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Post by wordweaver3 on Sept 20, 2018 19:10:59 GMT
So the new The Predator movie is out and the poll results are in.
It sucks.
Don't know for sure cuz I haven't seen it, but it sounds pretty bad.
Anyway, wanted to talk a bit about the lore of the Predator as a race. What I've always liked about them is we only have an extremely one sided view of them. Basically like if a whitetail deer were to describe a human being. It's something that comes occasionally to hide in the woods and kill us with vastly superior technology. The deer isn't aware that most of the time we do our nine to five job, go home, eat junk food, watch tv, and go to bed. To it we're some kind of hunting creature and it would be logical to assume that we, as a species, devote all our time to hunting. Our culture is all about hunting. All our technology is devoted to this cause.
So the movies have largely portrayed them as a culture devoted to hunting. They only interact with us as a prey species, so that makes sense. It gets a little weird in the AvP series, but whatever. If we go back to the first movie as it is presented there are certain assumptions we can make, but we really should only make them in regards to that one member of its species. And really, if hunting was such a huge part of their culture, wouldn't there be a lot more of them on Earth? Unless there are so many inhabited planets in the universe that each one can be designated to a single hunter at a single time. Maybe the species has an extremely low population, but that doesn't seem likely since they appear to be a very successful species. There should be a lot of them. Perhaps hunting isn't as prevalent among the species as we are led to assume. Perhaps only the elite do it. Or maybe it really isn't that big a part of their culture. A throwback exercise that only a few still practice. (Robot chicken kinda eluded to this in a skit)
Of course it could also be that humans just aren't considered all that challenging or worthwhile as a game animal. We could be the carp of the universe.
If I had one gripe about the first movie it would be this, the shoulder cannon is too effective. Sure, it's iconic and cool, but it's kinda wrong. Since the creature seem to be sport hunting there's a bit of an overkill aspect to the weapon. Like shooting a deer with a laser guided missile. Plus, it doesn't seem to fit with the creature's concept of "sport" where it won't kill unarmed people but will bring a plasma thrower to a gun fight. The cannon really should be a last resort weapon, but we see him use it quite often. One thing I really liked about the second movie was that it introduced more lower tech weaponry like a spear, the net, and the flying blade. Weapons that fit more with the sporting aspect of the event. What I would have liked if they introduced more of those in subsequent movies. Since the idea is a subtle commentary on modern hunting, examples of Predators that refuse to carry the shoulder cannon and opt instead for some kind of high tech bow might be neat.
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Post by Harkovast on Sept 21, 2018 0:01:30 GMT
I've also pondered that the idea that hunting is important or central to predator culture is arrogance on the part of us as humans, assuming the element of the alien we interact with is the most important element from its point of view.
I think the weapons in the first film are the best and here is why.
The predator is super agile and leaps around from tree to tree...so it needs to keep its hands free.
Its blades and shoulder gun don't take up any hands.
While the spears and discs in the second film are cool, they require a hand to use so would get in the way when you are leaping about.
I cna't see a problem with the laser cannon. The Predator wants sport, but it doesn't necessarily want a fair fight. It uses stealth and ambush to murder people all the time. Its cannon isn't so much more powerful than human weapons. A minigun or a grenader and make a big mess! Those aren't as compact, precise and require amo etc so the predator has the advantage, but its not like its zapping people from orbit.
The first film gives us a cool sense that we kinda know what the predaotr wants- its a hunter, it wants a challenge etc but the exact rules or code its working by are not spelled out to us.
Later predator films always try to hammer out exactly what the predators are about and always diminish it.
The new film is meant to be so bad people are seriously questioning if it was made bad on purpose as a trolling exercise.
The plot involves autism being the next stage of human evolution so the predators want to take spinal fluid from a kid with autism so they can get autism before global warming makes humans extinct.
Yes...the film is literally about weaponised autism.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Sept 21, 2018 1:19:07 GMT
Yeah, I heard some of the plot points and it's really awful. Supposedly it was originally going to be even worse, with human/predator team ups and shit. They also set up the shoulder cannon as a defensive weapon that reacted to danger, which is dumb as hell. The idea that the Predators have more interest in humans outside of as a game animal really ruins the appeal. The idea is that we don't matter to them as anything other than a minor challenge. That's kinda frightening since you can't really reason with that any more than a cow can reason with Ronald McDonald. Now they're talking about war, invasions, taking over the Earth and spinal fluids and shit to try and give it all a deeper meaning. Fuck that crap.
What I really hate about the Predator lore as it evolved was that it started to basically make them Klingons if you substitute battle for hunting. Probably the comics did most of that lore. And shoehorning them into the Alien universe is pretty awful. I mean, the Alien skull in the second movie was mostly there as an Easter egg, and then it became canon that they all exist in the same universe and fucked up the Alien timeline.
The thing about the shoulder cannon is that he couldn't have known he was going against an elite force who carry miniguns around in the forest. I get that the hunting spot he chose was a war torn country where he could expect some heavy firepower, but the cloak and infrared he has gives him such a huge advantage, and the cannon is just so damn effective. I mean, except for the part where all it does is mildly burn Dutch's arm. I still think it's slightly excessive.
Still really cool though.
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Post by Canuovea on Sept 21, 2018 17:42:30 GMT
Well we know AVP ain't cannon now. Xenomorphs didn't even exist at the time.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Sept 21, 2018 21:39:22 GMT
That's true, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant did a spectacular job of screwing up the timeline for multiple franchises. Which seems odd when you think back on Alien where they speculated that the eggs had been laying dormant in a shipwreck for possibly tens of thousands of years.
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Post by Harkovast on Sept 21, 2018 23:51:33 GMT
Hahha none of it makes any sense.
Basically watch Alien, then watches Aliens.
Then in a completely unrelated film series watch Predator.
Then you've seen everything you need from those franchises.
Sci Fi races often default to warrior honour culture after a while.
They do it with the mandalorians in the all the expanded/clone wars stuff for Star Wars too.
Honour bounds warriors is so fucking cliche adn they always end up making the honour code stupid and super impractical. Its usually shit anyone with half a brain can easily exploit against them.
I would argue the original Predator film is one of those movies that comes as close to a perfect film as you can get.
Was the 80s the greatest era of cinema?
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Post by wordweaver3 on Sept 22, 2018 0:36:02 GMT
Was the 80s the greatest era of cinema? Let's see... Aliens, Predator, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, Gremlins, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Princess Bride, Robocop, The Thing, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Die Hard, The Terminator, Blade Runner, The Evil Dead, Big Trouble in Little China, Poltergeist, Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi... that's just off the top of my head.
Seems a safe bet.
The 70s might be a close second since all the great directors of the 80s were learning to fly in the 70s. There was some okay stuff in the 90s, most of it just offshoots of what was great about the 80s. The aughts had Lord of the Rings, so that was pretty awesome, but not a huge amount after that. This last decade has just been dominated by Marvel, which I like a lot of them, but it can get tiring.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Sept 22, 2018 0:46:06 GMT
I suppose if someone held my feet to the fire and asked for the second best decade of film I'd have to say the 30s. Depression era film was just phenomenal.
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Post by Harkovast on Sept 22, 2018 1:49:32 GMT
Recent cinema had Mad Max Fury road that blew my fucking mind...but other than that its pretty slim pickings.
Its marvel or go home for big block busters.
Some how the 80's just seemed to light a fire under hollywood.
I just got done watching Commando today.
Arnie kills a literal small army of bad guys.
Fucking ace.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Sept 22, 2018 2:03:13 GMT
Y'know, I saw Fury Road and I thought it was okay. Everyone said it was amazeballs but I thought it was just a fun movie but not fantastic. The trucks and stuff were great and the chase was great, but story-wise it was just okay. Maybe cuz everyone told me it was uber awesome beforehand I went in with too high of expectations.
Commando is a fun Arnie movie, but I wouldn't call it a highlight of the 80s. Maybe the next rung above Raw Deal.
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Post by RED_NED on Sept 22, 2018 13:08:40 GMT
I was gonna come on and post predator shenanigans, cos i'm a massive aliens / predator fanboy, but instead I think its easy to overlook that there are actually some decent films that come out, even in this shoddy decade (though yes the 80's is the bestest). It's easy to be all doom and gloom, but even ignoring super hero films(even stuff like kick-ass and Logan which aren't your traditional marvel schlock), there's some gems out there in this decade. These are some I enjoyed: Inception Dredd Mad Max Fury Road Attack the Block Chronicle Interstellar Ex Machina The Martian Arrival 10 Cloverfield Lane John Wick 1 / 2 Turbo Kid Some good animated films: Kungu-Fu Panda 2 Toy Story 3 Madagascar 3 (yes, really!) Inside Out Here's some I thought were fun, but not amazing: Pacific Rim Edge of Tomorrow Book of Eli Predators Warrior Wolf of Wall Street The Lego Movie And there's a bunch I haven't watched like Zootopia, Frozen, the new blade runner and others that I hear are good. So, there's a few non-stinkers out there!  But no, The Predator doesn't look like one of them... |
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Post by wordweaver3 on Sept 22, 2018 22:09:11 GMT
I was disappointed in John Wick and Turbo Kid. I actually couldn't make it through either movie. Dredd was fine, way better than Stallone's version. It wasn't very clever, but I guess it wasn't trying to be, just a day in the life of Dredd. I don't remember much about Arrival other than to say I thought it was okay. I did enjoy 10 Cloverfield Lane, but the ending was a mess. Once John Goodman was out of the movie I wasn't as interested. Pacific Rim was a fun premise, but a lot of the acting was just abysmal. Kung-fu Panda 2 had the same arc for Po that he had in the first movie. I did kinda love Zootopia, but I think that was on a "regress into a childhood state" level. As an adult I could see its ham fisted message but the little boy in me didn't give a shit. That same little boy also loved Big Hero 6.
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Post by Harkovast on Sept 26, 2018 1:54:41 GMT
I really liked John Wick, I have no seen Turbo Kid.
I have a real life friend with aspergers so as you can imagined I rushed to tell him all about the plot to The Predator to see his reaction.
He said it sounded like "spergsploitation."
This made me laugh a ridiculous amount.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Sept 26, 2018 3:04:01 GMT
For some reason while I was watching John Wick and he was starting to blow people away I was like: "Wow! I am so bored! Is this all there is?" I really wasn't into the character or his motivations.
Hmmm... just to note that the 80s did have downsides. Animated film in the 80s was really poor. If not for Don Bluth there would hardly have been anything of note for the entire decade. I'm guessing that's why anime started to gain in popularity at the time. The 90s was a good time for animation with the resurgence of Disney. Though I suppose The Little Mermaid squeaks in as an 80s movie by a month.
Guess we're not talking about Predator anymore.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Sept 28, 2018 16:09:19 GMT
Yesterday I was watching a low budget sci fi flick called Kill Command and couldn't help notice all the Predator influenced beats in the movie. Establish a well oiled team, show the team in action as they easily take out a threat, start picking off members of the team, group cohesion starts to break down in the confusion.
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But no, The Predator doesn't look like one of them...