10 Movies That Are Basically One Big Apology
4. Alien: Covenant
Ridley Scott's Prometheus was designed to kickstart a new trilogy of movies which would eventually lead to the events of his own 1979 Alien.
Though Prometheus was generally lauded by critics for its incredible production values and Michael Fassbender's excellent performance as android David, fans were decidedly less kind to it.
Particularly grating to the ride-or-die crowd was the frequent stupidity of the scientist characters, while new introductions to Alien lore - namely the Engineers and the creation of the Xenomorphs - were hugely divisive.
Beyond that, many were left frustrated at the near-total lack of actual Xenos in the movie, save for that final scene.
Follow-up Alien: Covenant saw Scott ditching his original plan for a direct Prometheus sequel, instead crafting a new story focused on the Xenomorphs, with Fassbender dragged along for the ride in a tasty dual role.
In arguably learning the wrong lessons from Prometheus' mixed response, Scott nuked the Engineers out of existence in a single scene, killed original protagonist Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) off-screen, and had the third act devolve into a flat-out schlock-fest with a host of CGI Xenomorphs.
This was a clear case of a filmmaker trying to give fans what he thought they wanted and make up for what came before, though ironically delivering something far worse in the process.
For all its faults, Prometheus at least had ambition, philosophical intrigue, and a compelling new lead character. Covenant comparatively saw a veteran director lazily leaning back on played-out genre iconography.