Predator General Thread

Plus, the Predator is only interested in taking trophies then leaving. Colonialists are more interested in mass slaughter, plunder and enslavement.

Predators almost seem like what colonized people wish colonizers were: foreign enemies with some semblance of honor.

When this film was first announced I thought it'd be set in pre-colombian times (so, no settlers), but now (as the synopsis notes "300 years ago", so 1700s) I think there's a 50-50 chance the Predator ends up skewering some european settlers so the audience can have a good time.

Probably he will kill some native, them see colonizer killing native without honor and them Size some colonizer in the end.

Even the Predators would be disgusted by how barbaric the European settlers were.

Edited by slimcoder on May 18th 2022 at 6:53:34 AM

It is a point though that not all Predators share that code of honor. Some of them really are just in it for the fun of killing.

And in Shane Black's The Predator, the main baddie Predator isn't just out to claim trophies. It's out to harvest genetic traits to make itself more powerful, which is about as exploitative as any colonialist movement can get. The movie messed up on this front of course due to its terrible portrayal of autism, but still. That movie also revealed that the Yautja plan to take over Earth for themselves now that climate change has made it more hospitable for them.

Edited by M84 on May 18th 2022 at 11:27:41 PM

That is true, but I do feel them having a semi-coherent code of honor is a good part of their appeal as characters. Without it, they run the risk of becoming just a regular slasher villain, but when they're following just an alien code of ethics you have something more interesting to work with. They're still monsters, but they're more interesting monsters.

On the topic of colonization, the first movie actually has some vague subtext on that. The ostensible plot (before the Predator barrels in the story) is about american soldiers in a expedition to deestabilize a foreign latin-american country. Interestingly, the "colonizer" soldiers are largely entirely out of their depths when it comes to the threat of the Predator, while the "colonized" characters (the native-american Billy and Anna the latina guerilla fighter) seem to catch on the Predator's true nature much quicker due their native traditions.

The AVP movies also made them out to be pretty bad since it's implied they helped spread Xenomorphs to other worlds including Earth just so they could hunt them for fun.

It's fitting that this really bites them in the ass. Don't mess with the Xenomorphs.

The characters from "colonized" peoples presumably figure out the Predator quicker because they have more experience being part of the underdog group.

Another point against the whole honor thing is the ending of the first Predator movie. The moment the Predator realizes it has lost to Dutch it attempts Taking You with Me via a bomb. It even taunts Dutch with an Evil Laugh made via a distorted recording of Billy's laugh earlier in the movie.

The stuff of nightmares.

Edited by M84 on May 18th 2022 at 11:35:50 PM

The honor thing was more solidified in the second movie as it show the predator avoiding killing unarmed or pregnant people as well as the clan giving Harrigan a weapon as a reward for killing the hunter. I think the expanded universe also clarified that the bomb is used to prevent humans from gaining access to their technology and using it against them.

Yeah that's one of those things that stuck out to me about the original film. It's a rather blatant political commentary, if not a general satire of 80's action films that were, in themselves, basically propaganda for Reagan-era conservatism. A lot of people who hail Predator as a "manly" movie (not sure how widespread that attitude is now, but it was definitely widespread over a decade ago) ignore that these burly action guys get brutally killed and picked off, and Schwarzenegger's character is visibly traumatized by the experience. These tough guys ain't shit once they go up against an enemy they can't fight.

I've heard people compare the Predator to the Vietnam War but I'm not sure that would apply given that the Predator has superior technology. I could see it as more of a War of the Worlds type story, showing that it's not so fun fighting someone who has better guns.

Edited by Kaiseror on May 19th 2022 at 7:25:17 AM

> showing that it's not so fun fighting someone who has better guns.

Also,hunting you for sport,like you're fighting against someone to survive and they're doing it as a form of recreation.

As problematic as Shane Black's The Predator was, it had one line that summed up how dangerous the Predator is compared to humans.

"Gentlemen, they're large, they're fast, and fucking you up's their idea of tourism."

Edited by M84 on May 19th 2022 at 8:53:55 PM

Besides The Predator, the other Predator movies are legitimately good in spite of their wildly different tones, and I feel like Prey will be no different.

We don't talk about Alien vs Predator movies no no no

Try telling that to my friend Max. He was so blown away by the movie that for a while afterwards, he insisted that I include the Predators in my books. XD

your friend Max is trying to get you sued!

XD

Getting back to these movies, I can't remember how long it's been since I saw the first Predator, but I still remember it being very cool.

"The characters from "colonized" peoples presumably figure out the Predator quicker because they have more experience being part of the underdog group."

Less that and they can recognized the predator for a mythical beast that can kill people.

"The honor thing was more solidified in the second movie as it show the predator avoiding killing unarmed or pregnant people as well as the clan giving Harrigan a weapon as a reward for killing the hunter."

Also when the native american anunced his desire to fight, the predator just complay with it and atacks.

"These tough guys ain't shit once they go up against an enemy they can't fight."

Because Dutch does have a sort of very manly fight with the Predator and is arnold, so it is very manly even if people often failed to said is also a horror story.

There's definitely that, but the ending of the film isn't much of a victory for him. Sure, Schwarzenegger manages to go up against the Predator as a somewhat-even match...but the Predator dies on its own terms, taunting him, and the film ends on Schwarzenegger with a thousand-yard stare.

I get why some people ignore that stuff in favor of "MANLIEST MOVIE EVER MADE", but like...it's not even subtle with its themes.

Match? not much, Butch use trap and unconventional soldier tactics to win against him who is superior. And the self destruct is to kill butch with him which it dosent happen.

The thing is mostly that predator is a weird action-horror hybrid(and yeah I can see why the vietnam comparation come from since it use something there but with a horror spin) that is dificult to pull off because both genre are like oil and water.

That's what I mean, it's only *somewhat* even in the final fight, and only because Schwarzenneger figures out how to disrupt the Predator's camouflage and outsmart it...and even then, it only gets him so far.

Love how the Predator's camouflage probably went on to influence Metal Solid's stealth camouflage

I wouldn't say action and horror are that incompatible though, there is even an index on Tv tropes about that.

I will disagree, sometimes is hard to create horror when the protagonist are that capable so you need to move carefully, Predator is a good example because the enemy can just move better and out gun the US soldier here, plus his insect like aparience and clicking noises does help.

I'd say the first film pretty almost has the "code of honour" as an informed attribute, it's as honourable as foxhunting.

The native people have legends about this happening before, so not necessarily always soldiers. The people it does attack, it's from camouflage with weaponry far beyond human capabilities. When it does agree to a 1 on 1 fight, it's only after it's tech has been compromised, AND it knows it's got a huge physical advantage, being bigger, quicker, tougher than the biggest human they've likely ever seen, and as stated, when it loses, it tries to obliterate the guy and the surrounding area.

It might give hints at some morality, like not attacking the unarmed woman, but that's like letting a rabbit that's run onto the field of play get away.