No Science = Lousy Movie

Rating: 1/10 (7 October 2017)

I'm not going to re-visit the excellent critiques here - just add something mostly missing about why Covenant - and to some extent Prometheus - went so wrong. It's about Ridley Scott himself.
Scott is scientifically illiterate - and thus his heavy science-dependent movies fail in every regard whether analyzed from a character or story line viewpoint. They all have the same science - bereft 'Scott-like' point of view meaning why all the characters are completely out of place in a futuristic movie and do things characterized repeatedly (and accurately) as 'dumb'. They simply don't belong in what he's trying to sell. Some set advice from ANY person versed in 21st century science would massively benefit his movies.
'The Martian' - highly rated and great story-telling with science as its bedrock - strands Matt Damon's character due to the impossible - a wind storm the likes of which don't exist on Mars due to low atmospheric pressure. There are a zillion things to go wrong on a Mars mission - just not the one Scott chooses. Why? Because he doesn't know any better I suspect or worse doesn't care.
So too with the idiocies of Prometheus and even worse on Covenant. Take someone from the 1800's riding a horse and put them on a spaceship in the 22nd century and you get the basic character outline gone wrong in these movies. You don't know what you don't know based on listening to his interviews - and he doesn't seem to know very much science.
Just think how much better Prometheus would be if rudimentary science was followed by the characters and it wouldn't detract one bit from the final outcome - far from it - the movie could have been a classic with the 'right' people in a horrible situation. Many if not most of the plot holes disappear and add a 2001 like mystery to something believable.
From this point of view 'Alien Covenant' is unsalvageable. Even the part he should get right (without science) fails - the lack of any character interest. Space ships around other planets in our solar system are now an everyday reality and the bar for sci-fi will continue to increase. You dump the science and you're not going to get a very believable movie.
Perhaps a tip for his next one?