Thanks To Predator: Killer Of Killers, Another Actor Now Has Faced A Predator, Alien, And Terminator
by Bill Bria · /FilmThis article contains a spoiler for "Predator: Killer of Killers."
For an actor, there are a couple of pathways to achieving cinematic immortality. The most obvious is becoming a fully-fledged movie star, the type whose name and face are known to millions around the world. Another option is portraying an iconic character; while this often goes hand in hand with being a movie star (Harrison Ford playing Indiana Jones, for example), in some cases, the character can be more popular than the actor, such as with Ian McDiarmid playing Palpatine in several "Star Wars" films. Yet another path doesn't require playing an iconic character, but simply appearing in a film with one: horror fans make a point out of remembering all the victims and survivors of Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees, for instance.
There's also a secret fourth pathway: becoming compelling movie trivia. While a lot of film trivia games cater to the hardcore cinephiles, there are trivial facts about films and actors that appeal to a wide range of people. One of these facts has been the question of who's been killed by three of the most iconic cinematic creatures conceived within the last 40 years: the Alien (aka Xenomorph), the Predator (aka Yautja), and the Terminator (aka T-800, T-1000, etc.). Up until 2004, there was only one actor able to claim this dubious honor: the late, great Bill Paxton, who met his fate in the original "The Terminator" and the sequels "Aliens" and "Predator 2." Upon the release of "Alien Vs. Predator," Lance Henriksen joined the club, having been in "The Terminator," "Aliens," and "Alien vs. Predator." Now, a new James Cameron veteran has joined the ranks of his Colonial Marines brethren, for in this month's animated feature "Predator: Killer of Killers," a World War II flying ace is voiced by Michael Biehn.
Michael Biehn may (or may not) lay the most claim to the trivial title
Of course, this being a literal matter of trivia, things have tended to get a little trivial. Paxton's claim to being killed by all three creatures has been relitigated, with some folks saying that while he was indeed devoured by Xenomorphs and slaughtered by a Yautja, his L.A. street punk from "The Terminator" was merely assaulted and injured by the T-800, with his death unconfirmed. Meanwhile, those who make a case against Henriksen's claim point out that, while he was certainly mowed down by a T-800 and stabbed by a Yautja, his synthetic (or artificial person) Bishop was merely shut down in a state of disrepair by Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), and not officially killed by a Xenomorph. In this vein, it's highly likely that some folks will point at the death of Hicks (Biehn) in "Alien 3" being solely due to his impalement and crushing by a support beam upon crashing on the planet of Fiorina 161 in "Alien 3," and not by an Alien proper.
Being a much more charitable fellow, I say that, given how all three actors have just one ambiguous death-by-creature in their roster, that puts them on equal footing, and they should all be allowed to claim the title. Yet in the interest of friendly competition, I'd also argue that Biehn should be ranked first amongst them. After all, his Kyle Reese is most certainly killed by taking so much damage from the T-800 in "The Terminator," enough that he'd have perished even if he hadn't sacrificed himself to blow it into pieces. His Air Force ace is unequivocally killed by a Predator's insidious plasma-tentacle air-to-air weapon in "Killer of Killers." And although Hicks died due to complications from his cryopod crashing, the entire reason his pod was ejected was because of a face hugger starting a fire onboard the Sulaco. Bishop could've been repaired, and the L.A. street punk could've gone to the hospital; we don't know for sure. In the case of Biehn's three characters, however, dead is dead.
I salute them and the actor who plays them, for they shall now be remembered fondly, both in cinematic history and especially in bar trivia games for decades to follow.