Jenny went out to a Bodyshop party tonight, so I got a rare night in to myself. So what did I do? Well I thought I’d watch Alien Vs Predator, a movie that I saw at the cinema and was pretty disappointed with. Anyway on second viewing I was surprised to find that it actually is more poop than originally thought.
It’s nothing in particular, but a combination of things. Firstly the story is pretty dire and not very much happens in it. Secondly it makes the Predators who were so effectively scary and powerful, look pretty lame in comparison to the Aliens. Thirdly it makes the whole gestation thing from the Alien movies look daft as suddenly these things don’t take but a few minutes to pop out and grow to full size, draining almost the entire dose of suspense in Alien out in one go.
But its biggest crime to me is taking two very cool franchises and delivering a bastard child that fails to inherit the best DNA from either. For me there was a way cooler story just waiting to be explored and I cannot for the life of me understand why they didn’t use it.
Don’t know what that is?
Ok, well here goes, a slightly modified version of the concept I originally posted on DVDLard way back in 2004.
Movie opens on a barren Alien world. A group of Marines, packed to the hilt with state of the art weaponry are standing guard on an encampment. Tanks, weapon emplacements with lookouts, are protecting the Marines’ forward command base. In the distance there is a war being raged with an unseen enemy.
One of the lookouts picks up something briefly on his motion detector. It’s gone. He checks the video feeds on different spectra. Nothing.
Suddenly his head is ripped from its shoulders by the powerful arms of a cloaked foe. Holding the head aloft, the predator screams its warrior cry, as the marines and defences are ripped to shreds by a hail of gunfire as a small team of Predator Commandos takes out the defences.
In the command centre, the commotion is being viewed on the CCTV and the commander hastily instructs that the self destruct be initiated on the communications array. As a panicky comms officer tries to engage the destruct mechanism, the commandos enter the room and take out the command crew. Pulling the body from the communications console, one of the commandos connects an alien device of some sort. The video screen shows information and schematics being downloaded. One of the images is of an alien queen.
The head of a crack commando team (come on, we are all thinking The Rock, right?) is briefing his squad. These guys are like the team from the Predator movie. In fact, they should be as close to that team as possible, right down to the banter, cigar smoking, the lot. The guys are nails. They are onboard a ship heading in to orbit with the planet from the opening. The head (we will call him Rock 8 for the sake of a better name) is explaining that the planet is a key resource in the battle with the Predators (should have a nickname, like squidheads or something). The planet is a resource facility used to develop new weapons in the battle, the key one being the development of a controllable Xenomorph. He explains that the Xenomorph was found a century ago and its taken that time to develop a version of the Xenomorph with integrated electronics that makes it effectively a remote controlled killing machine. These creatures have acid for blood, all round bad mother hubbards, and that the first platoon of them were due to be shipped out for deployment in the war. However the Predators took out the defences and landed a team of commandos, presumably with the aim of taking out the facility before the creatures could be deployed. The commondos’ mission is to search and destroy the invading squad before they infiltrate or destroy the facility, which is deep underground and heavily fortified. Reports suggest that the first level of defenses have been breached, but that the team running the facility are still in contact and in control.
On arrival in orbit, the ship detects the presence of a predator vessel and takes it out before despatching the commandos for the mission. This bit pays homage to Aliens, but with bigger stuff, dropship, the lot.
On landing, the team discover the torn apart forward command centre and find that the Predators have accessed some of the passcodes in to the base, which means that they could have entered without force, and may already be in the complex.
Entering the complex, they find obvious signs of violence, and many dead scientists. A couple of the team seem puzzled by the complex, and Rock 8 seems to know his way around. Soon they are hot on the heels of the Predators and get ready for the hunt. And here’s where it gets very cool. Rock’s team go cloaked and start to take out the Predators with some ubercool tech. You see they can detect the cloaked Predators but the Preds can’t detect them. A couple of them get involved in hand to hand with the predators, when you realise that these guys are of similar size and strength. With the added technological advantage, the squidheads are getting hammered. In the cold, well lit corridors, the hunter has become the hunted.
A predator is on the run. A commando is hard after him and he’s struggling to fight him off. In a heavy battle he is smashed through a plate glass window and manages to impale the commando. Coming round he sees broken fishtanks everywhere, and before he can do anything, he’s caught by a face hugger.
In the meantime, the remaining couple of Predators have reached the inner sector of the research facility and uncovered the troop of Xenomorphs. Strangely they are standing still, breathing, but motionless. The head scientist manages to escape to the security room and locks himself safe whilst watching the Predators at work. Making contact with Rock 8 he tells him to hurry, they are setting a bomb. Suddenly Rock 8 on his way at top speed through the maze of corridors with the remaining commandos gets the scientist’s voice in his ear. They aren’t setting a bomb, they are downloading the research data and trying to transmit it off world. Rock 8’s not concerned, the predator ship was destroyed. Arriving in the lab, there is a standoff between the remaining hardnuts, and in the eventual firefight, the computers are destroyed. This has the effect of returning sentience to the Xenomorphs, who go medieval on the place. These aren’t normal Aliens from the other movies, they are cybernetically augmented. Who cares with what really, bionic legs, cloaking detection, the lot, but at this point it’s a free for all.
A key action sequence here would be all 3 teams ending up in an arboretum, where the cover of the foliage puts everyone on equal terms. Another battle underwater. Here, we find out that the Predators are actually very comfortable swimmers, in fact more graceful than on land. The basic concept here would be to show each of the factions in their preferred habitat , and also as fish out of water.
During the ensuing battle, Rock 8 ends up mano a mano on the double hard nut leader squidhead in to a room named “Queen’s sanctum”. Here is the queen that has been used to produce the Xenomorphs. But this is no normal queen. This is Ripley 8 from Alien IV. It turns out that she’s not quite as human as she thought, and the devices in to which she is connected aren’t just extracting Alien eggs. Apparently human foetuses are being produced too - this machine is splitting the DNA and producing human \ alien hybrids of both varieties. And guess what? Yep Rock 8 is one of them mofos, these guys have been at it for a while, as the nearly fully grown Rock 21, 22, 23 etc show in their tanks. Finally, Rock 8 takes out the lead predator and turns to be confronted by a swarm of Xenos. They don’t attack though - after all, they are related. Instead, they go mental and attack the Ripley machine, ripping out cables etc. Rock 8 turns to see squidhead laughing, he’s setting his self-destruct, but Rock doesn’t stop him, he just walks off.
The resulting explosion incinerates the queen and everthing through open doors, Xenos, commandos, predators. In the CCTV room, the power flickers off but the head scientist is safe. In another room, by broken tanks, a predator convulses as his chest bursts open and a nasty predator alien queen emerges, only to be caught and collected by a shaken but still nasty head scientist.
Finally, onboard the marine vessel, the comms officer is receiving a transmission from the predator device, when alarm bells ring, and an enormous predator vessel decloaks and blows them out of the sky. On board, the message is received by the squidheads who head off in to space.
Sweet 
(c)2006 watchtHeskies
