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Made in gb
Ridin' on a Snotling Pump Wagon






How do!

First up….hear me out on this one! The title is potentially misleading.

To set the scene, we now live in an age where most of the properties mentioned above have more Bad Movies than Good Movies. Predator may be the exception, depending on how the individual feels about Predator 2 and Predators.

Yet…before many of the original sequels, those brilliant folks at Dark Horse Comics picked up the reins and gave us all some pretty damned wonderful stories in full colour. They even spawned Alien Vs Predator - before Predator 2 hit theatres.

I’m lucky enough to have a small, if irritatingly incomplete collection of the associated Trade Paperbacks. And this thread is brought to you by my re-reading Terminator Vol 1.

It…...kick ass. Clever, doesn’t break the universe. It tells, at the time, original stories within the setting. Hell, we even get the Human/Terminator prototype we’d later see in Salvation, but it doesn’t suck (former EMT, survived judgement day, became medic, early prisoner, patched up and partially converted, to provide in-field flesh repair support to T-800’s).

I know this is gonna baffle some of you, specifically those who’ve not had the pleasure of reading their output. But by hook or by crook. You should. I don’t normally endorse any kind of piracy, as I like to support those making my treats. But if that’s what you got to do, that’s what you got to do.

The movies (barring Prey, and Dark Fate) just…don’t compare at all. And I think that’s a major problem for the franchise owners (mostly Disney these days, but again Prey gives me hope!). So long as these excellent, in-universe consistent offering exist in the public conscience, the movies have an uphill struggle.

   
Made in ca
Preacher of the Emperor






I would argue that two out of three of those franchises in your title had their later movies ruined by James Cameron.

But more to your point on comics, (and novels, cartoons, tv shows, but its death by degrees here,) its a matter of stakes. A licensed comic is, by its very nature, a much cheaper investment, and therefore much smaller risk than a major motion picture release. This means you, as a creator, writer, artist, whatever, have less paranoid corporate suits breathing down your neck and more leeway to do something crazy, experimental, and potentially dangerous.

You combine that with the fact that the movies (TV show, alternately in the case of Trek) have primacy, and the tie-in writers respect that, and you have writers that take risks on interesting stories that still fit within the confines of the universe, without feeling a need to unilaterally change the way some key piece of the lore functions.

It actually is hit or miss (the Trek novels miss a lot) but because they aren't the pimary piece of media you're free to discard the bad stuff and keep the good.

I'd go as far to say some of these franchises have their best stories in these side projects. IDW's ghostbusters stories are probably the best sequels to the original movies you could ask for (and even feature the characters from the reboot movie in a way that does more justice to both them and the franchise than their movie did!), a lot of fans hold the original Thrawn trilogy above the Star Wars movies (I don't, but I do hold Alphabet Squadron that high), Alien is a fantastic sci-fi franchise with centuries of lore behind it just so it can even work as a setting and not just four movies where each subsequent director wanted to completely make up their own background for.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/09/23 15:10:06


   
Made in us
Nihilistic Necron Lord






Tangentially, I’m quite enjoying Marvel’s new Predator series. Only two issues in, but the premise is interesting.

 
   
Made in gb
Executing Exarch





Really liked the Terminator run that ended with a hospital based dakka festival on the day of John's birth
Spoiler:
and the timey wimey one possible past etc meaing it didn't meddle with the films, Sarah gives birth to a girl

"AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED." 
   
Made in gb
Ridin' on a Snotling Pump Wagon






Captain Joystick does raise some solid counter points. And I feel such things should absolutely be noted and acknowledged.

Comics are, well I mean no shade with this, seen as a lesser format. And so tend to witness less overall interference.

And it does show as they point out. If it costs a fraction of a movie to pump out each month, first you need constant content (ref 2000AD) and if one strip doesn’t really land (ref 2000AD, again) it matters less, because you’ve got less of a sunk cost.

But what’s baffling me here is that freedom isn’t really harnessed.

As discussed in the thread about Prey, it has common beats to certain Dark Horse Predator strips. One in particular involves a Maasai hunter/warrior getting caught up with a Predator, and surviving. And to be honest, I can fairly confidently reckon it had some kind of influence on Prey.

But it can feel as if the relatively low opinion of comic books sees anything they’ve done deliberately ignored, perhaps listed as Forbidden?

Not sure I’m explaining this right.

   
Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

I'm amazed that Hollywood never followed through on the whole idea of aliens invading Earth.



As for things being overlooked, consider how many films are made based on books and the book never gets a mention. The likes of Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter are honestly enigmas, meanwhile films like Jurassic Park were massive landmark films where many people had no clue it was based on a book.

The books simply don't get much marketing or side attention unless they are pushed hard long before the film is ever made.


Comics and other side products are basically the same. They are niche licenced products that the Hollywood Machine doesn't really care about save for the licence fee. Thereafter those markets have to market themselves which often means they can never reach the mainstream marketing required to be well known - marketing mainstream is just too expensive.

Personally I utterly love a lot of the Dark Horse material. I feel like they "get" a lot of what they work with.
Heck right now I'm slowly collecting the hardback classic era Alien books they are doing, though the 3rd volume seems to be getting a bit of a delayed launch.


I think the other issue is that in the English West (America especially) comic books are dominated by the DC and Marvel groups. So Comics are seen as Superheroes. It saddens me that a lot of great European comics never get translated because they use it as a far more diverse medium in general. Both pushing artistic quality and skill as well as stories (though I think some suffer in translation at times).

A Blog in Miniature

3D Printing, hobbying and model fun! 
   
Made in gb
Ridin' on a Snotling Pump Wagon






Aha. Another 2000AD moment!

No I’ll never get sick of pimping out this most august comic. Pretty much anyone who’s anyone in the comic world that happens to be British cut their teeth in that hallowed offering.

May do 5-6 pages per strip, 4-5 strips per Prog (you might call them volume, but you’d be wrong). And being an anthology, it’s free to take risks.

Sure there’s always a Judge Dredd strip, and often a wider Dreddiverse strip. But even those can get super experimental. And yes there are Progs I just don’t personally gel with. But there’s always something to enjoy.

Sorry…I forgot where I was going beyond frothing about the wonderful 2000AD.

   
Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

I can't get into that comic series.


Because I need Humble Bundle to do the first 1K issues at £20 digital then the next 2K at another £20 digital a year later to catch up

A Blog in Miniature

3D Printing, hobbying and model fun! 
   
Made in gb
Ridin' on a Snotling Pump Wagon






 Overread wrote:
I can't get into that comic series.


Because I need Humble Bundle to do the first 1K issues at £20 digital then the next 2K at another £20 digital a year later to catch up


I shall call on better men than me…..



Spesh at 1,000 issues for a mere £20!

   
Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

Well if anyone managed a bundle like that it would be amazing (and probably need its own harddrive to be downloaded too). But still big chunks like that, at least in digital, are a good way to get people interest in series of comics that have a huge legacy behind them where collecting up to the present becomes exceptionally expensive.



Heck I'm still gutted that I missed out on over half the Conan recoloured comics that Dark Horse did and I suspect that as DH likely owns the rights to those whilst the licence for Conan is back with DC- means that we might never see them put into digital again, let alone print.

Still at least DH did well with Conan. Dynamite meanwhile did well with Red Sonja initially, but these days they are trying to so so hard to make her a standard superhero type character in the modern age and all.

A Blog in Miniature

3D Printing, hobbying and model fun! 
   
Made in gb
Ridin' on a Snotling Pump Wagon






I’ve been collecting this one. Granted at 140 volumes it’ll be the thick end of £1,400? They’re very pretty hardbacks, and actually curated.

Add in the 90 volume Dredd collection, and I still reckon I’m quids in for most excellent comics.

Whilst not everything is quite to my taste? There’s but a single volume in each I’ve not been able to persevere with (CalHab Justice, and Tyranny Rex, if anyone is bothered)

   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





SoCal

While it’s true that there are many movies based on books that are virtually unknown, Jurassic Park isn’t one of them. The book was hyped up for months before release, with ads in magazines and on TV, posters at Costco/Price Club, etc.. When the movie was announced, it was as an adaptation of the book, which was well known at the time.

   
Made in us
Nihilistic Necron Lord






 Overread wrote:
I think the other issue is that in the English West (America especially) comic books are dominated by the DC and Marvel groups. So Comics are seen as Superheroes. It saddens me that a lot of great European comics never get translated because they use it as a far more diverse medium in general. Both pushing artistic quality and skill as well as stories (though I think some suffer in translation at times).


Anecdotal, but in our store only about half the new titles each week are Marvel and DC. Granted we do sell more copies from the Marvel and DC half though.

 
   
Made in gb
Storm Trooper with Maglight





I may well be missing Mad Doc's point, however I don't think that any of these franchises have been negatively affected by their respective comic books. I say that as someone who has never read any of them, though I think the issues are firmly caused by Hollywood issues.

Terminator - 2 great films followed by what can at best be described as mediocrity. I think the reason for that is the desire of the film makers to recreate the first two films. Bring back Arnie, make the plot essentially the same, don't evolve the franchise at all. For me at least this is the main issue.

Alien - Alien Resurrection at least suffered from the whole "the franchise must be about Ripley" issue, the later films of course did not. I think the problem with the later films is that Ridley Scott basically told the story he wanted to tell, not the story we wanted to see. He didn't tread the fine line of giving us something new while at the same time making it somewhat familiar.

Predator - Yes, there has been some pretty terrible dross in this franchise, though I'm not sure I can pinpoint one reason why. Just a case of film makers making bad films, it happens a lot after all. I liked Prey, and if the franchise is to continue this is the sort of thing we need to see going forward. I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with the Predator concept, just needs people who know what they're doing making the films.



So yeah, in my view the comics haven't really affected the evolution of these franchises. The films are made for a wider audience after all. I imagine most of the people they're trying to attract to the cinema haven't read the comics.
   
Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

I think he means that the Dark Horse Comics did so well that they spoilt us and made it impossible to really take any of the following more modern films seriously because they are so inferior ot the comics

A Blog in Miniature

3D Printing, hobbying and model fun! 
   
Made in gb
Legendary Dogfighter





England

Having read and loved Alien vs Predator comics in the late 90's I have to agree with you. They were superb. Colonial marines fighting a war on an alien infested world, in acid proof space/hazmat looking suits. A bunch of Predators show up for a hunt.

Never understood why hollywood ditched all that and set the films in current times. Aliens is the best film in the series, why would you not want to be as close to that thematically as possible.

it's the quiet ones you have to look out for. Their the ones that change the world, the loud ones just take the credit for it. 
   
Made in gb
Ridin' on a Snotling Pump Wagon






I think my frustration is the DH Comics don’t get too radical (at least, not to begin with to be fair), and yet still churned out some solid fare.

Heck, we even see some of their ideas used in sequel movies, including Terminator 2 (identifying the remains as the causal loop, going after the men behind Sky etc) and Predator 2 (relocate to Los Angeles, Urban Jungle). So they clearly had some impact on the film makers.

As I mentioned in my OP, there’s even a human/Terminator prototype in the DH Comics, and in a way that’s just better than Salvation.

It’s just very frustrating.

   
Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

I figure its budgetary reasons. Modern times has the big advantage that you can basically just use real life stuff for sets and you don't have to blow a huge budget on extensive CGI or building vast sets to work with (or often both).

That and modern times also means they can cut a lot of world building elements.



That said I think initially it was that the comic and film writers were just in different mediums and not really connecting on any level. Heck the comics basically already start diverging as soon as Alien 2 ends and from there on don't connect with the main film media at all really.


A Blog in Miniature

3D Printing, hobbying and model fun! 
   
Made in us
Secret Force Behind the Rise of the Tau




USA

I don't see why we should blame good media for ruining gakky media. gakky media isn't gakky because there's better media out there. It's gakky because we didn't like it.

Case and point, I think Dark Horse gave the Predator franchise it's high water mark in the 90s with their comics. The comics were good. They expanded on and played with the character of Predator, maybe not in particularly innovative or creative ways, but it worked. The original Alien Vs Predator Comic to this day is IMO the best version of that entire concept.

Meanwhile, the movies have been about Predators hunting Aliens in antartica, and Predators wanting to genetically engineer themselves to be autistic... And I'm sorry, the lack of the great Dark Horse comic would not make that latter idea in particular any less mind bogglingly stupid.

   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




 LordofHats wrote:
I don't see why we should blame good media for ruining gakky media. gakky media isn't gakky because there's better media out there. It's gakky because we didn't like it.

Agreed. You might as well ask if the legitimately good early movies in each franchise ruined the later ones - it's the same reasoning. What ruined the bad movies is how bad they were, usually because they were unnecessary or creatively bankrupt. If they'd have stopped after 2 Terminator or Alien movies, or 1 Predator movie most people would happily reflect on how cool those movies were, and still enjoy any additional material from comics, or novels, or whatever just as much.

Even with the existence of some truly terrible movies for each of those franchises, I can still appreciate the good stuff that came later, in any medium. Prey isn't made better or worse by the quality of what came before it, for example. We've had a near-constant stream of crappy Terminator movies over the last few decades, but each one's crappiness stands on its own as a shining beacon of mediocrity and executive cluelessness.
   
Made in gb
Ridin' on a Snotling Pump Wagon






It’s definitely the frustration that the prove interesting and original stories can be told in those mythos, suggesting the movie makers must’ve worked pretty hard to screw it up.

Prey is in a similar vein. It absolutely shows the issue isn’t that the original premise didn’t have much to it beyond the first movie.

And in terms of Predator? I’m one who counts The Predator as the only outright stinker. If had to rank them? Predator, Prey, Predators, Predator 2. They’re all watchable, and all at least try to do something new. Importantly, all them at least try to do that without ruining the original premise.

Terminator really, really frustrates me, because in hindsight the comics offered superior takes on stuff eventually used in sequels, even before Terminator 2 graced our screens - including that one could reprogramme a T-800 model.

   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka







Thoughts on "Alien vs. Predator vs. Terminator", Doc?

2021-4 Plog - Here we go again... - my fifth attempt at a Dakka PLOG

My Pile of Potential - updates ongoing...

Gamgee on Tau Players wrote:we all kill cats and sell our own families to the devil and eat live puppies.


 Kanluwen wrote:
This is, emphatically, why I will continue suggesting nuking Guard and starting over again. It's a legacy army that needs to be rebooted with a new focal point.

Confirmation of why no-one should listen to Kanluwen when it comes to the IG - he doesn't want the IG, he want's Kan's New Model Army...

tneva82 wrote:
You aren't even trying ty pretend for honest arqument. Open bad faith trolling.
- No reason to keep this here, unless people want to use it for something... 
   
Made in gb
Ridin' on a Snotling Pump Wagon






A surprisingly Not Crap Gem!

I’d stop short of calling it a classic as such. But the plot does make sense within the overall mythos of each property, and turns out a fun story.

Think I’ll re-read it tonight.

   
Made in us
Master Engineer with a Brace of Pistols





washington state USA

I would argue that two out of three of those franchises in your title had their later movies ruined by James Cameron.





Aliens (directors cut) was the best darn movie in the entire franchise and still one of my favorite scifi movies of all times. predator and predator 2 come in high on my list for the franchise/universe as well.

As far as who did the universe justice. aside from the comics the game studios(rebellion/monolith) that brought us the PC games AVP1(1999) and AVP2(2001) were some of the best written AVP stories and miles ahead of the more modern AVP films.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/09/28 10:42:03






GAMES-DUST1947/infinity/B5 wars/epic 40K/5th ed 40K/victory at sea/warmachine/battle tactics/monpoc/battletech/battlefleet gothic/castles in the sky,/heavy gear 
   
Made in us
Nihilistic Necron Lord






What about Transformers vs Terminators?

 
   
Made in gb
Ridin' on a Snotling Pump Wagon






Haven’t even heard of that, let alone read it!

IDW I guess?

   
Made in us
Nihilistic Necron Lord






I believe so, yeah. One was of three different simultaneous Transformers crossovers they were doing a little bit back.

 
   
Made in us
Master Engineer with a Brace of Pistols





washington state USA

 AduroT wrote:
What about Transformers vs Terminators?


We all know there was only one transformers movie, and it was made in 1986




Although the opening to the bumblebee movie gave good feels









GAMES-DUST1947/infinity/B5 wars/epic 40K/5th ed 40K/victory at sea/warmachine/battle tactics/monpoc/battletech/battlefleet gothic/castles in the sky,/heavy gear 
   
 
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