From: (No Email available)

Date: 2004-08-30 11:53:19

Comment:

>Now before I say anything, let me state this: I've been a life-long fan of both franchises.
>The first two 'Alien' installments remain two of my all-time favorite films. They're what turned me onto the horror genre.
>Hell, I even dug 'Alien 3' and 'Resurrection'...warts n' all.

I'm sorry, but no true Alien fan in my little delusional mind would ever say that.  Alien 3 killed the franchise and pretty much ruined all hopes of there ever being another good Alien movie.  Alien 3 in itself did more damage to the genre than any other film could have.  

> And I worship and adore BOTH 'Predator' movies.

I'm sorry but by saying that you have lost all credibility in my eyes.  Predator 2 was so atrociously bad that it didn't even rank to me as a good B movie.  Danny Glover was wasted in that movie.  There were so many continuity and plot holes in that film that it wasn't funny.  The bad guys weren't realistic, they were cartoony and ridiculously over the top and unbelievable.  It was bloody and gratuitously so.  If that's your only basis then that's not much.  The entire story and premise was ridiculously hokey.


> I've been waiting impatiently for over a decade for this film. I bought all the comic books. I played all the video games.
>This was a match made in fanboy heaven...and I wanted to see a big-screen adaptation more than anything.

[translation: I'm a rabid Alien vs. Predator freak who thinks I know what good cinema is]


> Too bad Paul Anderson: Dream Rapist had to come in and single-handidly destroy everything I love in a quick 100 minutes.

Everyone had expectations going into this film.  AvP has been done to death in ideas, fanficts, comics, and glassy-eyed school-boy wet dreams for years.  You were probably expecting something that was along the lines of master-of-gore where dismemberment and utter brutality was king.

You know what's funny?  The movie didn't suck.  Your expectations killed the movie for you.  And if I were pent up for 10 years expecting an orgasm of violence and epic glorious storylines I'd be pretty damn disappointed too.  I hope you don't feel that way about sex because you'll be disappointed yet again.  Life for you will be nothing but disappointments.

I went into this movie expecting it to suck.  Hell, I watched Alien Resurrection just to remind myself how bad it will probably be.  I expected to see lots of cool toys and a high body count.  And you know what?  I got a half-decent story and a lot of cool effects and a premise that wasn't spectacular but didn't suck like Alien 3 and 4 or Predator 2.  

So if you pulled your head out of your ass, you'd realize AvP was a half-decent movie.  

Could there have been more gore and should it have been rated R, hell yeah.  Could there have been a story like the comics?  Sure, but you know, I read the comics and half of them were not believable for me anyway.  To me AvP isn't an end all.  It's a beginning to something else.  

And as a beginning of a series to someone who loved the first 2 Alien films and Predator, this film wasn't bad.  It sounds bizarre that I'm saying this, but I have to.

Don't have orgasmic expectations going into this film.  If you do you'll hate it.  It'll be underwhelming.  This is a prequel.  It's a setup for things to come.  It won't be something epic.  Don't expect Lord of the Rings.  You won't get it.  But you know what?  That's true for every damn film ever made, except Lord of the Rings.


>First off, this does not feel like an 'Alien' or 'Predator' film. It feels like 'Jurassic Park IV' with Aliens and Predators in place of dinosaurs.

I'll agree with this- but I'm not so worried and here's why.  Get those High School and College kids interested in AvP, have it make a lot of money and have Fox pay the big bucks for a better film later on.  Release an R rated version of AvP on DVD.  Revive what is otherwise a dead genre.  AvP hadn't been made for 10 years because the movie industry in general doesn't believe science fiction can sell.

>The characters? Not a memorable one in the whole lot. You won't find another Ripley, Hudson...or even a Danny-Boy.

No, all the characters struck me as very human and normal.  Kinda like the people you work with every day.  The cast selections were appropriate in my book to the characters.  I work with scientists and they came across as genuine and not fake.  Sorry but when you get pulled from a project to work on another project and there's not much time in between, there's just not going to be a lot of character development.  That happens in real life too.

>Lex is one of the most generic and dull heroines to stumble through a feature film...and surprisingly, the supporting cast displays even less energy.

You're living in a dream world where all women are these strong-willed super soldier warrior princesses.  Look around you.  People with that kind of strength are out there but they're not so common.  You have a fantasy view of people and it's totally off base.  For the story presented, her character was perfect and most importantly realistic.

> Even Lance Henriksen - our one ray of sunshine - isn't in the film long...and does very little.

I'll agree with that.  I wish he was in the film longer- his part of the story could have been written better.  He could have realized the Predator code and then lived longer to plan something else.  People don't become leaders of businesses by doing impulsively stupid things.  Some do in their old age so what he did wasn't that off the radar either.  Still I wished it happened differently.

>There isn't a single good or fresh idea in the script. Hell, I thought the whole pyramid/training-ground concept was pretty sweet...until Anderson started crafting his own mythology around it.

Sorry dude, you're totally wrong there.  He didn't craft his own mythology around it.  The idea of the pyramids and aliens is an old idea.  Hell, legends of the Mayans being taken away by aliens have been around for at least two hundred years.  Stargate used that idea and ran with it.  Human sacrifices in Aztec pyramids are historical fact, not made up.  All the writers in AvP did was take it with a new twist.

>I won't spoil anything, but let's just say that it's stupid beyond words.

You should read some books and get educated before you make yourself look stupid to those who've actually studied.


>Now...about the PG-13 rating, which I tried so hard to ignore: IT SHOWS!!!
>God, does it show! Most of the violence in this film is not directed towards Aliens or Predators...but HUMANS.

Hello??  Humans are the star of the show, get used to it.  In Predator the stars were the HUMANS.  And guess what?  In Alien and Aliens the stars were, *gasp*  the humans!  Amazing!  

What was most important to me was the rules in Predator and Alien ALL applied.  Of course the most important around a Predator is, you pick up a gun around a Predator, you're dog meat.

> When it's time for a chestbursting or a tongue-death, all we get is a typical cut away.

Yeah that was a bummer.  It's the whole Rated PG-13 thing.  I hope they release an R version.  But statistically PG-13 films make more money.  *shrug*  I'll deal.  

>Gone is the colorful profanity that was so much fun to listen to.
>Even the token "ugly mutherfucker" line gets cut off half-way through.

Sorry to disappoint you, but in Predator, Arnold's line is cut off in EXACTLY the same place.  Some fan of the movie you are if you didn't know that.  They were paying homage to Predator by using that line.  Too bad you missed it.


> This is exactly what we all feared: A franchise film that looks and feels as if it were made for little kids.

Teenagers, not little kids.  Oh, and in case you hadn't noticed, Aliens and Predator both became franchises a LONG time ago.  Over ten years ago in fact.

> I'm not saying an R-rating would've automatically made this good (far from it)...but it would've at least given us some fun carnage.

No, the carnage was all there.  You just wanted to see the teeth ripping the flesh from bodies, the blades tearing through flesh and blood squirting everywhere as creatures writhed in pain.  Admit it, you're a sick f*ck.


>The fights between the beasts are so badly shot and edited, I didn't care for one solitary second. It didn't stir up one bit of emotion in my inner-fanboy.

And you don't even do such a good job doing that.  You don't even know the films as well as you claim.

> And the creatures look HORRIBLE. The Aliens seemed okay...but the Predators are absolutely wretched.
>They look like goofy WWF wrestlers and in no way resemble or act like what we saw in the other films.

I don't know which other film you were watching, but they behaved exactly the same.  In fact, they looked better in the new film than the old.  You may not have noticed but in the original Predator the Predator was THAT big.  He picked up Arnold by the neck and hoisted him off the ground just to look at him eye level.  The Predators are BIG and nasty.  For someone who claims they know Predator you don't know jack.  Also keep in mind that the original Predator was an experienced hunter.  In AvP they were not.

>It's really hard not to chuckle whenever they appear onscreen.

It's hard not to chuckle whenever you claim you know something about the films and then procede to show how ignorant you really are.

> Let's just say, that it lived up to all my fears...and created some new ones.

I won't necessarily disagree with that.  I think if I lived my life in expectation I'd always be disappointed.  I was like that a long time ago but I know better now.  We all wish we could have things our way but we can't.  Life just works out that way.

Sadly, AvP wasn't that bad of a film and too bad you couldn't see it.  Your loss or my delusion.  Either way each person should make up their own decision.  I do warn you though- if you have expectations about this film, you WILL be disappointed.  But that rule holds true for ALL movies.

> Paul Anderson has not made a movie for the fans.

No, he made a movie for the genre to broaden its appeal.  We can argue all year if that's good or bad but it doesn't matter in the end.  Movies are made to make money.  Let's not delude ourselves into believing that directors make movies to cater to fans.  They don't.  Get over it.  If they did we wouldn't have Aliens 3 and 4 or Predator 2.

> He's taken a beloved franchise, stripped it of it's soul, and marketed it to 10-year-old boys.

I disagree completely.  I think he has taken what would otherwise be a dead franchise and breathed life back into it.  Sure AvP will always exist in our minds, in PC gaming, and comics, but damn it, we want it on the f*ck*ng big screen where it belongs.  

Movie producers don't want to spend money on SF films because traditionally they don't make money.  If you make a movie just for a narrow audience of diehard fans, it won't make enough money to justify making movies.  I'm sorry but die hard Alien and Predator fans aren't enough to keep a movie idea in production.  It's going to need to appeal to a hell of a lot more people.  

What a lot of rabid fans can't see because they were expecting the orgasmic film from hell is that this film is true to the spirit of the ideas in the first films.  It will broaden the appeal of the ideas and better movies will be made.


> I've liked many of his films and I've been defending him for years. I was even excited when he was announced as director, while most people groaned. But all the naysayers were right.

No, you fell into the same trap every naysayer falls into.  Your expectations killed your enjoyment of the movie.  Even if they got Cameron to do this film, a lot of people would still say that at best it was just passing or a good try.  There's no way you can beat 10 years of pent up expectation.  No way at all.  No one, not even Cameron is that good.  You'd need the budget of Lord of the Rings to do that and AvP had nowhere near that.


> Out of all my brutal movie disappointments, this ranks a staunch #1.

Your disappointment is all your own.

Alien 3 was my #1 brutal movie disappointment of ALL time.

For me AvP will forever be one of the pleasant surprises of all times.  I expected it to totally suck and found that it failed to suck.  My only gripes were with some minor problems with the ending and hopefully they'll fix the rushed editing job.  This film opens all sorts of doors to possibilities for better AvP movies.

I hope AvP fans get the big picture.  If this film does well, there will be opportunities for better films.  If you had expectations going into this film, go to a matinee and try to  look at it on its own merits.  You might not be able to, that's ok.  We're all only human.