We here at KMDT Geek Blast! are all very big fans of both the Predator and Alien universes. We were very big fans of the original Dark Horse comics Aliens VS Predator, we were very excited in 1992 when you caught a glimpse of an Alien skull on the Predator trophy rack in Predator 2, we could barely breathe when it was announced that there would be an AVP movie (we were simultaneously very suspicious when we heard Paul Anderson was directing), but our hopes were crushed when we saw the crap story that was spilled all over the movie theater screen. Again our hopes were reinvigorated when we heard about Aliens Vs Predator:Requiem, but yet again us and every other AVP fan was let down. Is this franchise dead? Will we ever get an AVP movie that does the individual franchises justice? We don’t think the franchise is dead as evidenced by the fact that films from the individual franchises have been made very recently (PREDATORS and PROMETHEUS) and an AVP comic series was released just 3 years ago (AVP: THREE WORLD WAR). We do think that we can get a movie that has dignity befitting of the individual franchises and here’s how we think anybody interested should go about it.
First is the story. No script writer has to strain too hard to figure out a good story for these two sci-fi icons, almost any of the Dark Horse comic stories will do just fine. As a matter of fact Peter Briggs wrote an excellent script sometime ago borrowing very heavily from the first AVP comic series. You can read the script here if you’re interested,
http://www.horrorlair.com/scripts/aliens_vs_predator.html
We think one of the major hindrances to the two AVP movies was the fact that studio execs didn’t want the clash of alien species to take place in space because they didn’t want to spend too much money on lavish sets. That’s why both movies took place on earth and you never saw a Dark Horse comic adaptation. Well this may sound stupid, but the first AVP comic series takes place on a planet that looks just like Arizona...so why not shoot the movie there and significantly reduce the amount of money you have to spend on sets...right?
The second element of a great AVP movie is the director. We here at KMDT Geek Blast! humbly submit that there are only two individuals who can make this movie happen. James Cameron or John Mctiernan (yes we know he’s prison right now, but he’ll be out in April 2014).
Cameron as everybody knows wrote, directed, and even designed elements and characters of ALIENS. Mctiernan directed the first PREDATOR. Slightly off topic here for a second, for those of you who don’t know, this was actually the original design for the Predator
We have Mctiernan to thank for putting his foot down and demanding that the creature be redesigned. Oh and by the way it was James Cameron’s idea to put mandibles on the Predator...he was sitting next to Stan Winston on a plane while Stan was drawing the creature and James said “you know I would really like to see something with mandibles in it”. Anyway back to the central thesis of this post. Both these directors have experience with the characters involved in the AVP franchise and both are adept enough to bring you a well developed, properly paced, entertaining, sci-fi action movie. We did not include Ridley Scott here not because we don’t think he is a gifted sci-fi director, that is undebatable, but because he doesn’t seem to have that high octane flare for action which in our opinion is required to make an AVP movie great.
Third and probably least is creature design. The first Predator in our opinion looked perfect but through out the years other designers started to exaggerate the proportions of certain elements associated with the Predator. Whether is was making the mandibles thicker or longer, or making the wrist blades extend to ridiculous lengths, these adjustments to the original design seem to do exactly the opposite of what the designers intended....make the character more menacing . Instead of making the Predator more menacing it actually made it look somewhat cartoonish. The same has been done with the Alien design a few times but not as much. While we haven’t done exhaustive research on this the main culprit in this crime seems to be Almagamated Dynamics...a special effects company. We’re almost positive that if there is another AVP movie that Almagamated Dynamics will be handling creature design and effects, so we humbly suggest that you boys tone down the designs just a little.
This of course is all just our opinion. Feel free to hate us down in the comment section below or you can even talk to us live Friday night from 8-9 EST while we broadcast live by calling our show. We can be heard at www.corrosiveradio.com/kmdt-geek-blast
We want another AVP movie and we want the fans to start screaming for it!!