Saturday, April 19, 2008

The epic question that is Predator vs Alien


I will answer more comments' questions later, but first I have a debate for you to weigh in on.

The other night Ex-Boyfriend came over - yes the one who shocked himself in the eyeball and yes we are still on excellent terms because he is hilarious and likes to do violent things to himself which is always entertaining - and we watched Alien Versus Predator Requiem.

This fine film of course elicited a great deal of philosophical debate that got so intense I was concerned the neighbors would call the cops to report a domestic disturbance.

Question one: Would you rather live in a world with five Predators and five Aliens, or five velociraptors and five tyrannosaurus rexes?

Of course I went with the dinosaurs. For one thing, they don't have a specific vendetta against us and none of them bleed acid, and I'm in agreement with all those scientists who think the T-Rex was a scavenger, not a hunter. However, the velociraptor is very scary and after it claws you in your stomach you are alive when it eats you. Sam Neil said so and I believe it. So then Ex-B said, what if instead of a velociraptor it was a brontosaurus? Well of course I am not afraid of a brontosaurus. But then he said that would be worse because a brontosaurus would smash the building you're in and you'd be crush by debris and he'd rather be eaten than crushed by debris. But a brontosaurus is so big you'd see it coming so you could run out of the building, whereas if a raptor came after you it would be all up on your grill before you knew what was going on.

Question 2: The obvious - who is more awesome, the Predator or the Alien?

I know I'm in the minority on this one but the Alien scares the bejeezus out of me. Ex-B can ramble on about the virtues of Mr. Dreadlocks all he wants, I'm going with the creature that plants its young in your stomach and bleeds flesh-eating acid. You can't reason with an Alien, it's only desire is to make a hole in your skull and have more Alien babies. Plus it can swim fast.

Ex-B pointed out that Sigourney Weaver took the Alien out all by herself in her underwear. Yeah, but she had to use the vacuum of space to do it. Twice. And the third time she had to trick it into a big pool of lava. And I don't remember what happened the fourth time - I think it was the vacuum of space again, but I don't really care because that movie was kind of terrible. But the Predator? Just shoot it enough times and it will die.

Question 3: Would a true Predator vs Alien movie make bank?

This is the question I'd love to have your opinion on. Apparently Robert Rodriguez once pitched a film where the Aliens would invade the Predator homeworld or the Predator would invade the Alien homeworld - I don't remember witch - and the whole film would be based on that. And there would be some deep space exploring humans who get caught up in the story but mostly it's strictly and Alien/Predator thing.

I think that sounds kind of awesome. I admit, when I was watching AVPR I wanted more hot Predator on Alien action. I was kind of rooting for the Predator and I don't feel like the film gave me enough of his story because it was so busy making me follow around these annoying humans with their stupid relationship drama. And I never felt like I got enough Predalien (or "Alietor" as Ex-B referred to it because "Predalien sounds gay") because the scenes with that crazy motherfucker were brief and shot in very quick cuts. I wanted to see the thing in an epic battle - instead it was all cut short.

But in a film that was just Predator and Alien and no humans at all, you would see nothing but awesome. I think it's a great idea.

But here's where we differed. I don't think a film like this would ever make money. There would be no dialogue - just that gargle sound the Predator makes and the rattling juicy Alien noise and nobody would ever say anything.

And admittedly that sounds so revolutionary and awesome. You could still have lots of cool subtext, but it would all have to be done by creatures who are not human at all. It would be actors in suits and CGI and animatronics. It would be truly original.

But I think it would also keep people from seeing it. Ex-B brought up Apocalypto. But even that film featured humans and had subtitles. If you try to add subtitles to the Predators it becomes comedic, not badass. And people don't go see an AVP movie because they love to read.

I'd love to see that movie, but I don't see why a studio executive would take that kind of risk.

So I want to know what you think. Would you go see it? Do you think it's a good idea? What if velociraptors joined in?

11 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:12 PM

    I'm glad you blogged about this, but so many of the points you brought up are misconstrued. I will spare you/everyone the gory details, but the main two things I cannot overlook are these:


    1. 5 T-Rexes and 100 Velociraptors per continent or 5 and 5 A/P. I never said 5 & 5 of the dinosaurs, there needs to be more because they aren't as sophisticated and/or intelligent as A/P.

    2. NEVER did I ever say that my idea of strictly Aliens VS Predators should EVER have subtitles. That's the dumbest thing anyone has ever heard. Their actions would speak volumes on their behalf...awesomely.

    --Curtze

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  2. Yes, those are very important distinctions. Thanks for clarifying my grave errors.

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  3. It'd be interesting but, you're right not sure if it would work. But it could be 7 kinds of awesome.

    I think the AVP by Robert Rodriguez was just a straight up sequel to Predator, where we find Dutch being held captive on one of their ships...

    And speaking of which, I would love to see some Dutch go whoop ass in some AVP, or some colonial marines.

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  4. Quest for Fire did it without subtitles. Made for $12.5M and had a domestic BO of almost $21M.

    Of course that had Rae Dawn Chong naked, so it had a leg up on your PvA flick. Maybe add a couple of scenes of naked women - for some perfectly valid artistic reason - and you've at least got a good opening.

    Oh, and I'd take the dinos as well. I'm not afraid of velociraptors at all. Sam Neill is not to be trusted.

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  5. How about Alien AND Predator? Kind of a Romeo and Juliet thing, where Alien and Predator fall in love but their families want to smash the shit out of each other, so they secretly get married in Las Vegas but the Alien and Predator families find them there and there's an epic battle and Las Vegas gets smooshed and A & P make a suicide pact where Predator drinks the Alien's acidic blood and Alien stabs herself with Predator's dagger and the families find them dead and, like, feel all bad and stuff.

    GREATEST. MOVIE. EVER.

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  6. Someone was one step ahead.

    http://alienlovespredator.com/?id=1

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  7. Hmmm...wonder why my comment wasn't approved.

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  8. Because your comment was kind of like walking up to a bunch of people laughing and having a good time and you piss on them.

    My blog, my rules. Either join the party or leave.

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  9. Everyone except that whiney Matt guy had some good suggestions. In case you're curious, Matt's suggestion was that the post was stupid and I am a horrible person. Apparently the doctors failed to remove the stick from his ass.

    But the input is pivotal to this discussion. If only the studios would feel the same.

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  10. Matt's an odd egg. An hour or two ago, he posted something on his blog titled "waste of space bloggers" that began
    Sometimes the pussy nature of other bloggers really gets on my nerves. Not to mention the need some of them have to be loved, and to have control, ...

    Then he decided to delete that, and about a dozen of his other posts, leaving just one from last October.

    I gather he didn't like that you ignored his earlier comment.

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  11. Well in his first comment, instead of responding to the question he just claimed it was a stupid question.

    That's not really the kind of discussion I want.

    ReplyDelete

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