10 Worst Sci-Fi Movie Prequels
9. Alien: Covenant
As much as Alien fans love to bag on Prometheus, at least Ridley Scott's first prequel to his hit sci-fi franchise brought a totally unique vision to the table, elevated by its visually stunning world-building, Ripley-worthy lead in Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace), and Michael Fassbender's terrific performance as android David.
Despite its many flaws, Prometheus left fans intrigued to see where Shaw and David's journey would take them, and so disappointment abounded when follow-up Alien: Covenant made an unnecessary dramatic pivot.
Due to the divisive fan response to Prometheus, Scott decided to shift away from the sequel's original intended plotline to make it more of a conventional Alien sequel.
As such, the Engineers were literally nuked out of the franchise, Shaw got an extremely unsatisfying off-screen death, and the Xenomorph was dusted off to try and milk fan nostalgia for every drop it was apparently worth.
But at its core, Alien: Covenant felt like a soulless, half-baked rehash of the better entries into the franchise, while continuing to stock its roster with idiot characters ahead of an hilariously predictable twist ending.
The only real saving grace was Fassbender's marvelous dual performance as opposed androids David and Walter, and the fact that the film's commercial failure ensured the planned sequel never materialised.