With five previous Predator movies and dozens of comics, 2018's The Predator had a wealth
of material to draw from.
Not surprisingly, some of that inspiration hit the big screen in the form of Easter eggs.
These little details may have been easy to miss, but they point to some pretty crazy
shared connections in the Predator universe.
Buckle up, because we're taking a look at all the small details you missed in The Predator.
Spoilers ahead.
"Stick around."
A special spear
The two Alien vs. Predator films have always been a source of contention among fans.
Some insist they're canon, while others say they're little more than big budget fanfic.
In 2004's Alien vs. Predator, the story is that the predators were breeding the xenomorphs
on Earth to serve as the perfect game animals.
Near the end, one of the predators fashions a spear out of a xenomorph tail and gives
it to the main protagonist, Alexa, so that they can go hunt aliens together.
When Casey Bracket first enters the Project Stargazer lab in The Predator, she walks past
two display cases.
One of them showcases several predator helmets and a shoulder cannon, while the other contains
the xenomorph tail spear from Alien vs. Predator.
Been here before
Once Casey is inside the main part of the lab, Traeger hands a tablet that sums up everything
they know about the alien hunters.
As she's flipping through the pictures, you can catch a brief glimpse of scenes from the
first two Predator films.
Traeger continues by saying that they've been here before in '87 and '97.
Those dates refer to the first two movies.
1987 is the year the first Predator was released.
And although Predator 2 was released in 1990, its story is set in 1997.
That's the obvious connection, but this reference might go even deeper.
Starting in 1989, there have also been a ton of Predator comic books and novelizations.
One of those was Predator: Kindred, which began hitting stores in 1997.
Released as a four-part series, Kindred details a predator's arrival in a small, quiet town.
Buddy Wilcox, a war vet who's slowly messing up his family life, gets caught up in the
fight, while on the run from the police.
That's basically Quinn McKenna in The Predator, a war vet with a failing marriage who has
to fight the predator in a small town while he's on the run from the government.
The comic even features panels that look a lot like some of the scenes we see in the
film, even though the story ends up a little different.
Maybe it's all a coincidence, but if that's Shane Black's idea of a nod to his story's
inspiration, it's definitely a subtle one.
Family ties
Not content to simply mention past Predator films, Shane Black also added at least one
solid connection to The Predator's predecessors.
In the early lab scenes, we meet a bespectacled scientist named Sean Keyes.
He bites it pretty early when their captive predator escapes and massacres the lab guys,
but if there's one thing we're sure of, it's that his dad probably would have been proud
of the way he went out.
In Predator 2, Gary Busey plays Peter Keyes, a CIA agent who wants to capture the predator
alive.
It doesn't work out, and he gets cut in half for his troubles.
Actor Jake Busey, who plays Sean Keyes, confirmed in an interview that his character was indeed
the son of Peter Keyes.
He looks just like him, which isn't surprising at all since Jake Busey is Gary Busey's real
son.
Tech upgrades
For all those call-backs to earlier films, though, 2018's The Predator did make one smart
change to the spine-gatherers, their tech.
Sure, you could say that giving the aliens better weapons, better ships, and better armor
gives the story a narrative boost.
Things are supposed to be bigger and better in the sequels.
"number one. the body count is always bigger."
"Number two, the death scenes are much more elaborate."
"More blood. More gore."
"carnage candy"
But it also makes sense within the framework of the Predator universe.
After all, human technology has gotten a lot better since the '80s, and it'd be a weird
twist if the predators hadn't made any technological advances of their own in the past 30 years.
Not even accounting for the upgraded predator, 2018's predator has plenty of little tweaks
in his gear set that audience-members may have missed, with everything from his bio-mask
to his shoulder-mounted plasmacaster updated for the modern day.
You won't be able to hide in the mud to get away from this one, Arnold.
What's in a name?
It's not unusual for movies to place little nods to the men and women working behind the
scenes, but The Predator manages to pull off a big one, then hides it right in plain sight.
During the scenes at Rory's school, you can clearly see the name of the institution both
above the front door and on the lit sign out front: Lawrence A. Gordon Middle School.
That's a reference to producer Lawrence Gordon, who worked on the first two Predator films,
as well as the 2018 one.
In fact, Gordon has been part of the production team on iconic movies since the '70s, producing
everything from Xanadu to Die Hard to the upcoming Hellboy reboot.
He was also involved with 1979's The Warriors, hence the school slogan: "Home of the Warriors."
Now, he's been immortalized forever as a school that gets torn apart by a bloodthirsty alien.
Math lesson
During the showdown between Quinn and Traeger near the end of the film, things turn into
a brief standoff, with both sides hunkered down behind vehicles.
In an attempt to defuse the situation, Traeger shouts out for Quinn to surrender, saying
he's outnumbered because "it's six vs. seven."
Immediately, a bullet flies, catching one of Traeger's men in the head, and Quinn quips,
"Who taught you math?"
Like a lot of the movie, it's played for laughs, but it's also a subtle callback to one of
Shane Black's previous movies, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang.
In this detective comedy, Robert Downey Jr. plays Harry Lockhart, a bumbling thief who
gets drawn into a murder mystery while taking detective lessons from Val Kilmer's character.
Trying to get some information from a bad guy, Harry puts a single bullet in a revolver
and pulls the trigger.
"Where is the girl"
What did you just do?"
Shocked, he tries to calculate the odds of the bullet actually shooting on the first
try.
"You put a live round"
Yeah, there was an 8% chance... 8%?
"Who taught to math?"
Guess the best jokes are the ones you repeat over and over.