You can split hairs over remake vs. sequel but remember when a Mad Max sequel seemed like just the latest opportunistic lazy franchise money grab?
Or a Star Trek reboot or Batman.
I’m game for anything really to erase AVP from my mind.
Wait I thought Predator 2 and Predators are ok. Not pure money grab like AvP (2 is surprisingly ok, still not good but ok). At least Predators goes back to the Predator 1 vibe (but without the wit).
As to Shane Black, directing. Day 1. Shane Black is the king of one liner, like Last Action Hero (I may be the only person here who think it is great…), Lethal Weapon (with a “good” Mel Gibson before he went all anti-Semitic) and The Last Boy Scout. Iron Man 3 is again a top Shane Black effort. However I thought Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is a bit of a narrative mess, but the chemistry and lines between RDJ and Vil Kilmer made it all ok.
Do we know if this is supposed to be R rated or not? I mean, I know they haven’t filmed it yet, but I’m wondering if Fox is looking for a PG-13 thing or do we get a real Predator movie.
Not currently known, but the good news is that Deadpool has shown Fox that there is money to be made in R-rated movies.
Thank God!
I’m excited at the idea of another predator and for that matter another alien. The trick is making it smart. I think Shane Black can do that. I hope it is more of a sequel than a reboot. I pitched a Predator 3 script before it became Predators and the thing I really wanted, which of course no marketing team wants, is to not call it predator. I wanted people to go into the movie thinking it was something else and then have the predator show up. At the time, Tim Roth was interested.
It’s harder to accomplish as time goes on, but one of the best things was to watch From Dusk 'Til Dawn without knowing anything about it other than it being a heist movie with Clooney and Tarantino.
This was announced forever ago, and I had completely forgotten that Shane Black was involved here. This has my interest for sure.
Yeah, Fox is really good about learning from past successes and failures. Said no one ever.
Heh, you’re right AVP2 had some good moments and ideas. i just think the world could use a couple of movies to remove AVP from the memory pool for Alien and Predator fans.
People seem to either love her or hate her. Olivia Munn is in.
[quote=“tomchick, post:13, topic:75085”]
So, serious question: Why do you have so much fondness for Predator? And why does your son like it so much? I’d love to hear more about what makes it work for you guys. For me, it’s a weird confluence of sci-fi horror (much of which I suspect is lifted from this crappy movie, which features the exact same actor wearing the monster suit!) and 80s Schwarzenggar testosterone. Why does it hold up for you guys?[/quote]
A couple years late with this reply but what I liked most about Predator is the hinted at but not really spelled out background of Arnold’s team.
In the first scene with Carl Weathers (after the air arm wrestle), Weathers’ character, Dillion, asks Arnold’s character, Dutch, why he passed up on the mission in Libya. Dutch’s reply was “We’re a rescue team, not assassins”. Dillion and some high-ranking military guy in the background exchange a brief look suggesting that this mission is more complicated than presented. This movie was released in 1987, a year after the US airstrike in Libya in retaliation to a terrorist bombing at a Berlin nightclub. I liked the real world reference here.
Later on, as the team is infiltrating through the jungle towards their rebel camp target, one of Arnold’s team members, Pancho the scout, pauses briefly. Arnold catches up and Pancho asks nervously “Do you remember Afghanistan?” to which Dutch replies “Trying to forget. Let’s go”. I love the implication that something horrible must have happened during some sort of covert action that still affects these seemingly very tough soldiers.
After Jesse Ventura’s character, Blain, is killed by the Predator, his buddy, Mac, played by Bill Duke, while watching over his body, delivers a monologue recalling a particularly hairy night in which they were the only survivors out of their whole platoon while serving in Vietnam.
“Here we are again, bro, just you and me. Same kind of moon, same kind of jungle. Real number ten night, remember? Whole platoon, 32 men, chopped into meat, we walk out, just you and me, nobody else. Right on top of ‘em. Not a scratch, not a fuckin’ scratch.”
He goes on to describe how he will avenge his friend’s death while the soundtrack plays a very forlorn-sounding single trumpet melody.
It’s these little moments in the film that showed that these guys have a shared history together and really care about each other which, in turn, made me care about them as well.
I’m probably not doing these scenes much justice in my description but they’ve really stuck with me and are what I always recall when thinking of Predator.
For me, the movie was oppressive and claustrophobic for most of the movie. Unlike @None, I didn’t really feel much of an affinity for the team despite their shared history. But I did enjoy the fact that the audience has a little more information than the team does since we sometimes see the team through the Predator’s eyes. Nevertheless, despite that cool factor, it all just feels so one-sided. Just like I couldn’t get into Brandon Lee’s The Crow because I felt that through the first half of the movie, The Crow had no weaknesses. It was only after the weakness was discovered that the movie suddenly got interesting. Similarly, in Predator, the creature is too strong, and almost invincible, and I found myself feeling bored by the inevitability of the team’s deaths.
But then it changes. Arnold runs and he falls down a stream and falls along with a waterfall into a lake. And the whole atmosphere changes. It’s no longer claustrophobic and oppressive. It’s wide open, and we immediately discover a vulnerability of the creature, along with Arnold’s character. Suddenly, my pulse quickens and the moment this movie has been building towards feels like it’s finally here. Honestly, I was almost bored before that moment hits, but when that scene unfolds, all the deaths and darkness and mystery and frustratingly enclosed jungle sets seem worth it because suddenly the movie is flipped on its head. And you in the audience realize it along with Arnold’s character. What follows is good too, but for me, that is the best scene in the movie and it’s totally worth watching just for that scene.
Err the Predator being super capable/advanced was the whole point. Here’s this badass special forces team that shreds the mercs like butter(typical hero action movie). Then they get their butts kicked. It’s a play on the Halloween horror movie trope where its not stupid teenagers but capable soldiers. Its taken even to Arnold. He’s the 80’s action star who usually takes on 50 guys solo in his movies and wins. Now this one Predator kicks his butt.
Its a simple movie but awesome IMO. One of the great 80’s action movies.
I thought that fact predator had a code, was really a hunter not just a mindless killing or revenge getting monster elevated it a bit from the horror flicks too.
Jacob Tremblay, the young actor in Room, will be in this. He’s going to play the main character’s son.
The son is autistic but will be able to learn the Predator language quickly.
Keegan Michael Key? Huh.
Why is there a kid in this?
Read a couple posts up from 2 months ago.