From Script to Screen: Alien vs. Predator

Started by Corporal Hicks, Aug 30, 2017, 10:37:15 AM

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From Script to Screen: Alien vs. Predator (Read 7,070 times)

Corporal Hicks

The overall plot of Paul WS Anderson's AvP remained largely unchanged through the course of its journey from script to screen. The heat bloom, the pyramid, the hunt, Lex and Scar are all present, as are most of the major cast in one way or another. But how many of these concepts were changed quite a lot on the way.

Part pointless trivia, part search for insight, this article will go over those changes and see how the story developed — for better or worse — until it hit the silver screen.

Sources: AvP Novel by Marc Cerasini; AICN script review dated October 29th, 2003September 26th 2003 draft by Paul WS AndersonProduction Draft.

Note: I'm hesitant to use the novel for anything other than broad strokes, as without the source draft Cerasini was working from, it's often impossible to tell what's embellishment and what's from the script. It's also clear that many changes were made to coincide with the script as it developed, which further clouds what was in the original draft.

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Corporal Hicks

I'd just like to thank SiL for taking the time to write this up and send it across to us.  :)

SiL

Thanks for uploading it!

At some point I'll even finish AvPR.

OmegaZilla

OmegaZilla

#3
Quote from: SiL on Aug 30, 2017, 11:09:32 AM
Thanks for uploading it!

At some point I'll even finish AvPR.
I think your page to page reading you did some years back will suffice

Darkness

You missed out a key point that there were actually five Predators in one of the early scripts and somewhere along the way it was reduced to three. That would have changed the entire movie or at least added some more fights.

Corporal Hicks

He mentions it during the Predators in orbit section.

SiL

Yeah, it's there. Because the only information of those scenes we have is from the novel, and the novel is unreliable, I only mentioned it in passing.

Iron Infililtrator

Really liked this article, AvP was a little treasure box in some cases.

Corporal Hicks

Quote from: SiL on Aug 30, 2017, 10:05:31 PM
Yeah, it's there. Because the only information of those scenes we have is from the novel, and the novel is unreliable, I only mentioned it in passing.

I think it gets brought up in some of the pre-production featurettes too?

SiL

That they were supposed to be there, yes, but everything else we don't know. That's why I only included the information supported by other sources (that there were five) but left out the scenes from the novel that describe what happens to them.

Corporal Hicks

Quote from: SiL on Aug 31, 2017, 07:35:07 AM
That they were supposed to be there, yes, but everything else we don't know. That's why I only included the information supported by other sources (that there were five) but left out the scenes from the novel that describe what happens to them.

That's fair enough. Cerasini did accept my friend request so I'll give him a bump, see if I can get him to chat about the specific - if he remembers.

SiL

I was thinking about it this morning and realised it was 14 years ago, so my hopes aren't high :P

It'd be nice to find out what the process was for him, because his novel is a strange mixture of ideas that were abandoned early -- the Cambodia opening -- and things that weren't even changed until casting was complete -- like Sebastian's nationality. And then there are weird things in the middle where the concept was abandoned (Lex romance subplot) but it's still been maintained in the novel and just shifted to characters who survived to the production drafts.

Would love to get some clarity on the five Predators, because the novel just has the other two dying immediately after Celtic.

SM

The novel also had Miller being American - which he was until they started shooting until Anderson found out Bremner wasn't very funny as a Yank and had him use his normal accent instead.

SiL

I forgot about that. I don't think his nationality is actually given in the scripts I've read.

SM

(Also there's a typo in Lo Lha Ice Fall.  It should be Lho La.  Lho, Lho, Lho, Lho, Lho La.)

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