I don't know if there would really be any satisfactory way to explore the Engineer story. Any story about why the Engineers turned on their own creations would be driving away from the xenomorph stuff, and it is hard to tell such a dense and philosophical story inside of a 2 hour monster movie. It was probably always a mistake to begin with. Take the xenomorph and just find new ways to put them in different positions and locations. That is all you really need to do.
Idk if it undoes it, does it? I'd have to watch Covenant again it's been a while. I've seen Prometheus more because it's been on TV more. But I feel like the basic order of operations was... 1. Engineers make people 2. Engineers for whatever reason decide to genocide their human creation with some sort of DNA altering chemical 3. Dude infected with that chemical gets some in his cummies and it helps him create a weird dna spliced baby in his barren wife 4. This new creation mix of the weird DNA chemical and human creates giant alien speciies face hugger 5. Face Hugger with human DNA mixed in impegnates the Engineer 6. That chemcial dna/human/engineer hybrid births a vaguely xenomorph creature 7. David continues to experiment with the chemical DNA stuff on what we think is possibly the Engineer home planet(?), obsessed with creating something that is "perfect" 8. He eventually finds the right combo with the human DNA to create the xenomorphs Unaswered questions yeah but I don't think it necessarily cancels out the lore laid down in Prometheus. I just hate that gap where we don't know how/why David knew the results of his little infection of Shaw's husband. He saw the baby inside Shaw but as far as I can remember, he never saw how big it got, that it had facehugged the engineer, etc. So how would he know to try to accomplish that? Or did he not know and it's just the human DNA factor that brings all that into the equation?
Also I read some pretty convincing theories based on like the unedited script in stuff about why the Engineers turned on the humans
The end of Prometheus teases contact with the Engineers. After failing to deliver what people thought they were getting with Prometheus, they could at least hope for the sequel. Instead, they kill off Shaw off-screen and then the Engineers are wiped out in a flashback. It is like taking a giant eraser to the previous movie. It is arguably worse than the crash killing off everyone else at the beginning of Alien 3.
Oh yeah THAT stuff it basically just hand waves like "oh yeah and also the engineers all died now" lol. I just meant the lore it established with the role engineers played in the eventual creation of the xenomorph
It was definitely all a mistake. it’s a great example of cheaper ideas becoming an explanation for something that was originally creative and mystifying. Alien makes your brain accept that a parasitic biomechanical alien may be a horrifying reality in the vastness of space and the movie naturally shocks you with its set pieces. It’s presented effortlessly. Prometheus and Covenant are just obsessed with getting to some gruesome punchlines, all the while ruining all the otherworldly wonder and terror. And consequently making it more human rather than alien - completely antithetical.
Even though Romulus looks to be a complete return to the original lore I’m still assuming there will be a new mechanical idea in there somewhere. Each movie has had one or more. It’s not that new ideas are bad it’s that bad ideas are bad.
could've sworn i saw somewhere that leaks from test screenings indicate that Romulus might give passing mention to Prometheus and Covenant somehow
secured tix for tomorrow night's 45th anniversary showing of the first movie! really excited to watch this on the big screen. they're also gonna air the full conversation between Ridley and Fede, which should hopefully be insightful.
Wow! Yeah, gonna try to catch it next week after work one night. With any luck, I'll be catching Abigail and Civil War tomorrow night.
45th anniversary showing was a fun time. would've been perfect, but the guy in front of me at the concession stand ordered $40 worth of food and made me miss the title sequence, lmao
I got a free box of junior mints last night by accident when I saw Civil War and Abigail, so that was a win