Why the PREDATOR sequels get the face WRONG [Opinion Piece]

[BlueMarsalis79]

I share your enthusiasm.

[Master]

I think he means the bio mask cables.

YES PLEASE to both then! Definitely!

Yeah, that's what I meant.  Deterioration of Predator design continues not only with badly shaped mandibles and gaping mouth but also with dropping all those small details that made Predator unique. We already lost pressure cables, netting and med-kit, but also whole armor and mask with Upgrade.

[BigDaddyJohn]

The more I look at it, the more I see Fugitive's head clearly being oversized and lacking a neck indeed. It baffles me how someone could not see that now.

[Kradan]

I at least can say I think The Fugitive had the best paint job to date for an ADI Predator. But yeah, all I have is a slight hope through Dan Trachtenberg that he can somehow navigate and micromanage ADI through all this and achieve truly a great Predator.

OK, this caught my atention: do we know anything about ADI being involved in the next Predator movie ? Have I missed some new piece of information ? No joking, just curious

The more I look at it, the more I see Fugitive's head clearly being oversized and lacking a neck indeed. It baffles me how someone could not see that now.

It's not that I can't see it - It's just I don't care

[Mr.Turok]

As for movie's portrayal of autism: It doesn't bother me personally but I understand people who were offended by it. Though I think some people tend to over-blow that issue. As I see it, Upgrade Predator was one big really BAD Predator, who probably was a member of some rogue Bad Blood clan which wanted to modify their genes and take over the Earth. But he didn't represent species as a whole and there were Predators who weren't in agreement with him, one of which was Fugitive Predator. So it's not like "Well, now ALL of the Predators are after autism". The fact Fugitive had foreign DNA too I take as that he was captured by Bad Blood clan and used for experiments. That's why IMO he was so pissed waking up in that lab even though he was supposed to help humans - that was a case of Predator PTSD.

That also comes down to writing. It never made such distinction and it took the film being set on fire by critics and fans for Shane Black to step back and turn against the original idea. I also had issues in other parts of the writing such as giving the power suit to humans, which would have the first encounter of Quinn and Fugitive in Mexico go down much more peaceful or at least less violently than Fugitive simply killing right from the get go. Its supposed to be an intellegent warrior-hunter, if it wanted to give something this powerful to the right people, he should have stalked them to see if they were the right ones to talk to.

I guess, movie would've been better off without autism stuff altogether. Rory should've been just a reallt smart kid, like wunderkind or something. I get what Shane Black was trying to do with it but it didn't work for many people 'cause it was portrayed as super-power and it was inconsistent.

Does all of that ^^^ require me to fill the gaps and explain stuff that should've been explained in the movie itself ? Yes, but I'm cool with it. And I don't have to tell you what a troubled production that movie had.

Yeah, again it all came down to bad writing and poor execution of ideas and the film would have been much more forgivable if it never went with the autism angle.

I wouldn't have said it better ! And to be fair the autism angle, while being quite bad, wasn't the biggest problem of this movie like it seems to be for a lot of people.

The problem was, yeah that was the end goal. All of this craziness was for three things, killing Fugitive, getting the stolen suit back, and capturing the kid. It straight up said that the kid is Earth's greatest warrior and the kid isn't even in high school.

Tone can always be worked with a film if the writing was good but it wasn't and the misplaced tone made the film taste worse.

I think he means the bio mask cables.

YES PLEASE to both then! Definitely!

Do you think Predators should have more agility? I see people think Preds are heavy set but they can climb trees and jump very high. I think Scarface from CJ just made me think of Preds in a different light that just because you are heavy doesn't mean you are slow moving with little mobility either.

[Voodoo Magic]

@Master

Yep! To me, conveying the agility of The Predator is important. That's why in Predator 1987, John McTiernan insisted attaching Kevin Peter Hall to bungee chords in key areas to give him a light step even while walking, so it was convincing to the audience this was a thing that could jump from tree to tree. You saw a lot of that agility in Predator 2 as well during the fight with OWLF. Constantly jumping in and out of the melee.

I at least can say I think The Fugitive had the best paint job to date for an ADI Predator. But yeah, all I have is a slight hope through Dan Trachtenberg that he can somehow navigate and micromanage ADI through all this and achieve truly a great Predator.

OK, this caught my atention: do we know anything about ADI being involved in the next Predator movie ? Have I missed some new piece of information ? No joking, just curious

Let me stress that nothing official has been announced. But what we can gather pubically, I've been kind of treating ADI doing the creature work on Skulls as a foregone conclusion ever since 1) Alec announced ADI was now hiring mold makers, mechanics, hair, fur & sculptors over a month ago and 2) Kyle Strauts who played an Emissary Predator for ADI who is training right now for a "HUGE" film, has previously liked several tweets by fans insinuating he'll be in Alberta filming Skulls.

I guess you can also throw in ADI's Alec liking Dan Trachtenberg's latest Instagram post where he's scouting for Skulls and it seems all but certain.

The more I look at it, the more I see Fugitive's head clearly being oversized and lacking a neck indeed. It baffles me how someone could not see that now.

Yep. Even when the Fugitive was armorless in the lab escape, the neck is pretty much non-existent, which gives him this odd bobble-head look. So while the paint scheme on The Fugitive improved by leaps and bounds, it felt like for every fix, there was a new break. 

[BigDaddyJohn]

The more I look at it, the more I see Fugitive's head clearly being oversized and lacking a neck indeed. It baffles me how someone could not see that now.

It's not that I can't see it - It's just I don't care

I know, I was thinking of some people that actually told me they don't see any difference.

[SiL]

I can't agree more man ! I imagine if Trachtenberg isn't satisfied with what ADI gives him, possibly he can orientates them into changing stuff right ?

This has been the case with every director on every film.

[BigDaddyJohn]

So the directors main gripes weren't about the mouth if I understand correctly ?

[SiL]

If any of the existing directors cared enough about it to request a change, they could have. There is no evidence they did.

[BigDaddyJohn]

Ok. I hope Trachtenberg will have a different taste and make a change, we'll see.

[Voodoo Magic]

If any of the existing directors cared enough about it to request a change, they could have. There is no evidence they did.

Not necessarily. At some point time is a factor and where you are on your production schedule. Not many studios, especially now, will allow what McTiernan was able to accomplish back then by shutting production down for months for creature improvements.

TQ brought up the great point that The Fugitive looked facially proportionally better in his CG scenes than his practical scenes. So when there's a difference between cg design and practical execution, when the practical head doesn't quite match the concept art and maquette the director approved and you need to film Predator scenes in a couple days, as a director you may just be forced to run with it per the producer & studio's direction.

[SiL]

Not necessarily. At some point time is a factor and where you are on your production schedule. Not many studios, especially now, will allow what McTiernan was able to accomplish back then by shutting production down for months for creature improvements.

We know the directors were happy with the look in the AvP films at least.

There's no real evidence either of the other directors were caught horribly off guard by something that was completely removed from what they wanted. Even if the proportions were different on the cg Fugitive, the overall design was the same.

The designs were approved.

Trachtenberg will have his input on the design and hopefully his sensibilities line up with the fans. Otherwise stiff shit to us unfortunately

[Voodoo Magic]

Not necessarily. At some point time is a factor and where you are on your production schedule. Not many studios, especially now, will allow what McTiernan was able to accomplish back then by shutting production down for months for creature improvements.

We know the directors were happy with the look in the AvP films at least.

There's no real evidence either of the other directors were caught horribly off guard by something that was completely removed from what they wanted. Even if the proportions were different on the cg Fugitive, the overall design was the same.

The designs were approved.

Trachtenberg will have his input on the design and hopefully his sensibilities line up with the fans. Otherwise stiff shit to us unfortunately

No true, there's no evidence, but I suspect even if there was some unhappiness, due to director professionalism, most of the time there would never be evidence. I really don't know if Anderson was truly happy, for instance. Neither of us truly do. Burning bridges of those who work with you is not wise especially in this industry. Even if say Nimrod Antal had a problem with an aspect of KNB, say 10% issues, I don't suspect he would call the issues out after the film's release and say he wish KNB would have done better... or in retrospect... wish a different FX house did them. He would say KNB did a great job. And I would too.

But I wasn't countering the evidence aspect here, just challenging the notion that if any of the existing directors cared enough about it to request a change, they could have. That's where I disagree. At some point these directors, especially ones who don't have James Cameron or Ridley Scott clout, have to run with what they have, even if not 100% pleased with the final result. They'll just work the best they can with what they have.

[SiL]

Anderson was upfront about other effects he wasn't happy with in the final film (he was disappointed with the helicopter shot for example).

The sculpts for all the Predators revealed how the mandibles would look. The excess skin, maybe not, but their general placement and the fact they were never going to look like the originals is clear in the clay renders. If the directors truly cared, they could have requested changes before fabrication.

There may have been things about the final fabrication they didn't like and were stuck with, but design wise, they knew what they were getting.