Why Aliens and Predators Franchises Have Hit The Toilet.

PredAlienWarrior, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

Ok so as most of you know the Alien and Predator franchises have both gone way down hill.

ALIEN- I think we all know the Alien Franchise fell off the cliff after Alien Resurrection (And some can argue it started with Alien 3). I mean the acting and story line just started decreasing rapidly after a perfect start by Alien and Aliens. Since A-R we have seen Prometheus as a cousin to the Alien Franchise, definitely brought us back to that creepy planet and confusing yet enchanting universe, but it wasn't enough as it failed to capture what most were expecting (I loved it however).

PREDATOR- Alright Predator was awesome, we all know this, it kind of went down from Predator 2 after all the criticism, but in my opinion Predator 2 is just as good as the first (But many will argue with that). After that we got Predators which I thought was a really good step to bring viewers back to the Alien/Predator Universe. It was fun and had a lot of likable actors/characters and the Preds were cool as hell! I can honestly say that if you watch all three Predator movies you'll love the series, but what makes it go down hill is AvP (Not so much Avp:R)

Alien vs Predator/AVP:R- So AvP really set the mark for making both franchises look like shit. The Aliens were killed off as quick as they came onto the screen (Except for Grid, must have had fucking magic powers!) and they looked less like the scary monsters we saw in Alien and Aliens. The Predators looked weak as hell in the first movie, they were killed off to quickly and by the same Alien (Except for scar)and the Predator helped a human *FACE PALM*.

OK enough of AVP, now AVP:R. I think AVP:R had a lot going for it, the Predator was bad ass and they captured that pretty decently in the film (They got one thing right, kinda). The creature designs for the PredAlien and Warrior Alien were flawless in my opinion, going with the design from ALIENS was a great choice. So where did it go wrong? The filming, they made the set to dark and you couldn't see anything, making it a fail to capture the respect for the creatures that we all should have had, if we could have seen them. Also the humans were so terrible it makes me sick, that acting was B Movie worthy, maybe. But in terms of the Aliens and Predators I think they nailed it, but it was overshadowed by the terrible lighting and acting.


So thats what I got, where do you guys think the films took a wrong turn?

skull_ripper, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

That's beautiful man, it sums it up perfectly.

My opinion on the Alien franchise is thus: I feel like the whole swarming hive thing detracted from the overall scariness of the species, a solitary hunter is much more frightening than a group hunter that needs others to make the kill.

My opinion on the Predator franchise is this: Too much hero not enough hunter, I did in fact like how they did the team-up in the film Predators, but avp's version sucked more than a naughty vacuum cleaner. I like all the predator movies especially the second one, and I just don't know why its going down hill.

The AVP franchise, my opinion on it: Get rid of the hair brained fuck ups who directed them. They did way better than with the second film except for the actual actors, maybe if they combined the human interaction from the first film and the monsters from the second they might of had an "Ok" movie, but no they were two bad movies.

Deathdrop, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

Alien 3 is where things started to go downhill from a production standpoint.

DarkLioness, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

And AVPR ruined any chance of there ever being another AVP film. Even a remake.

Deathdrop, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

Here's the thing: As much as we bitch about them, would this site even exist if not for the AVP movies?

Alien, Aliens, and Predator are great movies all on their own; they're not "in the toilet." This is one of my big problems with "fandom-" all this talk of franchises as though it were some sort of sacred cow.

Those were good movies. Maybe the fact that people kept demanding they become long-running franchises is the problem... ?

skull_ripper, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

That's a distinct possibility.

-Bloo-, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

I think it's the only realistic possibility to consider.

AVP helper gather a lot of new fans, and for that I'm grateful. I would have never rekindled my interest in the franchise if it weren't for the first film and Extinction.

It's gone downhill because we value quantity over quality. Maybe not you and I, but the fanbase in general.

tawganator, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

This is me just venting:

Might have something to do with avp fans being so hard to please. There are so many avp comics and books out there that everyone has their own idea of what an avp should be. Should it lack originality and just copy the comice scene for scene or be daring and offer a different view point into the avp universe but be at the mercy of fans that don't like change and cant deal with the fact that it is not their perfect ideal movie of what avp is to them.

daveberg, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

Alien, Aliens and Alien 3 were masterpieces. The series should have ended with the death of Ripley, it was a poetic way to come full circle and end the Alien threat as we knew it.

There never should have been more than one predator film in my eyes. The first one was so spectacular that anything that came after it was bound to be lacklustre.

The AVP films? *Sigh*

In the right hands, perhaps we could have got more from them, but they were a monumental cluster fuck of epic proportions and really soiled both movie franchises. Crossovers don't really translate well to film, they generally become one sided with the directors showing favouritism due to personal bias. (Freddy vs Jason springs to mind)

Thankfully Prometheus arrived, and boy did it have that old school Alien vibe to it. I'm hoping they don't sell out in the second one and ruin it all after such a successful return to the 'Alien universe'.

concretehunter, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

I'd hardly say that the Predator Franchise is in the toilet. But i think i actually made a huge post on that here : http://www.avpuniverse.com/forum/7880.html

Blizzard, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

I wouldn't say that the aliens franchise is ruined and Prometheus was a good revival prequel film ...thing

predator has in my opinion been great on the whole and has always evolved as in always adding something new to franchise .

AVP .... no comment

PredAlienWarrior, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

@DEATHDROP I can see your argument, but eventually after all the Alien and Predator films were 'done' an Alien vs Predator was bound to happen. And the reason all of us Alien and Predator fans are upset (Maybe just me) is because they literally had the story laid out for them. By 2004 we had seen the comics, though you shouldn't base a blockbuster film off a comic (I wouldn't), some of those comics still had a better story line than AvP. Also we had seen the PC game, and then we saw the Sequel (Which honestly could have been the movie, that game was a flawless representation of the species because it didn't make any species look weaker than the other and still managed to keep all of the attributes we love about them), so I would have had no problem at all with Alien vs Predator 2 [PC] being turned into a movie.

So what am I trying to say? Yes, AvP fans are hard to please because we all have different favorites and thoughts on what could happen....but FOX continues to mess up because they aren't finding the common factors that add up. What I mean is you take a little bit of everybody's wish, you maybe throw in a bad ass Predator that is a STEALTHY and SLY HUNTER, not some monster that gets killed in two seconds because he's a 'young blood' (I think the whole ranking stuff is a bunch of bullshit, it should be strictly for fan basis for sites such as this, however, I do like Elder) and is to much on camera like Wolf was because that takes away the sneakiness we saw in Predator where he mostly observes and waits for the right moment to strike, not jumping right in guns a blazing.

And then you take the Alien, maybe a combination of the ones from the first two, they are good hiders and kill quick, but if there is a hive established they have the choice to capture you for cocooning, and not some creature that (Like wolf) jumps out into the open for an immediate death.

Then to please the humans we maybe throw in some Colonial Marines or if you don't want to go to far into the future you could throw in some bad ass characters that resemble Dutch and his team (But at this point in the ball game I think it's only right if we set it in the future, just keep it as far away from Earth as possible, in my opinion).

So you see, you take a part of everybody's wish, leave everybody satisfied, and then we wouldn't be having this discussion on why the franchises hit the toilet. (Well as long as they nail the proper filming techniques: Lighting, Camera angles, Casting, etc.)

PredAlienWarrior, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

^ But for some reason it still worked for Wolf because, I have to admit, he was bad ass as hell, but I still prefer the sneak Predator we saw in P1.

-Bloo-, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

@PAW: It's amazing how much you and I agree about the Predator system (while still liking Elders) and the measure of a single Xenomorph. But I still think the setting doesn't matter as long the execution is good.

It's fine if you liked Wolf, he was one of the few good things about AVPR (like, one of two things, maybe).

But honestly, I think it's almost sort of naive (which might not be the right word) to think you can satisfy everyone. A majority of us, yeah. But with something with so many potential paths, you're bound to have at least one person who wanted to go right when you went left.

@Dave: I dunno about the Predator films. The sequels aren't masterpieces, that's for sure, but they've been consistently passable and have actually introduced some interesting aspects of Predator lore. If we had to keep going, I'm glad they did it like this.

Let's pray they don't set the fourth movie 200 years in the future with an Arnie clone.

PredAlienWarrior, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

@BLOO Well of course, I mean your not ever going to be able to satisfy everyone, but that's why you aim for satisfying the majority...which is basically 99% of anyone on this site and other true avp fans. (BTW I cant believe I've actually met someone who agrees with me on Predator Rankings! :) )

-Bloo-, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

^Yeah, I really think the whole "honor + Blooded" stuff is overblown and overvalued by the fans. I do think something resembling an Elder Council exists, and if there ARE stable ranks, they wouldn't work like anything that's ever been on Earth. Or they would, but... well, you know.

It makes them too human. The best part about Aliens and Predators is the mystery surrounding them - they can already be played by guys in suits, which is where the similarities should end. Movies like AVP forget that.

PredAlienWarrior, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

^Exactly, I liked how at the end of Predator 2 we saw how they travel together (Well sometimes) but don't hunt together and in AvP we saw that when they hunted together everything just got fucked up....but in PREDATORS when they hunted together we never actually saw all 3 of them together killing a human. For example, Tracker went by himself to kill the people, never did we see another Predator help him. Then we saw Berserker kill the 'prisoner guy', but once again we never saw Falconer until 10 minutes later when he battled Hanzo (We actually saw him de cloak next to Berserker after he killed the dude, but he never helped him finish the kill). The only time we ever saw 2 predators together fighting was when Berserker and Classic got into it. So PREDATORS did a pretty good job at preserving that hunting style of one on one (And they managed to do it with three predators, not including classic) and not going with I got your back you've got mine crap that we saw in AVP. So my point is, when we see more than one predator(s) fighting together it takes away everything we like about the original Predator, THE ONLY EXCEPTION I could make of more than one predator is something like at the end of PREDATOR 2 (Maybe, depends if it would fit).

(On a side Note, I requested the Shadow Serpents on the clan recruitment thread, did you see it -BLOO-)

beast99, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

In my opinion i think predator and predator 2 were great films. But, predators wasnt that good. How can a guy with a sword kill a super predator? How could just a handfull of humans kill 3 super preds?


Aliens and alien were great films to, but i didnt realy care for the other 2.


Avp had a good plot but they killed off predators to easily. And the net head was like invincable. The predator also let the human help him and they cant even tell what each other are sayin. And the predators face looked cheasie.


AvpR the avp part was awesome, the predator was the coolest thing and a hardcore badass. Same with the predalien. But the human acting sucks. They could have done alot better on that part.


I think they should make a predator clan vs clan movie, but they probably wont cuz they always haveto put humans in everything and make humans win in everything.

PredAlienWarrior, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

^Well they kind of did something like that in Predators (Clan vs. clan) but I think you're talking about something on a larger scale like a mini war.

skull_ripper, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

I'd love to make a predator film with no humans in it, only predators as the main characters.

PredAlienWarrior, Xenomorph, 10 years ago

^Yeah but the problem is that unless they miraculously pulled it off, the general movie goer will think what the hell is this