The biggest of them, Ventura as Blain, is the second to fall when a plasma blast from an invisible force wipes him out the last few, including sweaty performances by Weathers and Duke, die wide-eyed and terrified as they go mano-a-mano with the Predator and are eviscerated.Įven the film’s hero, Dutch, doesn’t win because he’s stronger or tougher than the Predator he is forced to crawl on his belly through the mud, hiding in the dirt and reverting to ancient weapons like a bow and arrow to eventually catch his more technologically advanced foe by surprise. Within 48 hours of that firefight though, they’re all dead except for Schwarzenegger’s Dutch. Even McTiernan’s other collaboration with Schwarzenegger, 1993’s Last Action Hero, is notable because it was such a satire and deconstruction of the star’s onscreen persona in the ‘80s. But what do those latter two movies have in common? They’re intentional departures from the brawny, exaggerated masculinity of the previously most popular actioners of the 1980s. Generally recognized as one of the greatest action filmmakers of the last 40 years, McTiernan is still celebrated today for making one of the classic Schwarzenegger action movies in Predator, as well as more groundbreaking thrillers afterward like Die Hard (1988) and The Hunt for Red October (1990). Yes, Predator had the most hyper-masculine cast in a decade where action movies were defined by big guns and bigger biceps-and the movie was mocking that image. Nonetheless, it’s still worth noting that such impotent attempts at fandom gatekeeping also fall limp because they reveal a complete and total misunderstanding of what director John McTiernan and screenwriters Jim and John Thomas were going for in the original 1987 picture. A predisposed need to dismiss any film, particularly in genre and fanboy fare, as “ludicrous” or undeserving when it stars a woman is as common as mindless uses of the term “Mary Sue.” Writing off Prey because it stars a Comanche woman (who is played by a woman of Lakota, Nakoda, and Dakota heritage) as the ultimate survivor, as opposed to a 6’2” Austrian male bodybuilder, is the point. It is of course impossible to separate the misogyny and racist undertones of these “critiques” from any point they’re trying to make. A girl with almost no experience beats a Predator alone.” Since the movie’s actual release, such criticism hasn’t gone away on social media apps like Twitter where memes have gone viral depicting images of the cast of Predator (1987) juxtaposed against Midthunder and text that reads, “A team of highly skilled badasses with years of experience had almost no chance versus a Predator. Over the last several months, and since well before Prey was released, they’ve made their “criticisms” known online-most of which are couched in thinly veiled forms of bigotry and misogyny.īased purely on the trailer, YouTubers were already reviewing Prey months ago with headlines like “How to Spoil a Good Idea,” and then lamenting that the fanbase “just wants a decent Predator movie instead of a fucking intersectional struggle session.” The same video, which we’re purposefully not linking to here, also snarks that unlike the muscular Arnold Schwarzenegger, Midthunder “has the size and build of a small child” and her facing off against the Predator will be “fucking ludicrous.” And yet, it is still difficult to ignore a small but particularly noxious element of online fandom. Disagreement comes part and parcel with art, entertainment, and anything else that is left up to the eye of the beholder. And, truly, the final movements of Prey where Amber Midthunder’s tenacious Comanche warrior, Naru, lures a Predator into the ultimate deathtrap is as exciting a showdown between a human and a “Yautja” as we’ve ever seen onscreen. The emerging consensus about this one seems to be that director Dan Trachtenberg and a cast of primarily Indigenous actors knocked it out of the park, making the first truly gripping Predator movie since the original was released in 1987. A majority of viewers also seem pleased if social media chatter is to be believed. The quality is certainly good enough with the film generally impressing most critics as demonstrated by its 92 percent “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It must be gratifying for filmmakers to know that the Monday after Prey’s premiere on Hulu (and Disney+ in Europe), many were debating whether the Predator prequel should’ve been released in theaters.
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