Alien Vs Predator Review Thread

Archived discussion from Toril-2.

What rating do you give the movie?

**** - Excellent (4 Stars)
3
15%
4 Stars (Excellent)
0
No votes
***.5 - Very Good (3.5 Stars)
3
15%
3.5 Stars (Very Good)
0
No votes
*** - Good (3 Stars)
5
25%
3 Stars (Good)
0
No votes
**.5 - Above Average (2.5 Stars)
1
5%
2.5 Stars (Above Average)
0
No votes
** - Average (2 Stars)
1
5%
2 Stars (Average)
0
No votes
*.5 - Fair (1.5 Stars)
1
5%
1.5 Stars (Fair)
0
No votes
* - Poor (1 Star)
1
5%
1 Star (Bad)
0
No votes
.5 - Bad (Half a Star)
2
10%
0 Stars (Unlearned)
0
No votes
0 - Horrible (No Stars)
3
15%
 
Total votes: 20
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Alien Vs Predator Review Thread

Postby Sesexe » Fri Aug 27, 2004 3:22 am

Went with a friend to see it tonight. It was her 3rd time seeing it, and she even bought my ticket.

I had been warned by another friend on how terrible it was. Giving away significant parts of the movie. - I think that helped me like it more. I didn't go in expecting much more then fighting. That's all I went to see. I think if you are a fan of the genre of AvP, no NOT the Alien series, but AvP, you'll like this. If you're an Alien junkie, you'll hate this.

I thought it was Good (because I've seen a LOT WORSE lately), and I'll probably wind up buying in on dvd when it comes out in 3 months (no doubt).

Regrets? (Spoilers here)
1) That it had been rated R
2) They hadn't done ANY matrix-esque shots
3) It was longer. Not a longer begining or lead up, just longer after they get to the pyramid. All this happens in like 3 hours movie time-line time. Tad fast.
4) They had used even a shred of suspense.
5) The Alien Queen hadn't been a dupe of T-Rex when moving.
6) The Predators didn't die off so fast.
7) She instead got on the ship at the end, as she had passed their right of passage and was considered an equal!
8)And for FUCKS SAKE, STOP WITH THE CAMERA SHAKING BATTLE SCENES HOLLYWOOD!!!!!!!!!
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Postby moritheil » Fri Aug 27, 2004 1:47 pm

It was entertaining.

"Look, this devolved, primitive monkey managed to get lucky and impale an alien as it leapt for her! Let's mark her ritually and treat her like one of our own, because clearly despite our advanced technology we are savage and clanlike! Also, this warm fuzzy feeling can be generated by suggesting that different races can exist in peace when only hours ago we were using humans to breed the engines of their own demise, and in fact we plan to do so again!"
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Postby Dugmaren » Fri Aug 27, 2004 7:00 pm

I thought it was great, of course I went into it expecting zero plot, and some great fight scenes. The plot turned out urrm.. decently :) And that one craptacular "shakey camera" fight scene was well made up for by the big fight scene at the end. My friends and I were talking about it and although we could list crap that should have been done differently for the next half hour.. all in all we came out of the movie entertained.

Dug

oh ps. WORST ENDING EVAR!!ONE!!11one
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Postby Treladian » Sat Aug 28, 2004 5:09 am

First off, I've only seen the Aliens movies (need to rent the Predator stuff sometime at the very least), but have read some of the AvP comics and novels.

Anyway, the movie was still better than Alien: Resurrection or Alien 3 in my book =P

Seriously though, you could tell just about everything that was going to happen if you've seen Alien and Aliens and the 90 minute length meant that they had to rush through all of it. I don't know if it's really possible to make an Alien movie contain any horror anymore so having the supporting cast get picked off one by one just isn't very exciting.

It also suffered from the lack of character distinguishability that Alien 3 did. I didn't catch the names of most of the characters (although I did walk in a few minutes late I think) and didn't really care to. Even some of the marines that died really quickly in Aliens had a few great lines at least ("What are we gonna use, harsh language?" remains a personal favorite).

It was also too damn dark. Since I don't think you can make an Aliens movie really scary anymore and the fans of the franchises care a damn lot more about the critters, they should have made it easier for the audience to see them and the new gadgets they gave the predators. Since the film was rated PG-13 (not R), there aren't very detailed shots of the aliens and predators doing what they're famous for so we have a lot less screen time for the titular beings than normal when combined with the low lighting conditions.

Finally, I didn't care much for how the pyramid basically became a funhouse of doom. This isn't Indiana Jones, we don't need the scenery to play a role.

All that said, it was great to finally see a lot of the stuff I've read in books and comics and experienced in games over the years. Basically it was the same feeling I had back when the first X-men movie came out all over again. Predators have some of the coolest gadgets I've ever seen or read about and watching those adjustable-length wrist blades makes the knife and sword collector in me drool.

Actually, it may have been a bit too similar to the comics/books in some ways. I couldn't help but to compare Lex to Machiko from Prey and other story arcs from Dark Horses's publications, just that she's black instead of Japanese, didn't develop a way to communicate with the predator she buddied up with, and didn't kick as much ass.

Definately plenty of room for sequels (especially given that we know queens can survive in space so I doubt being submerged in the ocean like that will do much more than piss off the queen) and I do hope at least one gets made that's more action oriented. I'll probably grab the DVD when it comes out.
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Postby Sszantiel » Sat Aug 28, 2004 10:01 pm

Hehe, Dug totally beat me to the "Worst ending evar!one11" punchline..
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Re: Alien Vs Predator Review Thread

Postby Xisiqomelir » Thu Sep 09, 2004 12:35 pm

Sesexe wrote:7) She instead got on the ship at the end, as she had passed their right of passage and was considered an equal!


Nono, he marked her as his PROPERTY.
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Re: Alien Vs Predator Review Thread

Postby chandigar » Thu Sep 09, 2004 2:12 pm

Xisiqomelir wrote:
Sesexe wrote:7) She instead got on the ship at the end, as she had passed their right of passage and was considered an equal!


Nono, he marked her as his PROPERTY.


No, actually it was as a warrior.. or at least got a kill and passed the test. Remember how the old predator rewarded her with the ceremonial weapon at the end?

Oh, and I thought it was ok, I liked how they tried to tie some history to the thing. Overall the plot was pretty good, plus if you know the end you can tell your gf its a romance movie ;)

Action scenes were good, but I agree that they killed off the humans way too fast so as to almost look forced. (not quite as bad as a rocket hitting their helicopter and just happening to take out the 3 extraneous characters at the last minute at the end of Escape from LA)
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Re: Alien Vs Predator Review Thread

Postby Iaiken Toransier » Thu Sep 09, 2004 4:39 pm

chandigar wrote:(not quite as bad as a rocket hitting their helicopter and just happening to take out the 3 extraneous characters at the last minute at the end of Escape from LA)


You think that was bad? This is just scary.

http://www.chandigarhcity.com/index.htm

ewwwwwww...
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Postby Grizz » Thu Sep 09, 2004 8:20 pm

I just recently saw this movie. I liked it if for nothing else because of the comics that Darkhorse put out. I like the history and the plot. There was really next to zero character developement. Not that it was really needed seeing as how they kill them all off right away.

Things that bothered me though:
1: 2 out of the 3 predators died relatively quick.
2: Why didn't they use the 2 guns they got earlier from the guy they picked up while invis? He had them in his pack and they snagged him.
3: The pyramid moving around was alright but the damn humans had a hard time crawling through some of these tunnels, how was a predator going to do it?
4: If this pyramid has been used in the past then how come there were no real signs of acid damage?
5: The Queen has been in deep freeze there for how long? Why didn't her minions come rescue her in the past as they did this time?
6: I hate it when there is only 1 survivor. Why couldn't a few more have made it out? Even in Aliens when Siggy, the marine, and the lil girl Newt got away they killed off the marine and Newt in the beginning of the next movie. Just bugs me. (no pun intended).
7: Why so short a movie?

All in all though I really enjoyed the movie and didn't get bothered by the things on this list until after the movie was over.
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Postby Treladian » Fri Sep 10, 2004 12:37 am

Grizz wrote:2: Why didn't they use the 2 guns they got earlier from the guy they picked up while invis? He had them in his pack and they snagged him.


If I remember my comics and novelizations correctly, predators need to be blooded (ie, the marking of themselves with acid) before being allowed to use energy weaponry in a hunt (I'm assuming the plasma casters are what the predators refered to as "burners" when given their view of things).

5: The Queen has been in deep freeze there for how long? Why didn't her minions come rescue her in the past as they did this time?


The rescue looked like it involved the drones mutilating the queen to make use of her acid. It's not something that's going to be instinctive to a species that tries to protect the queen with their lives. Queens are described as having roughly human levels of intelligence in the comics and books so it may have just taken a while for her to come up with the idea.

6: I hate it when there is only 1 survivor. Why couldn't a few more have made it out? Even in Aliens when Siggy, the marine, and the lil girl Newt got away they killed off the marine and Newt in the beginning of the next movie. Just bugs me. (no pun intended).


That part in Alien 3 was due to not being able to redo the contracts or something based on what I've heard. Given how long it had been since Aliens, they couldn't really use the same actress to play Newt, but something prevented them from just getting a new kid IIRC.

In any case, more than one person made it out in Resurrection. Well, 3 and an android. For all the stupid things in Resurrection, that alone made things feel more logical than killing everyone but Ripley off again.
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Postby Ruxur » Sun Sep 12, 2004 10:16 pm

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Postby Kifle » Mon Sep 13, 2004 11:49 am

I swear, trel, you are the largest database of useless knowledge that I know of. At least I know who to go to when I need information about something obscure.
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Postby ssar » Mon Oct 11, 2004 12:44 pm

Saw it at the "sensatadium" "mega-screen" Greater Union cinema the other day - glad I did.

Added a short critique in the movie review thread.

Oh, I don's see the difference between:

**** - Excellent (4 Stars)

and

4 Stars (Excellent)

? wtf?
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Postby Sephraem » Thu Nov 18, 2004 4:42 pm

Grizz wrote:Things that bothered me though:
1: 2 out of the 3 predators died relatively quick.
2: Why didn't they use the 2 guns they got earlier from the guy they picked up while invis? He had them in his pack and they snagged him.
3: The pyramid moving around was alright but the damn humans had a hard time crawling through some of these tunnels, how was a predator going to do it?
4: If this pyramid has been used in the past then how come there were no real signs of acid damage?
5: The Queen has been in deep freeze there for how long? Why didn't her minions come rescue her in the past as they did this time?
6: I hate it when there is only 1 survivor. Why couldn't a few more have made it out? Even in Aliens when Siggy, the marine, and the lil girl Newt got away they killed off the marine and Newt in the beginning of the next movie. Just bugs me. (no pun intended).
7: Why so short a movie?

All in all though I really enjoyed the movie and didn't get bothered by the things on this list until after the movie was over.


To this list I'd have to add:
8: How come she didn't hear the helicoptor land?
9: Their mobile phone coverage is incredibly good (okay, maybe you can argue satphones).
10: The archaeologist was clearly psychic, or at least capable of impossible leaps of intuition. It became very wearing, very quickly.
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