Ok so The Predator is back with a prequel called Prey that preys apart
the prior films and adds new context to what's previously come before.
After the critical flop The Predator, Prey presents a stripped back and bloody
outing for the ultimate hunter that reminded me a lot of Far Cry Primal.
Gonna be lots of words that begin with a P and R throughout this video but come with
us as we dive into the movie and break it all down. Full spoilers
ahead so if you haven't had a chance to check it out then check out now.
Please hit the thumbs up if you enjoy the video and don't forget to subscribe for breakdowns like
this every day. With that out the way, thanks for clicking this, now let's get into Prey.
Ok so I feel like Prey completely strips back origins of the Predator and to me at least,
it completely retcons the Vs franchise that there was against the Xenomorphs. Which, yeah, good.
Now we don't know this for definite but this is seemingly the first time that the
species has ever travelled to Earth. To me this is apparent by the face we catch the
Predator clearly studying our food chain to determine which species is at the top of it.
However this might not be the case as upon seeing the ship at the beginning of the film,
Naru says that it's a thunderbird. This is a creature in Native American Culture that
had several different meanings and it's an almost god like figure that can bring either
joy or destruction. Knowing what we know in the context of this movie though it could have became
a legend due to the aliens constantly travelling to the planet for their regular summer vacation.
I'm recording this video before the actual release of the movie online
so if Director Dan Trachtenberg has clarified this then make sure you drop it in the comments below.
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Either way I love the moments where it watches over animals hunting others
and after it kills the one that comes out on top it paints itself out as being the best.
This movie is filled with scenes of animals and humans running with
the Predator constantly chasing after them so it can show its the ultimate predator.
They are it's Prey and as the tagline says they hunt to live, it live to hunt.
That's a badass tagline too.
Now what Prey does differently to the other films that have preceded it
is that they take things back to 1719 so we can see things through the eyes of Naru.
Naru is a Commanche Warrior that lives on the great plains and throughout the movie she comes
into contact with not only that Ya-oot-ja but also Fronteirsmen that end up capturing her.
During this time she's taught how to use a flintlock pistol
and at the end of the film we see that the inscription on it reads Raphael Adolini 1715.
This is the same pistol that Harrigan was given in the iconic Predator 2
scene at the end of the movie. After defeating the Ya-oot-ja in that movie,
the Predator tribe arrives and they hands him the very same one.
Also I keep saying Ya-oot-ja because that's the name of the species but I'm gonna just
start saying Predator so I don't sound like more of a pretentious prat than usual.
Now in the Dark Horse comics we actually learned the backstory for this weapon.
The 1996 book Predator 1718 followed Pirate Captain Raphael
who was betrayed by his crew after he scolded them for stealing precious treasure from a church.
His crew turned against him but they were taken out by
the Predator Greyback who was stalking them.
Raphael went to fight Greyback but he was shot in the back and he gave the gun to the
alien. In a mark of respect, the Predator threw Adolini a weapon and the pair worked together.
Now this is probably also retconned by this movie but interestingly
it does follow some of the original plans for the franchise.
After Predator 2 released there was a lot of buzz around it's ending and originally it was intended
to set up a third film that would explore the weapons origins like what we get here.
However due to Predator 2 underperforming critically,
plans for this were scrapped and we of course ended up getting 2010's Predators instead.
That's why I was so hyped when I first saw the trailer for Prey though as the origins
and backstory are something that I've wanted to see for a long time.
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Now one of the big questions you probably have about the ending
is how did The Predators end up getting ahold of the gun for the second film.
Originally the comics explained it away as it being a gift that they took with them
that they then gave back to someone who was powerful enough to take down one of their own.
However here we get a tease as to what's to come in the credits scene. At the end of the
movie Naru returns to her camp victorious with both the gun and The Predators head.
The credits then play and in the style of cave paintings we get the story of the movie. However
it ends up going beyond these final moments and we see several ships descending from the sky.
Now there are two ways that they can really take this depending on how sucessful that the movie is.
They can just let us fill in the blanks here and get the idea that similar to Predator 2
they showed up, congratulated Naru and potentially have taken the weapon with them.
Alternatively they could have arrived,
slaughtered the camp and then taken it as a memento for their great hunt.
Now the third option would tie into a sequel and we might see a
larger battle across the great plains between the two sides.
I really hope that's what they end up doing and whereas the majority of the Predator movies tend
to have one creature in them, I think having multiple characters fighting would really add
to the lore. Seeing several of them would allow for the creative team to show them interacting,
give us more details on their backstory and home as well as how they operate as a species.
Plus we'd get more Naru who is one of the most endearing characters that we've had in the series
and we could watch as she ascends past the war chief position and becomes something more.
Let's be honest, Invisible Hunters aren't exactly the best sportsmen
and who knows how they'll deal with seeing one of their own get taken out. Sometimes they can
be like 'ey mate have a free gun' but other times they've shown they'll kill mercilessly.
I kinda think there might even be some inbetween and with so many ships arriving as
well I hope that they come more as tourists looking for their latest venue to hunt at.
Potentially Naru might have just made the planet a hunting hotspot because they finally
have a species that can stand up to them. This could explain why the Predators end up returning
to Earth so much and why they also abduct humans to take to their own hunting planets.
There's lots of possibilities and I've always viewed the Predators as being a
species that probably look around for the best spot and move on if it's too easy.
This could also explain why they scoured the galaxy for so long looking for places
yet they constantly return to Earth. One day I wanna see Chris Hansen come face to face with them
and finally play some real to catch a predator based off the back of this.
Crap joke but I hope we get more of this world as I think this is
easily the second best film in the franchise and depending on what day you ask me,
I might even say its a bit, bit better than the first.
Quick delete, delete that before it kicks off...
Now alot of that is because of Naru who aims to become a great hunter despite being a woman.
Naru is dismissed because of her gender and told to stay in her place which could have
come off as preachy and cringey but they do a great job with the script
which is elevated even more by Amber Midthunder's acting. You really want
to root for her and seeing her out in the woods training every day in order to develop her skills
makes you view her as an underdog that you want to come out on top.
I don't even think that the predator views her as a threat either and after the bear attack it spots
her but then leaves her alone. It then tracks her and it takes out the rest of the squad that
find her but she's not killed when it could have easily taken her out. In the field it targets the
man and not her and the frontiersmen use her as bait because she's not deemed as being a threat.
After witnessing the ship she believes its the Thunderbird which Naru believes is an omen
denoting that she's ready for a trial that will allow her to be accepted as a hunter.
However she's constantly bested by her brother and her cries that something else
is out there are constantly ignored. There's lots of similar shots used for the pair with
her brother bringing back the head of a lion whilst she brings back the head of a predator.
They also do a neat throwback to the original with this line.
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I feel there's a lot of references to this with the animals being skinned and even the lion and
Guerillas are used in very similar ways. The Lion led the tribe to believe that they'd taken out
the big threat and this too was mirrored in the Dutches team when they took out the Guerillas.
The tribe sort of take it easay after the lion
is taken out and Naru's pleas constantly fall on deaf ears.
When out in the wilderness she ends up being proven right though and after she's
saved from a bear by the Predator she has it confirmed that they have even bigger problems.
Out in the woods Naru also discovers a large body of Mud that holds all those in place who enter
it. The movie even tricked the spoiler man as I was sure that this was gonna be
used similar to the mud in teh first film and that it would cloak her from the heat vision.
Potentially this area could end up returning though and we may get it used as a resource
during a sequel which can provide the tribe with their own form of camoflauge.
It basically allows them to fight the aliens on their own terms and it was really in over
thinking about this that I realised that they can both be invisible to the other
through their own means. Predator is the kinda chump who definitely plays
games on easy mode and I like the idea that this evens the playing field a bit.
Mans is running around with a top tier loadout that has an aim bot
against some dudes with sticks and a string.
Now Naru is captured by the Frontiersmen who in many ways I feel reflect the Predator.
At one point we see countless skinned Buffalos that Naru ends up paying tribute too. Every life
was viewed as sacred by the Native Americans and they only really killed for food and to protect
themselves from predators. They spared no part of the meat but on the opposite side of this
the Europeans shot Buffalo in their thousands as they moved through the continent.
They did it for sport and wasted a lot of the animal parts. The Frontiersmen ended up skinning
the ones that Naru found showing how both it and the Predator wasted life and killed for pleasure.
Now they use both Naru and her brother to draw out the Predator who arrives and wrecks
shop. His cloak malfunctions which happened when Dutch faced
off against him and also during the slaugtherhouse scene in Predator 2.
The Netgun also makes a return from that movie too. On top of this we get a shield which the
director stated was inspired by the God Of War Games and Naru almost gets decapitated
similar to how Dutch nearly did in the first film. There's also flying discs that the creature uses
which have the numerical countdown on them that the wrist device did at the end of the
first movie. I also think that the Helmet that's made from a repurposed skull looks really cool
and potentially this might even have belonged to a xenomorph due to it's shape.
I really loved the blood bath that this turned into and watching a tree get cut
in half with a guys head in front of it along with the richochet was really fun.
Naru's brother is killed back at the camp, she's given the pistol and in a nice turn for the books
she uses the Frontiersman leader as bait to draw out the beast.
She goes toe to toe with the Predator using all the skills she's learned throughout the movie. She
lures it to the mud pit and in a nice bit of poetic justice she uses the helmet to take it out.
Great way to close out the final battle and with her hunter speech I really hope we see Naru return
in some form or another. Sadly I don't think we're ever gonna get Arnie back as Dutch due to how many
times that he's failed to appear in sequel and therefore I hope that we stay in this setting.
It's one of those movies that I think deserved to be released theatrically
and though I'm not complaining I got to watch it at home I really think it's at that level.
Dan Trachtenberg is coming hot off the heels of the best Cloverfield Movie,
a great episode of Black Mirror and I think he definitely deserves more stuff in this universe.
I was lucky enough to see Prey early and I got the chance to watch it two times,
the both of which I really enjoyed.
It sucked me in from the star and it's one of the only movies I can
remember in recent memory that I've seen at home
where I didn't check my phone throuhgout because it completely held my attention.
The environment, fights and unique characters that rarely
get to be the leads in movies like this all added to it and Prey blew me away.
If you're a fan of the franchise or a complete newcomer I think this film is gonna be something
you enjoy and it'll probably revitalise the series after the dud that was the last one.
Can't recommend it more and it gets a 9/10
Now obviously I'd love to hear your thoughts on it so make sure you comment below and let me know.
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With that out the way thank you for sitting through the video, I’ve been Paul and I’ll see you
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