Wednesday 23 January 2008

Audience vs Plot: Requiem

Another movie ticked off: Aliens vs Predator - Requiem. There's a basic reason we go to watch Alien movies, and this one had a lot of death and destruction of human beings, so... fun! (Which is completely subverting the intent of the first movie of just one alien being a problem...)

But rather than talk about the movie, there are two points that struck me as I watched. Who was it that saw Alien and Predator and then decided... hey, we should cross those series! In some ways, this works as they are both alien species, intent on battle, and completely overwhelm the surrounding humans. On the other hand, why should the Predators care about the Aliens? They're bugs to be exterminated, to be honest, so what's the big appeal? [A challenging fight, of course!]

The other point: why do the Aliens kill everyone? It's not like the humans are used as a food source, and aren't a serious threat to the Aliens, so really the Aliens are just killing people out of spite. At least in Aliens they are used as hosts for more aliens, but outside of that, it's "Death to the humans" all the way. Wouldn't think that entirely useful perspective from an evolutionary point of view. Too much wasted energy.

All of which really demonstrates just how engaging the movie was on a deep and personal level that I spent time with these thoughts...

[END]

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Jamas, you ask who decided to cross Aliens and Predator? Well, I think you will see an Alien head hanging on the wall of the Predator spaceship in Predator 2 (all those years ago in 1990). I seem to recall friends at the time talking about a battle between the two, which was only realised later in the Dark Horse comics (and then computer games) before finally making it to the movies. Haven't seen the first AvP movie but understand it's really poor - this one looks a lot better! The trailer looked awesome.

Anonymous said...

From Wikipedia:

"Near the end of the film, a Xenomorph skull can be seen in the predator's trophy collection. The first time the Alien and Predator franchises were combined was in November of 1989 when Dark Horse Comics released Aliens vs. Predator. This combination would also later be explored in various video games, and the films Alien vs. Predator (2004) and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)."

Jamas Enright said...

Someone had way too much time on their hands... ;)

Anonymous said...

Interesting that the Dark Horse comics brought them together prior to Predator.

Who says I have too much time on my hands! ;-)

the other dave said...

I remember when the first Allen Dean Foster ALIEN book came out there was a section where Bishop(?) mused that such an agressive life form couldn't have evolved naturally as it would destroy all other life on whatever planet it started on, and mused that it was somehow engineered. Then, shortly after the Predator movie came out there was this idea that the Predators were the ones who did this to create the ultimate hunt. I think shortly after that there was a comic or other spin-off that actually showed this (may have been Cold War, or something from the Alien magazine in the 90s).
Sorry if all this is preaching to the choir - I haven't followed either franchise much for many years.

Jamas Enright said...

The first AVP shows that the Predators do use Aliens like that, but can't help feeling there should have been a more sensible thing to do...