Alien vs. Predator turned what should've been a terrific premise into a mediocre film, and an R-rating would've helped improve things immensely. Cinema history is full of big fights between two iconic characters. A Nightmare on Elm Street's Freddy went one-on-one with Friday the 13th's Jason. King Kong fought Godzilla, and will soon do so again. Batman even fought Superman on the big screen, although the finished result proved to be quite divisive, even among devoted DC fans.
The concept of Alien's Xenomorph fighting Predator's titular intergalactic hunter didn't take long to materialize, appearing in a 1989 comic book just two years after 1987's first Predator film. Then, in 1990, sequel movie Predator 2 threw in an Easter egg teasing the big battle, as a Xenomorph skull can be seen on the Predator's trophy case while he's fighting Danny Glover's cop character inside his ship. Alien vs Predator also became a crossover video game in the the mid 1990s.
Like Freddy vs. Jason though, which was first pitched in the late 1980s, Alien vs. Predator took a while to make it to theaters, finally arriving in 2004. While the resulting film isn't abysmal, it's also not particularly good, and one of the big factors working against its success is a PG-13 rating from the MPAA.
Alien vs. Predator Should've Been Rated R
First, it's important to make clear that not being rated R is far from Alien vs. Predator's only problem. It wouldn't suddenly be perfect, even with a less restrictive rating. What Alien vs Predator would be is a much better film, and one with a better chance of satisfying fans of both franchises, and being a kickass time at the movies. It never made any sense that a crossover between two R-rated franchises would receive a PG-13. Especially since both the Alien and Predator movies are very much hard Rs, full of adult language and graphic violence. Naturally, a PG-13 prevented both those things, leading to a film that couldn't help but feel sanitized.
The biggest example of this is a scene in which a human character calls the Predator "one ugly motherf***er," in a callback to the original Predator movie. This line is censored in the trailer, as would be expected, but the final film censors it in the same fashion, by having the word get cut off. This is a film pitting two of the most vicious movie monsters of all time against each other. The last thing Alien vs. Predator should have to worry about is offending anyone. Some might be inclined to point out that 2007's Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem managed to be both rated R and terrible, but that's not really an equal comparison, as that film featured a worse script, a lesser cast, and a director of photography that lit the movie so dark that the titular stars can be hard to even see clearly. Hopefully fans eventually get the Alien and Predator crossover they deserved the first time.