Speaker 1: Weird way.
Speaker 2: Preach we can kill it.
Speaker 1: Good time.
Speaker 2: Shouting out their way us. What the hell are you.
Speaker 3: Welcome back midnight viewers too?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Oocha fest Oh my god, we're nearing the end of
Speaker 3: the road, aren't we?
Speaker 4: Hp Where the end? The finish line is in sight?
Speaker 4: Fa them Malone. I'm so excited.
Speaker 3: This is the end of one era of the Predator,
Speaker 3: and now we've got a whole new sort of not
Speaker 3: reboot necessarily, but a whole new creative direction going. Anyway,
Speaker 3: what are we talking about today? We aren't talking about
Speaker 3: the Predator.
Speaker 5: Do you know what my job description is. I'm in acquisitions.
Speaker 5: I look up and I catch what falls out of
Speaker 5: the sky.
Speaker 4: What's on the ship?
Speaker 5: Tell me about the mission?
Speaker 6: Did you see anything unusual?
Speaker 3: It's above our vague work. I get a cookie.
Speaker 1: Now, look, I get it. Something went down in Mexico.
Speaker 1: Nobody wants any witnesses.
Speaker 3: We need to know if you can your man pose
Speaker 3: a threat? We're rangers, Backsley.
Speaker 7: If your mom's vagina were a video game to be
Speaker 7: rated e for everyone.
Speaker 3: Isn't posing a threat? Kind of the fucking point?
Speaker 5: Credators just don't sit around making hats out of rib
Speaker 5: cages the conquered space. But that's not what's.
Speaker 3: On the horizon.
Speaker 1: Sure, I'd be worried, Roy, I think you know what
Speaker 1: is on the ship, The Ultimate Predators.
Speaker 5: We may die, we're still here, so come and get us.
Speaker 3: Motherfucker. That time modifier counts. This is the actual Predator.
Speaker 3: This was released on September sixth, twenty eighteen. Actually this
Speaker 3: was released on September the fourteenth, twenty eighteen. Written by
Speaker 3: Fred Decker and Shane Black. Black and Decker their second
Speaker 3: collaboration together, third technically, although they they're most famously known
Speaker 3: for writing The Monster Squad. Together was also directed by
Speaker 3: Shane Black. Shane Black, if you don't know, if you
Speaker 3: have and listening to this show forever, it's a fucking
Speaker 3: hero of mine, one of the greatest screenwriters of all time,
Speaker 3: not that that's necessarily on display here. Based on characters
Speaker 3: my Jim Thomas and John Thomas, starring Boyd Holbrook, Olivia
Speaker 3: Munn Keegan, Michael Key, Travante, Rhodes, Sterling, k Brown, Jacob Tremley,
Speaker 3: Alfie Allen, Thomas, Jane and Avon Strahowsky. Cinematographer Larry Fong
Speaker 3: shout out to him. He's always doing good work. HP.
Speaker 3: This is your first time with the Predator?
Speaker 5: Was it is?
Speaker 4: This is officially you were talking about we're graduating to
Speaker 4: this next era of the Predator franchise. This was I'm
Speaker 4: graduating because this is my last Predator movie that I
Speaker 4: had not yet seen, so that was pretty exciting for me. So, yes,
Speaker 4: it was my first time seeing it.
Speaker 3: What'd you think, a.
Speaker 4: Lot of mixed feelings on this one, Father Malone. There's
Speaker 4: quite a bit that's problematic, and ultimately I not to
Speaker 4: bury the lead, but I'm not sure this thing hangs
Speaker 4: together fully as a as a cinematic experience. There are
Speaker 4: moments that I really enjoyed. There's moments that I didn't.
Speaker 4: There's moments that I wondered what Shane Black was thinking.
Speaker 4: But I will say this, I was pretty much always entertained.
Speaker 6: This movie moves.
Speaker 3: It's my second favorite Predator movie. That's what I discovered
Speaker 3: this time. This is probably my third time watching it
Speaker 3: so in the theater when it came out after long delays.
Speaker 3: Everyone this movie was delayed an entire year. I wonder
Speaker 3: what could have been happening during that entire year. Was
Speaker 3: just sitting on a shelf or maybe did they reshoot
Speaker 3: the entire last third of the movie. I think it
Speaker 3: was the last part. HP What was the story that
Speaker 3: we received for the Predator?
Speaker 4: The story of the movie in a nutshell?
Speaker 3: So some plot?
Speaker 6: Okay, so we have yet it? Is there a plot?
Speaker 6: There is a plot?
Speaker 3: Is there are several There's.
Speaker 4: A lot going on, and frankly, there are times where
Speaker 4: it felt less like a Predator movie and more like
Speaker 4: a kind of misfit army vehicle where they have to
Speaker 4: band together and that has its own charms. But anyway,
Speaker 4: the story of this movie, we have another, yet another
Speaker 4: predator that's being chased to Earth by a larger predatorship
Speaker 4: for reasons that will become clear later on. It crashes
Speaker 4: on Earth and a sniper, an army sniper who's in
Speaker 4: the middle of a hostage recovery, witnesses this engages the predator.
Speaker 4: We have yet another agency that's been studying the predator
Speaker 4: for presumably.
Speaker 6: Years and years and years.
Speaker 4: They take ownership of this predator that has survived the crash,
Speaker 4: all of his equipment. They send the sniper off. Basically,
Speaker 4: they put him on ice. They send him to the
Speaker 4: looney bin for lack of a better term, with a
Speaker 4: bunch of other misfit soldiers that have various forms of
Speaker 4: PTSD and other mental health issues. While this is all happening,
Speaker 4: the sniper has sent the predators helmets and risk gauntlet
Speaker 4: to his son so he can have evidence that he indeed,
Speaker 4: he did indeed encounter an alien. So we have this
Speaker 4: government agency that is now trying to find these artifacts.
Speaker 6: They have their own predator.
Speaker 4: They bring in Olivia Munn's scientist biologist to come and
Speaker 4: help them study the predator. Things go wry, the predator escapes.
Speaker 3: This is so interesting. What happens next?
Speaker 6: It's hijinks happen. Next there's the father.
Speaker 4: The sniper is trying to get back to his son
Speaker 4: to you know, to because he knows the predator is
Speaker 4: tracking this these artifacts and trying to get to his
Speaker 4: house to get his helmet back. Because apparently their own
Speaker 4: equipment is very, very important to the predators.
Speaker 3: They man, do not touch a predator's fucking armor.
Speaker 6: Man, don't do it.
Speaker 4: Don't ever borrow it, because they won't, you know, it's
Speaker 4: bad news.
Speaker 6: So they're trying to don't spit into the wind.
Speaker 3: Won't spit into the wind.
Speaker 4: Step on no, don't pull the mask off that old
Speaker 4: lone ranger.
Speaker 3: But most of all, yeah, don't touch predators, fucking dreadlocks.
Speaker 4: And don't mess around with Jim. But that's a story
Speaker 4: for another day.
Speaker 3: Jim Thomas, Jim Varney.
Speaker 6: I think.
Speaker 4: So there's so these misfit, lunatic soldiers are trying to
Speaker 4: help the guy save his son. The government agency is
Speaker 4: on is tracking them, trying to get this predator tech back.
Speaker 4: It's there's a lot of pursuit, a lot of gunplay,
Speaker 4: not as much Predator as I would like. But again,
Speaker 4: at times it's not such a bad thing because Shane
Speaker 4: Black is, as you said, he's a great screenwriter. He
Speaker 4: knows how to write an entertaining screenplay, so I didn't
Speaker 4: necessarily mind it. But at times I was left wondering,
Speaker 4: could this have been just another an action movie without
Speaker 4: the Predator kind of overlaid onto it.
Speaker 6: Did you have any of those same thoughts for.
Speaker 3: The mom I had all of those thoughts. Yeah, this
Speaker 3: feels like several action movies playing at once. It can't
Speaker 3: really settle on which story is the most important, so
Speaker 3: it just tries to tell us all of them equally,
Speaker 3: thus satisfying none of our needs. Overall, I like the
Speaker 3: story of the soldier trying to get home to his
Speaker 3: kid and stranged wife because there's something he's done is
Speaker 3: going to be visited an evil response to that, like
Speaker 3: the Predator's going to come hunt them down, so now
Speaker 3: he has to go say them. I like that story
Speaker 3: a lot of like the interaction with his son and
Speaker 3: the wife, that whole plot. I love the misfit dirty
Speaker 3: dozen loonies fighting predators inexplicably, that's a really good plot.
Speaker 3: I like the government agency trying to figure out what
Speaker 3: the fuck is going on while all these other groups
Speaker 3: are going on. Any one of these stories could have
Speaker 3: just been its own movie, right.
Speaker 4: I think part of it for me that the secret
Speaker 4: weapon of this movie is for the most part, and
Speaker 4: I stress that for the most part, this movie has
Speaker 4: cast really well. I love Sterling K. Brown as Traeger.
Speaker 4: He's the leader of this team that's been studying the predator,
Speaker 4: and he's so no bullshit and charming at times and
Speaker 4: scary at times, ruthless. He's so effortlessly good. And the
Speaker 4: team of the lunatic misfit so soldiers is also really
Speaker 4: really good. I was I didn't realize that Thomas Jane
Speaker 4: was in this and I was pleasantly surprised to see
Speaker 4: him pop up.
Speaker 3: And I always count on the punisher, but when he
Speaker 3: shows up, you can definitely count on him, even if
Speaker 3: he has to Rett syndrome. Sterling K. Brown should be Blade,
Speaker 3: I haven't.
Speaker 4: I've never thought of him in that role. I mean,
Speaker 4: I kind of made my peace with mahrscha la Ali.
Speaker 4: I think he still would have been very good.
Speaker 3: You know why everyone's settled them mahershal Ali as Blade.
Speaker 3: He's stoic and we now think of Blade as a
Speaker 3: stomic character. Is Blade a stoic character? I mean he
Speaker 3: was in that comic book adaptation in the nineties, certainly,
Speaker 3: but not the comic book character I read. He's pretty
Speaker 3: gregarious at times, He's very Sterling K. Brown. Also, he's English.
Speaker 3: Everyone should know. Does anyone know that Blade is an
Speaker 3: English character? He's from English.
Speaker 6: I didn't know that. I never read Blade.
Speaker 3: I have Tomb of Dracula number one hanging on my
Speaker 3: wall right here with the first appearance of Blade of
Speaker 3: a sight. So yeah, I think Sterie K. Brown would
Speaker 3: be a fantastic thing. But let's talk about some of
Speaker 3: the other lunatics here Alfie Allen inexplicably Irish part of
Speaker 3: the American army.
Speaker 4: That was a little odd, and to be perfectly honest,
Speaker 4: he's the one that featured the least because I think
Speaker 4: they he didn't get saddled with a very distinct marker.
Speaker 4: Like you said, Thomas Jane has Turette's Keagan Michael Keys
Speaker 4: is always making jokes. He's funny and a little crazy.
Speaker 4: There's Nebraska, who is a chainsmoker and very laconic cool.
Speaker 4: The Irish guy, the Irish member of this team, as
Speaker 4: you said, inexplicable. I wish they gave him more to do,
Speaker 4: but he just he's just kind of there.
Speaker 3: What's funny to me is I remember thinking that as
Speaker 3: part of the too many plots, that we didn't really
Speaker 3: get to know anybody, and I was disabused of that
Speaker 3: rewatching at this time. This is the first time in
Speaker 3: any of the Predator movies where we've stopped to get
Speaker 3: to know the characters, and it's been interesting and I
Speaker 3: wanted to know more. Probably the most well defined of
Speaker 3: any of the teams, like I know things about these
Speaker 3: characters at the end of the movie, whereas at the
Speaker 3: end of the first Predator movie, I knew nothing going in,
Speaker 3: I knew nothing about them going out.
Speaker 6: But that works for the very first one though, because.
Speaker 3: That's all we needed.
Speaker 5: Then.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying, yeah, the same amount of time, the
Speaker 3: same amount of storytelling, and yet like this is actually
Speaker 3: like a step above as far as the writing goes
Speaker 3: as first what every Predator movie has been attempting to
Speaker 3: do since then, which is that we have to get
Speaker 3: used to a whole new human team and follow them
Speaker 3: as in their travails against the Predator or Predator and
Speaker 3: alien combo. And this is the first time that I've thought, like,
Speaker 3: I like everyone here, I'm comfortable with these characters.
Speaker 4: Well, this is definitely the first Predator that had so
Speaker 4: much humor in it. There might have been funny moments
Speaker 4: in the first one and certainly the last one Predators,
Speaker 4: there's a few funny moments. It's mostly played pretty stoically,
Speaker 4: but this one, I would also I'm almost ventured to
Speaker 4: say that the humor kind of outweighs the grimness. I mean,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of death and maiming and destruction.
Speaker 6: In this that is what it is.
Speaker 4: But sometimes to the film's detriment. I think it's played
Speaker 4: a little bit too much for laughs.
Speaker 3: I totally agree with that. It is definitely the funniest
Speaker 3: of any of the Predator movies. But that's a guarantee.
Speaker 3: When Shane Black is writing the script. You might come
Speaker 3: up with plot inconsistencies, you might have problems overall with
Speaker 3: structure or something, but you are never going to find
Speaker 3: a more quotable, funnier film than his like Lethal Weapon,
Speaker 3: Long Kiss, good Night, Last Boy, Scout, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bank.
Speaker 3: They're all fucking bangers man.
Speaker 6: Agreed. Agreed to your point.
Speaker 3: But to your point, yes, there are some scenes where
Speaker 3: there should be some tension, but there is zero tension
Speaker 3: because everyone is making jokes, and there are plenty of
Speaker 3: times where they're joking around. Is more than necessary as
Speaker 3: an escape valve and then as just a getting to
Speaker 3: know these folks kind of thing, but maybe not when
Speaker 3: they're being attacked by Predator dogs.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and kudos also for making the team of lunatics.
Speaker 4: They're all pretty good guys. I was prepared for it
Speaker 4: to be more like, you know, some of these guys
Speaker 4: maybe are a little dark around the edges, because at
Speaker 4: a certain point in the movie they essentially rescue Olivia
Speaker 4: Munn's biologist character. We'll talk about her and their character
Speaker 4: in a minute. And I was very prepared for it
Speaker 4: to be a little bit iffy because these are you know,
Speaker 4: these are red blooded soldiers who have a screw loose.
Speaker 4: I was a little worried for her character to be honest.
Speaker 4: But it turns out they're all just really sweet guys
Speaker 4: who have nothing but the best of intentions. I really
Speaker 4: appreciated that about this.
Speaker 3: I will say this, I think Shane Black fell in
Speaker 3: love with these characters because I mean, we'll spoilers everybody
Speaker 3: you know that I need to say that with this
Speaker 3: fucking show. But by the end we lose them. But
Speaker 3: he's very precious about it. He doesn't. He waits until
Speaker 3: he absolutely has to start kicking them lose. Before he
Speaker 3: starts doing that, he keeps these guys inlive way too long.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm not complaining. I think we needed more
Speaker 3: of them. I think they should have been front loaded in.
Speaker 3: They should have been introduced earlier in the film, honestly.
Speaker 3: But it's funny to me that if you compare it
Speaker 3: to the first Predator movie, how quickly everyone starts dying
Speaker 3: and how effortless. The predator starts picking them off one
Speaker 3: by one, and here he holds onto them for dear life.
Speaker 4: He does, and he's also not he's not unwilling to.
Speaker 4: I mean, a lot of them die very heroically, and
Speaker 4: I think that's to your point. I think it's because
Speaker 4: he loves these characters so much he wants to give
Speaker 4: them that heroic ending. But at the same time, he's
Speaker 4: Shane Black is also not afraid to just have a
Speaker 4: guy die for no good reason. Just you know, there's
Speaker 4: to skip ahead a little bit. One of the characters.
Speaker 4: I don't recall the character's name, but he's a long
Speaker 4: haired misfit who's got a thing for Olivia Mun's character
Speaker 4: a little bit at the end, they're trying to break.
Speaker 6: He's the pilot.
Speaker 4: Okay, he really dies for no good reason that he's
Speaker 4: on top of an alien ship. The shields power up
Speaker 4: and his legs are effectively cut off by the shields
Speaker 4: forming around his legs, and he just falls off the
Speaker 4: ship and he dies. I don't know why, but I
Speaker 4: kind of dug the fact that they didn't. He didn't
Speaker 4: feel the need to give this this particular character a grace.
Speaker 4: Note he just died for no good reason, and he
Speaker 4: falls off the ship and that's it. He doesn't do
Speaker 4: anything heroic.
Speaker 6: I don't know why, but I.
Speaker 4: Think we've grown to expect these guys to get a
Speaker 4: nice tag, and a lot of them certainly do.
Speaker 3: But as useless as that death is, and I agree
Speaker 3: with you, like he is not afraid to have someone
Speaker 3: die in an glorified manner. But when's the last time
Speaker 3: you saw a force field turn on and cut a
Speaker 3: guy's legs off?
Speaker 4: It was pretty amazing, actually was you know, my jaw
Speaker 4: was kind of left slack, and like, that is a
Speaker 4: really inventive way to kill somebody off in a movie.
Speaker 4: And another character has kind of, you know, flattened himself
Speaker 4: on the ship, so the force field is effectively above
Speaker 4: him and he's kind of trapped in this you know,
Speaker 4: two foot gap between the ship and the very Some
Speaker 4: of the stuff is very creative.
Speaker 6: CG.
Speaker 4: Might be a little dodgy at times, as you would
Speaker 4: expect from a movie that's effectively almost ten years old now,
Speaker 4: but pretty inventive and pretty creative at times.
Speaker 3: The cig in that scene in particular was dodgy because
Speaker 3: that is that part of the movie that had to
Speaker 3: be rejiggered there at the end. Yes, I that's part
Speaker 3: of the movie that to be recombined there at the end.
Speaker 3: I do not like the word rejiggered.
Speaker 4: Yeah, recombined, I re Yeah, that's it seems it sounds problematic,
Speaker 4: even though I know it's not the other thing that
Speaker 4: I did a little research, and apparently he was. Shane
Speaker 4: Black is very cognizant of maybe have because this is
Speaker 4: an R rated movie, I believe, but he wanted to
Speaker 4: have the option. It is, but he wanted to have
Speaker 4: the option of a PG thirteen version of it. So
Speaker 4: I think a lot of the CG blood I think
Speaker 4: was practically done so that it would be easy to
Speaker 4: wipe in, you know, for another edit, right, because you
Speaker 4: could just basically delete that layer of blood.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's exactly what happened. There are there were markets
Speaker 3: with this movie was essentially a page without being a
Speaker 3: PG thirteen was a PG thirteen.
Speaker 6: But makes sense.
Speaker 3: But this is when we watched Alien Versus Predator Requiem,
Speaker 3: we noted how mean spirited the death seemed. These deaths
Speaker 3: are way meaner and way more island, and yet did
Speaker 3: not somehow seem exploitative. How is that possible.
Speaker 4: Because I think for the most part, you're right, there's
Speaker 4: an awful lot of maiming and destruction in very creative
Speaker 4: and violent ways. I don't know, I didn't really get
Speaker 4: this sense because a lot of the deaths in Requiem
Speaker 4: I think they read as harsh because these are flat
Speaker 4: out innocents in a lot of cases. Case in point,
Speaker 4: at very beginning, the hunter and his son get face
Speaker 4: hugged and a chest You know, that's pretty awful to
Speaker 4: have a child watch his own father die from a
Speaker 4: chest burster.
Speaker 6: To me, if that's cruel in this.
Speaker 4: There are I guess you can't. You know, it's not
Speaker 4: especially cruel, But I don't know. It felt like most
Speaker 4: everybody who had it coming got it particularly bad here,
Speaker 4: And that's maybe why I didn't have as much of
Speaker 4: a problem with it, because it mostly seemed, and I'm
Speaker 4: doing air quotes, justified this universe.
Speaker 3: So do you think one of the three guards that
Speaker 3: is guarding that one of the three guards that's looking
Speaker 3: after Ivan Strahovsky when the ultra predator, when the super
Speaker 3: Predator arrives, you think that guy deserved being basically slit
Speaker 3: in half with the predator's knife and then there was
Speaker 3: basically a fountain of blood that poured down into the
Speaker 3: basement through which he had just broken through the floor
Speaker 3: or the ceiling.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, not to get all clerks on you,
Speaker 4: but I don't think he deserves it any less than
Speaker 4: a stormtrooper on the Death Star when it was destroyed.
Speaker 4: I mean, he's part of the enemy. He's holding this
Speaker 4: woman against her will for nefarious purposes. And we've seen
Speaker 4: Sterling Brown's characters not afraid to just say take them out,
Speaker 4: So you know that these soldiers are prepared to go
Speaker 4: that extra distance. So I wasn't Yes, in the moment,
Speaker 4: maybe he is more innocent, but he had the potential
Speaker 4: to be more problematic.
Speaker 3: Excellent point. These guys will kill anyone on command, so
Speaker 3: they deserve what they get. Plus, look, man, I'm being
Speaker 3: Devil's ad good. I loved all the violence in this movie.
Speaker 4: It was gratuitous and requiem. That's my problem with it
Speaker 4: because we talked about the scene in the hospital where
Speaker 4: there's a pregnant woman who gets impregnated multiple times by
Speaker 4: the pread alien hybrid. That just that to me is
Speaker 4: gratuitous because it's she's a complete innocent in all of this,
Speaker 4: whereas a soldier who has the potential to wipe out
Speaker 4: a family at a moment's order, I don't feel as bad.
Speaker 4: The one of the only deaths that I maybe thought
Speaker 4: was maybe a little over the top was at one point,
Speaker 4: Boyd Holbrook, the guy plays a deck what's his name, McKenna,
Speaker 4: His character is McKenna, his son who we're gonna we
Speaker 4: gotta get into this. He's autistic and he's bullied at school.
Speaker 4: He was sent the helmet in the risk Gauntlet because
Speaker 4: in the movies world he's autistic. He's able to figure
Speaker 4: out the technology and actually hack into the operating system.
Speaker 6: He goes out on Halloween.
Speaker 4: He's got the Predator's mask taped to his face. It's
Speaker 4: cartoonishly big on him, and.
Speaker 3: He's got the risk off scene.
Speaker 6: It's a really good.
Speaker 4: Scene, and the bullies are just about ready to pounce
Speaker 4: on him and they're making fun of him. This little boy,
Speaker 4: Jacob Trembley's character goes to a house to trick a treat.
Speaker 4: They never answer, and this jerk up in the balcony.
Speaker 3: The punk kid like in his early twenties, like you
Speaker 3: can tell him, this scumbag.
Speaker 4: Like like a hesher kind of goes, I'll give you
Speaker 4: a trick, a treat or something, and he throws like
Speaker 4: a can or something at the kid and it doinks
Speaker 4: off of the helmet, and the tech is set to
Speaker 4: like automatically send a shot back when it gets hit.
Speaker 4: So this cannon pops out of it, shoots the guy
Speaker 4: like this hasher who has no idea what's happening, kills him,
Speaker 4: blows up the whole house, and the bullies are just.
Speaker 6: Like, what is going on?
Speaker 4: So it's kind of a nice Yeah, you know, this
Speaker 4: kid gave it to the bullies, but at the same time,
Speaker 4: he just he killed at least he least one innocent
Speaker 4: maybe a full house full of innocence.
Speaker 6: Not his fault, but it happened.
Speaker 3: The Predator is effectively at fault there because his tech
Speaker 3: is a little too good.
Speaker 4: Defensively, it is it is, and I like they have
Speaker 4: little touches, they're always. The one thing you can say
Speaker 4: about all these movies is they're kind of expanding the
Speaker 4: lore of the Predator, and that includes all the weapons
Speaker 4: and tech, and this movie. There's a lot of cool
Speaker 4: tech in this movie, including this autocanon that pops out
Speaker 4: of the helmet and shoots whatever has been attacking it.
Speaker 3: There are gauntlets in this movie where those are new.
Speaker 3: The predator, what he's after is his helmet or his
Speaker 3: face plate really and one of his one of his
Speaker 3: two gauntlets. He has the right one, but Boyd Holbrit
Speaker 3: puts the other one on at the beginning and then
Speaker 3: is attacked by a predator and then the gauntlet defends
Speaker 3: him by shooting out a little disc that actually wounds
Speaker 3: the predator.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's the predator that is taken away by
Speaker 4: this strike team and is being studied.
Speaker 3: Let's talk predators second, because I know you've been super
Speaker 3: critical of every Predator performance since Kevin Williamson. What did
Speaker 3: you think of this fella?
Speaker 4: Uh, the one there's two predators, I guess as a whole.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, there is an actor and then there's
Speaker 3: a fucking cartoon. I'm talking about the actor.
Speaker 4: Okay, he was fine, He read a little bit more
Speaker 4: TV wrestler to me. He didn't again, I'm gonna be.
Speaker 3: More crowd man, I am.
Speaker 4: But I really think Kevin Peter Hall was Kevin Williams.
Speaker 4: You said Kevin Williamson. I was wondering about that.
Speaker 6: I was like the guy who wrote scream? Did he?
Speaker 3: Oh? You remember him in the second Predator movie. He's
Speaker 3: only in the ship at the end.
Speaker 4: Though, look, there's three rules to a Predator movie. Not anyway,
Speaker 4: he was good.
Speaker 6: He was good.
Speaker 4: I think he was a little more pro wrestler than
Speaker 4: lithe killing machine. And they do some weird things with
Speaker 4: the Predator. This isn't necessarily related to his performance. So
Speaker 4: maybe I'll leave it there and we can move in
Speaker 4: a minute.
Speaker 6: But he was fine. He was fine.
Speaker 4: I didn't think that he was the best performance of
Speaker 4: a Predator that I've seen. That honor still goes to
Speaker 4: Kevin Peter Hall. Rip, what did you think of his performance?
Speaker 4: You're looking at me like, are you crazy?
Speaker 3: No, I'm not. I don't think you're crazy, because obviously
Speaker 3: Kevin Peter Hall's performance is just fucking fantastic. He is
Speaker 3: the Predator. I mean, that's what we think of when
Speaker 3: we think of a Predator. But I mean, can I
Speaker 3: just say that I think this predator's better? I like
Speaker 3: this Predator?
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, No, he's fine.
Speaker 3: I think I think he's moving in a much more
Speaker 3: lithe way, in a much more professional way than before.
Speaker 3: There are some shots here. I know that look, there's
Speaker 3: a there's a ton of fucking CGI in this movie,
Speaker 3: but there's a lot of practical stuff, just down to
Speaker 3: little things like there's a rooftop chase where Olivia Munn
Speaker 3: is chasing the predator. Let's we'll get to that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: But but there's moment in it where the predator leaps
Speaker 3: from one level to another, and you can tell that
Speaker 3: they probably got the actor on one of these trampolines
Speaker 3: that launches him up. But my god, seeing the predator
Speaker 3: move as quickly and as gracefully as he was during
Speaker 3: that whole scene, I don't know. I was just knocked
Speaker 3: out by it. I will understand you not agreeing that
Speaker 3: he's not as good as Kevin Peter Hall, but I
Speaker 3: think he's the best we've seen since Kevin Peter.
Speaker 4: Best we've seen since. I will grant you that with
Speaker 4: the proviso that there's still more Predator to come in
Speaker 4: the franchise, which we'll get to when we get to it.
Speaker 4: But yes, I will agree to that, and he's the
Speaker 4: best since Predator too effectively.
Speaker 3: Yay win for me. I hunted that one down. I
Speaker 3: like the fact that at one point during the several
Speaker 3: times in the movie, they point out the fact that
Speaker 3: predator is actually the wrong name for what he's doing.
Speaker 3: They should be calling him a hunter. A predator is
Speaker 3: just hunting for food.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was kind of funny actually, and I guess
Speaker 4: that was that grew out of a real discussion that
Speaker 4: they had on set about the editor. But that is
Speaker 4: and that's but that's something that not many actors can sell.
Speaker 6: But Sterling K.
Speaker 4: Brown, who I mean, they bring up this argument several times.
Speaker 4: But when they're in the lab and that the biologist
Speaker 4: Olivia mun says, yeah, that sounds more like a hunter,
Speaker 4: like a game hunter, not like a predator.
Speaker 6: Predator only hunts to survive.
Speaker 4: And Sterling Brown is the one who's who basically says, now,
Speaker 4: we had a vote on it and we agreed.
Speaker 6: Predator school, right guys, right guys. School.
Speaker 4: He has I use the word before. He has an
Speaker 4: effortless smoothness about it.
Speaker 3: This is a very funny, it is.
Speaker 4: But he's so he really is kind of for me,
Speaker 4: he's one of the aces in the hole of this
Speaker 4: movie because he's so charismatic and you buy him being
Speaker 4: somebody who could lead this team and seem because there's
Speaker 4: scenes where he has to be super charming because he's
Speaker 4: trying to cajole this boy into helping him unlock the
Speaker 4: alien tech. You've got to buy that part of him
Speaker 4: that he can get down to a boy's level and
Speaker 4: relate and convince him to do something. But at the
Speaker 4: same time, he's got to be this scary psycho motherfucker
Speaker 4: who is you know. At one point, one of the
Speaker 4: mercenaries has Olivia mun at gunpoint and he says, what
Speaker 4: do I do, and Sterling K. Brown Trager just says, eliminator.
Speaker 6: You know that's it.
Speaker 4: He I buy him in both senses, and he's just
Speaker 4: so good and he's so funny too.
Speaker 3: Talk about ruthless. At the end of the movie, boyd
Speaker 3: Holbrook has a gun on him and he has Jake
Speaker 3: and Trembley at his side, and Sterling came Brown, instead
Speaker 3: of telling his men to put his guns down, tell says, man,
Speaker 3: I'm going to count back from ten, at which point
Speaker 3: shoot out the child's kneecap.
Speaker 6: It's really good.
Speaker 4: Because we've been trained in every one of these movies
Speaker 4: where somebody's being held at gunpoint, like tell them to
Speaker 4: put their guns down, they're like, you know, against their will,
Speaker 4: they're like, all right, you'll lower your guns. But that's
Speaker 4: not what he does at all. He threatens the guy's
Speaker 4: son right in front of him.
Speaker 3: I'm shaying Blake so much.
Speaker 6: Man's so it's so good. It's really that part of it.
Speaker 4: It's like really good, I which makes it all the
Speaker 4: more upsetting. Father alone, the way they took out Trager,
Speaker 4: obviously we're there's this is a no, this is a
Speaker 4: spoiler zone here now. To be honest, I practically blinked
Speaker 4: and missed the moment that Trager got killed. I had
Speaker 4: to go back and like rewatch the scene, like what
Speaker 4: happened to him.
Speaker 3: It is certainly a chaotic scene, isn't.
Speaker 6: It It is?
Speaker 4: So can we go into that a little bit just
Speaker 4: to give people context. Let's so, it's they effectively, after
Speaker 4: this standoff between Trager and McKenna, they effectively joined forces
Speaker 4: for the moment to try and take the predator out.
Speaker 4: They realize that they're better off together than individually. So
Speaker 4: they've made a truce and they're walking through these woods
Speaker 4: and as one does, the predator attacks them. It's a
Speaker 4: chaotic scene. There's guns going off, alien tech. Trager has
Speaker 4: one of the shoulder mounted plasma cannons that we've seen
Speaker 4: in all the Predator movies, and he's using that to
Speaker 4: effectively fight the predator.
Speaker 3: And at one point, which he's been warned about they
Speaker 3: warn him earlier, he picks that cannon up and his
Speaker 3: subordinate says, you gotta be careful what that's her?
Speaker 4: Oh but it's but I saw that, but it didn't
Speaker 4: read as the shoulder cannon because it's effectively a tube
Speaker 4: at that point. It's not mounted, so I didn't make
Speaker 4: that connection. That's just me being slow. But regardless, he's
Speaker 4: got this shoulder cannon on Olivia Munn, says Traeger, and
Speaker 4: he turns his head and the gun is pointed right
Speaker 4: at his head and blows his head off. That's it,
Speaker 4: ignominious death.
Speaker 3: Well, you said you like that about Shane Black. You
Speaker 3: like it? You like it good ignominious death, don't you.
Speaker 4: I'm fine if it's not as chaotic and I can
Speaker 4: understand what just happened.
Speaker 3: Well, do you want to talk about the chaos? Stand?
Speaker 6: I'd love to. I'd love to talk about a lot
Speaker 6: of stuff.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about Let's talk about the specific plot of
Speaker 3: the movie right now. What is happening here.
Speaker 6: At this moment in the movie.
Speaker 3: Overall, a lot of the movie, Number one is on
Speaker 3: the run from predator to because he's stolen a bunch
Speaker 3: of tack.
Speaker 4: Why, well, do you want to reveal we We don't
Speaker 4: find that out until the very end.
Speaker 3: Is spoiler.
Speaker 4: So what's happened is and Trager is very good at
Speaker 4: keeping one step ahead. He understands the predators, and he's
Speaker 4: the one who kind of expositories this whole thing. The
Speaker 4: global warming is happening there, the temperature is rising. The
Speaker 4: biologist figures out that there's human DNA in the predator
Speaker 4: that they're studying. So what Traeger has basically figured out
Speaker 4: is that they are using the trophies that they get
Speaker 4: of all of the humans and other aliens. They use
Speaker 4: the DNA from those trophies that.
Speaker 3: They find in the spine, and hey, that's why they
Speaker 3: rip out their spine. Everybody.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a very interesting twist because up to that
Speaker 4: point you just think these are trophies, but no, they're
Speaker 4: harvesting DNA to make themselves better hunters. So the fact
Speaker 4: that the Earth's temperature is rising, humanity is effectively an
Speaker 4: endangered species. The predator's visits are becoming more frequent. So anyway,
Speaker 4: that's the predator that's coming, that's being chased by the
Speaker 4: larger uber predator is effectively bringing a gift to humanity
Speaker 4: to try and protect it from the onslaught of predators
Speaker 4: that he knows is coming. And that onslaught is represented
Speaker 4: by this giant uber predator that basically kills that the
Speaker 4: first predator with very little difficulty.
Speaker 6: He's big, strong, he rips his.
Speaker 4: Head off like we've seen him do with so many humans.
Speaker 3: And I don't know how she noticed that when when
Speaker 3: he did that, he didn't use it like a trophy
Speaker 3: at all. He just went inflicted away like so much rubbish.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he just dropped it. I don't need this.
Speaker 4: But somehow the biologist recognizes that this giant predator has
Speaker 4: an exoskeleton on the inside. I don't know how she
Speaker 4: figured out, because he just looks like a predator to me.
Speaker 6: But this is this.
Speaker 4: Predator is we're led to believe has been crossbred with
Speaker 4: all this predator DNA and that's what makes him bigger, faster,
Speaker 4: and tougher. But what he's after, this thing that the
Speaker 4: other predator was bringing to humanity to try and give
Speaker 4: us a fighting chance, and we don't find out until
Speaker 4: the very end that it's a predator killer armor. It's
Speaker 4: actually pretty cool. I'm kind of a little sad that
Speaker 4: we never saw this thing in action, really in action.
Speaker 4: But it's this armor that kind of bonds to you.
Speaker 4: It's kind of, you know, it's like Iron Man armor. Basically,
Speaker 4: it kind of flies into you. It armors you. You
Speaker 4: become a robot predator that has all these guns and
Speaker 4: rockets and things. And it's that we're led to believe
Speaker 4: that McKenna is going to be the predator killer in
Speaker 4: the sequel that we never got of this.
Speaker 3: Okay, one of three endings, Ending number one preferred Shane Black.
Speaker 3: They were really pushing for it the whole time. They
Speaker 3: reveal the tech from the alien ship and it's a
Speaker 3: cryo chamber and in it is Dutch Schaeffer. He was
Speaker 3: bringing Dutch Schaeffer back to help us fight the other predators.
Speaker 3: Ending number two, Ending number two. Are you ready for
Speaker 3: Ending number two? I'm Sam Set up cryo chamber. Open
Speaker 3: up the cryo chamber. Who's in it?
Speaker 4: Don't tell me to any glovers in it? No Adrian Brody, no,
Speaker 4: Martin Riggs. I don't know who's in the other cryot.
Speaker 3: Close Ellen Ripley, Oh you know, I think I.
Speaker 4: Did read that somewhere, but I didn't really. It didn't
Speaker 4: make much of an impact.
Speaker 3: How would she travel back in time? I don't know.
Speaker 3: They filmed that you're shooting me.
Speaker 4: They filmed Sigourney Weaver coming out of the crood.
Speaker 3: Oh, they filmed a double with a breathing mask over
Speaker 3: her face in a patch that read Ellen Ripley.
Speaker 6: Oh, wow, have you seen it?
Speaker 3: I have not seen it, but I did read the
Speaker 3: original screenplay, and oh boy, let's talk about the original screenplay.
Speaker 3: What did you think of We'll get there, but here's
Speaker 3: a question that when this is part of the movie,
Speaker 3: we should talk about. What did you think of the
Speaker 3: Predator dogs in this movie? They're not the same. They're
Speaker 3: not the same as the last Predator dogs we saw, right.
Speaker 6: They're not. But to be honest, I mean, the scene
Speaker 6: is cool.
Speaker 4: We won't go into the scene, but basically there's a
Speaker 4: scene much like Predators the last movie, where they're in
Speaker 4: a baseball field and the Predator dogs come out. They
Speaker 4: didn't make a lot of impact to me. They're faceless
Speaker 4: and they don't really have a lot of panache to
Speaker 4: them that I found interesting. The interesting part there was
Speaker 4: one of the mercenaries shoots the dog in the head,
Speaker 4: shoots one of them in the head and renders him docile,
Speaker 4: Like he effectively lobotomizes the dog, so it becomes more
Speaker 4: like a real dog.
Speaker 6: That's you know, kind of.
Speaker 3: Like it's a sweet pep boy at that point.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it becomes a loyal pop.
Speaker 3: Riley Jean was riveted once that dog became nice.
Speaker 4: It's a little dark that it took a bullet to
Speaker 4: the head to make the thing docile, but it was
Speaker 4: kind of It's the source of some fun comedy in
Speaker 4: the movie. But to be honest, I didn't really.
Speaker 3: The predator notice anything interesting. Do you notice anything interesting
Speaker 3: about their design?
Speaker 6: They had the dreadlocks.
Speaker 3: They did have dreadlocks, almost as if they had been
Speaker 3: genetically engineered.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I wondered about that.
Speaker 3: Well, guess what. Originally the gigantic predator was a gene
Speaker 3: splicing predator. Those are his dogs, after all, and he
Speaker 3: had an entire menagerie of predator spliced aliens, predator, crocodiles, predator,
Speaker 3: giant spiders, predator, this and that and the other thing,
Speaker 3: an entire horror show. The our hero Predator, the fugitive
Speaker 3: Predator stole the menagerie, that's what the ship was, and
Speaker 3: was transporting it so he couldn't have it so he
Speaker 3: wouldn't be able to use it on Earth, and brought
Speaker 3: it to Earth instead, at which point at the end,
Speaker 3: they open up the ship and all of these Predator
Speaker 3: monsters come out and it's a fucking monster battle.
Speaker 4: Sounds expensive in broad daylight, sounds even more expensive.
Speaker 3: They filmed at Harris, they filmed at HP Nice. I've
Speaker 3: never seen it.
Speaker 4: There's a lot that they filmed. I know that the
Speaker 4: ending of Keegan, Michael Key and Thomas Jaye's characters were
Speaker 4: also like refilmed like originally they didn't die the way
Speaker 4: they did in the released version. There's an awful lot
Speaker 4: of this going on with this movie. It makes me
Speaker 4: wonder if there's a whole nother cut, like release the Baute,
Speaker 4: the Black cut exactly released, the Shane cut.
Speaker 3: Shane come back, Shane. The thing is, you know Shane
Speaker 3: Black is intimately involved in movie, so I don't think
Speaker 3: he's spoiling to get another cut out there, and you
Speaker 3: know he's taking his lumps. He's spoken about the movie
Speaker 3: that he fucked out up and you know, didn't deliver
Speaker 3: the movie that people wanted. But yeah, that that was
Speaker 3: the original ending. I'd love to see that ending. I
Speaker 3: would too, I really, I've read comments on the ending
Speaker 3: and they're fucking nuts. Like the ending that we got
Speaker 3: was okay, but it was just kind of the end
Speaker 3: of that A team episode that was running through the movie,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. I didn't want the A
Speaker 3: team ending at the end. I wanted a fucking predator ending.
Speaker 6: And you really just encapsulated it beautifully.
Speaker 4: It really is like an a team of misfit soldiers
Speaker 4: that band together and it just so happens in this
Speaker 4: case that their foe is a predator from outer space.
Speaker 4: But it could have been it could have been a
Speaker 4: drug lord, it could have been any number of things,
Speaker 4: and it would have been an equally interesting movie.
Speaker 3: Perhaps a team meets the Predator.
Speaker 6: Yeah, do you know?
Speaker 3: There was an Archie meets Predator too. After this came out,
Speaker 3: I read I.
Speaker 4: Think I read the first Archie Versus Predator and it
Speaker 4: was interesting. I can't say that I liked it. I
Speaker 4: appreciated their willingness to kind of blend these two disparate genres.
Speaker 3: You should take it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I will. I will.
Speaker 4: I'm sure they have a new line that's the Marvel
Speaker 4: Universe versus Predators.
Speaker 6: Did you know that brand new?
Speaker 3: I did know that, and I don't want to dive inte.
Speaker 3: I kind of just don't want to. I mean, maybe
Speaker 3: I will eventually, but I'm we're experiencing Predators so purely
Speaker 3: right now. Although if you wanted to, you could read
Speaker 3: the prequel novel for this film, just for the Predator,
Speaker 3: there's a prequel.
Speaker 6: Yeah, did Alan Dean Foster write it?
Speaker 3: No, I don't know the author. Off the top of
Speaker 3: my head. I did listen to it. I didn't read it,
Speaker 3: but I listened to it. It's about it's about Sterling K.
Speaker 3: Brown's characters and his and his squad, the Reapers. That's
Speaker 3: their case. That's his team's name, the Reapers.
Speaker 4: I would check that out. Actually, speaking of the Reapers,
Speaker 4: one thing that we haven't mentioned, which I thought was
Speaker 4: a neat little I don't call it an easter egg
Speaker 4: is one of the one of the scientists that's there
Speaker 4: when Olivia mun shows up to study the Predator is
Speaker 4: played by Jake.
Speaker 6: Busey, who number one.
Speaker 4: I love the fact that he's so restrained and kind
Speaker 4: of nerdy in this. I'm used to him being like
Speaker 4: his dad, a little more boisterous and kind of hey. Here,
Speaker 4: he's just like a nerdy scientist. He starts off that way,
Speaker 4: the Predator attacks and he dies as a nerdy scientist.
Speaker 6: I thought that was pretty cool.
Speaker 4: But he's meant to be the son of Gary Busey's
Speaker 4: character from Predator two.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a it's an easter egg that's right there,
Speaker 3: But they don't like at no point that they go
Speaker 3: like my dad was blah blah blah, which is nice,
Speaker 3: Like it's there if you want to.
Speaker 6: They don't call attention to it. Yeah, there are tons.
Speaker 3: Of little easter eggs like that throughout the entire film.
Speaker 3: In fact, Shane Black is not shy for acknowledging the
Speaker 3: other films, right down to the Alien Versus Predator. One
Speaker 3: of their artifacts I don't know if you noticed, is
Speaker 3: sna Leathan's spear, the xenomorph tail spear.
Speaker 6: Really that I didn't notice.
Speaker 4: I did notice that when he finally escapes and kills
Speaker 4: everybody in the lab, there's a glass case with I
Speaker 4: think that's where you're talking about where the artifacts are,
Speaker 4: and he doesn't have his mask. The kid has his mask,
Speaker 4: so he gets it's effectively the original Predator's mask from
Speaker 4: Predator one. And I think it's great that we've had
Speaker 4: so much lore that we can recognize like one mask
Speaker 4: from the other. That thought that was really clever. Can
Speaker 4: we we haven't really gotten back to this, and I
Speaker 4: don't want to lose sight of it. There's really two things,
Speaker 4: two negatives. We talked a lot about how much we
Speaker 4: loved about the movie, But can we talk about two
Speaker 4: negatives in my opinion.
Speaker 3: When we talk about a biologist who turns into a
Speaker 3: fucking action star within moments.
Speaker 6: Sure, that's number one. Well, how did let me ask you? First?
Speaker 4: As an actress, how did you feel when you saw
Speaker 4: that Olivia Munn had a starring role in this picture?
Speaker 3: My heart felt through the floor when I saw that
Speaker 3: she was in the cast. This is before I saw
Speaker 3: the movie, my mind. I previously my experience with Livy
Speaker 3: Munn had been as a Maximum cover model and as
Speaker 3: a pilock. I think that's pretty much the sum total
Speaker 3: of my experience of her. And I don't know, she's
Speaker 3: a pretty girl, you know what I mean, But I didn't.
Speaker 3: I didn't think too much of her acting Jumps. I
Speaker 3: liked her a lot in this movie. I think she
Speaker 3: was really good in the movie.
Speaker 4: She's better than I expected. I like, you had low expectations.
Speaker 3: I knew on me, I guess is what I'm fucking saying.
Speaker 3: Don't judge a book by its cover, like because I
Speaker 3: thought she was really good, like given the fucking bizarre
Speaker 3: logic of her role in this film, the fact that
Speaker 3: she manages to come off normal and not betray how
Speaker 3: stupid everything they're making her do is.
Speaker 6: Sure my my intro to her.
Speaker 4: My previous experience was a little more extensive in that
Speaker 4: I used to watch it was like a network called
Speaker 4: G four, which was a network for video games and
Speaker 4: things like that, and they had a show.
Speaker 3: Sorrow. This was the rise of nerd fucking Nerd Kingdom,
Speaker 3: nerd fucking.
Speaker 4: This was like Spike TV, this was back in those days,
Speaker 4: and their flagship show, their news show, news variety show
Speaker 4: was called Attack of the Show, and she was one
Speaker 4: of the co hosts. It was her and some other
Speaker 4: nerdy guy and she she proved in that. I mean,
Speaker 4: she obviously she's very pretty, and that's a big part
Speaker 4: of her appeal. But she did prove in that show
Speaker 4: that she could she could twist that on its head
Speaker 4: a little bit, and she could be funny, and she
Speaker 4: could act a little bit. And you know, she wasn't
Speaker 4: just a pretty face. It wasn't, but she wasn't also
Speaker 4: going out of her way to do a Jenny McCarthy thing,
Speaker 4: which is, I know I'm pretty, but I'm gonna do
Speaker 4: my best to make myself repulsive. I'm gonna belch, I'm
Speaker 4: gonna fart, I'm gonna do all this stuff, And hey,
Speaker 4: isn't that funny when a pretty girl does these things?
Speaker 4: She never stooped to that level, and I appreciated that
Speaker 4: about her. She was better than I expected her. And
Speaker 4: I guess, to your point, shame on me too, because
Speaker 4: as people coming into a movie, especially totally fresh like
Speaker 4: I did, you should never go in with preconceived notions.
Speaker 4: And I fear that's what I did. Having said that,
Speaker 4: it is a little tiresome and they don't really play
Speaker 4: with this trope.
Speaker 6: But have we kind of gotten past this.
Speaker 4: Idea of the beautiful, brilliant scientist like who is that?
Speaker 4: There was was a Denise Richards in that James Bond
Speaker 4: movie as.
Speaker 3: She was a nuclear scientist.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that makes me bristle when I see somebody pretty
Speaker 4: in a role like this. Having said that, she comports herself,
Speaker 4: Oliviamane comports herself much better than I gave her any
Speaker 4: credit for.
Speaker 3: I believed her as a badass member of that squad
Speaker 3: of that movie, because I don't know what her place
Speaker 3: is in this film other than as the person who
Speaker 3: infiltrates the lab, grabs a thing, and then figures out
Speaker 3: what they're up to. That's the function of her character.
Speaker 3: But they introduce her as this like bookish professor who
Speaker 3: gets called on by this stargazer organization, which is the
Speaker 3: storylin K Brown's organization to come check out this alien,
Speaker 3: to like double check their findings or something. So this
Speaker 3: is the furthest from an action star ever, and she
Speaker 3: behaves appropriately up until the fat up until the moment
Speaker 3: where the predator reeks fucking havoc in that lab. Great scene,
Speaker 3: by the way, love seeing a predator bite somebody for
Speaker 3: the first time.
Speaker 6: First time.
Speaker 3: Absolutely we've been looking at that scary fucking mouth. This
Speaker 3: holds on five movies. Nobody went wouldn't it be good
Speaker 3: if he bids somebody anyway? During that scene, predator kills
Speaker 3: everyone in the room. She tries to get out. The
Speaker 3: only way to get out is through the decontamination, so
Speaker 3: she's effectively naked on the floor without a weapon when
Speaker 3: the predator comes in, so she's not a threat and
Speaker 3: he leaves, and she's so fucking shaken. In that scene,
Speaker 3: this is when I was like, Oh, why she really
Speaker 3: really good? I like her that what follows makes zero
Speaker 3: sense at all. Her reaction to oh my god, I
Speaker 3: faced this creature from another planet that killed everyone in
Speaker 3: that room and then spared me. Let me grab a
Speaker 3: trank gun and chase it down. Let me jump onto
Speaker 3: a moving bus and then stand on said moving bus
Speaker 3: trying to get a shot. Like, either she's a member
Speaker 3: of that team or she's a Sandra Bullack character.
Speaker 4: If it were me, let's say I'm the scientist who
Speaker 4: goes in there and I face down a predator in
Speaker 4: that fashion, and he spares me, but he gives me
Speaker 4: a nice long glare before he does.
Speaker 6: No hyperbole. I would literally be.
Speaker 4: Shitting myself, and I think I would probably have PTSD
Speaker 4: for the rest of my life. Because number one, I
Speaker 4: have to come to terms with the fact that aliens
Speaker 4: do exist.
Speaker 6: And I just and this.
Speaker 4: Thing that I just saw kill people in the most
Speaker 4: egregious way that you can imagine, spared me. I think
Speaker 4: I'd be I would be on that bus with the lunatics.
Speaker 6: I would be done.
Speaker 3: Is that Shane Blackswall, it's too real world a moment
Speaker 3: to follow it up with, and now it's action fun.
Speaker 4: Well, they try to play it off like she She's like, well, no,
Speaker 4: this is my alien. I'm not gonna let him get away.
Speaker 4: I want to study him. So that becomes her obsession.
Speaker 4: She is driven by the idea that I, you know,
Speaker 4: I came this close to studying an alien.
Speaker 6: I'm not going to let him get away.
Speaker 3: It's all very happenstance. There's so much logical happenstance in
Speaker 3: this Like this, the squad just happens to be there,
Speaker 3: like dud when they're putting them on the bus with them,
Speaker 3: you know, like weit. Holbrook's character did was not familiar
Speaker 3: with these characters before we meet them, which is like
Speaker 3: thirty minutes into the film right right the but should
Speaker 3: they not have been his team from the beginning? Shouldn't
Speaker 3: it have just been the A team framed for a
Speaker 3: crime they didn't commit, like they as a cover up,
Speaker 3: Like and then they're fighting amongst themselves in the looney
Speaker 3: bin like they're were aliens.
Speaker 6: No, there weren't.
Speaker 3: You're actually crazy, No you are, you know, like something
Speaker 3: like he needed to pick a story because I want
Speaker 3: to either follow Boyd Holbrook saving his son and doing
Speaker 3: hold that whole thing, or I want to follow this
Speaker 3: fucking A team story.
Speaker 4: There is something very endearing about that whole team of
Speaker 4: damaged soldiers because they each, as you said, they take time.
Speaker 4: Shane Black takes time to really let you get to
Speaker 4: know all of them, and they all have a very
Speaker 4: interesting backstory, like Nebraska, who's effectively the leader of the
Speaker 4: group when Holbrook meets them. He shot himself in the head.
Speaker 4: He tried to commit suicide effectively, and then he had
Speaker 4: to walk himself to the hospital when it didn't work.
Speaker 4: And I don't know, just the guy with Tourette's, you
Speaker 4: automatically feel, at least I do somebody who has this
Speaker 4: involuntary condition. Your heart goes out to them because you
Speaker 4: know he's a misunderstood character on the face of it.
Speaker 3: A fun fact, although that might not be it might
Speaker 3: not be a fun fact. Shane Black also has to write.
Speaker 4: And I'm aware of that, and that made it a
Speaker 4: little complicated to think about this character because the Turets,
Speaker 4: Let's be honest, has played for laughs in this But
Speaker 4: the fact that Shane Black has Turets does, I guess
Speaker 4: that's supposed to excuse it or make me feel better
Speaker 4: about it being used.
Speaker 6: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Is it any better or worse than autism is a
Speaker 3: magical step in our evolution and will allow you to
Speaker 3: understand alien technology.
Speaker 4: That's the biggest bar none, The biggest problem I had
Speaker 4: with this movie was the treatment of a.
Speaker 6: Boy with autism.
Speaker 4: He's effectively like he's like rain Man basically because he
Speaker 4: has this preternatural ability to understand the aliens tech and
Speaker 4: figure things.
Speaker 6: I mean, he's doing.
Speaker 4: Things like like this alien, this the uber alien is
Speaker 4: Predator has been pursuing in this ship and he cloaks
Speaker 4: to get into Earth's you know, it's to land on
Speaker 4: Earth and the kids playing with this thing, and the
Speaker 4: kid can effectively turn off and on the cloaking of
Speaker 4: the aliens or the Predator's ship at will. I mean
Speaker 4: He's figured this out in less than a day. So
Speaker 4: I don't I take umbrage with the fact that number one, well,
Speaker 4: really that autism is being treated like this, like a
Speaker 4: super intellect. This, as Oliviaman says, the next step in evolution.
Speaker 4: And in fact, that figures into the story because at
Speaker 4: one point, and I thought this was kind of cool.
Speaker 4: Actually for the first time. Let me back up for
Speaker 4: a minute, we actually have translated predator language in this
Speaker 4: which I was very excited for.
Speaker 6: Fahlahlah.
Speaker 4: There's some subtitling that happens when the ship is on
Speaker 4: its way, and then when they're trying to break into
Speaker 4: the ship, Traeger has set up this translator and downloaded
Speaker 4: the predator's language onto this device. The predator, the uper predator,
Speaker 4: gets on the ship and he talks to the people
Speaker 4: and to the mercenaries and so forth, and he says, look,
Speaker 4: this is my ship.
Speaker 6: You're not gonna get this ship.
Speaker 4: All I want is this item that the other predator had.
Speaker 4: And I'm gonna give you guys a head start. I'm
Speaker 4: gonna let you. Let me give you like a seven
Speaker 4: minute head start. By the way, one among you is
Speaker 4: called McKenna. He's your leader. He will be my trophy,
Speaker 4: which is kind of scary to think that, Wow, this
Speaker 4: is actual alien, like an alien talking to us, and
Speaker 4: we understand it. We're led to believe that he means
Speaker 4: McKenna the sniper, but no, because this autism is being
Speaker 4: treated as, you know, something glorious. He actually met McKenna
Speaker 4: the child because of course he's autistic, so he must
Speaker 4: be an evolutionary step forward. The predator thinks so, and
Speaker 4: in fact, the predator eventually steals the boy and tries
Speaker 4: to leave Earth with him in an escape pod. I
Speaker 4: for all of the good that happens in this movie
Speaker 4: and all the great stuff in the screenplay, it was
Speaker 4: just so hard for me to get past this, the
Speaker 4: treatment of autism in this movie. I thought it was
Speaker 4: really just unfortunate and a real bummer.
Speaker 3: You know, it's unfortunate.
Speaker 4: But how did you feel? I mean, I talked a
Speaker 4: lot about this, but what were your feelings? Fun and alone?
Speaker 3: I didn't feel quite as harshly towarded on this viewing
Speaker 3: as I did before. I don't think it's look, it's
Speaker 3: as muddle headed as is it as muddle headed as
Speaker 3: punching down? I don't know man like it's not played
Speaker 3: for laughs, but you know it's I guess it's kind
Speaker 3: of like feeling like, you know, you're Chinese and everyone
Speaker 3: thinks you're mystical and can do kung fu or something.
Speaker 3: You know, it's just like, you know, like I can
Speaker 3: see the criticism of Big Trouble in Little China at
Speaker 3: a moment where Chinese people are trying to foment their
Speaker 3: or you know, cement their national identity as you know,
Speaker 3: just hard working American people, and like, would you stop
Speaker 3: treating us like, you know, we can shoot fire and
Speaker 3: summon dragons.
Speaker 4: That's a very fair point. That is a very fair point.
Speaker 4: And I don't have a I guess I didn't think
Speaker 4: of it in those terms. But at the same time,
Speaker 4: I don't know, I just it.
Speaker 6: I don't know. I don't know how you would I guess.
Speaker 4: Could it have worked as well had the boy just
Speaker 4: been a really smart, nerdy kid without this overlaid you
Speaker 4: issue of autism blanketing him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yes, it definitely could have it. The script
Speaker 3: is such a fucking kitchen sink of ideas that it
Speaker 3: doesn't necessarily need to be in there. I don't know,
Speaker 3: I don't know how I feel about it. I mean,
Speaker 3: I wanted to just give everyone the benefit of the
Speaker 3: doubt because I know their intentions from previous works. You know,
Speaker 3: it doesn't excuse it. I suppose I don't have a
Speaker 3: child with autism, so I don't really have a dog
Speaker 3: in the fight necessarily, or a predator dog in the fight.
Speaker 3: But Geene, now you're making me not like the movie
Speaker 3: at all.
Speaker 4: Ah me, Well, no, it doesn't kill my whole enjoyment movie.
Speaker 4: We just talked for the better part of an hour
Speaker 4: about how much what we loved about it, and that
Speaker 4: doesn't change that. I just I really wish he had
Speaker 4: And this is Look this, if this movie had come
Speaker 4: out in nineteen ninety seven, let's say, doesn't excuse it,
Speaker 4: but it would have made it more understandable that maybe
Speaker 4: autism was understood very differently two decades ago or whatever.
Speaker 4: But this wasn't that long ago. I think we understand
Speaker 4: collectively a lot more about autism and how you know
Speaker 4: how to treat folks on the spectrum and how what
Speaker 4: that means to be autistic. I thought we left the
Speaker 4: whole rain Man thing back in the eighties, so it
Speaker 4: was a little dismaying. No, it was a lot dismaying
Speaker 4: to see this in this movie. Didn't kill the movie
Speaker 4: for me. I just couldn't help wishing that it would
Speaker 4: had been otherwise.
Speaker 3: Do you think it was maybe a misguided attempt at hopefulness? Like,
Speaker 3: I know it seems bad, folks, but don't worry. You're
Speaker 3: just actually the next evolutionary step.
Speaker 4: That's the most charitable explanation for it. Sure, yeah, I
Speaker 4: guess I will go ahead and give Shane Black the
Speaker 4: benefit of the doubt on this. I don't think he
Speaker 4: was out to purposefully exoticize the notion of autism, just
Speaker 4: like I don't think it was John Carpenter or W. D.
Speaker 4: Richter's notion to exoticize Asian American culture in Big Trouble
Speaker 4: Little China. I just think it's a factor of the
Speaker 4: time it was made and the people that made it.
Speaker 3: It's a topic that must be wrestled with. If we're
Speaker 3: going to enjoy this movie, if we must sing it's praises,
Speaker 3: we must let you know that there are problematic issues.
Speaker 6: This is that's a very well set overall.
Speaker 3: Where do you rank it?
Speaker 4: Ooh, it's a very The thing of it is like, look,
Speaker 4: number one, it's better than Predator two, it's better than Requiem,
Speaker 4: It's better than AVP hands down. Where it's a little
Speaker 4: tough for me to judge is Predators. The previous movie
Speaker 4: is so different tonally, structurally, everything about it is so different.
Speaker 4: It's a bit of an apples and oranges argument. But
Speaker 4: if we're judging this primarily on entertainment value, was how
Speaker 4: much entertainment did I get from this versus Predator? Predators?
Speaker 4: This was more entertaining. So I'm going to say I
Speaker 4: like this better than Predators. But that's not saying I
Speaker 4: didn't I enjoyed Predators.
Speaker 6: This was better.
Speaker 3: Do we rank them so far? Yeah, Because here's the thing.
Speaker 3: From here on out, I consider this the end of
Speaker 3: the first Predator era, let's say, because from now on,
Speaker 3: Tracktenberg's in charge, and from now on, I think we're
Speaker 3: going to be thinking about the Predators a little more
Speaker 3: thoughtfully and a little less you know what, would be cool,
Speaker 3: because that's what every filmmakerup until now has been doing
Speaker 3: every time they get their hands on this franchise.
Speaker 4: Good point, So let's obviously number one has well, you
Speaker 4: want to go backwards in reverse.
Speaker 3: Number one is Predator. There's no surprise.
Speaker 4: It's it set the tone. It's still the best movie overall.
Speaker 4: Nothing's going to top Predator, the second best. I would say,
Speaker 4: is this the Predator agreed? Then Predators agreed. Then it's
Speaker 4: a very big drop off from there to.
Speaker 3: But Alien versus Predator has more charms than it's misbegotten sequel.
Speaker 4: Sure, look, Requiem is going to be bottom of the
Speaker 4: barrel regardless because stacking it up against any other movie,
Speaker 4: it's going to be the worst.
Speaker 3: Thank god, it's there right like you. Every movie that
Speaker 3: comes out from now on we can always just say,
Speaker 3: but was it as bad as Requiem?
Speaker 6: No, that's true. It can only get better from there,
Speaker 6: that's for sure.
Speaker 3: But oh how how I love you?
Speaker 6: Oh wait, you know what we didn't know? I'm sorry
Speaker 6: we didn't rank Predator.
Speaker 3: Too because it's not on the list, because we're just
Speaker 3: tossing off the list Predator too, Yeah, it doesn't exist.
Speaker 6: Why is that? Get off.
Speaker 5: With you?
Speaker 3: Obviously we've got to put it on the list. How
Speaker 3: dare we even forget it?
Speaker 4: I would say, it's then I would offer that it
Speaker 4: should be just above a VP agreed. So it's just
Speaker 4: it's lots of into that third spot. Effectively or fourth spot.
Speaker 3: I want to like it more than Predators, but it
Speaker 3: is not as good a movie.
Speaker 6: It's not.
Speaker 4: And I think we talked about this when we discussed
Speaker 4: that movie. I liked it a lot when I first
Speaker 4: saw it in the theater. Predator too. I did not
Speaker 4: like it nearly as much when we rewatched it for
Speaker 4: this series. In fact, I disliked it a lot.
Speaker 3: Well, there it is. There's the list Predator, the Predator,
Speaker 3: Predators so ridiculous, and then Predator two versus Predators Predator. Okay,
Speaker 3: that's it.
Speaker 6: I don't know why that's so funny, but that is.
Speaker 3: I'm just and oh, you know what's funny. Here's what's funny. HB.
Speaker 3: Do you know the original title of Predator.
Speaker 4: The first Predator? Yes, I have no idea. What was
Speaker 4: the original title?
Speaker 3: Hunter? Until next time, we're gonna be taking a look Finally, motherfuckers,
Speaker 3: we're gonna be taking a look at Pray. That'll be
Speaker 3: two weeks from today, ladies and gentlemen, unless you're listening
Speaker 3: on the Patreon channel, Hey patrons, welcome to September. Everyone else,
Speaker 3: this will be sometime in November October. I don't know anyway, HB.
Speaker 3: Until then, where can people find you when they're looking
Speaker 3: for you? And they are you?
Speaker 6: All right? I hope? So I welcome it.
Speaker 4: I co host the Night Mister Walters Taxi podcast alongside
Speaker 4: my best friend in the world, Father Alone. Here, I'm
Speaker 4: Miniqui a and also a world's best Fonzie impressionist. Over here,
Speaker 4: I am an occasional guest on the Culture Cast with
Speaker 4: Chris Dashu. I also host occasionally host the Noise Junkies
Speaker 4: music podcast.
Speaker 6: And I'll let you kind of when I feel like it.
Speaker 4: And I also, last but not least, I have a
Speaker 4: band campsite hpmusicplace dot bandcamp dot com.
Speaker 3: As for me, you're listening to the show you know
Speaker 3: it all patreon dot com, slash Father Alone. Thank you
Speaker 3: to all the patrons, by the way, really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: I got a lot of good stuff coming up for
Speaker 3: you soon, including a new HP hates Me. In fact,
Speaker 3: if you're listening to this, Yude, I probably already on
Speaker 3: the Patroon channel. We're gonna be looking at fucking f M.
Speaker 3: That's right, the Father Alone movie. All right, We're gonna
Speaker 3: we're gonna leave with oh, you know what, there are
Speaker 3: so many fucking good lines, it's gonna be hard to
Speaker 3: choose one. So anyway, here's something fucking hilarious from the
Speaker 3: Predator Morning Sunshine. I really wish people would stop calling me.
Speaker 6: That Sure ye I told you she grabbed a ted Fox.
Speaker 3: You're not gonna need that.
Speaker 7: Good I told us cold Fragger I put you that time.
Speaker 7: I like her, I should put you that tiger.
Speaker 1: I like her.
Speaker 2: I like her.
Speaker 5: I like her.
Speaker 2: I like her a lot. Plead you can kill it,
Speaker 2: make good timing, shouting out their way job
Speaker 3: What dy hell are you