We have just uploaded the 77th episode of the Alien vs. Predator Galaxy Podcast (right-click and save as to download)! Our latest episode sees RidgeTop and myself joined by the one-and-only Alec Gillis of Amalgamated Dynamics Inc. to talk about their work on The Predator!
We grill Alec about some of the design aspects that went into The Predator. Alec reveals that they tried to make one of the Emissary Predators female and we discuss studio politics, differentiating the Emissaries, the Alien 5 Marquette and plenty more!
At one point we’re discussing the author Steve Perry and Alec makes a Journey joke. I mistakenly think the author also dabbled in music too. It was in fact martial arts that Steve did in addition to writing, not music.
Be sure to head on over to studioADI’s YouTube channel to check out their amazing videos detailing the behind-the-scene work that ADI put into the films they work on! Keep an eye out for new The Predator videos too. You can also follow Alec personally on Instagram and Twitter.
As requested by Alec during the episode, do you have any favourite female Predator artwork that you think Alec would be interested in seeing? Please share down below and we’ll get them across to him. I’d also like to thank Chris Cooksey & Mike Heintzelman for their assistance with making this happen.
What did you think of our latest episode? Be sure to let us know down below! You can also listen to any of our previous episodes in the Podcast section under the News tab on the main menu. The Alien vs. Predator Galaxy Podcast is also available via iTunes, PodBean, GooglePlay Stitcher and now YouTube!
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I get what you mean. I guess it's just frustrating from a fan standpoint to think that I can spend X amount of money (not a lot in comparison to what likely goes into these things at the studio), then go out to an event or wherever for that matter and look 110% better than the stuff we're seeing in the movies. Definitely get a more positive reaction.
I guess the reason is like you said, the design briefs - that I assume are likely to be overseen by the studio/wrong people, and the people making the suits are going based off of what is handed to them.
Fugitive looked decent at best (my opinion) and some of the emissary screens I've seen the faces just looked horrible. Very frustrating that the first two films really nailed it, the second acknowledging the first for what it was, and making it the same but different. But we haven't had that since. Not sure what happened since then...
The issues with the designs comes down to the design briefs, not the talent of the people making things.
Regarding the backlash with the designs etc of the last couple of movies, the effects teams and what not, I wonder why someone like these guys weren't involved, or approached?
https://www.instagram.com/aliensfx/?hl=en
Just doing simple google searches I've found this and I can get a replica costume for around $10k (in Australia, about $7k US). I've also read that one of the wearers of the costume is the nephew of the man himself, Kevin Peter Hall.
Me personally I find it strange these avenues weren't used in the films? Just hoping for some feedback if anyone knows as it seems (to me anyhow) an obvious option that was overlooked?
They will never get it right. Which is stupid cause they got it right for the sequel to the original and managed to give it some freshness.
I'm actually dying reading this i must confess
Guess it's working on me, just picturing the scene in my mind i'm on the floor right now !
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FJsKAKtx.gif&hash=ed73be47f1c410d58030ccd12b8cbf06bc3e11c5
Same. The American football angle is new to me.
I know Paul wanted broad, gladiator like Predators but I never heard Paul wanting the Predators to look like "American football players". Unless I missed it in some supplemental, that particular liken / association was new to my ears, in a quite unpleasant way.
I finished listening to the Podcast. I'll have to listen to it again, but regarding the Emissary / Caravan version of "The Predator", it almost sounded in mid conversation that Alec was about to endorse Fox's decision to order cuts/changes, but diverted to a more neutral approach.
And hearing that there were scenes filmed with Nebraska offering an Emissary Predator a cigarette, and some of the takes the Yautja actually puffed away and smoked it, yeah... I think that leads me to say..... thank you Fox!
Hell, the book also says Anderson wanted Scar to be "handsome".
Yep, I guess Paul was watching the NFL one Sunday and said "that is what AvP needs!"
https://media3.giphy.com/media/HeQnV4t35HB2o/giphy.gif?cid=19f5b51a5bff5ee3512f45306f8fb0a0
Yeah, the thought hadn't crossed my mind before - I always thought they just looked super bulky. But after he mentioned it, I can definitely see the parallels now
A few highlights:
I loved learning that the first time Alec saw "Alien", was in a mall theater with James Cameron, neither having any clue Jim would make a sequel 7 years later!
It's great to hear Alec wants to see a Predator or AvP movie with little, or no humans, and has the vision to see its potential. Hear! hear!
Why did the Predators look bulky in AvP? From his lips to our ears. Other than sometimes using shorter actors, Paul Anderson wanted the armored Predators to look like American Football players. *sigh*
Like with the whole sex/dimorphism thing, the honor society is another element of the franchise that fandom can't seem to agree on. I think there's just a general trepidation of portraying the species in a "conclusive" way that sort of solidifies them in that particular role. It will extinguish the mystery for all eternity! With dimorphism, yes, that's probably a rational concern. But the honor society thing can be retconned, spinned to apply to certain tribes/clans, etc. Doesn't hold that same feeling of finality. Anyway, tangent...
You mean the AVP EU? Almost very beginning, the original comic didn't have any that of course, it was only in the novelization that stuff was added.
Over the years I got the impression that the honor system and the "Yautja" wasn't that well received among predator fans. It doesn't really bother most that much I guess, but its not something many would want to see being mentioned more, either on EU or movies. But its sure better than the Hish.
What I'd like to see are female Predators that... are pretty much like the males - mean, ugly, bad-tempered, obsessed with The Hunt. Sure, they can tell the difference, but to a human it's like trying to gender a shark; difficult at best and kind of pointless.
/Anyone under the "LGBT" banner.
You should've all just ignored MrsMajesty's post as the (hopefully intentional mockery) joke, it is.
Truly. Sometimes the emotional surges for certain subjects appear to be reactionary based on fear. Fear of what? I don't know...
Yep. I've always been in the camp against traditional feminine features for a female Predator. I think it can be done in a more original, imaginative way - it's a shame that a lot of fanarts just can't seem to get past the cliche human genitalia on fem Preds. I'd love to see fanarts that follow the avian dimorphism and separate the sexes with feathers and sheens, etc.
That's funny, because I just imagined a good plot involving straight cisgender Predators who never hunt because they're too busy looking for excuses to cry about 'SJWs' in a thread that has nothing to do with the subject.
I think that was only mentioned on the AVP: Prey novel, other EU had them look pretty much the same or never mentioned them, well a certain novel had predators to be gender fluid hermaphrodites lol. So at this point, you can see their "personal info" in the way it seems better for you, for me none of those fit well with the impression I had from the original movies and behind the scenes info on Predators. So those that don't fit on view of them I just ignore.
I can see Shane Black doing this, dude got no limits.
Never.
Just movie wise. But I suppose that was the most important. And its not like the next ones can't be better, its never 100% ruined, there is always a tiny chance of the series rising again. And for Predator its not going to be a female predator that its going to help it.
It doesn't. And discussing or wanting female Predators has nothing to do with any "SJW agendas" or anything like that. I think that whinge was completely unwarranted. An interest in that has existed long long before SJW. And there's nothing wrong with being interested in seeing a female Predator either.
That's why I'm hesitant about including any female Predators. I think it's really interesting that Alec and Tom pushed for it in this, but I've still yet to see something that I love. I strongly dislike any idea of giving them a humanised feminine figure. I would especially hate to see breasts.
I was talking to Xenomorphine about it yesterday and we were saying that it's fun to think of the ones we've seen already as being the females.
There are other ways of reproduction than the human male/female pairings. As Alec mentions in the podcast, nature has already given us a-sexual beings.
Thank you!
I completely agree with this. It wasn't until these last few years that I really comprehended just how important representation is. Whether that is sexual orientation or race or ethnicity.
If it is like humanoids then it would be a heterosexual male and female relationship and I mean Male and Female.
Gay couples cannot reproduce end of story. You need a female womb and a male sperm donor regardless of species.
Call me a throw-back Conservative nothing changes nature.
Anyways speaking of splitting factions, interestng that Alec Gillis said the props from AVP in THE PREDATOR were Shane Blacks idea........no its was 20th Century Fox idea.
I also find it interesting that Alec said "ALIEN will never have the consistency of the MARVEL canon" I agree and this is why 20th Century Fox are dumb.
Incompetent Directors, script writers, studio politics have ruined ALIEN and PREDATOR.
What has that got to do with anything I said?
Anyways-
I'm not interested in humanising the Predator, not interested in how a Predator reproduces; not my ballpark.
But I would say that features we typically see as feminine or masculine need not necessarily apply to an E.T.
Sexuality can be seen in both the alien and predator universes. Everything is sexualized in Alien. The original trilogy revolves around a female character being chased around by ravenous d*ck monsters. It is what it is, and so far, it's been pretty damn good.
As for predator, could there be gay predators? Could there be female predators? Absolutely, but only if there is any larger societal/sexual structure to them. All we really know from the films is that they're manly things that cruise around in big ships together, wear fishnets, have a penis cannon on their shoulders and hunt half naked muscle men in humid environments. If anyone thinks there is nothing sexual, or even slightly homosexual about any of that, brother/sister do I have news for you.
Perhaps they're asexual. Perhaps they lay eggs in some form. Perhaps there is no physical difference between male and female that would be discernable to us as humans. Maybe it's just scent based. Who knows? It doesn't matter. I wouldn't mind if there were gay or female predators. Either one would still be bad news for anything they were hunting. The issue could only arise if they were including scenes of predators getting sexual, which I feel is unnecessary and shouldn't be shown merely for the fact that it humanizes them too much.
As for gay characters in either franchise? I have no problem with it. Lope was proof positive that it can be done just fine. It's just like sexuality in any other form on screen, as long as the movie isn't going out of it's own way to constantly bring up the subject of sexual preference, where's the problem? It's simply a non-issue. I say just leave all the sex to the B-movies. This is alien and predator, it's gold star horror, and that needs to be the main point of focus in these stories.
<sigh>
Ok if I were a 20th Century Fox executive who asked you "how do you design a PREDATOR reproduction or procreation system?"
How would you respond?
As for the ALIEN lifecycle it was simply a case of nature's "Ichneumonoidea wasps" which inspired the lifecycle, rather than feminism or "equality"..............let alone LGBT which was not featured in any sci-fi sans the prophetic "the forever war" novel by Joe Haldeman.
Even Alec Gillis said he hates any mentions of a PREDATOR EU, even to the point of disliking seeing a PREDATOR homeworld in AVP-R.
Not to deviate from the thread but I also learned from this ADI interview that Ridley Scott had set his sights on a 1997 version of "I Am Legend" with Arnold Schwarzenegger?!?!
He scrapped the project for GLADIATOR (1997) while Schwarzenegger went onto the gothic horror END OF DAYS (1999).
It's amazing as I had, unknowingly, commented on how much the engineer race in Prometheus had a similar aesthetic to the Dark Seekers in I Am Legend 6 years ago in my controversial "1 ot of 5" Prometheus review.
Even though this, practical, make-up test carried through to both I Am Legend (2007) and Prometheus (2012) and even elements of ALIEN COVENANT (2017).
Surely not a coincidence?
As an LGBT person, I can guarantee you that I have no agenda to humanise the Predator in the slightest. How dull.
And for the record, LGBT characters are necessary and I do believe for a long time they've been underrepresented
but like any character- they have to have depth, which a lot of token LGBT characters don't-
often they're unrealistically flawless under studio request (Because they fear offending anyone)
Or completely token because the writer has no real knowledge of LGBT life experience.
The Cold Forge's excellent in this respect.
The fact it's inclusion of said type of person and life experiences wasn't a decision from "The Damn Company"
probably helped matters in that way, Alex White knew what he was talking/writing about- concerning an underepresented group.
ALIEN has an inbuilt "get out of jail free card" that transcends modern day political correctness and LGBT agendas.
As Alec Gillis said Stan Winston said they only had 6 weeks to re-design the PREDATOR creature (the design we all know and love now) as 20th Century Fox were almost on the verge of canning the "insect design" and PREDATOR outright.
James Cameron also chipped in during a flight and if Stan Winston hadn't discussed the pencil concept drawings there'd be no mandibles.
So to say "how exactly does an alien species PREDATOR (one assumes a masculine trope) reproduce"? wasn't exactly on the cards or an afterthought of the 6 week deadline.
I believe General Lotz stated in the EU comic series that (female) PREDATORs were bigger than the males.................
Don't say I didn't warn you the idea was derivative.
N/A.
The Predator's Sex, Orientation or Gender- never mattered before, why would it now?
If the Predators procreate as most animals do on Earth, as we do generally.
Unless their society has very, specific separation between the roles of males and females;
And they Hunt on Earth often, you'd eventually see a "female" Predator,
what that means as far as what "her" appearance would be is unknown.
Mammaries, I agree would be a pretty trite indicator.
Feathers, colouration or perhaps even a lack of quills would be more appropriate.
But I have yet to find any art of a "Female" Predator that's that inspired.
Thank you very much!
Trans predators... I just imagined a good plot in SJW style. Oppressed on their planet trans predators go to Earth to capture it and then they will be able to move there and live in their free from oppression society. Traditional predators chase the ship of trans predators to destroy them. The trans predators who had flown to Earth were preparing to launch an attack on humans, but then they met the group of gay soldiers, discussed with them the problems of oppression and decided to unite to fight the oppressors(traditional predators) together. As a result, the traditional predators were defeated by SJW PredHuman magic team, trans predators began to live with people together on Earth and founded their organization in support of the oppressed trans/gay/bi/etc predators. They didn't hunt people, they have more important problems.
Anyway, don't be so angry, man. I don't think we will ever see hot female predators and other ridiculous things. The film is not about that. If the screenwriter is not crazy, he will not add all these horrible things to the plot.
Not a lot of details were discussed about the emissaries.
But an abridged version is this.
- The Predator (or Yautja) has a caste system whereby the emissaries were elder scientists
- They arrived in plastic clothing, like laboratory coats, the concept designs will be on an ADI youtube channel (but not up yet).
https://www.youtube.com/user/studioADI/videos
- Emissary predators in the military clothing, from the leaked set photos had anthropomorphised features
Either way the movie studio 20th Century Fox hated the emissary predators either due to studio interference or rumoured audience screen testing coming back as negative. So they were cut from the final film completely.
I could understand a little english, but it's still very difficult for me.
If it doesn't bother you, can someone please write what was there about Emissaries? I'm really interested.
So sorry that I can not fully understand what you're talking about