AC if they get the characters right so we care for them. Maybe there could be some David and the monsters versus the colonist kind of action scenes although I believe that scenes that build up tension are more interesting if they end up in a way that suits the movie. I don't want action scenes just for the sake of including that to make up for AC, they got to make sense also.

Perhaps there don't need to be guns and explosions but some dark corridors and what ever. Perhaps they don't have guns so they will need to have other weapons or the guns get destroyed and what not. It doesn't have to be no guns (Alien 3) or a lot of them (Aliens) but rather that their weapon supply is limited because they never though that they would have to deal with a threat like that. Eventually this could give us some unexpected scenes in some way. With unexpected scenes I mean those that make sense in the context of the movie and that makes you react like "that was interesting and well done, good". Action and fear are two parts that I think that the next Alien movie got to have, more than AC at least but that should not be very difficult compared to what they gave us in the previous movie.
As far as a colony is concerned you have Hadleys Hope from Aliens so they could find some inspiration there. To my knowledge the only time that we have seen a colony this far is in Aliens. See how that was built and how the environment looked like (buildings, lightning, and so on) and see how you could use what was good about it and what you can do to make it different. Hopefully they will make that other colony have a sort of identity of its own so it looks different enough so to speak because there is no point in having a sort of Hadley's Hope part 2. Interesting environments is not what I am worried about when it comes to Ridley, my worries are about other things.

"But the set up now is to link back to ALIEN, they have to have some Human Characters Survive to move onto the next movie for it to work, so it will be tricky for how this is handled, because if the Engineers turn up we have to ask would they want any Humans to Survive?"

If they will act the way that the Engineer did in Prometheus then I doubt it but it would be interesting.