Quote from: HuDaFuK on Jul 03, 2015, 01:09:52 PM
They clearly do, because that's exactly what the Predator does in the second film. Unless you're suggesting it just casually happens upon Harrigan and/or his mates by chance whenever it catches up with them.
That's unfortunately the only way to realistically explain it, given what we know of Predator abilities. There isn't some super-secret tracking device signal showing up on their HUDs or whatever (and if there was, it would have been very useful in that slaughterhouse scene).
It seems like the writing team were projecting human abilities onto these masked hunters, without factoring in their limitations.
QuoteAnd yet the Predator finds Leona and Jerry on the subway no problem. Or are you suggesting that's another (practically impossible) coincidence?
That's more plausible, given how they're actively seeking out a violent crime scene.
The same logic for why the original Predator latches onto Dutch's team: Wasn't planning for them, but liked what it saw.
Again, look at those vague blobs of heat whenever it looks at Harrigan, Jerry and Leona at range. There is
nothing there of any real use to keep track of them in a heavily urban environment.
QuoteBut who says their physical sight is the only factor at play? The Predators have all kinds of tech in their masks, who's to say there isn't something there that helps them identify individuals? Can you read Predator? We have no idea what the text that's constantly appearing on their HUD actually says.
If you can find something in the film which suggests anything like that, be my guest.
So far as I know, there simply isn't. We see them tracking by thermal and recording voices to lure, but nothing else. No detective work, at all. The only symbology which appears is the voice recorder, from what I recall.
QuoteMaybe they can detect individuals by scent?
That big solid mask is sort of in the way... Also not something they can really employ to find the guy in an entire
city. Sure as hell isn't able to be used to find the individual carriage Jerry and his friend were on.
If they can smell a single human's precise location in an entire city (during a time of very hot weather, too), then why couldn't the one in the first film figure out where Dutch was, even when he was under its proverbial nose and heavily sweating? He fooled the thermal and the thing had
no clue where he was. Any sense of smell would have registered him (and let's not forget those masks seem vacuum-sealed and require opening air-valves, to take off)
Again, I think the writers meant it to be interpreted in the way you say, but they didn't think the obstacles through well.
QuoteThe fact is, we simply don't know enough to say they can't track people with accuracy over great distances, especially when at least one of the films shows that they certainly can, even in the midst of one of the biggest, busiest cities on Earth.
Even if it makes no sense in reality, in the world of the films, they have that ability.
Sure, we do. Thermal - and that's it.
Like I said, an exotic jungle with a small group of soldiers in it and nobody else for miles around? Totally conceivable. Beautifully done. Cities, not so much.
Predators aren't all-knowing godly things. They have very specific tools and none of them have yet demonstrated a way to have been tracking Harrigan, let alone all his friends. I'm honestly not even sure there was enough for the Predators to go on, to figure out he even
was friends with them. He's sighted talking with them a few times, but he's seen talking with other people, too. Certainly, Danny went into the Predator's territory - it didn't seek him out.
Engineer: Go and take some screen caps of Harrigan from where the Predator first sees him. They're
incredibly vague. It's a real mess. Use that same really vague blob of heat to pin-point his location over
miles of city. You can't do it.
That's the problem they have. It isn't about whether they can potentially identify the same target if it's paraded before them at point-blank range. It's about how they'd find someone over miles and miles of terrain where
millions of other humanoid-looking blobs of heat are. Not somewhere, like a jungle, where it's all open-air. It's somewhere with tons of individual buildings and stuff. The problem is even bigger if you're trying to say thermal was used to find Jerry/Leona. It had
no way to know they were even using a train, let alone which carriage they were on.
It would, however, have had motivation to around searching for violent kicks, just like they were. Both parties were actively seeking the same situations.