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Posted by The Old One
 - Jul 29, 2019, 04:16:25 AM
Absolutely beautiful cover art by the way.
Posted by The Old One
 - Jul 23, 2019, 05:50:10 PM
Gosh I do love the Predator's weaponry.
Posted by Tubecity
 - Jul 23, 2019, 05:27:43 PM
Pred spear as a throwing weapon-
come on guys, where have we ever seen any kind of functional throwing spear, javelin, dart, arrow, etc made so that the two halves are symmetrical? It won't work. The head has to be heavier than the tail or butt, or it won't cast well. Just go and try it. Try to throw any evenly balanced  stick as if it is a javelin. It doesn't work, at least, not very well. Try to shoot an arrow with no head on it. Try to fly a model airplane with no weight in the nose.

Kevin Peter Hall may have been able to grasp the thing nearer one end in his other hand (being a great actor with an intuitive sense of how his character should move), but he had thick rubber gloves on, and he only had to get the shot, not actually fight. The weapon itself is patently designed with a short hand-grip in the middle (too short to get any decent leverage with two hands) and symmetrical extensions coming out of either end, both covered in hooks which look cool but render changing grips difficult if not painful.

The designers either didn't understand weapons or they knew that if the weapons were too practical, they would also be too recognisable, familiar and seemingly ordinary, and therefore wouldn't serve the character. Certainly Stan and Co were masters of serving the character.

Ironman- I'm not convinced that choreographed light sabre-fighting in a space opera counts as evidence for how real weapons work.



Posted by Voodoo Magic
 - Jul 23, 2019, 03:12:52 PM
Some spear action:

Posted by The Kurgan
 - Jul 23, 2019, 03:05:56 PM
Iam with Ironman here and think the predator's spear is a throwing weapon first, a stabbing one second. And for that purpose it seems long enough.

And while not using the full possible reach in melee, it gives some. But i agree that they surely had cool points in mind  when designing it. Nevertheless it does what it is intended to do.

The main close combat polearm seems to be the glaive and not the spear. 

Iam no expert on spear combat, but how big is the reach advantage anyway when we are not talking about infantry mass battles and more like a duel or two or three opponents max?

I can imagin that having two spear points may be an advantage when fighting more than one opponent.

Edit: Looking at Voodoo's pic i can see him doing some Maul esque moves like Ironman suggested.


Posted by Voodoo Magic
 - Jul 23, 2019, 02:51:04 PM
Quote from: Tubecity on Jul 23, 2019, 02:16:34 PM
Kurgan, I take your point about the shoulder mount, and about hunting vs. war.

It's not the extendable aspect of the Pred spear that is, theoretically, impractical. It's the fact that both the P2 and AVP versions can only be grasped in the middle. That achieves nothing, apart from making it seem vaguely weird and cool. Of course a retractable spear might have certain advantages of carriage. However, a weapon designed so that you can only make use of half the total length makes no practical sense, retractable or otherwise.

Tubecity, that's incorrect. You need to watch Predator 2 again brother. Just because the City Hunter only grabs the middle to extend the spear, doesn't mean he can't grab the spear anywhere else on the shaft. There's sometimes in the meatpacking plant scenes where he's two handing it, and neither hand is holding the middle, much like this home video art:



Posted by SuperiorIronman
 - Jul 23, 2019, 02:45:41 PM
They can, the spears just aren't completely meant to be used in combat which is why they're commonly thrown (and given they'd be hunting humans it's not common they would enter combat outside of stabbings). If you're familiar with Darth Maul of the Star Wars prequels you'd see he uses a similar weapon. Ray Park (the man who physically portrayed Darth Maul) actually is flipping around with the lightsaber stand-in. Not exactly the same thing, but the setup can be maneuverable.

However they do have a weapon that is primarily used for combat in the Glaive and we have seen alternate spears which are meant to be used like a polearm (resembling a Naginta).
Posted by Tubecity
 - Jul 23, 2019, 02:36:55 PM
Ironman,

The Pred wrist-blades and the Indian pata or gauntlet-sword are quite different in two important respects. First, the single long blade of the pata projects out in line with the forearm, functioning as a very effective limb-extension. The Pred blades are set above the arm and out of alignment, making them anatomically inefficient. And as Kurgan points out, the wrist blades leave the hand incredibly vulnerable in a fight.

Second, the cutting edges on the pata are oriented so that all the strongest muscles of the arm and shoulder can be employed to strike, employing the overarm blow, which we can probably regard as a hardwired, instinctual human attack pattern. When you rotate the blade(s) 90 degrees as on the Pred blades, you lose almost all the muscular power that would be available otherwise. The wrist blades are powered by the rotator-cuff, and not much else. I'm assuming that the Pred musculature is basically the same as a human's.

Don't get me wrong- I love the Pred and all of his weird weaponry. It just wouldn't work for humans. There are no wrist-blades anywhere in human history. The pata and its various punch dagger relatives might seem sort of the same, but they are fundamentally different.
Posted by Tubecity
 - Jul 23, 2019, 02:16:34 PM
Kurgan, I take your point about the shoulder mount, and about hunting vs. war.

It's not the extendable aspect of the Pred spear that is, theoretically, impractical. It's the fact that both the P2 and AVP versions can only be grasped in the middle. That achieves nothing, apart from making it seem vaguely weird and cool. Of course a retractable spear might have certain advantages of carriage. However, a weapon designed so that you can only make use of half the total length makes no practical sense, retractable or otherwise.
Posted by The Kurgan
 - Jul 23, 2019, 01:33:55 PM
Agree with nearly all that has been said, just not the wristblades as a full blown melee weapon.

Don't get me wrong, it works good the way it was used in the movies but in a fight with something that actually also uses a melee weapon or is one, like the Alien, using it is a good way to lose the hand.

The gauntlet sword had a gauntlet for exactly that purpose.
Posted by SuperiorIronman
 - Jul 23, 2019, 01:18:48 PM
Quote from: Tubecity on Jul 22, 2019, 08:34:42 PM
Old One- thanks!
Voodoo- ha ha, well, I'm grateful for your consideration. I see your points. But... Isn't impracticality one of the defining characteristics of the Predator character? Isn't that what makes him seem powerful and alien at the same time? He makes all kinds of impractical stuff work... somehow?

Wrist-blades- pretty impractical.
Extendo-spear- fantastically impractical.
Shoulder-mounted firearm- largely impractical.
P2 Murder frisbee- very impractical unless you explain it as some kind of semi-autonomous self-propelled drone
Storing hand weapons of any kind on one's back- intensely impractical (AVP spears, various swords in the expanded universe, etc)

I like the 2010 hounds because somehow it felt like the design flowed with the essence of the Predator character, while also being quite new (and not just a repacking of the same old basic beats)- they seemed like a believeable development of the mythology.

Funny thing is that the Predator's weapons do have counterparts in the real world.
The combi-stick collapses for ease of storage, but they are used as throwing spears and stabbing tools. Spears are literally so practical that in older wars (before firearms became common) was the go-to weapon. And when you don't have access to projectiles, that is what you'd use to hunt because it's aerodynamic to throw.
The wrist-blades are a modern take on the gauntlet sword. The gauntlet sword's biggest issue was its center of mass and being awkward to carry around, no longer a problem when it just retracts.
The Smart-disk is basically a high-tech chakram
And even the shoulder cannon (while it's still unlikely we can get plasma to fire like that) is practical since the whole point was to be hands free. Hell, there was a guy who did an airsoft version of it.

The Predator's arsenal (most of it) is based on weapons and gadgets you'd find in the real world. It's part of how it's so believable, we to an extent know what the Predator's using. And while we wouldn't use a chakram to hunt a deer, they would because part of the point isn't just to hunt and kill it, it's the bragging rights of not only what you killed but how you did it.
Posted by Voodoo Magic
 - Jul 23, 2019, 01:16:11 PM
Quote from: The Kurgan on Jul 23, 2019, 12:11:51 PM
Gotta break a lance for most of the pred's gear here.

We should not forget that these are hunting tools first, not war weapons. They are used to hunt down and kill a single target, not to kill the most targets as quick and effective as possible.

If you consider the way the pred stalks his prey, climbing through trees, over walls etc it makes sense that their main gun is shoulder mounted, it leaves the hands free to climb or even fight in hand to hand while shooting. Same with the extandable spear, you can comfortably carry it around without it getting in the way or using up one hand while tarzaning through the jungle. And I don't think it's supposed to be a war spear like humans used them in historical infantry combat. More like a throwing spear that can double as a melee weapon.

I give you that the wrist blades are quite impractical weapons , but i always thought they are more of the predator's version of a hunting knife or an last resort sidearm at most.

The disc... maybe to kill targets that are to big for the thrown spear? No idea  :P



To me the wrist blades are fine considering their such avid climbers and need to be hands free. They also harken back to the spiked guantlets of medieval times. Actually there are a great deal of medieval weapons that were terribly impractical.

But all I have to do is look towards Martial Arts weapons to see the Predator's tools and weapons, including the disc, is no more impractical. The throwing stars, especially the nunchucks are horrendously ineffective, yet still practiced today out of tradition - not usefulness. And it would seem the Predators are all about tradition.
Posted by JungleHunter87
 - Jul 23, 2019, 01:11:21 PM
Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Jul 22, 2019, 07:59:51 AM
Quote from: Voodoo Magic on Jul 21, 2019, 03:59:16 PM
I don't mind different species of pups.

Completely agree. It's a none issue for me. It's just about the designs of the different breeds. I certainly prefer these over the ones in the film *shudders at the dreadlocks*

That was all I meant. I don't mind there being different breeds/species of dogs in the Predator universe. I just wasn't too keen on the design in the film or this maquette. As I said, I think it's headed in the right direction. When compared to THE PREDATOR's horrible dreaded predator pound puppies. Still looks like it needs more design work is all imho.
Posted by The Kurgan
 - Jul 23, 2019, 12:11:51 PM
Gotta break a lance for most of the pred's gear here.

We should not forget that these are hunting tools first, not war weapons. They are used to hunt down and kill a single target, not to kill the most targets as quick and effective as possible.

If you consider the way the pred stalks his prey, climbing through trees, over walls etc it makes sense that their main gun is shoulder mounted, it leaves the hands free to climb or even fight in hand to hand while shooting. Same with the extandable spear, you can comfortably carry it around without it getting in the way or using up one hand while tarzaning through the jungle. And I don't think it's supposed to be a war spear like humans used them in historical infantry combat. More like a throwing spear that can double as a melee weapon.

I give you that the wrist blades are quite impractical weapons , but i always thought they are more of the predator's version of a hunting knife or an last resort sidearm at most.

The disc... maybe to kill targets that are to big for the thrown spear? No idea  :P

Posted by Tubecity
 - Jul 23, 2019, 06:12:41 AM
But basically I agree with you Voodoo, covering a hunting hound used for pursuit of prey through dense jungle in long antlers does seem pretty impractical. But that's why it works for the character. A garden-variety dog creature that looks and behaves too much like an Earthly dog (as in The Predator) doesn't work, because it's too recognisable and familiar. It fails to be suitably alien and exotic, and becomes, well, cute.
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