Should a Predator character have complete dialogue?

[Mr.Turok]

What I mean by this is that either between its fellow Predators or even attempted human speech to a human, should we have a main Predator character have dialogue in order to flesh out the character's motives, thoughts, and ideas? For me, I can lean on the dialogue a bit more but I also have some issues.

There are moments in the series where there was vocal communication it was mostly very cut and short. The Predator has actual sentences, when Upgrade, one of the first Predators not only vocally communicate with his superiors but also has direct humans, aka the Loonies and Stargazer, that gives it a hardcore super-soldier who is following orders  in hunting down its quarry, with a blood knight tendency on the side. Pretty much akin to the usual baddies in other action films like John Wick or Hobbs and Shaw.

On the other hand, it seems interesting to see more in depth of how a Predator think and feels, as they are sapient lifeforms. I always love the idea of an Elder Predator as the main character in either a Predator or AVP film, having a scene where we have deeper glimpse of Predator lore like philosophizing about why the Predators hunt to either its Young Blood students or a human who earned its respect and audience. If they have gods they worship or what it thinks of life itself after living for so long or even its outsider's opinion on human behavior/ideas? Reading the old S.D Perry novels on how they think made me love to see the thought process be brought forth into the big screen.

All I know is that having a more fleshed out lore instead of just hunting and killing would give more dimension to the alien hunters. So I ask this after looking at past examples of films, especially the most recent one, and wonder if having at least moderate dialogue would harm or increase the Predator mythos, without replacing "show but don't tell" completely (and I say this who loves "Show but don't tell"). What do you guys think?

[Corporal Hicks]

I think I prefer the idea of them trying to communicate through hand-signals like Machiko in the comics, rather than fully fledged conversations or an apostrophe laden language. I just don't like humanizing them too much.

[Kradan]

Yeah, agreed

[Voodoo Magic]

Thirded. I always wanted a Predator led comic series led by an actual Predator. But I would narrate that thing like Frank Miller's 300. Keep dialogue to a minimum of just occasional humans and indiscernible Predator speak.

[AliceApocalypse]

Preferably kept simple sentence structures only in key places, like Elder in P2 or sign like Top Knot it the comics.  Not only too much humanizing, but too much of a stretch to make us believe complex speech from their mouth structure.

[Tichinde]

the only time I could see a predator needing subtitles would be in like a fan film about them and their culture. It's kinda hard to convey "wow that dude was a weak f**k, but you weren't supposed to let him die" without subtitles. Other than that, yeah, visual storytelling is really actually very powerful, sometimes even more so than dialogue. If you can say something, without saying something, that says a lot (might sound funny, but I think you get what I mean) it's just more powerful that way.

This is the great thing about novels though, predator thoughts (if done correctly) can give you a small glimpse into what they are doing without actually having them speak. The few passages from South China Sea I've been able to read do this the best.

[Mr.Turok]

@Everyone

Alright cool, cool, yeah pretty much show and tell methods are favored and yeah, again that is a great route for them. Scenes like with Greyback in P2 is what makes the lore so strong and memorable. One thing that did caught my attention is the opinion that structured speech would risk of making Predators more humanized. Now that is an interesting response, cuz I look at other media like Mass Effect where we do have other intelligent lifeforms having convos with humans but they still retain their unique alien culture, personalities, and ideas. Again to restate myself, I don't think a Pred should have a long 10 minute convo with a human like we see other races do in Mass Effect, but personally I don't think it will make them any less of a Predator. Guess its the way its handled and depending on the context of the situation of the scene itself that either makes it or breaks it for the concept.

Preferably kept simple sentence structures only in key places, like Elder in P2 or sign like Top Knot it the comics.  Not only too much humanizing, but too much of a stretch to make us believe complex speech from their mouth structure.

I do favor the broken speech and sign language, as I don't think most Preds understand human speech but I don't follow the complex speech can't be done due to their mouth structure reason, as we have birds like corvids that can speak human phrases pretty good and understandable, just simply lack the level where they can think/communicate in our level.

Thirded. I always wanted a Predator led comic series led by an actual Predator. But I would narrate that thing like Frank Miller's 300. Keep dialogue to a minimum of just occasional humans and indiscernible Predator speak.

Ever since Hunting Grounds had those neat Predator trophies to add on your Predator I always favored following one or a few Preds as they hunt in ancient Earth and into modern times for a storyline. Progress from a newly Blooded to Elder during his/her frequent visits to Earth and seeing their insights on each new culture and area of Earth they visit kind of like how we see of Broken Tusk's thoughts in various other things in the novels.

[SuperiorIronman]

For me this comes across especially in the appearance. Predators are brightly colored (inconsistent as to how they see aside), covered in scars and trophies, and the armor is worn but personal. To me that while they might have several helmets, the helmet they wear is kind of like an old coat. It means something to them and says something about them without ever saying a word. It's just the way they carry themselves is what I'm getting at. We know City Hunter is a wild child without anyone in Predator 2 ever saying it. We know the 2004 Elder was some sort of nobility just by looking at him. That to me is where a lot of the communication starts with them. The way they carry themselves can actually be enough because while they can talk (we've seen several examples of this over the years), even among themselves it seems like it's something they don't normally do.

So to me they let the appearance/body language speak for itself. They can talk and I don't doubt they could understand Human speech let alone speak it. They certainly can talk even if they are imitating what they've heard but I don't see them normally holding conversations. And frankly if they do it's to the point.

[Tichinde]

For me this comes across especially in the appearance. Predators are brightly colored (inconsistent as to how they see aside), covered in scars and trophies, and the armor is worn but personal. To me that while they might have several helmets, the helmet they wear is kind of like an old coat. It means something to them and says something about them without ever saying a word. It's just the way they carry themselves is what I'm getting at. We know City Hunter is a wild child without anyone in Predator 2 ever saying it. We know the 2004 Elder was some sort of nobility just by looking at him. That to me is where a lot of the communication starts with them. The way they carry themselves can actually be enough because while they can talk (we've seen several examples of this over the years), even among themselves it seems like it's something they don't normally do.

So to me they let the appearance/body language speak for itself. They can talk and I don't doubt they could understand Human speech let alone speak it. They certainly can talk even if they are imitating what they've heard but I don't see them normally holding conversations. And frankly if they do it's to the point.

Not true. Voodoo won't STOP talking about Predator 2 

[Huggs]

I'm gonna have to vote no on this one.

[Stitch]

No. Maybe a few mimicked phrases, but not full speech. They've already been far too humanised.

[Wysps]

I wouldn't mind being privy to simple dialogue between Predators.  But as far as dialogue between Predators and humans goes, I don't think I'd be interested in seeing that.  At most, probably what was shown in The Predator.     

[Tichinde]

I really like the way Dark Horse did it too, where the humans dialogue explained a lot more of what the art was depicting. This is done really well in AVP: Thrill of the hunt, AVP (original series), and Bad Blood when the humans are talking about different things.

For thrill of the hunt, it was all about hunting, and the morality of the characters, why the hunter thought the way he did why the girl did not.

AVP (original series) was all about how things used to be simpler, clan mentalities, primitive societies, which was capitalized with art depicting Predators going through a primitive challenging ritual in order to go on a hunt

Bad Blood was all about serial killers. How some men (in this case an 8 foot tall alien monster) just want to watch the world burn, and their motives are unexplainable to someone with even a shred of decency.

It's actually really clever how they juxtaposed the predator stories, with human commentary. It gives perspective on the humans and the predators, while still keeping the mystery.

[Voodoo Magic]

For me this comes across especially in the appearance. Predators are brightly colored (inconsistent as to how they see aside), covered in scars and trophies, and the armor is worn but personal. To me that while they might have several helmets, the helmet they wear is kind of like an old coat. It means something to them and says something about them without ever saying a word. It's just the way they carry themselves is what I'm getting at. We know City Hunter is a wild child without anyone in Predator 2 ever saying it. We know the 2004 Elder was some sort of nobility just by looking at him. That to me is where a lot of the communication starts with them. The way they carry themselves can actually be enough because while they can talk (we've seen several examples of this over the years), even among themselves it seems like it's something they don't normally do.

So to me they let the appearance/body language speak for itself. They can talk and I don't doubt they could understand Human speech let alone speak it. They certainly can talk even if they are imitating what they've heard but I don't see them normally holding conversations. And frankly if they do it's to the point.

Not true. Voodoo won't STOP talking about Predator 2 

[Marc505]

No. Maybe a few mimicked phrases, but not full speech. They've already been far too humanised.

I agree with your point about them being too humanised, for sure.

That sent me down a tangent of thinking about how the Predator backstory and lore really doesn't stand up to the same level of scrutiny as the Alien universe does, but then I guess they weren't really meant to be thought about too deeply when the character was first created.

I actually prefer the Predator as a screen presence to the Alien (they're both obviously incredible, before I'm flamed!) but I still cant really legislate for the mix of primitive/tribal theme and the hi-tech equipment.

I end up humanising it all too much in the same way Stitch suggests. I'm thinking along the lines of who's designing this tech? Who's maintaining it? Who's upgrading it? Who's manufacturing it? Who's training the Predators how to use it? Is there a flight school for the ships?!

If we're saying the Predators do that themselves are we saying theres some sort of industry to create it all, are there "worker" Predators who do shifts down at the factory, or are they in league with some other species that does it all for them?

Tangents, indeed!