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So the news came out that the Half Life movie directed by Quentin Tarantino is destined to join the list of the greatest science fiction movies that were never actually filmed. It has damned good company...

by David Wong

10. The "Real" Alien 3

1992, Directed by, oh, let's say Ridley Scott

The most excited I've ever been to see a movie ever in my life was the moment I saw the first Alien 3 "teaser" trailer in 1991 (teasers are shot well before the movie itself is finished filming). It's the one that promised the aliens were coming to freaking Earth.

No, I didn't dream it . They really did show that trailer (they even have a copy of it HERE ), sending it to theaters before they had even started production, before they had even picked a script.

Visions of awesomeness flashed through my head, a Blade Runner-ish Earth with sprawling, filthy buildings, huge flashing billboards with giant Asian women on them, beat-up flying cars whooshing by and steam always rising from the streets for some reason. And then the aliens start breeding in the miles of dank sewers that tangle under the bustling streets, the creatures boiling up out of manholes by the hundreds, cut to pieces by Marines with pulse rifles and maybe in the climax the Army has to nuke the city...

"This movie can't possibly not be awesome!" I said to my little friend John at the time. "This is gonna make Aliens look like ET! I hope it's directed by the guy who will in the future direct Fight Club!"

A year and thirty fucking screenplays later (including this rejected script by William Gibson ) they came up with the movie that killed the franchise, squatted over the face of the corpse and farted. They had stumbled through concept after concept, built sets, tore them down, filmed scenes, threw them away, fired directors, fired crew. When Sigourney Weaver held out for more money, they wrote scripts without her, when she came back, they did rewrites to cram her back into the story again. Very late in the game they brought in a young director named David Fincher -- whose only experience was with Madonna videos -- to start shooting after most of the budget had already been scattered to the wind like parade confetti.

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What squeezed out the other end of the development's digestive tract was a movie that, just seconds in, meaninglessly kills off the three characters Ripley spent the last movie saving. The hundreds of aliens were replaced with one small alien dog. The vast futuristic landscape was replaced by one dim, dirty building. The frantic gunfights were replaced by scenes of identical bald cast members staring quietly at the wall. The main character commits suicide at the end.

So What happened?

Budget, mostly. My Alien 3 would have cost twice what Aliens did, with its sprawling sets and dozens of animatronic creatures and costumes and explosions and CGI that was, at the time, still very expensive. At the end of all that you wind up with an R-rated sci-fi film with almost no chance of making back its budget (Aliens only made about $85 million, 150 if you adjust for inflation).

So they settled for this stripped-down version on a budget of $50 million (about 20% of which actually winds up on screen) filmed in an abandoned lead factory. Then they watched as fanboys like me piled into the theater on opening day anyway. Again, this is why they're rich film executives and I live in my car.

9. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

2005, directed by not Garth Jennings

There was a movie that perfectly captured the Douglas Ad

I like Newt too. The picture is a little old, but she turned into a cute chick.

The new Humvee looks similar to the APC from Aliens. Granted the picture of the new humvee is in its travel mode, but there are still some obvious similarities.

This was posted AC (score 0) and within a few minutes modded down to -1 (overrated.)

Just what's overrated there? Even if it wasn't a particularly good post, at score 0 it was hardly 'overrated.'

When they made it impossible to play CS anymore without selling your soul for Steam,

The first Aliens Vs. Predator PC game had a really well-thought-out soundtrack. All three species had a set of music that was in keeping with the movies that they came from, and was uniformly good. I loved the last Predator song the best, though.

Info is here: Info!

I doubt this movie will be any good, but the script is a good read.

Info is here: Info!

I doubt this movie will be any good, but the script is a good read.

Alien Vs. Predator

Paul W.S. Anderson (of Mortal Kombat, Event Horizon, Soldier, and Resident Evil) has signed on to Direct and Write - take that as you will.

The plot is outlined as "Hoping to lure a Predator clan to Antarctica using Alien eggs, a rogue team of scientists are caught in an intergalactic war between the two extremely violent species.".

Lance Henriksen, whom you probably know as Bishop, is signed on. Filming is supposed to begin in "late October" in Prague.

There are rumors that an AvP Teaser/Trailer will be released with the Alien: Direector's Cut theatrical release.

Planet AvP generally has AvP news. Dark Horizons is pretty reliable for any film news, and they state: "Last Thurs (9/11), there was a promo shoot for the teaser trailer or teaser poster(s) for the new Aliens vs. Predator movie. Now, I don't know when it will be released but what I saw was totally cool. Here's what I saw: A caucasian male, 6"2, in complete Predator suit/make-up getting ready for some still shots. When I saw him, he wasn't wearing the helmet but the costume pretty much was reminiscent of the last two Predator films. The only difference was that the mask (or helmet) looked more metallic than I remember it being (sorry to say it, but, it reminded me of the metallic finish on the Jason mask in Jason X, when he is turned into the SUPER JASON! BUT cooler). Anyway, the suit was only air-brushed from the waist down, which leads me to believe that the shoot was for a teaser poster. But otherwise, the tendrils of 'hair' on the predator were AMAZING. I wasn't ballsy enough to see up close but the crew was shooting the Predator first in 'attack' position, perfect for a sneak peak poster. Once all photography/ filming(?) was complete, the crew dumped a bucket full of see-through green slime/goo on him and took more pictures. This was either meant to be predator blood, or alien blood--couldn't tell, too far away.

"Later in the day, it was the aliens turn. What I CAN tell you (about this specific Alien shoot) is that it was NOT the Queen Alien; rather a more human-like alien who walked on two feet. It looked amazing because he was walking like PUMPKINHEAD (remember that one?) and he too--a middle aged geeky caucasian dude)--was not wearing his helmet. (The alien head itself is very faithful to the drone aliens in the 'Alien' videogames and the ones in Alien 3, with the elongated head going back, behind the body, round in shape; NOT the flared out helmet of the Queen. I found it odd though that the alien had NO tail. It made me wonder if they would add it later in post, or if it was part of the story, where it gets cut off. Here too, pictures of it were taken in 'attack' position, kneeling down w/head intact. This was by far the most exciting part of the day, although the Predator was 'gargantuan' in size compared to the Alien."

-lw