You can probably remember the excitement you felt when you heard the Alien and Predator franchises were going to merge. You eagerly waited in line for an opening day ticket as visions of sugarplums and face suckers danced in your head. You sat down with your popcorn and about twenty minutes into the film it happened: you thought to yourself, “What is this?”
Luckily, several minutes later, the Alien and the Predator came face to face and you thought, “Ok, now this is going to get good”
But it didn’t. It didn’t get good at all. It just got kind of weird and boring. By the end of the film you were left feeling empty, as if an Alien had just burst out of your chest and a Predator twisted both your nipples. As you sat there stunned and disappointed, the only vision that danced in your head was that of an Alien and Predator, hand-in-hand holding their paycheques and laughing all the way to the bank. What a rip-off.
And then the second movie came out and it was so bad that’s all I’m going to allow myself to say about it.
Why can’t they make a good AVP movie? It shouldn’t be that hard, here’s what they need.
Characters
This has been an extreme problem that runs as far back as Aliens 3. When was the last time you cared about one of the characters? Most of them are barely memorable. Let’s see, there are all those rapists in Alien 3, Winona Ryder in Alien 4, and the cute girl from the first AVP. No one cares if anyone else in the films is in jeopardy or gets killed. It’s not necessary to bring Ripley back somehow into the AVP franchise, but how about a decent character so that my top three memorable characters no longer includes rapists.
No Humans
If you aren’t able to create good human characters then don’t have any at all. All the humans in the AVP movies have been boring and more or less come in between sweet Alien on Predator violence. Add to that the fact they are so unlikable, who needs the humans?
Get off my planet
In the galactic rating of best planets on which to kill other alien species, Earth ranks as most boring. At least so far it has. Let’s get off Earth and see what the fight would look like on the home planet of either the Alien or the Predator. Or better yet, let’s have them travel to the home of E.T. Anywhere is better than Earth.
3-D
I’m not a huge fan of 3-D (yet) since the 3-D in Avatar made me want to literally hurl, but there are many awesome opportunities for 3-D effects in the AVP franchise. it might also work well with current technology and accessories. A 3-D chest explosion scene alone would be worth the price of admission. Or how about a 3-D scene of Predator taking off his space pants? Maybe that’s just for me.
Genre
Thus far, the AVP films (in addition to Aliens 3 and 4) have more or less been slasher films. They follow the same formula of being in an enclosed area and having either an Alien or Predator kill off the unlikable characters one-by-one. This was the template for the first Alien and it worked, but the AVP franchise needs to move into Alien 2 (and maybe even Predator 2) territory of action-adventure. It’s no longer exciting to wait for the next gruesome death until there is a final confrontation. Let’s actually have something happen that matters on a wider scale.
I don’t like the Chances
Unfortunately, we’re probably not going to get a new AVP movie with strong characters, unique story, and anything out of the ordinary. It’s too easy for the studio to plug the Alien and the Predator into a simple formula that at best showcases a few decent special effects moments. The franchise is now more along the lines of Texas Chainsaw massacre or The Hills Have Eyes than it is science fiction. Something that turns the tables or changes the genre would be welcome, but it would take a risk on the studios part – a risk that is unlikely to happen in the current climate of the safe and quick opening weekend philosophy.
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