FAQ

Following the events in Alien vs. Predator (2004), the Predator ship carrying the hybrid Predalien crash lands in Gunnison, Colorado. The surviving Predalien immediately sets out to create more Aliens, first attacking a hunter and his young son and later some homeless men living in a sewer. Meanwhile, the Predator warrior (Ian Whyte) (known as the Wolf Predator in the script) journeys to earth to "clean up" the mess, after having received a distress signal from the crashed Predator ship. The residents of Gunnison soon find themselves in the middle of the battle between the two deadly extraterrestrials.

Lex (Sanaa Lathan) kneels beside the dying Predator as the entire Predator force uncloaks itself and its spaceship. One of the Predators notices the marks on her cheek. As the other Predators carry their dead companion into their ship, he hands her one of their lances as a gesture of respect. The ship takes off, leaving Lex alone on the Antarctic island. In the final scene, the dead Predator's body lies on a slab. Suddenly, his chest bursts open and an Alien/Predator (Predalien) hybrid emerges.

Yes, the movie begins some time after Alien vs. Predator (2004) left off. At the earliest, it could be only a matter of hours to a day because of the alien's typical growth time (once born, we see the Predalien born in orbit; while in our solar system, it has since grown to full size and begins killing predators on their ship and causing the crash landing on earth). However, the exact time is unspecified. It is possible that the Predalien did not begin killing the crew immediately or did so over a protracted period of time. Considering that the first AVP took place on October 10th, and a character in this film says that it's not Halloween anymore, it is likely that some time has passed between the two events (or the filmmakers made a huge goof).

The Predators are a very honorable race. Because they were carrying this dangerous species and it is because of them that they wound up on Earth, they are honor bound to keep it contained and protect the human race. The Aliens act as a plague to a planet with life on it, and if there's nobody to contain it, this will lead to the extinction of the humans. The Predators consider humans among the ultimate prey, so in order to preserve one of their favourite hunting grounds, they will do what is necessary; also, although they have no problem with killing individual humans, Predators may respect humans as a species highly enough to want to prevent their extinction. Furthermore, hunting the Predalien and on an arbitrarily-small time table, as a team or otherwise, with vehicles or otherwise, makes for a great challenge.

Because it has always been "Aliens" versus "Predator" in the comics, video games, and the first film despite there usually being more than one Predator. "Basically you're following this one Predator the star of this movie," Greg Strause said of the hunter in pursuit. Added Colin Strause, "We call him the Wolf internally because basically he's Harvey Keitel from 'Pulp Fiction.' He's the cleaner. He shows up and he's not there for the trophies. ... If anybody gets in his way, he'll just cut 'em in half." "At (an early) point in the movie, (the Wolf) takes a gun off of a dead Predator, and so he has double shoulder cannons," Colin explained. "There's also a cleaner case where he stores all his new weapons. It has an implosion bomb that he uses for imploding the crash ship to basically get rid of it. ... That's a new type of bomb he has."

Dale (David Paetkau) is obviously a jealous person, and once Jesse (Kristen Hager) broke up with him, he likely followed her. Or possibly she had mentioned that she always wanted to sneak in and fool around in the school swimming pool to Dale and, knowing she had a thing for Ricky (Johnny Lewis), he figured that might be where they went.

The Strause brothers decided to alter the design to be similar to their appearance in Aliens (1986), much like James Cameron decided to alter their appearance from the original Alien film. It's been suggested that different Queens produce different eggs/facehuggers, which breeds different looking aliens as well.

The Predalien Hybrid is a pseudo-Queen. It has the ability to implant multiple embryos in to a host at once. The movie implies it can only do this to women, likely because they have a womb to carry said embryos to gestation.

The wounded Predator activates a beacon on its wrist. It's possible that it was trying to activate its self-destruct, but was killed before it could finish the sequence. Therefore, the sequence turned into an S.O.S. beacon to notify the Predators that a fellow clan member had tried to activate its self-destruct, but failed. Allowing them to send a "cleaner" to mop up the mess.

The Predator was there to cover up evidence of the Aliens and any victims killed by them. The deputy spotted the Predator in the midst of covering up some evidence, so he needed to kill him in order to prevent him from bringing more people to the area. The Predator likely skinned and hanged him as prey. It's possible this is a ritual of certain clans who kill a human, regardless if it was part of the Predator's objectives. He may have been honor-bound to do it.

Several reasons can be proposed.

(1) He may have had the mark on a helmet (as we see he has a vast selection) but he just didn't take that helmet, as he is obviously a seasoned hunter he didn't need to take his original hunt mask. Also he may have had the mark somewhere else, perhaps on his cheek, but it was heavily scarred so the mark was lost (or the scars function as a large mark). This is actually the explanation given by the directors in one of the making-of documentaries on the home video releases. Also, his mission wasn't actually to hunt for sport but rather just clean up the alien mess: there was no game or ritual involved.

(2) He was from a different tribe whose traditions didn't involve marking each other with Alien blood, like Predators in the original Predator (1987) and Predator 2 (1990).

(3) The mark means you are a proven highly ranked Predator Hunter and there are probably many different Predator tribes. So Wolf Predator could have been from a different tribe than the ones who went down into the Pyramid and did not need to prove himself. The Predators on the ship could have been lower ranked hunters or Predators scientists. The reason why the Predators in the first two Predator films didn't have marks may be because they were from different tribes who hunted Aliens, but not mark themselves, which Wolf was probably also a part of.

(4) Although the hunt for Aliens is described as a coming-of-age ritual in the movies, it is never established that every Predator has to go through this ritual in order to become a real hunter. In the previous Alien vs. Predator (2004), the Aliens were called "the ultimate prey"; perhaps it is a special privilege to hunt for them, preserved for only the most promising warriors or the noblest of tribes. It would even seem a waste of talent if a Predator had achieved this ultimate honor, and would then be forced to hunt much weaker prey, like humans. It would make more sense for the Predators to hunt humans first, then if they are successful, hunt aliens after. Because Humans are relatively fragile, most wounds are enough to cripple a human. They are panicky animals, even the toughest humans could go to pieces from the fear of the invisible enemy and humans can't see very well (compared to predators or aliens) and are virtually harmless unless they have some firepower in their hand. Aliens are far more dangerous, they have no fear, can lose most of their limbs and still pose a major threat, they have acid blood, can kill with their claws, tails and teeth and can see Predators even when they're cloaked. (Originally for the first Predator film, humans were called the "ultimate prey" but that was just the movie's slogan and put forth before the concept of Alien-versus-Predator.) Maybe Wolf Predator was never eligible for the Alien hunt because he was weaker or not from a distinguished tribe. When he saw there was a situation involving escaped Aliens, he may have seen a long dream come true to hunt the ultimate prey, and went in without asking permission.

(5) Perhaps Wolf Predator is a disgraced hunter who has hunted Aliens before, but then messed up something, causing the other Predators to demote him to his current "cleaning" duties. That would mean they took away his marked helmet (if he had one), and also the mark on his face by scarring the surrounding tissue (if he had one (see reason 2)). So he may have a low function, but still have considerable experience in the hunt for Aliens.

(6) How the Predator in AVP marked himself and the girl was taken from the book AvP: Prey. In this book it was explained that a Predator who had hunted his first alien would be blooded by the leader (with the leaders mark). This was a way of signifying a caste system within the hierarchy and show other Predators who had trained you. AVP took some creative liberties from the book, and other movies simply may not have included this backstory in them. Though in AVP, the leader Predator was Celtic and he was killed and Scar marked himself so being marked by a leader may not apply to the movies or since Celtic was the leader and since he along with the other were killed early on, it made Scar the de facto leader, like a battlefield promotion, going by that the leader did mark him.

Because the Predator was non-ritualistically hunting and not taking trophies this mission. The helmet reads "Not for glory. Not for honour. Not for the hunt. But to clean up the mess." The first two lines on the right side are the "glory & honour" lines. The center line of text mentions the "hunt" (mostly because it in bold lettering) thus showing that the predators still value the hunt, but in this case it doesn't take precedence. The last couple of lines on the left side describe the job and show disdain for the work because it would rather be doing what it wants.

Behind the Scenes Explanation: The directors have explained that originally they intended for the Alien blood to burn holes in anything it touched, including walls, floors and even the Predators arm during the final battle. However, this ended up going unrealised due to budget restraints.

In-universe Explanation: It could be that the blood from a facehugger is more potent than Warrior/Queen Alien blood which makes perfect sense as once the facehugger has latched on to its host, it is completely defenseless, so the act of amputating the facehugger would be extremely dangerous as the slightest bit of acid could be immensely destructive (it is mentioned in Alien (1979) that they couldn't remove the facehugger without taking Kane's face off with it, whether this meant the acid would pour on Kane, or just the way it was gripped on would literally rip the flesh from Kane's skull is left up to the viewer, also in Aliens (1986) Bishop said a man named John J Marichek died during the removal procedure). In AVPR, Buddy (the hunter at the beginning) is splashed with a small drop of facehugger acid, yet it completely burns through his arm and in Alien, a small amount of facehugger blood burns through several floors of the Nostromo. In contrast, a warrior used a lot of blood to eat away at Predator armor and the Queen doesn't melt much of Lex's jacket in Alien vs. Predator (2004); whereas in AVPR, Dale's face melted away vigorously, due to the fact that he was directly underneath an Alien (and a lot of blood fell on him), in Aliens, multiple characters are splashed from warrior blood, but sustained minimal damage (except Drake, who was next to an Alien and exposed, so he gained more blood than others who were merely splashed with specks) and in Alien Resurrection (1997), a whole Alien Warrior took time to melt away one floor of the Auriga (contrasting the facehugger's blood in Alien) and a couple of drops of Warrior blood only scalded Vreiss at the most.

There are several other possible explanations for this inconsistency: (1) the Predators are simply less affected than humans by the acid blood since they can survive shotgun bullets to the chest (Predator 2 (1990)), (2) the Predator's body is able to partially neutralize the Alien's acid blood, or (3) Alien acid oxidizes when exposed to air, so any acid extracted from a limb or wound after this point would be quickly weakened.

In the theatrical version, the Predator mothership from the first film shows the dead Predator on the slab, then the Predalien bursts from its chest. It then cuts to the Predalien slaughtering two predators on a much smaller ship and crashing to earth. In the extended cut, a small scout ship jettison from the mothership after the Predalien births and then cuts back to the Predalien killing to the predators. Simply put, the dead Predator was on the mothership; the Predalien birthed from the corpse and then stowed away on the scout ship much like the Alien did in the original film when it hid on the escape shuttle.

Simply put, yes they can. In every Predator film; the Predators all have their masks removed for extended periods of time and seem to have no difficulty breathing, not to mention being able to howl, growl and roar. The City Hunter from Predator 2 (1990) was without its mask for almost the entire third act of the film, but it was also shown to have a small device it put over its mouth and took three or four deep breaths. After this, the device is never used again. It was likely because City Hunter was severely wounded and was either having difficulty breathing or the mask held a sort of stimulant to keep him going until he was able to treat his wounds. Another point to add to this is when Harrigan is on board the Predator's ship at the end of Predator 2. He is able to breathe perfectly fine and the Elder Predator didn't have his mask on. Therefore they were both breathing oxygen. It seems to be a common misconception that the Predator's mask is used for breathing, yet no other part of their equipment shows to be air tanks (though this doesn't rule out the possibility that the mask uses some sort of air-filtration unit, seeing as how it appears to be airtight).

No, they can be killed and obviously have a high mortality rate given the nature of their culture. However, they do seem to age slowly and have an extended lifespan. The Elder Predator that gives Harrigan the pistol was clearly old and frail, in Predator 2 (1990). The pistol bears the inscription "1715" which, taken to represent a year, means that Predator survived his trial and claimed that as his trophy during coming-of-age ritual, which suggests they have a lifespan of at least 300 to 400 years.

While in the films' titles, the creatures are simply "Aliens" and "Predators", in the series expanded universe consisting of comics, novels, video games and other media, Aliens are called "Xenomorphs" and Predators are called "Yautja".

20th Century Fox has said that there will not be another AVP film. However, an Alien prequel titled Prometheus (2012) was released in 2012 and a Predator sequel titled Predators (2010) was released in 2010. It's likely that if there's another AVP film, it will be a reboot.

According to him, he wanted to move on to other projects. With the exception of Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010), Resident Evil: Retribution (2012) and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016), he hasn't directed a sequel to any of his film franchises to date. These include Mortal Kombat, AVP and Death Race.

Ignoring the possibility that it is just a continuity error, there is an explanation for this: This film picks up directly where the last film ended; therefore Lex, the survivor from the first film hasn't reached civilization to tell anyone what happened yet. That or she froze to death. In this film, all people and military that came into direct contact with the aliens were killed when the army nuked the town. However, there were four survivors from the town. They escaped the nuclear explosion and helicopter crash and were rescued by the military surrounding the perimeter. The military was either Black Ops so knew all about top-secret or because they never went into the town, they were told it was a viral outbreak or something along those lines. As for the survivors, we can assume they were silenced. Make up your own story as to how (unless it is explained in an AVP sequel). The most likely explanation is that Ms. Yutani, being a wealthy business woman, clearly pulling the strings behind the military incursion paid them all off. Or they tried telling the story to people but nobody took them seriously; "the reason the town was nuked was because of an alien invasion? Yeah right." This is why Ms. Yutani obtains the Predator's pistol and clearly a motivation for why the company sends spaceships to investigate planets with possible alien lifeforms on them, the goal is domination, and if they have alien weaponry they are way ahead of any other country/planet. Also in Alien (1979), the company (Weyland/Yutani) did know about the Aliens, which's why Mother woke them from cryo and sent them to investigate the alien signal. Also, in the video game Predator: Concrete Jungle (2005), it is shown how the Aliens were discovered, how Mother was created, and how Weyland and Yutani merged together.

There are three cuts of the movie. The theatrical release (only in theatres), the basic Blu-ray/DVD cut with several more minutes of footage and the "extended" cut with even more footage, also on home video release discs.

AVPR received even weaker reviews than the initial Alien vs. Predator (2004) which was also panned. It has a 14% approval rate at Rotten Tomatoes and scores a lowly 29/100 at Metacritic. Also at 4.7 stars on a scale of 1 to 10, it is also by far the lowest rated Alien or Predator movie in IMDb's registry. By contrast, Alien and Aliens are rated 8.5/10 and rank on the IMDb Top 250, while Predator ranks a 7.7/10.

Critical quotes:

The Good:

"Provides enough cheap thrills and modest suspense" -Variety, 2007

"'Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem' is a B movie that truly earns its B." (75/100 on Metascore) -Entertainment Weekly, 2007

"Easily the best sequel in either franchise since James Cameron's "Aliens", and the only "Predator" outing besides the original worth the film stock it's shot on." -DVD Verdict, 2008

The Bad:

"A smidge too shaky and the lighting/color design too dark for me to relish the Predator-on-Alien butt-kicking" -Stina Chyn, Film Threat

The Ugly:

"Simply put, AVPR is trash. It should be burned with the rest of the garbage that accumulates on Christmas Day." -James Berardinelli, 2007

"Fans deserve better" -BBCi film review, 2008

"The world's most illogical and boring action-horror grudge-match" -The Guardian, 2008

"An early but strong contender for worst movie of 2008" -Empire, 2008

"A tasteless, witless, mindlessly perfunctory bloodbath that has the discourtesy to take itself seriously." -Scott Tobias, 2007

"An orgy of mindless violence" -Austin Chronicle, 2007

"A dull actioner that looks like a bad video game" -Kirk Honeycutt, 2007

"Noisy, badly shot rubbish" -Mark Kermode, BBC

No. Neither the creatures nor the ships look alike, not to mention the concept of Predators did not exist back when Alien (1979) was made, the concept not being inspired by it either. In terms of the storyline, it is unknown how the Predators first found the Aliens. The previous Alien vs. Predator (2004) shows that they found them thousands of years ago, so it's possible that the Predators found the Aliens the same way the crew from the Nostromo did and that they may have duplicated the chair from the ship's design. Also, the Predator chair was simply meant as a homage to the Space Jockey from the original Alien. Aside from a chair and a piece of overhead equipment, the two look quite different, so it is probably just a coincidental parallel development in the technology of both species.