ALIEN vs PREDATOR : Storm of Blood

[OpenMaw]

A few years back I wrote a screenplay and was working towards animating it in Unreal Engine 4. This was "Project Oasis." I have recently, over the last couple of weeks, picked the screenplay back up and tweaked it a little. The whole back end of the script changed around. I tried to improve dialogue, characterization, and pacing. However, I will likely be doing another draft that will make some far more dramatic changes.

For anyone looking for an AVP fix, I present to you Alien vs Predator : Storm of Blood.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LN6NaRlfdA0i1Q_05apgEbwOLTltmfNg/view?usp=sharing

[SiL]

Reading the first page I don't know whether to be flattered or send you a cease and  desist

[OpenMaw]

Hahaha, hey, I did ask for permission... four years ago now! But yeah, the EEV idea was lifted straight out of your script, along with some of the dialogue around the facehugging, and the egg morphing being used. A lot of the overall tone was inspired by yours as well. I never knew I'd be a fanboy for fan fiction, but I dug your script man. If that had been the AVP we got, I'd have nothing to pine over wanting something different.

There are a number of things I'm not totally happy with, but it wasn't serving me to keep picking at and tweaking ideas in this version. Some of the elements near the end start to wobble. I'm not happy entirely with the ending. I personally like the pacing and winding things up to the confrontation, but numerous people have told me its a mistake to have the fighting start so late. There's some stuff with the characters I really like. I think I did a fairly good job of defining each character's voice and personality, but some of the early stuff either needs to be shifted around, truncated, or removed entirely. 

[TC]

I liked it!

I reads like a pretty normal early draft. Just smash that sucker out!

Will you be doing further drafts? At 2 drafts every 4 years (= 2 years/draft) it might take a while to get it finished! 

TC

[OpenMaw]

Well, I wrote the first draft back in 2018, sent it to a bunch of people. Got some feedback, and then rewrote some parts and tweaked others. So it might be more accurate to call it "Draft 1.5." I started tweaking it again for the first time a few weeks back.

I started a family in 2018. In 2022 it was ripped apart. So I've been going back to things I left behind and sat down. That's why there was such a large gap between. I just had to put that stuff aside.

[SiL]

It's a well-written script, honestly. Not that it's not a draft, but the actual writing is good. It doesn't read like a fan who doesn't know scriptwriting awkwardly formatting something in MS Word.

Does still suffer from only one Alien and one Predator and neither doing anything until the story is over half way done. I think if anything it neatly demonstrates why one-on-oneing these guys doesn't really work. We need to burn a lot of time before they can start, because once they do start it feels like a series of teases until the main event -- and then the movie is over.

[OpenMaw]

It's a well-written script, honestly. Not that it's not a draft, but the actual writing is good. It doesn't read like a fan who doesn't know scriptwriting awkwardly formatting something in MS Word.

Coming from you that means a lot.

Does still suffer from only one Alien and one Predator and neither doing anything until the story is over half way done. I think if anything it neatly demonstrates why one-on-oneing these guys doesn't really work. We need to burn a lot of time before they can start, because once they do start it feels like a series of teases until the main event -- and then the movie is over.

The only way I can see having the creatures dueling sooner is to skip over the Alien life cycle entirely, or... I hate to say rushing, but shifting things pretty dramatically.

Even then, the trick to have the creatures maintain their nominal behavior and not instantly kill each other. That's a tough nut to crack.

Other option is to contrive things. IE: Predator loses gear early on and can't kill the alien right away, or the humans injure the Predator and take it out of the fight so it can't finish the job early on. The problem with ganking either creature is you color any outcome that follows. Which gives you a Grid Alien v Gill/Celtic situation where everyone is unhappy.

...Pushing aside the establishing element, or crunching it, and have the movie start with the crash, and immediately cut to a team being sent to check it out, so within the first ten minutes the face hugging has taken place. 15 minutes in the base is cut off by the Predator arrival, 20 minutes in you have an alien being born, 25 minutes in you have Predator arriving at the base. 30 minutes in you have the first encounter between the two creatures, and then the second act would deal with the humans being caught in between as they try to execute their survival plan. Alien and predator stalking and killing them until the creatures are drawn back together for the final act. That might work. 

Yet another option is what a lot of the media has already done, which is to have a big opening. Briggs did it, Anderson was going to do it, the original comic does... Have some big battle to start the movie off and to establish how it "normally goes." Personally I don't like those kind of openings because they give away the goods too quickly.

I'm not convinced that there isn't a way to do it, but it is probably the hardest nut to crack. One of the big problems is that once the fighting starts... It should end pretty quickly. A smart Predator is going to try to engage at range for as long as he can, and vice versa an Alien is going to skulk in as close as it can to get a killing strike. Someone should be killing someone pretty quickly.

[SiL]

You could build the story as the Predator using humans to try to lure the Alien. Or a series of skirmishes where each creature whittles down the other.

I think the biggest issue is it's hard to feel it's a big deal when it's one of each harassing each other. Destroying the whole colony feels like overkill, Y'know? Like setting fire to your room because you saw a spider.

(For reference I've only skim read the current draft!)

[OpenMaw]

With the third draft there's going to some fundamental restructuring. Bolstering the characters and the story of Warden, Van Cleef, Mendy, etc. Shifting events around.

Like I said in my previous post i'm going to try and transplant back certain events to happen within the first act, hit that first peak in the second draft, and then between that and the finile we have a series of reactions. Humans staging a plan to get out of dodge, Predator maneuvering to flush the humans out into the open so that the alien will come back out into the open.

This was a very early test I did for the opening shot of the film. It's "all wrong" basically, but it was just a test to get the general idea down.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sQL7hZkpu2he1bRaeAZkUY-NvKxSkLoz


Some musical tracks i've been playing while working on this:

Spoiler

[close]

[TC]

I love me some previz! 

May I ask, what is your writing process?

Do you go straight to Final Draft and start writing script format, or do you write notes, outlines, beat sheets etc? Do you use index cards, white boards, post-it notes?

TC

[OpenMaw]

When I first start writing something it is usually writing notes into notepad. Fragments and basic ideas. For Warden one of the earliest things I wrote was "Washed up Colonial Marine with spinal injuries, played by Tony Todd." "One Alien. One Predator. Back to basics. No gimmicks. Barren planet. Big storm that builds as the situation grows worse.." For the Van Cleef it was "Put boss in an Alien film." Then I'll usually open another document and start moving things around like a puzzle, trying to sequence any specific events I have in mind and  just build it up.

I do like storyboarding too. As soon as I get the script roughly finalized I intend to storyboard the whole thing. There's one shot I started to storyboard years ago. When the Alien and Predator go into the vent shaft. Predator uses his spear as a wedge to stop himself halfway into the vent. I imagined this sweeping camera move where we're looking up at the Predator who is gazing up towards the alien. Camera tracks up, staying on Predator. Predator shifts his gaze down the shaft as the camera passes by, stayting on him. finishes its track up and is now looking down on the fan below him. 

When I first start working on an idea I try to find audio and visual references, or photoslop them together.

[OpenMaw]

Predator hunting ship for a lone hunter. This only appears for a moment in the story. Idea wise I wanted to combine elemenets from both Los Tribe and Scout ship designs. The back end is three engines that will have a similar look to the big engine on the tribe ship. The rest of the craft will evoke the scout ship. I'm working towards a sharper/harsher profile.



Getting there, I think.

[SiL]

If that'sa Predator for scale that is ridiculously tiny. Or are the engines separate?

[OpenMaw]

If that'sa Predator for scale that is ridiculously tiny. Or are the engines separate?

It's probably about 10% smaller than I initially thought, but it was never intended to be more than a cockpit with an engine. Unlike what we usually see, which is a larger Predator ship dropping a pod in close proximity to the target, this is designed to put the occupant into suspended animation and allow it to drive from system to system. Individual  hunters can use these to track certain quarry over large patches of space without the need of a larger ship.



Like I said, probably about 10% smaller than I initially thought. I don't know that it matters too much though because there is never a time when we'll see it in reference eto anything except the satelite platform in orbit.

I say about 10% because the Predator is supposed to be sitting above the center line. The belly of the craft is supposed to be purely ship systems. I'll probably come back and tweak it later on some more. I'm happy with the overall design though.

[OpenMaw]

Youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq8453FrpY9NRFAmMcg0hUg