AVP...through Archaeology!

Alien vs. Predator seems to retroactively validate capitalist nutjob Erick Von Daniken. It’s all the evidence that can truly tie humanity's civilizations to extraterrestrials. If this movie were a documentary depicting actual fact, it would prove all the data wrong. It even implies that very sentiment.

The evidence/plot hinges around a pyramid linking all the ancient cultures, one that predates them too, to visitors from other worlds. In other words, BOOM! Take that academia! But watchers of the film, like myself, must know (and I emphasize ‘must’) that the filmmakers are strictly in it for the (to be honest) well thought out connectedness of the mythology. If it made no sense at all, nobody would care.

The connectedness comes from the [completely fictional] details. The film has explicit, clear artwork depicting aliens and predators. The art is showing/telling the characters the exact "true" history of human kind. The Predators (Von Daniken's Aztec "Gods" from the sky) taught the ancients how to build the pyramids. The pyramids function as some sort of training/ritual area for the Predators. Hey, it may not be true, but we all know Arnold fought one of these beasts before so who’s to argue the merits? In the universe of the film, anything they say goes because they have the rights to do so.

Some ethnoarchealology even happens with the behavior of the predator being interpreted and linked to past civilizations. It all gives this movie a scientific, real feeling that the filmmakers are aiming for. That’s the key word too. The Colbertian “feel” of truth. Truthiness.

This movie highlights how interesting the extraterrestrial connection to the past is. It’s a heavily imaginative, apparently violent, and 'fictional?' story of our "past." Archaeology just isn’t this interesting and quite frankly, doesn’t ever expect to be to the general world population. People entertain these ideas for the simple fact that they are entertaining. The ancient past is inconsequential to the average viewer's life. More fantastical explanations, factual or not, draw the interest of the "layman."The bottom line is that it’s kind of fun.

Personally, this film wasn’t as great as, well, better movies. I’d like to have had it been more epic…maybe add a standoff or eight.