AVP2 rated at 25%

[Tanasinn]

There are plenty of people that will argue (pretty fairly) that Alien 3 is "non-canon" considering how badly it jumped the shark.

AvP 2 was an enjoyable popcorn movie with the occasional diamond in the rough. It is a poor "real" movie and an abhorrent Alien/Predator movie.

[Connor MacLeod]

A xeno that just entered a store from the rain outdoors is very faintly visible, the Pred-alien who'd been on the pred ship since it's birth was completely invisible on IR. I'm glad they remembered that bit from Aliens.

I'm pretty sure thermodynamics dictates that insulating any sort of living organism so it wouldn't show up on IR would be INSANELY dangerous (how is the bugger going to cool itself down?)

[Darth Wong]

A xeno that just entered a store from the rain outdoors is very faintly visible, the Pred-alien who'd been on the pred ship since it's birth was completely invisible on IR. I'm glad they remembered that bit from Aliens.

I'm pretty sure thermodynamics dictates that insulating any sort of living organism so it wouldn't show up on IR would be INSANELY dangerous (how is the bugger going to cool itself down?)

It's totally retarded. It was always implied that the reason they didn't show up on IR in Aliens was that the ambient temperature was too high. They're inside a fusion power plant, for fuck's sake. What kind of imbecile watches that scene and assumes that it means xenos can somehow make themselves immune to the laws of thermodynamics?

[Junghalli]

Actually it would make sense if they were ectothermic, i.e. cold-blooded like reptiles.

Of course, they're rather energetic for cold-bloods, to say nothing of the fact that they can apparently function just fine in Antarctica.

[Stark]

It's totally retarded. It was always implied that the reason they didn't show up on IR in Aliens was that the ambient temperature was too high. They're inside a fusion power plant, for fuck's sake. What kind of imbecile watches that scene and assumes that it means xenos can somehow make themselves immune to the laws of thermodynamics?

The place was hot, enclosed, and dripping with liquid (probably water) in parts: the simple look-through eyepieces the Marines were using being fucked by those conditions hardly means 'lul immune to teh IR'.

[Junghalli]

You know, if it wasn't for AvP I wonder if it might be plausible for them to be cold-bloods.

The creature in Alien was generally slow-moving, which would be consistent with a cold-blood. At the beginning of Aliens we see them start stirring when the Marines breach the hive, implying they spend most of the time just hanging on the walls, which is similarly consistent with cold-bloodedness. Sure, they're pretty active in the fight scenes, but cold-bloods are capable of short bursts of energetic activity.

On the other hand the queen does seem to be capable of a fair bit of sustained activity. And there's the alien in Alien 3, which apparently survived on a frigid planet, although it was inside the prison, which was presumably not at hundreds of degrees below 0 at night.

I suppose it would make more sense for them to be endotherms, but with a low metabolism. Of course, them running around in Antarctica in AvP without freezing totally blows such theories out of the water.

[Stark]

Since it's largely based on Deitrich saying 'zomg can't see anything' when she pans past an alien on the wall (and not later when active aliens were in full view), it might have just been bad luck (as most of the stirring aliens appeared to be in cavities in the walls, and out of line-of-sight). With environmental factors and a 'resting' alien surrounded by their nest-goop, it's even less surprising it wasn't detected by such a casual sweep.

[Connor MacLeod]

1.) I don't think having Aliens being a "cold blooded" creature of some fashion is going to make them magically immune to IR. Harder to see, ,perhaps, but there are plenty of "cool" things that show up on IR.

2.) I doubt any "temperature changes" could be very rapid or allow them to shed heat rapidly either. So there probably would be some sort of "lag time" in either "cooling down" or "heating up", either of which will impose limits on this ability. (IE they can't just "turn on" this ability and just magically disappear from IR goggles - there would be lingering traces that would alst for some time. Nevermind any traces from getting RID of the heat...)

3.) Even if we do accept they can somehow "mask" their IR signature, thermodynamics is going to dictate some hefty limitations. Least of all is in their activity - they won't be able to act as aggressively without overheating themselves (or letting themselves be spotted) which is going to cut into their fearsome performance rather sharply.

The best case scenario I imagine would be some "hibernation" state they can slip into allowing them to hide more effectively ambushing... but its only going to work in certain cases.

[Guardsman Bass]

I saw it on friday, and it was pretty much what I was expecting - and I enjoyed it.

The human characters weren't really anything special and a little contrived - was there any reason for them all to be good at using guns aside from the police officer? I remember remarking to one of my friends that the most charismatic character in the show was the Predator Wolf; a lot of the movie was spent thinking "Okay, when is the predator going to be coming back on screen?"

[Terralthra]

There are plenty of people that will argue (pretty fairly) that Alien 3 is "non-canon" considering how badly it jumped the shark.

I've always found it best to consider Alien3 as a coldsleep nightmare. It's a cheesy copout, but at least it fits. It contains all the elements that would populate Ripley's worst dreams, mashed up into one hellish scenario, with a completely symbolic end to it as well.

She fears:

• Being implanted with a xeno (cf. Aliens near the beginning)
• The xenos spreading to other worlds (cf. her conversations with Burke, the review board in Aliens, and with the crew of the Betty and Dr. Gediman and Gen. Perez in Alien: Resurrection)
• A queen surviving (as above, conversations in A:R)
• Newt (and to a lesser extent, Hicks) dying without a damn thing she can do about it (cf. the extents to which she goes to save either or both in Aliens)
• Humans trying to use the xenos as weapons/tech (cf. Burke in Aliens)
• Having to face a xeno without any realistic way of combating it (cf. learning to use a pulse rifle in Aliens)

[FA Xerrik]

I don't know the source of this, but I think it stated in one of the sources for Aliens something about an exterior silicon layer in their exoskeleton which wasn't involved in their metabolism, adapting to ambient surrounding temperature and so shielding them from IR detection. There still remains the problem of how exactly they would shed excess heat if it isn't going out through the skin.

Has their ever been a canon explanation of what those tubes on their backs are for? Perhaps they are a part of some kind of heat exchange system which allows them to diffuse body heat evenly enough to prevent any kind of bloom on heat detection systems. How that's meant to work, of course, is yet another question entirely.

[Stravo]

I haven't seen the movie but if it this is anything like AvP1 and I see nothing from the spoilers here to say otherwise then its just another excuse to show off some nice effects and kewl scenes lacking something resembling a plot.

How we've gone from a taut thriller that creeped you out like Alien to a balls to the wall thinking action film like Aliens to these messes is beyond me. Where is it written that sequels need to get progressively dumber as they go?

Let me also chime in with Mike and say the Xeno wanking is just nauseating in the latest films.

In the first film one single alien is trapped on a ship with a few unarmed people. That's scary and that's why it was so lethal. Because these people were essentially space truckers who had no clue what they were dealing with and even if they had guns they couldn't shoot it because it would hull their ship and kill them too hence the terror and lethality of it.

But put an alien on the ground vs armed troops and they're toast just like any melee enemy vs firearm enemy. No terror there (unless you're an alien facing off a pissed of Marine with no place to hide)

And on the Predator side, we see the same ol' sin that sci fi commits time and time again with alien cultures. In the first Predator film, no where is it implied that this is the be all and end all of the Predator's species. For all we know (and what should be assumed) is that the Predator stalking Ahnuld was just a weekend big game hunter from his world and when he's not stalking alien prey he's managing one hell of an investment portfolio or welding anti-gravity plates onto pleasure barges. Why the hell did we go from one lone Predator to the entire race and culture being solely devoted to hunting and all that nonsense that goes with it. This is a highly advanced civilization, we gave up hunting/gathering millennia ago and these guys have mastered space travel. How did they manage that while they were all busy hunting and posing while taking off their face masks? Yuck. Damn the wide brush stroke characterization of species made popular by Trek (Viking race aliens, Merchant race aliens, Surgeon race Aliens, and so on)

Maybe not the place to vent on the continued collapse into utter mediocrity of two great franchises but this movie only reminds me of how bad its gotten.

On the plus side the audiences coming out of the theaters seemed to have enjoyed themselves from what I gathered this weekend so maybe as a mindless popcorn movie it does its job.

[neoolong]

How we've gone from a taut thriller that creeped you out like Alien to a balls to the wall thinking action film like Aliens to these messes is beyond me. Where is it written that sequels need to get progressively dumber as they go?

You went from Ridley Scott, James Cameron, and John McTiernan to Paul W.S. Anderson and the "Brothers" Strause. Or from Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Danny Glover to Sanaa Lathan, Steven Pasquale, and Reiko Aylesworth. Alien and Predator used to be great franchises. Now they're fodder for the teen horror machine.

The people in charge just don't give a shit about turning out great product, even if the directors happne to be fans.

On the plus side the audiences coming out of the theaters seemed to have enjoyed themselves from what I gathered this weekend so maybe as a mindless popcorn movie it does its job.

Not really. I think it pulled in something like 26.9 million. Not horrendously bad, and it will likely pull a profit, but not great.

[Junghalli]

How we've gone from a taut thriller that creeped you out like Alien to a balls to the wall thinking action film like Aliens to these messes is beyond me. Where is it written that sequels need to get progressively dumber as they go?

It's the classic Hollywood cycle. Somebody makes a good film, the film does well, so they decide to make sequels. Then at some point they figure they've got a guarenteed cash cow on their hands so there's no reason to try so hard anymore and they start slacking off. Either that or the people behind the original good movie gradually fall away and get replaced by less capable people. And so, sooner or later, just about every decent franchise descends into a series of mediocre, uninspired sequels that do nothing more than ride the name recognition and reputation of the good originals.

[Anguirus]

Fuck the facehuggers and fuck the queen and all else, the warriors are just going to implant whoever they damn well feel like now?

Well, I think the reason that I feel charitable toward that particular twist is because it makes so much more sense. I really liked the cut idea from Alien that a creature on its own could restart their lifecycle. I really liked Aliens of course, but the society that Cameron created for them actually sharply limited the creatures' ability to spread, and thus their threat level. It seemed to me that the Marines actually obliterated nearly the entire hive.

Obviously, the idea that Aliens are very effective bioweapons is wankish and silly, but it was Ridley Scott's original idea for the species. An Alien that can reproduce as fast as the Predalien (...and twenty minutes later, triplets!) is a much more threatening thing to have running around behind your lines. So even though there was a very flimsy justification for it, I thought it was cool...in that disturbed, Giger-esque sort of way.

I have to say, I thought the movie was quite effective in portraying the Aliens in suburbia. I had a recurring daydream/nightmare as a kid of the Aliens running around outside my house, trying to get in. Some of the scenes in this movie, especially the Alien popping up outside the glass door, very much reminded me of that.

And as for the Aliens not showing up on IR, AvP1 did the same thing, so I think it's definitely deliberate and a reference to Aliens. I remember that the old website "The Anchorpoint Essays" had an interesting speculation that the Alien was a "thermal chameleon," and could somehow make an effort to match its surroundings in temperature while hunting.

[Anguirus]

Sure he did. The guy was a fair kill but didn't put up enough of a fight to warrant taking his skull.

I actually did think of that later. I guess his primary purpose was in covering up the Alien presence, not his own...but it still strikes me as a contrived way to cram another visual homage to Predator in.

And I'm not sure how you draw the conclusion that the skull-taking is connected to how much of a fight they put up. The Predator took skulls of soldiers who he just obliterated from hiding in the first film. I can't figure a specific in-universe reason for sometimes taking the skulls and sometimes taking the skins...the out-of-universe one for the first movie is probably due to the rewrites of its climax.

[Baal]

A xeno that just entered a store from the rain outdoors is very faintly visible, the Pred-alien who'd been on the pred ship since it's birth was completely invisible on IR. I'm glad they remembered that bit from Aliens.

I'm pretty sure thermodynamics dictates that insulating any sort of living organism so it wouldn't show up on IR would be INSANELY dangerous (how is the bugger going to cool itself down?)

It's totally retarded. It was always implied that the reason they didn't show up on IR in Aliens was that the ambient temperature was too high. They're inside a fusion power plant, for fuck's sake. What kind of imbecile watches that scene and assumes that it means xenos can somehow make themselves immune to the laws of thermodynamics?

I always wondered how anyone could think they were invisible to IR based on the statement of one very dumb marine bimbo. Aliens are not in any way invisible. They were merely in a very hot room and sitting absolutely still mixed in with the wierd shit the aliens like to put on the walls so that you are not likely to see notice them even when you are looking right at them.

People far too often take everything said in a movie by any character as absolute truth.

[Anguirus]

I always wondered how anyone could think they were invisible to IR based on the statement of one very dumb marine bimbo.

...cause we're stupid?

She wasn't a dumb bimbo, she was the medic, so there!

Although interestingly enough, the Aliens that were being studied in Alien: Resurrection had a very low body temp IIRC, somthing like 40 degrees F.

[Darth Wong]

Although interestingly enough, the Aliens that were being studied in Alien: Resurrection had a very low body temp IIRC, somthing like 40 degrees F.

There's no way a creature with such little internal energy production (obviously meant to be cold-blooded) could be so active, particularly in cold climates. That's just more xeno-wanking: they no longer have to obey any kind of rules of biology.

[Anguirus]

That's just more xeno-wanking: they no longer have to obey any kind of rules of biology.

Considering that they can parasitize creatures from other planets and grow into six-foot behemoths without eating anything, I submit that they never obeyed any rules of biology (or physics) in the first place.

[Baal]

I have not seen or read anything to suggest otherwise so wuld it be possible that the Aliens were actually genetically designed by the Predator race to be hunted?

The Aliens do so many things that would make them unviable as a living organism but would make sense when designed as a prey creature in mind.

This might also explain the Preda-Alien since the Predators would have wanted their foe to constantly improve. The Preda-Alien was smarter, stronger, at least as fast, and spread young at a much faster rate. This all makes him a much tougher foe for the more skilled hunters among the Predators.

[Anguirus]

I have not seen or read anything to suggest otherwise so wuld it be possible that the Aliens were actually genetically designed by the Predator race to be hunted?

Well, we know that they were almost certainly designed by someone. And in addition, the Predators currently raise them for use as prey in some sort of rituals. So it's a reasonable next leap to take. The Predators practically have magitech, so creating something like the Alien isn't out of their reach.

However, I would prefer if the pilot's species from Alien were instead the creators of the Aliens.

This might also explain the Preda-Alien since the Predators would have wanted their foe to constantly improve.

I follow your logic, but it seems doubtful to me that anyone intended the Predalien to happen. For one, for it to exist a Predator must die. For two, the Wolf seems very interested in not only killing the Predalien but also in covering up its existence.

[Anguirus]

Here is an interesting bit I found on Wiki...however it is unsourced so take it with a grain of salt.

The directors stated that this is a new feature in the mythos that they have invented in which a young Queen does not lay eggs, but directly implants multiple embryos into hosts so it can quickly establish a new hive

So that would make the Predalien a Queen as well, though not a fully-developed one.

[Admiral Drason]

When I saw the movie I was under the impression that the predalien was undergoing the transformation from a drone into a full blown queen.

The predaliens head is shaped similar to that of a queens crown after all.

[Agent Fisher]

I found the movie to be predictable and disappointing.

And then the little things took me out of it. Oh, look, it's the mom back from the Army...wearing Marine camo. Oh, look, three muscle head high school punks fall into a pool with one of the main characters, oh, suprise, the black guy dies first.