- First, I note with surprise that there are only 12 hits for "alien vs predator" "slash fiction".
I hate that it took place on Earth. This completely undermines one of the best moments in Aliens: "If just one of those things get down here then that will be all! And all this bullshit that you think is so important, you can kiss all that goodbye!" Oh, but oops, they were here all along and nobody noticed. Way to invalidate Ripley's whole motivation. This pissed me off almost as much as how the killed off Newt before the credits in Alien 3 (AKA "way to invalidate the last half of the second movie.")
They fucked up the life cycle: the aliens go from egg to face-hugger to chest-burster to full-grown in literally ten minutes. Not only did that cycle take almost two days in the previous movies, it just drives home the whole question of where the hell did all that mass come from? With a longer life cycle you can guess that maybe there was time for it to, you know, eat something.
At the end (and presumably this was some ham-handed sequel bait) they leave an Alien Queen alive on Earth! Oh, but she sank in the Antarctic ocean. Yeah, I'm sure the water will hurt her in a way that hard vaccuum didn't. Again, way to invalidate the setup of Aliens.
Moving walls: just plain stupid.
The effects are good. When Alienses are actually fighting Predators, it's pretty spiffy. Pretty much everything else sucks. They waste 30 minutes introducing you to boring characters who won't ever get another useful thing to say or do for the rest of the movie; the setup is contrived, the ending is stupid. Run towards the camera in slow motion!
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I haven't read the Alien vs. Predator comics (I could smell the stink on that shit from a mile away) so maybe some of this made more sense there (but I doubt it.)
I enjoyed it while it was on, because big monsters hitting each other are cool, but it left a really nasty aftertaste. This is no Freddy vs. Jason. Hell, it's not even as good as Alien 3. It's probably better than Predator 2, though.
but was it better than highlander 2?
There is no Highlander 2.
. . . Because there can be only one?
Har.
ya know, I actually kinda like Predator 2. But maybe it was just all the hanging cow carcases.
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I liked it for the soundtrack, for some reason.
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Totally agree. Plus I got the impression they were using the "AVP in 5 minutes" version of the script. It was definately like watching a pr0n with too much plot.
While i agree that the fights were cool, and I agree with your amount of enjoyment of it, here are some more problems:
The walls moving every 10 minutes. They moved like 3 times, then they stopped... that was it.
10 minutes is not a deciday or something like that... sure... it's metric, based on *our* time system, but not *theirs*
I thought the life cycle was:
- queen lays egg
- face hugger emerges from egg
- face hugger implants itself on a human's face
- face hugger turns to chest burster in human's body
- creature emerges from human's chest
- ???
- profit!
I thought they needed a human in the loop, what with the sacrificing and all... with 12 people on the expedition, how did they end up with the armies of aliens?
I thought the Alien creature count was about right. The scene with the army rushing the few Predators was a flash back.
If you take Alien^3 as canon, the face hugger doesn't necessarily have to impregnate a human... the thing A3 added to the mythology was that the soldier alien kinda took the form of its host.
I liked it, the dialog was poor, but it's an action movie, there are geography and physics problems galore (penguins in antarctica, can't see their breath, remarkably few clothes for antarctica), but the action was great and I liked the ending quite a bit, it tied the stories together better than I thought it would.
If you go in looking for good action, and a willingness to overlook things like plot and dialog, I think you will have a good time. Even my wife liked it, especially how they gave the Predators a personality.
-cb
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There are penguins in Antartica. So they got something right.
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Yes, but there are no aliens. That's where they screwed up.
Oh and what was with the alien having the predator mandibles at the end of the movie?
-RearKick
It is like the dog (or bison, depending on edit) Alien from 3. I think it was introduced that Aliens take on some characteristics of the body they incubate in.
Here's the problem: There's *rarely* snow in Antarctica. Not never, but when they're first getting there, it looks like a frickin' Wisconsin winter. IIRC, A has the same amount of precipitation as your average desert.
I'm pretty sure this was the worst movie I've ever seen; I'd argue that even Alien Resurrection was better. But it was entertaining; you can't really expect anything more than big monsters hitting each other. Though really, there could have been more of that.
I'm scared that they seem to think there is actually a sequel to be made of it...
In many ways, invalidating parts of the second movie is one of the most positive features of the third.
I think they were going for the uber minority on that one.. who survives? A black female Antarctic mountain climber...
"I defeated the alien menance and all I got was this lousey predator spear. Maybe I can sell it on ebay."
Actually, I was referring to the Aliens series. Though I'm sure it's as applicable to the Predators, too.
My two cents:
http://www.livejournal.com/~marcus132/42059.html
Screenplay by Paul Anderson = the plot will be retarded.
The most irritating thing, other than the bad dialogue, inept acting, and retarded screenplay, was that the movie was called (hello!) "Aliens versus Predator" but you only get about 10 minutes of screen time (if that) of *any* AvP smackdown action.
To which i say a holy and resounding WHAT THE FUCK?
If you are going to call a movie AvP i want a motherfucking war. Insted what we got was like a drunken bar-room brawl. FUCK THAT.
Incidentally, i think i'm going to start a petition to remove Paul Anderson from Hollywood.
The fight scene in "Matrix: Revelations" between Neo and Agent Smith was more dramatic than the fights between the Aleins and Predators. Eh, it was good for what it was.
For a minute, I thought you were referring to a different Paul Anderson, and, while I was surprised that he had worked on this project, I was having a hard time disagreeing.
Hahahaha. Yes, that movie was a royal turd as well.
late response to all of this....
Anderson tries to respond back to everything i've heard anyone bitch about in regards to this movie here.
I remember the comics being very good, and not full of holes, and not shitting on the respective franchises the way this film did.
Then again, I was fourteen when I read them. Maybe a grown up would disagree.
32 year-old failing to disagree here.
They weren't amazing, but they were actually rather good. And they weren't set on earth. And pretty much everyone died. But the dialogue was good, as was the plotting.