Stalker,
Undefined,
17 years ago
Both Alien & Predator are masterpieces, but in my personal opinion Predator comes out on top. Alien had a darker & spookier set-up, with a seemingly helpless crew unknowingly venturing into dangerous territory, wheras Predator projected strength from the beginning, hard as nails commandos hunting down rebels in the jungle with a mysterious & unseen prescense constantly looming over them.
Predator in my personal opinion was also more original, never before had any creature like the yautja been seen, while this applies to Alien as well, it is to a slightly lesser extent in my opinion. For most of the movie the predator was not even seen, which in my opinion was one of its strongest points. Having a seemingly unstoppable invisible force decimating highly trained marines would be enough to send a shiver down anyone's spine, the film really hit many visceral tones, & the fact that the predator was hidden for so long made the final creature reveal that much more exciting.
As far as the cast goes, while Alien's actors definitely suited the dark & serious tone of the film, the characters from Predator were a little more likeable in my opinion, they had charisma & were all hard as nails at the same time, which was great to watch.
Overall, both movies are classics & absolute masterpieces, which I both love, but it should be quite obvious that Predator is one of my favourite films of all time, & in my opinion not even Ridley Scott's original masterpiece can stand up to it.
Aliens on the other hand is a different story, & is easily on the same tier with Predator, although I wouldn't necessarily call either one superior over the other.