AvP:Requiem

No, lots of blood.

Texas Libra said:

Just a quick question before I make a comment:

Is this trailer safe for work? I ask because it's the "restricted audiences only" trailer instead of "general audiences" one, red instead of green background.

It's Aliens VS. Predator, not Aliens loVeS. Predator

Even though that would be awesome.

I've never watched AvP, and judging by the general opinion about it that will remain true for a while.

This seems to be a bad rehash of the original idea for Alien 3, which was, IIRC, to be about xenomorphs infesting Earth because of yet another botched bio-weapons experiment by Weyland-Yutani, i.e. total fucking chaos. Alien 3, despite how good the movie might have been on its own, was not a good path for the series.

spank said:

the original idea for Alien 3

IIRC the original idea for alien 3 was supposed to be based on the dark horse comic series. I heard dark horse was pissed off at the makers of alien 3 because they had the offical lisence to continue the story as canon in their comic books and were about to have that adapted in to the next movie. instead they had to change the names of hicks and newt in future reprints since the stories were no longer canon. don't know what they did for Aliens: Earth War tho, seeing as how that featured hicks, newt, and the return of ripley.

one of the great books that dark horse did was newt's tale. it showed what happened on LV-426 thru newt's eyes, so we saw how the infestation started, the colonists last stand, the arrival of ripley and the marines, and the whole end game. this was made after alien 3, so at the end when newt asks ripley if she wil dream all the way home they make reference to all the canon that got dumped by saying something about her having dreams that will never come to pass.

they changed the name of the novelisation to the Female War, made ripley an android, replaced hicks and newt with wilks and billie and generally made a total gargantuan retarded of themselves.

Anyway, save your pennies, avoid this steaming pile of shit and watch Aliens again. Remind yourself of the greatness that once was.

darknation said:

made ripley an android

ugh. I new about the name changes to newt and hick, but making ripley in to a synthetic? thats pretty damn lame.

actually, they made a big deal about ripley's mistrust for androids (ala ash & bishop) and then she finds out that she actually is one... it would have been an interesting dynamic if it weren't written by the eternal assmonkeys.

Yeah, I was gonna say - the company seemed to know about the Xenomorphs long before they set down on LV-426. How they'd keep it hidden from the public, I don't know, but it's a theory.

VileSlay said:

IIRC the original idea for alien 3 was supposed to be based on the dark horse comic series.

I have never heard anything like that. The documentaries in the Alien 3 special edition DVD make no reference to Dark Horse that I can recall. Maybe at some point it was briefly brought up in meeting or something, but I doubt it was ever a serious idea.

The infamous "Aliens on Earth" teaser was just something thrown out there to let people know they were working on a sequel. I don't think it ever went beyond a vague idea inside of Fox (they quickly realized it would cost too much), but the fan community latched on to it and daydreamed of some kind of Blade Runner meets Aliens epic. The production of Alien 3 is the text-book example of "development hell" and is pretty interesting if you're a fan of the series. I have a lot of respect for Fincher after learning about what he had to go through to direct that movie and the result (at least the workprint version) is much better than it had any right to be.

As a slight aside, the original Alien movie story was different too.

The Xenomorphs were to have had a much more organised society with their involved and complex reproduction (involving hosts etc) being the cause for them to build temples to reproduce in: which is where the original egg/infection scene was supposed to have happened. The walls were to be decorated by hieroglyphs illustrating the entire Alien reproductive cycle. There was also supposed to be restraining apparatus of some kind for the hosts to be held in as they were infected. However, the scene of the astronauts discovering the temple was deemed to be very slow and to take too long. It didn't allow enough action early on in the movie so it was dropped. Consequently the movie was silent on the issue of the Alien culture, allowing it to be abandoned in later movies, allowing making them less sentient and more animal like.

All that was left of this idea is a subtle hint near the end of the movie. You know how when Ripley finds the Alien in the escape pod? Ever think it was a bit lethargic? Hardly the lightning fast killer that it had been in the rest of the movie. It just kind of writhed and then allowed itself to get "spaced". Here's why: In a cut scene the captain of the ship (you never actually find out what happened to him after he disappears) is found by Ripley, gooed to the wall (in a cupboard I think), already infected and begging to die. The idea is that the Alien has completed its reproduction and, job done, it curls up waiting for death.

Also, stylistically, the 3 cultures in the film (humans, xenomorphs and the infected host ship) were supposed to be designed by 3 different people to ensure that they looked different. However, Giger ended up doing the aliens and the host ship. It always bothered me that the Aliens and the "Space Jockey" (and his ship) looked so similar in style despite supposedly being of different origins. It wasn't until years later I found out why. I can't remember why they went for Giger doing both. Money? Availability of other designers? His stuff looking cooler than everyone else's? Apparently one of the original (non-Giger) drafts for the host ship was something that looked a bit like a giant space lobster crewed by dwarf-like creatures. O_O

Enjay said:
It always bothered me that the Aliens and the "Space Jockey" (and his ship) looked so similar in style despite supposedly being of different origins.

Well, visually it ended up looking like the xenomorphs and the space jockeys came from the same environment (planet), being genetically related to some degree.

I would probably agree with Enjay if I can remember anything from the book at all (it's been years since I read it).

I know what the Jockey's are supposed to look like, and dwarves does not fit the description at all ;) (mind you, was the Jockey portrayed in the first movie the first 'set in stone' image of a Jockey?)

I also know that one of the ideas behind the Xenomorph's existence is that the Jockey's created and bred them to serve some sort of function in their society, be it workers, just an experiment, or even perhaps as food. People theorize that the Xenomorph's simply got loose on the Jockey's ship, impregnated the Jockey and crashed the ship into the planet.

Enjay said:

The Xenomorphs were to have had a much more organised society

Indeed, one of the first ideas for the ending was for the alien to kill Ripley, then radio back to Earth that everything was fine!

Did you get that info from one of the "making of" Alien books, Enjay? I've seen Giger's drawings of the temple, but I hadn't heard that it was supposed to have been constructed by the xenos themselves.

Edit: Re-reading your post it sounds like you haven't seen the latest DVD version of the movie. Ridley Scott made an alternate cut that includes the cocooning scene. I actually prefer that version of the movie in general (how often is a "directors cut" actually shorter than the theatrical!), with the possible exception of that scene (it's a bit hokey and it breaks continuity). You should check it out!

david_a said:

Did you get that info from one of the "making of" Alien books, Enjay? I've seen Giger's drawings of the temple, but I hadn't heard that it was supposed to have been constructed by the xenos themselves.

Yeah, it was a very good book with loads of info, draft scripts and artwork, model mock-ups, interviews etc etc. I got it out of a library years ago. Can't remember what it was called though.

Edit: Re-reading your post it sounds like you haven't seen the latest DVD version of the movie. Ridley Scott made an alternate cut that includes the cocooning scene. I actually prefer that version of the movie in general (how often is a "directors cut" actually shorter than the theatrical!), with the possible exception of that scene (it's a bit hokey and it breaks continuity). You should check it out! [/B]

Actually, I think I may have it. Did it come as part of a set of the 4 movies? I have that. I've certainly seen the scene but I don't remember if it was incorporated into the movie or if it was just an additional DVD feature in a cutscene menu or something.

There's a few Alien books, but I'm betting it was this.

They released the series twice on DVD. I don't know what the old version had on it, but the new versions of each have both the theatrical and alternate cuts on them in addition to a lot of documentaries and stuff.