Amph In Town With a Few Days to Kill: The Prey-dator Discussion Thread

Yeah, minus the PG-13 rating, some sillier aspects of the "team-up" at the end and just, in general, poorer Predator effects, AVP1 is pretty solidly entertaining. Not as good as the first two films, but it has a fun premise and delivers on most of the goods from what you'd want out of the franchise crossover (outside of Colonial Marines, which is really what they should do for an AVP3 in the future).

Yeah, the "Predalien". I liked that it's something so horrendous that it forces the Yautja to send Wolf in as a cleaner.

P3 got decent reviews but some of the criticisms, from what I recall, involved too many homages to (or recreations of moments from) the original film (something, ironically, that Predator 2 threatened to do but, to its great credit, walked up to that line before pulling back and standing on its own) as well as Adrien Brody not feeling like a strong enough co-lead (despite story reasons) for what the film needed.

I have to imagine that there was also some lingering disappointment that it wasn't any of the P3 concepts from the late 90's/early 00's when AVP1 was in development: what became Predators originally had Arnold and Danny being taken to the homeworld, while Robert's original script pitch was set on/around a 17th century sailing ship and her crew. And the longest one floating out there was P3: Deadlier of the Species which was Arnold-starring, but set in NYC during a blizzard when a Predator arrives specifically targeting him.

Been awhile since I've seen P3, though, so can't recall my personal reaction (gotta be on these forums somewhere- though likely in an archive from the temp board years). Really need to do a full Alien/Predator rewatch marathon one day soon (maybe i'll use the occasion to finally make my AVP2 Quest Qut: "Wolf: AVP2".

 

The "Predator" in the title is clearly the gun. The series finally has direction.

 

I like what it potentially adds, depending on execution- assuming that Prey 2 resolves how the Yautja retrieved it, you now have it go absent as a small detail for 2+ movies (depending on if there is a PY3). It doesn't necessarily have any major significance beyond PY1 & PY2 initially, if you're watching things in chronological order. We then go all of PY3 (if there is one), all of P1 and 99% of P2 without it.

But when it finally does show up again, it has even more weight (because now, "they've been here before/for awhile" is no longer much of a twist/stinger, so something should take its place). Now it's possible that Danny is only spared because of the past efforts of Amber against that particular clan (thereby recontextualizing all of the other characters pitted against Yautja in the future of the series as perhaps not being as "safe" as we thought just because of how the battle against Danny turned out- given the different circumstances and different clans involved).

So it's kind of actually reintroducing a facet of additional danger to the other films that wasn't there before (ie: once you start looking at the Predators as being honorable anti-heroes, the edge is dulled- now there's less of an unstated safety net involved with those threads). Beyond just tying the two series together to make it less fractured.

 

It would make sense, but I prefer the lore that the Predators respect those that can beat them. It shows an interesting aspect of their culture that they respect those who survive the hunt, regardless of species. It gives them a bit more dimension, and makes them more like a culture than just animal instinct. It's not just sport. There is a code.

 

I don't know the direction that script took, but it could have been a rogue going after him, or some other "the code is more like guidelines" individualist approach. Or just a "You killed my ugly mutha of a brother, prepare to die" scenario .

One of the things I'll give P4 credit for is that it opened with the very interesting premise of inter-Yautja conflict (beyond the Bad Bloods from P3, which seemed more of a broader racial issue rather than overall dissent) and having to hunt one of their own.

Having Dutch have to deal with the "revenge hunter" while another "cleaner" like Wolf has to take that hunter down would be an interesting dynamic. Going into full fanfic territory, you could blend all of the concepts: Revenge Hunter goes after Dutch while the Cleaner somehow makes contact with Harrigan (or vice versa- Harrigan tracks down the cleaner once stuff starts going down) and ultimately one leads to the other for the showdown. Throw in Busey Jr and you're golden.

I suspect that direction was abandoned due to Arnold's Governership. A lot of his projects got delayed or reworked while he was busy with politics- and his box office draw had begun to diminish from his early/mid-90's peak (and he might have cost too much despite that).

 

It's also kind of interesting that it's a franchise that almost ended up as a fully rounded out trilogy with those plots (I mean, sure they probably would have made more eventually but if you make it tied to Arnold, it gets more difficult to spin it off) rather than an anthology series of hit-or-miss stand-alone entries.

Also amusing that, had they made the film around that time, Arnold would have aged appropriately to be in a film set after the "near future" of 1997 from P2 for P3, in relation to the setting of P1. Glover wouldn't have been, but he could have made it work (if they used him at all).

How so? It was one of the handful of projects of Arnold that he had in development at the time with the highest fan interest (basically, P3, T3 [before the rights issues implosion], King Conan and I Am Legend). Had it been a few years earlier, it would have been given the AAA blockbuster treatment and all the Arnold promotion skills that comes with that.

Heck, P2 was originally supposed to have Arnold in it also- there was just a dispute over his price. Jump a few years forward and he has Total Recall, Kindergarten Cop, T2 & True Lies under his belt and, if P3 would have happened, they would have certainly paid bank for that pull.

 

I'm not interested in Arnold returning to the franchise.