Aliens vs Predator: The Survey

[Zardnaar]

Damn that's hard.

The "bad" Predator movies are probably better than the bad Alien movies. Aliens us better than the best Predator movie.

Think I enjoyed 4 Predator movies vs 3 Alien obesity. Don't care about the books and comics of both.
Predator can still come out with good new material and kinda liked Predators. Last good Alien film was in the 80's.

So more optimistic for future entries.

 

[Deset Gled]

I love the added stuff especially the beginning scenes

When the "Quadrilogy" DVDs first came out, I thought the extended scenes were awesome. And I still think they're fun. But after re-watching the movies in both theatrical and extended cuts, I've come to believe the movies are better without them.

First, there is the obvious issue of pacing. Both Alien and Aliens are on the longish side, and the tension built by the pacing really does benefit from cutting the fat. Second, the plot actually works better without the extra explanations. Cutting the cocoon scene in Alien leads to a better reveal in Aliens. So many of the added scenes in Aliens are unneeded exposition. Even the "Ripley's daughter" plot has some negative effects on character development; it makes it seem like Ripley has a bit of a death wish, while omitting it does a better job of showing that she's trying to get her life back together.

It's worth noting that I've become much more critical of "extended cuts" as time goes on. I'm going to date myself here, but when DVDs were first coming out I thought the deleted scenes were the best thing ever. But somewhere after Lord of the Rings, they seemed to just become gratuitous. I still appreciate "Directors Cuts" for movies like Justice League or Blade Runner where the studio obviously forced significant changes. But for a lot of movies, it seems like it's more of a gimick to sell DVDs than an artistic choice. In a lot of cases (the Alien stuff is a great example) I think its better to watch the scenes as bonus features, rather than keeping them in the movie.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

Alien. The movie, not the rest of the franchise.

It was a steady downhill turn since the first movie, with a quick plummet with Joss Whedon's effort. Prometheus clawed a little of the dignity back - but not much, IMO. Covenant was dreadful.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I voted for the Alien franchise, but think Chris Hansen’s work in the Predator TV series was underrated…

 

[Deset Gled]

I voted for the Alien franchise, but think Chris Hansen’s work in the Predator TV series was underrated…

The special effects on the show were pretty bad. You could clearly see it was just a guy in a suit the whole time.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The special effects on the show were pretty bad. You could clearly see it was just a guy in a suit the whole time.

But the jump scares were some of the best on TV!

 

[Nikosandros]

I can do without the extended scenes from Alien. Those from Aliens are debatable, except the one with the sentry robots. Without it, it seems that the characters just wait passively for a while. It seemed off to me when I first saw the movie and the extended scene solves that issue for me.

 

[Tonguez]

I prefer action to horror so I prefer the two Predator movies and comics to the two Aliens movies

 

[Zardnaar]

Rewarched Prey tonight. Pretty damn good on rewatch enjoyed it.

Reminded me to watch a Cherokee youtube video in West Virginia.

 

[gban007]

For me ultimately it comes down to the aliens feeling more alien, vs the predators feeling more human like / more like many other sci fi stories, especially once get beyond the first movie that maintains a fair bit of mystery for most of it. I still enjoy many of the other predator movies, but much prefer the alien movies, except for 3 for what it did to Newt / Hicks / Ripley. I have a soft spot for 4 even though recognize not a great film as such, and really didn't like the attempt to make a more human version of the alien there.
Funnily enough, I find the Aliens far more predatory than the actual Predators, who are more hunters.