Yeah--that was a plus, seeing the Predator home world. There were parts that weren't bad, but I felt the aliens were just like...I dunno...dobermans or something. Not very interesting in that movie. More so in the first.
Good question re Dark Horse. There was zero editorial interference in what I put into my novel, but I more or less seemed to indicate he picked up a lot of stuff from his prey. Personally, I think they have scientists, but they might be slaves of a kind. I.e., other intelligent species. Or in a symbiotic relationship. Now, that'd be interesting. Or perhaps blasphemous.
Yeah, re the Alien--I always thought in the first movie it was supposed to be intelligent, which is why the subsequent approaches haven't always been of interest to me. I thought both the Space Jockey and the Alien were intelligent. And I thought the next movies would (1) show us the alien home world, (2) expand on the intelligence and origins of the Aliens and the space jockey, etc.