This is a conversation I find myself having a LOT. And there's just a few fun points you made i wanted to build on.
NO, Predators was NOT as good as 1 or 2. Not even close. Did it keep true to the mythos or the feel of the franchise? ehhhh technically but not so much spiritually. I'd say it is what ALIENS was, and that is very "toy-etic"
The thing with AVP was it would have been much better if they had stuck with the original novel and not overhauled it just so it could take place on earth. Being on a desert planet with an human woman who joins the preds as in the trilogy would have been MUCH cooler. But they ended up forcing it in an attempt to fill part of the plot hole in ALIEN.
As for them being in the cold, that precedent had been established in 'Cold War'. Hot Weather is a preference, not a requirement. The only logical reason for putting it all the way the hell down in antarctica is the same reason for The Thing. It's someplace completely and thoroughly isolated with little to no chance of reoccurrence or exposure afterwards. so it's a natural 'cover-up' location.
AvP:R pissed a LOT of us off because it had that screwed up pacing you mentioned and forced the scenario again to something that seriously broke one set of trends while preserving others (seen in ALIENS).
This version of the Predalien (i call it ver3) was way way better than the elephant screaming creature we saw prior.
And since most of the AvP related comics (not all) are adapted from the novels in a grossly truncated version, you (as a self proclaimed purist) would be better off reading the novels in their entirety (if you haven't already)
And I would strongly encourage you to take a gander at the crossover comics, a la Superman v Alien, Batman v Predator, cuz they're fun. But Alien vs Predator vs Witchblade vs Darkness. no, just no. SUCH good potential but a delivery that will make you cry in pain.

Ah I see.
That's the thing, Predators felt very gimicky.
What I loved about the first too is that the
predators were filmed like a stalker, as opposed
to an action figure. There was a lot of quick shots
of him, never focussing on him for too long.
I'm a huge movie fan, so for me, I'm a purist in
that way. I always feel that the movie rules of
any character should be adhered to, especially
monster movie characters. Not to the point of
creating cliche's but to create stories that help
build on to it's mythos. Hence my anger towards
to the hot climate thing. In some way it's like
that whole, Star wars canon and EU argument.
But I am very keen to read all the good work out
there. As I said AvP:R gave me a great nerdgasm
and made me want to dive into the EU eagerly.

I enjoyed AVP:R much, much more then AVP.

I've seen the first AvP movie. I seriously disliked it, and never bothered with "Requiem" by consequence.

And this is coming from someone who also saw potential in seeing the two concepts..."Alien" and "Predator"...co-exist.

Personally? I thought the best concept for this merger, hands down, was the PC-based "Aliens vs. Predator 2", created by Monolith Productions for Fox Interactive. Three thoroughly awesome stories for each player-character faction(Colonial Marine, Alien, and Predator) which played out a beautifully-crafted "Rashomon"-style plot. The gameplay itself was just as awesome. After the flaws of the first PC game, they finally got the whiplash sound made by the Predator's shoulder cannon right. :)

Aside from that game, I think nowadays, I prefer separating the two concepts...but that's just my own two cents. :)

I can agree with you that it may be best for the movies to stay separate, because Hollywood wants to make the Predators heroic. Which is bull. In AvP:R the predator is just as dangerous and slightly more unpredictable.
And on top of it the human characters were never given an explanation as to what was going on and who these monsters were.
I liked that.
There was no stupid exposition and that adds towards the movie's favour.
I think you should give it a gander. Granted it's on contemporary earth, which sucks, the pacing is off. The humans are irretating and are nothing more than canon fodder. But you do get a real sense of how dire the situation with Aliens becomes and the Sole Predator is indeed a badass. Other than that, it's a hardcore B horror movie.

That's what I liked about the AvP 2 game. Each of the three elements were pretty much kept to their own aims, with no one side being the "good guy". That it was all the same situation was a masterstroke in my opinion.

Its add-on, however..."Primal Fury"...wasn't as good by comparison.

The bit that REALLY bugged me, though, about the AvP 1 movie was the revelation that the aliens had been on earth before, which pretty much throws the great anticipation of the alien xenomorphs finally beginning an infestation of earth out the window(Alien 3 was originally supposed to deliver on this promise before it became a mediocre prison planet movie...its original tagline: "On Earth, everyone can hear you scream" :) ). And the predators influencing ancient civilizations? No. Just...no.

Knowing there's that "PredAlien" in the AvP sequel is gonna make it a tough watch even if I do decide to give Requiem a try. The first film just left that bad a taste in my mouth.

But I'll consider it. :)

I think that the entire basis for the setting of AvP was that it was basically a "Manhood Ritual", intended to test their mettle under extreme circumstances; an environment the Xenomorphs had an advantage in because they could blend in better, with easier movement for the Xenos, while the Yautja were at a disadvantage both due to the temperature (Although they're Endothermic Reptiles, basically Dinosaurs since they evolved on Earth), and due to their size in the more confined areas. Only the strong survive, etc.

I liked a lot of AvP:R because of the fact that it cut right to the chase and didn't fuck around with a stupid PG-13 attempt at anything. It was brutal, vicious and to the point. This was Alien Vs. Predator territory, not "Aliens and Predators kill humans and sometimes coincidentally fight because they're there". Wolf was there to exterminate a dangerous infestation, whether he survived or not, and he did his job. Humans died because they got in the way of his work. Also, the PredAlien was awesome.

I actually enjoyed Predators for a couple of reasons that stand out: For one thing, the Yautja in it were insane. They were pretty much literally psychopaths in their culture, which is why they were being hunted by a "normal" Predator. They weren't "Super" Predators so much as they were aberrant biological and psychological mutations. In Yautja society, the sort of mutations you saw in the leader of that group lead to insanity. The movie's more enjoyable and makes more sense if you approach it from the stand point of them being a group of young sociopaths instead of hardened, trained killers. What they were practicing was an illegal canned hunt, of off-limits prey. They'd stolen live prey from a sacred hunting site (There are clan wars over the right to even set foot on Earth), and were using dishonorable tactics that most of their kind wouldn't (Booby trapping a corpse and making the humans think he was still alive, for instance). It's a more interesting film to consider if you take it at the value that you're watching the Predator equivalent of a group of serial killers and criminals. Same goes for some instances of Yautja coming to Earth and hunting Batman. First time was alright; second time was an attempt at revenge, and the third time was illegal; they weren't supposed to be there.

I'd agree with an above poster, though, and say that if you haven't read the novels, give 'em a read soon. They're good. Also, definitely read the EU stuff, like Batman vs. Predator, Batman vs. Aliens, and one of my favorites, Judge Dredd Vs. Aliens. Jude Dredd vs. Predator is really good too, as is the crossover with Magnus: Robot Fighter. A futuristic human warrior raised by machines has to defend a slum city of oppressed robots and rich, stuck up humans when a Yautja hunter comes to town, looking for a stolen trophy. The Robot Fighter, Magnus, is a pacifist and refuses to harm a living thing, only fighting rogue machines (with his FISTS) when he has to. He has to come to terms with the fact that it's kill or be killed, and it turns into one badass man using his bare knuckles against a fully armed Predator hunter on the warpath.

Damn!!!
I'm being schooled on a massive level!! Haha!
And I appreciate it!

With regards to Predators, that would make a lot more sense. The BlackPredators were the hooligan gangs (they have in Britain) on crack. I guess that makes me feel way more at ease than the "2 warring clans" notion. Which didn't sit right with me.
But I am getting a bunch of new material to go through and I can't wait!!

Yeah; insanity in Yautja society is expressed in a couple of ways, one of which being the bucking of authority and law. Those younger ones were pretty much the equivalent of The Jokerz from Batman Beyond. The director of the movie claims it was a clan war, but that doesn't make any sense because in Yautja culture a full on Clan War wouldn't be limited to a single Hunter pursuing a small group. Clan Wars in Yautja society lead to the use of military tech, like gigantic thermal cannons and the like. They could also have just been Predators that turned against their clans and were cast out. From the looks of the Berserker, he might have genetically engineered/modified himself to be more dangerous, which also causes psychological damage. Genetic manipulation is considered a major taboo, almost akin to a mortal sin, in Yautja culture because it degrades and dishonors the blood of one's ancestors.

The term for Yautja that turn against their own kind, either intentionally or through insanity, is Bad Blood. There're whole clans that go Bad Blood, and the common practices for them are to hunt and kill other Yautja, to kill just for the sake of killing rather than sport or for honor, and in some cases, such as with the Killer Clan, to actually outright use Xenomorphs as hunting animals. Not as prey, but like pack dogs they use to cause fear and carnage. They don't use them to flush out prey so they can kill it; they just cut them loose so they can watch the killing. It's like a rush, or a high, for them.

Oh yeah!
I read that they also have a blood lust, that if not kept in check would result in them going completely mental. And that it is contagious, so many Predators would end up being infected and just go on a massive killing spree. I'm assuming that it's this Bad Blood thing.

Oh and that hunting dog thing? That was stupid! Not even in terms of the mythos, I'm saying in terms of creating tension for the main villains it was an unnecessary distraction. Those dogs weren't herding shit they were just out of control.
Now if they had done as you just said, that would directly relate to the Predators and it would have told us that they don't care about the hunt. Which in my opinion would have been a better story. If you're gonna call the movie Predators, have them warring with each other!

And don't even get me started on that monumental pile of shit that was Prometheus. That movie would've been a thousand times better, had they left in all of the little references that MADE IT A PROPER ALIEN PREQUEL. They removed references to the Xenomorphs, they changed one character's mutation so he looked like a Zombie instead of what he was turning into (A Xenomorph, after a fashion, like the deleted scene from Alien where Dallas is being cocooned), they COMPLETELY removed the speaking lines for the Space Jockey (Fuck "Engineers", they're Space Jockeys.), they cut out references to the planet being literally in the same system, a couple of planets away, from LV-246, and they cut out a TON of characterization for Charlize Theron's character, Idris Elba's character...They just carved it to hell and back and made it so damn bland.

I actually enjoyed Prometheus. But from an 'original' science fiction movie point of view.
And yes, the originality concept can be taken with a grain of salt, since the movie was born out of a prequel.
But I thought that all of those points were addressed in the movie.

I think it was a good enough prequel where it didn't force feed the audience Xenomorphs. Look, I liked it from the stand point that they alluded to the xenomorphs and that the movie didn't lean on it like a crutch. But I will say that this fuckign movie relies too much on it's sequel, yes, the sequel that doesn't exist to answer all the questions it asked. As a sci fi film that explores the questions of the universe it didn't work. As an alien prequel it barely passed, but I can respect that it's an original sci fi movie within an existing universe.
The Space Jockey's were irritating because they were just lumbering trolls. They had all this tech and all this knowledge but just killed shit whereever they went.
I will say that the reason they cut Charlize's screen time was so that she could become the antithesis of David. Being a robot, we identified with him more than her as a human, which was a nice little commentary. That and they wanted to allude to the fact that she might have been a robot herself, eh, wasn't necessary.
All this worked against it I agree, but it was still a good sci fi thriller. The creatures were creepy, the setting was cold and sanitary it worked for me.

But the sequel better give us the threads we were looking for in Prometheus. Otherwise Prometheus was just a waste of time.

I felt it would've been a much better sci-fi movie if it was entirely divorced from any connection to Alien. It started life as a direct Alien prequel, an obvious one, and then the script was handed off and control was given to someone else, who IMMEDIATELY shat all over the connection and idea and INSISTED that Ridley Scott rewrite it as being a sort of "Spin-off" with only the vaguest connections.

I do feel that it had potential, and that a sequel may make up for the poor start with Prometheus. I would like to point out one small in-universe note that made me smile, though; in the pre-film viral marketing websites and info, they had Weyland's personal logs, etc., where he reveals that they'd been picking up the signals from LV-246 and that was the real reason they were going (The discovery of the star charts was a total coincidence that fell into line with his plans to have the system investigated anyway), but one of the personal journals actually reveals a key point that I think makes the prejudice against David and other Synthetics way more potent:

This is the same universe as Blade Runner. Weyland used to work for the company that made the Replicants, and the Replicant uprising that lead to them being banned on Earth is actually mentioned in his journals as part of what inspired him to make a better synthetic human and surpass his mentor. All of the seemingly pointless cruelty and prejudice against David (Who I feel was the best character in the film) is put into much sharper focus when you realize there was a period where super powerful Synthetics were actively being TERRORISTS on Earth and in the Colonies.

haha
Yeah I heard of the connections to Blade Runner. That made me smile as well. But I felt it was too much considering that, as you state they couldn't even get the connections right to Alien.
I agree that the movie would have been better without any connection to Alien. I think that's why people slammed it. They weren't expecting Prometheus.

It's like the Sci-Fi film equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition. Nobody expects Prometheus.

throwing 2 cents in here, but have either of you ever read the original Aliens vs Predator novels? Well at least the first one?

Did anyone ever read the original Aliens Vs. Predator novels? Anyone?

Well I haven't.
Like I said I kept my knowledge about Predators fixed squarely on the movies.
Not the AvP movies, though. As I've stated before in my journal the rules change in AvP.

Ah, the original novel was written at least a decade before the movie came out and it actually takes place in the Alien setting/timeline. It is really good stuff though, I'd highly recommend it. :3