AvP Outbreak

I watched this edit with my wife who’d seen Predator, the Alien quadrilogy, Prometheus, and Covenant. It’s been ages since I dusted off the AVP movies so I went in having forgotten most of the details. My wife felt that things weren’t being explained and that the movie was just action piece after action piece with no real plot to speak of. I told her that’s how I remembered them unfortunately, but perhaps the decision to shorten and combine these two films made that flaw even more drastic. Paul W.S. Anderson’s movies aren’t exactly known for great character development.

We hadn’t even finished the AvP portion of the edit and both of us decided to stop watching, although we stuck it out to the resolution of the first movie. AvP was definitely a lot worse than I remembered. I’m going to go back and pick it up from the Requiem part, but sandwiching two bad movies together into a long edit wasn’t really the solution I’d hoped for. Perhaps these movies just aren’t able to be saved, but I give Wraith plenty of credit for trying.

My wife mentioned that making the Predators the protagonists in this one was an odd decision and didn’t really sit right with either of us. Same goes for the Predator-human tag team. I can’t even remember the humans’ names aside from Weyland and we just watched it last night, so that goes to show just how little the characters matter in AvP.

We watched a 2.68GB (SD) copy from the editor. I wish we could have watched an 8GB or higher version but I was happy to get my hands on the edit regardless. I had to play around with settings in VLC to get the a decent viewing size our 42" TV, but once that was done the edit didn’t look too bad considering the small file size. I didn’t notice any A/V or other editing issues, aside from the breakneck pace which I seem to recall was the same in the original movie, so my qualms are only with the source material. I’ll update my review after watching the Requiem part but wanted to put these thoughts on AvP down while they're fresh. My thanks to Wraith for sending the edit and trying to salvage a couple of misguided, big budget bombs. Even though the enjoyment factor doesn’t rank high for me because of the source material, I am grateful that editors take up the challenge with movies like these!

It takes true talent to take two epic disappointments, combine them into one, and assemble it all together to deliver a quality product. This is exactly what's been done here with AvP: Outbreak. At times, it does give off the feeling of two movies mushed together, but for the most part, this is an incredibly impressive edit with an engaging narrative and top-notch editing. For fans of both franchises that were deeply let down by the crossover films, this is a must-see.

As I told Wraith, I once attempted this mash-up edit myself. I found the final product to lack a cohesive narrative, to be overly long and ultimately headache inducing. AVP is a concept that should have worked right out of the gate. Where the first movie suffers is that it played it safe with a PG-13 rating. The second movie goes for a hard R, but has some of the worst human characters in the history of both previous franchises.

Wraith has masterfully trimmed what doesn't work, while successfully expanding upon what does work with the inclusion of footage from Apocalypto and Cocoon, Some of the edits are seamless, while others are quite noticeable do to stark difference in video quality. That aside, I didn't let that affect my enjoyment of the film. I had a blast with this edit!

I'd love to see a remastered version with improved video quality and credit graphics. But this version has a fun, almost retro feel that you get used to after a while.

Watched the first half of Wraith's AvP: Outbreak. It's from 2009 so the quality isn*t the very best and the aspect ratio seems quite stretched.

The edit itself is alright (some transitions are kind of messy) but because a lot of scenes were removed from the movie, the plot feels rushed in my opinion. I really liked the extended opening with the footage from Apocalypto though. His aim was to put both AvP entries into one cohesive movie but after watching this edit I just don‘t think this is possible.

As the original Unrated version of the first AvP is quite alright in my book as well I think I'll just stick to the original.

Sadly the second half (AvP:R) hasn‘t received any kind of color correction or brightening (would've been a major task, I know) so it‘s still way too dark to make out what‘s happening on the screen. That isn‘t Wraith‘s fault in any kind of way but I will keep searching for a tightened and brightened edit of that movie.

Edit: Found one. 16 years after the initial release I finally found a brightened, contrast- and color-corrected edit of this film (truly amazing work, done by fan editor SpoRv) and was amazed how much of a difference it makes when you‘re finally able to see what the fuck is going on. It’s still dark and I’d still recommend to watch it at night but it fits the tone. The edit I watched „only“ tackled the visual issues (still a major task) and leaves all the rest as it is in the Unrated Version.

Don‘t get me wrong: the film is still dumb. Characters and plot are paper-thin, the direction is bad, the camera often shaky, actors & actresses mediocre at best and callback moments to both franchise‘s previous entries are executed terribly but my god do costumes & effects look great when you are finally able to fucking see them. They look so good, most of the time they made me forgot what kind of nonsense was happening on the screen. Might be a effect that wears off after the enlightenment of the first watch but we‘ll see (in the truest sense of word).

I always wondered why the Strouse brothers took the one thing they‘re really good at (and that‘s the visuals) and edited it in a way you can‘t see it. Supposedly they did it in post-production (as the set photos are well lit) because they didn‘t want people to see they used special effects. But why ever and however they did it, they certainly overdid it.

This version keeps me wishing that more people would‘ve or even could’ve seen it this way (you have to know about the existence of fanedits in the first place and even then it‘s kinda hard to get). Maybe Fox/Disney will release an official overhauled version one day (called Enlightenment instead of Requiem as that title makes no sense anyway) but I don‘t think there‘s much hope.

I will even go this far and say I‘d watch the sequel (if it looks like this one) that was hinted at at the end of the film but then abandoned. Let‘s be real, I‘d watch it anyway but so I might be able to enjoy it instead of squinting my eyes all the time and then roll them backwards.