Yautja Fest - Predator (1987)

M weird way.

H read we can kill a.

Shot it out the way English language?

What the hell are you?

Yell? Everybody?

Look around? What is that thing that it looks like it's I can see through it, but it looks like, I don't know, like plastic, like a plastic shell. Maybe it was three dots. I'm dead.

That was state of the art.

God wouldn't it You could be visible finally and we would buy it as a patron. The year is nineteen eighty seven, HB. And I are fourteen years old amongst us?

Is it?

Oh?

Yeah, no, we definitely are, because we're talking about June twelfth,

I don't know. I don't have any great pity reply. I don't know. You have to have the word predator in there, but I don't know where you go from there other.

Than fest about predator party.

I you know, I was about to say Predator party, but that sounds like yay, we're gonna have a predator party.

How about Predator Party USA? And we have hits of the eighties and predators dancing in scantily clad and we'll put it on USA Network.

With the USA Up all Night.

Remember that this was in the afternoon. What are you talking about? Up all Night? Had many variations, by the way, because I remember Gilbert Gonfried as a host. I remember what's her face? And I remember Canda Sheer and Captain Captain underpants guy with his cigar.

Captain underpants guy.

Remember what you're talking about, Captain Captain cigar guy, Captain grizzle butt.

I have no idea you remember him?

Remember this famous catchphrase, Hey kids, what's going on in the sewers? Remember that.

You're making this up, you're putting me on.

Actually, yes, all right, what we're talking about is Predator everybody HP you know him from Night mister Walters and from Noise Junkies fucking fantastic show. Hi, Ivan, and this is Predator Fest for lack of a better term, where you're looking at Predator HPSA Hi to everybody, how are you there?

Hi?

I'm feeling very festy. Let's do this.

You're you a fan of Predator? What's your experienced with Predator? Did you see Predator in the theater? I bet you I did.

It was a sensation. That was the big budget movie that I remember from nineteen eighty seven. That was the summer blockbuster. And you'd better believe I was there. I saw it in the movies.

Were a rescue team, not assassins.

Now what are we gonna do.

In a part of the world where there are no rules?

We pick up their trailer the chopper, run them down, grab those hostages before anybody knows we were there.

What do you mean we deep in the jungle where nothing that lives is safe.

You lose it here.

You're in the world to hurt Showtime, Jim.

Not an elite rescue squad.

You're pleading man. Time is being led by the ultimate warrior. We need the best. That's why you're here.

But now, what's got Phillis has booked.

There's something else they're waiting for us.

Ain't no man.

They're up against the ultimate enemy God. Nothing like it has ever been unearthed before.

She says, the jungle just came alive and took.

A fo We cannot see.

It, no blood, no bodies, we nothing.

But it sees the heat of our bodies and the heat of our fear.

Whatever it is out there killed Happa, and.

Now it wants us.

It kills for pleasure.

He will sin alive.

It hunts for sports, skillless one at the.

Time, We're all going guy, But this time it's picked the wrong man to hunt.

If it pleads, we can kill it.

Twentieth Century Fox presents Arnold Schwarzenegger Predator. The Hunt begins Friday, June twelfth at theaters everywhere.

Not being a big horror fan, I remember being a little bit trepidacious about the prospect. But then again, it had Arnold and it felt like more of a sci fi movie, at least from my judging of the commercials and so forth. So yeah, I was excited to see it, a little nervous, but it was fantastic. I'm sure you saw it in the theaters that summer as well.

Oh yeah, many times of this movie. In fact, was this the year, No, it was the year, this was the year. This is the first year I started working in a movie theater, so it was this summer. But this did not play at my movie theater. I had to go seek it out. I luckily was able to go to a different showcase cinemas to see it. So I did the one in Revere.

Why didn't it play it all of the showcase cinemas.

Because sometimes a theater would be too close that was a competition theater, so not showcased or like a general cinemas would be close by, and they got that, like we didn't get die Hard when that came out. We didn't get die Hard when it came out the action movie, like are you kidding me? I was so angry that I had to go to another theater. I had to have my theater call another theater and then fucking get

How many times did you see Predator?

Again? It was in another theater, but I did see it three times, probably that summer cool No no, no, no, none, none, And at least one of those times was probably, I hate to say, it was probably a lie. I probably told my parents parents I was going to see something else, just so I could see Predator again and not be embarrassed that I was going to see it again, because I was, as you, obsessed with this movie. This was perfect timing for a film. It was an action movie

He was I'm trying to think he before this was Commando. Of course, probably a bunch of other movies like Raw Deal probably was for this. This feels I don't have it in front of me, but this kind of feels like this might have been hit one of his big coming out pictures as far as being a big summer blockbuster.

You know draw right, because look, you and I both knew him very well by now, because he was Conan the Barbarian. He was also the Terminatorator. Yeah, so like that one two punch alone. Not to mention, I'm sure you saw the document Did you see the documentary by now? Probably not?

I did not the one on Netflix. I haven't seen it.

No, I'm talking about like Stay Hungry, I'm talking about Pumping Iron. I'm talking about Arnold.

Oh no, no, I don't get it. I don't misunderstand me. I've seen Pumping Iron probably about one hundred and fifty times. I love that because he is charisma incarnate in that movie. I know years later he claims that a lot of it was staged, and it might very well have been. There may not have been that sort of rivalry between him and Lou Farigno. You know, Lufaigno's dad didn't really train him. I don't care. Arnold Schwarzenegger jumps off that

Agreed, But my question was, had you seen it by the time you saw.

I'm sorry, no, I had not seen it before I saw Predator, so but I think my knowledge of Arnold at this point would have been Terminator. It would have been Conan, of course, Conaner the Destroyer. I don't know that I got into any of the other sort of lesser pictures, but certainly he Commando was a big one. Commando was huge on Cable at that point.

I think Commando settled him for like suburban white American boys as an action here and then this movie is the movie. I think this is the movie that actually breaks him wide as far as crossover appeal for mass audiences, because it isn't straight ahead action where they're just hopping people's arms off, although it has that, it's got and it's not just science fiction fair like we have to buy into this far fetched plot like we had with Terminator. Instead,

The first quarter of this movie, and I know we'll talk about the plot of it, but essentially the first quarter of this movie is has really very little to do with the Predator himself. It's really about these Special

Not only that, not only did it feel like we were getting the generic action movies that we had expected from Schwarzenegger up until, but it's also the best directed of any of them up until that. Not Terminator, not Conan, those are separate. We're talking like when Schwarzenegger became an action star and was now going to be doing action movies.

Predator's got better action, it's got better direction, it's got a better budget, and it's got it sure as hell, has better music, and it's got better acting across the board. This movie has it. It's like you said, it's like he put everything together at this point, the sort of the stuff that would translate to the white suburban kids like myself. It's got just all of the heavy artillery that people are looking for in a big action, you know,

And you know what's funny, because you and I are of the same agent from this time period, the idea that this kind of a mashup would work at all is still foreign in our minds. I think audiences today and younger kids today would go, yeah, of course, well, yeah, a special he had a Forces team being hunted by

You know? Oh?

How about this and this? You know, how about fucking alien like and a special Forces thing? That's equally stupid. And yet maybe they had a point because nobody was actually taking it seriously. Nobody was John McTiernan going, We're gonna make the fucking greatest action movie.

Of all time, And by god, he did that.

He let's talk before I'll let's speak for a second. Sorry, but I just don't want to get the stats out here because Predator released on June the twelfth, nineteen eighty seven. Written by Jim and John Thomas. I've spoken about them over on the Weekly Round. You can hear my thing about one of the most recent Predator movies. Directed by

You know, a lot is made. I don't remember the actress, but the actress who did the voice of the devil in the Exorcist. Do you remember this when Reagan is possessed and there was a lot made of the what this actress, I don't remember her name, but had to do to get this voice to come out the way it did? Fuck that? I I until recently when I found out that actor did the voice of the Predator. If you had told me they did, like a wookie thing where they just took sounds of random creatures and

Well, I'm sure they've manipulated it in some way, but you know that now. Yeah, I want to say now that you know it, but it is still alien to me sounding. It's still a great sound and they've just been making variations on it ever since. Because it is so specific. You know, when a predator shows up on screen, we could be watching an entirely different movie. Speaking of

It's chilling. When you hear that sound, you know that somebody is probably about to die, that the predator has the drop on somebody. It's brilliant. I don't know. I think it's amazing that the idea that he had in his head for this horseshoe crab business, but it fucking works. It's amazing.

By the way, Mercedes McCambridge is the voice you were talking about the Vice of Reagan and yeah in the Exorcist and yeah, but I agree, this is much more indelible now. This is in. It is inextricably linked to the Predator and all thanks to mister Peter Cullins, our once and future Optimist Prime. Now I'm gonna have to pause here and go let my dog in because she's standing at the door and whining.

Hold on, okay, face says something I can't even stand it. Oh, she is adorable.

It's a very cute dog. Miss Ripley James making her appearance here on Predator Fest for the first time the movie. She cannot launch, by the way, because I fucking tried, which is oh no. As soon as the fucking Predator shows up, it's fucking barking Fest nineteen nineties, nineteen eighty seven. It's just like, what is that thing? We gotta kill it. This thing is menacing us. It's trying to get us from the jungle. Yeah, it's bad news.

Really, Oh wow, that's crazy.

Oh, Pugs. Evidently I've been talking to Paul Waller over on a year in horror podcast. He also has a pug. He can't watch movies with horses because his pug, mister Puggles, goes insane for horses.

Yeah, Lucy is funny. She just watches TV passively. She doesn't seem to care what's on there. But like every once in a while we'll get a mouse will be in the house, Like right now, I think there's one in the wall because I can hear it's critchy scrap and if she catches like a if she hears it, she's like she starts scratching the wall where it is. I think if she could get to it, I think she would probably like kill the thing in too.

Maybe she knows it's not a mouse but a tiny predator.

Maybe clicking Whish I could do the clicking sound, I would have done it right.

What's the story here? HP?

So the story is Arnold Schwarzenegger leads. He plays Dutch. He leads a team of There are special forces. I don't know the exact designation for his team, but there are centers.

They're a black they're a Black Ops team. Obviously they're sent into They're a Wetworks special They are the kind of thing you'd been hearing about.

But at the same time he does say like, I don't do that kind of work. It's a hostage rescue. He's called in. Him and his team are called in because he's been told by Carl Weathers's Dylan, who is a former comrade who now works for the CIA. He's been told that there was a helicopter crash in the jungle and they have to go in and rescue these like an emissary or something. So they have to who's been captured by this gorilla rebel team. So Arnold and

What is Dylan's actual plot? Then spoil it for everybody. Spoil this movie that's forty some odd years old.

Spoil it. So essentially, they were told that the advisor was he was a cabinet minister and his aid. But then it turns out the advisor on the chopper was actually Cia. And there's also evidence that there's all these dead Russian military advisors in the mix, so there's more to the story. Dylan has left out all of this because he told Dutch what he had to tell him to get him into the jungle. But and I think,

That predator too. We discover that the shadowy government that would employ a mercenary team like Dutches. I have known about the predators for years and have been tracking their movements here on Earth, and as you said, are now trying to capture one. In Predator two, that the whole meat packing sequence where they know the predator is hold up at night like they're trying to capture it. There, I remember that. But but yeah, my point here is

Yeah, no one knows what's going on. Even the guy who knows more than he let on at the beginning of the movie that this is way out of his purview. He could not have fathomed anything like this happening in this movie. And actually that's one of the things I love about that I keyed in on a little bit more watching it now after so many years, is Carl Weather's performance is really good because he has to play

Yeah, it's a great dynamic to have that they've made him untrustworthy for the rest of the team, but ultimately he is trustworthy. He wants to survive just like everybody else. He's not there for any fucking predator action. He just wants to fucking get whatever mysterious dossier and get the fuck out. But and I like that because, as I said, I hate to keep reiterating it, but like you know, as soon as aliens would come out, we got the same sort of idea where Burke is ultimately a company

Yeah, and he's almost more vulnerable because they don't trust him. And not only that, but he has made the decision after they kill everybody in this rebel camp, there's this one woman that they that survives that they save this woman Anna, it's his decision to take her into custody and trump through the jungle with this, with this, with this hostile you know, prisoner basically, so he's saddled with her. It's but the thing about it is ultimately what you're

Perfect action.

I would say that would I'll leave it there. I could sit here and think around the haw, but that's it.

Right around the same time as Predator, we had a film called die Hard. I would consider that a perfect action film.

How could I not have thought about that? That's Mac tiernan. That is the quintessential summer blockbuster action film. I take it back. Die Hard is the perfect movie.

When I think about Cold War thriller action films, I would say a perfect example of that might be The Hunt for Red October.

If you're looking for something with comedy, I would and it's maybe straining the action moniker. I would say, Back to the Future is the perfect action comedy.

That's a perfect film as well. Yeah, the script is perfect. You know there are several point being of the like five we just mentioned, Two of those were or three were directed by John McTiernan. John McTiernan, yep, who is our director or Predator, and for a while, man, he just could do no wrong. Unfortunately, his interest led us back to the Jungle with fucking Sean Connery and that god awful Medicine Man movie, which was a total fumble.

You've spoken your praises of Nomads in the past, and that's another one I have to hop on. I also will say recently, I'd say maybe a couple of years ago. I finally I happened to be. I was actually in Ireland, of all plays, dealing with a severe case of jet lag. I thought I was going crazy, and I'm in my hotel room and they happen to be showing on a loop The Thomas Crown Affair, which the remake which he did in nineteen ninety nine. Have you seen it, father blahlone?

I have not.

I was such an adherent to that original film that I could not see myself. Wait, isn't it Pierce Brosnan, Yes, oh, from Nomad's Shit. I should probably it's good.

It's real good. It's everything you want out of a caper movie. And he was he still I would say mc tierney, and still had his Fastball he had just come off of. I think he had done the last die Hard. He did die Hard with a Vengeance.

I like that one. That one's good.

I like that too, So I don't I think it was probably right around I want to say Rollerball where the wheels really came off. Unfortunately, I think he did prison time. I think he was involved in that whole Pelicano wiretapping situation. But boy, oh boy, he really like you said. Everything he touched for a while turned to gold. He was the summer blockbuster director du jour.

Look, the Last Action Hero was garbage. I don't care what people say. It's not some mysterious work of genius. It's not. It's a bunch of people fumbling. It's a bunch of people in the midst of a film movement trying to satirize that film movement. You can't do it from within.

I will disagree to a point. I like that. I like Last Action I liked it when I saw it. I rewatched it maybe a few years ago. I enjoyed it. I'm not going to sit here and say that to your point that it's like this secretly one of the greatest satires of action cinema there ever was, I'm not going to go that far. I'm saying, like, it's actually remarkable that they got like the pre eminent action director to direct this satire. I think that's the true genius of But that's discussion a different day.

And we're going to have to obviously watch the movie and talk about it in depth. But here's what I'll say, without having really delved back into it, since I basically saw it and I agree with you that the audaciousness of Shane Black writing an evisceration of how bloated and crazy act films have become, and then directed by the guy who really spearheaded it. Everything after Diehard was die Hard in a Blah blah blah. So that's the movie

Look.

First of all, McTiernan is not a comedy director. Whatever it is. The action stuff works in that movie fantasm. Why are we talking about this? I'm gonna I'm just let me finish this. The action stuff is great, the comedy stuff is okay, And I don't know, we're gonna have to watch that over it. But A Predator is it's worth discussing because it's Swarzenegger and McTiernan, and right now we're talking about Schwarzenegger and mcteern.

Correct. It's hard to talk about the arc of McTiernan without talking about that. But that's week. Let's stick with Predator.

Let us stick with Predator, and let's talk about the cast Predator beyond mister Schwarzenegger and mister carr Weathers. What a fucking team, man, What a bunch of misfits? What a motley? Who's your favorite? Who's your favorite on this team?

Ooh, really, you're hitting me with all kinds of good questions, you know who. I don't know that there's one favorite. If I have to pick a favorite, if you're forcing me to, I mac. I like Bill Duke. He seems to me, he feels like one of the more genuine guys. Like it's easy to point to a jesse Ventura and this big, muscle bound dude with a bandana and a giant gun. But Bill Duke just feels like a real

I love Mac.

Who's your favorite?

Mac is like the Sphinx character. He's like he comes off as wyse like and all knowing, like characters who are you know that say less and less during the course of a movie. You tend to look like what is going on with them?

But they wanted they want Billy to be that because he's all missed the goal and he can hear sense things that no one else can sense. But for my money, Mac is the guy.

Yeah, you mean Billy the Mystical Indian.

Coincidentally the same name that he had in forty eight Hours. He was Billy Bear, same actor.

Billy Barry and this is sunny Land. But I think they lean away from that. They're really not trafficking so much in the Mystical Indian thing. They're just saying he's a tracker because he's a tracker. Okay, look, he's a tracker and he's great at it.

But I I if we're looking at, you know, someone who has a little bit of a weird sixth sense, he's the guy, whereas Mac is just a soldier. He does have any special abilities. He's not carrying a giant, fucking mini gun like Blaine. He's just a great soldier.

And you're right, he does feel real because these people in real life are serious human beings, and several of them are going to be very soft spoken and never tip their hat or tip their hand in any direction. So it's good to have one of those. And Bill Duke sells that, like, you know, he is a serious contender and you would not want to fuck with him in any way, shape or form. Side note, I once ran into Bill Duke at a movie theater that I

That's all serious dude, and a great director too.

Great director, Rage and Harlem everybody. Okay, so who's your favorite? My favorite character when I saw the movie and for years and years was Jesse Ventura. I just loved how comic book he was. Yeah, I love that, Like when we first meet him and like it's basically him racking that. No, we don't first meet him, but once when the mini gun is introduced. First of all, nobody had ever done that in the movie before, we had seen maybe miniguns

But he wasn't running man, Yeah.

He wasn't running. But he's in it for like two seconds and then he gets his ass kicked by not Schwarzenegger. Here was heroic Jesse the Body of Torah, and it's a badass weapon and he gets all the coolest line. Ain't got time to bleed, I ain't got time to bleed. What a fucking line we burrowed in like an Alabama tic. He's great here son of him is put make you a sexual tyrannosaur like me, he's great here. But my favorite character, not Dutch, not Dylan, is probably this fucking

Right?

Like clearly they like look sunny Landam likes him, Billy Bear likes him, but then Billy Bear seems to laugh at everything, so it's not like he finds this level of pussy jokes really hilarious or anything. And does he have another gear? Like is it like do you think like on this mission it's pussy jokes like before it was like father in lawn jokes or something, or like before it was like, you know, I don't know.

Every mission he picks a different topic.

And goes with it like what is it this time?

Man?

Like I'll tell you what, man, this kid I got a new kid at home arena to deal with their we don't want to hear. But by the way, we don't want to hear your fucking kid material anymore. None of us have kids. Man, we're still mercenaries even though you have a child, Like do the airplane food this time?

So what I read doing a little bit of research. Is part of the reason why mc tiernan wanted Shane Black to play this character is because he wanted a writer to be on the set with him in case anything came up with the script or anything had to

Well, I gotta say honestly, at the time when I saw the movie, I had no idea it was screenwriter Shane Black. I thought like, Wow, they've got like a nerd on there, and I gotta say, hv The thought that followed was he must be a real fucking badass because he's hanging with these guys and they're tolerating him, and he's annoying and they're tolerating him like he's got to have something special. I'm sad that he doesn't get a moment really in the movie.

He does get one moment, a brief moment when they're on the helicopter on their way to the rendezvous or whatever. He's reading like a map or something very intently and I think, I think Poncho. He smiles at somebody and says, look what I'm gonna do, and he has a ball in his hand or something like apple or a ball, and he throws it at Shane Black's character, thinking like he's gonna hit him in the head or something, but

That's my point. We get to see a taste of it, but we never see it in action when he never gets a moment to like do that before he's unceremoniously wasted by the predator and it's and he's one of the first to go, and he's one of the obvious first to go, like I would have preferred him to go like third or fourth in the line. You know what I mean, at least show us why this guy is part of the team other than he has fast reflexes and can riad a map.

He is the first of the team to go.

Well, there you go, all the more reasons shouldn't he have saved the girl with his lightning fast reflexes.

It's it is pretty brutal when he goes. It actually is a pretty shocking thing because he's trying to reason with Anna with this prisoner that they have, and in the midst of it, the predator shoots him with that

Immediately they were skinned alive.

See that, you know, that's the wee. I actually want to ask about that, but I forgot that there was all this business of them finding them skinned alive and all this stuff. I don't remember that so much in some of the later pictures. I think it's in Predator too, but they never do that. In Predator and Pray, for example, they whax over that that he just rips the skull out and that's it. He doesn't have to skin them.

Over time, we've decided that the predator wants the skull and part of the spine and nothing else, and that the skinning of it, while haunted how scary for the first film that they would they go to find their contacts and they're all hung up and they've all been eviscerated like as if a hunting trophy or you know, like a hunter would do, because they're going to eat it. Like the skinning of it makes it seem like that's on the table. Literally.

Yeah, but it is a horrifying tableau when they happen upon these because they effectively they find the crew of this helicopter that they're searching for and they've been as you say, skinned alive and hung up like like a game. Basically, it is a horrifying image and it makes you think, holy shit, like what this is? What's going to happen? To these guys.

Well, and the thing is, you know, we get the moment here where he takes the skull and basically polishes it, and you know, he goes, oh, this is going to look nice back at home, so we get we get the eventual thing like this, he's collecting trophies. He's a hunter collecting trophies, and the body is useless to him.

By the way, yeah, because he I don't the character's name escapes me. But they find Shane Black's body or he I think the line is like, I think it's him because he's been dragged away, but they just find a pile of viscera, like basically like his organs, So I don't know that means that he was skinned and all the awful was just dropped on the jungle floor. It's on that part is maybe a little unclear. I

Is it the lawnmower sequence where a a swath in the fucking jungleester sheer firepower. It's an incredible sequence, honestly, it's.

Amazing, But what elicited laughter is So what happens is Blaine is killed by the predator. He's shot and his insides are just completely blown out. And Bill Duke's character Mac sees this. He goes ape shit. He starts shooting at the predator. He actually hits him. He's shooting wildly, and then everybody else starts shooting wildly, and then he picks up Blaine's mini gun and just starts wiping out the jungle in front of him. Now, the scene goes

It's funny, like a film like the Last Accident was completely unnecessary, because these movies always had a sense of humor about them, particularly when it come when it came to excess. Because we've got this here and RoboCop we had they had to cut it down, but like Ed two oh nine blasting that fucking executive into paste, like these weren't subtle things, like everyone was in on the violins joke. I think at this point, Yeah, that Robocop's.

The best example of that that. I think you were talking about people missing the joke or missing the humor. It's that a lot of people missed the satire and the point behind RoboCop. It's like when another Verho film, It's like when Starship Troopers came out, everybody was aghas They all thought it was just terrible movie. It's you're just they didn't get the subtext. They it completely flew over their heads and it was you know, for some critics, it took them ten years or more to come around

You know, so I think he was I think he was making some points here. I think he was making fun of some stuff in a mixed all of this all like you know, bravado and you know that movie is genuinely scary. Can I say that Starship Troopers. When I first saw that movie, it fucking weirded me out. Man, the bugs, I was terrified.

I was terrified when they suck your brains out, when they.

Just not even them, just the fucking, the fucking the soldier ones. Just being on the ground with one of those was horrified.

Or just seeing them all swarm on the horizon, hundreds of these things coming at you. I agree that, well, maybe we should talk about that too at some point. That movie is that movie has its cake and eats it. Two that's a great action picture, but that has a lot more going on than just action, and that's really the genius of it. I hate to use that word, but it's appropriate.

I will say this, though. Everyone is firing all at once, and nobody would do that because you would all run out of AMMO immediately. Also, if you have air support, use air support. What the fuck?

Other than that, you've said that for decades too.

I'm going to like go into my grade. They fucking had air support and they didn't use it, and they all fired at once. They weren't in squads. It wasn't like it was like frontline firing and the back line is reloaded. It was just tactically. I didn't know what the fuck was happening. Look, I wasn't in the military or anything, but like just basically watching the movie in the theater, I'm like, you're all about to die. Like I understand this is supposed to be like a panicky sequence.

If we're going to talk about tactics, can I bring up one thing that it occurred to me as I'm watching Predator this time, do so so they Dutch makes the makes the logical conclusion that they don't.

They don't.

The predator won't go after you if you don't have a weapon, right, And this is something that's carried over through the sequels that the Predator has a code of ethics that includes not killing somebody who's not armed.

Right.

My question is, in this case, once he makes that realization, why didn't these guys just ditch their weapons and run like hell to the chopper.

Oh, that's logical, But because he says it to Anna, he says, put the weapon down.

It won't hurt you if you don't have a weapon.

Well, maybe he was thinking it won't hurt her if she doesn't have a weapon. But me, it's definitely coming for because I'm clearly a perfect specimen of Hunter killer person, I guess.

And we don't really necessarily want to get into plot holes and everything that that just I did for a movie that's so you know, well constructed and well well create, well made. That seemed to be an oversight.

Well during the final fight, like Schwarzenegger doesn't have any special weapons or anything, and the Predator is still like, let's go baby, Yeah, but he's got.

Bow and arrow, and he the predator. He can the predator can see that he's been firing on him, and he's been throwing these explosives at him. He knows that he's a threat. Maybe that's the answer. Maybe he already in his mind knows that these guys are threats. Weaponry or not, they've already been tagged.

Yeah, maybe if you've already engaged it in battle, it's like from now on, I don't care if you have a weapon or not. I'm coming for you, baby. I'll go with that. Hopefully they'll answer that in the looks good?

Did you watch the trailer yet to keep it surprised?

Yet?

God damn right, I'm gonna kind. Even seeing just the opening that it's an android was just like, ah, don't do that. Like I feel like I'm in safe hands with this guy. So I hope I don't have to see anymore. Rightwhile meanwhile, back in the jungles of Mexico, Yes, South America.

I think it was filmed in Mexico, though of.

Course it was. They'll watch out for that snake. Two steps, two steps and you're dead. Oh the machismo. Can you imagine having to be on the set of this movie and be a woman.

It would have been insufferable, like they I could not. I'm sure because this was decades before me too.

Yeah, this was even crime fucking nightmare behavior. And this is all alpha male fucking everyone's vying for time in the gym. They're all envious. I'm sure of Schwarzenegger's mobile Jim, that he is down there like you feel maybe you feel honored if Arnold says, hey, do you want to come work out in my mobile gym? You don't have to work and wait your turn for the waits over there at the hotel gym.

People say that everybody except for Arnold and the director suffered from horrible diarrhea from the water down. And I think Arnold actually lost something like twenty five pounds because and you can see it, you can see that he's not as big and ripped as he normally is. That that works in terms of works for the character.

Yeah, because you thought, like, here's a fucking mercenary. This isn't the fucking commando guy who was a comic book character. Here's a real dude. Schwarzenegger could ever be honestly.

Sure, But in practice, the practical reason for that is he avoided eating because he was afraid he was going to get sick in Mexico. But it worked for the Mexico.

Is there nothing you can't do? I don't have a follow up to that. You got a topic, go so let so.

We've talked about the direction, We've talked about the act. Let's talk a little bit about.

The let's talk about the costume, shall we Let's talk about where they were going. Absolutely, the initial plan here was to have look this the script as is what

Yeah, he couldn't do any of the thing. He couldn't. It wasn't flexible enough and light enough for him to do anything that he was known for, like the karate stuff, spin kicks, whatever. I think the original idea I thought was he was going to be more agile, but because the suit didn't allow for that, and frankly, I think the suit was so hot that he was passing out. He finally said, well, this isn't for me, and then enter Kevin Peter Hall, perfect man.

For the Oh my god, he's so huge. He's Harry from Harry and the Henderson's everybody. He's the fucking Bigfoot. He is one of the misfits of science and he's.

The helicopter pilot at the very end.

Oh yes, he's also on the basketball team and better off dead, and he reaches in when the basketball team is gonna they're gonna menace Lane Lane Meyer like he's it's his hand that blocks the camera out.

He's so good and the but the costume, let's talk about the So he's great. He does everything he needs to do as the predator. He's quiet, he's stealthy, but he's big and you you feel like this the size of him. He could go toe to toe with somebody like Arnold and make it a fight, but it would I don't think it would work as well without stan Winston's creature design, his revised creature design, because I think, well, he didn't design it originally. They went to him after

But it's funny because it to think like you don't initially go to Stan Winston, that's crazy.

He's your second choice, right but you The word iconic is often overused. I overuse it plenty myself. But when you, if I say to you, predator, you out there listening to this podcast, you already have the image in your mind of if not that the creature with the mandibles and the spotty skin and the netting for clothes and the dreadlocks, or maybe the helmet thing with the laser, the three lights. Everybody sees that in their mind's eye right now because it's so it's as indelible as like

Not only the face and the head and the helmet, but the body as well. Like obviously Kevin Peter Hall is the template from which they were a layering the costume on top of but the choices for the costume are just as important as anything else. The fact that he's got this weird mesh part of a costume, that he's wearing a necklace with little skulls, that you know, all of the little bits of technology look like this way and not that way. Like the entirety of the character,

It's amazing. It's a real achievement in makeup and animatronics.

Not to mention the fucking T eight hundred, the endoskeleton, or like all the physical effects in that first Terminator movie, like even the physical effects with a T one thousand, whenever it's physically on set, like all squirrely and weird looking. That's a physical thing he did.

He did.

I'm gonna okay, look he also did. He did one effect in John Carpenter's The Thing, and everyone is freaked out by it. It's the dog. It's the close up of the dog heads like reaching up and starting to snarl into the camera, and that snaky kind of a way that they're animating it. That's his contribution to that. Obviously, he did Jurassic Park. We all know stan Winston, we all love stan Winston, but fuck man, the Predator here.

People who aren't nerds for this stuff, like you and me, Father Malone, if you say the word predator, odds are they're going to know exactly who you're talking about and what they look like. They're going to have in their mind the vision of the Predator. This is a we're talking This isn't nineteen eighty seven, what is it? Almost forty years old. Now, this is a piece of you know, of the action firmament, Now the Alien or not. It's

I think unbelievable. Yeah, I love him. I love that. You know what I love about the character. I love that it's really here. You see it more than any of the other movies. I love him mimicking people. I love him making fun of people using their own words against them in some way that's really funny to me.

Yeah, you're right, it is done more here than you see in the other movies where he hears like at one point, Billy is laughing at one of Hawkins bad pussy joke, and the Predator hears it, and it's almost

Because how creepy would it have been where they're like looking for Mac and they hear him go hey over here, and like somebody goes, oh, I think he's over here. A yeah, it's he's just and he does use it ironically at the end, as he's arming the fucking self destructing, he starts cackling using Billy Bear's laugh at Dutch it's crazy.

And by the way, that was actually a nice touch. So at the end not a spoiler alert, spoilers predator money. So using his will and determination, Dutch finally kills it.

Yeah, Like, I can't say enough about this character. It's a silent character that uses effectively recorded bits of our hero's dialogue against them throughout the movie. And then, as you just said, like even something as simple as the countdown timer on this risk bomb, you know, as soon as it starts counting down what's happening. He doesn't have to say, he doesn't need to laugh, but the laugh

And for a movie that, like I said, is coming up on forty years old, I honestly this movie isn't all that dated. There. Maybe there's some of the interactions

Yeah, you know, I'm glad we watched it. I'm glad we're delving into these movies again because it was easy for me to answer the question name a perfect action movie before I rewatched this and say something like Diehard or Cone of the Barbarian. I think it's a perfect action movie. Apocalypse Now. Technically, anyway, this wouldn't have I don't know that. Not only would this not have been on the top of my list, I don't know that this would I would have put this movie on the list.

It's I agree this. They don't get much more economical and perfect. This is the if an alien came down to Earth and asked for the perfect action. This would be a candidate.

If an alien came down and hunted me to the ends of the Earth, because it's somehow figured I was somehow worthy of fighting. I would say, hey, man, let me show you instead the perfect faction movie, and he said, Wow, they did it much better than us. I'd say, yeah, what are we fumbling around here for? What's just watch Predator?

So I'm it looks to me like mctiern is basically done as a director. He never recovered from the Pelicano trial.

Is that like?

Is that a story of wasted potential Hollywood wasted potential? Do you think he could have been one of the all time grades? Not that he isn't from what he's already done, but do you think he could have been like the.

Action movie guy. I think he would have been given a decent shot after the failure of Rollerball had the court case and imprisonment not occur. So we'll never know. I don't know that he had anything left in the tank. I think he's more John Carpenter than he is Martin Scorsesey. How about that, Like there's a definite period of creativity that no matter what you're throwing at them, they can adapt and continue on. I don't know that mc tiernan

Maybe absolutely, looking I saw Predator two and well, we'll talk about it. I won't to spoil anything, but this is a hell of a way to kick it off. This is arguably the best of the Predator movie.

And I can say this is a film series. I have seen every single one in the theater. If it's been in the theater, I have seen it there. Really that is correct. So the first as it turns out, I fucking love the Predator. I had no idea, but some of them.

Look, you did a great weekly round up shameless plug alert. Check it out you listening if you haven't already. And Father alone goes through the whole history of the Predator movies. He's leading up to Predator Killer of Killer effectively. But there are some in the series that you don't really have that much of a fondness for, but yet you still continue to have faith that you know these pictures will be you know that the next one will be good.

Because there are a couples. There are a couple of movies in this series that I detest that I will not We're gonna watch it again because we're gonna be talking about it, and I will try to be fair and you know, in a reappraisal of it, because everything deserves a second chance. But I will say, I, if you're gonna put a fucking Predator in a movie, I'm gonna come see that movie. I'm gonna give it a chance.

Did you delve into the comic books too? Not? On?

Not in the end, did I personally? Yeah, I have read some of the Predator comics. Geez, but it's been some time. I remember seeing. The thing is, when I started reading Predator comics, it was dark Horse. I've only really just now realized dark Horse was just a spin off of movies that we like this kids like most of their titles just seemed like aliens or you know whatever.

Maybe I was thinking more like I remember all of those like they were like I think dark Horse did, like the Terminator and the Alien series. But I was thinking I'm more fascinated lately. And you mentioned this in your weekly roundup of like they did Archie versus Predator.

Oh yeah, those are great, Yeah, no question about it. In fact, the Archie I mentioned it to the same I'm gonna mention it again. If you can read Archie Versus Predator or Predator versus Archie, really it's fucking awesome.

Like I want to seek that out, but I know they all they've done. Maybe it wasn't dark Horse, but I've seen Batman Versus Predator. Judge dread versus Predator. It's I think there was even like a Marvel like a spider Man versus Predator. So it's this easy shorthand like everybody knows the Predator, and everybody knows these solid comic

Well, you can plug him in and everyone knows exactly what you're gonna get. Like, he's really indelible, I say, he like they're all the kind of the same, because they are all the same. The irony being HP and we're going to get into this the further we get into the movies, because he's only I mean, he's the main antagonist of this film, but he's not in it

Well, they there's no subterfuge within it with a predator, right, It's not like they can make the argument that they're hunting to survive, or they're hunting for this reason, or that they're the only reason they exist in this In these movies, in this series is to hunt people, not just people, because I know that there's indications they've hunted like I think in Predator too, will talk about there's an alien skull as an easter egg in an alien

You know, you say you're doing an alien movie. You don't know what those aliens want. They might want to eat you, they might want to impregnate you with future spawn, They might have some other fucking purpose for you, not with the Predator. You know where you stand. Predator shows up, Well, it's going to fucking hunt you and kill you the end. That's it. Got to love it. It's like it's like

Well, well what I'm I'm not trying to think of other names for Predator Fest. You can find me elsewhere on the weirding Way Network. I co host The Night Mister Walters Taxi Podcast, excellent show. All thank you, well you are you're half the reason for it being so popular because you're the co host.

Oh that's what I like about it.

I am an occasional guest on the Culture Cast with Christashu. I host the Noise Junkies music podcast, and last but not least, I have a band campsite hpmusicplace dot bandcamp dot com.

I've plugged that enough. Midnight Viewers stick with us here during our many fests. We've got Fusco Fest going. We've got this Predator fest going with it? Is there going to be a Moranus Fest HP? We'll talk about it later. Could be we do love us a Rick moranis and we're already one movie. No, maybe you let us know, viewers, let us know until next time. Here's a bit from Predators.

Why because nobody else could have pulled it off? You pissed about the cover story. I knew I couldn't get you in here without it? So what story did you hint to Hopper? Look, we've been looking for this place for months. My men were in that chopper when I got hit. Hopper's orders would have go in and get my men, and he disappeared. He didn't disappear. He was stine alive, and my orders would have got somebody, and who could crack these bastards?

So he cooked up a story and dropped the six of us in a meat grinder?

What happened to you?

Doner here used to be somebody that could trust.

I woke up.

Why don't you the asset unexpendable asset?

And I used you to get the job done?

Got it?

It's my man a not expand the books

Sets