Why did the movies fail?

[SM]

There was more characterisation between Verheiden and Miller - it provided some rare interesting character dynamics in generally dull lot.  Problem was Verheiden didn't really have any reason to be a surly arsehole.  He just was.  And since he was a minor supporting character, he wasn't going to get any backstory or development.

[The Old One]

They also give the most believable and best performance, then are dispatched. Sad, the potential.

The idea of a changing Labyrinth with Aliens inside is ingenious enough on it's own that it could've carried a whole film on that premise alone.

[SM]

For a movie that doesn't even got for 100 minutes, they could've easily had another 10 minutes of pyramid shenanigans and actually used the first 40 minutes to give the characters something resembling personalities.

[OpenMaw]

A lot of the stuff that is there feels very watered down. Like it was going for that snappy Aliens one liner feel, but then gave up halfway.

[SM]

It missed out on the banter because all these people were strangers.  In Aliens there was a lot of back and forth.  In Alien you quickly got a sense of the friendships and tensions.  Same - to a lesser degree - in Alien 3 and Resurrection.

There's very little joking around allowing personalities and characterization to come out in AvP and what there is, is pretty wooden.

[Wysps]

I liked what they did with Alexa's (?) character

The fact that you're unsure of her name speaks volumes. 

https://media3.giphy.com/media/87I8pKmdcAKw8/giphy.gif

I'm getting roasted for forgetting a name!  Thanks guys

I actually didn't like Verheiden's character that much.  He seemed like such a throwaway character - possibly the chief throwaway of the mains.

[SM]

Just to painfully explain the joke - it spoke volumes about the film and how memorable the characters are; not you. 

[The Old One]

I think some of it was okay, the whole
Finding something to hold on to, their kids for instance to push them to escape and not despair.
Then some decent banter in;

"Like rats in a maze." Then the look Verheiden gives him, that said the dialogue was still trash but these two actors have been fantastic in other work.

I probably haven't seen it in five years though.

[The Cruentus]

The first movie is definitely the better of the two in almost everything but the predator design and rating, though they went overboard with it in Requeim.

The first movie is around 1 hour and 48 mins give or take, well at least the unrated one anyway. They could have added 20 minutes to the movie to flesh the characters out more and make the life-cycle longer.

[SiL]

That includes 10 minutes of credits. The theatrical version is barely 90 minutes without credits. Needed to be way longer in the second half.

[OpenMaw]

Honestly I think the 90 minute is ideal for something like this. Predator is roughly 90 minutes of movie if you chop off the opening title sequence(up to first spoken dialogue) and end credits.

If the film had done something similar to what you did in your script, where the Predators are basically setting things up, and doing recon before the actual battle begins, while the humans go through this The Thing esque horror scenario, and we ratchet up the suspense that way, I think it would have worked far better.

[SiL]

The problem is we get our first fight 55 minutes in and the movie's over thirty minutes later. The first fight is a bigger set piece than anything we get for the next twenty minutes.

[OpenMaw]

The problem is we get our first fight 55 minutes in and the movie's over thirty minutes later. The first fight is a bigger set piece than anything we get for the next twenty minutes.

It's a very lumpy and lop sided film.

[SM]

The first fight should've been entrée.  Instead it was the main.

[SiL]

Big three minute battle!

Tiny skirmish, tiny skirmish, shooting gallery, tiny skirmish.

Big five minute battle!

Ugh. Should've kept all the close-contact stuff for the end and use those smaller scenes to build into it.