[SPOILERS] Feral Predator Design Thread

[BigDaddyJohn]

That's exactly why I don't see the point. A quick wink-wink moment with the audience, a la marvel. No thanks.

[chrisr232007]

Could this new predator be a bad blood and Greyback comes to take him out? Maybe Greyback comes towards the end of the movie and kills the new pred while he was trying to kill the girl?

[Corporal Hicks]

Unless Greyback already has the pistol? I wouldn't mind a quick cameo where that's the case. I just wouldn't want that moment to be a quick cameo.

[Voodoo Magic]

Comparing posts count - wasn't it me who was doing that sort of shit during the last big ADI Preds' hustle ? I mean, Voodoo, c'mon

*sigh*

No Kradan. Completely different.

My situation: In regards to me saying I have put some blame on Anderson & others before for poor design choices, not just on ADI (like when I've critized Anderson time and time again for making his Predators look like American Football Players) , someone uninformed suggested they can't recall me doing that. My reply was maybe they can't recall it because they have been engaged with the forums three times as less, which could be a valid explanation.

Your situation: You started to dig for all these different posts I made at different times, collect them, quote them, in what seemed to be an attempt to embarrass me, in a Predator FX Complaint thread / topic / video that I didn't even create. Hicks even had to warn you. (You can click on the quote below for a refresher)

But of course, your post saying I did the same thing as you, got likes from the usual suspects, not that you know, you were accurate, and not that they recall me doing so, but solely because of... Go Team!

I'm not mad or pissed mind you, just tired of these arguments being recycled over and over and over again

Voodoo, remember how annoyed you got when I was posting this GIF ?

Spoiler

[close]

in response to your rants about Crabators ? And I've done it maybe half a dozen of times.

Well, now I kinda feel the same about every time you rant about Crabators. It's not so much about the criticism itself (which is fine, it's your opinion and etc.) but the fact it is repeated over and over and over and OVER.

Spoiler

Okay I have a serious question.

Fugitive Predator. I've heard some people love his look. Heard others hate it. My question is why?

And the mask was one that not terribly fond of personally

It's a Crabator. It's a crustacean looking Predator with broken oversized jaws and a gigantic disproportional bobble head that can hold pencils within his mandible flaps that likely makes the late, great Stan Winston turn in his grave.







Long live the work of Stan da Man Winston!

https://i.ibb.co/Tkrmkz1/tumblr-nl7pj5-D1n-C1u1vwpho2-500-1.gifhttps://i.ibb.co/f0VFBBR/tumblr-or8kgl-RR9l1rp0vkjo1-500.gif

These far away shots are not a wise choice to use for this scrutiny, but to zoom in on the Emissary I actually referenced in this thread and you'll see the Emissary is clearly larger.



But if you look Fugitive ginormous head with mouth folds, you can't even see his neck.



But good old Stan.... a neck and proportion!



Now the other Emissary, I'm not certain that Crabator was designed to vastly open it's mouth.



This is not trick photography making these no-neck heads look big. They're just big.

Voodoo is just happy the female Pred is not a Crabator.

Damn straight!

And check out how her dreads are done in the back...

I love this, I can tell its female but its not that different from what we've already seen.

Yes, agreed!

I do appreciate there was a lot of consideration taken with her:

• "The design for the female Predator took considerable time as Fox was very heavily involved in process. It involved a great deal of back and forth changing elements, but Illfonic is very proud of what they've achieved with her."

When Scar revealed his face to Lex

#JustSayNo

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/8a/ce/21/8ace21d7219e19074b9910231a634fc0.gif
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d6/04/ec/d604ecaffad34bc5b57e2c4ac0d0225b.gif

I didn't see much of a flap problem with KNB.

https://i.imgur.com/Dh0VuYB.png

I didn't say I didn't see any. Yes, when comparing ADI and KNB, again I'll say "I didn't see much of a flap problem with KNB." And I still don't. Not like ADI's awkward rolls and pencil holders. 

ADI are Oscar winners because people have thought they were the best at their craft on different projects. They've created some of the most memorable and effective creature effects of the last 30 years.

They've employed many of the same people who worked at SWS and other major effects houses over the decades.

Forget employed. The ADI founders came from Stan Winston Studio for a year or two before leaving to form their own company.

And I'm aware of their Academy Award for their mixing of practical and cg in Death Becomes Her (fun movie by the way). Awards don't mean too much to me personally. For example, it's a crime that Rob Bottin has never won an Oscar - and it also has factors of your competition that particular year. Fx is a small market.

I'm not a big fan of a lot of their design choices but they're not amateurs and they're far from incompetent.

Don't turn this into a strawman argument. No one said these words "amateurs" or "incompetent", but I stand behind my feelings that in 2004 in regards to Scar, "Every aspect of Scar to me was inferior, even his paint application, which just screamed out to me during the release of AvP a lower degree of experience and/or talent". I was simply reacting to the work:





https://i.ibb.co/NLn8D1G/proxy.jpg
And I'm not a big fan of many of their design choices in general either, which is why I feel they'll never be considered the best of the best with the likes of Stan Winston in a hundred years. They won't be on the Mount Rushmore of Practical FX guys in my humble opinion. But it's a small industry, and they have to be talented in such a small industry just to thrive / later survive. Clearly.

Is Voodoo the foremost pundit on crabators?

He claims to be one

Of course! I coined the term!

But yes... no "x" mandibles, straightened brows, broken jaws, they meet and exceed the requirement to be deemed a Crustacean Predator!

Also I can't take these big heads! I lined up both eye pupils on the Stan Winston design and ADI design, then halved it.





I miss the days when we had Predator makers that understood proportion!

https://i.ibb.co/25XxnWz/Predator25.jpg
#SayNoToCrabators

You all know Voodoo will come inspecting for Crabators in your memes.

It's only a matter of time.

https://66.media.tumblr.com/64352324ad3cd1dd024ec53f1fdf2813/tumblr_pahhahuDGy1se0jzho1_500.gif

What are Crabators? is it something like a nickname for Preds?

What??? Have you learned nothing from me??? Have you learned nothing about those horrible, horrible Crustacean Hunters from outer space

I agree. Some practical fx of the Upgrade would have been nice.

One positive note is, even as a full CG creation, the Upgrade Predator doesn't have the disappointing ADI broken jaw look. It actually reminds me of KNB's work.

Indeed

KNB Predators had mandibles movement, but couldn't close opened mouth.

Yet still a step up from ADI's Crabators I think...



Vs

a conversation between creator and enraged fan

If someone needs an enraged fan to co-host a Shane Black interview I'm here you know.

Same goes with me and ADI. Someone needs to answer for those Crabators!

"Welcome to the AvPGalaxy podcast, venting edition."

https://media.giphy.com/media/76RAzMnxCOWDS/giphy.gif


https://thumbs.gfycat.com/AdeptHopefulCanary-size_restricted.gif

I don't believe it's exactly ADI's fault considering they're just doing as they're told. You can have all the personal dignity in the world but you'd never work again so I don't blame them for going with it.

I do respect that they acknowledge they really only got Wolf right.
However the issue isn't so much ADI as much as it is the directors and producers who at the end of the day are the ones calling the shots. ADI really doesn't have that much say in the matter regarding what the director wants and what makes it to screen. When you're brought on to do FX you're basically a hired gun. Director vision and the money allotted is going to be the biggest impediments, and we know that from Wolf, Fugitive, what little we've seen of the Emissary that they do just fine on Predator FX.

When Alec @ ADI was asked about the broken jaw, slack-jawed look of their Predators compared to the original beloved Stan Winston design, Alec answered the question with a question: Why do the mandibles have to close like they did in the first two movies?

Alec confirmed it was a creative decision, and after three films, with three different directors, you do have to consider the common factor: ADI. Especially when the CG Upgrade Assasin Predator mandible and jaws looked correct in "The Predator", even among his deformed upgraded self, but the ADI Predators in the same movie had the same broken jaw (Crabator) problem. We doubt Shane Black said "try to get the mandibles/jaw muscles right on the cg Predator only, people!" It would seem Black wasn't very invested in it either way.

We've relegated this change in core facial musculature to ADI's "stamp" on the Predator, for better or worse. And most of us feel worse. And I haven't even addressed the paint jobs. 

https://66.media.tumblr.com/3ab7516e3eaa79a11367a3fedcc516b6/tumblr_nl7pj5D1nC1u1vwpho2_500.gif








https://media2.giphy.com/media/4olCC4plGHHyM/giphy.gif?cid=19f5b51a5c87cbf737624149633d62fa

As bad as the plot is, Fugitive and even the Emissary Pred's look a lot more life like than the AVP preds

That's fair. The Fugitive was the best ADI created in my opinion, but the Fugitive, and two Emissaries still feature the gamut of design and to a lesser degree, paint problems:



Ironically, I would insist the CG Assasin Upgrade Predator came the closest / was the most faithful of them all in regards to Stan Winston's x mandible design. No slack-jaw, broken jaw bones there.

Yeah the actual predator faces were abysmal in avp.

Do you think Stan Winston would cringe seeing them? 🤔

Voodoo saying something about "Crabators" in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .

It's...
The CRABATORS!

Yeah the actual predator faces were abysmal in avp.

Someone buy this man a beer!!

At no point does the predator 2 animatronic face ever look as bad as scars face in AvP.

His googley eyes when Harrigan is right about to chop his arm off. Looks like something out of the original Mad Max

I never had much problems with the P2 face. I never stopped to think that it looked bad, not like every movie that ever came after it.

Even the Elders look 5 times better than anything else.

While I agree 100% with your feelings regarding the Predators looked bad after "Predator 2", specifically ADI's work in AVP, AVPR and The Predator (however they have shown improvement with each movie), how did you feel about the work done by KNB EFX in "Predators"?

I noticed something on re-watching the lab scene in The Predator. They make his mandibles act like a crab with little movements, the original never did this, they were just moving when he wanted them to move.

I noticed that too.

Another big problem, in my opinion, is the ADI Predators can no longer close their mouth, so to speak.  Here is a shot from Predator, Predator 2, and The Predator featuring all three Yautjas not roaring or speaking.  In ADI's design, it can't close it's mouth.



I think I'm safe in saying the general consensus of Predator fans is non-approving of ADI's changes, but even when it's brought up (much gratitude to The Old One), Alec from ADI dismisses the question.

[close]

I think that's enough to get the point across, eh ?

For comparision, I know there's a lot of people who dislike ADI's work on Aliens. Yet, I can hardly remember anyone complaining about it apart from Trash Queen throwing term "Snaliens" cople of times

Kradan, I guess this is somehow an attempt to embarrass me, that you caught me talking about it 14 times since January of 2019, and more than half of the time I didn't even bring up the issue but responded to it. Of course, you conveniently left out the times you brought it up. Becareful with this road your trying to take my friend.

Ill try this one more time with you...

ACM, Randy Pitchford, Crabators, egg barfing, egg morphing, Alien3 eggs, Alien skulls, AvPR can't see sh*t, Predator boobs, the murial, hybridization, City Hunters mandible problems, Predator autism, The Newborn, domes, Ridley's prequels, is AvP canon, David created the Xenomorph, etc. etc. etc. -  This all gets repeated over and over again in these forums and increases when it becomes relevant. And with a new Predator film coming, what fans want from the FX house becomes relevant. I did not even create the video, or start this thread, or contribute to the conversation until Thread Page #2 and you're on my case about it.

You don't seem to count how many times you personally trash AvPR and the Predalien, things I am fans of, because that would make your point moot. Just knock it off.

[Corporal Hicks]

My patience is wearing really thin with this right now folk. I'm getting sick of this becoming some sort of personal feud between people. We're going to have differences of opinions. It's the nature of discussion. It's the nature of a wide area of interests and knowledge. But I'm getting fed up with this descending into some petty arguments all the time.

Can we stop resorting to digging up comments or stats or digging at "you said this" kind of antics. This is supposed to be a hobby, an interest, a passion, a love. And I've always been proud of how mature we are here compared to many other corners of fandoms. Don't let me down.

Enough with this, before you all drive each other away. Let's move on.

If either of you wants to drag it on, take it into private.

[Mike’s Monsters]

Alrighty, moving back to the subject of the thread.

Was having trouble posting this gif for a bit, but worked it out.

In the latest TV spot, the ending is just the slightest bit longer. I slowed it down and did a bit of brightening, with that you can see a bit more mandible action.



In case the gif isn't loading, here is a link to the gif.

[Master]

I can't see your image.

[Mike’s Monsters]

I can't see your image.

Added a link to my post. Can see it on my end, but thought it was gonna give me some more issues. Not sure what I'm doing wrong.

[Master]

Ok. I  see it 😉

[Mike’s Monsters]

Ok. I  see it 😉

Mike's gif:
https://imgur.com/a/aMONV4U

I swear it's showing up on my end! I'm not THAT crazy! 





Here's a screenshot of that final frame brightened up.

[Master]

Somehow I can't post it either. Strange!

-edit-

Ok. I see what you mean. I stand with my theory that this face is based on Winston's final concept arts for Predator.

[Mike’s Monsters]

I'm having all sorts of trouble with my attachments this morning.

[Doomofman]

Somehow I can't post it either. Strange!

-edit-

Ok. I see what you mean. I stand with my theory that this face is based on Winston's final concept arts for Predator.

The Samurai looking one? 

[Master]

Somehow I can't post it either. Strange!

-edit-

Ok. I see what you mean. I stand with my theory that this face is based on Winston's final concept arts for Predator.

The Samurai looking one?

Allrighty then you ugly motherf**kers, I knew I saw such predator face and mandible placement ,like in this shot, earlier:
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;attach=12014;image
I did some research, aaaaaaand...
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/predator1-concept-001.jpghttps://swsca-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/attachments/40/predator-004.jpg?1338322887
...it's Stan Winston's own concept design! Mandible placement is like in picture nr 1 and eyebrows shape is from picture nr 2. There you have it and you've heard about it here first! With those thinner dreadlocks I wouldn't be surprised if it head such top knot too.

[Doomofman]

Somehow I can't post it either. Strange!

-edit-

Ok. I see what you mean. I stand with my theory that this face is based on Winston's final concept arts for Predator.

The Samurai looking one?

Allrighty then you ugly motherf**kers, I knew I saw such predator face and mandible placement ,like in this shot, earlier:
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;attach=12014;image
I did some research, aaaaaaand...
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/predator1-concept-001.jpghttps://swsca-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/attachments/40/predator-004.jpg?1338322887
...it's Stan Winston's own concept design! Mandible placement is like in picture nr 1 and eyebrows shape is from picture nr 2. There you have it and you've heard about it here first! With those thinner dreadlocks I wouldn't be surprised if it head such top knot too.

The first one is the one I meant, I think it looks really cool. I absolutely despise the second one, it's like uncanny valley for predators, most of the features are there just not "right"

I still have trouble reconciling the forehead and eye location in the the little glimpse we have from Prey, feels like the forehead is too far forward or doesn't slope enough. And the eyes are somewhat obscured by the top mandibles I think?