I think it’s cliche and unnecessary to mention the ridiculousness of the new film, Alien Versus Predator: a movie based on a video game which is turn based on two movies. I do so only to remind people of a less high profile instance of movie/video recursion released nearly a decade ago:
Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game
SFTMTG was, of course, based on the Jean-Claude film Street Fighter based, of course, on the Street Fighter video game series by Capcom. Luckily, the game designers of SFTMTG were careful to block any further recursion by designing SFTMTG to be so unbelievably bad that no-one, no-where, would ever consider basing a movie on it.
See for yourself. The ROM is supported by MAME.
The movie isn’t based on the game. The concept of Xenomorphs versing Predators became popular sometime after the first movies from the two respective franchises. Comics, novels and action figures suddenly began depicting the two species existing in the same universe, a concept that was supported by the surprising inclusion of a xenomorph trophy skull on the wall in the predator ship in Predator 2. Only after all of this did the games depicting Aliens versing Predators see the light of day. Hence the upcoming movie is in fact a pseudo-sequal to Predator 2. Just a little educator there.
Keiran’s right, of course, but this means that it’s a movie based on a game based on a comic book based on two movies. (The novels are surely incidental in all this – every movie has novelizations sitting on the shelves at WalMart.)