2007’s Alien Vs Predator: Requiem may have been critically maligned, but the movie did avoid a huge mistake by choosing against killing off its only trump card, the newly unveiled Predalien hybrid. Released in 2004, Paul WS Anderson’s Alien Vs Predator was a huge critical disappointment upon its highly-hyped release. The sanitized PG-13 rated effort wasted its screen time setting up interminable backstory and offers precious little gory action between the two titular titans of sci-fi horror.
Credit where it’s due, 2007’s sequel Alien Vs Predator: Requiem did learn from these mistakes. The follow-up dropped the backstory and added more gore, earning an R-rating and killing off countless characters from the opening scenes onwards. Unfortunately, Alien Vs Predator: Requiem also ruined both of the iconic movie monsters with its clunky Predalien design. However, this element of the movie was almost much, much more disappointing.
In an early draft of Alien Vs Predator: Requiem that was written by Shane Salerno, the screenwriter made the inexplicable choice to introduce the Predalien in all its lethal glory during the script’s opening pages — and then promptly kill it off a few moments later. Granted, the Predalien still proves it has killer instincts in this early draft, wherein it kills a pair of Predators before being felled by the third in the opening scene. This version of the movie picks up where the first film left off, with the Predalien tearing its way out of the now-dead Scar, the movie’s Predator hero (since his scripted Alien Vs Predator self-sacrifice was deleted). The Predalien attacks a trio of Predators and causes their ship to crash before the last of the surviving trio blasts it with a shoulder cannon, killing the Predalien by the start of page 3.
The original script of Alien Vs Predator: Requiem, which can be read on the fan site AvPGalaxy, is certainly a surprise, but unfortunately, that’s about all that can be said in its favor. The decision to make a standard Xenomorph the movie’s villain is a bizarre mistake that the sequel avoided since the Predalien (disappointing as its design was) was Alien Vs Predator: Requiem’s main reason for existing. The promise of a new monster for the series was all that made the bleak, brutal Alien Vs Predator: Requiem worth watching, and while the Predalien was a surprisingly bland monster, viewers would have been a lot more annoyed if it had been offed in the movie’s opening moments.
Luckily, cooler heads prevailed and fans weren’t faced with only a few seconds of the Predalien in the finished Alien Vs Predator: Requiem. Unluckily, the finished film was so murky and poorly lit that fans still scarcely saw any of the monster, a criticism that led many reviewers to claim the sequel was an even worse movie than its predecessor. Despite its critical failure, though, there was potential for the sequel. A lot of plot details were changed from the early drafts of Alien Vs Predator: Requiem, with a visit to the Xeno homeworld also being cut late in the game to save on time and budget. Like the choice to make the franchise newcomer the Predalien the sequel's antagonist, instead of a standard Xenomorph, this sojourn to the Xeno homeworld proves that the creators of Alien Vs Predator: Requiem had some instincts worth following, even if they’re rarely seen in the flawed finished film.