Prey is About Killing Aliens (And So Much More)
Alt: Prey is About Moving Forward (And Killing Aliens)
(How do you kill an alien?) Thumb slogan OR title w/ blank prey picture)
Hey, just a quick content warning. This is a video about Prey. It ll discuss and partially
show fictional, CG animals which are dead, hurt, or being hurt. Nothing too graphic,
nothing real, but I want to make that clear going in.
How do you kill an alien? This is the main question we the audience and Naru our protagonist
are presented with in the film Prey. It isn t the only question there are many others,
some more related, some less but it is the main one, and, I think, the most interesting.
We will get to it, we will attempt to answer it, in all its senses, but just to start with?
I d like to pose a question in response. How do you kill a rabbit? Or a pack of them?
A particularly agile pack, say. You ve only got a tomahawk and you missed your first throw.
From that point on, the time and noise it takes to retrieve your weapon and throw it
again allows the rabbits to scatter. What can you do to break that loop? To get those
rabbits? Well, something has to change. You have to change something. Change the parameters.
You can t slow the rabbits down but maybe you can speed yourself up. You tie a rope
to your tomahawk. The speed at which you can reset has decreased. The loop is broken. You
get the rabbits and this happens because you adapted your tool. Or, even more simply, because
you adapted. Adapting like this isn t necessarily something
everyone can do, but Naru isn t just anyone. She s bright. We see this all throughout the
film, but especially around the start. She s able to spot a way to beat the cougar even
if outside factors end up scuppering things a little. In the bog, she s able to mentally
reframe her situation, able to see a Geowizard-esque death as a puzzle and her newly adapted tool
as the missing piece. Before even this, she s tracking a bird with her brother, and what
seems like hesitation or a lack of focus on her end is really forethought (clip- I was
waiting for it to circle back, now you ll have to cross the river to get it). As her
brother later puts it: (Clip- TAABE: you can see what I miss, you always have ). Not everybody
has the perception necessary to adapt, but Naru does. And, fine, I hear you say, that
s all well and good. (beat.) But how do you kill an alien?
The familiar flow of Comanche life is first broken when Naru stumbles across strange signs
in the forest, signs that unfamiliar dangers loom somewhere over the horizon. We don t
see any of these dangers, really see them, for a little while- and so the first time
we do is all the more menacing. Immediately after we see that scene of unnatural
decomposition we re shown another. But of course this rot was inflicted by a different
invasive species (Clip TRAPPERS: *speaking French*). How do you kill an alien? Well,
which one are you talking about? Naru is soon captured by a group of French
trappers, the beings responsible for the majority of the disruptions we d seen so far the traps
that now litter the landscape, that d injured Naru s dog, and, of course, the slaughter
of the buffalo. Her hunt, then, has brought her face to face with another invasive alien
force one scarcely less threatening than the extraterrestrial one. To have any chance at
either returning to her hunt or at simply returning home, this threat too must be thwarted.
When Naru comes to, she sees her brother is a captive here, also. This isn t a random
act of cruelty, though. It becomes clear that these two are to be used as bait. These aliens
are aware of that alien already. They attempt this plan the next day - one set of hunters
using a second set to hunt another. But the plan doesn t work. During the slaughter, Naru
hatches a plan to escape. They re tied up next to one of those hulking metal traps,
the kind the Comanche are now all too familiar with. Inspired by a memory of a trapped beaver
that gnawed off its own leg, 127 hours style, to free itself from certain death, Naru brings
the trap to their bound wrists, and triggers it with a rock. She d seen these traps before,
figured out how they worked. She d adapted to her changing environment an adaptation
that pays limb-retainey dividends, and one which the film highlights (clip- TAABE: What
are you doing Naru? Naru stop! NARU: I m smarter than a beaver). Her present enemies, the trappers,
have not. In a way, this failing was hinted at even
before we d seen a single Frenchman onscreen. We re alerted to their presence by a field
of dead buffalo, after all. The hunting we d seen before this point was small-scale.
It was hunting to subsist not to profit. The contrast is intentional we re supposed to
see this as cruel, wasteful, reckless. And it was. Historically, buffalo hide and tongue
became a valuable commodity within the colonial economy but unlike indigenous buffalo hunting
practices, where hunters only took what was needed, using the entirety of the animal,
European hunters killed the beasts en masse, skinned them, took their tongs, and left their
carcasses, meat and all, to rot in their dozens or their hundreds. Before too long, buffalo
numbers had dwindled the colonial buffalo trade had devoured itself. This collapse happened
well after the time at which Prey is set, of course, but within the film, the symbol
is clear. These trappers aren t the type to know when to stop, to adjust, to adapt. And
of course, they don t. After the trap is sprung, the Frenchman approach the beast, celebrate,
prematurely. But it isn t for no reason. The leg is pinned, the net is thrown. Their standard
operating procedure has been completed. If this were a familiar target, that would have
been enough. But it isn t - that complacency sees them killed, and that s interesting to
me. It points to the reason a Comanche huntress can beat a camp of firearm-bearing Frenchmen,
as well as a creature seemingly more advanced than even them maybe advancement isn t simply
a matter of technology. Maybe it s relative. The thing that characterises Naru s enemies
in this film is the way she adapts while they don t. That s the reason Naru can beat the
trappers can free herself, can get the drop on them. That s how she kills this alien.
Adaptation. That is key in Prey and I m not just talking about the story.
How do you kill franchise fatigue? Prey is the fifth film in the Predator franchise,
not counting crossovers. But you wouldn t know that. Following the hit 1987 original,
intermittent attempts to recapture that success have been.. well, a mixed bag. At best, these
latter-day instalments have been just about successful, critically and commercially (Predators
2010), with most either bombing, being panned, or both. At the risk of oversimplifying things
and drawing the ire of the 7 Predator superfans watching this video, you can almost sense
a sort of troubleshooting impulse playing out behind this shaky chain of sequels. Familiar
plot structures, character types, setting types are shuffled in and out. Try the jungle
setting again, try the paramiltary cadre again, try same style, different setting, try it
out but with more predators, what if that template plays out again but it isn t on Earth,
what if it is on Earth but the hunt isn t limited to a jungle, urban or otherwise (2018),
eventually, surely, some combination of familiar elements and new touches will work, the patient
audience will be rewarded, it ll be Predatoring time once more right? Right?
Rotten Tomatoes summary of the critical response to the last of these pre-Prey efforts, 2018
s The Predator, ends by describing the film as another missed opportunity for a franchise
increasingly defined by disappointment . Shortly after the film flopped, star Boyd Holbrook
seemed to give voice to the suspicions of many in the audience, telling The Hollywood
Reporter, I just think the first one [Predator] caught lightning in a bottle and with people
wanting to do more, maybe you should just let a sleeping dog lie, sometimes. It s worth
noting that the film which prompted these thoughts disagreed with them. Certain background
elements in The Predator were placed with the intention of setting up another potential
Alien vs. Predator project of rebooting a crossover and significantly more of this stuff
was in the film before the final cut. Predator had become a property buckling under its own
weight, mired in its own mythology, in franchise bloat. At one point in an increasingly distant
past, sure, there had been lighting, there had been a bottle, but by 2018, both were
little more than a memory. Prey was in development at this point. Work
had started on the film a year or two before The Predator had crashed and burned but it
was another three years before initial photography began time enough for lessons to be learned.
Prey adapted to these decades of franchise failure, by throwing out the franchise, and
keeping just the idea, the conceit, the X-factor that turned a let s be honest fairly unremarkable
action blockbuster into an enduring, terrifying myth. There are easter eggs here, but they
re precisely that easter eggs little background details that make you smile if you re in the
know. No cameos, no setup, nothing. Lose all that, Prey says. Lose the trappings of Predator,
lose the lore, lose the characters, lose any real hint of connection to a larger whole,
lose the bottle - lose everything but the lightning and maybe, just maybe, you can capture
it again, maybe you can kill that new, unfamiliar beast stalking every major Hollywood studio,
maybe that s how you kill the alien of franchise fatigue. Maybe that s not the only alien you
can kill this way. Ok, one last time:
How do you kill an alien? No more metaphor- how do you kill this alien?
The extraterrestrial one? The predator? Well, you don t just fight it. That s the first
thing Naru learns. Unlike the trappers, though, she keeps learning. By their final showdown,
she s observed that it only goes for threats, that it sees heat, that its most deadly weapon
is directed via its detachable helmet and she uses all of this. She baits with that
last surviving Frenchman, lays a trap, but makes sure to plant a weapon on him, and to
pop some of that core-temperature-reducing plant. While the creature is distracted, she
uses a gun the gun she d presciently traded medicine for to shoot off that helmet. And
the fight that follows is little more than a sequence of remembered, adapted moves. She
d seen the strength of the beast s tools in the trapper attack, so she switches to one
at her earliest opportunity. She remembered the effectiveness of the bite-when-pinned
move from her scuffle with the hunting party earlier, and adapts that idea to these different
circumstances. She brings the bog back, sets the ambush on familiar ground if it trapped
her, chances are it would it d slow him down for a time, at least. And she gets him into
the bog with that first, now-familiar adaptation, the roped tomahawk. But nothing could be clearer
than the coup-de-grace. So maybe advancement is relative, maybe it
s not a measure of what tools you have, what tools your society has furnished you with,
and it s instead a measure of what you do with those tools, how you respond to a changing
environment, and what new tools you create. After defeating this alien, Naru returns to
her camp. Her brother is dead, his fellow hunters, too. There s a deep sadness to this
scene, but it s counterbalanced by an equally deep sense of triumph. Naru has completed
her K htaamia and done so in probably the deadliest hunt in history. She has proved
everyone wrong and they see this, instantly. In a moment of supreme catharsis, her tribe
recognises this by naming her warchief. Which is big. Indigenous American gender roles varied
greatly. Some peoples, like the Hopi, were and are strikingly egalitarian but in Comanche
culture, men were traditionally the hunters, the war chiefs. But despite what some viewers
have contended, I don t think Naru s ascendence here is an instance of liberal universalising,
of simply rewriting history to fall in line with girlboss ideals because, well, to take
the film s resolution this way is to ignore the rest of the film. Because Prey is about
adaptation. That is how you kill aliens. That is how you survive in a changing world. And
the world of these people had been a changing one since well before Naru began her hunt.
We could get into the ramifications of colonialism, land theft, all that nasty stuff but we all
know about that by now, right? So let s get specific, and focus instead on one symbol
the film gives us of this change. Horses. After escaping from the trappers, Naru and
Taabe split. Naru goes to retrieve her fluffly little chonker, her heckin good boy doggo,
and Taabe heads off on a different animal retrieval mission. (clip TAABE: I m gonna
go get us those horses) Early drafts of Prey s script didn t have
this moment. Jhane Myers, one of the film s producers and a member of the Comanche nation,
changed this, saying You can t have Comanches without horses! . Despite horses being a European
import, horses were pretty quickly identified as the ideal furry friend of any nomadic tribe,
and many indigenous peoples integrated the animals into their cultures with gusto. The
Comanche were among the first to do this. Today, they have the longest documented existence
as horse-mounted plains peoples, and by all accounts? Smart move. This move to horse culture
allowed the Comanche to move, hunt, and resist settler encroachment in a far more effective
manner. Taabe returns with the horse in a crucial
moment, saving Naru from the predator. He wounds the creature, knocking its helmet off,
showing Naru the tool she d ultimately use to beat the monster all thanks to his riding
prowess. It s a really cool moment giving Taabe one glorious aristea before he falls
victim to the alien, but it s more than this, too. It s also the film highlighting the changeability
of Naru s people. Her advancement, her adaptability, didn t come from nowhere and neither does
the tribe s willingness to bend gender roles, to rally behind her, at the film s close.
Because what s important here, what makes a society advanced, advanced enough to resist
invasion, to kill aliens, whichever aliens they may be, isn t simply technological advancement,
establishing ways - it s knowing when established ways need to bend, need to grow. Naru can
kill aliens because she can adapt, she can roll with the punches. By the time of this
film, that rolling with the punches has become a necessity for the Comanche. But don t forget,
says Prey you can punch back. Prey is about killing aliens. Prey is about
adaptation. Prey is about realising advancement is relative, and that the boundaries of knowledge
and ability can always be changed. Those three statements are the same statement, because
everything is an alien to begin with. All alien means is unfamiliar, foreign. Once you
figure it out, it stops being an alien, becomes in this case a predator, predictable and exploitable
like any other. In a symbolic sense, every alien is killed the moment it becomes known,
the moment it is figured out, the moment those in contact with it adapt. So every alien can
be killed. Every hunter, every invasive foreign tribe, every new, exploitative system.
Prey is about killing aliens, but it isn t just about killing aliens. Naru doesn t hunt
the predator simply to kill it, just like she doesn t hunt rabbits for fun. She does
it to complete her K htaamia, to become accepted as a hunter - to change her life, and to change
her society. There are still aliens to kill. There always will be. But as long as we stay
open, stay receptive to new facts, new ideas, new views and new voices, as long as we stop
before the buffalo run out we can beat them. We can fix our lives, and our societies. All
we have to do is change. It s that easy. It s that hard.
Thank you for watching. I had a really great time revisiting the film for this video, and
I think the video turned out alright, so, y know, chuck any thoughts you have down below,
and chuck any spare chang at me on Patreon. I d like to thank all of my current supporters
onscreen now it s thanks to this growing support base that I feel confident taking a bit more
time to write a video like this and special shoutouts to Daniel Goldhorn, Ryan Emerle,
Thomas, and WeirdyBeardy. Ciao.