The degrading of the Predator.

concretehunter, Yautja, 11 years ago

PREDATOR

Let me set the scene, Its 1987. A man named John McTiernan had an idea. What if you took the standard Action movie heroes and put them into a horror setting? So how could he do this? He went and got some of the best Action movie actors around and make a film called PREDATOR. The Predator in this film was one of the all time great villains, It was mysterious, It was realistic, It was big, Bad and unstoppable. It was a beast! And the best part is McTiernan doesn't milk it one single bit. He doesn't reveal the main antagonist until at least halfway into the movie and even then its only cloaked and very quick and brief shots. The unrealistically tough and macho Billy (Who fears no man) Is even accepting of his own death due to the sheer presence of this god of cinema. We only see the villains FACE in the last ten minutes.

The idea was very Jungle cat like. Sleek, Elegant and ready to pounce. It was unseen and left no tracks. This made it seam to be the perfect hunter rather than a rugby player in a mask as it is portrayed in later films. The predator is the ultimate HUNTER, Not the ultimate warrior.

PREDATOR 2

Cue PREDATOR 2, I cant really comment on this movie much. Yes the claustrophobia is taken away but that's the point. The idea was take a cop movie hero and put him in a horror movie, Yes the Yautja does talk abit too much and yes it does reveal itself too early but what can you ask. Its wasn't perfect but still a great cheesy movie for fans of the Predator Franchise. It's also in this movie that we get the beginning of why we are all here. The hint that Yautja hunt Aliens. The single most important factor of the AvP franchise. I digress. The Predator was still a hunter and NOT a warrior at this point.

Alien Vs Predator

And then we have... It. The Film we waited 20 years for. The cross over. Alien Vs Predator. This is the point at which Predators LOST their grace and skill. At this point they were just Rugby players in suits. This movie was NOT designed for Alien or even Predator Fans. This was a movie designed for people who knew OF Alien and Predator and wanted to see a popcorn flick. In this the predators take 2 minutes to introduce themselves. This removes all the traits of this race that we already knew. The predators were giant, Very bulky as compared to there regular slim sprinter physique predecessors and were bumbling oafs, Tripping over things and being noisy as hell.

This movie destroyed the Predators image of a jungle cat and turned it into some spartan, But i guess i can accept that as it is bound to happen. Cult icons are bound to be exaggerated. But the worst thing, The worst thing is the fact that they made a Predator a GOOD guy. WHAT. Predators are douche bags who kill humans for the hell of it! Not our big cuddly friends who protect us from scary aliens. NO. As far as the original predators are concerned, if you aren't prey then it doesn't care what happens to you. Its degrading to think that an adolescent male Yautja needs the help of a human female. How WEAK is this predator? What does this reduce them to?

Predators were there for one reason. Kill Xenos. That's it. These Yautja are raised with the idea that Humans are like deer. I cant even put into words how much this upset me. The great and mighty hunter brought down to your buddy who will be your best buddy until you pick up a gun. They didn't even LOOK realistic when they took off there mask. Look at Predator, The mask in that looked real. It looked like a creature. It had presence, In AvP The Predator looks as if it is wearing a mask. It FEELS like a man in a suit, The mask is rubbery and doesn't have the same effect.

I need to calm down, AvP:R was no better, At least the Predator didn't team up with any humans. And at least it wasn't 400lbs of muscle.

PREDATORS

This film was a step in the right direction. Despite Super Preds (Which i refuse the existence of!) the film did pay homage to the older films and do them some respect. I watched this and didn't violently vomit. The one thing i could say is that this film is too short, The predators don't feel real when they move as they still look like men in suits (I.e. In batman 1989 where he had to turn his whole body to look at something) but the faces look kind of real. This was an improvement. That's the most i can say.


In conclusion

What happened to the beloved jungle hunter? The Unstoppable and invisible foe? In a few words. He was sold out. He was sold out to broader audiences, They tried to appeal to a broad range of people and in doing that they diluted the personality and fear factor.

I have high hopes for the Predator franchise. Maybe not in movies but in comic books and novels. It's been a long time waiting but i have started to read the books. So what now? Where do we go from here? Do we ignore the abomination or consider them separate from the PREDATOR universe like we do with the Alien films?

Yes. That is EXACTLY what we do.

badapple24, Yautja, 11 years ago

HOLY SHIT FINALLY SOMEONE GETS MY POINT!

concretehunter, Yautja, 11 years ago

Thanks! I'm glad someone agrees with me!

badapple24, Yautja, 11 years ago

Of course on the site everyone knew that, but at school everyone's favourite Alien of Predator movie is, of course AVP. They say that these are the most badass preds but I know their wrong

concretehunter, Yautja, 11 years ago

We are able to thank it for one thing. It does introduce people to the much better films. So i guess it does have its perks!

badapple24, Yautja, 11 years ago

True... still I'd think that I'd start with the roots of that movie wouldn't you?

concretehunter, Yautja, 11 years ago

Well at least if you start with the worst then you can only be surprised rather than disappointed!

badapple24, Yautja, 11 years ago

True Lol. We are Burning AVP SO BAD, ah. If only we had the funds to make a remake of AVP you know the version were the preds look real and kill all the humans.

concretehunter, Yautja, 11 years ago

Agreed! Everyone needs to die via skull rape with wristblades.

Merry Christmas by the way.

badapple24, Yautja, 11 years ago

Yeah, you too. Another thing would be Grid would be killable and the queen would be like the first queen we saw in ALIENS you know alot smaller and more realistic

Mebber, Yautja, 11 years ago

AvP sucked, no adoubt about that. But for me, the John Woo-style Exterminator-Predator of AvP2 was even more bad, he wasn't a hunter anymore at all.

Well, there are jerks everywhere, so it wouldn't be a surprise if the yautja have some idiots too who aren't representative for yautja in general. Just keep saying that to yourself, i guess.

-Bloo-, Yautja, 11 years ago

@Mebber: That explanation is surprisingly both simple and satisfying.

concretehunter, Yautja, 11 years ago

Much like a pornstar. Just throwing that out there.

I agree that some kids like the worse predator but who can blame them, I mean its the only AvP related film they can see legally!

DarkLioness, Yautja, 11 years ago

Ok as far as the Predator teaming up with a human I didn't have a big problem with that. It's alot better than the fanfiction versions where the human and the Pred fall in love. I mean come on...wtf?

Although I think AVP could have been written a little better and had a little more gore in it. Not TOO MUCH but just enough.

Gaunt, Yautja, 11 years ago

Just wondering, as we're on the subject of 'Predator Degradation' (ZING).

Did anyone else see the stupid side to an intergalactic, hulking mass of muscle, losing a sword fight to a Human in that one Predators scene we've all seen? (you know the one I mean, where things couldn't get anymore stereotypically Asian).

Now, if that can happen, why is it I can't pay a buck to see Billy's ten second struggle to fame before apparent death against the Jungle Hunter?


Details boi, details.

PREDATORv2, Yautja, 11 years ago

First off, excellent overview concretehunter. You made some very good points.


My biggest problem is as predator movies progress. The predators seem to be getting easier to kill. You'll noticed the same progression in the alien films, which is cut short by Prometheus. There is this desire in science fiction films now in days to have humans always coming out on top. It was nice to see in Prometheus a group of advanced humans. Not having a fighting chance against what they were facing.


Sometimes we(humans) just don't have enough guns and get owned.... And I'm okay with that.

skull_ripper, Yautja, 11 years ago

I Don't "hate" avp or anything, but OMG i hated the humans in AVP R. its not fun to watch something for the first time in comfort of your own home, with the volume cranked up, and then a have a little kid in the film start shrieking loudly ):] i mean OMG shut up! but i think the avp films could have been way and i mean WAY better. i mean so much better. the didn't even have the right number of teeth!
AVP R had good disigns, if Wolf would have been in a movie like predator, everyone would be all "Oh My God!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" but no they made AVP R. i loved the first two predator movies, and predators is alright (i too had trouble with the super predators, but, i have come to accept them as a sub-species) i also think it would be cool to see a movie with the Yautja as the main characters, but not translated verbally but with subtitles.

Deathdrop, Yautja, 11 years ago

The "warrior" thing really started with the original AVP comic. I understand why they did it, I think. They were trying to avoid making the Xenos easily kill-able bugs by having the Preds suit up in specialized armor and weapons to fight them. The point was that you couldn't just be any old hunter; you had to be incredibly skilled to take the skull of a xeno.

And the thing is, that doesn't mean "space samurai," it means "really skilled hunter."

The problem came later, with the novelization introducing this concept of "honor" that subsequently got smooshed into every single piece of Predator fiction from then on.

Blizzard, Yautja, 11 years ago

I completely agree with you
but why do you refuse the idea of the super preds ?
is it because they are more violent ?

krio, Yautja, 11 years ago

it's because somehow the so called "super" preds die easier then the classic pred from predator one.

Blizzard, Yautja, 11 years ago

well I think we all knew that would happen
just like alien to aliens the film can afford to kill them enough because they are not the only monster in the film