h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Alien Vs. Predator - A28802153
Author: Pagz - U573277

A review of the 2004 Paul W.S. Anderson film Alien vs. Predator. I noticed the other night that there were film reviews on the guide, so I dug out one of mine, edited it a bit to meet entry guidelines and here we are.

You obviously missed the guideline that says you can't mention yourself. You'll have to do a bit more editing to make it read as if the Guide was saying it rather than you.

Well, since this is a review, and reviews are opinions, the guidelines were clear that mentioning yourself was acceptable under those circumstances.

Anyway, I've gone back and done some editing to remove the first person references. There weren't very many so not a lot has changed.

Hi there Pagz ... you've missed one or two first person references, but I think this is quite a funny review.

I'm not entirely sure how your almost complete trashing of the director fits with the guidelines, but I expect the experts will let you know.

I wish I could not trash Weak Sauce, he's a nice guy, he has genuine enthusiasm for all his projects. Watching interviews with him, listening to him talk about his projects you get all jazzed up. The problem is, he's just totally useless. It's not his fault. He's like a big clumsy puppy that way, He doesn't know he did bad, but if he did you know he'd be sorry.

I'll take another run through and hunt down those pesky first persons.

Well this was different, and I like your style, Pagz. Well done

GB
Scout

I like this entry too!

Glad everyone is enjoying the article

You missed out:

"In the film's underwhelming climax, a creature we've been led to believe is one of the most formidable opponents in the galaxy is dispatched by what amounts to a pointy stick. Oh dear."

I liked it though. Needs a few spelling and grammatical tweaks, but I'll flag them up after I've had a coffee.

Was this the one set somewhere cold (err, a pole?) and underground, with some sort of buried spaceship/weapon or something?

Clearly not a very memorable film....

Good entry though vp

I'll have to come back to this, but just a quick note that to fit hootoo's usual house style it should really be "Alien Vs. Predator - The Film". That is, assuming it is about the film, I haven't got around to reading it yet.

Ok, and now - the spelling and grammar deconstruction! All the structure changes are optional, but I think it could be tweaked to flow better.

"rabid sci-fi fan boys everywhere" - fanboys is the accepted term I think.

<>"throw away scene" -throwaway

<>"in the sadly mediocre sequel, Predator 2." - I'd go for 'in Predator's sadly mediocre and unimaginatively-named sequel, Predator 2.' Just because it's not clear what P2 is the sequel of in that sentence.

<>"A shot of the Predator's trophy case aboard it's ship, included amongst the array of trophy skulls, was the skull of an Alien." - I would change this to "A shot of the Predator's trophy case aboard its spaceship showed the skull of an Alien amongst the array of trophy skulls.'

<>"an in joke" - in-joke

<>"and it was the genesis" - drop the 'it was' to improve the flow

<>"The 2 coolest sci-fi movie monsters of all time. 1 the perfect hunter, the other the deadliest prey." - Generally, numbers lower than 10 are written out in full. I'd re-write this sentence to read 'Two of the coolest sci-fi movie monsters of all time; one the perfect hunter, the other the deadliest prey'

<>"(hereafter referred to as "Weak Sauce")" - should really be in tags instead of brackets, but that's my personal preference. Maybe make more of the fact that it's a nickname made up by his detractors?

<>"How does Weak Sauce keep getting work ... the mind boggles." - this paragraph just seems to be a personal attack on the guy. Admittedly it's justified, but it'd suit the site better if you used quotes from other critics so it doesn't look too personal. Rotten Tomatoes has hundreds on this character, as his films are bloody awful.

<>"Soldier... well, soldier is a mess." - capital S on Soldier

<>"Residnet Evil... yeah, terrible" - Resident

<>"it's possible to like 1 of Weak Sauce's films" - one

<>"The story for this film... just look amateurish." - I'd use this paragraph to make more of the discrepancies between this film and previous ones. Go into more depth on the differences in Alien life-cycles, etc.

Other than that, it's fine for the most part. Sorry if this list is huge!

Oh, and you missed out the defining moment of pure awful in the film. Woman and Predator running down a corridor, in slow motion, backlit by explosions. I wept openly at this scene. It was the worst thing committed to film since Pearl Harbor.

Sorry, Psycorp, but if the name Weak Sauce is going to be used throughout the Entry, you can't have the first reference to it in a footnote, as the Entry should be understandable without referring to the footnotes.

Well how about removing the brackets and adding a footnote explaining "Weak Sauce"?

That sounds like a good idea.

Enjoyed this very much, but it feels to me like there's an absolutely KILLER article on Paul W.S. Anderson or the Alien Vs Predator franchise just waiting to grow within this already excellent film review...

Something to think about, perhaps.

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