Alien vs Predator vs Terminator: Which are your favourite films and franchise?

As a community that has a shared love of movie sci-fi as well as fantasy, I thought it'd be time to pit the three most brutal and terrifying sci-fi film franchises ever created against one another, in particular given that Predator is set to have a prequel released this summer - Prey, which I'm including as a vote (as well as the ability to change your votes) in case it is so good that people want to vote for it (not likely given the state of modern filmmaking and that it has a female lead so could be a victim of woke bile, but what little of the plot has been revealed so far looks interesting so it's worth giving a chance).

First, pick your favourite film in each of the franchises - I've given you three votes and I trust you to place a vote for one film in each franchise. The two AVP films can be selected with your Alien and/or Predator votes should you wish to vote for either of these.

List your choices below, and as a bonus I'd be interested to hear which of these film series is your favourite!

 

The only difficult choice is Alien versus Aliens, but Aliens wins out for me. Both movies are absolutely fantastic and you really can't go wrong with either. While I did enjoy some of the other movies in the franchise, these two stand head and shoulders above the rest.

The original Predator is easily the best of the Predator films. No contest.

For the Terminator franchise, T2 is the clear winner. A marked improvement on the original Terminator in most respects. The rest of the franchise is pretty rubbish.


Easy peasy lemon squeezy...

• Aliens
• Predator
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day

 

I definitely don't disagree with those, those two are certainly classics. I feel Alien3 was definitely a downgrade for reasons I'll explain later, Resurrection was better, Prometheus had potential but didn't quite line things up and Covenant just sent the Alien prequel saga spiralling further and further away from the original film - I certainly hope Scott plans to make a third film to tie those two up with the first four because otherwise it just looks a mess.

Again I cannot disagree, though 2 I felt was a solid extension of what was started. The other two sequels are OK standalone stories but they don't add much to any sort of 'saga' other than the emergence of the bigger Predator subspecies that preys on the smaller one as well as humans.

No positive things to say about Terminator 3 or Salvation? I'd rather take the Terminator 3 arc than woke Dark Fate for instance (which Cameron aimed to replace it in his attempt to reboot the franchise), and I personally felt Salvation was nice as a stand-alone production that can sit as a prequel or sequel and didn't mess up the existing canon as Genisys tried to do and Dark Fate presumably does given Cameron wanted it to sit after 2 and instead of 3.

And which of the franchises is your favourite, if any?

 

Just like I'd rather take Solo over Rise of Skywalker, but they are both dog shit. It's simply that one pile is considerably larger than the other.

T2 Judgment Day is one of the greatest sequels of all time. One of the rare instances in movie history where the sequel outperforms the original.

 

Any particular reason why you think Terminator 3 is so bad?

 

Just generally a pretty boring movie. None of the characters were particularly compelling. The series was better left off as it was concluded in T2.

 

Totally. T2 is one of my favourite movies of all time and my clear winner in the above layout. I much prefer it to T1 and the remaining movies are a bit "meh" to me, in the same way that they keep dropping the quality on the Jurassic Park movies.

 

Great idea for a thread, by the way.

 

I fall in line with @NIGHTBRINGER.

Aliens
Terminator 2: Judgement Day
Predator

I feel sort of iffy picking Aliens over Alien, and T2 over Terminator. I really like both the original and sequel of each of those franchises. But those sequels progressed the stories, and better effects didn't hurt either.

I love how Predator draws you in with a gung-ho "machofest" at the beginning, but shifts to a different kind of movie as the squad gets picked off. Later, when the alien takes off his mask and roars at Arnold, the costume looks so good that I still get goosebumps. Predator 2 wasn't terrible, but it just felt a little cheesy to me at times.

 

I think it really comes down to one's preference of horror science fiction versus action science fiction.

 

+1

+1

For the sequels I've experienced it's something like 95% of the time sequels are just the same idea as the original being rehashed and it ends up worse because it lacks the originality.

Exceptions I can recall off the top of my head: T2, Shrek 2, LOTR, Top Gun 2

The second Matrix movie killed that franchise for me and even managed to sully the original. Horrible.

 

As the Drinker himself says, it's a new, original idea setting a Predator prequel in a historical period and would have had great potential in a time before the Left seized power, especially as Billy in the first film was an American Indian and such a concept could have made a pretty good homage to him...

But as the Drinker also said later in the video and as you've said, the ever-present threat of wokeness does seem to loom large over the film. I honestly hope it manages to avoid being ruined by it, but it's not looking good thus far.

Can't put an opinion on Top Gun 2 because Top Gun isn't my thing, but I'd add Kung Fu Panda 2 and Toy Story 2 to that list.

Otherwise, though, you're right, it is rare for a film's sequel to surpass the original, but when it does it's particularly rewarding to watch and deserves to be treasured.