After watching it again yesterday, i wondered: what is it that stops that movie from being more than decent, stops it from being great? I felt like i could feel the intentions of the writers and creators, so many great ideas, great actors, sufficient budget. I could see Rodriguez and some guys in my mind going through it having a few beers somewhere in Texas and it being the perfect Predator movie imaginable. To me mixing a group of random killers and mercenaries being dropped off on a hunting planet for the predators enjoyment seems like an awesome concept. What stopped it from being truly great? I kept wondering last night. Is it the script? Dialogue? Direction? It just seems some spark is missing, some magical ingredient...
@BlueMarsalis79 has brought up several times recently that it feels like an unusually high-budget fan film, which I think speaks to the same thing as you bring up about it just missing something.
I really like it, but I feel it leans too heavily on the first film.
I dream of a day they make a sequel to Aliens, Terminator (well we can just stop those), Predator, or RoboCop that doesn't use a quote or visual from a prior film.
Aliens and Judgment Day totally used imagery and quotes from the prior film though?
It all feels a little cheap, a little rushed, a little too pieced together from the other films. The ideas are kind of half baked. The direction is just kind of bland.
Describing it as feeling like a fan film definitely fits.
Quote from: BlueMarsalis79 on Jan 28, 2024, 01:25:26 AMAliens and Judgment Day totally used imagery and quotes from the prior film though?
And effectively at that.
Quote from: [cancerblack] on Jan 27, 2024, 10:56:24 PM@BlueMarsalis79 has brought up several times recently that it feels like an unusually high-budget fan film, which I think speaks to the same thing as you bring up about it just missing something.
^THIS
It had so much potential, just that it was way too rushed with no proper development of anything. We had to keep rushing to one action scene to the next nearly all the time. It was almost like the film had ADHD, and I have ADHD and that shit annoyed me.
Look at the first two films and Prey for comparison. We took time to learn about the characters, the environment, the current situation, and the build up of tension to the perfect execution of the action. Predators kept everything going with barely any moments for us to simmer into any of that like how they managed to nearly kill half the group in the first half hour of the film.
The biggest one for me is the Super Predator concept. Such a great idea to introduce a clan war but it's barely touched on with very little to learn about the difference between the groups besides "dogs and wolves' and "stronger and faster." I said this before but when Mr.Black fought Captive, was Mr.Black incompetent for fighting a weaker Predator or was Captive that skilled?
Oh and thanks to Prey and Avatar, they never took advantage of fleshing out a truly alien world and having the Predators hunt other lifeforms to see their ability and how deadly this hunting preserve really is. Like it doesn't have to be vast like Avatar but enough to show how it's a death world and make us wonder what else is out there.
Predators for me will always 6/10 for showing great ideas but just poor execution.
Adequate execution, but just, not remarkable.
Quote from: BlueMarsalis79 on Jan 28, 2024, 01:25:26 AMAliens and Judgment Day totally used imagery and quotes from the prior film though?
To expand on my comment (and it doesn't have to be 💯 no repeated moments if done effectively.
For visual, Terminator has Reese with a shotgun with a string to hide it.
Salvation felt we had to see young Reese do the exact same thing for a different reason. So he could grapple it back. That's vapid.
For dialog, in T1, Reese says "come with me if you want to live" when he first rescues Sarah.
In T2, the T-800 says the same thing when it rescues Sarah. It's a huge psychological jolt to her to hear that same phrase from the face of her worst nightmare. That's a quality use of the element because it served a story purpose besides just blindly being inserted.
We see facehuggers emerge from eggs in multiple movies. There really isn't any other way to show it. That's logical. That works.
Aliens, as much as I love it and rate it one of the greatest movies ever, I can still think blowing the alien out of the airlock again could have been something else. It is a negative that Cameron repeated the same beat in the very next sequel. It was masterfully done no doubt. It certainly doesn't ruin the film.
AVP "you are one ugly...." Blah blah
Really it was more directed toward it being done over and over and over.
Lol AvP did change it up with the queen, but visually it looks similar.
I really love amongst other things Alien³ going against type in that sense, like the thermal explosion being the demise of the Alien, set up by the bucket earlier.
Like Aliens and Alien, Resurrection uses space and gets some points but only barely for the acid being used against the Newborn but otherwise like Covenant, it uses space to defeat the Alien threat.
My personal opinion, many things held it back from being a great film. My personal reasons on what those things are and what should be improved are as follows.
1. Super Predators should have been just Bad Bloods, regular bad predators and not some new subspecies or genetic abomination.
2. Bad CGI, especially the last part with Berserkers head removal. It needed more work in this department.
3. The face animatronics or lack there of, predators not being able to close their mouths really throws off a scene.
4. There should have been more humans to kill off to show the effectiveness of the predators better.
5. The humans being less character archetypes and more realistic.
6. Better writing to flesh out the character development better in the time constraints.
7. Much better predator fight coordination.
8. More impressive set pieces since it is on an alien planet.
9. More than one good/hero predator to make the fight less one sided.
10. Some sort of actual ending or resolution.
Well, you get Rodriguez who tells you the super duper preds are wolves and classic preds are dogs, then you see that three of them hunting as a pack couldn't defeat a bunch of weaklings, all you can do is :laugh: out loud.Add a cheap classic pred cosplay into that mix and you get yourself something embarrassing to witness.
Since AVP, the predator aura was finished, from a mysterious and menacing killer to a humanized, samurai type warrior, who ended up in musical Youtube vids made by teens. We can't have that.
There are only 3 Predator movies in my head canon; Predator, Predator 2 and Prey.
I get the sentiment, but Predators still counts to me, just as one in many looks at chasing the popular attributes of something without the meat underneath it.
It is not quite undercooked but, it is fairly bloody.
Wasted potential with the ideas, not enough action, you have a whole planet full of different alien creatures being hunted by the Predators and you don't show that at all, imagine them teamming up with the main characters, lots of fights... instead all stuff just gets one shooted, Noland, Tracker, Falconer. And the Cruficied, it was this chance to actually make a Predator and Human teamups that could work and they wasted. Too much build up that ends fast almost like AVP2004. But well better that the ones that came after.
the fact that they only had a year to go from nothing to releasing in theaters might of had something to do with it. their budget wasn't what was needed as well. complete lack of studio support. all factors.
i always say, the movie being as watchable as it is, is a miracle and testament to the work everyone involved put into it.
Quote from: RoguePred1987 on Feb 03, 2024, 10:48:37 PMthe fact that they only had a year to go from nothing to releasing in theaters might of had something to do with it. their budget wasn't what was needed as well. complete lack of studio support. all factors.
i always say, the movie being as watchable as it is, is a miracle and testament to the work everyone involved put into it.
Maybe after the failure of both AvP and AvPR Fox didn't want to risk to much. But yeah, considering all the factors the movie it's very nice
i definitely think the good outweighs the bad when it comes to PREDATORS.
It's a bit too similar to the first movie and sort of generic - maybe lacking in energy and creativity.
What if Rodriguez directed it himself?
The music is a bit of a rehash as well, compare this to Prey.
It's also where the "Bigger and Badder Predators" angle started, although AvP had a bit of it as well.
They are right to use some elements from previous films.
However the jungle setting was too close to the first film.
The Super Predators are unnecessary, why do we need the classic Predator in it? Should just use a variation like in Predator 2.
The game reserve planet is a great idea if you had characters you give a shit about.
The cast is great on paper but the storyline is unbelievable from a character point of view. They accept they've been kidnapped too easily, aren't shocked by meeting aliens and don't freak out that they aren't on Earth. In Predator the one character who has a clue there is something up doesn't really know what's going on. In Predators it's like they've maybe seen the first movie.
Just my thoughts.
Too many callbacks.
We meet the characters far too quickly with Royce.
I could have done without the clan war stuff.
One Predator hunting them and then clashing with another Predator over territory might work better for me.
The characters don't really seem too upset my the events in the movie.
It's almost too meta... Even when the credits hit .. the song is from Predator FFS.
Very bland movie. Uninteresting characters. When they die, you mostly don't give two shits about it.
Competently directed though.
The whole movie came to a grinding halt with the introduction of Lawrence Fishburne's character, so much potential in world building could've been introduced but instead we got a few character pieces that didn't do much to add any stakes to the game or make us care for anyone. Also Fishburne was killed too quickly. Overall, there wasn't much forward momentum driving one scene to be the consequence of the previous scene. That ending was a big let down.
Quote from: SM on Jan 27, 2024, 11:05:43 PMI really like it, but I feel it leans too heavily on the first film.
It does. But there's still some decent stuff in there.
To me Predators is a pretty decent film.
They wasted Lawrance Fishburne, he was great till he goes full mad. Why if you want to survive would you kill more warriors could help you?
Adrian Brody was miscast IMHO as the lead. They sadly would have been better off with Chris Pratt, his kind of movie.
Fishburne 'going mad' was the best part of his character for me. He was thinking in terms of resources for his survival. I doubt he believed combat was a realistic proposition.
Quote from: Huntsman on Mar 31, 2024, 07:40:48 PMFishburne 'going mad' was the best part of his character for me. He was thinking in terms of resources for his survival. I doubt he believed combat was a realistic proposition.
At the very least the Preds would have been busy hunting the newcomers rather than him. Why interrupt?
He wanted their gear and probably saw their presence as unwanted attention to his own safety. He'd been there alone for a good while and knew what he was doing regardless of his break with sanity.
And Fishburne probably costed too much to have around longer anyways ;D
Quote from: BigDaddyJohn on Apr 01, 2024, 06:37:13 PMAnd Fishburne probably costed too much to have around longer anyways ;D
I am just glad wd got him at all. :)
I really love Fishburne, but I think Predators grinds to a halt once the characters reach his hideout, and it never really recovers after that. There's some pretty decent tension and atmosphere in the first half of the movie up until that point, but from his death onwards, the movie basically becomes a choppy montage of loosely strung together greatest hits beats from Predator.
Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Apr 01, 2024, 06:57:01 PMI really love Fishburne, but I think Predators grinds to a halt once the characters reach his hideout, and it never really recovers after that. There's some pretty decent tension and atmosphere in the first half of the movie up until that point, but from his death onwards, the movie basically becomes a choppy montage of loosely strung together greatest hits beats from Predator.
I wholeheartedly agree. It stagnates in the hideout.
From what I saw the movies is decent, then again, it's been a while since I watched the movie so maybe later I'll watch it again.
I think this film aged a bit better with time. Back when it came out expectations were much higher. And it looks even better now since The Predator came out and just shit the bed.
The film overall, though, has a lack of oompf! In the first film, you really feel how Dutch's team is rattled, but you don't get that same sensation here. Also, I find it annoying how it spells out everything to the audience. It has a bad habit of doing that.
Predators definitely felt retroactively better after The Predator, but then Prey came along and delivered a much more solid experience with the tone I was expecting from Predators to begin with. Predators totally fizzles out in its back half in a way that Prey never does.
If we ever do see another Predator movie set in space (Which I want! Please do that, Badlands!), I hope it's a much more heightened, stylized, pulpier locale than the pretty standard Earth-like forest/jungle of the hunting preserve planet in Predators.
Did they really plan to use Danny Glover instead of Fishburne in the initial stages? It would have been kind of disrespectful for the character.
Quote from: Wweyland on Apr 02, 2024, 12:56:25 PMDid they really plan to use Danny Glover instead of Fishburne in the initial stages? It would have been kind of disrespectful for the character.
Yeah, I'd rather they let past characters be, ESPECIALLY if the treatment is poor, which it usually turns out to be. So glad Arnold said no all this time.
Interesting that he agreed with Hunting Grounds though.
Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Apr 02, 2024, 12:40:20 PMPredators definitely felt retroactively better after The Predator, but then Prey came along and delivered a much more solid experience with the tone I was expecting from Predators to begin with. Predators totally fizzles out in its back half in a way that Prey never does.
If we ever do see another Predator movie set in space (Which I want! Please do that, Badlands!), I hope it's a much more heightened, stylized, pulpier locale than the pretty standard Earth-like forest/jungle of the hunting preserve planet in Predators.
Would be neat to see The Predator bunt in a desert climate.
Tons of potential there with the mirage effect of the cloaking technology alone.
I'd say not many places to attack from above but Prey showed that's irrelevant.
Quote from: Huntsman on Apr 05, 2024, 07:40:08 AMTons of potential there with the mirage effect of the cloaking technology alone.
Would be sick to do a Lawerence of Arabia scene and an armed man at a well has a Pred cut them down and the blood fills t he well, and he is strung up on a palm tree near the well.
Quote from: aliens13 on Feb 04, 2024, 12:03:05 AMQuote from: RoguePred1987 on Feb 03, 2024, 10:48:37 PMthe fact that they only had a year to go from nothing to releasing in theaters might of had something to do with it. their budget wasn't what was needed as well. complete lack of studio support. all factors.
i always say, the movie being as watchable as it is, is a miracle and testament to the work everyone involved put into it.
Maybe after the failure of both AvP and AvPR Fox didn't want to risk to much. But yeah, considering all the factors the movie it's very nice
was avp and avp-r failures? I thought they did fairly well financially I wasn't Predator 2 the only one that actually lost money at the boxoffice?
AVP did more than 170 mil worldwide for a 60 mil budget.
AVPR did around 130 mil worldwide for a 40 mil budget.
Putting in my two cents here since I now just discovered this topic. I like Predators but it's also one of the ones I watch the least because it's boring and bland and it's also the one where three Predators do a worse job than one, ultimately making the Predators a lot less badass than they should be. Aside from that, I also just found the pacing weird in some places.
Some fans find it underrated, well I find it just rated, overall.
I couldn't have said it better.
Also, to add insult to injury, I find anything done by Robert Rodriguez to be of questionable quality, particularly in the Boba Fett series, where there's this sort of 'fan' quality to his pictures and it definitely shows in this one, despite not directing it.
It's what you get when you work fast and cheap.