Quote from: Cosmic Incubation on Aug 22, 2022, 08:25:32 PMThis has been explained by other people in the thread that it's not her understanding that the Predator sees thermal vision specifically, it's more that she recognizes that the Predator doesn't see Raphael after giving him the flower. She just puts two and two together based on what she saw, that it just plainly doesn't see/attack him period, thermal vision or heat doesn't even factor into the equation for her.
Now, granted, I do agree with some points others have made that this is a bit sloppily done, and kinda leans on the audience having knowledge that Naru doesn't. It could be more interpreted from an outside perspective that the Predator doesn't see Raphael because he's playing possum. But it's pretty clear what the film is going for, and I don't think it's suggesting that she all of the sudden knows what heat signatures are and that the Predator can see them.
It's more than sloppily handled; it's utterly nonsensical. Firstly, Naru isn't even looking at Raphael and the predator for the vast majority of that scene; she's hiding behind a tree, with her back to the two of them. Yet, she reacts as though she's intently watching every move the predator is making and what Raphael is doing, almost as though she's seeing what the audience are seeing.
Secondly, as you say, why wouldn't she just assume that the predator couldn't see that Raphael was alive because he was playing possum? There are a bunch of dead bodies at that location and Raphael is pretending to play dead. He literally looks indistinguishable from the dead bodies which surround him, so why in a million years would Naru jump to the conclusion that the predator sees exclusively through heat signatures? She jumps to that conclusion because the audience knows that the predator tracks its prey through heat signatures because they've watched the prior movies.
As you correctly stated; the entire scene almost relies exclusively on the audience's knowledge of the predator from previous movies. It doesn't take what the character's knowledge or perspective would be into consideration at all.
It's a ridiculous moment in the film and I can't fathom why people are making excuses for it. It's just bad writing. Yes, it's clear that the director wants the audience to understand that Naru figures out that the predator tracks its prey by heat (mainly because he has Naru speak out loud to say "the herb - he can't see him because of the herb" - which is egregious in of itself, given that she's unnecessarily speaking out loud to herself, mere feet from the predator) but he doesn't provide an in-universe explanation for why Naru reaches such a conclusion above the infinitely more obvious answer of "Raphael is playing dead". All that the director had to do was drop the whole playing possum aspect and have Naru witness the predator not reacting to Raphael stood on the spot, frozen in terror.
That would have made sense, but the way that it's portrayed in the movie doesn't make sense at any level.
