In Predator 2, the hero finds the Predator's collection of skulls, including a skull from the alien in Alien.
Was this meant to foreshadow the coming Alien vs. Predator project, or were there no serious Alien vs. Predator plans at the time?
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3I always mainly saw it as an indication on how badass the predator was to hunt even those beasts.– PlasmaHHCommented Sep 9, 2015 at 8:11
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Given Predator 2 came out a whole 14 years before Alien vs. Predator, that’s a bit more than foreshadowing. It’s fiveshadowing!– Paul D. WaiteCommented Dec 4, 2018 at 12:38
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2 Answers
From the IMDb:
Putting the Alien (1979) skull on the trophy case on the Predator ship was the idea of Stephen Hopkins' as a way of showing off all the different species and creatures that the Predators have hunted and killed. It was also a nod to the Dark Horse Aliens vs Predator comics which were quite popular at the time. Since Fox had owned the Alien film series, it was easy to obtain the rights to use the Alien head in the film. This excelled popularity of the Aliens vs. Predator series crossover throughout the 1990s, and was promptly followed by more comic books, novels, video games, toys, and eventually movies.
Alien and Predator comics were published from around 1989, but The "Alien vs Predator" wasn't published till February 1990, same year as the Predator 2 movie. So in other words the movie is a nod to the comics but I really doubt that there were serious plans to make an "AvP" movie then.
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1This also provided proof that both species existed in the same universe. Prior to that, there wasn't any indication that Alien and Predator had any connection, besides in comics. Commented Sep 9, 2015 at 13:01
No, it wasn't intentional foreshadowing of the movie, but it was a direct reference to the Alien vs. Predator concept.
When we see the Predator's trophy room, there is a wide array of alien skulls in there, representing the kinds of things the Predator has killed. Putting a xenomorph skull in was reportedly done at the suggestion of two of the effects artists on Predator 2 as well as on Alien (as described in The Winston Effect).
Though it was mostly meant as an Easter Egg and/or inside joke, it's also important to note that Dark Horse comics had published a comic book miniseries called Alien vs. Predator several months before Predator 2 started filming, so the idea that Predators hunted xenomorphs was already floating around.
However, while it's likely that someone, somewhere along the line may have thought "this would make a cool movie", that project was still many many years ahead, and certainly not something they were intentionally leaving plot hooks in Predator 2 for.
answered Sep 9, 2015 at 1:00
