Alien/Predator Thread

The siren in the background tells me that... marketers now, as with Prometheus, know that Alien had a really good trailer.

I'm really not sold on this one, because I feel like all of Alvarez's films so far have ranged from "entertaining if fundamentally flawed" to "bad". But I'm sure this will be entertaining in a Forbidden World or Creature sort of way, bare minimum, and I doubt they'll let the franchise dip any lower than Requiem already let it.

Edited by Prowler on Mar 20th 2024 at 11:14:52 AM

I'm definitely getting strong Alien: Isolation vibes. Which is definitely not a bad thing.

So we have faith in this movie it sounds like?

they made a decent Predator movie so anything is possible

The director made one of the best horror remakes and one of the more tense thrillers, so I do have faith in him, yes.

Hollywood Reporter says Romulus is primarily using practical effects and creatures. As little green screen as possible:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/alien-romulus-trailer-ridley-scott-1235856321/

Edited by BigBadShadow25 on Mar 23rd 2024 at 4:36:34 AM

Always love to see some of that these days! 👍🏻

I have nothing against CGI, obviously, but Hollywood loves using it over practical effects a bit too much. There needs to be a bit more diversity with that.

Edited by lbssb on Mar 23rd 2024 at 5:52:33 AM

Agreed. There's a verisimilitude in well done practical effects than even the best cgi can lack

I'll let Dead Meat watch this one for me. I'm burnt out on this franchise after Prometheus.

Oh hey, this franchise actually had a thread...which should not be a surprise now that I think of it. XD

Few months ago I watched the original Alien movie and started to watch the sequel...although I paused at around 30minutes~1hour mark and hadn't resumed since then. I actually don't know why, but I should definitely get back into it.

Oh yeah, and I should also really watch the original Predator movie already.

Since you're a newcomer to the fandom, I'll take the opportunity to drop my hot take on the franchise/advice for newbies.

Aliens:

• First two movies are pure gold. Third movie is a pretty good movie on it's own, but a terrible sequel that totally ruins the second film's perfect sendoff, and further you specifically need to watch the Assembly Cut because the theatrical cut sucks. The fourth, fifth, and sixth movies all just plain suck and are best ignored entirely, especially because what's in them can be found being done better elsewhere. We're waiting to see if Romulus/seven will be good.

• The tabletop RPG is also awesome. Even if you don't play tabletop, it's highly recommended you read it's books because they double as a kind of "codex"/compilation of all the lore and worldbuilding, with the added bonus of working the kinks out of stuff introduced in the weaker material.

• Alien Isolation is the single best video game in the entire franchise and one of the best horror games ever made period. It's the only Aliens solo game I'd consider a must-play, though Fireteam Elite, Infestation, and the Resurrection game are pretty decent.

• There are comics from both Marvel and Dark Horse. The Marvel comics have all been pretty good so far. The Dark Horse comics are all over the fucking place in terms of quality, ranging from fantastic cosmic horror at it's best to crapped-out nihilistic garbage, and it can be painfully subjective to as to which is which. Of the Dark Horse books, the ones that I personally love and consider must-read are Labyrinth, Salvation, Wraith, Apocalypse, Music of the Spears, and anything by John Arcudi. The Mark Verheiden comics are often well-liked, and there are a lot of aspects of them that I enjoy, but they're personally not my speed as a whole.

• I haven't read any of the print books, but Phalanx is regularly brought up as being easily the best of all of them and much worth reading.

Predator:

• Predator has been a lot luckier than Aliens. Pretty much all of the movies except the fourth are fantastic. The fourth is unbelievably terrible but easily ignored thankfully.

• Likewise for comics, Predator has been luckier than Alien. The Dark Horse and Marvel Predator comics are generally all pretty fun. Some are better than others, but I wouldn't call any of them outright terrible like with Alien.

• Concrete Jungle is this series' equivalent to Isolation in that it's the best game. There's some jank here and there and some people find the story a little too cheesy at times, but on the whole it's a really good game that I have fond memories of.

Alien Vs Predator:

• The first AVP movie is okay. Not great, not terrible. The second sucks. Neither is particularly recommendable.

• The comics are yet again majorly hit and miss, some - especially the original comic - hitting, some badly missing. Said very first AVP comic and the later Deadliest of the Species are the only ones I consider must-read.

• The Monolith AVP duology of games are both peak and highly-recommended. The 2010 game is nearly as good, but still fairly enjoyable in it's own right. The real-time strategy game - Extinction - is pretty meh to me, but maybe it's just not my thing.

The Predator is the best sequel to Predator.

I refuse to explain myself any further.