Predator Theory

[Naginata]

The OG Dark Horse Predator comic - Concrete Jungle. General Phillips mentions that the Predators hunted the dinosaurs to extinction in the helicopter ride back to New York.

[SiL]

I'm pretty sure there are other comics which imply this later as well.

It'd be possible for them to cause the extinction by removing all the top predators and causing massive, uncontrollable problems with the ecosystems that lead to dinosaurs dying out -- but it's still dopey.

[SM]

I could get one or two species - but all the dinosaurs?

Maybe if one of their big ships crashed...?

[SiL]

Destabilise the food chain by removing all the top predators through over hunting?

Like I said, it's dopey.

[whiterabbit]

No, no, It most definitely looks like a Predator nuked the entire planet, now that someone has mentioned it. The bugger was pissed he got impaled by not one but all three Triceratops horns. There really wasn't anything else a caveman pred could have done. So yea he crashed his 6-mile long asteroid into the earth. I mean this was 65 million years ago and I'm sure Predators transverse the universe on giant space rocks back then. Of course as they become more civilized they tightened up their tantrums to a mere couple of city blocks.

And guess who has a Triceratops skull on their collection wall front and center.

[SM]

Destabilise the food chain by removing all the top predators through over hunting?

Like I said, it's dopey.

Indeed.  Species on Earth weren't generally hunted to extinction for sport - they had some commercial use.

[SiL]

But we're talking Predators here. Maybe killing all the dinosaurs made them more selective with humans

[Nyarlathotep]

Killing all of the dinosaurs just seems too far fetched for me. Just not sure that I personally like the idea.

[SiL]

It's not like the book provides any real backup. General Phillips is just giving a rundown of the Predators to detective Schaefer and mentions it in passing.

[Naginata]

^ Could be pretty easily retconned as Phillips talking out his ass, so it doesn't bother me quite as much as it otherwise would.

... But I'd be lying if I said it didn't bother me something awful.

[SiL]

I think it's pretty safe to say he's just trying to impress upon Schaeffer that these guys are serious business.

[Voodoo Magic]

Cool at the time, the dinosaur comment just comes across as a throwaway line now. There's several things that happen in that unofficial sequel to Predator actually, that seem to be un-predator-like behavior, now that "Predator 2" cemented the general culture of our favorite hunt loving species.

[Naginata]

Yeah, looking back, it's a pretty harmless line; I just hate the "____ killed the dinosaurs" trope.

Having said that, AVPR just had to have that damn Triceratops skull, so clearly they've hunted dinos. Maybe some other ET species snatched a few from Earth to put in a zoo or something (putting dinos in zoos always ends well), and the Preds came upon the wild descendants of those animals millions of years later.

In any case, Ice Age megafauna makes more sense - narratively and in terms of novelty. We need a good cover for the next Predator anthology or comic anyway, and I'd rather see a painted, Frank Frazetta-style clash between a Pred and one of these bastards:

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/2e/77/05/2e770514d15f39d7d551cd55dc63ff87.jpg

than more badly photoshopped promotional pics.

[Huggs]

Perhaps the predators pulled a Pacific Rim 2 and set off the Ring of Fire? Or a Yosemite style eruption but alittle bigger? I'm sure there were natural events they could either manipulate or take advantage of in order to make the planet uninhabitable for dinosaurs, without the need to manually nuke the whole thing.

But of course then you're wandering into engineer territory. Or risking a crossover.

Or you could go full avp and say the xeno's took over, so the Predators took the whole thing out. Xeno T-Rex's are a pain, so I hear.