Paul Anderson, AVP, and the rantings of a true fan of the series.

The BBQ Pit
1

From an interview with Paul W.S. Anderson:

It’s one thing to take two popular movie franchises, put them in the as-seen-on-TV “Ultimate Chopper” and puree them into 87 minutes of celluloid dreck, but it’s another to profess a love of one of them and utterly fuck that up in your movie. Maybe it’s because writers can never see when their own work is crap. But I saw in the credits that at least a hundred people worked on this movie. Couldn’t somebody, somewhere have said SOMETHING? Shouldn’t somebody who’s seen Aliens 120 times know a little bit about what he’s talking about? Ignoring the other three movies in the series, and just using *Aliens *as the model, how did he come up with:

Alien Queens the size of a two-story building.

Facehuggers that impregnate in 10 minutes.

Chestbursters that erupt in 10 more minutes.

Warrior aliens growing in another ten minutes.

Aliens that like to wrestle.

Alien acid that can cut through anything, except when it can’t.

Aliens that aren’t scary, creepy, or terrifying in any way.

And most importantly, a large cast of characters with no intelligent dialogue, emotional connection or memorable personalities that actually made you care about their survival and the fate of all of humanity.

“And found something never recorded once in over three hundred surveyed worlds…” Does this include Earth? Well, the movie was set in Antarctica. Maybe “The Thing” snuck in. After all, it exists only to imitate, and then explode in a gory mess when discovered.

And by the way, fuck everybody who can’t tell the movies apart. Way to blow the picture in the article, guys. And while we’re at it, *Alien *is the original. *Aliens *is “Alien 2.” There is no “Aliens 2” or “Aliens 3.”

Fuck all this. I’m gonna go watch *Aliens *again. It’s the only way to be sure.

2

This was not AvP, it was just some generic, cheap action/sci-fi movie with two great franchises thrown in (ie raped) so that they could make a few bucks off of them.
Anderson is such a fucking hack.

3

And the only way to ensure that he stops getting the opportunity to fuck up franchises is to STOP GOING TO SEE HIS MOVIES.

AvP opened at #1 this weekend. Anderson bought himself another two or three projects with that. And there was no rejoicing in the land…

4

What? what about…

…oh, the only legal way.

5

Fair enough – it’s my own fault for seeing it. I say now, and for the record, that the Forces of Evil did not threaten to eat graham crackers in my bed if I chose not to see AvP. I am part of the problem as my $6.50 went into making it the top grosser for the weekend.

That’s not what I’m pitting, though.

I’m pitting his “I’m SUCH a big fan” spiel when clearly Anderson clearly has no respect for the source material. Again, I realize I’m defending a movie and not the Collective Works of Shakespeare, but the guy repeatedly boasts about his knowledge and love of the *Alien *series and then goes and takes a giant shit on it. It would be fine if AvP wasn’t *Alien *vs Predator but the guy wasn’t working from a blank slate and there were certain constraints he should have recognized, especially since he’s such a HUGE fan.

So, what else is new in Hollywood. I have the sneaking suspicion they were just trying to make money. But it sure makes me bitter when I think about what could have been done with the premise and that $6.50!

EZ

6

Fair enough, and fair game.

At least Verhoeven didn’t pretend he was being faithful to Heinlein before he took a giant shit on the power-armored book. :wink:

7

I wanted a fucking three way fucking marine vs. pred. vs. alien vs. marine show. I wanted a super three fucking way fight. I found I wasn’t going to get that, so I said “FUCK YOU!!!” I’m not going to get suckered into another one like I did with that last fucked up fuck of a fuck fuck Alien movie.

In short, stop making stupid ass moronic sci-fi popcorn movies that are really just action movies with spaceships. STOP IT!! I hate you Hollywood. I think I’ll pop up to Tennessee and go to Dollywood just to piss you off! Wankers!

8

To be absolutely fair to W.S. (even though he doesn’t deserve it) the whole blood-acidity-directly-proportional-to-plot-requirements thing didn’t originate with him; *all * the sequels are guilty of it.

But that’s all I’m going to say in defense of Anderson. My god, he could have gotten a better story from the comics or the games or the bottom of a parrot’s birdcage.

And the parrot would have made a better director, too…

9

You know…even though this movie is getting horrid reviews, I really want to see it. This Anderson guy won’t get any of my money as long as I pay for a ticket to a different movie right? Most movie theater employees don’t give a rats ass what you see in their theater with what ticket provided you’re of legal age and have paid.

10

This is why I just bought the big-ass widescreen TV. Now I can wait until it’s in the “2/$11.00” bin at Wal Mart.

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No way anything good gets through the Hollywood system any more. I have totally despaired of ever again seeing a big budget movie worth the price of admission. I really mean that.

Look at what’s his name, Peter Jackson - hugest fan of the Lord of the Rings books, right? Talked about his love for them all day. Blah blah I love Lord of the Rings and we have a chance to do it right, blah blah. Fast forward to asses-in-the-seat time, and we saw how the ponytails in Hollywood decided LoTR needed more ‘oomph’. New scenes, exaggerated and combined characters, new events, bad dialogue, fake drama.

If you like Aliens vs. Predator, feel free to revisit the story anytime, the way it was meant to be seen. Comic books.

12

I wonder sometimes… Hollywood beancounters take a lot of heat, and rightfully so, for “juicing” movies to make more money… But in the case of both AvP and LotR, what’s on the screen is the direct result of the “talent” behind the pen and the camera. I find it hard to believe that AvP was ever cinematic gold that got trashed by money-hungry studio execs. That’s more the tragic tale of Alien 3. I can’t see how AvP was anything but crap from the get-go.

And you’re right about the source material — the original comic series was fantastic (it even made the pred-human “alliance” plausible) as was the story in the second computer game. But hey, who wants to be constantly entertained when you pay to see a movie?

EZ

13

Well, since Aliens, the series has become an express elevator to hell - going down!

14

Hey, at least it sucked less than Event Horizon.

No, honestly.

… shamefully I will admit that I actually did enjoy it… but then I expected FAR worse when I went in, so I was… surprised. It sucked, but not as badly as I thought it would!