Alien Vs. Predator (2004) - 18 questions

Question: I may have missed this in the movie but where were the fully grown aliens to come from if the humans were not there? The predators knew the pyramid was under the ice so surely the could tell there were no humans to incubate the baby aliens. Even if they couldn't, when the predators got to the surface wouldn't they communicate with the mothership that no-one was about (if the team weren't there, I mean)?

Answer: The Predators would have a decent idea of the capabilities of Earth technology; they can hardly have missed all the satellites floating about. They relied on somebody detecting the pyramid's systems powering up and on curiosity to lead a team there to investigate. Which, as we see, worked perfectly. How they got humans there in previous centuries isn't clear. In 1904, handily there was a whaling settlement nearby; prior to that, who knows - possibly they abducted worthy humans from elsewhere and brought them there.

Question: What happened with the plot used in Predator I and II about they hunt only in places with a hot weather?

Answer: They prefer to hunt in hot places. The Antarctic pyramid seen in AVP is used for the Predator's most difficult challenge, taking out an alien to prove that they're among the best of their kind. Situating it in a cold climate is a way of making it even harder for the test candidates.

Question: Don't the impregnated hosts have to be alive in order to incubate the aliens to term? Lex kills the impregnated Italian guy to prevent him have the Alien rip out of his chest, which would imply that the Alien needs to be in a living environment to survive. Not the case with the Alien/Predator hybrid that emerges at the end of the movie, when it's clear that the Predator had died some time ago . . .

Answer: Killing the host doesn't necessarily kill the Alien. Its like human fetuses - if it is far enough along in its development, it can survive even if the host (mother) dies.

Question: Bishop is killed in Alien Vs Predator, so why is he alive in Alien 3 at the end of the movie? Alien 3 is supposed to take place many years after Alien Vs Predator (in Alien 3 Bishop claims not to be a robot).

Answer: He isn't Bishop in Alien vs. Predator. The Alien series takes place many, many years after Alien vs. Predator, the character in Alien 3 is just a descendant of the character who looks like him in Alien vs. Perdator.

Question: It has been shown that the alien takes on part of the host traits as it matures on the inside the host body. It becomes a cross breed, EVERY TIME. So unless it has been breading with the same host (humans) over eons how can this race survive and reproduce? Over just a few generations it would have evolved so far in so many direction it would fail to exist as a alien.

Answer: Well, the alien warriors don't breed, so any traits that they might take on are irrelevent. The Queens are the key - one plausible explanation is that the Queens don't take on the host traits, or that they only take on those traits that are useful to them - they get incorporated into the species, improving them while still conforming to the basic alien structure. Also possible is that the Queens do take on some traits from their host, but that their reproductive system is isolated from this - i.e. the eggs produced are the same no matter what additional traits the Queen producing them might have. This would allow each newly hatched alien to take on traits relevent to its environment, without hampering the overall progress of the species.

Question: In several mistakes on this page, there is a reference to a Predator dubbed Celtic. Which one is Celtic, anyway?

Answer: Celtic predator is the one with the unusual looking face mask - the last one alive.

Question: This entire expedition is just that, an expedition. It's not a hunt for Aliens or Predators, so why do Max Stafford and his team bring machine guns into the Pyramid? What are they expecting to find that would cause them to shoot? I've never heard of an archaeological team or a drilling team, for that matter, ever having to refer to projectile weaponry during an excavation.

Answer: Remember that they find the pyramid because of detecting a heat source - which implies that there's something down there, either something living or a technological source, that's created that heat, as spontaneous fires are something of a rarity in the Antarctic. Essentially, they have little or no idea what they might encounter down there, so it makes sense to cover all the possible scenarios, including the possibility of encountering a hostile force.

Question: Does anyone know what the worldwide gross of AVP was worldwide, or at the current moment? I've tried looking on IMDb but it doesn't have the worldwide listing.

Answer: As of 9/16, $92,481,503. This is a great site for such info. www.the-numbers.com.

Question: Can anyone tell me why the Predators didn't scan the 'token' human survivor or the last dead predator to see if either were infected with an Alien? Especially when the Predator was not wearing his face mask which would serve as protection against this infection.

Answer: Given the speed with which the chestbursters emerged from the other humans, it seems likely that these have been engineered by the Predators to emerge as quickly as possible. As such, they probably assumed in Lex's case that, were she impregnated, it would have emerged before that point. As for their fallen comrade, it may well have simply not occurred to them that one of their number would be foolish enough to get himself impregnated. Even proud alien hunters can make mistakes.

Question: Is there any website where there are some good photos of Aliens and Predators? I checked the website but they're not that good. Any help, please?

Answer: IMDB's Miscelleanous section for this movie has a bunch of websites loaded with photos.

Question: If the Predators are so big on honor and the hunt, why do they always fight with the cloaking devices, wouldn't it be more honorable to meet an enemy head on?

Answer: It's almost always a single Predator against hordes of armed enemies without backup of any kind; there's nothing in the honor code that says that a Predator should be suicidal. Even with prey exempted from the code (pregnant mothers and ill or disabled prey), they are honorably killable if they become a threat to the Predator.

Question: Does anyone know how the war between the Predator and the Alien began? Is there any story about it?

Answer: They're not at war. The Predators discovered the Aliens and realized that they make for excellent, challenging hunting. However, they could not morally sacrifice their own race to provide the incubators for the Aliens to be born, nor could they allow the Aliens access to advanced technology and spaceships (they could spread). So they found a world on the outer edge of the galaxy inhabited by technologically backward people capable of incubating Aliens and created an elaborate system of initiation rites for young Predators to test their worthiness. This and other worlds like it are the only way that Predators interact with adult Aliens.

Question: How did the grandpa predator see the mark on the girls face when predators can only see in infrared?

Answer: The helmets that the Predators use provide different filters that allow them to see many kinds of electromagnetic radiation when they wish to. Damaged skin would look different under infrared, so he switched to visible light to examine it more closely.

Question: If the Predators know that the Alien's skin won't be affected by their blood why don't they use the Alien skin as their armor?

Answer: The trial Predators purposefully don't have access to Alien skin before they are dispatched to the trial. Each Alien has a fairly skeletal structure, meaning that it would be very difficult to skin enough Aliens to cover an entire Predator during the trial. Besides, they're not supposed to get close enough for the Aliens' blood to get on them - they're supposed to use the shoulder blasters in the chest.

Question: In one scene, the Predator is about to kill Weyland, but it uses its x-ray vision to look inside him and it sees something (bad lungs?) that makes it decide to spare his life. Can anybody tell me why the Predator at first spared Weyland's life and what it had to do with the x-ray?

Answer: The Predators have natural vision in the infrared range (they see body heat) and their helmets allow them different types of vision. The Predator detects something weak about Weyland's movements and decides to examine him more thoroughly with specialized vision. This reveals that he is dying of some lung infection. The Predator honor code deems that diseased individuals are not worth killing, so he pushes Weyland aside and continues forward. When Weyland attacks him, it becomes honorable to retaliate according to the code, so the Predator kills him.

Question: Near the end, when Lex and the Predator are trying to kill the Alien Queen, Lex says "Got it." when she hooks the Queen's chain to the water tower. When she says it, there is a Spanish subtitle on the bottom of the screen for the only time in the movie. Why is this?

Answer: I think there was a malfunction in your theater. I haven't seen any subtitles in the film yet.

Question: Several times throughout the movie, we see Lex refer to a digital compass on her wrist. I know that a normal compass, the kind with a suspended needle, will bottom out that close to the south pole, and even if you get it to work, it's useless because it says every direction is north. How does hers work?

Answer: It's a GPS. It gets its location and direction from an orbiting satellite.

Question: Why does an alien pop out of the predator? Every time it was attacked, it killed it before it could get in.

Answer: There is one shot just before a scene cut that shows a facehugger leaping directly at the camera, which represents the Predator's POV.