While Alien vs Predator exists in its own continuity completely separate from that of The Terminator franchise (at least, usually), AvP did evidently require some help from The Terminator as it suffered from a repeating trope that made the series a bit repetitive and boring with every new installment–and The Terminator saved Alien vs Predator from that cliché.
The idea for a shared Alien vs Predator universe began with one story inside a Dark Horse Presents comic back in 1990 which was followed closely by the Xenomorph cameo in Predator 2. When both franchises first began (Alien in 1979 and Predator in 1987) they were completely separate with absolutely no indication that they shared a continuity. However, once fans got a taste for what a Xenomorph vs Yautja battle could look like, they demanded more. For years following that first story, there were a number of comic book series, novels, video games, and eventually a short-lived film franchise that dove head-first into establishing a lore that encompassed these two alien lifeforms and their seemingly eternal conflict in the universe, though after a while, it got kind of repetitive–at least, until Terminators got involved.
In Aliens vs Predator vs The Terminator #4 by Mark Schultz and Mel Rubi, the Terminators are attempting to create new machines that merge Terminators with Xenomorphs–and they’re successful. Since this threat to the cosmos is unparalleled, the Predators decided to team up with Ripley8 (the clone of the original Ripley from Alien Resurrection) to take the Terminator/Xenomorph hybrids down. Unfortunately, the hybrid machines prove to be too much for Ripley and the Predators to handle, so Ripley does the one thing she thought she’d never do: she recruits the help of Xenomorphs. This battle was happening in an off-the-books laboratory in deep space where Xenomorphs were kept in stasis for experimentation and research. So, Ripley woke up an entire horde of them to kill the Terminators, meaning the Alien’s Xenomorphs and Predator’s Yautja actually worked together to stop a common enemy.
Xenomorphs are Always the ‘Third Villain’ in AvP, & Terminator Fixed That
The reason Alien vs Predator stories started to get repetitive and boring is that many of them followed the same formula–a formula that was actually most prominently featured in the first film of the franchise. In a typical AvP story, Xenomorphs, Yautja, and humans find themselves in the same area where Predators hunt the humans for a while and Xenomorphs use them to reproduce, leaving only the strongest humans to survive–until it becomes apparent that the threat the Xenomorphs pose is far greater than that of the Predators. So, at least one human will team up with the Predators after proving their worth to the Yautja and fight alongside them to stop the Xenomorphs. Then, once the Xenomorphs are defeated, the human will either travel the cosmos with the Yautja or be allowed to survive while the Predators leave in peace.
While this formula may seem unique to AvP, it is actually pretty universal to all ‘Versus’ stories. Whether it be Godzilla vs Kong where the two fight for a bit before teaming up against Mechagodzilla, or Batman v Superman where they do the same thing before joining forces against Doomsday. There always has to be a ‘third villain’ in ‘Versus’ stories, and in AvP, that ‘third villain’ was more often than not the Xenomorphs. This is why Aliens vs Predator vs The Terminator was so exciting, because it flipped that trope entirely and actually gave fans the unexpected team-up of Predators and Xenomorphs against this story’s unique ‘third villain’, the Terminators–proving that The Terminator fixed Alien vs Predator’s biggest cliché.
