Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem
Logically Rated R
Starring Fodder
Directed by
There is a general template to screenwriting. It’s called the three-act structure --- perhaps you’ve heard of it, they teach a similar version of it in school.
The three act structure states the obvious (There needs to be a beginning, middle, end). And the not so obvious (there should be a rise and decline of action at specific points during the script). Some people even go as far as to tell you at what page it should happen which can be, both, helpful and daunting.
The three-act structure is universal. Next to all scripts use it. Like Ninety-Nine Percent. The other One percent ends up being French New Wave.
So why is it that Alien vs. Predator fails at following the universal format for movie writing. It should always work. Right? Nope. Despite some good action bits and better design --- sometimes a more direct approach is needed.
The problem with Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem begins with the title. The word “Versus” sits promisingly in the middle. Versus indicates so many things. It conjures up Wrestlemanias, Chuck Liddell, Kimbo, Ali, etc., etc. It prepares the viewer for a knock-down-drag-out NOT the three-act structure.
AVPR spends an agonizing, rising, first act introducing us to characters: star-crossed lovers, a duty-bound Sheriff, unapologetic jocks, an estranged father and son, and two women with missing family members. Of course these people will serve as fodder, but they are not the stars of the movie. They are too sympathetic, too limp-wristed, too Middle America to be serviceable substitutes for what we came to see: Aliens Vs. Predators.
I understand what the filmmakers were attempting to do, they were trying to make us invested in characters. Make us care so when they die it means something. But this isn’t Steel Magnolias this is an extension of two sci-fi/horror series. Those movies had characters but they were more testosterone, more aggressive, more hardened, more fitted for the carnage they were going to encounter later. The Predator had Los Angeles cops and Black-Ops soldiers. Aliens had lesbian Marines, and futuristic prisoners. The characters in AVPR are out of place for this genre and too doe-eyed to quell a blood thirsty audience. We want entrails in a versus film, but instead we get mopey exposition.
I bring up the three-act structure because AVPR uses it to follow characters around, instead of aliens. It seems certain that the three-act structure will pay off because it is supposed to. But not here. It doesn’t belong here.
The irony in all this is that when Hollywood shouldn’t follow the guidelines of scriptwriting they follow it too stringently. Any other time they just butcher it.
Logically Rated R
Starring Fodder
Directed by
There is a general template to screenwriting. It’s called the three-act structure --- perhaps you’ve heard of it, they teach a similar version of it in school.
The three act structure states the obvious (There needs to be a beginning, middle, end). And the not so obvious (there should be a rise and decline of action at specific points during the script). Some people even go as far as to tell you at what page it should happen which can be, both, helpful and daunting.
The three-act structure is universal. Next to all scripts use it. Like Ninety-Nine Percent. The other One percent ends up being French New Wave.
So why is it that Alien vs. Predator fails at following the universal format for movie writing. It should always work. Right? Nope. Despite some good action bits and better design --- sometimes a more direct approach is needed.
The problem with Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem begins with the title. The word “Versus” sits promisingly in the middle. Versus indicates so many things. It conjures up Wrestlemanias, Chuck Liddell, Kimbo, Ali, etc., etc. It prepares the viewer for a knock-down-drag-out NOT the three-act structure.
AVPR spends an agonizing, rising, first act introducing us to characters: star-crossed lovers, a duty-bound Sheriff, unapologetic jocks, an estranged father and son, and two women with missing family members. Of course these people will serve as fodder, but they are not the stars of the movie. They are too sympathetic, too limp-wristed, too Middle America to be serviceable substitutes for what we came to see: Aliens Vs. Predators.
I understand what the filmmakers were attempting to do, they were trying to make us invested in characters. Make us care so when they die it means something. But this isn’t Steel Magnolias this is an extension of two sci-fi/horror series. Those movies had characters but they were more testosterone, more aggressive, more hardened, more fitted for the carnage they were going to encounter later. The Predator had Los Angeles cops and Black-Ops soldiers. Aliens had lesbian Marines, and futuristic prisoners. The characters in AVPR are out of place for this genre and too doe-eyed to quell a blood thirsty audience. We want entrails in a versus film, but instead we get mopey exposition.
I bring up the three-act structure because AVPR uses it to follow characters around, instead of aliens. It seems certain that the three-act structure will pay off because it is supposed to. But not here. It doesn’t belong here.
The irony in all this is that when Hollywood shouldn’t follow the guidelines of scriptwriting they follow it too stringently. Any other time they just butcher it.
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