Quote from: SiL on Sep 18, 2022, 05:49:02 AMIt'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.
Quote from: SiL on Sep 18, 2022, 05:49:02 AMDoes 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.