Alien: Covenant's Director's Cut Could Redeem The Maligned Prequel

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Here's how a director's cut of Alien: Covenant could improve the maligned prequel's reputation. Despite the original movie being a huge success, director Ridley Scott wasn't asked to return for Aliens and was absent from the franchise until 2012's Prometheus. This was a prequel exploring both the origins of mankind and the Xenomorphs themselves, though Scott made it clear in interviews he didn't include the creatures as he felt they were "cooked" due to overexposure. He later included them in his second prequel Alien: Covenant, seemingly to appease viewer — and likely, studio — expectations than any desire to revisit the monsters.

Scott essentially wanted to eject the Xenomorph from its own franchise and replace it with another «alien» form of life with android David 8 (Michael Fassbender). While an interesting idea, in theory, it's a safe bet that audiences coming to see a movie with Alien in the title would like the titular creatures to be the focus. Alien: Covenant itself suffered from many of the faults that plagued Prometheus, including unlikeable characters who often made illogical decisions just to move the story forward.

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Whether their flaws both movies explored ambitious themes such as creator vs created and aimed to be about more than monsters chasing victims around dark corridors. Alien: Covenant has its plus points, including two great performances from Fassbender as David and fellow android Walter, some well-executed setpieces, an eerie score and for expanding the mythology of the Alien movies. One thing it could benefit from is both the removal of scenes that don't work and the addition of sequences that shouldn't have been trimmed in the first place.