Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

[Xprimentyl]

The idea was an interesting one. A force so beyond human level that setting doesn't matter, we still don't have a chance against it. Even in the heart of our most "advanced society" an American city. In execution... that really doesn't work. The Predator's avoidance of collateral damage and mass casualty completely sidesteps what would make such a thing truly terrifying.

Agreed. The Predators are hunters, not Godzilla-esque movie monsters, so putting him in a city was basically tasking a professional fisherman to challenge himself fishing in a koi pond.

It is pointed out and implied that Yajuta in this movie is younger, a bit more inexperienced, and didn't cocky. It shows and fits.

Explaining it away with canon doesn't mean it worked cinematically where its predecessor did. "Oh, he's young and inexperienced," but comes from a culture based on the hunt, and would likely know better at least than to try his new hands in an urban setting unbefitting a hunt. Human hunters go into the wild, and as far as I know, they don't take their kids to a zoo to break them in on the family trade.

That aside, as @Kyrian007 said, it didn't work for me. If you liked the movie, more power to you, but when I weigh it against the experience of the first, it left me wanting. It was a very different movie from the first, and different in worse ways. But I'll give you this, I'm not a fan of any Predator outings since the first one, and Prey was only decent, so don't take my disliking of Predator 2 as anything unique to it.

 

[Absent]

I see Predators as... well, the way I see hunters in general (sorry for those). Redneck having a blast killing animals. And having a blast killing "dangerous" animals (with tech that negate any danger anyway). The whole "ooh so honourable tribal hunter" thing is b/s in my eyes. It's a romanticization of Predators that was grafted on it by fandom - and that's my most generous interpretation, because it cuts some slack to the original authors. Predator, to me, is a fun "hey what if humans were the sport target of space rednecks". A reversal, that is played on several levels (the tribal costumes and drummy soundtracks also reverses colonialism). Predators are a parody of us, our legitimate comeuppance but from mars-attacks-level corporate jerks going all Deliverance in the week-end.

In addition, for me "Predator" and "Alien" take place in completely different universes, and while I love the in-joke wink wink of an alien skull, it's merely a joke in my eyes. They are two incompatible franchises with incompatible tones, and merging them defeats (and degrades) them both.

So yes, I like the urban setting, and its gang warfare becoming a jungle of pseudo-dangerous animals to hunt for bored space hunters. I like the change from the jungle (the fact that sequels go back to it diminish my interest - we already have the jungle predator movie), the kid-in-candy-store aspect (as Brawl puts it), and the vague oh shit oh shit of the city being more collateral damagey. And I love how Harrigan isn't a warrior, just a very tenacious tired cop who turns out uncommon (the original Agent J, in a way - Will Smith's introduction in MIB is essentially P2's Danny Glover summarized in one scene).

And to be honest, P1 and P2 are the two only Predator films that fully exist, in my world. The rest feel like cheap fanfiction. Coincidentally, a bit like Alien (1 & 2) and Terminator (1 & 2). And... possibly Jaws ? Wait, how many franchises have only two films, for me ? Is that a thing ?

 

[BrawlMan]

Explaining it away with canon doesn't mean it worked cinematically where its predecessor did. "Oh, he's young and inexperienced," but comes from a culture based on the hunt, and would likely know better at least than to try his new hands in an urban setting unbefitting a hunt. Human hunters go into the wild, and as far as I know, they don't take their kids to a zoo to break them in on the family trade.

That aside, as @Kyrian007 said, it didn't work for me. If you liked the movie, more power to you, but when I weigh it against the experience of the first, it left me wanting. It was a very different movie from the first, and different in worse ways. But I'll give you this, I'm not a fan of any Predator outings since the first one, and Prey was only decent, so don't take my disliking of Predator 2 as anything unique to it.

There was a mess up on Google Speak. I already fixed it, and I said cockier too. Just overall clear, I did see Predator first, before seeing the second movie as a kid. Also, you're dislike of the movie ain't unique like you said. I've already heard it all before a thousand times. I know it doesn't work for both of you, but it worked fine for me, and most others nowadays or back then. Plus, there's something the first sequel has, that all the other movies lack:

​

Well that, and having the awesomeness of Gary Busey.

 

[Hawki]

The Predator's avoidance of collateral damage and mass casualty completely sidesteps what would make such a thing truly terrifying.

Wait, "does" the City Hunter avoid that? It certainly has a higher body count than the Jungle Hunter for instance, and plenty of collateral damage is done (e.g. when it simply smashes through appartment walls).

It is pointed out and implied that Yajuta in this movie is younger, a bit more inexperienced, and cockier.

Um, where?

Thing is, you're actually correct, canonically, the City Hunter was newly Blooded, and this was his first Hunt on Earth, and was sloppy in his work, but there's nothing in the film itself (that I recall) that conveys this.

That's the thing with the Predators: you have an actual weapon and you can pick up and fight, they see that as a challenge, and will hunt you. While they do their best to avoid civilians, they're still not afraid to pick up their weapons, if it shows you can put up a fight. A lot of those civilians had weapons, and the Hunter was like a kid in a candy store. Notice how he only went after civilians that had weapons on them. He didn't go after the ones that were already fleeing and didn't have weapons on them. Predator 2 is not that mean spirited. Not even close.

To that:

-The City Hunter has gone after gangsters to this point armed with automatic weapons -on the moral level, there's arguably some chutzpah there (not as much as the first film), on the practical level, rifles and SMGs are a step above pistols, not to mention that the City Hunter is engaging people in the dark in close quarters. If the criteria for a yautja hunting a human is "to have a weapon," then for instance, most people on the US would be fair game.

-The mean-spiritness comes from more than just the train scene, even if it's the most egregious. Like I said, Predator 2 revels in its violence and gore more than the first. The first film had both, but mixed both with horror, and works as a subversion of action movie tropes. Predator 2 doesn't really do that - its bodycount is higher, there's less moral ambiguity, it's far bloodier, but at the cost of substance.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Wait, "does" the City Hunter avoid that? It certainly has a higher body count than the Jungle Hunter for instance, and plenty of collateral damage is done (e.g. when it simply smashes through appartment walls).

Smashing through walls was once it was defeated and was running away after failing to commit suicide. Hey, would exploding like that have damaging the ship the others were on? As for body count, we don't know how many people the Jungle Hunter had killed, though probably not as many on that hunt.

-The City Hunter has gone after gangsters to this point armed with automatic weapons -on the moral level, there's arguably some chutzpah there (not as much as the first film), on the practical level, rifles and SMGs are a step above pistols, not to mention that the City Hunter is engaging people in the dark in close quarters. If the criteria for a yautja hunting a human is "to have a weapon," then for instance, most people on the US would be fair game.

I thought it was going after the two police officers it had seen hanging around with Harrigan, and the armed randoms were just bonuses. It'd just put the necklace at the cemetery, I don't think it was a coincidence it attacked those two. How it found them, though, dunno.

Though, that's just my interpretation, it's not that clear.

 

[BrawlMan]

Um, where?

Thing is, you're actually correct, canonically, the City Hunter was newly Blooded, and this was his first Hunt on Earth, and was sloppy in his work, but there's nothing in the film itself (that I recall) that conveys this.

In the movie itself without dialogue. His attitude and body language conveyed this. If you don't notice it, not my problem.

The mean-spiritness comes from more than just the train scene, even if it's the most egregious. Like I said, Predator 2 revels in its violence and gore more than the first. The first film had both, but mixed both with horror, and works as a subversion of action movie tropes. Predator 2 doesn't really do that - its bodycount is higher, there's less moral ambiguity, it's far bloodier, but at the cost of substance.

The movie is not even the close that meanspirited. While it revels in it's violence and over the topness, it doesn't go that overboard. If you don't like it, that's fine it all, but you're reading way too much into it. Predator 2 ain't perfect, but it ain't "mean spirited". That belongs to Requiem. Predator 2 is a kick-ass action movie that knows how to add to the action and the horror. Nothing more, and nothing less. I will say it got voodoo culture completely wrong, and that is something that should be pointed out, but even back then, people called bullcrap on that part. So people were and are paying attention. That is all that can be said on the matter. You don't like it, oh well. Moving on.

 

[Hawki]

The whole "ooh so honourable tribal hunter" thing is b/s in my eyes. It's a romanticization of Predators that was grafted on it by fandom - and that's my most generous interpretation, because it cuts some slack to the original authors.

Um, what?

Okay, maybe the yautja honour code existed in fandom before it was canonized, but I don't know that this tracks with reality. First, the yautja's honour code is hinted at in the original film (heck, for all my issues with it, Predator 2 more or less solidifies it), so I don't know if that's really "cutting slack" when it's not retroactive. The honour code is operating from a base within the core material. Second, and more importantly, yautja culture was fleshed out in EU material (mainly from Dark Horse). How canonical that is is is dubious, but it's not something that fans just plucked out of thin air, it's something that the wider IP has run with for awhile now.

I certainly agree that fandom tends to romanticize the yautja, to the extent that humanxyautja pairings are a common thing in fanfics (my eyes...bleach!), but the "honourable tribal hunter" thing was there from the start, even if I'd still maintain that having an honour code doesn't stop you from being a monster.

Smashing through walls was once it was defeated and was running away after failing to commit suicide. Hey, would exploding like that have damaging the ship the others were on?

Wait, are you agreeing with me or disagreeing? Because for instance, the ship detonation thing is an example of the City Hunter not caring about collateral damage (heck, the blast alone would probably kill more people than the City Hunter did through the entire film).

As for body count, we don't know how many people the Jungle Hunter had killed, though probably not as many on that hunt.

Well, yes, I agree, the City Hunter almost certainly has a higher bodycount than the Jungle Hunter - certainly by what we see on screen, the City Hunter kills far more people.

I thought it was going after the two police officers it had seen hanging around with Harrigan, and the armed randoms were just bonuses. It'd just put the necklace at the cemetery, I don't think it was a coincidence it attacked those two. How it found them, though, dunno.

The City Hunter tracks Cantrell and Lambert onto the subway car. But from a storytelling standpoint, it's a moot point - the writers crafted the story, by the story, the City Hunter enters the subway car, and does the yautja equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel. Heck, IIRC, Lambert fires his pistol at point blank range, and the bullets do nothing. So not only is the City Hunter killing innocent people (innocent in the sense that they're not trained soldiers or gangsters), but it's engaging in a scenario where it's on God mode.

Hence the mean-spiritedness thing. Innocent people dying horribly isn't foreign to these kinds of films (heck, Alien has innocent people dying horribly across its franchise), but there's a kind of glee in the scene (and in Predator 2 as a whole) that really puts me off.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Wait, are you agreeing with me or disagreeing? Because for instance, the ship detonation thing is an example of the City Hunter not caring about collateral damage (heck, the blast alone would probably kill more people than the City Hunter did through the entire film).

Well, I was disagreeing about crashing through walls, but blowing up however many city blocks would make that rather irrelevant, yeah.

The City Hunter tracks Cantrell and Lambert onto the subway car. But from a storytelling standpoint, it's a moot point - the writers crafted the story, by the story, the City Hunter enters the subway car, and does the yautja equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel. Heck, IIRC, Lambert fires his pistol at point blank range, and the bullets do nothing. So not only is the City Hunter killing innocent people (innocent in the sense that they're not trained soldiers or gangsters), but it's engaging in a scenario where it's on God mode.

Hence the mean-spiritedness thing. Innocent people dying horribly isn't foreign to these kinds of films (heck, Alien has innocent people dying horribly across its franchise), but there's a kind of glee in the scene (and in Predator 2 as a whole) that really puts me off.

Ah, so you mean if it had attacked the train the way it had attacked the penthouse, sniping at people and them relocating to avoid fire, that'd imply that their guns could hurt it and that the fight was, in a sense, more fair? That makes sense, not thought of that.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Remember Prey? Remember Prey?! It's crazy how two games, and a movie with the same name title have a Native American main protagonist.


I wouldn't put Predator 2 below AvP. My list is:

1. Predator
2. Predator 2
3. Prey
4. Predators
5. AvP
6. The Predator - Movie still sucks donkey balls, but only barely edges out over Requiem, because I can actually see the monster designs. We already had this discussion about it years ago, so I am not doing the back and forth again.
7. AvP: Requiem

That's my exact same ranking. I don't really have any love for anything after Predator 2 though.

 

[BrawlMan]

That's my exact same ranking. I don't really have any love for anything after Predator 2 though.

Nothing wrong with that. I like most of the movies after Predator 2. I only have a genuine hatred of Requiem and The Predator. AvP I don't hate, but it's full of wasted potential, and the original script is so much more interesting than the final product. The Capcom AvP Arcade is based off the original script. The only reason the movie didn't happen sooner was due to the greedy execs on either side not wanting to split the profits 50-50!

 

[Hawki]

Raya and the Last Dragon (7/10)

I went into this film with trepidation. Prior to it coming out, it looked appealing, but I never had time to see it. After it came out, the film started getting hammered, and whether those criticisms were justified or not, it's probably fair to say that this film hasn't got much of a legacy, especially when compared with Encanto, which came out later in the same year. Having finally watched this film, the TL, DR version is that it's good, not as good as I'd hoped it would be, that the criticisms levelled against the film are justified, but not as serious as the critiques would suggest.

Anyway, I'm going to do a Five Elements of Story approach for this, so on that note:

PLOT

Spoiler

RALD takes place in the fantasy world/land (it's a bit vague) of Kumandra, or rather, what used to be Kumandra. 500 years ago, evil spirits called the drunn emerged to turn people into stone. The dragons fought back, and the great Sizu sacrificed herself to drive the drunn back and restore the land, but while humans re-emerged from stone, the dragons didn't. People being people fought over the remnants of the dragons' power (the Dragon Gem), and Kumandra was divided into five nations (Talon, Heart, Spine, Fang, Tail - hardy hah hah). At a peace summit at Heart, the Dragon Gem is cracked, and four of the five pieces are stolen by the four other nations. The fifth piece is entrusted to Raya by her father, who's turned to stone by the now rampaging drunn, along with everyone else in Heart (presumably) sans Raya herself, who's protected by her fragment.

Cut forward a few years (six, I think), and the world's gone to shit. It's literally dying in some cases (e.g. you can see rivers drying up), and the only defences humanity has against the drunn are water (so, if you want to survive, live surrounded by water or on the water. Most of humanity has been turned to stone, and the remaining nations (three, by this point) are all in it for themselves. In this world, Raya seeks to revive Sizu, and collect the four other pieces to bring balance to the, um, sorry, to revive her father, having given up on the rest of humanity. But as she gathers characters from each land in her travels, she...well, you can see where this is going.

Also, the rules of the setting get weird at the end. It's established the first time that the drunn were banished, humans returned, but dragons didn't. At the end (spoilers), Raya and her gang do the same thing, that drives away the drunn, but this time the dragons ARE restored because...reasons. The only thing I can think of that explains this is that it's established that the drunn are "manifestations of human discord," so I guess maybe, this time, humanity's in its kubaiya phase? That because five humans rather than five dragons do the gem thing, it restores harmony permanently? But if that's the case, why would humanity be more harmonious at the end of this film, rather than 500 years ago? I guess the implication is that the drunn emerged because humanity was already disintegrating (hence why they turn on each other as soon as the drunn are defeated), but this feels like payoff without propler buildup.

Anyway, yeah, I'm not going to pretend that RALD has the most original plot in the world. Whatever its other strengths, a lot of it is driven by a McGuffin hunt, and yes, that TLA reference was intentional (you'll see where I'm going with it later). Overall, the plot is decent, it keeps moving, but part of me wishes this was an animated series instead. But like I said, decent.

STORYTELLING

Spoiler

Don't have much to say here, as there's not much I can say that's unique to storytelling that's independent from plot. Still, the plot moves at a brisk pace, there's good use of animation (e.g. 2D for flashbacks, 3D for present), though that's hardly unique to RALD. Since I don't really have anywhere to put this, I'll say that the action is pretty good - plenty of sword/spear fights and fistfights and whatnot, so in that area, the film's enjoyable.

That said, there is something that irks me, and that's the film's use of modern terminology in a setting that's pre-industrial (for lack of a better term). Raya and Namaari both call themselves "dragon fans," the "crazy cat lady" concept apparently exists in this world, as does "bling" ("bling is my thing," as Raya says), and so on. These aren't really dealbreakers, but they are irritations that linger. I know RALD isn't the only film with this issue (and whether it's an issue at all is subjective), but it feels like an attempt to appeal to a modern audience rather than having dialogue more authentic to the setting.

CHARACTERS

Spoiler

I'd actually be curious for those who've seen RALD who could, without looking anything up, name all the characters of Raya's DnD party. I mean, I can, but I only saw the film three days ago as of this time of writing.

Yeah, RALD has an issue in that not all character development is equal. Raya herself is fine, as is Namaari (basically the 'mirror antagonist', the Venom to Raya's Spider-Man, what have you), and Sizu...okay, I like Sizu, but it's not hard to see why so many people are irritated by her and the associated comedy. However, over the course of the story, Raya gathers characters from the other kingdoms (Buun, Noi, Tong), and their development is limited, especially since Noi is a con-artist baby (yes, really) who can't even speak. I said earlier that this would have worked better as a series, and the characters are part of the reason why, because even over 1.5 hours, none of the 'party characters' are really fleshed out. Now, in fairness, that's kind of to be expected, tertiary characters get less attention than primary (e.g. Raya) or secondary (Sizu/Namaari) ones, but it's a dearth of characterization that's noted all the same.

Anyway, overall, the characters are decent, but the film is lessened by the lack of fleshing out in areas, and Sizu is very hit or miss.

WORLDBUILDING

Spoiler

So, I remember when Lindsay Ellis compared Raya to Avatar: The Last Airbender and it led to the usual Twitter outrage from wokeists, and we had a nice, lovely (or not so lovely) debate on these very forums. Having watched the film, and having sprinkled TLA references throughout this thread, I'm going to come out and say it - I think the TLA references are pretty tenuous, especially in terms of setting.

Oh, sure, they're there - a world is divided, a group of heroes from across the world's lands must come together to fix it, cue inspirations from Asian cultures and mythologies. However, the cultures in Raya, while not nearly as fleshed out in TLA (in part by virtue of runtime) are clearly taking different inspiration from TLA. TLA's primary Asian references are China, Japan, and Tibet, with Inuit making up a non-Asian proxy. RALD, on the other hand, is taking inspiration from south/southeast Asian cultures. Without looking anything up, my general take was on seeing inspirations from Cambodia, Thailand, and Indonesia, so that, at least, was reasonably refreshing. Also, if we're making TLA comparisons here, the animals here are bonkers, with cat mounts and...whatever Tuk Tuk is meant to be, so there's that.

On the other hand, the film has a dearth of worldbuilding in some areas, in that it presents a world with five kingdoms whose cultures are defined in the broadest of strokes (defined by the characters rather than objectively, so there's some leeway there), but as established, there just isn't enough time to really flesh all of them out, and certainly not equally at that. And from an in-universe perspective, while this isn't really an issue, like I said, it's vague as to whether Kumandra's a world or a land. If it's the former, then the world is incredibly small. If it's the latter, I'm left to wonder about lands beyond Kumandra - are they being affected by the drunn as well? Are people fleeing to them? What are those lands like? Like I said, it isn't really an issue, but it came to mind all the same.

I may as well comment on the drunn here - conceptually, they're nothing new, but they're done decently. Gas monsters that turn people to stone, that at times, have a horror element to them. For instance, there's a scene where the party is going upriver in a boat, and drunn are on the riverbank, but can't get to them because of the water. It's not the best use of horror in the world, but it certainly reinforces how deadly the drunn are, and how omiprescent they've become in this world.

THEMES

Spoiler

This is the film's clincher. Schafrillas, a YouTuber, has dissected why the film doesn't work on the thematic level, and while a lot of good points are raised, I wouldn't go so far to say that the film has a "terrible message." But on the other other, the film botches its themes nonetheless.

Basically, the core theme of RALD is "trust.' In this world, no-one trusted each other, which led to the drunn being unleashed, which led to further distrust, which led to more drunn ravaging the world, and so on. To make the world better, people need to trust each other. That's the core message, and while a decent one on its surface, the film doesn't really execute it that well. In both this world and our own, there's a place for trust, but blind trust can land you in hot water, as it does in this film plenty of times. Raya's trust issues are well founded, and it's all well and good to say you should trust people when those same people are in it for themselves. Things reach a crux at the end, where Namaari ends up shooting Sizu with her crossbow because Raya hit said crossbow with her sword. Both Namaari and the film frame this as Raya's fault, but is it, really? Namaari has been the antagonist for 90% of the movie, she betrayed Raya at the start, she's never shown remorse for her actions (sure, she feels it, but we only know because of what Sizu says), and she brought the crossbow to the meeting in the first place, with the explicit goal of betraying them. Namaari doens't suddenly became a non-antagonist just because Raya screws up in one specific moment. Sure, things resolve themselves in the end, and the peoples of the world get their kumbaya phase on, but even so...

So, yeah. I think the theme in of itself is fine, it's just botched in execution in a number of areas.

CONCLUSION

Overall, RALD is a good film, not a great film. That's...um, really all I have left to say.

Anyway, DAC rankings are below:

Spoiler

40) The Black Cauldron

39) Dinosaur

38) Cinderella

37) Dumbo

36) Robin Hood

35) The Rescuers

34) Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

33) Lady and the Tramp

32) Oliver & Company

31) The Sword in the Stone

30) Peter Pan

29) Sleeping Beauty

28) Pinocchio

27) The Fox and the Hound

26) Pocahontas

25) Bambi

24) Basil, the Great Mouse Detective

23) The Aristocats

22) Frozen II

21) Bolt

20) Wreck-it Ralph: Ralph Breaks the Internet

19) Tarzan

18) Fantasia 2000

17) 101 Dalmations

16) The Jungle Book

15) Alice in Wonderland

14) The Little Mermaid

13) The Emperor’s New Groove

12) Hercules

11) The Hunchback of Notre Dame

10) Raya and the Last Dragon

9) Fantasia

8) Moana

7) Big Hero 6

6) Beauty and the Beast

5) Treasure Planet

4) Frozen

3) Aladdin

2) The Lion King

1) Zootopia

 

[Bartholen]

Valhalla Rising, 4/10, bordering on 3/10

This is once-indie-darling Nicolas Winding Refn's film that preceded his mainstream breakthrough Drive. It's about a man (played by Mads Mikkelsen) being kept as a sort of pit fighting slave in crusades-era Scotland, when he one day breaks free and joins a group of crusaders on their way to the holy land. Mikkelsen doesn't have a single word of dialogue in the film, and it's very arty and abstract. Sounds interesting, right? Well it's not.

This is pretty much everything Drive was accused of being: pretentious, slow, long-winded, pointless, self-indulgent, and style over substance. It might be the single most pretentious film I've ever seen, and one of the most boring ones as well. Nothing happens in this movie. Nothing of consequence anyway. It's insanely drawn out despite barely being over 90 minutes. I've never fast forwarded this much during a film, and missed nothing. There's zero story to be found, and only the barest hints of a plot. It kept reminding me of Blonde and Neil Breen movies, and those are not favorable comparisons in any situation ever. Things just happen without context or meaning, and once it gets into the "holy land" it gets insanely repetitive. It's like Refn went "well, I've only got 40 minutes of footage and the script is like 5 pages long, but if I slow half of these shots out to thrice their length and punctuate the film with people doing random things and walking in a forest, maybe the audience will think there's some point to it".

I have no idea what drew Mikkelsen into this glorified student film. Despite the interesting idea of his character being conveyed entirely through expression and physicality, most of the time he just has the same blank expression and stands around. It feels really cheap despite initially looking pretty good and having some cool shots here and there. The first chapter is actually decent as a self-contained short film, but after that there's basically nothing of value here. Like half this movie is spent just aimlessly in a forest, and then some hills, and some marshland. There was one moment of enjoyment after the first chapter, when one of the characters (none of which are named bar Mikkelsen's) asks the protagonist "why did we come here?" At that point I was so bored I imagined the movie as a metaphor for itself, where the character asking the question was the audience, and the protagonist the director. Got a good laugh out of me, no thanks to the movie.

Rubbish. Turgid, boring rubbish.

 

[BrawlMan]

which is less "lone wolf" and more "protect what you know over the ones you don't", at least to me.

It still works in a way, as he doesn't completely trust the Autobots, despite Mirage going out his way to protect Noah. I can see both aspects of this work fine. We don't get his full backstory, nor do we need to see it in flashback. I'm glad personally.

Rise of The Beast is awesome and already my favorite live-actionTransformers movie. If Bumblebee is an A, then RoTB is an S-
Rank. Yes, I am giving it the S! Both movies don't fall into the trap of the Bayverse, makes me care about the few human characters that are there, doesn't waste the audience's time, and make sure the Autobots & Maximals presence and development are just as important! Noah and Chris I do consider the best of the human characters followed by Charlie, because they're just people and not absurd, obnoxious, jack ass, and loud caricatures, unlike the Bayverse. The parts with Noah and his younger brother, and referred to each other as Sonic and Tails warmed my heart. Reminds me so much of my older and I.

BTW, the last 15 minutes of the movie, someone on set must have been a big Vanquish fan! Noah getting Mirages parts to make that power armor lit me up!

I do look forward to the Hasbro Cinematic Universe. Let's go, Joes!

​

 

[Casual Shinji]

Yeah, I don't get Pred 2's bad rep.

I do.

Even if I could excuse the Predator's dumb ass behaviour as him going on a drunk murder bender (Which I won't. I mean, the dude can't even recognize a child's toy without scanning it?!), the human characters reach a level of obnoxiousness that is hard for me to sit through for longer than 5 minutes at a time.

I liked Prey well enough, certainly more than any of the sequels, but it can't escape the pop culture exhaustion that hangs over this franchise. I said it once and I'll say it again; the Predator just isn't that interesting of a monster. He works well as a cool and solid creature for one film, but try and expand on it, by adding lore and whatnot, and it reveals how shallow it is. Plus, the movie has this streaming service quality to it that severly hampers the visuals for me.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Which I won't. I mean, the dude can't even recognize a child's toy without scanning it?!

American police officers have problems with that, and they aren't even from another planet.

 

[BrawlMan]

Which I won't. I mean, the dude can't even recognize a child's toy without scanning it?!

At least he bothers to check.

 

[Casual Shinji]

American police officers have problems with that, and they aren't even from another planet.

At least he bothers to check.

Yeah, but the Predator is not supposed to be dumb like your standard cop. If we take the Pred from the first movie as the baseline for their intelligence, then Pred 2 should've completely disregarded this kid outright. Like, he's been in the city a while at this point, he knows what infant humans look like, and that they pose no threat, right?

 

[BrawlMan]

Yeah, but the Predator is not supposed to be dumb like your standard cop. If we take the Pred from the first movie as the baseline for their intelligence, then Pred 2 should've completely disregarded this kid outright. Like, he's been in the city a while at this point, he knows what infant humans look like, and that they pose no threat, right?

So? Give the man credit for being considerate. More considerate than the cops.

 

[Absent]

Um, what?

Okay, maybe the yautja honour code existed in fandom before it was canonized, but I don't know that this tracks with reality. First, the yautja's honour code is hinted at in the original film (heck, for all my issues with it, Predator 2 more or less solidifies it), so I don't know if that's really "cutting slack" when it's not retroactive. The honour code is operating from a base within the core material. Second, and more importantly, yautja culture was fleshed out in EU material (mainly from Dark Horse). How canonical that is is is dubious, but it's not something that fans just plucked out of thin air, it's something that the wider IP has run with for awhile now.

I certainly agree that fandom tends to romanticize the yautja, to the extent that humanxyautja pairings are a common thing in fanfics (my eyes...bleach!), but the "honourable tribal hunter" thing was there from the start, even if I'd still maintain that having an honour code doesn't stop you from being a monster.

[...]

(innocent in the sense that they're not trained soldiers or gangsters),

It's a space dude who 1) snipes 2) with plasma guns 3) while invisible. It's hardly the Ache warrior bursting alone in the enemy tribe for a raid at dawn. It's the safari twat shooting a lion with a scoped military rifle, in order to display a dangerous-looking trophy in his living room. And sometimes, way too rarely, one of them gets mauled by a lion.

It's not about honor or danger, you never once get a sense that the fight is even (it's a hunt, not a duel). The Predator toys like a cat, and at best : lowers his superiority level to stay within playful range of the pray, or spares a pregnant prey because even sport hunters have regulations and norms (do they see themselves as "honorable" for that?). Also of course they don't care about their preys being soldiers, cops or robbers, all they care for is them being armed (having fangs as a pseudo-dangerous game). When you hunt crocodiles you don't care whether that one was a gentler crocodile than the next one.

The oh-so-honorable varnish comes from fans identifying themselves to the Predator because of power fantasy, like they identify to Tony Montana or Dracula, which gets capitalised on through derivative works. But the comics have as much interest to me as the blurbs on toylines packaging. And the games and later movies are more inspired by them than by the movies. So of course, these representations seep in.

Generally speaking I don't think on a "franchise" scale ("wider IPs"). Instead of framing movies retroactively, I take them one by one as what they were at the time of production. Leia wasn't Luke's sister at that time, so that one kiss is awkward in Return but not in Empire. Alien eggs come from a queen in Aliens, not necessarily in Alien (especially not in its original script). And globally, I don't like lore creep, which I consider to impoverish worlds more than they enrich them. Especially when the elements that are piled on come from different authors - in, often, more and more commercial or childish mindsets. So I really don't care about extended universes or later "canons". They're never "discoveries" (about an original movie's monster, for instance), they are "additions". Births of separate universes, of often lesser quality.

So, P1, P2. Space pricks on a safari. Nothing noble to it. Going blade-to-blade instead of gun-to-gun is still like Anakin slicing the younglings instead of orbital bombing them. Not to mention it happens off screen, and could also be as lame as imaginable.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Like, he's been in the city a while at this point, he knows what infant humans look like, and that they pose no threat, right?

They don't? Not unknown for people that age in the US get hold of real guns and kill people. Doesn't hurt to take 2 seconds to double check.

The oh-so-honorable varnish comes from fans identifying themselves to the Predator because of power fantasy, like they identify to Tony Montana or Dracula, which gets capitalised on through derivative works. But the comics have as much interest to me as the blurbs on toylines packaging. And the games and later movies are more inspired by them than by the movies. So of course, these representations seep in.

I would mention that the other Predators let Harrigan go after he wins, and give him a trophy.

But yeah, the Predators aren't looking to a fair fight. Maybe something like a challenge (if we are being charitable), but they are looking to be pretty sure of a win.