Alien vs. Predator (franchise)/Headscratchers

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • At the end of Requiem, the Predator slowly and impressively takes off it's mask while confronting the Predalien. For some reason, the bigger, stronger Predalien is kind enough to wait for him to get ready before attacking.
    • Perhaps the Predalien retained a little of the Predators' fanatical devotion to honor?
    • It's possible the Predalien was just being cautious, the Predaor had survived quite a bit of damage by this point and it'd never seen a mask removal before.
    • It was suggested that the Predalien retained some predator psychological traits. If you look closely when Wolf(the predator) is examining the crashed ship, you can see the skinned bodies of the crew hanging in the background.
  • In the first movie, how did the main character shove her hand down into an alien's newly decapitated head and not lose it?
    • If you mean where she's using the skull as a "shield" of sorts, then the obvious answer is that it was cleaned. The train of logic follows thus: We know the blood is acidic, but not the exoskeleton. As such, if one component of the Alien is not acidic (or otherwise obviously fatal to non-Aliens), it stands that others are not, either, such as the interior lining of the exoskeleton. It's like you take a football helmet full of battery acid. The acid is bad, but you can take the time to clean it and make the helmet usable. It stands to reason that a species who has dealt with these Aliens for eons would know how to make the skull usable and/or have technology that would do it. ...and yes, I spent way more time thinking about this than I probably should have.
    • Also, think back to the first movie. Remember when they find the dead facehugger? At that point it's mentioned that its acidic blood neutralizes after its death. So it's natural to assume the later stages of the species do similarly after they die.
  • In the 2010 game, after the marine character is knocked unconscious during the drop, why did the other marines bring him with them into what they knew was likely a xenomorph infested building? He couldn't very well fight in that condition and would probably slow the rest of them down.
    • And leave him outside, where a xenomorph could grab him, coccoon him, and give you one more alien to fight?
    • No, I was thinking of bringing him aboard the dropship where he would be (relatively) safe until he could fight again, or at least stand without assistance. They had just gotten off the dropship, so it was definitely near by, and certainly closer than it would be for some time.
  • Why, just why, are the films set in the present? The games gave us an epic three-way fight between Xenomorphs (Aliens), Yautja (Predators) and the USCMC (Space Marines). At least for This Troper, anything else just isn't AvP.
    • It's easier on the budget.
    • Maybe they were just desperate to show how it all began, that's why they put Lance Henriksen in.
  • Why, oh why, couldn't they just adapt one of the comics? They had everything the fans wanted. Instead we got a noncannon mess full of plots and a egriegous lack spess marhens.
    • Not disagreeing with the main point, but sorry, it's not noncannon. If anything it has a better cannon connection with the Alien/Predator films than the comics.
      • Ah, sorry, but no. It's non-canon. Nothing in the original four Alien movies indicates that the Predators exist in the same universe, making Aliens, Predator, and Aliens vs. Predator three similar but ultimately separate continuities.
        • And there's nothing in Alien to suggest that Alien Queens exist, so I suppose Aliens is non-cannon as well. Unless the film specifically says that it is a separate continuity, it can be presumed that it isn't.
      • Nothing in those movies says they don't, either. I think it's more up to the directors and writers to decide what is and isn't canon than you guys.
      • In Predator 2 the shot of the predator's trophy case shows an alien skull.
  • Towards the end of the first film, the archaeologist comes to the conclusion that the heat bloom was supposed to lure humans into the pyramid so that they could be used to breed Aliens. That's rather a stretch, considering that the pyramid had been abandoned for thousands of years, long before humans would have had the technology to detect such a thing. Which also begs raises the question of why the Predator's included such a feature in the first place.
    • Yes, but the pyramid originates from a time when that area was lush, fertile and--most importantly--populated. It wasn't buried under a mile of ice when it was designed. If the heat bloom had any sort of visual component (probable; it was probably a big signal flare) then surrounding humans at the time would've seen it.
      • The idea that the heat bloom was for the sake of alerting the locals doesn't seem to hold up for two reasons; 1) if the local populace worship the Predators, why do they neeed some giant flashy light show to tell them when to go in, rather than just incorporate it into the calender, and 2) if the "flare" creates enough heat to be detectable by satellite, then it is dreadfully inefficient.
        • Given that the Predators were willing to blow the place up if the Aliens got loose they were presumably ready for the possibility that it might be abandoned and might have set up the heat bloom in case humans ever got to that level of tech and they could use it to start again. If so, it kinda worked. Or the heat bloom was just the machines starting up and the archaeologist was talking out of his arse.
          • The key word here is "archaeologist". He has no idea how complex machines work or the thought that goes into building them. He has also studied primitive human cultures all his life. The Predators are a completely alien culture to him. An engineer may be able to tell more about why the Preds made the pyramid this way.
            • A bit of fridge brilliance here. The heat bloom wasn't primarily for the humans, it was also for the Predators. Predator and Predator 2 make it clear that Predators hunt in hot climates. Why would they ever hunt in Antarctica unless their hunting ground was heated?
  • In the first film, where did all of those Aliens come from? There were only about twenty people in the expedition, and several of them were killed before they could be implanted with Chestbursters, yet by the end of the movie there are dozens of Aliens.
    • There weren't actully that many. Maybe about a dozen at most. The 'grid' alien did most of the work in the movie and when they attacked in groups they only lost a couple before retreating to free the Queen. The last predator kills one to mark himself, Lex killed one, the Pred plasma cannoned two or three before they retreated and then Lex shot one in the head before they all blew up. So that's only about six killed with a couple others getting blown up.
  • Why is it so critical to stop the Aliens in the first movie? Even if they reach the surface, what are they going to do? Swim hundreds of miles in order to reach civilisation? If they wanted to create tension from a threat of the Aliens escaping into the world at large, they probably shouldn't have set it in the most remote place on Earth.
    • Yes. They would swim hundreds of miles to populated land, infesting whatever life-form they can find along the way. There are two things to remember here: Aliens don't just hatch from humans, and they are incredibly resilient to environmental conditions. Even the vacuum of space isn't quite enough to kill the one in the first Alien film. Which is something that just bugs me about this film. So they drop the Queen down into the freezing depths beneath the ice, and we're supposed to believe she just freezes to death? If she can survive for any length of time in a vacuum, surely she can survive the arctic waters long enough to free herself, resurface and wreak havoc on the world.
      • Space isn't actually cold.
      • One word - pressure. Cold won't kill her, but water exerting one ton per square centimeter of her body will turn that alien queen into a big tub of toothpaste.
      • Also a flipping water tower would have crushed her even more.
    • I thought it was stated early on that tons of people knew about the hole the laser drilled into the ice, only that Weyland's team beat them all there to get the good stuff. The risk is that other researchers will show up later and walk into the same ambush.
  • In the first movie the fact that Celtic reversed his wrist blades so as to be able to better cut the (future-)grid xenomorphs (tail? whatever) really bugs me. Before they decided to make the wrist blades four feet long in this movie (which is its own issue) it seemed more logical for the sharper cutting surface to be that facing away from the predators' hands since there was a lot more of it exposed. At the very least there was no reason to have the inner edge (the one facing towards the hand) sharper than the outer (the predator in Predator 2 seemed to be mostly stabbing and hacking with the inner edge, but the outer edge of his blades were all jagged and threatening-looking anyway. The video games seemed to the use as much of the outer edge as the inner edge at least). I understand that the whole point was to look cool but instead it looked ridiculous and resulted in a painful amount of Fridge Logic.
    • The concave edge is the fighting edge. Facing it "down" is a much more natural configuration for hand-to-hand combat. Try to imagine fighting someone using only backhand strikes. Probably seems pretty awkward, doesn't it? I do agree though that there is no real reason for only one edge to be sharp.
  • That scene in Requiem when the Predalien 'impregnates' the entire maternity ward of pregnant woman just bugs me. It messes up the entire established Xenomorph lifecycle. And how does the impregnating work anyway? Does the subject needs to be pregnant in order for the baby aliens to develop or something?
    • Word of God is that the predalien was a young queen, and queens have the ability to deliver eggs directly into a host like a facehugger. My guess is that it picked a pregnant host because it offered the hatchling more...ugh, food. Yeah, that scene was horrible.
    • Nope. The Predaliens gender is unclear http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo2y7JRPWx4 . In the Vid, it's called a male MULTIPLE times and a female as well. Also, the official commentary calls it a guy and the Book "Inside the monster shop" calls it the "Top dog" and describes it as "Regal" a term used mainly to describe a King who is usually a guy. I personally think it's a male, which is why it only targets girls. And not only Pregnant ones. In the sewers, it got the homeless woman who WASN'T pregnant.
    • As the above Troper stated, it's just to give the baby aliens a little snack (because apparently being inside a body isn't enough food already). It should be noted that ALL the women the predalien implants are pregnant. This Troper also likes to believe that the Predalien was a defect, incorperatng too much predator DNA which expains it's non-sensical behaviours and impregnation abilities.
  • In Requiem after the ship crashes due to the Predalien attack why didn't one of the facehuggers attach to the injured and helpless predator? Why did the Predalien kill it instead of cacooning it for implantation.
  • This is an issue I have with Alien 3 and these new Alien vs. Predator movies in general. Earlier, in Alien 3, we see that when a dog is attacked by a face hugger, the result is a canine-Xenomorph hybrid. And we all know that the "Predalien" is the result of a Predator being attacked by a face hugger. So my question is, why is it that the Xenomorphs seem to lack any special mutations by impregnating humans? If I'm free to assume that canine and Predator hybrids are superior in some way, then why impregnate humans at all? Cannon fodder? Genetic fluke? If so, then Xenomorph mutations could be exceptionally rare, and it's just a contrived conicidence that we've seen canine Xenomorphs and a Predalien at all.
    • There was an explanation in one of the games. It stated that the only significant difference the host made was whether the Alien would be bipedal ("drone") or quadrupedal ("runner") unless it had significantly different genetics (like a Predator). Given that game was set on an alien world and stated that indigenous fauna had been used as hosts, it raises a few questions about convergent evolution. For why they choose humans: humans are there, Predators (and dogs) generally are not.
    • You're a little mixed up here. The standard aliens are human-xenomorph hybrids. That's why they're so humanoid-looking.
      • Yep. Presumably the xenomorph that'd burst out of the dead Space Jockey found in Alien would've looked different than any of the human-xeno, dog-xeno, or pred-xeno variants we've seen in the films.
      • One of the comics does show us a Jockey Alien. And it is massive.
    • It is a bit fluctuating depending on where this is being talked about; the only clear issue is that Predators Are Special in this issue, and there is still debate whether there is a difference between a Drone and an Warrior Alien. Also, Runner Aliens seem to be much less intelligent that Aliens spawned from sapient species; in the third movie, it killed EVERYBODY; while another kind of Alien would just cocoon inmates while waiting for the queen to be born.
      • The alien in the third movie was killing people at a reasonable rate unil they started messing with it, then it got hostile. Plus, the inmates had already attacked the host for the implanted Queen, after that they were probably all on it's kill list. I've also heard they cut a scene from the script that had Ripley finding a bunch of cacooned inmates at some point.
    • Xenomorphs don't get special mutations from humans because, well, what are you going to compare human!morphs to? There is no such thing as a "standard" xenomorph because they have all picked up traits from their hosts.
      • Lies. There are Transbreed and Purebreed aliens. Purebreed aliens(Like Queen's and Praetorians have NONE of their hosts traits at all) are 100% alien.
      • So says a couple of the games, which are not cannon with the movies or even the comics. I only know such terms from the RTS game, and that had to introduce such things for the sake of variety and balance.
    • According to "Inside the Monster Shop" The Pred Alien's likeness to the Predator as opposed to a warrios likeness to a human was because it had 'More Potent Genes' and thus gave the designers something more to work with. It sorta makes sense, I mean they are BIGGER and STRONGER than the UN-average human, and usually that points to more superior genes(as well as physical attractiveness.). I personally think since Preds have been hunting Xenos for years, and Xenos have incredibile adaptability able to change to match their environment and it's hosts. I wouldn't be stupid to think a few unblooded warriors(like Scar, Celtic and Chopper) failed the Xenomorph test and were impregnated rather than killed so it wouldn't be stupid to think this has happened before.
      • This and the whole "Potent Genes" thing could be why Predaliens are more Predator but Warriors aren't as human.
  • So in the *think for a moment* second FPS on the PC, both the Marine and Predator are present at the both Predator's release from suspended animation and escape from the Forward Observation Pods. The problem is that the Marine used a catwalk to go to another pod, while the Predator did not, leaving them both in separate buildings. Ruling out either the Marine or Predator having an evil twin, how do we go about reconciling this?
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