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Originally Posted by Phalanx

I think in a lot of cases your observation about this movie having to live up to a lot is what's working against it.

I don't HATE the film as such...just don't like it all that much.
The human characters, not great, ok, but...whatever.
Could be just me but I felt the "black chick" seemed to just be an effort to one-up Ripley as an anti-stereotype, wait...they already had a tough chick, oh hey, make her black?
I was a bit disappointed at the fight the predators seemed capable of holding up - I mean, is this not a species they've been training to kill? I know it's a bit of a right of passage, but they pretty much got slaughtered for the better part.
Atmosphere is largely what it comes down to, not say, as little (or non-existant) as the atmosphere was in AVP2, but still, a little lacking for my liking.

But other than that, I didn't mind that they might've messed with the continuity of the series as a lot of people seem to bitch about...I didn't mind the whole "pyramid" and "alien trap" thing...nothing big against this film, but I wouldn't buy it, or recommend it to anyone not interested in the series in the first place.

You actually nailed it on the first line itself, Cheebs. Look at what this flick had to stand up against - Alien, Aliens, Alien 3(loved a lot more today than its initial release), Alien: Resurrection, Predator & Predator 2. Not to mention the hype generated by the vidgames and the comics themselves.

Which brings me to one of the points I want to make here...did people reject this because it went against what they knew in the franchises? Or did it generate so much criticism because Fox scrapped Alien 5 with a possible Cameron/Scott/Weaver team-up to make this?

Remember, it generated plenty of cash so Fox wont be complaining.

But where does it stand for the fans? Because we still laud mindless entertainers like Wanted, but we get our axes out when AvP is mentioned?

Originally Posted by Rodus

I actually felt very dissapointed at the wasted potential this film had. 2 of the 3 Predators were killed way to quickly and the face offs between the 2 breeds were much too short. I can sort of understand the teaming of the woman/Predator as it was drawing influence from one of the comics but I take your point about it being a little unbelieveable. I think one of the main problems is the Paul Anderson is such a hack director and watching AvP one wonders if he actually saw any of the other films or just decided to ignore the 'rules', such as the Alien gestation period. Newcomers to the film series would have enjoyed this more then hardcore fans.
AvP2, whilst not a great film by any stretch certainly improved on the first, finally people actually got to see what they wanted, the Predator kicking 10 shades of shit out of the Aliens.

See, a preconceived notion can actually kill whatever potentially entertaining moments a movie has. Paul W S Anderson is actually a competent director...not great or brilliant or awesome, but his Event Horizon and Resident Evil have been entertaining, for the most part. And thats what he is.

One shot of Alice standing in a empty city is enough to take the breath away.

He might not have any sort of potential, but I seriously doubt that he has made a flick which was totally his. Studios do have a pretty big say in the flicks they pump money into, and if you arent a director who's got an ass full of power, you cant do much but sit back and let em manipulate stuff to their liking. Not to mention, the expectations of the fans of the franchises he has dealt with, so far.

Originally Posted by alkytrio666

I'd really like to hear from a lot of people on this because the levels of hatred may vary depending on the person.

I haven't seen it since I saw it in theaters, but what I remember being the most dissapointed about was the ending- so obviously this next bit contains SPOILERS! :

A human-predator team-up? Are you kidding me? It seemed like such a juvenile way about things, and it alienated (pardon the pun) the Aliens so that they were the bad, beastly monsters and the predators were the creatures who have to dig the humans out of the shithole.
Like I said, I haven't seen it in a while, but wasn;t there even a little human-predator handshake towards the end, and then the predators left in peace? I felt cheated.

Same here. We never had an AvP thread open for discussion before, because there was never much of a need for one.

"Whats to discuss here? The movie sucked, it got critically bashed, we hated it, said "FUCK YOU!" to Paul Anderson, and moved on."

Thats the attitude this flick left behind in its wake.

But...do me a favor. If you happened to purchase it (by mistake, or got it for free whatever), pop it in for a spin in your DVD player. Watch it (keeping my suggested tweaks in mind), and tell me if the movie hasnt grown on you. Even a li'l.

Originally Posted by ChronoGrl

V - what, you trying to one-up me on my Generous Critic challenge? ;)
...

And to Alky's observation,

***CONTINUES SPOILERS***

I agree. I was actually slightly offended that screenwriter/director Anderson obviously thought his audience so riddled with spineless MORONS that we would appreciate such tripe. I was OFFENDED.

Also, I remember the movie's TAGLINE: "NO MATTER WHO WINS, WE LOSE."

The human/predator team-up completely negated that delicious hyperbole... WE WON! THE HUMANS WON! ARGH!

I wish that he had been more balls-to-the-wall-hunt-em-all instead of this cliched crap. That bothered more than anything else. I was incredibly disappointed that the Alien was the Big Bad while the Predator, well, was just a big scary teddy bear.

There are plenty of nods Anderson leaves throughout the movie to all the predecessors of both franchises. So he did his homework. What he lacked, was proper insight into the script handed to him. He obviously had some sort of ideas but they werent effective because they didnt fit into the atmosphere left behind by both Alien and Predator franchises.

Notice my 4 tweaks? It already sounds (and looks, if you can visualise them) so much better just with those 4. Anderson obviously wasnt a fanboy, and he knew just what sort of expectations he was under when he took charge. I think it boils down to this...did those expectations ultimately get the better of him?

Or, put in even more plain terms, would he have done a better job if Fox wasnt involved? Or if he had a second chance at reviewing the PG-13 package which came out of Fox's labs?

Anderson - "Hey...no, no, no I dont like this stuff. Lets do this all over again."

FOX - "Fuck you...we dont have that kind of money to scrape an entire flick. Let's shove it down their throats. If they swallow it, we got our moneyspinner. If they dont, too bad. We ll get some other (FvJ anyone) crossover flick and mint some money out of it."

I still say the studios get as much blame for this as Anderson himself.

What do you say, Urge?

Vod?

Return?

Anyone else?