When I did my Let's Play of Alien Isolation (2014), it got me really in the mood to rewatch the Alien movies. I decided to just go through and watch all of them, including the AVP and Predator movies, just for funsies. My thoughts below.

Alien (1979)

I highly doubt there's anything I could say that hasn't already been said.

Aliens (1986)

Again doubt I would have much to add. Great follow-up to Alien. Also a very good example of a well-done genre switch. The horror of Alien to the action of Aliens.

Alien 3 (1992)

Honestly I feel like it's reputation is far worse than the reality. I found myself enjoying the movie. There's plenty of problems here, but overall I think it serves as an interesting end to Ripley's arc. I think one's opinion of Alien 3 almost entirely hinges off of how they feel about the intro. The infamous killing off of Hicks and Newt. It feels so deeply unfair after everything they went through in Aliens to have these well-known and loved characters killed off instantly in the next movie. You also have to accept the illogical presence of the xeno egg on the Sulaco escape pod (How on earth did it get there?). But in a way it's more faithful to the original atmosphere and world of Alien than Aliens was. No happy endings, the world is terrible. And if you're able to get on board with that, there's plenty to like here. If you're not, you're probably going to dislike the movie. I like that again this sort of represents a genre switch from the action of Aliens to the drama of Alien 3.

Alien Resurrection (1997)

Now when I said I was ok with the genre switches that did not mean I was ok with the switch to comedy. Slapstick is not a thing I was really expecting in my Alien but here it is. It's a bit of a crime them resurrecting Ripley after her end in Alien 3, but I do admit I found the character of Ripley 8 interesting. I can see why Sigourney Weaver was up to return as her. Seeing someone we know and love be turned into a maybe possibly anti-hero part monster was fun. Even if they surrounded her with utter shite. It's just all so dumb and bad. I guess Call was also kind of ok. I like Winona Ryder and it was kind of an interesting direction for them to take the androids of this world in. Why the fuck do we have Brad Dourif happily mumbling complete nonsense about the Newborn moments before he's killed by it? Why was Newborn sucked out of a small hole? Why is Ron Perlman getting jump-scared by a spider after running from actual Xenos? Why silly swimming Xenos? It all stretches credulity to breaking. Just bad bad bad.

Prometheus (2012)

Flawed movie, but I give it a lot of leeway, because I think a lot of people judged it for being a bad Alien movie (after Resurrection people need to get off their high horses...) but "Alien" is not in the title and I do feel that is deeply relevant. It's doing something different and it's doing it successfully. I quite liked David 8 (another 8 character, hmm). He is very interesting and you cannot fucking trust him ever. I also quite like the character of Shaw. It's interesting getting her perspective on faith and religion in this universe, and satisfying seeing what happens when she meets her maker. I get being annoyed by the stupid scientists but to be fair they'd hardly be the first people in this world to do dumb things.

Alien Covenant (2017)

And again with the killing of your protagonists in the next movie...Despite this one having Alien in the title it does very much feel like more of a sequel to Prometheus. I think one's opinion of Covenant depends on their opinion of David 8 (you cannot trust him). Given that, even though we've got Xenomorphs and Neomorphs alike, he's the actual villain here. So if you like him you'll probably like movie. One thing I didn't quite like is the whole concept of this strain of Xeno being more animalistic and violent. The Xenos being intelligent is, I feel, a hallmark of them and a core thing that makes them scary.

Alien Isolation (2014)

Loving it so far. Makes me both want to play more and run far away from it because of the stress and fear. Best thing to happen to the Alien franchise since Aliens in my opinion.

Predator (1987)

So I completely forgot the music. It was made by the same person that did Back to the Future (and is the exact same style). So I just kept imagining the DeLorean to fly by out of nowhere. The movie's iconic for a reason, very quotable. Forgot how not really scary it is though. I like how the credits does a little In Memoriam scene of each of Dutch's squad. Kinda wanna see that for the other movies. Clips of each character with the "In the arms of an angel" song playing in the background.

Predator 2 (1990)

Same music here, I do like it but BTTF being one of my fave childhood series it does feel a bit distracting. I like the grimy violent feeling this version of LA gives. Similar to BTTF2 alternate Hill Valley, since that series is on my mind. Also poor Bill Paxton. He's been killed by both a Xeno and a Yautja now. Seemed most people did not like this one. I thought it was pretty ok, kinda middling. I liked the significant world building it did for the Yautja compared to P1. Also first instance of AvP connections with that Xeno skull in the trophy room.

AvP (2004)

I did the AvP before the other main Predator stuff cuz I wanted to start going by release date. The grand experiment that united universes even though they can't really stick the landing with a good movie. One of my big complaints is I had no idea who these characters were other than Weyland. Would be nice to get a bit of characterization before we start mass killing them off. Like I genuinely don't know any of their names, even main lady. And that's a real problem because if I don't know or care about them, why would I get invested in the movie? Fun concept of a Yautja considering a human as being blooded and being willing to team up for a bit.

AvP Requiem (2007)

How exactly does the US government explain dropping a nuclear warhead on a US city in this world? I'm not saying it doesn't make sense as a thing to do, it's the correct action. I'm honestly just curious how that would even go. "Whoops, it slipped." Again with AvP who the fuck are any of these people? I cannot remember any of their names. There was horny boy, bra girl, little girl, woman, rude boy who was different than horny boy, even though horny boy also came off as rude and unlikeable. And then sheriff man who, now that I think about it, never actually seemed to do anything. Odd. What's with these movies having unlikeable characters? I feel like that started in P2 and A3 and has just kinda continued. What was with the predalien going after the pregnant ladies? Felt like some weird mid 2000s edginess. These things already eat people, impregnate them with horrid chestbursters, do we really need to have them specifically target fetuses now? Is there some abortion allegory here I'm missing? Was the movie made by conservatives? Is the predalien an allegory for the evil satanic democrats? Was that Hillary making the hospital hive? I don't really care, just questions the movie makes me ask because it doesn't inspire more interesting thoughts. Just kinda blegh. Oh one thing, I'm glad technology has gotten to a point where the cloaking effect doesn't look real silly anymore.

Predators (2010)

Kinda missed your chance for some nice symmetry with the second movie in a series being the first name but plural. I feel like they saw they could do that to match Aliens and felt so clever they just had to do it, despite the fact that this is the 3rd one and not second. Are we just pretending P2 didn't happen? Didn't really seem that bad to me. I feel like the naming scheme of all these is just nonsense. Sometimes we do plural, sometimes we do numbers and sometimes we do a colon and extra words on the end. Anyway, Adrien Brody's a good actor. Also Laurence Fishburne, love him. But honestly this one was very fun! Lots of good ideas here. Predadogs and River Ghosts were interesting, I somehow was more invested in a group of murderers and psychos than the usual randos the Yautja hunt. Also why exactly did it take them till the 5th movie these creatures were in to actually use the noise mimicking thing they can do to be creepy? Genuinely flabbergasted. I liked the inversion of the Yautja bringing people onto one of their worlds to hunt them. Fun little idea that makes you more on edge about what nonsense they could have set up that doesn't happen so much when they're on our home turf. These Yautja are apparently named "Super Predators" by the way. Phrasing...As for things I don't like, kinda missing the BTTF music. Also, jail for killing Machete in the first 5 minutes!

The Predator (2018)

I didn't care for this one. It felt very overly hollywoodized to me. Like without having looked into the production this feels very much more on the end of the "we want a Predator movie, make it for us" than the "I've got an idea for a Predator movie, I'd like to make". There was also the weird autism=next step in human evolution stuff, that was kinda strange. I like that they brought back the clandestine group researching the Predators from P2. Was weird how that was a thing and then never mentioned again. Also movie is too quippy. I'm getting a lot of MCU energy. I also did not like that they started translating what the Yautja are all saying in subtitles. Seems dumb. The few times one has spoken to a human in these movies they do it by hand signals and context clues. It feels more clever that way. They do lots of tell, not show in this movie. Main Man and main guy of military reject people had some real good chemistry. They'd make a great vaguely homoerotic buddy cop duo.

Prey (2022)

Cleever title. Upcoming Predator movie. Some Comanche warrior girl against a Yautja. Seems like could be fun. An interesting thing is they apparently will have an all Comanche language dub of the film. Which makes me wonder is the footage from the English or the Comanche, is it completely different footage? Or do they like edit the lip movements over? Strange but doing all the work of having a dub in Comanche seems like something they would do if they cared about detail. It's being done by person that did 10 Cloverfield Lane which I really enjoy so should be interesting if nothing else.