What it really boils down to, has a lot
less to do with in-universe explanations, but rather,
what constitutes a decent looking design or not. I do not completely agree with the Video games either, as they are not film canon.
I do actually like the way the Flying Queen, in the illustration at least (
NOT the Kenner crap) looks. She appears larger than a regular Queen, but other than that and the wings, she is still very similar in design to the original.
There is less that can be done with the Queen design, as it is more complex than the regular Adults. This is why the "pure bred" or "less influenced at the most" theories come up.
I tend to think the Queen at least should pick size from her host species, or at least maintain a similar size advantage % over the host species. I think all aliens do. But as to how much her over-all shape should be effected, well
it has to do, IMHO with what looks cool, or stupid as a design.
The AVP appears to be what a "fully grown" Queen's design really is, and I believe it had a human host. No proof on that either way, but she clearly was far larger than the A2 and A:R Queen, and had serration's on her head, as well as just having a sturdier movement all together.
So how would Pred traits not look on a Queen without looking dumb?1). I would have not problem with the Queen being over-all larger than a Regular Queen. Like I said, I think she should maintain the size relationship between herself and said host species.
The size difference would make her about
20% taller and longer than the AVP Queen when she is fully grown. About the difference between an average Pred (7'6") and a normal adult male human around 6 foot.
2). Mandibles on the Jaws are ok with me too. In fact, is the only design change other than overall size I am ok with. I know other have had the biggest problem with this, mostly because they think it would look dumb on the design.
I have one of the ultra rare ¼ scale Queen
Maquette's (less than 5 exist) right behind me, and I can clearly see where Pred like mandibles could be added. Of course the mandibles should look more skeletal than on a Predator, and the webbing needs to be replaced with just tendon connecting them. There you go; small design change to signify that she had a different than human host species, and thus would be overall larger than a human hosted one.
3). She would need to function reproductively as a normal Queen, because other than being bigger, and slightly different mouth,
she is still a NORMAL QUEEN.
All Aliens descended from her need to be normal, and have their traits be dependant on their hosts, and NOT have PredAlien traits if they had a human host in future generations.This means that the only advantage a hive would get in any way, shape, or form, from having a Queen with a Pred host; would be that if some creature managed to kill all of the other aliens, then find the Queen. The Queen would be bigger and stronger than normal and therefor be a little more dangerous in close quarters combat.
4). For all intents and purposes, she would just be a slightly larger (20% taller) Queen. Nothing more, nothing less. I doubt we would ever see one in a film, but that is what makes the most sense to me.
