Alien vs. Predator (film)

Alien vs. Predator
Directed by	Paul W.S. Anderson
Written by	Story: Paul W. S. Anderson Dan O'Bannon Ronald Shusett Screenplay: Paul W.S. Anderson
Produced by	Gordon Carroll John Davis David Giler Walter Hill
Starring	Sanaa Lathan Lance Henriksen Raoul Bova Ewen Bremner Colin Salmon
Music by	Harald Kloser
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release dates	August 13, 2004
Running time	Theatrical Cut: 101 min. Director's Cut: 108 min.
Language	English
Budget	$60,000,000

Alien vs. Predator (also known as AVP) is a motion picture released in 2004 by the Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and directed by Paul W. S. Anderson. It is based both on several series of Alien vs. Predator comic books published by Dark Horse Comics and on the Alien and Predator films which spawned the original characters.

Plot

The events of Alien vs. Predator are set in 2004 on Earth. As a Predator spacecraft nears the planet, Earth satellites detect a mysterious heat bloom beneath the ice of the island Bouvetøya near Antarctica. Billionaire Charles Bishop Weyland assembles a team of scientists to investigate the heat source and claim it for his multinational communications company Weyland Industries (foreshadowing the Weyland-Yutani Corporation of the Alien film series). The team includes paleontologists, archaeologists, linguistic experts, drillers, mercenaries and a "rough and tumble" female guide named Alexa Woods.

As the Predator ship reaches Earth orbit, it blasts a hole down through the ice towards the source of the heat bloom. When the human team arrives at the site above the heat source, an abandoned whaling station, they find this hole and descend beneath the ice. There they discover a mysterious pyramid and begin to explore it, finding evidence of a civilization predating written history and what appears to be a "sacrificial chamber" filled with human skeletons with ruptured rib cages. Meanwhile, three Predators land and kill off the humans at the surface, making their way down to the pyramid and arriving just as the team unwittingly powers up the structure. Several of the humans become trapped in the "sacrifical chamber". An Alien queen awakens from cryogenic stasis and begins producing eggs, from which facehuggers hatch and attach themselves to several of the humans. Chestbursters soon emerge from the humans and quickly grow into adult Aliens. Conflicts erupt between the Predators, Aliens and humans, resulting in several deaths. Unbeknownst to the others, one of the Predators is implanted with an Alien embryo by a facehugger.

Through translation of the pyramid’s hieroglyphs, the explorers learn that the Predators have been visiting Earth for thousands of years. It was they who taught early human civilizations to build pyramids and they were worshipped as gods. At regular intervals, they would visit Earth to take part in a rite of passage in which several humans would sacrifice themselves as hosts for the Aliens, creating the "ultimate prey" for the Predators to hunt. If overwhelmed, the Predators would activate their self-destruct weapons to eliminate the Aliens along with themselves. They deduce that this is why the current Predators are here, to hunt the Aliens again. The survivors further reason that the heat bloom from the pyramid was given off to attract humans for the purposes of making new aliens to hunt. The remaining humans decide the Predators must be allowed to succeed in their hunt so that the Aliens do not spread to the rest of Earth. As the battle continues, most of the characters are killed off (including Weyland), leaving only Alexa Woods and a single Predator to face off against the remaining Aliens. The two ally with each other and use the Predator’s self-destruct device to destroy the pyramid, killing the remaining Aliens, except for the Alien queen, and escaping to the surface. The Alien queen emerges and the three do battle in the vicinity of the whaling station. Alexa and the Predator defeat the queen by attaching its chain to a heavy water tower and pushing it over a cliff and into the ocean, dragging the queen down to the ocean floor. The Predator, however, dies from its wounds. A Predator ship suddenly decloaks and several Predators appear. They collect their fallen comrade and present Alexa with one of their spear weapons. As they retreat into space, a chestburster erupts from the dead Predator. It appears to be an Alien/Predator hybrid, as it has the characteristic jaw mandibles of both species.

Cast

Actor	Role
Sanaa Lathan	Alexa Woods
Raoul Bova	Sebastian De Rosa
Lance Henriksen	Charles Bishop Weyland
Ewen Bremner	Graeme Miller
Colin Salmon	Maxwell Stafford
Tommy Flanagan	Mark Verheiden
Joseph Rye	Joe Connors
Agathe De La Boulaye	Adele Rousseau
Carsten Norgaard	Rustin Quinn
Sam Troughton	Thomas Parkes
Petr Jákl	Stone
Pavel Bezdek	Bass
Kieran Bew	Klaus
Carsten Voigt	Mikkel
Jan Filipensky	Boris
Adrian Bouchet	Sven
Ian Whyte	Predator, Scar
Tom Woodruff, Jr.	Alien, Grid

According to the novelization, the three Predators are named Scar (the main Predator), Celtic (the leader who attacks Quinn) and Chopper/Gill (who has the shortest screentime). Scar is also noted in the credits, and Celtic is acknowledged in one of the DVD commentaries. The three are easily distinguishable owing to their different masks - Celtic has a very elaborate design over his mouth, Chopper has several horizontal 'ribs' beneath his eyepieces and Scar's is almost entirely smooth except for a hieroglyph from xenomorphs blood. In addition, the Alien which fights Celtic is listed in the credits as "Grid", owing to the gridlike pattern Celtic's net imprints onto it. The Predator Leader of the ship, who gives Alexa the victory spear, is named Elder.

Production

Origins

The concept of pitting the two creatures against one another has its roots in the Dark Horse Comics. Stan Winston also hinted at a crossover by placing an alien skull in a trophy case aboard the Predator's ship in Predator 2. Screenwriter Peter Briggs created the original spec screenplay in 1990-1991, which itself was essentially a rewrite of the first comic series of the same name. In 1991 he successfully pitched the concept to 20th Century Fox, who owned both film franchises, although the company did not move forward with the project until 2003 after several re-writes of the original concept and screenplay and several changes to the cast and crew.

The writing credits submitted by the studio to the WGA recommended that Peter Briggs and Paul W.S. Anderson be credited for the story, while Anderson and Shane Salerno get the screenplay credit. Instead, the WGA denied any sort of credit to Briggs or Salerno, and instead gave co-story credit to original Alien writers Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett on the rationale that some story elements were based on a deleted scene from that film. Shocked at this decision, the studio offered Salerno an executive producer's credit, but he turned it down.

Much of the general storyline of AvP is heavily influenced by H. P. Lovecraft's 1931 novella At the Mountains of Madness. The original Alien writer Dan O'Bannon was influenced when writing the screenplay for Alien by the Lovecraft concept of the Old Ones.

Location

Production began in late 2003 on the Barrandov Studios backlot in Prague, where the vast majority of the filming took place, although the film was set on the Norwegian Antarctic island of Bouvet. The setting of the film, Bouvet Island, is referred to as "Bouvetøya Island". "Bouvetøya" is the Norwegian name and is a combination of the words Bouvet and øya ("the island"). Additionally, an animation in the film shows Bouvet as being located off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula near the approximate geographical location of Peter I Island, when in fact it is over 1,600 km from the nearest land. At this distance, Bouvet Island can be considered as one of the most remote islands (and indeed the most remote place) on Earth.

Effects

A number of changes were made to both the appearance and equipment of the Predators in AvP. Director Paul Anderson and the film's costume designers chose to give the Predators heavier armor in AvP than had been seen in the prior Predator films, partly because they felt it made the Predators seem less vulnerable to the Aliens and partly because it gave them a larger, sturdier overall appearance. Most fans, however, were upset with the costuming, as many felt that it made the Predators appear overly bulky, unstable and awkward. In addition, the Predator's vision system has been modified; it now includes a viewing mode used for tracking the Aliens. Modifications have been made to almost all of the previous weapons: the wrist blades are longer and larger, the net gun has been built into the wrist gauntlet, and its nets automatically contract; a folding shuriken-style weapon has replaced the disc; a more ornate version of the spear appears at the end of the film, perhaps only given to Predator elders; the plasmacasters are larger and more powerful, for use against Aliens; and one Predator is given a pair of giant, retractable fore-arm claws, though he never gets a chance to use them.

Reception

Critics were not allowed to view the film in advance. Once critics were able to review the film, the response was generally negative. Despite mostly poor reviews, the film earned more than $38 million over its US opening weekend and spent its first week of release at the top of box office charts. However, subsequent weeks saw the film's revenue take a severe decline. Even so, it ranks as one of the most successful films to date in either franchise. The film earned $171.2 million worldwide, with a sequel, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, released on December 25, 2007.

Before 20th Century Fox greenlit Alien vs. Predator, Aliens writer/director James Cameron had been working on a story for a fifth Alien film. Upon learning that Fox intended to pursue Alien vs. Predator, he believed the film would "kill the validity of the franchise" and ceased work on his story: "To me, that was Frankenstein Meets Werewolf. It was Universal just taking their assets and starting to play them off against each other...Milking it." After viewing Alien vs. Predator, however, Cameron remarked that "it was actually pretty good. I think of the five Alien films, I'd rate it third. I actually liked it. I actually liked it a lot."

See also

• Alien vs. Predator series, including films, comics, novels, and games
• Aliens versus Predator (computer game)

External links

• Alien vs. Predator at IMDb
• Alien vs. Predator at Rotten Tomatoes
• Alien vs. Predator at Box Office Mojo