The Hunt: Alien vs. Predator – Peter Briggs’ Script

The Aliens

The Alien Queens in The Hunt: Alien vs. Predator are portrayed as being born from specific eggs and facehuggers (as in the original Randy Stradley comic) and like with Alien 3, the Queen chestburster that is birthed from Ackland is described as having a “nascent crest.”

Although you don’t see the initial Alien Queen much after its birth, the colonists do discover that the food storage locker has been broken in (presumably by the recently birthed immature Queen Alien). This is similar to a scene from the earlier incarnations of Alien that implied the Alien had broken into the food storage locker on the Nostromo for nutrient.

The Hunt: Alien vs. Predator also features a number of facehuggers. In one scene towards the end of the script Hiroko is attacked by a facehugger after she disturbs an egg. The facehugger is unable to gain purchase on her helmet due to all the slime from the sewage water. It uses its tail to propel itself through the water to try and attack her again before being killed by Hiroko’s rivet gun.

In an earlier sequence when Ackland is first attacked by the facehugger, it is described as being seen as purple in the Predator P.O.V. The Predator vision is also able to distinguish the circulatory fluids being pumped from the facehugger to Ackland.

The Queen is eventually found in the hive that had been established in the Central Reservoir of the sewage system where she has been secured to the surroundings with resin and is now birthing new eggs.

In the same location Hiroko and Broken Tusk also discover a strange sac that is described as “large pulsating bag, about ten fleet long and roughly ovular in shape.” They later discover that an immature Queen Alien was inside the sac.

The origins of this new Queen (was it from another Queen bearing facehugger? Was it supposed to be moulting?) aren’t explored but the immature Queen is mobile immediately upon birth from the sac and is able to chase after the duo.

As well as humans and the immature Queen being discovered in the hive, Hiroko and Broken Tusk also discover the bodies of the local wildlife (the rhinos and lemurs) and at least one Predator cocooned into the resinous walls of the hive. The Predator is specifically mentioned to have already had it’s chest burst open.

Although The Hunt: Alien vs. Predator doesn’t mention a PredAlien, during the first major encounter with the Aliens the script specifically details that the Aliens have “taken on the genetic characteristics of their hosts, many of them are non-humanoid” showing further influence from Alien 3. No specific descriptions of the various hybrids are given though.

Early in the script when the human characters first start to encounter the eggs and facehuggers, they find one of the lemurs with a facehugger around it. Despite the facehugger actually being larger than the lemur, the facehuggers are able to successfully impregnate the indigenous creature.

The first victim of the facehuggers are said to be the rhinos that are also indigenous to Ryushi. Ackland and York, the human characters who first encounter them, come across a comatose rhino (implying the facehugger had already been and done its job) but it doesn’t specify how much time had passed between their discovery and when the Predator pod carrying the eggs crashed.

The span of time that the life-cycle seemed to take was inconsistent throughout the script, although in general it did seem sped up to a matter of hours. The Queen facehugger is the only one that seems to take a lengthy period of at least 12 hours which is shorter than presented in Alien 3.

The Aliens are portrayed as being quite ruthless but as also frequently taking hosts. Briggs also brings them across as intelligent and often stealthy. When Kamen, the head mechanic, is discovered cocooned in the hive he comments on the fact that the Aliens snapped his legs so they could fit him into the cocoon.

In one situation an Alien becomes trapped by the tail in a door. It is able to snap off its tail in order to escape, much”like a lizard.” The Aliens in the script are shown to be able to perceive holograms as Hiroko uses a holographic ninja swordsmen program (that she uses to train) to distract the Aliens when she’s attempting to evade them.

The Warriors/Dones make frequent use of their tails as a weapon too. In one circumstance an Alien uses its tail to stab the chest of one of the colonists and in a battle with the Predators, uses it to disable the wrist computers of the Predators.

The Predators

Peter Briggs’ The Hunt: Alien vs. Predator script does away with the concept of the hunting of Aliens being a coming of age ritual for the Predators and instead focuses on it being purely a hunt, just as the title suggestions.

The Hunt: Alien vs. Predator is quite consistent in its Predator hunting parties. Both the group in the opening sequence of the script and the group that come to Ryushi to hunt consist of 5 Predators.

Peter Briggs’ treats us to a longer look at the interior of a Predator ship than Predator 2 would later do. The Predator Mothership is described as a “curious mixture of old and news. An elaborate frieze written in alien script runs around the wall, with racks of sophisticated equipment recessed into it.”

We also see a Predator display screen which is described as “a cylindrical tube containing a substance similar to mercury which constantly changes it’s mass into shapes and alien text.”

The living quarters aboard the Predator Mothership contain a flat slab of rock in the centre of them. In the script we find Broken Tusk relaxing on this slab, very similar to how reptilians relax on hot slabs of rock. The Hunt: Alien vs. Predator also includes an elderly Predator seen carving something.

The Predators start their hunts by sending seeding pods to infect the local population of certain planets. Two Predator pods are sent to Ryushi. One is apparently destroyed when it purposefully collides with the communications relay. The other lands on the surface. The pods themselves are mobile and traverse using mechanized claw-like legs. It deposits Alien eggs via a hatch on its underside.

When the Predator “missiles/pods” are detected, the monitoring technicians comment on the fact they “dropped straight out of hyperspace.” It is also said that the pods are too small to carry any human deep-space drive.

Other points of note include:

• Predator technology is shown to be acid-resistant.
• The Predator shuttle is seen using a blue beam to scan the communication relay debris.
• One of the Predators is seen using an “ornately-shaped lance.“
• Broken Tusk attempts to repair his wrist computer with “an intricate tool” but is ultimately unable to.
• Broken Tusk uses a pulse rifle to kill the immature Queen. His finger doesn’t fit through the trigger guard so he snaps it off so he can operate the rifle properly.

Expanding The Human Universe

The Hunt: Alien vs. Predator is rooted within the Alien side of the franchise when it comes to time and setting. As such Peter Briggs uses the opportunity to further expand humanity’s place within the galaxy and there’s a lot of extra detail provided in the script.

The planet Ryushi is used as a subspace communication relay station and is owned by a company known as Yutani-Templin. In orbit is a “rectangular satellite-construction comprised of hundreds of communications dishes in a latticework of steel tubing.” It is referred to as a “Rimward Tracking Station” by the Colonial Marines who arrive at Ryushi at the end of the script.

The Ryushi station is made up of self-sufficient deep-space transport modules running off an external power supply. They’re all capable of operating independently for 36 hours on their own internal power.

The planet itself is described as “a world where every square mile is covered by a canopy of treetop foliage. Nestled amongst this lush rainforest is the Yutani-Templin Communications Relay Station. Several inverted-‘U’-shaped suspension cranes painted bright yellow look down over a collection of pre-assembled buildings and roadways raised above the swamp on platforms, much like a truncated oil-rig. A navigation beacon flashes intermittently from a tall gantry tower above, while dominating the view is a the sloping face of a communications array several storeys high.”

The Hunt: Alien vs. Predator also introduces us to some very specific human technology including a “smart howitzer,” owned by one of the private hunters. It is capable of tracking cloaked Predators. It is able to manuever and fire itself via a harness that the user wears. The script also introduces us to an apparently different type of Pulse Rifle – “Fabrique Nationale tactical autoloader. Uses twelve mm hollow ‘0’ rounds with through the barrel smart laser-sighting.”

The colonists also make use of several new modes of transport brought over from the original comic book. The people of Ryushi use hover bikes, described as being manta-ray-shaped with sleek lines and garish decals. Hyundai is named as one of the manufacturers. They also use “choppers”, a twin-turbine heli-jets. They are small two-seater crafts with room for cargo in the back.

Some other smaller points of interest include:

• The script references something called a Lloyds’ Almanac but doesn’t explain it. From context it would appear to be a catalogue of spacecraft.
• The Autodoc is an automated medical machine that is suspended from the ceiling of the Infirmary, “a circular cluster of sophisticated manipulator arms tipped with cutting blades and surgical paraphernalia.”
• On Earth, there is something called the Aldhoven test which can determine the truth.
• The air suit that Hiroko wears to navigate the sewage system is capable of projecting maps onto the heads-up display seen on the interior of the glass helmet. Driscoll also took apart a motion tracker and hard-wired it into the suit.

Similarities to Film and Comic

The Hunt: Alien vs. Predator was based loosely upon Randy Stradley’s Aliens vs. Predator comic. The bulk of the stories are different though but they share some similarities. Paul Anderson’s Alien vs. Predator also shares some similarities with this earlier incarnation of the project.

The most obvious similarities between The Hunt: Alien vs. Predator and Randy Stradley’s comic are in some of the names. They both take place on a planet called Ryushi, however what was a desolate dry ranching planet in the comic series is a now a swamp and jungle planet that serves as a communication relay.

The next most obvious similarity is in the name of the protagonists – the comic is Machiko Noguchi and in the The Hunt: Alien vs. Predator it is Hiroko Noguchi. Many people tend to think that the character in the script is an amalgamation of 2 characters from the comic: Machiko and Hiroki Shimura, the boss of the colony. This is because of the similarity of the name Hiroki and Hiroko and because in the script Noguchi is the boss of the colony, a function that Hiroki served in the comic.

However, this is not the case as Peter Briggs commented on the name change saying it was simply because Hiroko was a “more popular Japanese girl’s name.” The character of Kamen from the script also serves much of the same character role Hiroki did in terms of the relationship between the two. Other than that, Noguchi is largely the same character.

There is even a sequence towards the end of The Hunt: Alien vs. Predator where Hiroko is described as wearing an outfit similar to the one Machiko is seen in on some of the AvP covers: “Hiroko’s wearing a black hi-tech catsuit, a fetishist’s dream. Across her shoulder is a pistol in a slung bandoleer holster.“

The character of Doctor Revna is also largely the same as in the comic series. Their deaths are different though.

Both the comic and The Hunt: Alien vs. Predator feature an indigenous rhino-like creature. In the comics they are called Rynth and are what the settlers of Ryushi raise to sell but in the script that are simply known as rhinos. They are also classed as protected species as they’re about to migrated – presumably off planet.

Other small similarities to the comic include a dog called Brewster, a long-haired Labrador. Unlike in the comic series where the dog survived until the end with Machiko, Brewster in Briggs’ script is taken by the Aliens. The script also includes the hover-bikes that were also prominent in the comics.

Whilst the comparisons to the comic were bound to come up, there also a few similarities between the films that preceded Peter Briggs’ The Hunt: Alien vs. Predator and the eventual film as written and directed by Paul W.S Anderson and Shane Salerno as well as some small nods to the other Alien films.

Hiroko’s entrance to the sewage system is reminiscent of Bishop’s entrance into the air-ducts in Aliens. The device that Driscoll uses to blow the explosive bolts to detach the Command Center module was the rest of the colony is described very much like the mechanism that activates the self-destruct aboard the Nostromo.

And whilst this last comparison wasn’t necessarily in the finished product, it bears a striking similarity to a scripted scene from Alien. The characters discover that the food storage locker has been broken into (presumably by the immature Queen Alien). In the earlier drafts for Alien, the crew of the Nostromo discover that the chestburster that came from Kane had broken into the food storage locker. This scene is also included in the novelization of Alien.

The original script for Paul Anderson’s Alien vs. Predator featured 5 main Predator characters who were taking part in the hunt in the pyramid. This was eventually cut down to 3. Both of the hunting parties featured in Peter Briggs’ The Hunt: Alien vs. Predator included 5 Predators as well.

Broken Tusk uses his smart-disk to slice the front of an Alien’s skull off much in the same way Scar uses his shuriken to kill an Alien in Alien vs. Predator. There’s also an incident where a Predator uses its netgun on an Alien and like with the Grid Alien, the acid from its injuries allows it to escape.

There is a scene towards the end of The Hunt: Alien vs. Predator where, in a fashion similar to Lex and Sebastian in AvP, Kamen begs Hiroko to kill him. However, unlike the finished film Hiroko is unable to kill her friend and Broken Tusk does it.

Both the comic and the finished film feature an alliance between the human protagonist and the survived Predator character. Peter Briggs’ script is no different. As with Anderson’s film, Broken Tusk offers Hiroko a spear to use. However it is not one he constructs from Alien body parts, it’s a Predator spear.

The Hunt: Alien vs. Predator, Randy Stradley’s original comic and Paul Anderson’s Alien vs. Predator all contain a captive Alien Queen which the Predators use to obtain Alien eggs to seed their hunts. Peter Briggs’ script is closer to the original comic in that the Queen is kept captive aboard a Predator ship.

As with the end of Paul Anderson’s AvP, the elder/leader Predator of the group that retrieves the body of the Predator protagonist offers the female lead a telescoping spear. Unlike The Hunt: Alien vs. Predator and the original comic, Lex doesn’t join the Predators though.

The Second Draft

Unfortunately the second and final draft that Peter Briggs wrote for Alien vs. Predator has never surfaced. Details of it are quite sparse but when AvP Galaxy had chance to talk to Peter Briggs he did provide us with the following information regarding that elusive second draft.

The opening sequence was different. It changed from being on the barren desert planet to being set aboard a ship, dead in space. A salvage team picks up one of the Predator’s alien seeding pods. The Predators then show up and dock with the now Alien infested ship. The crew are all dead, the ship powerless so the artificial gravity is turned off and floating debris fills the corridor. Cue zero gravity combat between Aliens and space-suited Predators and floating acid blood mayhem.

He also told of us a scene involving a swarm of Aliens that mentioned a creature with “vague hints of skeletal juggernauts with forms and shapes reminiscent of the cocooned Predators” but never specifically came out and called these shapes Predator-Alien hybrids.

In an interview from 1996, Peter Briggs made the following comment of his second draft – “Some of the characters disappeared from it, a lot of the dialogue was re-worked, the beginning’s different, some of the extra sequences are different… There’s about 70% of my first draft remaining in the second.”

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If you’re interested in reading the entire script yourself, you can find the link to download The Hunt: Alien vs. Predator in our Downloads section.

You can read more about the earlier days of the development of the Aliens vs. Predator film in our article The Hunt Begins: The Early Days of Peter Briggs’ Alien vs. Predator .