Yautja Fest - The Predator (2018)

In this episode, the hosts dive into the 2018 film 'The Predator,' directed by Shane Black and co-written by Black and Fred Dekker. They discuss the film's place as a transitional piece in the Predator franchise, its mix of action and humor, and its attempts at expanding the lore, particularly through new tech and predators. The conversation highlights the standout performances, especially by Sterling K. Brown and Olivia Munn, while exploring the film's multiple proposed endings.

00:00 Introduction and Opening Remarks
05:34 Plot Breakdown of The Predator (2018)
09:02 Character Analysis and Performances
23:14 Predator Lore and Technology
33:54 Alternate Endings
41:49 Olivia Munn's Surprising Performance
55:37 Ranking the Predator Movies
59:03 Upcoming Review of 'Prey'

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Weird way.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Preach we can kill it.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Good time.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Shouting out their way us. What the hell are you.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
Welcome back midnight viewers too?

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (00:55):
Oocha fest Oh my god, we're nearing the end of
the road, aren't we?

Speaker 4 (00:59):
Hp Where the end? The finish line is in sight?
Fa them Malone. I'm so excited.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
This is the end of one era of the Predator,
and now we've got a whole new sort of not
reboot necessarily, but a whole new creative direction going. Anyway,
what are we talking about today? We aren't talking about
the Predator.

Speaker 5 (01:24):
Do you know what my job description is. I'm in acquisitions.
I look up and I catch what falls out of
the sky.

Speaker 4 (01:39):
What's on the ship?

Speaker 5 (01:52):
Tell me about the mission?

Speaker 6 (01:53):
Did you see anything unusual?

Speaker 3 (01:57):
It's above our vague work. I get a cookie.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Now, look, I get it. Something went down in Mexico.
Nobody wants any witnesses.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
We need to know if you can your man pose
a threat? We're rangers, Backsley.

Speaker 7 (02:19):
If your mom's vagina were a video game to be
rated e for everyone.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
Isn't posing a threat? Kind of the fucking point?

Speaker 5 (02:42):
Credators just don't sit around making hats out of rib
cages the conquered space. But that's not what's.

Speaker 3 (02:50):
On the horizon.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
Sure, I'd be worried, Roy, I think you know what
is on the ship, The Ultimate Predators.

Speaker 5 (03:11):
We may die, we're still here, so come and get us.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
Motherfucker. That time modifier counts. This is the actual Predator.
This was released on September sixth, twenty eighteen. Actually this

(03:42):
was released on September the fourteenth, twenty eighteen. Written by
Fred Decker and Shane Black. Black and Decker their second
collaboration together, third technically, although they they're most famously known
for writing The Monster Squad. Together was also directed by
Shane Black. Shane Black, if you don't know, if you
have and listening to this show forever, it's a fucking
hero of mine, one of the greatest screenwriters of all time,

(04:05):
not that that's necessarily on display here. Based on characters
my Jim Thomas and John Thomas, starring Boyd Holbrook, Olivia
Munn Keegan, Michael Key, Travante, Rhodes, Sterling, k Brown, Jacob Tremley,
Alfie Allen, Thomas, Jane and Avon Strahowsky. Cinematographer Larry Fong
shout out to him. He's always doing good work. HP.

(04:26):
This is your first time with the Predator?

Speaker 5 (04:28):
Was it is?

Speaker 4 (04:29):
This is officially you were talking about we're graduating to
this next era of the Predator franchise. This was I'm
graduating because this is my last Predator movie that I
had not yet seen, so that was pretty exciting for me. So, yes,
it was my first time seeing it.

Speaker 3 (04:44):
What'd you think, a.

Speaker 4 (04:46):
Lot of mixed feelings on this one, Father Malone. There's
quite a bit that's problematic, and ultimately I not to
bury the lead, but I'm not sure this thing hangs
together fully as a as a cinematic experience. There are
moments that I really enjoyed. There's moments that I didn't.
There's moments that I wondered what Shane Black was thinking.

(05:08):
But I will say this, I was pretty much always entertained.

Speaker 6 (05:13):
This movie moves.

Speaker 3 (05:14):
It's my second favorite Predator movie. That's what I discovered
this time. This is probably my third time watching it
so in the theater when it came out after long delays.
Everyone this movie was delayed an entire year. I wonder
what could have been happening during that entire year. Was
just sitting on a shelf or maybe did they reshoot
the entire last third of the movie. I think it
was the last part. HP What was the story that

(05:35):
we received for the Predator?

Speaker 4 (05:39):
The story of the movie in a nutshell?

Speaker 3 (05:42):
So some plot?

Speaker 6 (05:44):
Okay, so we have yet it? Is there a plot?
There is a plot?

Speaker 3 (05:48):
Is there are several There's.

Speaker 4 (05:51):
A lot going on, and frankly, there are times where
it felt less like a Predator movie and more like
a kind of misfit army vehicle where they have to
band together and that has its own charms. But anyway,
the story of this movie, we have another, yet another
predator that's being chased to Earth by a larger predatorship

(06:14):
for reasons that will become clear later on. It crashes
on Earth and a sniper, an army sniper who's in
the middle of a hostage recovery, witnesses this engages the predator.
We have yet another agency that's been studying the predator
for presumably.

Speaker 6 (06:31):
Years and years and years.

Speaker 4 (06:33):
They take ownership of this predator that has survived the crash,
all of his equipment. They send the sniper off. Basically,
they put him on ice. They send him to the
looney bin for lack of a better term, with a
bunch of other misfit soldiers that have various forms of
PTSD and other mental health issues. While this is all happening,

(06:57):
the sniper has sent the predators helmets and risk gauntlet
to his son so he can have evidence that he indeed,
he did indeed encounter an alien. So we have this
government agency that is now trying to find these artifacts.

Speaker 6 (07:13):
They have their own predator.

Speaker 4 (07:14):
They bring in Olivia Munn's scientist biologist to come and
help them study the predator. Things go wry, the predator escapes.

Speaker 3 (07:23):
This is so interesting. What happens next?

Speaker 6 (07:25):
It's hijinks happen. Next there's the father.

Speaker 4 (07:31):
The sniper is trying to get back to his son
to you know, to because he knows the predator is
tracking this these artifacts and trying to get to his
house to get his helmet back. Because apparently their own
equipment is very, very important to the predators.

Speaker 3 (07:46):
They man, do not touch a predator's fucking armor.

Speaker 6 (07:50):
Man, don't do it.

Speaker 4 (07:51):
Don't ever borrow it, because they won't, you know, it's
bad news.

Speaker 6 (07:55):
So they're trying to don't spit into the wind.

Speaker 3 (07:58):
Won't spit into the wind.

Speaker 4 (08:00):
Step on no, don't pull the mask off that old
lone ranger.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
But most of all, yeah, don't touch predators, fucking dreadlocks.

Speaker 4 (08:10):
And don't mess around with Jim. But that's a story
for another day.

Speaker 3 (08:13):
Jim Thomas, Jim Varney.

Speaker 6 (08:17):
I think.

Speaker 4 (08:21):
So there's so these misfit, lunatic soldiers are trying to
help the guy save his son. The government agency is
on is tracking them, trying to get this predator tech back.
It's there's a lot of pursuit, a lot of gunplay,
not as much Predator as I would like. But again,

(08:42):
at times it's not such a bad thing because Shane
Black is, as you said, he's a great screenwriter. He
knows how to write an entertaining screenplay, so I didn't
necessarily mind it. But at times I was left wondering,
could this have been just another an action movie without
the Predator kind of overlaid onto it.

Speaker 6 (09:02):
Did you have any of those same thoughts for.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
The mom I had all of those thoughts. Yeah, this
feels like several action movies playing at once. It can't
really settle on which story is the most important, so
it just tries to tell us all of them equally,
thus satisfying none of our needs. Overall, I like the
story of the soldier trying to get home to his

(09:25):
kid and stranged wife because there's something he's done is
going to be visited an evil response to that, like
the Predator's going to come hunt them down, so now
he has to go say them. I like that story
a lot of like the interaction with his son and
the wife, that whole plot. I love the misfit dirty
dozen loonies fighting predators inexplicably, that's a really good plot.

(09:48):
I like the government agency trying to figure out what
the fuck is going on while all these other groups
are going on. Any one of these stories could have
just been its own movie, right.

Speaker 4 (09:57):
I think part of it for me that the secret
weapon of this movie is for the most part, and
I stress that for the most part, this movie has
cast really well. I love Sterling K. Brown as Traeger.
He's the leader of this team that's been studying the predator,
and he's so no bullshit and charming at times and

(10:19):
scary at times, ruthless. He's so effortlessly good. And the
team of the lunatic misfit so soldiers is also really
really good. I was I didn't realize that Thomas Jane
was in this and I was pleasantly surprised to see
him pop up.

Speaker 3 (10:37):
And I always count on the punisher, but when he
shows up, you can definitely count on him, even if
he has to Rett syndrome. Sterling K. Brown should be Blade,
I haven't.

Speaker 4 (10:48):
I've never thought of him in that role. I mean,
I kind of made my peace with mahrscha la Ali.
I think he still would have been very good.

Speaker 3 (10:55):
You know why everyone's settled them mahershal Ali as Blade.
He's stoic and we now think of Blade as a
stomic character. Is Blade a stoic character? I mean he
was in that comic book adaptation in the nineties, certainly,
but not the comic book character I read. He's pretty
gregarious at times, He's very Sterling K. Brown. Also, he's English.

(11:16):
Everyone should know. Does anyone know that Blade is an
English character? He's from English.

Speaker 6 (11:20):
I didn't know that. I never read Blade.

Speaker 3 (11:23):
I have Tomb of Dracula number one hanging on my
wall right here with the first appearance of Blade of
a sight. So yeah, I think Sterie K. Brown would
be a fantastic thing. But let's talk about some of
the other lunatics here Alfie Allen inexplicably Irish part of
the American army.

Speaker 4 (11:37):
That was a little odd, and to be perfectly honest,
he's the one that featured the least because I think
they he didn't get saddled with a very distinct marker.
Like you said, Thomas Jane has Turette's Keagan Michael Keys
is always making jokes. He's funny and a little crazy.
There's Nebraska, who is a chainsmoker and very laconic cool.

(12:01):
The Irish guy, the Irish member of this team, as
you said, inexplicable. I wish they gave him more to do,
but he just he's just kind of there.

Speaker 3 (12:09):
What's funny to me is I remember thinking that as
part of the too many plots, that we didn't really
get to know anybody, and I was disabused of that
rewatching at this time. This is the first time in
any of the Predator movies where we've stopped to get
to know the characters, and it's been interesting and I
wanted to know more. Probably the most well defined of

(12:31):
any of the teams, like I know things about these
characters at the end of the movie, whereas at the
end of the first Predator movie, I knew nothing going in,
I knew nothing about them going out.

Speaker 6 (12:41):
But that works for the very first one though, because.

Speaker 3 (12:43):
That's all we needed.

Speaker 5 (12:44):
Then.

Speaker 3 (12:44):
I'm just saying, yeah, the same amount of time, the
same amount of storytelling, and yet like this is actually
like a step above as far as the writing goes
as first what every Predator movie has been attempting to
do since then, which is that we have to get
used to a whole new human team and follow them
as in their travails against the Predator or Predator and
alien combo. And this is the first time that I've thought, like,

(13:07):
I like everyone here, I'm comfortable with these characters.

Speaker 4 (13:09):
Well, this is definitely the first Predator that had so
much humor in it. There might have been funny moments
in the first one and certainly the last one Predators,
there's a few funny moments. It's mostly played pretty stoically,
but this one, I would also I'm almost ventured to
say that the humor kind of outweighs the grimness. I mean,

(13:31):
there's a lot of death and maiming and destruction.

Speaker 6 (13:33):
In this that is what it is.

Speaker 4 (13:36):
But sometimes to the film's detriment. I think it's played
a little bit too much for laughs.

Speaker 3 (13:42):
I totally agree with that. It is definitely the funniest
of any of the Predator movies. But that's a guarantee.
When Shane Black is writing the script. You might come
up with plot inconsistencies, you might have problems overall with
structure or something, but you are never going to find
a more quotable, funnier film than his like Lethal Weapon,

(14:02):
Long Kiss, good Night, Last Boy, Scout, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bank.
They're all fucking bangers man.

Speaker 6 (14:09):
Agreed. Agreed to your point.

Speaker 3 (14:12):
But to your point, yes, there are some scenes where
there should be some tension, but there is zero tension
because everyone is making jokes, and there are plenty of
times where they're joking around. Is more than necessary as
an escape valve and then as just a getting to
know these folks kind of thing, but maybe not when
they're being attacked by Predator dogs.

Speaker 4 (14:35):
Yeah, and kudos also for making the team of lunatics.
They're all pretty good guys. I was prepared for it
to be more like, you know, some of these guys
maybe are a little dark around the edges, because at
a certain point in the movie they essentially rescue Olivia
Munn's biologist character. We'll talk about her and their character

(14:55):
in a minute. And I was very prepared for it
to be a little bit iffy because these are you know,
these are red blooded soldiers who have a screw loose.
I was a little worried for her character to be honest.
But it turns out they're all just really sweet guys
who have nothing but the best of intentions. I really
appreciated that about this.

Speaker 3 (15:14):
I will say this, I think Shane Black fell in
love with these characters because I mean, we'll spoilers everybody
you know that I need to say that with this
fucking show. But by the end we lose them. But
he's very precious about it. He doesn't. He waits until
he absolutely has to start kicking them lose. Before he

(15:35):
starts doing that, he keeps these guys inlive way too long.
I mean, I'm not complaining. I think we needed more
of them. I think they should have been front loaded in.
They should have been introduced earlier in the film, honestly.
But it's funny to me that if you compare it
to the first Predator movie, how quickly everyone starts dying
and how effortless. The predator starts picking them off one

(15:56):
by one, and here he holds onto them for dear life.

Speaker 4 (15:59):
He does, and he's also not he's not unwilling to.
I mean, a lot of them die very heroically, and
I think that's to your point. I think it's because
he loves these characters so much he wants to give
them that heroic ending. But at the same time, he's
Shane Black is also not afraid to just have a
guy die for no good reason. Just you know, there's

(16:21):
to skip ahead a little bit. One of the characters.
I don't recall the character's name, but he's a long
haired misfit who's got a thing for Olivia Mun's character
a little bit at the end, they're trying to break.

Speaker 6 (16:32):
He's the pilot.

Speaker 4 (16:33):
Okay, he really dies for no good reason that he's
on top of an alien ship. The shields power up
and his legs are effectively cut off by the shields
forming around his legs, and he just falls off the
ship and he dies. I don't know why, but I
kind of dug the fact that they didn't. He didn't
feel the need to give this this particular character a grace.

(16:53):
Note he just died for no good reason, and he
falls off the ship and that's it. He doesn't do
anything heroic.

Speaker 6 (16:58):
I don't know why, but I.

Speaker 4 (17:00):
Think we've grown to expect these guys to get a
nice tag, and a lot of them certainly do.

Speaker 3 (17:05):
But as useless as that death is, and I agree
with you, like he is not afraid to have someone
die in an glorified manner. But when's the last time
you saw a force field turn on and cut a
guy's legs off?

Speaker 4 (17:18):
It was pretty amazing, actually was you know, my jaw
was kind of left slack, and like, that is a
really inventive way to kill somebody off in a movie.
And another character has kind of, you know, flattened himself
on the ship, so the force field is effectively above
him and he's kind of trapped in this you know,
two foot gap between the ship and the very Some

(17:40):
of the stuff is very creative.

Speaker 6 (17:41):
CG.

Speaker 4 (17:42):
Might be a little dodgy at times, as you would
expect from a movie that's effectively almost ten years old now,
but pretty inventive and pretty creative at times.

Speaker 3 (17:50):
The cig in that scene in particular was dodgy because
that is that part of the movie that had to
be rejiggered there at the end. Yes, I that's part
of the movie that to be recombined there at the end.
I do not like the word rejiggered.

Speaker 4 (18:03):
Yeah, recombined, I re Yeah, that's it seems it sounds problematic,
even though I know it's not the other thing that
I did a little research, and apparently he was. Shane
Black is very cognizant of maybe have because this is
an R rated movie, I believe, but he wanted to
have the option. It is, but he wanted to have
the option of a PG thirteen version of it. So

(18:25):
I think a lot of the CG blood I think
was practically done so that it would be easy to
wipe in, you know, for another edit, right, because you
could just basically delete that layer of blood.

Speaker 3 (18:37):
Oh, that's exactly what happened. There are there were markets
with this movie was essentially a page without being a
PG thirteen was a PG thirteen.

Speaker 6 (18:45):
But makes sense.

Speaker 3 (18:47):
But this is when we watched Alien Versus Predator Requiem,
we noted how mean spirited the death seemed. These deaths
are way meaner and way more island, and yet did
not somehow seem exploitative. How is that possible.

Speaker 4 (19:05):
Because I think for the most part, you're right, there's
an awful lot of maiming and destruction in very creative
and violent ways. I don't know, I didn't really get
this sense because a lot of the deaths in Requiem
I think they read as harsh because these are flat
out innocents in a lot of cases. Case in point,

(19:27):
at very beginning, the hunter and his son get face
hugged and a chest You know, that's pretty awful to
have a child watch his own father die from a
chest burster.

Speaker 6 (19:37):
To me, if that's cruel in this.

Speaker 4 (19:40):
There are I guess you can't. You know, it's not
especially cruel, But I don't know. It felt like most
everybody who had it coming got it particularly bad here,
And that's maybe why I didn't have as much of
a problem with it, because it mostly seemed, and I'm
doing air quotes, justified this universe.

Speaker 3 (20:01):
So do you think one of the three guards that
is guarding that one of the three guards that's looking
after Ivan Strahovsky when the ultra predator, when the super
Predator arrives, you think that guy deserved being basically slit
in half with the predator's knife and then there was
basically a fountain of blood that poured down into the

(20:21):
basement through which he had just broken through the floor
or the ceiling.

Speaker 4 (20:26):
Well, I mean, not to get all clerks on you,
but I don't think he deserves it any less than
a stormtrooper on the Death Star when it was destroyed.
I mean, he's part of the enemy. He's holding this
woman against her will for nefarious purposes. And we've seen
Sterling Brown's characters not afraid to just say take them out,
So you know that these soldiers are prepared to go

(20:48):
that extra distance. So I wasn't Yes, in the moment,
maybe he is more innocent, but he had the potential
to be more problematic.

Speaker 3 (20:57):
Excellent point. These guys will kill anyone on command, so
they deserve what they get. Plus, look, man, I'm being
Devil's ad good. I loved all the violence in this movie.

Speaker 4 (21:05):
It was gratuitous and requiem. That's my problem with it
because we talked about the scene in the hospital where
there's a pregnant woman who gets impregnated multiple times by
the pread alien hybrid. That just that to me is
gratuitous because it's she's a complete innocent in all of this,
whereas a soldier who has the potential to wipe out

(21:27):
a family at a moment's order, I don't feel as bad.
The one of the only deaths that I maybe thought
was maybe a little over the top was at one point,
Boyd Holbrook, the guy plays a deck what's his name, McKenna,
His character is McKenna, his son who we're gonna we
gotta get into this. He's autistic and he's bullied at school.

(21:47):
He was sent the helmet in the risk Gauntlet because
in the movies world he's autistic. He's able to figure
out the technology and actually hack into the operating system.

Speaker 6 (21:59):
He goes out on Halloween.

Speaker 4 (22:00):
He's got the Predator's mask taped to his face. It's
cartoonishly big on him, and.

Speaker 3 (22:06):
He's got the risk off scene.

Speaker 6 (22:08):
It's a really good.

Speaker 4 (22:09):
Scene, and the bullies are just about ready to pounce
on him and they're making fun of him. This little boy,
Jacob Trembley's character goes to a house to trick a treat.
They never answer, and this jerk up in the balcony.

Speaker 3 (22:21):
The punk kid like in his early twenties, like you
can tell him, this scumbag.

Speaker 4 (22:25):
Like like a hesher kind of goes, I'll give you
a trick, a treat or something, and he throws like
a can or something at the kid and it doinks
off of the helmet, and the tech is set to
like automatically send a shot back when it gets hit.
So this cannon pops out of it, shoots the guy
like this hasher who has no idea what's happening, kills him,

(22:48):
blows up the whole house, and the bullies are just.

Speaker 6 (22:50):
Like, what is going on?

Speaker 4 (22:52):
So it's kind of a nice Yeah, you know, this
kid gave it to the bullies, but at the same time,
he just he killed at least he least one innocent
maybe a full house full of innocence.

Speaker 6 (23:03):
Not his fault, but it happened.

Speaker 3 (23:05):
The Predator is effectively at fault there because his tech
is a little too good.

Speaker 4 (23:10):
Defensively, it is it is, and I like they have
little touches, they're always. The one thing you can say
about all these movies is they're kind of expanding the
lore of the Predator, and that includes all the weapons
and tech, and this movie. There's a lot of cool
tech in this movie, including this autocanon that pops out
of the helmet and shoots whatever has been attacking it.

Speaker 3 (23:31):
There are gauntlets in this movie where those are new.
The predator, what he's after is his helmet or his
face plate really and one of his one of his
two gauntlets. He has the right one, but Boyd Holbrit
puts the other one on at the beginning and then
is attacked by a predator and then the gauntlet defends
him by shooting out a little disc that actually wounds

(23:52):
the predator.

Speaker 4 (23:53):
Yeah, and that's the predator that is taken away by
this strike team and is being studied.

Speaker 3 (23:59):
Let's talk predators second, because I know you've been super
critical of every Predator performance since Kevin Williamson. What did
you think of this fella?

Speaker 4 (24:09):
Uh, the one there's two predators, I guess as a whole.

Speaker 3 (24:12):
No, no, no, there is an actor and then there's
a fucking cartoon. I'm talking about the actor.

Speaker 4 (24:18):
Okay, he was fine, He read a little bit more
TV wrestler to me. He didn't again, I'm gonna be.

Speaker 3 (24:25):
More crowd man, I am.

Speaker 4 (24:28):
But I really think Kevin Peter Hall was Kevin Williams.
You said Kevin Williamson. I was wondering about that.

Speaker 6 (24:35):
I was like the guy who wrote scream? Did he?

Speaker 3 (24:37):
Oh? You remember him in the second Predator movie. He's
only in the ship at the end.

Speaker 4 (24:42):
Though, look, there's three rules to a Predator movie. Not anyway,
he was good.

Speaker 6 (24:47):
He was good.

Speaker 4 (24:47):
I think he was a little more pro wrestler than
lithe killing machine. And they do some weird things with
the Predator. This isn't necessarily related to his performance. So
maybe I'll leave it there and we can move in
a minute.

Speaker 6 (25:00):
But he was fine. He was fine.

Speaker 4 (25:02):
I didn't think that he was the best performance of
a Predator that I've seen. That honor still goes to
Kevin Peter Hall. Rip, what did you think of his performance?
You're looking at me like, are you crazy?

Speaker 3 (25:16):
No, I'm not. I don't think you're crazy, because obviously
Kevin Peter Hall's performance is just fucking fantastic. He is
the Predator. I mean, that's what we think of when
we think of a Predator. But I mean, can I
just say that I think this predator's better? I like
this Predator?

Speaker 6 (25:31):
Yeah, yeah, No, he's fine.

Speaker 3 (25:33):
I think I think he's moving in a much more
lithe way, in a much more professional way than before.
There are some shots here. I know that look, there's
a there's a ton of fucking CGI in this movie,
but there's a lot of practical stuff, just down to
little things like there's a rooftop chase where Olivia Munn

(25:54):
is chasing the predator. Let's we'll get to that. Yeah,
But but there's moment in it where the predator leaps
from one level to another, and you can tell that
they probably got the actor on one of these trampolines
that launches him up. But my god, seeing the predator
move as quickly and as gracefully as he was during
that whole scene, I don't know. I was just knocked

(26:15):
out by it. I will understand you not agreeing that
he's not as good as Kevin Peter Hall, but I
think he's the best we've seen since Kevin Peter.

Speaker 4 (26:23):
Best we've seen since. I will grant you that with
the proviso that there's still more Predator to come in
the franchise, which we'll get to when we get to it.
But yes, I will agree to that, and he's the
best since Predator too effectively.

Speaker 3 (26:38):
Yay win for me. I hunted that one down. I
like the fact that at one point during the several
times in the movie, they point out the fact that
predator is actually the wrong name for what he's doing.
They should be calling him a hunter. A predator is
just hunting for food.

Speaker 4 (26:53):
Yeah, that was kind of funny actually, and I guess
that was that grew out of a real discussion that
they had on set about the editor. But that is
and that's but that's something that not many actors can sell.

Speaker 6 (27:04):
But Sterling K.

Speaker 4 (27:05):
Brown, who I mean, they bring up this argument several times.
But when they're in the lab and that the biologist
Olivia mun says, yeah, that sounds more like a hunter,
like a game hunter, not like a predator.

Speaker 6 (27:15):
Predator only hunts to survive.

Speaker 4 (27:18):
And Sterling Brown is the one who's who basically says, now,
we had a vote on it and we agreed.

Speaker 6 (27:21):
Predator school, right guys, right guys. School.

Speaker 4 (27:24):
He has I use the word before. He has an
effortless smoothness about it.

Speaker 3 (27:30):
This is a very funny, it is.

Speaker 4 (27:32):
But he's so he really is kind of for me,
he's one of the aces in the hole of this
movie because he's so charismatic and you buy him being
somebody who could lead this team and seem because there's
scenes where he has to be super charming because he's
trying to cajole this boy into helping him unlock the

(27:54):
alien tech. You've got to buy that part of him
that he can get down to a boy's level and
relate and convince him to do something. But at the
same time, he's got to be this scary psycho motherfucker
who is you know. At one point, one of the
mercenaries has Olivia mun at gunpoint and he says, what
do I do, and Sterling K. Brown Trager just says, eliminator.

Speaker 6 (28:17):
You know that's it.

Speaker 4 (28:19):
He I buy him in both senses, and he's just
so good and he's so funny too.

Speaker 3 (28:25):
Talk about ruthless. At the end of the movie, boyd
Holbrook has a gun on him and he has Jake
and Trembley at his side, and Sterling came Brown, instead
of telling his men to put his guns down, tell says, man,
I'm going to count back from ten, at which point
shoot out the child's kneecap.

Speaker 6 (28:44):
It's really good.

Speaker 4 (28:45):
Because we've been trained in every one of these movies
where somebody's being held at gunpoint, like tell them to
put their guns down, they're like, you know, against their will,
they're like, all right, you'll lower your guns. But that's
not what he does at all. He threatens the guy's
son right in front of him.

Speaker 3 (29:00):
I'm shaying Blake so much.

Speaker 6 (29:01):
Man's so it's so good. It's really that part of it.

Speaker 4 (29:04):
It's like really good, I which makes it all the
more upsetting. Father alone, the way they took out Trager,
obviously we're there's this is a no, this is a
spoiler zone here now. To be honest, I practically blinked
and missed the moment that Trager got killed. I had
to go back and like rewatch the scene, like what

(29:25):
happened to him.

Speaker 3 (29:26):
It is certainly a chaotic scene, isn't.

Speaker 6 (29:28):
It It is?

Speaker 4 (29:29):
So can we go into that a little bit just
to give people context. Let's so, it's they effectively, after
this standoff between Trager and McKenna, they effectively joined forces
for the moment to try and take the predator out.
They realize that they're better off together than individually. So
they've made a truce and they're walking through these woods

(29:51):
and as one does, the predator attacks them. It's a
chaotic scene. There's guns going off, alien tech. Trager has
one of the shoulder mounted plasma cannons that we've seen
in all the Predator movies, and he's using that to
effectively fight the predator.

Speaker 3 (30:09):
And at one point, which he's been warned about they
warn him earlier, he picks that cannon up and his
subordinate says, you gotta be careful what that's her?

Speaker 4 (30:17):
Oh but it's but I saw that, but it didn't
read as the shoulder cannon because it's effectively a tube
at that point. It's not mounted, so I didn't make
that connection. That's just me being slow. But regardless, he's
got this shoulder cannon on Olivia Munn, says Traeger, and
he turns his head and the gun is pointed right

(30:37):
at his head and blows his head off. That's it,
ignominious death.

Speaker 3 (30:42):
Well, you said you like that about Shane Black. You
like it? You like it good ignominious death, don't you.

Speaker 4 (30:47):
I'm fine if it's not as chaotic and I can
understand what just happened.

Speaker 3 (30:52):
Well, do you want to talk about the chaos? Stand?

Speaker 6 (30:54):
I'd love to. I'd love to talk about a lot
of stuff.

Speaker 3 (30:56):
Let's talk about Let's talk about the specific plot of
the movie right now. What is happening here.

Speaker 6 (31:01):
At this moment in the movie.

Speaker 3 (31:03):
Overall, a lot of the movie, Number one is on
the run from predator to because he's stolen a bunch
of tack.

Speaker 4 (31:11):
Why, well, do you want to reveal we We don't
find that out until the very end.

Speaker 3 (31:16):
Is spoiler.

Speaker 4 (31:18):
So what's happened is and Trager is very good at
keeping one step ahead. He understands the predators, and he's
the one who kind of expositories this whole thing. The
global warming is happening there, the temperature is rising. The
biologist figures out that there's human DNA in the predator
that they're studying. So what Traeger has basically figured out

(31:40):
is that they are using the trophies that they get
of all of the humans and other aliens. They use
the DNA from those trophies that.

Speaker 3 (31:47):
They find in the spine, and hey, that's why they
rip out their spine. Everybody.

Speaker 4 (31:52):
Yeah, it's a very interesting twist because up to that
point you just think these are trophies, but no, they're
harvesting DNA to make themselves better hunters. So the fact
that the Earth's temperature is rising, humanity is effectively an
endangered species. The predator's visits are becoming more frequent. So anyway,

(32:13):
that's the predator that's coming, that's being chased by the
larger uber predator is effectively bringing a gift to humanity
to try and protect it from the onslaught of predators
that he knows is coming. And that onslaught is represented
by this giant uber predator that basically kills that the
first predator with very little difficulty.

Speaker 6 (32:35):
He's big, strong, he rips his.

Speaker 4 (32:38):
Head off like we've seen him do with so many humans.

Speaker 3 (32:41):
And I don't know how she noticed that when when
he did that, he didn't use it like a trophy
at all. He just went inflicted away like so much rubbish.

Speaker 6 (32:50):
Yeah, he just dropped it. I don't need this.

Speaker 4 (32:52):
But somehow the biologist recognizes that this giant predator has
an exoskeleton on the inside. I don't know how she
figured out, because he just looks like a predator to me.

Speaker 6 (33:02):
But this is this.

Speaker 4 (33:04):
Predator is we're led to believe has been crossbred with
all this predator DNA and that's what makes him bigger, faster,
and tougher. But what he's after, this thing that the
other predator was bringing to humanity to try and give
us a fighting chance, and we don't find out until
the very end that it's a predator killer armor. It's

(33:27):
actually pretty cool. I'm kind of a little sad that
we never saw this thing in action, really in action.
But it's this armor that kind of bonds to you.
It's kind of, you know, it's like Iron Man armor. Basically,
it kind of flies into you. It armors you. You
become a robot predator that has all these guns and
rockets and things. And it's that we're led to believe

(33:48):
that McKenna is going to be the predator killer in
the sequel that we never got of this.

Speaker 3 (33:54):
Okay, one of three endings, Ending number one preferred Shane Black.
They were really pushing for it the whole time. They
reveal the tech from the alien ship and it's a
cryo chamber and in it is Dutch Schaeffer. He was

(34:14):
bringing Dutch Schaeffer back to help us fight the other predators.
Ending number two, Ending number two. Are you ready for
Ending number two? I'm Sam Set up cryo chamber. Open
up the cryo chamber. Who's in it?

Speaker 4 (34:29):
Don't tell me to any glovers in it? No Adrian Brody, no,
Martin Riggs. I don't know who's in the other cryot.

Speaker 3 (34:36):
Close Ellen Ripley, Oh you know, I think I.

Speaker 4 (34:39):
Did read that somewhere, but I didn't really. It didn't
make much of an impact.

Speaker 3 (34:43):
How would she travel back in time? I don't know.
They filmed that you're shooting me.

Speaker 4 (34:48):
They filmed Sigourney Weaver coming out of the crood.

Speaker 3 (34:51):
Oh, they filmed a double with a breathing mask over
her face in a patch that read Ellen Ripley.

Speaker 6 (34:59):
Oh, wow, have you seen it?

Speaker 3 (35:01):
I have not seen it, but I did read the
original screenplay, and oh boy, let's talk about the original screenplay.
What did you think of We'll get there, but here's
a question that when this is part of the movie,
we should talk about. What did you think of the
Predator dogs in this movie? They're not the same. They're
not the same as the last Predator dogs we saw, right.

Speaker 6 (35:23):
They're not. But to be honest, I mean, the scene
is cool.

Speaker 4 (35:28):
We won't go into the scene, but basically there's a
scene much like Predators the last movie, where they're in
a baseball field and the Predator dogs come out. They
didn't make a lot of impact to me. They're faceless
and they don't really have a lot of panache to
them that I found interesting. The interesting part there was
one of the mercenaries shoots the dog in the head,

(35:50):
shoots one of them in the head and renders him docile,
Like he effectively lobotomizes the dog, so it becomes more
like a real dog.

Speaker 6 (35:59):
That's you know, kind of.

Speaker 3 (36:01):
Like it's a sweet pep boy at that point.

Speaker 4 (36:03):
Yeah, yeah, it becomes a loyal pop.

Speaker 3 (36:05):
Riley Jean was riveted once that dog became nice.

Speaker 4 (36:10):
It's a little dark that it took a bullet to
the head to make the thing docile, but it was
kind of It's the source of some fun comedy in
the movie. But to be honest, I didn't really.

Speaker 3 (36:21):
The predator notice anything interesting. Do you notice anything interesting
about their design?

Speaker 6 (36:25):
They had the dreadlocks.

Speaker 3 (36:27):
They did have dreadlocks, almost as if they had been
genetically engineered.

Speaker 6 (36:32):
Yeah, I wondered about that.

Speaker 3 (36:34):
Well, guess what. Originally the gigantic predator was a gene
splicing predator. Those are his dogs, after all, and he
had an entire menagerie of predator spliced aliens, predator, crocodiles, predator,
giant spiders, predator, this and that and the other thing,

(36:55):
an entire horror show. The our hero Predator, the fugitive
Predator stole the menagerie, that's what the ship was, and
was transporting it so he couldn't have it so he
wouldn't be able to use it on Earth, and brought
it to Earth instead, at which point at the end,
they open up the ship and all of these Predator

(37:17):
monsters come out and it's a fucking monster battle.

Speaker 4 (37:22):
Sounds expensive in broad daylight, sounds even more expensive.

Speaker 3 (37:26):
They filmed at Harris, they filmed at HP Nice. I've
never seen it.

Speaker 4 (37:31):
There's a lot that they filmed. I know that the
ending of Keegan, Michael Key and Thomas Jaye's characters were
also like refilmed like originally they didn't die the way
they did in the released version. There's an awful lot
of this going on with this movie. It makes me
wonder if there's a whole nother cut, like release the Baute,

(37:51):
the Black cut exactly released, the Shane cut.

Speaker 3 (37:54):
Shane come back, Shane. The thing is, you know Shane
Black is intimately involved in movie, so I don't think
he's spoiling to get another cut out there, and you
know he's taking his lumps. He's spoken about the movie
that he fucked out up and you know, didn't deliver
the movie that people wanted. But yeah, that that was
the original ending. I'd love to see that ending. I

(38:16):
would too, I really, I've read comments on the ending
and they're fucking nuts. Like the ending that we got
was okay, but it was just kind of the end
of that A team episode that was running through the movie,
you know what I mean. I didn't want the A
team ending at the end. I wanted a fucking predator ending.

Speaker 6 (38:33):
And you really just encapsulated it beautifully.

Speaker 4 (38:36):
It really is like an a team of misfit soldiers
that band together and it just so happens in this
case that their foe is a predator from outer space.
But it could have been it could have been a
drug lord, it could have been any number of things,
and it would have been an equally interesting movie.

Speaker 3 (38:52):
Perhaps a team meets the Predator.

Speaker 6 (38:56):
Yeah, do you know?

Speaker 3 (38:57):
There was an Archie meets Predator too. After this came out,
I read I.

Speaker 4 (39:01):
Think I read the first Archie Versus Predator and it
was interesting. I can't say that I liked it. I
appreciated their willingness to kind of blend these two disparate genres.

Speaker 3 (39:12):
You should take it.

Speaker 6 (39:13):
Yeah, I will. I will.

Speaker 4 (39:15):
I'm sure they have a new line that's the Marvel
Universe versus Predators.

Speaker 6 (39:20):
Did you know that brand new?

Speaker 3 (39:22):
I did know that, and I don't want to dive inte.
I kind of just don't want to. I mean, maybe
I will eventually, but I'm we're experiencing Predators so purely
right now. Although if you wanted to, you could read
the prequel novel for this film, just for the Predator,
there's a prequel.

Speaker 6 (39:41):
Yeah, did Alan Dean Foster write it?

Speaker 3 (39:44):
No, I don't know the author. Off the top of
my head. I did listen to it. I didn't read it,
but I listened to it. It's about it's about Sterling K.
Brown's characters and his and his squad, the Reapers. That's
their case. That's his team's name, the Reapers.

Speaker 4 (39:57):
I would check that out. Actually, speaking of the Reapers,
one thing that we haven't mentioned, which I thought was
a neat little I don't call it an easter egg
is one of the one of the scientists that's there
when Olivia mun shows up to study the Predator is
played by Jake.

Speaker 6 (40:11):
Busey, who number one.

Speaker 4 (40:15):
I love the fact that he's so restrained and kind
of nerdy in this. I'm used to him being like
his dad, a little more boisterous and kind of hey. Here,
he's just like a nerdy scientist. He starts off that way,
the Predator attacks and he dies as a nerdy scientist.

Speaker 6 (40:31):
I thought that was pretty cool.

Speaker 4 (40:32):
But he's meant to be the son of Gary Busey's
character from Predator two.

Speaker 3 (40:37):
Yeah, it's a it's an easter egg that's right there,
But they don't like at no point that they go
like my dad was blah blah blah, which is nice,
Like it's there if you want to.

Speaker 6 (40:46):
They don't call attention to it. Yeah, there are tons.

Speaker 3 (40:48):
Of little easter eggs like that throughout the entire film.
In fact, Shane Black is not shy for acknowledging the
other films, right down to the Alien Versus Predator. One
of their artifacts I don't know if you noticed, is
sna Leathan's spear, the xenomorph tail spear.

Speaker 6 (41:03):
Really that I didn't notice.

Speaker 4 (41:05):
I did notice that when he finally escapes and kills
everybody in the lab, there's a glass case with I
think that's where you're talking about where the artifacts are,
and he doesn't have his mask. The kid has his mask,
so he gets it's effectively the original Predator's mask from
Predator one. And I think it's great that we've had
so much lore that we can recognize like one mask

(41:28):
from the other. That thought that was really clever. Can
we we haven't really gotten back to this, and I
don't want to lose sight of it. There's really two things,
two negatives. We talked a lot about how much we
loved about the movie, But can we talk about two
negatives in my opinion.

Speaker 3 (41:41):
When we talk about a biologist who turns into a
fucking action star within moments.

Speaker 6 (41:47):
Sure, that's number one. Well, how did let me ask you? First?

Speaker 4 (41:51):
As an actress, how did you feel when you saw
that Olivia Munn had a starring role in this picture?

Speaker 3 (41:59):
My heart felt through the floor when I saw that
she was in the cast. This is before I saw
the movie, my mind. I previously my experience with Livy
Munn had been as a Maximum cover model and as
a pilock. I think that's pretty much the sum total
of my experience of her. And I don't know, she's

(42:20):
a pretty girl, you know what I mean, But I didn't.
I didn't think too much of her acting Jumps. I
liked her a lot in this movie. I think she
was really good in the movie.

Speaker 4 (42:28):
She's better than I expected. I like, you had low expectations.

Speaker 3 (42:32):
I knew on me, I guess is what I'm fucking saying.
Don't judge a book by its cover, like because I
thought she was really good, like given the fucking bizarre
logic of her role in this film, the fact that
she manages to come off normal and not betray how
stupid everything they're making her do is.

Speaker 6 (42:53):
Sure my my intro to her.

Speaker 4 (42:55):
My previous experience was a little more extensive in that
I used to watch it was like a network called
G four, which was a network for video games and
things like that, and they had a show.

Speaker 3 (43:08):
Sorrow. This was the rise of nerd fucking Nerd Kingdom,
nerd fucking.

Speaker 4 (43:13):
This was like Spike TV, this was back in those days,
and their flagship show, their news show, news variety show
was called Attack of the Show, and she was one
of the co hosts. It was her and some other
nerdy guy and she she proved in that. I mean,
she obviously she's very pretty, and that's a big part
of her appeal. But she did prove in that show

(43:35):
that she could she could twist that on its head
a little bit, and she could be funny, and she
could act a little bit. And you know, she wasn't
just a pretty face. It wasn't, but she wasn't also
going out of her way to do a Jenny McCarthy thing,
which is, I know I'm pretty, but I'm gonna do
my best to make myself repulsive. I'm gonna belch, I'm
gonna fart, I'm gonna do all this stuff, And hey,

(43:56):
isn't that funny when a pretty girl does these things?
She never stooped to that level, and I appreciated that
about her. She was better than I expected her. And
I guess, to your point, shame on me too, because
as people coming into a movie, especially totally fresh like
I did, you should never go in with preconceived notions.
And I fear that's what I did. Having said that,

(44:18):
it is a little tiresome and they don't really play
with this trope.

Speaker 6 (44:23):
But have we kind of gotten past this.

Speaker 4 (44:26):
Idea of the beautiful, brilliant scientist like who is that?
There was was a Denise Richards in that James Bond
movie as.

Speaker 3 (44:33):
She was a nuclear scientist.

Speaker 4 (44:35):
Yeah, that makes me bristle when I see somebody pretty
in a role like this. Having said that, she comports herself,
Oliviamane comports herself much better than I gave her any
credit for.

Speaker 3 (44:48):
I believed her as a badass member of that squad
of that movie, because I don't know what her place
is in this film other than as the person who
infiltrates the lab, grabs a thing, and then figures out
what they're up to. That's the function of her character.
But they introduce her as this like bookish professor who

(45:09):
gets called on by this stargazer organization, which is the
storylin K Brown's organization to come check out this alien,
to like double check their findings or something. So this
is the furthest from an action star ever, and she
behaves appropriately up until the fat up until the moment
where the predator reeks fucking havoc in that lab. Great scene,

(45:31):
by the way, love seeing a predator bite somebody for
the first time.

Speaker 6 (45:35):
First time.

Speaker 3 (45:36):
Absolutely we've been looking at that scary fucking mouth. This
holds on five movies. Nobody went wouldn't it be good
if he bids somebody anyway? During that scene, predator kills
everyone in the room. She tries to get out. The
only way to get out is through the decontamination, so
she's effectively naked on the floor without a weapon when
the predator comes in, so she's not a threat and
he leaves, and she's so fucking shaken. In that scene,

(45:58):
this is when I was like, Oh, why she really
really good? I like her that what follows makes zero
sense at all. Her reaction to oh my god, I
faced this creature from another planet that killed everyone in
that room and then spared me. Let me grab a
trank gun and chase it down. Let me jump onto
a moving bus and then stand on said moving bus

(46:21):
trying to get a shot. Like, either she's a member
of that team or she's a Sandra Bullack character.

Speaker 4 (46:28):
If it were me, let's say I'm the scientist who
goes in there and I face down a predator in
that fashion, and he spares me, but he gives me
a nice long glare before he does.

Speaker 6 (46:40):
No hyperbole. I would literally be.

Speaker 4 (46:42):
Shitting myself, and I think I would probably have PTSD
for the rest of my life. Because number one, I
have to come to terms with the fact that aliens
do exist.

Speaker 6 (46:53):
And I just and this.

Speaker 4 (46:54):
Thing that I just saw kill people in the most
egregious way that you can imagine, spared me. I think
I'd be I would be on that bus with the lunatics.

Speaker 6 (47:04):
I would be done.

Speaker 3 (47:06):
Is that Shane Blackswall, it's too real world a moment
to follow it up with, and now it's action fun.

Speaker 4 (47:12):
Well, they try to play it off like she She's like, well, no,
this is my alien. I'm not gonna let him get away.
I want to study him. So that becomes her obsession.
She is driven by the idea that I, you know,
I came this close to studying an alien.

Speaker 6 (47:26):
I'm not going to let him get away.

Speaker 3 (47:28):
It's all very happenstance. There's so much logical happenstance in
this Like this, the squad just happens to be there,
like dud when they're putting them on the bus with them,
you know, like weit. Holbrook's character did was not familiar
with these characters before we meet them, which is like
thirty minutes into the film right right the but should

(47:48):
they not have been his team from the beginning? Shouldn't
it have just been the A team framed for a
crime they didn't commit, like they as a cover up,
Like and then they're fighting amongst themselves in the looney
bin like they're were aliens.

Speaker 6 (48:00):
No, there weren't.

Speaker 3 (48:01):
You're actually crazy, No you are, you know, like something
like he needed to pick a story because I want
to either follow Boyd Holbrook saving his son and doing
hold that whole thing, or I want to follow this
fucking A team story.

Speaker 4 (48:14):
There is something very endearing about that whole team of
damaged soldiers because they each, as you said, they take time.
Shane Black takes time to really let you get to
know all of them, and they all have a very
interesting backstory, like Nebraska, who's effectively the leader of the
group when Holbrook meets them. He shot himself in the head.

(48:35):
He tried to commit suicide effectively, and then he had
to walk himself to the hospital when it didn't work.
And I don't know, just the guy with Tourette's, you
automatically feel, at least I do somebody who has this
involuntary condition. Your heart goes out to them because you
know he's a misunderstood character on the face of it.

Speaker 3 (48:55):
A fun fact, although that might not be it might
not be a fun fact. Shane Black also has to write.

Speaker 4 (49:00):
And I'm aware of that, and that made it a
little complicated to think about this character because the Turets,
Let's be honest, has played for laughs in this But
the fact that Shane Black has Turets does, I guess
that's supposed to excuse it or make me feel better
about it being used.

Speaker 6 (49:19):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (49:19):
Is it any better or worse than autism is a
magical step in our evolution and will allow you to
understand alien technology.

Speaker 4 (49:30):
That's the biggest bar none, The biggest problem I had
with this movie was the treatment of a.

Speaker 6 (49:35):
Boy with autism.

Speaker 4 (49:37):
He's effectively like he's like rain Man basically because he
has this preternatural ability to understand the aliens tech and
figure things.

Speaker 6 (49:48):
I mean, he's doing.

Speaker 4 (49:49):
Things like like this alien, this the uber alien is
Predator has been pursuing in this ship and he cloaks
to get into Earth's you know, it's to land on
Earth and the kids playing with this thing, and the
kid can effectively turn off and on the cloaking of
the aliens or the Predator's ship at will. I mean

(50:09):
He's figured this out in less than a day. So
I don't I take umbrage with the fact that number one, well,
really that autism is being treated like this, like a
super intellect. This, as Oliviaman says, the next step in evolution.
And in fact, that figures into the story because at
one point, and I thought this was kind of cool.

(50:32):
Actually for the first time. Let me back up for
a minute, we actually have translated predator language in this
which I was very excited for.

Speaker 6 (50:41):
Fahlahlah.

Speaker 4 (50:42):
There's some subtitling that happens when the ship is on
its way, and then when they're trying to break into
the ship, Traeger has set up this translator and downloaded
the predator's language onto this device. The predator, the uper predator,
gets on the ship and he talks to the people
and to the mercenaries and so forth, and he says, look,

(51:05):
this is my ship.

Speaker 6 (51:06):
You're not gonna get this ship.

Speaker 4 (51:08):
All I want is this item that the other predator had.
And I'm gonna give you guys a head start. I'm
gonna let you. Let me give you like a seven
minute head start. By the way, one among you is
called McKenna. He's your leader. He will be my trophy,
which is kind of scary to think that, Wow, this
is actual alien, like an alien talking to us, and

(51:29):
we understand it. We're led to believe that he means
McKenna the sniper, but no, because this autism is being
treated as, you know, something glorious. He actually met McKenna
the child because of course he's autistic, so he must
be an evolutionary step forward. The predator thinks so, and
in fact, the predator eventually steals the boy and tries

(51:51):
to leave Earth with him in an escape pod. I
for all of the good that happens in this movie
and all the great stuff in the screenplay, it was
just so hard for me to get past this, the
treatment of autism in this movie. I thought it was
really just unfortunate and a real bummer.

Speaker 3 (52:10):
You know, it's unfortunate.

Speaker 4 (52:12):
But how did you feel? I mean, I talked a
lot about this, but what were your feelings? Fun and alone?

Speaker 3 (52:16):
I didn't feel quite as harshly towarded on this viewing
as I did before. I don't think it's look, it's
as muddle headed as is it as muddle headed as
punching down? I don't know man like it's not played
for laughs, but you know it's I guess it's kind
of like feeling like, you know, you're Chinese and everyone

(52:38):
thinks you're mystical and can do kung fu or something.
You know, it's just like, you know, like I can
see the criticism of Big Trouble in Little China at
a moment where Chinese people are trying to foment their
or you know, cement their national identity as you know,
just hard working American people, and like, would you stop
treating us like, you know, we can shoot fire and

(52:58):
summon dragons.

Speaker 4 (53:00):
That's a very fair point. That is a very fair point.
And I don't have a I guess I didn't think
of it in those terms. But at the same time,
I don't know, I just it.

Speaker 6 (53:10):
I don't know. I don't know how you would I guess.

Speaker 4 (53:12):
Could it have worked as well had the boy just
been a really smart, nerdy kid without this overlaid you
issue of autism blanketing him.

Speaker 3 (53:23):
Yeah, yeah, yes, it definitely could have it. The script
is such a fucking kitchen sink of ideas that it
doesn't necessarily need to be in there. I don't know,
I don't know how I feel about it. I mean,
I wanted to just give everyone the benefit of the
doubt because I know their intentions from previous works. You know,

(53:44):
it doesn't excuse it. I suppose I don't have a
child with autism, so I don't really have a dog
in the fight necessarily, or a predator dog in the fight.
But Geene, now you're making me not like the movie
at all.

Speaker 4 (53:56):
Ah me, Well, no, it doesn't kill my whole enjoyment movie.
We just talked for the better part of an hour
about how much what we loved about it, and that
doesn't change that. I just I really wish he had
And this is Look this, if this movie had come
out in nineteen ninety seven, let's say, doesn't excuse it,

(54:16):
but it would have made it more understandable that maybe
autism was understood very differently two decades ago or whatever.
But this wasn't that long ago. I think we understand
collectively a lot more about autism and how you know
how to treat folks on the spectrum and how what
that means to be autistic. I thought we left the

(54:37):
whole rain Man thing back in the eighties, so it
was a little dismaying. No, it was a lot dismaying
to see this in this movie. Didn't kill the movie
for me. I just couldn't help wishing that it would
had been otherwise.

Speaker 3 (54:48):
Do you think it was maybe a misguided attempt at hopefulness? Like,
I know it seems bad, folks, but don't worry. You're
just actually the next evolutionary step.

Speaker 4 (54:57):
That's the most charitable explanation for it. Sure, yeah, I
guess I will go ahead and give Shane Black the
benefit of the doubt on this. I don't think he
was out to purposefully exoticize the notion of autism, just
like I don't think it was John Carpenter or W. D.
Richter's notion to exoticize Asian American culture in Big Trouble

(55:20):
Little China. I just think it's a factor of the
time it was made and the people that made it.

Speaker 3 (55:25):
It's a topic that must be wrestled with. If we're
going to enjoy this movie, if we must sing it's praises,
we must let you know that there are problematic issues.

Speaker 6 (55:34):
This is that's a very well set overall.

Speaker 3 (55:37):
Where do you rank it?

Speaker 4 (55:39):
Ooh, it's a very The thing of it is like, look,
number one, it's better than Predator two, it's better than Requiem,
It's better than AVP hands down. Where it's a little
tough for me to judge is Predators. The previous movie
is so different tonally, structurally, everything about it is so different.

(56:01):
It's a bit of an apples and oranges argument. But
if we're judging this primarily on entertainment value, was how
much entertainment did I get from this versus Predator? Predators?
This was more entertaining. So I'm going to say I
like this better than Predators. But that's not saying I
didn't I enjoyed Predators.

Speaker 6 (56:19):
This was better.

Speaker 3 (56:20):
Do we rank them so far? Yeah, Because here's the thing.
From here on out, I consider this the end of
the first Predator era, let's say, because from now on,
Tracktenberg's in charge, and from now on, I think we're
going to be thinking about the Predators a little more
thoughtfully and a little less you know what, would be cool,
because that's what every filmmakerup until now has been doing

(56:41):
every time they get their hands on this franchise.

Speaker 4 (56:43):
Good point, So let's obviously number one has well, you
want to go backwards in reverse.

Speaker 3 (56:48):
Number one is Predator. There's no surprise.

Speaker 4 (56:51):
It's it set the tone. It's still the best movie overall.
Nothing's going to top Predator, the second best. I would say,
is this the Predator agreed? Then Predators agreed. Then it's
a very big drop off from there to.

Speaker 3 (57:09):
But Alien versus Predator has more charms than it's misbegotten sequel.

Speaker 4 (57:14):
Sure, look, Requiem is going to be bottom of the
barrel regardless because stacking it up against any other movie,
it's going to be the worst.

Speaker 3 (57:22):
Thank god, it's there right like you. Every movie that
comes out from now on we can always just say,
but was it as bad as Requiem?

Speaker 6 (57:30):
No, that's true. It can only get better from there,
that's for sure.

Speaker 3 (57:34):
But oh how how I love you?

Speaker 6 (57:36):
Oh wait, you know what we didn't know? I'm sorry
we didn't rank Predator.

Speaker 3 (57:39):
Too because it's not on the list, because we're just
tossing off the list Predator too, Yeah, it doesn't exist.

Speaker 6 (57:45):
Why is that? Get off.

Speaker 5 (57:47):
With you?

Speaker 3 (57:48):
Obviously we've got to put it on the list. How
dare we even forget it?

Speaker 4 (57:53):
I would say, it's then I would offer that it
should be just above a VP agreed. So it's just
it's lots of into that third spot. Effectively or fourth spot.

Speaker 3 (58:03):
I want to like it more than Predators, but it
is not as good a movie.

Speaker 6 (58:07):
It's not.

Speaker 4 (58:08):
And I think we talked about this when we discussed
that movie. I liked it a lot when I first
saw it in the theater. Predator too. I did not
like it nearly as much when we rewatched it for
this series. In fact, I disliked it a lot.

Speaker 3 (58:23):
Well, there it is. There's the list Predator, the Predator,
Predators so ridiculous, and then Predator two versus Predators Predator. Okay,
that's it.

Speaker 6 (58:42):
I don't know why that's so funny, but that is.

Speaker 3 (58:45):
I'm just and oh, you know what's funny. Here's what's funny. HB.
Do you know the original title of Predator.

Speaker 4 (58:51):
The first Predator? Yes, I have no idea. What was
the original title?

Speaker 3 (58:56):
Hunter? Until next time, we're gonna be taking a look Finally, motherfuckers,
we're gonna be taking a look at Pray. That'll be
two weeks from today, ladies and gentlemen, unless you're listening
on the Patreon channel, Hey patrons, welcome to September. Everyone else,

(59:16):
this will be sometime in November October. I don't know anyway, HB.
Until then, where can people find you when they're looking
for you? And they are you?

Speaker 6 (59:24):
All right? I hope? So I welcome it.

Speaker 4 (59:27):
I co host the Night Mister Walters Taxi podcast alongside
my best friend in the world, Father Alone. Here, I'm
Miniqui a and also a world's best Fonzie impressionist. Over here,
I am an occasional guest on the Culture Cast with
Chris Dashu. I also host occasionally host the Noise Junkies

(59:47):
music podcast.

Speaker 6 (59:48):
And I'll let you kind of when I feel like it.

Speaker 4 (59:51):
And I also, last but not least, I have a
band campsite hpmusicplace dot bandcamp dot com.

Speaker 3 (59:59):
As for me, you're listening to the show you know
it all patreon dot com, slash Father Alone. Thank you
to all the patrons, by the way, really appreciate it.
I got a lot of good stuff coming up for
you soon, including a new HP hates Me. In fact,
if you're listening to this, Yude, I probably already on
the Patroon channel. We're gonna be looking at fucking f M.
That's right, the Father Alone movie. All right, We're gonna

(01:00:24):
we're gonna leave with oh, you know what, there are
so many fucking good lines, it's gonna be hard to
choose one. So anyway, here's something fucking hilarious from the
Predator Morning Sunshine. I really wish people would stop calling me.

Speaker 6 (01:00:35):
That Sure ye I told you she grabbed a ted Fox.

Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
You're not gonna need that.

Speaker 7 (01:00:49):
Good I told us cold Fragger I put you that time.
I like her, I should put you that tiger.

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
I like her.

Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
I like her.

Speaker 5 (01:01:07):
I like her.

Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
I like her a lot. Plead you can kill it,
make good timing, shouting out their way job

Speaker 3 (01:01:39):
What dy hell are you