Ridley Scott insists on continuing with his plan to make prequels to ALIEN, even though the whole endeavor is turning out rather terribly. Obviously Scott doesn't agree with my "terrible" opinion.
And honestly, even though I was underwhelmed by PROMETHEUS and didn't like ALIEN: COVENANT, I do see that the prequel series needs to have at least one more installment so it can come to a conclusion. Scott keeps ending these things on cliffhangers, so we can't just scrap the idea. We have to see what happens after COVENANT, like it or not.
I've come to terms with these prequels by discounting them from my personal ALIEN canon. It doesn't matter what they show me or what answers they give, these are just "What if?" ponderings as far as I'm concerned. I'm never going to watch the original ALIEN with the thought in mind that the Space Jockey was part of a race that created humanity, and I will never look at the xenomorph and think of it as the creation of a maniacal android. Just not going to happen.
Scott's next ALIEN prequel is currently being written, and in a new interview the filmmaker revealed some details on the story he is crafting:
There'll be three or four different players coming in to investigate, one of which will be the Engineers arriving back to find their planet decimated. Because I think those ships come and go on regular intervals. I see them as the gardeners of space.
… Where we go next is obvious. We're going to actually go to the planet. In so doing… I'm not going to tell you the story."
By "the planet", I'm assuming Scott means LV-426, the planet where the Space Jockey and xenomorph eggs were discovered in the original ALIEN. Therefore, the next movie could finally tie us directly into the events of ALIEN and we can put this prequel business to rest. I really hope so.
Whatever happens in the next prequel, it's highly likely that Michael Fassbender's android character David will be part of it. He has to be.