Alien V Predator : Requiem

jackdaw

What an absolute pile of shít ... The 1st one was bad enough .. but at least it
had some cool fighting scenes .. this one doesn't even have that ... absolute
crap from beginning to end ..

pure TWADDLE ...


How is this accepted ? money I'd guess .. but im amazed it manages to make money tbh.

And another thing that pisses me off about this AVP bollox .. it has ruined any
plans of an Alien prequel ... I read Ridley Scott said that he would like to have done Alien 5 -- as maybe a prequel .. and to go back to the Alien's homeworld .. sounded like a nice idea and with Scott behind it could have been great..

but thanks to those that Paul WS Anderson + those other idiots who made the 2nd...
thats been shot to hell .. so thanks to him for not only introducing a series of absolute **** .. but to stop maybe a decent film from being made...

Karl Hungus

Yeah, turgid piece of horse**** alright.

jackdaw wrote: »

who is apparently behind this new 28 months later (another pile of shiit in the making im sure)

No he isn't.

jackdaw

Karl Hungus wrote: »

Yeah, turgid piece of horse**** alright.



No he isn't.

OK corrected..

chin_grin

jackdaw wrote: »

What an absolute pile of shít ... The 1st one was bad enough .. but at least it
had some cool fighting scenes .. this one doesn't even have that ... absolute
crap from beginning to end ..

pure TWADDLE ...


How is this accepted ? money I'd guess .. but im amazed it manages to make money tbh.

And another thing that pisses me off about this AVP bollox .. it has ruined any
plans of an Alien prequel ... I read Ridley Scott said that he would like to have done Alien 5 -- as maybe a prequel .. and to go back to the Alien's homeworld .. sounded like a nice idea and with Scott behind it could have been great..

but thanks to those that Paul WS Anderson arsehole .. who is apparently behind this new 28 months later (another pile of shiit in the making im sure)
thats been shot to hell .. so thanks to him for not only introducing a series of absolute **** .. but to stop maybe a decent film from being made...

Agree, it was like a cross between Not Another Teen Movie meets Aliens. I didn't care for the characters, the horror/action was so-so. And all in all it just left me with a bad taste in my wallet. Terrible flick. And to be honest it shouldn't be boxed with any Aliens/Predator set.....ever....I mean the first was better, and that's saying something! (Isn't it?)

lostexpectation

hmm i think i bought the directors cut , it was funnier, cos they showed more beheadings and slice and diced humans

jackdaw

lostexpectation wrote: »

hmm i think i bought the directors cut , it was funnier, cos they showed more beheadings and slice and diced humans

Don't support it!!!!!

and by the ending looks like there will be a 3rd made ...

again .. has ruined chances of Ridley scott making another decent Alien flick..

Karl Hungus

jackdaw wrote: »

and by the ending looks like there will be a 3rd made ...

I don't really think there will be. The film really didn't do very well, so I'd say it effectively killed the series.

jackdaw

Karl Hungus wrote: »

I don't really think there will be. The film really didn't do very well, so I'd say it effectively killed the series.

one hopes ... but the problem is .. these films make their money on DVD sales and special eds .. etc .. and they sell .. so ...

Honey-ec

Cinematic vomit of the highest (or should that be lowest) order.

It also gets my Golden Rasberry for the worst line ever uttered in a film - "People are dying - we need more guns!"

jackdaw

yeah that 24 actress .. she must have been hard up for work ...

Kiith

I liked it

Ah no, i didnt. Was pretty **** all right. Although it fixed one thing that i didnt like about the first one. Predators are supposed to be badass. And two of them in the first one got killed by a single alien (each). Balls to that.

Mackman

Kiith wrote: »

Although it fixed one thing that i didnt like about the first one. Predators are supposed to be badass. And two of them in the first one got killed by a single alien (each). Balls to that.

Well i think the story of the first one was that the two predators that were killed were ameteurs, they were there on a training mission. thats what the whole complex was for. and the last dude was the teacher, i.e. he knew what he was doin.

The first one was ok, could have been soooooo much better. the second one was ablsolute ****e!

bullvine

We need another Alien film, there is to many loose ends, they never expanded anything in the Alien universe, I want to see the Alien Home world and see them get to Earth. I'd love to see one by Aronofsky or Chris Nolan, or get Fincher back to do a proper one.

Most Film Makers grew up watching Aliens I would have thought, I think they are afraid to touch it.

ryoishin

They had so much potential with this.

I liked the idea of the 2nd one and prefared it to the first. But this should have always been set in the future IMO.

faceman

I can really see one of the Alien films being remade at some stage in the future.

BlitzKrieg

now everyone b*tches about it.


When it first came out, alot of people defended it and I felt like I was all alone in calling it genocide on a cinematic scale.


God I hate this film so much

Galvasean

Honey-ec wrote: »

It also gets my Golden Rasberry for the worst line ever uttered in a film - "People are dying - we need more guns!"

What about "So, are you looking at me or the clock?" At this point my mate turns to me and says "It's half past two" - legend.


AVP2 could have been a stroke of comic genuis had they altered one scene slightly; the bit where you see the Pred meticulously preparing himself then being launched off in his pod, then landing in the lake...
If only they added an extra bit showing his life support going flat-line, then text saying "changing trajectory - launching pod 2". Then we see another Pred pod land beside the lake...

Karl Hungus

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

now everyone b*tches about it.


When it first came out, alot of people defended it and I felt like I was all alone in calling it genocide on a cinematic scale.


God I hate this film so much

It's true, this thread paints a very different picture, but then again, Havok hasn't posted yet.

The film was god-awful, and your rants at the time were fairly justified, I just cannot get why people were defending at as brainless action gorefest, when there are plenty of good examples of brainless action gorefests like Planet Terror and Rambo 4, which are actually great films in their own right. Yeah, some good mindless fun can be greatly enjoyable, but AVP:R had turgid 80's slasher movie hand-me down characters, none of who any real human being could connect with, nails-on-a-blackboard dialogue, cliche after cliche that insults the intelligence, none of which is enjoyable in any way, shape or form.

Galvasean

Looking back AVP1 almost looks good by comparison... almost.

FionnMatthew

I don't see why it ruins any chances of a mainstream Alien prequel, etc...

It's not as if these films were canon in an sense of the word, right?

The AVP comics are in a world of their own anyway, as are the books, etc.

It's just an exploitative use of the Giger monster. It barely happened as far as I'm concerned. Doesn't exist.

That said, I don't think Alien Resurrection was canon either, despite being an enjoyable flick.

AFAIC, Alien is the masterpiece, and Aliens was the kick-ass James Cameron sequel. Alien3 was just the low key conclusion of Ripley's story.

And it ends there. Plenty of scope for expansion elsewhere, but meanwhile ignoring the AVP series, and ep 4: Resurrection - or at least leaving it well enough alone in terms of its story that fans needn't consider it canon if they don't want to.

TBH, I think the strength of the original Alien, what I'd really like to see more of, was that atmosphere of scope and loneliness in the first half of the movie. The vastness of space, the fragility of the Nostromo's crew, the gothic allusions of the Jockey ship and the industrial atmosphere of the Nostromo - the sense that huge things are happening amid this small crew, that there are invisible hands pulling threads from afar - the slow, sumptuous exposition of the plot and the sense of awe and wonder that are just perfectly conveyed by Scott's cinematography.

If they were to make another Alien movie, I wish they'd stop paying tribute to the (awesome) Aliens, and try to appropriate some of the greatness of the original. Get a really solid cast (such a solid cast!), no Ripley, no familiar faces at all, avoid the stereotypes that we see so prevalent in the sequels - keep it real naturalistic and low key - and set that against a backdrop of epic happenings and incredible visuals - evocative of all the atmospherics I mentioned earlier. And take it slow. Real slow and stately. Like a Kubrick epic. Build up the plot in slow, graded layers, perhaps to a quick and brutal conclusion. Pacing is all important. That's what the franchise has lost sight of progressively ever since.

And then maybe they could open up the story-type a bit. Alien was part-hardSF, part claustrophobic horror - Aliens was a war movie.

Perhaps there is room for a "quest" type story in here - the which we see a lot of in hard SF. Has anyone ever read localroger? His stuff is awesome and huge, and has that minimal characterisation that the first Alien movie was all about. Something to do with the Jockey, perhaps, but not demystifying all of that too much - because that remains part of the appeal of the original Alien movie - so little is known - and things should stay that way. I'd also like to see some backstory for the Xenos, but again not too much, and certainly not an origin story - any story they could come up with would never match the fear inherent in the uncertainty of their origin.

And please, no more of this Predator nonsense. The Predator movies were great 80s kill-fests, and very enjoyable, but they don't touch the SF-artistry of the Bannon/Scott/Giger Alien.

TerrorFirmer

I was never an overly huge fan of Predator or Aliens; in fact, probably my least favourite Aliens film was Alien 3, my favourite, Alien Resurrection - I also thought Predator 2 was a load of ****, not quite as bad as Alien 3, but close. I'd honestly rather watch AVP again then be forced to sit through Alien 3, though that's like taking a pint of vinegar over a pint of piss. I'm not saying I don't like Alien and Aliens - I really do, but because these films to me are just enjoyable action films and not much else, I don't particularly care what source the proceeding titles in the franchise shadow, pay tribute to, or even outright ignore - and for that reason I enjoyed AVP2 immensely as a mindless action film, that finally delivered on the gore that AVP failed on. Don't care that they ignored that, don't care that this didn't make sense, don't care that the character profiles don't match preceeding movies - don't care at all, I think you get the idea. I do understand though, because I was incredibly pissed off at Starship Troopers 3 as a rabid fan of the first (and even second), whereas others enjoyed it as an 'alright bit of mindless action' - now of course, there are people who don't care for Aliens and Predator either and still found AVP2 a worthless feature, but the majority of the hyper-negative criticism comes from big fans - look at the original review thread for the movie, the vast majority found it a decent film. Which prompted that minor stress induced stroke mentioned above by Blitzkreig...:)

Karl Hungus

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

I enjoyed AVP2 immensely as a mindless action film, that finally delivered on the gore that AVP failed on.

This is where we don't see eye to eye, because I can enjoy mindless action, and I like a lot of B-movies, in spite of the flaws, some crappy films have some redeeming features that you can focus on.

Case in point, Flight of the Living Dead. I use this as an example, because we both enjoyed it. It's a pretty bad film, but there was a lot of endeering qualities, not the least of which was David Chisum and Kevin J. O'Connor, they really held the film together and made it a fun romp.

AVP2 on the other hand, didn't have any redeeming features at all. Every single character in the film was annoying.

BlitzKrieg

as I said in the review thread, the minor stress induced stroke came about more so because when someone says mindless enjoyable crap and then sticks a score of 9/10, 8/10, 7/10 on it it drives me up the wall. Which is what alot of reviews in that thread did.

They admited the film looked crap, was badly put together, had a story the equivilent of two planks of wood being slapped together and the acting was as invigerating as the interview with said planks of wood post slapping.

and then they slap 8/10 onto the review because it was gory and entertaining.


?

AHHH

*kill*

gory and entertaining is 5/10 or at most (if its REALLY entertaining or super gory) 6/10.

TerrorFirmer

I absolutely agree, but that was also part of the joy - you're sick of this clichee band of stereotypes, and then the girlfriend goes and gets herself nailed to the wall Sort of like the new Day of the Dead, it pokes a little fun at the predictability of the cast.

I'm not saying the movie wasn't without major faults, but on the whole I couldn't not enjoy it because those flaws, for me, were secondary. When I go to see a film, particularly a film acting as an immediate sequel to an already established as terrible movie, about intergalactic aliens fighting other intergalactic aliens, I don't particularly hold high hopes for a cast laden with accolades of the industry. Others will, naturally, expect much more, holding the originals in such high esteem - I just never particularly cared for them so that expectation is lost on me and I can afford to ignore the bad parts and applaud the good parts, even if they appeal to the lowest form of entertainment. It's why I watch so many Steven Seagal movies.

Galvasean

It's no Commando or Shoot 'em Up.
It just wasn't funny enough to be labeled an enjoyable brain-at-the-door romp.

Necronomicon

Kiith wrote: »

Ah no, i didnt. Was pretty **** all right. Although it fixed one thing that i didnt like about the first one. Predators are supposed to be badass. And two of them in the first one got killed by a single alien (each). Balls to that.

That was my biggest issue with the first AVP as well, and it's probably the one redeeming feature of AVP:R. On the flip side, though, the aliens were absolute fodder.

I remember coming out thinking there was a better portrayel of the predator, but I still felt pretty underwhelmed. The ending in particular irked me - it was the ultimate sitting on the fence in terms of which franchise 'won'.

A while back I read the first AVP novel (I think it was the first anyway) which the first film is loosely based on. It's pretty much the same plot, but on another planet. Good read.

BlitzKrieg

the first avp story I believe was the mini comic series which set the plot on a sort of desert outback planet. It was actually a very good plot and a great mixing of the two franchises.

Though a big chunk of it wouldnt be workable in a film.

Necronomicon

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

the first avp story I believe was the mini comic series which set the plot on a sort of desert outback planet. It was actually a very good plot and a great mixing of the two franchises.

Though a big chunk of it wouldnt be workable in a film.

That actually sounds like the same story, so maybe the book was based on the comics. As you said, a lot of it wouldn't have adapted well to the big screen, but the spine of the plot was used. I actually found myself appreciating the first AvP a bit more after reading it (story-wise), even if it did lack in a lot of other places.

This is the book I'm talking about btw: http://www.amazon.com/Prey-Aliens-Predator-Steve-Perry/dp/0752816551/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223650315&sr=1-3

It's part of a trilogy. The second and third were pretty poor unfortunately.

BlitzKrieg

yep thats the first mini series of the comics.


the sequel was collected from an alien series (called Berserker) a 2 part avp special (called Duel, introducing the first Predalien) and then a 4 part special bringing all 3 plotpoints together called WAR.


which wasnt as good as the original.


but the system laid out in the first series of how the predators and aliens are linked I thought was quite good.

FionnMatthew

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

I was never an overly huge fan of Predator or Aliens; in fact, probably my least favourite Aliens film was Alien 3, my favourite, Alien Resurrection - I also thought Predator 2 was a load of ****, not quite as bad as Alien 3, but close. I'd honestly rather watch AVP again then be forced to sit through Alien 3, though that's like taking a pint of vinegar over a pint of piss. I'm not saying I don't like Alien and Aliens - I really do, but because these films to me are just enjoyable action films and not much else, I don't particularly care what source the proceeding titles in the franchise shadow, pay tribute to, or even outright ignore - and for that reason I enjoyed AVP2 immensely as a mindless action film, that finally delivered on the gore that AVP failed on. Don't care that they ignored that, don't care that this didn't make sense, don't care that the character profiles don't match preceeding movies - don't care at all, I think you get the idea. I do understand though, because I was incredibly pissed off at Starship Troopers 3 as a rabid fan of the first (and even second), whereas others enjoyed it as an 'alright bit of mindless action' - now of course, there are people who don't care for Aliens and Predator either and still found AVP2 a worthless feature, but the majority of the hyper-negative criticism comes from big fans - look at the original review thread for the movie, the vast majority found it a decent film. Which prompted that minor stress induced stroke mentioned above by Blitzkreig...:)

I think that's pretty much a fair position to take, and if that's what you get out of it, fine.

I'm just a little confused as to how you could appreciate the original Alien movie as just an "enjoyable action film."

When I was much younger, I saw Alien3 first, and then Aliens, and then Alien. I went to Alien looking for a kickass action movie, and thought it was the least exciting of all three. It just doesn't deliver, IMO, as an action movie. Pacing wise, the first whole half of the film is slow, sombre and expansive, and takes a vivid yet detached look at the unfolding of the story. It's mostly exposition.

The second half of the movie is really just the crew getting picked off one by one. It's not really action, per se. The sort of action-fetishism that I associate with action movies just isn't cashed in - all of the attempts to kick ass just fail completely. The only victory is a retreat, and that only barely. It isn't Ripley's combat potential that makes her the survivor - it's her prudence and judgment in the face of the alien - it's her acute survival instinct. Things like this. As an action movie, it's pretty boring.

The only way I came to appreciate that film was to appreciate what it was doing, which IMO isn't an action movie. It's the only real SF out of the whole bunch. It's also the best told story out of the bunch. It almost illustrates the same evolutionary processes that must have created the xenos - Ripley is selected because her fight-flight mechanism is the most advantageous in a xeno-dominated environment. It's the adaptive pruning of an isolated human population.

It's also a meditation on the sorts of situation that contact with ET life might have - an alien anthropology story.

And finally - it's a claustrophobic horror movie - not a SF action movie - which the immediate sequel was, to great effect.

I agree about Alien3. It's not particularly entertaining. Clute and Nichols encyclopedia of SF says of that film that it is admirable for making virtually no concessions to any sort of enjoyment whatsoever. It's relentlessly unentertaining. I think that's sort of right. That said, I appreciate it for it's more morose qualities - it's almost a masochistic experience. It's not a bad movie - in terms of being incompetently written or made - there's nothing embarrassing about it. It's just stubbornly, almost monotonously, almost obsessively not entertaining. It obsessively works out the implications of the premises it allows itself.

I also thought it wasn't so important, since it's more Ripley's story than the Alien story. It's really just the record of her demise, in the context of the Aliens. I think the franchise, if it really wanted to do something good, could have left Ripley well enough alone at that stage. She's not as integral to the broad sweep established in Alien as the things she represents - the sort of organism that can survive - that is selected for - by the Alien species.

But you're right.

If I were selecting canon, though, I'd take the Scott and Cameron movies, and perhaps just not comment on the other two, and certainly not on the AVP series, since, shameless action flicks that they are, they don't really place themselves in the same league as the others.