Alien vs. Predator (film)
| Movie | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| German title | Alien vs. Predator | ||
| Original title | Alien vs. Predator | ||
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| Country of production | USA , UK , Germany , Czech Republic | ||
| original language | English | ||
| Publishing year | 2004 | ||
| length | Original: 97 minutes Extended: 98 minutes Unrated: 104 minutes |
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| Age rating |
FSK 16 JMK 14 |
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| Rod | |||
| Director | Paul WS Anderson | ||
| script | Paul WS Anderson | ||
| production |
Gordon Carroll , John Davis , David Giler , Walter Hill |
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| music | Harald Kloser | ||
| camera | David Johnson | ||
| cut | Alexander Berner | ||
| occupation | |||
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| chronology | |||
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Alien vs. Predator (also known as AVP ) is a science fiction film by Paul WS Anderson from the year 2004 . It was released in American cinemas on August 13th and in German cinemas on November 4th, 2004.
The film is a crossover between the Alien and Predator films. 2007 came with Aliens vs. Predator 2 a sequel to theaters.
action
The Weyland Group's PS12 satellite discovers a heat field on Bouvet Island (Bouvetøya) near Antarctica , which points to a very old pyramid 600 meters below the ice. The terminally ill company founder Charles Bishop Weyland wants to go down in history before his death and is putting together a research team of the best experts who money can “buy” in order to start an expedition to the pyramid.
Upon arrival, you want to clear the way to the artifact, but you will already find a tunnel that leads diagonally into the depths, which could not be seen on the satellite images from 24 hours earlier. The team suspects that the tunnel was created using thermal drilling tools. However, the experts find that the technology of these devices cannot be of terrestrial origin due to their enormous performance. A scout team is roped down through the tunnel to the pyramid. His arrival triggers an automatism that wakes a chained alien queen on the lowest level with electric shocks, who shortly afterwards begins to lay eggs. Around the same time, the base camp is attacked by three Predators who kill the guards.
In the meantime, the team has passed a room in the pyramid that is designated as the “sacrificial chamber”. One group stays there, another descends further into a lower-lying room where they find a sarcophagus. In this there are three artifacts, shoulder cannons of the Predators, as it turns out later. You decide to return to the surface and take the artifacts with you. The removal of the artifacts, however, triggers a further automatic mechanism that causes the walls in the pyramid to move every ten minutes.
In the sacrificial chamber, the exits close, and the alien queen's eggs go up into the chamber. Eight-legged creatures ("facehuggers") hatch from them, jump in the faces of the members of the research team and cling to them. The rest of the squad is ambushed by the Predators on their way back, killing two security guards. Moving the walls further will allow them to escape, but they will be divided into more small groups. Almost all of them are kidnapped by the alien monsters, which have now hatched and grown.
The only survivors are the polar expedition expert and leader of the remaining group, Alexa Woods, the archaeologist Sebastian De Rosa, the leader of the guard, Maxwell Stafford, and Charles Weyland. This group is surprised by two Predators, and Stafford does not survive this encounter. Only the appearance of another alien prevents everyone from being killed. The alien impales a Predator with its tail and kills the second after a violent fight.
On the run, they are overtaken by the remaining Predator. Weyland sacrifices himself to allow the others to escape. Alexa and Sebastian can escape, benefiting from another shift of the pyramid. Fortunately for them, they now have a massive wall between them and the Predator. Through a small opening, you can watch him kill a facehugger and a sneaking alien creature. Then he etches a mark on his helmet and forehead with the acid blood of the aliens. At the moment when he is jumped at by another facehugger, another wall is pushed in front of the scene.
In the chamber, the two survivors use hieroglyphics to find out the meaning of the pyramid. Obviously, it represents a training area for young Predators who had to compete in battle with the aliens. The Predators came to earth thousands of years ago, were taken for gods by the people living at the time and showed them the technique of building pyramids. Since then they have returned to earth every 100 years and held their battle in the pyramids. The inhabitants of the earth had to make human sacrifices, which were used to hatch the aliens. If the Predators lost the fight, this would set off a self-destruct mechanism that completely wiped out all life in and around the pyramid. This explains the sudden disappearance of the high cultures of that time.
Alexa and Sebastian decide to follow the old adage "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" and return his shoulder weapon to the remaining Predator. On the search, however, they encounter an alien, which Sebastian is dragging away. Alexa, on the other hand, can save herself and finally meets the Predator. When she is about to hand him his weapon, an alien suddenly attacks. The Predator threatens to succumb, but Alexa can kill the alien with the Predator's spear weapon. From then on, Alexa accompanies the Predator, who makes an acid-resistant shield from the alien's headstock and a spear from the end of the tail. Shortly afterwards he uses the shoulder cannon very effectively against a smaller horde of aliens until they are called by their queen and withdraw to free them from their bonds. This succeeds, and the huge creature begins its flight to the surface.
Alexa and the Predator find the nest of the aliens and there the kidnapped Sebastian, in whose body an alien is already growing that will soon pierce his chest. After urging Sebastian, Alexa finally shoots him. The Predator drops a bomb and they continue their escape. At the top of the shaft, they are attacked again by aliens, with the Predator losing its shoulder cannon. The bomb explodes, and the elevator system's emergency operation knocks them to the surface just before the heat wave hits them. The huge explosion in the pyramid burns all the aliens and their eggs, and the ice cavern collapses. Alexa and the Predator make it to the safe edge, where the Predator now takes off his mask and Alexa uses alien blood to etch the same mark in the cheek that he has already marked himself with.
Suddenly, however, the alien queen reappears and attacks the two. After an intense fight they manage to chain the queen to a large tank and throw it into the Arctic Ocean, so that it pulls the queen with him. Just before she plunges into the sea, the queen can impale the Predator with her tail. When Alexa kneels next to her dying comrade, shaken, some Predators and a gigantic spaceship are revealed behind her. These apparently had been monitoring the whole fight. The corpse is taken away from them, and an elderly Predator, whom Alexa recognizes as worthy of the rank of hunter because of her cheek scars, hands her his spear weapon.
In the end sequence you can see the Predator in the spaceship, from whose chest something suddenly bursts out. An alien-Predator hybrid can be seen in the close-up.
background
- It took 14 years for this crossover to happen in a movie after Danny Glover saw an alien skull in the Predator's spaceship in Predator 2 . (According to director Paul WS Anderson, the only thing he liked about the film.) The first comic book Alien vs. Predator was released in the late 1980s.
- In contrast to the Alien films, AVP is not set in the future, but in 2004. This film also marks the return of actor Lance Henriksen and his character Bishop. Henriksen plays Charles Bishop Weyland, the founder of a global company that seems to have its hands on everything (and its successor company, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, which centuries later will send Ellen Ripley to ruin). It should be implied that Bishop from the Alien series was modeled on him, as the director's comments on the DVD attest. In one scene, Weyland is sitting in his office and playing with a pen in the same way that the android bishop does with a knife in Aliens .
- In Alien 3 , Bishop's creator also appears. This is Michael Bishop, a designer with the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. At first, however, it is not clear whether it is another android or a human. The 2004 Special Edition of Alien 3 shows how he gets a strong blow to the head. But even though his ear is drooping and he's bleeding, he remains conscious. In the credits, the actor is called "Bishop II", which rather pointed to a copy of the same Android series. Against this is the fact that the blood of the androids in the previous films was white and suddenly it is red here. In Alan Dean Foster's novel, however, it is clear that this bishop is human.
- Sigourney Weaver (leading actress in Alien 1-4) turned down a role in this film because she found the script and the idea terrible. But she did not rule out a possible Alien 5, in which Ripley is supposed to travel to the home planet of the aliens to finish off the creatures once and for all. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger should briefly appear at the end of the film. However, he made this dependent on whether he would win the election as governor of California - which he was known to do.
- The film was drastically defused shortly before its release at the urging of the studio. Almost all disgusting and violent scenes were cut in favor of a lower rating . This is particularly noticeable towards the end of the film. Almost eight minutes fell victim to the scissors. The cutting out of explicit depictions of violence was denied by the studio and director. Nevertheless, there is an English "unrated version" of the film in which, for example, additional computer-generated blood effects have been added again.
- In the USA the adapted version got the approval PG-13 . This decision had led to angry protests among fans. Director Paul WS Anderson promised to bring out the original version with the DVD release. A 7 minute longer version has been released on DVD in the USA. It has a running length of 108 minutes. A German DVD was announced for September 4, 2006 with a running length of 104 minutes. If you take into account the transfer from NTSC to PAL , this means that it is the American uncut version of the film.
- In Germany, in addition to the theatrical version, the longer "extended version" was also released on DVD some time later.
Reviews
“At best, thanks to the equipment, an appealing science fiction saga about two 'prominent' film monsters. The badly choreographed, unspectacular action scenes and the pale actors nip any tension in the bud. "
"Fast-paced horror battle of the alien icons, which lacks convincing characters."
"Hearty horror summit of the legendary sci-fi monsters"
Awards
- 2005 won Harald Kloser a BMI Movie Music Award .
- In 2005, the film was a boring remake for a Golden Raspberry nomination .
Novel and comic about the film
- Alien vs. Predator - The official novel for the film by Marc Cerasini , Panini Verlag , 2004, ISBN 3-8332-1145-8
- Aliens vs. Predator: Jagdfieber (Comic) by Roger Robinson , James Pascoe , Mike Kennedy, Panini Verlag, 2005, ISBN 3-8332-1269-1
Soundtrack to the film
The soundtrack of the same name for the film was released on November 2, 2004. The composer was Harald Kloser . Originally the music was supposed to be composed by Alan Silvestri , from whom the music for Predator and Predator 2 came. However, he refused.
continuation
Premiere of the sequel Aliens vs. Predator 2 was released on December 25, 2007. Directed by Gregg and Colin Strause .
Trivia
- The end of the film is basically identical to that of Predator 2 : Here, too, the older Predators appear after the end of the final battle, take the body of the fallen man with them and ceremonially hand over a weapon to the main character, who in their eyes has proven to be a worthy hunting companion .
- Another aspect of the Predator's code of honor is that (as in previous Predator films) they do not kill unarmed people or other people they do not see as a threat or a challenge. The Predator initially spares Weyland after it has detected cancer metastases in its body with its X-ray vision. Only when Weyland attacks him again is he killed by the Predator.
- There was a similar scene in Predator 2 : Here the Predator spared a pregnant policewoman after he noticed the unborn child in her stomach through an X-ray.
- The predator's hunter and survival characteristics are shown here even more clearly than in its predecessors. So he closes z. B. together with Alexa to hunt together, set more traps and use the gutted head of an alien as a makeshift shield.
- The idea of the underground pyramid as a place of worship of the Predators is used in the computer game Aliens vs. Predator from 2010 revisited.
- The idea of the “Predalien”, a hybrid of alien and predator, which emerges from the chest of the dead Predator at the very end of the film and is the main opponent in the sequel, has already been implemented in the comics and in the computer game series of the same name .
Web links
- Alien vs. Predator in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Alien vs. Predator at filmportal.de
- Alien vs. Predator atRotten Tomatoes(English)
- Comparison of the cut versions Theatrical Version - Extended Version , Theatrical Version - Unrated of Alien vs. Predator at Schnittberichte.com
Individual evidence
- ↑ Certificate of Release for Alien vs. Predator . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , September 2004 (PDF; test number: 99 446 K).
- ↑ Age rating for Alien vs. Predator . Youth Media Commission .
- ↑ Comparison of the theatrical version with the unrated version on Schnittberichte.com ; Retrieved January 4, 2010
- ↑ Alien vs. Predator. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ - ( Memento of the original from October 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Cinema
