Aliens vs. Predator: Why Aliens Comes Out on Top

Let me make it perfectly clear before I begin: I love the Predators. They feature iconic Sci-fi monsters that have inspired a plethora of spiritual sequels, for better or for worse. The Predators also have some fantastic stories, comics, and without a doubt have the best crossover fan-fiction turned mainstream in writing history with the Alien v. Predator franchise. It’s simply a shame that the 2004 and 2007 adaptations of the idea were painfully below average B-movie horror flicks, at best, that lacked any self awareness to make it even funny to watch. This crossover however has always started a debate: Which is better, Alien or Predator? Which one’s more creative? More horrifying? Which one’s MORE COOL!!!! It’s very easy to point at the Predators for this award, as they seem to have everything. From advanced cloaking technology allowing them to skirt through the treetops unseen, to their shoulder mounted Plasma launched and Wrist Blades tearing through our protagonists in all their bloody glory. With their iconic look, sounds, and weaponry, why would anyone possibly look at the Aliens?

Despite all the awesome features of these interstellar hunters, the Predator has some severe problems that hold it back when you look at it critically. Before even talking about the creature itself, let’s go into the failure of the plot in the Predator movies, or in the lack of any meaningful plot. ‘Ben, are you kidding? You’re a moron! Of course the movie has a plot!’ I hear you already crying out as you smash your computer, sobbing into your life size anime body pillow about what the mean man on the internet said. Yes, the movie has a very good plot for an action movie. A band of mercenaries is sent to rescue a hostage from insurgent forces deep in the tropical jungles, but begin to realize that there is something stalking them, picking off Schwarzenegger’s team of ‘What’s his face’ band of Inglorious Bastards. It is a fun, serviceable plot that has given us one of the best action movies to this day. What I mean by lack of plot is that it’s meaningless. Like a campaign in a multiplayer video game, it’s there to serve as enough window dressing and to set up the scene for you to get to all the cool blood and gore bits. While fans will quote lines all day like “Get to the chopper” and “I ain’t got time to bleed,” I bet you a hundred bucks that they simply call Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character by the actor’s name. In fact, I want you to ask a fan to name three of the main characters by name. 9 times out of 10 they will not be able to answer you, and for good reason; all the characters are cliche 80’s action heroes, only there to look bad-ass until they get their faces blown off or their spine ripped out. Their is no overarching narrative, no bigger picture, it’s just a muscled guy fighting a horror movie monster.  

Compare that to the original Alien, a plot set in a dystopian militaristic future where companies like the United States-based company of Weyland Yutani control the military, control the government, and control the expansion of colonies out into space. Already this sounds way more complex and narratively interesting, but that’s all background scenery. The real plot is about a group of working class Joe’s who are taking the long multiyear voyage back home and are awakened out of cryosleep to check out a Distress Beacon on the nearby Moon of LV-426. One of the crew-members enters an Alien ship, and is brought back with a strange creature attached to his face. The ship’s medical officer, Ash, against main protagonist Ripley’s orders, opens the airlock door to let the infected crew member in. After a long series of events, scientific analysis, and attempted surgery, a creature bursts out of the infected man’s chest, and the slow whittling away of the crew’s numbers as the Alien carefully picks them off. Then comes the big plot twist: Ripley discovers that crew member Ash is a Android, and that the company knew all along it was not simply a distress beacon, and sent the Android Ash to guarantee the creatures transport to earth for Weyland’s Bio weapon division, “crew expendable”. Going even farther than that, to add just that narrative hook for the audience it is also revealed the android has gone outside his programming and truly cares in a way for the creature, calling it the “Perfect organism.” Already Alien Has far outperformed Predator in that not only do we connect and care about the crew-members beyond the actors who portrayed them, the movie was also able to provide a fascinating world and narrative, that while cliche in modern eyes, was a revolutionary marvel of its time that popularized the Sci Fi genre for more than just captain Kirk’s womanizing skills. Let’s also just simply mention the way the movie mocks the society of the time; the greediness of businessmen and political statement of the dangers of ideas like Libertarian-ism and unregulated business. On top if this, I can’t think of one movie, or even work of literature frankly, to not only have a “Bad ass Woman” as a main character, but to be a protagonist that is not there simply as a love interest for the main character. Nothing about this movie was a cliche for its time. The men and women of the Sulaco weren’t steroid fueled action heroes dual wielding machine guns, they were average people simply trying to make a living. They weren’t soldiers, but nor were they incompetent like some horror movies like to portray these characters. For its time, it was the pinnacle of innovation, while Predator was just another movie in a long list of quote-filled action movie tropes that had been recycled dozens of times.

In fact, the main problem with the Predator in general is just how cliche it is, and how it doesn’t even follow its own rules set in its own movie. Part of the horror of the Alien is just how real it looks and seems while being so… well, Alien. Everything from the creature’s grotesque life cycle to its acidic blood like fluids are not only explained in movie in convincing detail, it is backed up by real world animals such as tarantula hawks and certain ant species that use acid in their bodies to defend themselves and their hives. Not only that, but try to tell me the alien does not have one of the creepiest and one of the most creative movie monsters in history in body shape alone.  What is the Predator? An eight foot tall human with a weird head and dreads. Jeez, I wonder where the got that Idea? (Hint: Literally everything, though specifically the Klingon’s)

Even ignoring the obvious inspiration, either way it’s a uninspired concept to say the very least, not to mention the glowing green blood it has rushing through its veins would kill it long before Schwarzenegger’s machine gun ever could. It’s clearly shown to like red meat, as we see in Predator 2, and that it is in fact a reptile. Now it is implied that is a jungle creature, but this raises two questions: Why is it so poorly camouflaged to evolve in such an area, and why the hell would anything that eats meat have a blood color like that? Unless the Predator is a large plant and I just didn’t realize, this is clearly an illogical oversight on the movie director’s part. At least the Aliens, which are clearly insectoid in nature, have properly yellow blood. Unfortunately for the Predator, though ironically enough being based on humans, is so unscientifically accurate and poorly explained that it makes him unbelievable at best, stupid at worst. To its credit, they had a different plan for the creature’s design, but it proved to difficult to film with so they went with the more cliche design, and to be fair the head of the creature is awesome looking, even if the body is uninspired.

Now, because I know most people aren’t weapons and armor nerds like me, I won’t talk about that. The Predator’s armor and weapons, except for perhaps the combi stick, are kinda idiotic and impractical in a real life situation, but look cool on screen. The thing I will talk about however, besides the Predator’s insistence on wearing no body protection or armor, is the loose and seemingly erratic behavior of the creature. The Alien is simple and always follows it rules, it only kills something when it’s a threat to the hive, and in all other cases will attempt to disable motor functions by puncturing the skull and preparing the host for impregnation. The alien is simple, and in every adaptation (even the poorly done AVP movies) follows these basic rules. You get facehugged, the embryo combines its base DNA with the hosts DNA, much like the human fertilization process, and then the alien erupts from the host with traits of creature it was inside. Now, the Predator is not nearly as animalistic, it’s supposed to be a advanced and proud warrior culture that’s hunting for trophies and to find a worthy opponent’s, and defeat said opponents on at least somewhat equal grounds. My major problem with that idea is that the Predator is a REALLY poor hunter if that’s the case. For a trophy hunter, the Predator doesn’t seem to take very many trophies from the creatures it hunts. Think of a hunter, even back in medieval times. They would kill maybe what, two? three? One large animal on a good day? The hunter will then use the meat, the skin, and take the head as a trophy most likely. “That’s silly” says the Predator, as he slaughters tens if not hundreds of people as he rampages through the jungles of the third world or the streets of Los Angeles where he slaughters gang after gang of humans, and will often times just skin the bodies and hangs them by their feet or simply leaves the corpses behind. This is more the mark of a serial killer who tortures small animals, not a legitimate hunter. Even in tribal societies like the ancient Nordic cultures where you might go out hunting for honor or to kill a large beast to prove his worth, the man would not also slaughter every rabbit he came across and leave the bodies behind. Even worse is that the Predator doesn’t even hold to this mindless slaughter, as when it realizes a woman is pregnant it lets her go, which to be fair is a thing you do as conservationist hunter. SO WHAT IS HE, A CONSERVATIONIST OR A RAMPAGING MONSTER???? This sort of weird, not well explained cultural trait permeates the franchise, where one second the Predator will get rid of weapons to provide a fair fight or will take a trophy from a kill, but in other cases will simply just blast its prey away while it can’t be seen with advanced plasma technology. For a trophy hunter as well, it’s weird to see it shoot of so many guy’s heads. Imagine if, lets say your Uncle is a hunter, and you go on a hunting trip with him because he wants to try out his new shotgun, but also brings a machete for some reason. He gets out of his truck and you both see a deer. Now, instead of shooting it in the chest, he blasts it in the head. Even worse, if the animal is still alive he keeps pumping rounds into its head, and then continues to do the same to ten other deer. He then proceeds to see a overly vicious raccoon, and screams out “FOR HONOR,” then pulls out a machete and begins to knife fight the raccoon. He then rips out its spine, takes the skull, and mounts it in his trophy room. Not only is that barbaric, its deranged lunacy that has no rhyme or reason. For such an advanced race, they have a culture below even the most primitive of humans that and it contradicts even the most basic of its rules on a repeated basis.
The Alien simply outclasses it in every sense. I have much more to say, but I will leave the rest of my thoughts after reading Derek’s rebuttal against my points and respond to his criticisms of the Alien creature and movies. Some of my reasons for the Alien’s superiority, such as its artistic inspiration and the disturbing metaphors and fascinating design I will leave until then.