Alien vs. Predator 2 - Official Movie Thread

[thundergod]

Reality check people ! Anyone expecting a movie of the quality of the the first 2 ( or 3 arguably!) Alien movies or the first Predator movie is going to be disappointed . That is a fact and what happened with the 1st AvP .( I personally thought it was a pretty good effort). We haven't had a successful ( and I mean Box Office successful) entry in either franchise for 20 or so years . Think about it , Predator 2 , Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection ALL stiffed at the Box Office . As far as Fox are concerned , these franchises are never going to warrant the huge budget afforded to other Genre movies/franchises . Especially as talent such as Cameron , Scott and Weaver will no longer touch them with a barge-pole! The best we can hope for is for the movie(s) not to stink too much ! And if we get an entertaining, cheesy B-Movie , well , so be it . I for one can live with that .

 

[FACEBOX]

Reality check people ! Anyone expecting a movie of the quality of the the first 2 ( or 3 arguably!) Alien movies or the first Predator movie is going to be disappointed . That is a fact and what happened with the 1st AvP .( I personally thought it was a pretty good effort). We haven't had a successful ( and I mean Box Office successful) entry in either franchise for 20 or so years . Think about it , Predator 2 , Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection ALL stiffed at the Box Office . As far as Fox are concerned , these franchises are never going to warrant the huge budget afforded to other Genre movies/franchises . Especially as talent such as Cameron , Scott and Weaver will no longer touch them with a barge-pole! The best we can hope for is for the movie(s) not to stink too much ! And if we get an entertaining, cheesy B-Movie , well , so be it . I for one can live with that .

That's why I bought the Quadrilogy boxed-set. That way I can "pep myself back up" after watching things like AVP.

 

[DarkArtist81]

Sad but true.... But is still hold out for some talented new director to give us something to be excited about. Aliens was really a cheap film, Cameron just did everything he could with the cheap budget and it paid off big time. I know it IS possible, but someone who actually gives a rats a$$ about making a great Alien film should step forward and deliver.

And so I will always hope that the next one will be the one to do that, even if it never happens.

 

[Reinhardt]

true true...

also consider that with such talented filmakers of Cameron, Scott, and McTiernan, they didn't even need huge budgets to put out a great film!! The first Alien's budget was around 8 million!!!!!!

 

[DarkArtist81]

true true...

also consider that with such talented filmakers of Cameron, Scott, and McTiernan, they didn't even need huge budgets to put out a great film!! The first Alien's budget was around 8 million!!!!!!

Exactly! They used a LOT of trick photography to sell the shots, like the painted backgrounds for exterior shots and the force perspective shots for the hive areas. They did a lot with what they had, damn near nothing. And somehow they managed to make just a few Alien suits (less than 10) look like several hundred. Plus, set lighting really paid off for them. If you light a set properly you can create mood and depth that isn't really there.

The trailer for this film looks promising to me, but then again so did the first AVP. I will just wait and see how I feel once it comes out. At least they look scary again, one of the main things wrong with AVP was the lack of fear and suspense. It just didn't have a bit of that going for it. The basic story was interesting and the design was good... but character depth and fear was sorely lacking.

Building suspense and fear in an audience can sell your film more than any amount of marketing can. Jaws, Predator and Alien are great examples of this. You hardly saw the creatures, but you knew it was there. And the feeling of dread made you more terrified than any amount of in your face imagery can. By the time the shark came up out of the water when Brody was chumming, when the Predator revealed himself or when the Alien had his moment in the ducts with the Captain... your fear was so built up by then that it was already legendary in your mind. The object of fear already had a legacy. You were terrified before you even knew...

That is what is missing in modern film.

 

[darthviper107]

You know what I just realized, which is kind of odd, but it's not Alien Vs. Predator, its Aliens Vs. Predator this is going to be crazy. I hope that they have a human character in somewhat the role of Ripley, that would make it great.

 

[DarthNeil]

Watched the trailer today and the 2 minutes that were shown make me optimistic that this A vs P might be quite good...

 

[Khev]

Building suspense and fear in an audience can sell your film more than any amount of marketing can. Jaws, Predator and Alien are great examples of this. You hardly saw the creatures, but you knew it was there. And the feeling of dread made you more terrified than any amount of in your face imagery can. By the time the shark came up out of the water when Brody was chumming, when the Predator revealed himself or when the Alien had his moment in the ducts with the Captain... your fear was so built up by then that it was already legendary in your mind. The object of fear already had a legacy. You were terrified before you even knew...

Agreed, but of course one huge advantage those three films had was that the audience had never seen the "monster" from each movie before. We really didn't know what to expect. Its much more difficult in a sequel to go back to that kind of suspense. It just reinforces the genius of James Cameron in almost changing the genre to a war movie and giving us a different, but still equal, kind of visceral experience altogether. It can be done, yes with a great deal of inspiration that is extremely (apparently) hard to come by, but it can still be done nonetheless. I think its too bad that 20 years later there isn't an established director who wants to say "Hey, I grew up with these films, I love them and want them to be great again," who will take over the reigns. Imagine if Peter Jackson, or Chris Nolan, or Gore Verbinksi were diehard Alien/Predator fans....

 

[thundergod]

All the comments in the above posts are true , but when discussing budget , you've got to remember that in 1978/9, £8 million was actually quite a serious amount for a "genre" film , and the original Alien was one of Fox's major releases of the year . Consider that nowadays ,when the average "non-genre" movies budget can be approaching $70-$80 million , a space -set , futuristic addition to a franchise which has a rather unreliable history at best , can seem rather risky to say the least . It is also worth remembering of course , that the S.F/Horror/Fantasy genres have ALWAYS been the poor relation to the mainstream and talent such as Cameron , Carpenter , Romero and the like have always thrived while working under limitations of budget etc. One of the advantages of recent leaps forward in digital effects is that low budgets do not always result in "shoddy" effects , but obviously this is all reliant on who is "calling the shots" (literally!). My point really, is that the "B-Movie" is not something to be ashamed and afraid of , after all , many of the films we ( at least the older of us ) love , started life as low budget exploitation pieces and you never know , AvP could turn out to be a classic!
Let's at least be a little optimistic eh guys? ( By the way , this "Trailer" isn't actually a trailer, it's a presentation clip shown at a convention , so it is aimed at "fans", not the general public . )

 

[Kuzeh]

I like what I see so far!!
Can't wait!

 

[MaulFan]

My only big concern with this trailer is that the gore will be done in a manner just for cheap SAW type thrills and not a functional part of the story. Yes, the first Predator was brutal with skinned bodies and all, but in the end, most of the brutality joined with the isolation of the environment to raise the stake's for the military group. However, some of the things in this trailer look like the only purpose they serve is to woo the audience with cheap thrills, and that's not smart filmmaking, that's...I don't know how to articulate it, but it's another small touch which sets apart these films from the stories they're based on.

 

[KitFisto]

I am willing to wager that when all is said and done there will be people who like this film and people who hate this film.

I know I am going out on a limb there, but someone had to.

 

[Shai]

GORE RULES.....

 

[MaulFan]

GORE RULES.....

It does, but there are levels and uses of it, and used wrongly it can cheapen a film.

As Cameron describes about his mindset going into Aliens, you don't need to be gory to be effective, it's more about the suspense of what could or is going to happen and that's why the first 2 Alien films were successful; it wasn't about seeing some creature rip humans apart, it was about fearing a creature lurking around and you don't know when it'll strike, but you were shown enough to know if it strikes, you're in trouble. Again, that's what I feel the gore was for in Predator, to build up bit by bit that Dutch's team was in big trouble and up against something with the odds very much against him, and the intensity of what the Predator could do built up more and more leading to the climax of the film and upping the stakes as much as they could.

Some gore effects from this trailer look like cheap shock value thrills that'll be fun to watch for sure, and I think this will be an entertaining movie for action and thrills, but in the end, I don't think it'll be a quality film like the originals.

What's really funny to me is how many of us on these boards understand what made the first films succeed, yet these hollywood boneheads making sequels claim to know and promise to deliver it in their film, and each one fails in that.

 

[IrishJedi]

The worst thing about the trailer is that there is at least an 80% probability that it spoils 100% of the best moments/shots from the movie.

 

[p!tu]

The worst thing about the trailer is that there is at least an 80% probability that it spoils 100% of the best moments/shots from the movie.

IM sure your right!!

 

[Reinhardt]

The worst thing about the trailer is that there is at least an 80% probability that it spoils 100% of the best moments/shots from the movie.

precisely why i haven't seen it, and won't until the movie comes out!!

i think last year at comic con, for AVP, they showed two fights, the only two fights in the damn movie!!!

 

[Kuzeh]

Well, Colin Strause said on AvP Galaxy that this aren't all the moneyshots, that there's still plenty of cool stuff that won't be shown in the trailers.

Even though it looks a little gory, it kind of gives me a Predator 2 vibe, rather than an Aliens one, but who knows, we'll have to wait and see!! I'm just so excited to see this guys on the big screen again!!

 

[usmcchet9296]

The trailer actually looks real good
here it to hoping that the rest of the movie is too

 

[creature4000]

ok.. the first AvP (actually FvJ) set the tone as how these series are going to play out. They are films for fun.. nothing more nothing less.

Of course I'd rather have all the Alien vs Pred films carry the tones from their first films... but they didn't... they made them semi corny and entertaining for all veiwers, instead of bad arse for the hard core fans!

I do think this will be way better then the first AVP, but if your expecting Aliens 2 (Marines) vs Predator (Arnolds). You will be very disapointed!