My Thoughts on “Predator 2”

 

(This is the poster for Predator 2.) 

Well, now that I’ve reviewed the two Alien vs. Predator movies, I can finally review a genuine underrated classic, Predator 2. I love this movie, I think it’s a classic, it wasn’t appreciated in its time, and still isn’t fully appreciated today, but I’ve always loved it, ever since I first saw it, and it’s probably my favorite film in the entire Predator franchise. I also like Alien vs. Predator (2004), but I consider that to be apart of its own franchise, the Alien vs. Predator sub franchise, and not apart of either the Alien or Predator franchise and neither does anyone who really works on these movies. I mentioned this in my Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem review, but both it and the first Alien vs. Predator movie were both removed from canon and retconned by the films that can after, Predators in the Predator franchise and Prometheus and Alien: Covenant in the Alien franchise. 

The only film in either franchise that was actually willing to acknowledge Alien vs. Predator (2004) and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem and did almost acknowledge the. was The Predator, but any and all references to the Alien vs. Predator movies was removed in post, along a myriad of other last minute changes (The Predator probably had the most troubled production of any of the mainline Predator movies) and thus, only first two Predator movies are referenced and acknowledged in The Predator. The most notable being of course, Sean Keyes who is the son of the character, Peter Keyes in this movie, and is even played by Gary Busey’s actual son, Jake Busey. I’ll talk more about The Predator when I get to it along with Predators closer to the release of Predator: Badlands. Scar’s biomask in Alien vs. Predator (2004) did make it through to the final edit of the film, The Predator though, and so did the spear he made for Lex in that film using a piece of an Alien’s tail. So, at least two AVP references made it through the end after all the reshoots and re-edits done to that film, again, there was going to be a lot more than that and they were going to be a lot more blatant. Like, they were going to mention the events that happened in both the first AVP and AVPR, by saying something like, “the Predators showed up before in 2004 and 2007.” Like, it was going to be in that briefing scene with Olivia Munn’s character, Casey Brackett is being carted off by Will Traeger’s men ♂︎ and taken to that facility where the Fugitive Predator is being held, and they’re listing all of the years that they’ve recorded Predators showing up in like 1987 in the first Predator movie, 1997 in the second, 2004 for the first AVP, and 2007 for AVPR. 

 

Even though, they should both be 2004 because even though AVPR was released in 2007, it actually still takes place in 2004 since it immediately takes place after the events of the first AVP. Like, there isn’t that much time in-between the first movie and the second movie, it starts out pretty quickly after what happens which is that the Predalien bursts out of Scar’s chest, matures to fully grown, and then goes on a rampage on the Predator ship and causes it to crash in a forest 🌲 outside of Gunnison, Colorado. But, like I said, any and all references to those movies and the events that happened within were removed in post. They basically cut out the audio where the guy ♂︎ mentions those dates, so there’s a bit of an awkward pause after he says 1997, which is when this movie takes place. And then of course, there were those two infamous alternate endings where that pod the Fugitive Predator brought to Earth 🌎 with him was going to be revealed that either have Ripley or Newt inside of there, covered with an oxygen mask that looked vaguely like a Facehugger. Both those endings were cut and never used, and instead were replaced with the Predator Killer suit that a lot of people hated and mocked when the movie came out. “That’s my new suit, bubba,” Quinn McKenna’s famous last words. 

I’m honestly a bit disappointed that Brandon Tenold didn’t make a joke in his DNA 🧬 (1997) review about how that movie was released the same year as this movie takes place, or how the plot of The Predator involves the Predators trying to extract DNA 🧬 from humans to improve themselves genetically 🧬 and make themselves better (bigger, stronger, faster, and smarter), drastically changing the Predator mythology and the reason why they hunt beyond recognition. In fact, his review of that movie was rather light on more deep cut references to the Predator movies other than the fact that the monster in that film resembles the original design for the Predator (back when he was he going to be played by Jean-Claude Van Damme) before Stan Winston stepped in and gave us the Rastafarian look that we’re more familiar with. Instead, he went for more general references to Predator, more specifically the first one since DNA 🧬 (1997) borrows more from the first Predator movie than the second. 

 

 

 

 

(This is a screenshot from Predator 2 showing the Alien skull on the trophy display wall.) 

 

 

 

 

 

Speaking of Stan Winston though, he’s kind of the reason why we got the two Alien vs. Predator movies. He and his team at Stan Winston Studios (now called Legacy Effects after Stan’s passing in 2008) were the ones who thought of the idea of including an Alien skull in the trophy shelf of the Predator ship as a fun Easter egg for eagle eyed fans and as a little nod to the Aliens vs. Predator comic books that were going on at the time. And it was easy for them to do because they worked on the effects for Aliens. A lot of people forget that, or don’t even know that at all. Stan Winston had a hand in both franchises, Alien and Predator. Not only that, but the Aliens vs. Predator comics took a lot of inspiration from Aliens, including the name, the strong emphasis on Colonial Marines in many of the stories, and the design of the Aliens being more similar to that of Aliens than Alien. So, if you want anyone to blame for why got two Alien vs. Predator movies, blame Stan Winston. 

It’s so funny that those movies were removed from canon because it wasn’t always like that. It’s clear that they were meant to be canon at one point before Ridley Scott came in and fucked everything up 🙄. Not just because this movie includes an Alien skull, but also because the two Alien vs. Predator movies take place in present day, closer in time to the Predator movies rather than the Alien movies, and they include so many details and references to those movies to where they were supposed to be canon. The explanation of Weyland Industries and the Yutani Corporation being two separate companies before merging together to become Weyland-Yutani was supposed to be the canon explanation for how Weyland-Yutani came to be, Charles Bishop Weyland being the founder and CEO of Weyland Industries was supposed to be the canon explanation for why there are Bishop androids by the time Aliens takes place, the Predator gun being retrieved by the military and given to the Yutani Corporation was supposed to be the canon explanation for how humanity developed the technology that we see in the Alien movies and how they were able to go into space, and the Alien Queen being frozen 🥶 underneath the Southern Ocean was supposed to be the canon explanation for why the Earth 🌎 ends up being so fucked up in that alternate ending of Alien Resurrection; someone found that queen, revived her, and she spawn an entire hive of Aliens that then destroyed the entire world and that’s why the Earth 🌎 is in ruins by the time Ripley 8, Call, Johner, and Vriess get there; it’s an event that happens in-between the events of Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection or during the events of Alien Resurrection. The the thing that the original Ellen Ripley (or Ripley Prime I guess) had feared and tried so hard to prevent had actually come to pass, and she couldn’t do anything to stop it. It was almost inevitable since there was an Alien Queen on Earth 🌎 the entire time, long before she was ever born. 

 

Had these movies been more well liked, or had a filmmaker who wasn’t so insular, stubborn, arrogant, ego-driven, and dismissive towards anyone else’s ideas other than his own shown up and took over, that would’ve probably still been the case. But no, Ridley Scott had to come in and make his stupid Alien prequel films that hardly anyone likes. Okay, Prometheus does have its fans and defenders I’ll give it that, but Alien: Covenant really doesn’t have that many fans or defenders, you know other than Patrick Willems. Even if Ridley Scott is on record saying that he does like Alien vs. Predator movies and was open about not wanting to build on anything they established about the lore of these movies in his own movies, he did still take things from Alien vs. Predator (2004). 

 

Weyland-Yutani still started out as two separate companies before merging together into one, except in Ridley’s version of the backstory in both Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, the Weyland company is called the Weyland Corporation and Peter Weyland, Guy Pierce’s character in Prometheus, is the founder. No mention of Charles Bishop Weyland, no Lance Hendrikson, except for his character in Alien 3, Bishop II AKA Michael-Bishop Weyland, who would be Charles Bishop Weyland’s descendant in the AVP version of the lore. Or he might be another android in the image of Charles Bishop Weyland, that’s another theory that’s going around, but he visibly bleeds red blood 🩸 when Ripley shoots his ear 👂 off, and androids have white blood, so he couldn’t possibly be android there. Or maybe he’s Replicant, a lot of people think the Alien franchise is connected to the Blade Runner franchise 🙄, but why would Weyland-Yutani use a product that isn’t theirs to represent their boss, or have someone represent the company that isn’t human? 

 

If Weyland-Yutani wanted to use a Replicant, why wouldn’t they just copy Tyrell or Wallace’s technology and create their own Replicants, and why haven’t they done it already? Why are they even still using androids by the time Alien takes place if these franchises take place in the same universe, when Replicants are objectively better than androids. They’re more human because they are human, they’re humans made and programmed like machines. It doesn’t make sense the more you think about, that theory just falls upon the slightest bit of scrutiny. I’m going with the theory that Bishop II AKA Michael-Bishop Weyland is human and he’s a descendant of Charles from AVP (2004). I like the name Weyland Industries way more than the Weyland Corporation because it differentiates the names of the two companies and makes it seem like they were two separate companies before the merged together. Weyland Enterprises would’ve been a better name if they didn’t want to use Weyland Industries. But no, Ridley Scott and his team of writers couldn’t come up with a more creative name than the Weyland Corporation. Literally the same name as the Yutani Corporation except with the a different name in front of the Corporation. 

I wanted to talk about how important this movie is to the franchise, despite not getting the credit deserved when it came out and even the years afterwards. This movie is notable for the fact that it is first movie in the Predator franchise to not be directed by John McTiernan and not star Arnold Schwarzenegger in the lead role, which drew a lot of criticism at the time when this first came out back in 1990. Not so much the John McTiernan thing, there’s a lot of people today who don’t even know he directed the first Predator movie, or even the first Die Hard or the third Die Hard, Die Hard with a Vengeance for that matter, but the Arnold Schwarzenegger thing. There are still people to this day who do not like Predator 2 or have refused to watch it because it doesn’t like Arnold Schwarzenegger in it and that it doesn’t take place in a city. Even people who don’t necessarily hate the movie, still see it as a downgrade for the lack of Arnold. They wanted to get Arnold Schwarzenegger back, but he was unavailable because he was busy working on both Total Recall (1990) with Paul Verhoeven and Terminator 2: Judgment Day with James Cameron. Had he not been committed to those two movies, he might’ve returned for this movie so long as his huge salary was guaranteed, which, considering the budget this movie had to work with probably not. 

This is why in Robert Rodriguez’s original pitch for Predator 3 (what eventually became Predators) brought back Arnold’s character from that first movie, Dutch Schaefer. The plot involved him be marooned on an alien planet (possibly, the Predator homeworld or a Predator game preserve planet) where he would then have to fight Predators and try to find his way home I’m guessing. So, even back then, the idea of it being set on an alien planet was already set in stone, even before all the revisions. This is all pretty ironic because Arnold Schwarzenegger ended up not being in Predators either, so, so much for that. 

I’ve said this on a few occasions, but I think the absence of Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Predator movies after the first movie worked to this franchise’s advantage and was ultimately to its benefit. We’ve seen happens when a franchise can’t move past Arnold Schwarzenegger and becomes tethered to him with Terminator. They ruined the franchise in part by their insistent need to include him in every installment, and now that the franchise is dead and Arnold is too old, they can’t bring him back anymore. So, the Predator franchise dodged a serious bullet by not having Arnold Schwarzenegger still be involved after the first one. He would’ve just dragged the whole thing and he would’ve become a liability and hindrance more than an actual asset, and the Predator franchise would’ve just ended up like the Terminator franchise and look how that turned out. Besides, Arnold had become too expensive by then, and as I sort of mentioned before, the movie’s budget would’ve barely been able to cover Arnold’s humongous salary. They would’ve had no money 💵 left to do anything else by the time they paid Arnold’s salary. 

 

Directing duties this time around were handled by British director 🇬🇧, Stephen Hopkins. It’s funny, two of my favorite films in the Predator franchise (or my favorite film in the Predator franchise and my favorite film in the Alien vs. Predator sub franchise) were both directed by British directors 🇬🇧. He had previously directed the fifth Nightmare on Elm Street film, A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child 💭, and then went onto direct both Judgment Night and Blown Away 💥, two more underrated gems of the 90s. I plan reviewing them both after this, sometime in the future. He even directed The Ghost and the Darkness, that killer lion movie 🦁 starring Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas that’s based on real events, which I didn’t even know until I did the research for this review. That’s another movie I plan getting to one of these days. 

But, even if Arnold and John McTiernan didn’t come back, almost everyone else who worked on the first Predator movie came back to work on this one. It was still written by Jim and John Thomas, it was still produced by Joel Silver, Lawrence Gordon, and John Davis, the music was still done by Alan Silvestri, Kevin Peter Hall still played the Predator (called the City Hunter in this), and Stan Winston and his crew still did the effects. In fact, Stan Winston did the effects for this movie while he was also working on Terminator 2, so he was quite a workaholic. He had a lot on his plate in 1990-1991. That brings me to the much sadder reason why this movie is notable. It was the last movie in the Predator franchise that Alan Silvestri, Kevin Peter Hall, and Stan Winston both worked on. Kevin Peter Hall tragically died shortly after the film’s release from HIV, and Stan Winston and his studio would never work on another Predator movie until his death in 2008 from multiple myeloma. All effect duties on the franchise from here on out would be handed over to Amalgamated Dynamics (ADI), which was founded by Thomas Woodruff Jr. and Alec Gillis, two guys ♂︎ who used to work at Stan Winston Studio and even worked on Aliens before starting their own company. Alan Silvestri would also never work on the franchise again after this, but his themes have been reused in a few entries since then like Predators and The Predator. 

But, even if this was the last film that any of them worked, they sure didn’t half ass it, they gave it their all on this movie and produced some of their best work. Alan Silvestri’s music for this film is fantastic, I actually like the music in this movie more than the music in this first movie, Alan Silvestri really topped himself here. Kevin Peter Hall still gives a great performance as the Predator in this movie, and arguably is the best definitive Predator as every other suit actor who’d play a Predator after this would ape his performance in these first two movies, and his 7 feet tall established the Predator’s monstrous size, and no one since then has been able to match his height. They have not found an actor to play the Predator who is as tall as Kevin Peter Hall was. Combined Stan Winston’s effects, he really managed to make the City Hunter feel like a different individual from the Jungle Hunter in the first movie. He’s more dynamic, a little bit more aggressive, reckless, and maybe even a bit sloppier than the Jungle Hunter, not as measured or as calculating as the Jungle Hunter was. The City Hunter definitely sees to be a bit younger than the Jungle Hunter was, and he’s more cocky than the Jungle Hunter, and makes a lot more mistakes on his hunt than the Jungle Hunter did on his. He also toys with his prey more than the Jungle Hunter, particularly with Harrigan. 

 

 

 

 

(This is a PNG image of a figure of the City Hunter in Predator 2.) 

 

 

 

 

 

He specifically picks out Harrigan as his main target as he sees him as the dangerous person there, and the one most capable as a warrior, and he does things throughout the film to bait him and get him to follow him and confront him. Like, he kills Harrigan’s partner, Danny Archuleta and then hangs his necklace in a tree 🌳 in the cemetery 🪦 for Harrigan to see. Then later, he kills Jerry Lambert and rips his skull and spine out, in full view of Harrigan, and gets him to chase him to the slaughterhouse, which is where their final confrontation begins. I’m glad that they made the Predator in this movie a different individual than the one in the first movie. It would’ve been cheesy and contrived if they did make the same exact one from the first one, and it wouldn’t have even made any sense. I mean we literally saw him blow up in the first movie, how could it be the same one? This also the last truly great Predator design where they actually got the mandibles right and understood the biological function they served, which makes sense all of the same special effects people worked on this movie that worked on the first movie. 

 

 

 

 

 

(This is some concept art of the City Hunter Predator by Crash McCreery as well as some screenshots from both Predator and Predator 2, showing that mandibles fully cover the mouth unlike in future designs.) 

 

 

 

This movie established a lot of thing about the Predator and their behavior and their culture that a lot of people take for granted, or see as a given. It established that there are multiple Predators, that this really is an entire species, and each Predator that comes down to Earth 🌎 to hunt humans is a unique individual with their own look and personality. It firmly established the Predators’ honor code, that don’t spare unarmed civilians (noncombatants), but they also spare children and pregnant women 🤰. The City Hunter almost killed Leona until it he saw that she was pregnant 🤰, and then he backed off and spared her life. Alien vs. Predator (2004) expanded this further by showing that Predators spare sick people too, as Scar did choose to spare Charles Weyland when he saw he had cancer and only decided to kill him when Weyland fought back. So, in that instance, it was more of an act of self defense than a malicious act. 

 

Predators that break this code and kill anyone from these protected groups are stripped of their rank, banished from their clans, and labeled as “Bad Bloods 🩸.” The comics have had plenty of Bad Blood Predators 🩸 but only true Bad Blood Predators 🩸 we’ve seen in the films up until this point have been the three Super Predators featured in Predators. It established that Predators hunt other creatures besides humans, including Xenomorphs. And when they do hunt humans, they usually hunt different people each time. It’s not they go after the same person or people in the same family like they have a grudge against them and intentionally single out. They do single out prey, especially those they deem as the most worthy opponents, but not to an unreasonable degree. This is another reason why I think this movie benefited from not having Dutch Schaefer in it. 

It established that Predators will hunt in any environment so long as there’s heat and conflict 🥵💥. Which makes them going to Antarctica 🇦🇶 in Alien vs. Predator (2004), a little bit hard to sell. It established that Predators can change their vision settings on their biomasks and see in other spectrums of light besides infrared, which would be helpful when they go against the Xenomorphs in the Alien vs. Predator sub franchise. Because as Aliens established, Xenomorphs do not produce body heat and thus do not show up on thermal imaging. So, Predators have a vision setting on their biomasks that they specifically when they hunt Xenomorphs and any other prey that is not visible in their normal infrared vision. 

 

 

 

(These is a screenshot collage of the Lost Tribe in Predator 2.) 

 

 

 

 

 

It established that Predators do honor their dead and will preserve their bodies and take them away if they fail to use their self destruct device, and they will also reward anyone who successfully kills a Predator and survives to tell the tale by giving them a trinket of some kind. In this case, the famous flintlock pistol dated 1715, which they wrote an entire comic book about which Dan Trachtenberg brought back in Prey (2022), though raised new questions by including it at all. Like, how did it end up in the hands of the Lost Tribe Elder in this movie if Naru had it by the end of that movie? At least, the movie got the engraving right on the gun since the novelization and comic book adaptation for Predator 2 both inscribe the date as 1640 instead of 1715, meaning in earlier versions of the script, it was 1640 rather than 1715. This also established that Predator collect things from their prey, like they’ll keep their weapons, jewelry, and even articles of clothing, and then adorn their on their bodies or mount them on display. 

 

 

 

 

(This is a screenshot from Predator 2 showing the Elder Predator.)

 

 

 

 

 

The Lost Tribe Elder, if we go by what the Predator: 1718 comic established, collected this gun from his prey, the pirate 🏴‍☠️ known as Raphael Adolini, and kept it tucked under his belt, despite not really using it. Dan Trachtenberg pretty much retconned this in Prey (2022) by having Naru get this, and then somehow at some point, the Lost Tribe Elder finds it and keeps for him all these years later until he gives it to Harrigan as a reward for killing the City Hunter. Fun fact, the reason why the Predator clan in this movie is called the Lost Tribe is that all of the costumes for all the Predators in the final scene were lost after filming, no body knows where they are or what happened to them. The prevailing theory is that they were all stolen, by who and for what reason, no body knows. Maybe they just thought they looked cool and wanted to them as memorabilia. Another fun fact, the Elder Predator’s face and body were built from molds of the original Jungle Hunter Predator from the first movie, they greyed the hair, added wrinkle to make it look like an older Predator, and he was even played by Kevin Peter Hall. Meaning he played dual roles in this movie, sort of like he did in the first Predator movie but in a different way. 

 

 

 

 

(This is a screenshot from Predator 2 showing the City Hunter about to fire his plasma cannon at Peter Keyes, who is off screen in this shot.) 

 

 

 

 

The movie was inspired by the first volume of the Predator comic book series put out on by Dark Horse Comics, which many people consider be the best company to ever hold the Predator license. All of the best Predator comic books were published by Dark Horse, including this one, the Concrete Jungle story arc. The big difference between this movie and that arc is that in the comics, the story centered around Dutch Schaefer’s brother, John Schaefer, who is a detective 🕵️‍♂️ working for the New York Police Department 🚔, whereas in this movie, the story focuses on a completely new character with no relation to Dutch Schaefer, Mike Harrigan, who is a lieutenant for the Los Angeles Police Department 🚔. I think it was the right call for them to make it a new character instead of making it Dutch Schaefer’s brother, that would’ve just been contrived. Like, really, this Predator just happens to hunt after the brother of the guy from the last movie 🙄? Also, it’s cool to see Danny Glover play a badass hotheaded loose cannon cop for once, he’s really good at it. It’s if he was cast as Martin Riggs instead of as Roger Murtaugh in Lethal Weapon. That’s probably what they were going for when they cast him. In fact, I actually knew him better for this role than Murtaugh believe it or not. It’s funny too because Lethal Weapon 4, the last film in the Lethal Weapon series (thus far), was released in 1998 (the year I was born), and this movie takes place in 1997 despite coming out in 1990. So that movie came out closer to the time when this movie takes place, thus, Danny Glover is more age appropriate in that film than he is in this film. The Predator game, Predator: Concrete Jungle was also inspired by that storyline and this movie, though the story shares almost nothing in common with either other than it also takes place in a city. 

 

 

 

 

(This is an image of the character Mike Harrigan from Predator 2, played by Danny Glover, holding his signature Desert Eagle magnum with a laser sight on top, which he loses during the ending confrontation with the Predator.) 

 

 

 

 

 

But, that comic book arc did set a precedent for a Predator story set in a city rather than a jungle before Jim and John Thomas came up with the idea themselves. There are some people who think it’s sacrosanct for Predator movies to be set in a jungle, and they don’t accept it when a Predator story is set anywhere else other than a jungle, especially a city. That was even a major selling point for Predators and why so many fans were excited for it, the fact that it was set in a jungle again. A jungle on another planet, but still a jungle. But, I’m fine with Predator stories taking place other than a jungle. I’d even take a Predator story set in a desert 🏜️, with a Predator possibly hunting people out in the southwest or even in the Middle East. I have interested in a Predator story set during the Iraq War 🇮🇶, I think that would be really cool, a Predator hunting US soldiers and marines 🇺🇸 as well as Iraqi insurgents 🇮🇶, Shia militia men ♂︎, and Sunni Islamic terrorists ☪️ (al-Qaeda in Iraq 🇮🇶 and later the early form of ISIS, known as Islamic State in Iraq 🇮🇶). Even one set in Syria 🇸🇾 during the Syrian Civil War 🇸🇾, or in Lebanon 🇱🇧 during the Lebanese Civil War 🇱🇧 would be interesting, since this movie mentioned Beirut. Maybe one set in Ukraine 🇺🇦 would be interesting, a Predator could hunt both Ukrainian and Russian soldiers 🇺🇦🇷🇺. 

 

 

 

 

 

(These are PNG images of the City Hunter Predator in Predator 2. The top image is a replica of the City Hunter’s biomask and the bottom image is of the City Hunter himself.)

 

 

 

 

Because it focuses so heavily on cops, there’s much more of investigation aspect 🫆 in this movie. It feels more like a neo-noir movie compared to the first one felt like a military action movie akin to Commando (1985), lots of shootouts and explosions 💥, in the first half before it shifts to being a more suspenseful thriller where the soldiers are being picked off one-by-one, and the team is widdled down to just one: Dutch Schaefer. That still sort of happens in this movie, most of Mike’s allies except Leona die (meaning the movie technically has a male and female survivor ♂︎♀︎ yet again) and Peter Keyes’s team is wiped out except for Adam Garber. Only here, that it sustains the neo-noir detective aspect 🕵️‍♂️ for a long period of time than the first Predator sustained its military action aspect, at least until it gets to the slaughterhouse scene, then it becomes more of a cat-and-mouse type of thriller with Mike and the City Hunter chasing each other down through the buildings, trying to kill each other. 

This movie introduces a lot of new Predator weapons, one of which became a mainstay. The telescopic spear became one of the standard weapons that almost every Predator takes with them on a hunt, along with the wrist blades, the wrist computer and self-destruct device, and the shoulder mounted plasma cannon. The net gun that shoots razor sharp metal nets that literally cut into people’s flesh if they get caught in it didn’t really make a return. The only other movie that it was featured in was Alien vs. Predator (2004), but even then, it wasn’t featured exactly how it was. Instead of shooting the nets out of a gun, the Predators in that film shoot of them out of one of their wrist gauntlets, and rather than the net simply holding the prey in place while it cuts into their flesh, the nets in Alien vs. Predator (2004) wrap around the prey, getting tighter and tighter until the prey can’t escape and cuts deeper and deeper into their flesh (and bone 🦴 obviously) until they’re dead. Maxwell Stafford suffers this grisly fate, although Celtic helped it along by stabbing Maxwell with his spear. The smart disc didn’t come back at all in future installments, instead being replaced by the shurikens introduced in Alien vs. Predator (2004). Paul W.S. Anderson’s reason for replacing it was that he thought the smart disc looked too much like Frisbee 🥏, and to be fair, a lot of people in the behind-the-scenes featurettes for this movie jokingly referred to it as a Frisbee 🥏. The smart disc wasn’t even brought back in a movie, it was brought back in a game, Mortal Kombat X when a Predator was featured as a DLC guest character, and they used the smart disc in one of the Predator’s fatalities. 

 

Even though this movie is rated R, you’ll notice that movie is pretty light on gore, and that’s because it was edited down. There was going to be a lot more on screen blood 🩸 and gore, but it ended up being so bloody and gory 🩸that the movie got slapped with an NC-17 rating. So, the the movie had to be edited down to achieve an R rating. That’s why so many deaths in this movie involving the Predator either happen off screen or is obscured, like when Peter Keyes gets sliced in half by the smart disc, and it happens behind a huge piece of meat (some beef), and you never actually see him get sliced in half, and only his bottom half hits the ground while his top half hovers in mid air 😕? To this day, the original NC-17 version of this movie with all the extra gory bits has never been released. As cool as it would be to see that NC-17 version (even it was labeled as an “unrated version”) a future 4K release 💿 (perhaps by Arrow Video 😉), it’ll probably never happen. The NC-17 version might not even exist anymore and might possibly be lost forever as no pictures from that version have ever resurfaced, no indication that’s still out, waiting in a can to be uncovered and given a native 4K transfer. I mean, if the 4K release 💿 of Deep Blue Sea by Arrow Video didn’t have the original ending where Susan McCallister lives and kisses Carter Blake 💋 at the end, then I doubt we’ll ever get a 4K release 💿 of Predator 2 with the NC-17 version included. 

 

 

 

 

 

(This is a screenshot from Predator 2, showing the character Peter Keyes, played by Gary Busey.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is one of those movies that has sort of become hard to revisit now because of Gary Busey has been revealed to be a creep. He was arrested and charged with sex crimes and harassment at a convention called “Monster-Mania” (how fitting 🙄) in 2022 after he was allegedly groping two people in an inappropriate way and multiple people at the event complained about Busey’s conduct. Though the Wikipedia page on Gary Busey mysteriously doesn’t mention any of this, I had to find all this information by looking at news reports at the time. So, this makes it the second time that an actor involved in the Predator franchise has been involved in sex crimes of some form or another. Don’t these people realize that these movie aren’t about that kind of predator? The first, and most infamous instance was Steven Wilder Striegel in The Predator, who was a registered sex offender and has been since 2010 after attempting to solicit sex with a minor in an email 📧, the minor in question was only 14 years old. Olivia Munn became aware of Steven Wilder’s history and went up to Fox executives and requested that her scene with him be removed, which it was. Both Fox and Shane Black himself issued an apology for casting Steven Wilder in the first place. But, even after Steven Wilder became a registered sex offender, Shane Black still worked with him on his films like Iron Man 3 and The Nice Guys ♂︎, both of which came out after he was charged with attempting to entice a minor through the computer. So, that’s kind on him for not doing his research, looking into this guy ♂︎’s background before casting him, and makes him look bad, almost like he’s complicit in covering up his crimes and hiding from the public and the other actors. 

 

It’s also an indictment of the whole industry that a guy ♂︎ like Steven Wilder could still work in the industry even after becoming a registered sex offender. I’ll talk more about this controversy when I finally get to The Predator. I don’t think Gary Busey’s scenes from Predator 2 will ever be removed, because he is so integral to the movie’s plot, he’s pretty the main human antagonist of this film, and his crimes happened years after it came out. But, any filmmaker with integrity would refuse to work with him nowadays 😒. So, this is one of those instances where you’ll have to separate the art from the artist, and that’ll largely depend on your ability or willingness to do that. Some actors, directors, writers, and producers it’s easier to do that than others. In this case, I’m mostly able to separate the art from the artist with Gary Busey, but there’s still this thought at the back of my head while I’m watching him that “this guy ♂︎ did some horrible stuff and is not a good guy at all.” 

Luckily, none of the other actors in this movie have done bad stuff, as far as I know. The worst thing that Danny Glover has ever done was praise Venezuelan dictator 🇻🇪, Nicolás Maduro, visit him, and call him a great leader, but he wasn’t even the only one to do that. I wonder if he still feels the same way about Maduro after he tanked the Venezuelan economy 🇻🇪, illegally stayed in power, jailed dissents, tortured people, and all of this other stuff that he has done while in power. So, besides Gary Busey, I can watch this movie relatively guilt free, without feeling like I’m supporting criminals. I actually find myself rewatching this movie more than the original 1987 Predator movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger. I haven’t watched the first Predator movie in years. I don’t what is about it because I just can’t bring myself to rewatch that movie for some reason, even if it was the one that started it all. It’s the reason why we even have a Predator franchise in the first place, and by extension, an Alien vs. Predator sub franchise. I think that this movie has a lot more rewatch value to it, so does Alien vs. Predator (2004). 

But, even if a lot of people didn’t like this movie when it came out, and some still don’t like it, more and more people are starting to developing an appreciation for it, and actually look back on it fondly. Whether it’s because they didn’t like The Predator and are looking back on this one and seeing that it’s actually not that bad and is actually one of the better installments, or whether it’s people watching it for the first time (who perhaps didn’t give it a chance after they heard it didn’t have Arnold Schwarzenegger in it and because of the bad word of mouth they heard about it over the years) without any of those preconceived notions of what it should be, and are actually enjoying it as much as the first one, maybe even a bit more. And then, there are people like me who always liked the movie and are sitting here thinking, “it’s about time.” People aren’t just appreciating it for its entertainment value, but also for its importance to the franchise as a whole. So many things that became mainstays in the franchise, and are often taken for granted or treated as a given were started in this film rather than the first. It expanded the lore in a huge way, made the universe feel a lot bigger and opened the door to one of the greatest crossovers of all time, at least on film. Alien vs. Predator was already being done in the comics, but this movie brought it to the big screen. 

 

It made producer John Davis and Twentieth Century Fox as a whole want to pursue an Alien vs. Predator movie, which they did. They got two movies out of it, which is more than what New Line Cinema got out of making Freddy vs. Jason a thing. That movie didn’t even get a true sequel, and instead had its storyline continue in the comics, where Freddy and Jason face off against Ash Williams from the Evil Dead franchise. The Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street franchises already a connection to Evil Dead before this, due to the inclusion of an Easter egg reference to Evil Dead in Jason Goes to Hell, which implied that Pamela Voorhees brought Jason back to life using the Necromonicon and that Jason is a Deadite. Predator has done something similar but with in Independence Day by including an Easter egg to Independence Day in Predator: Badlands, opening the door to a potential Alien, Predator, and Independence Day crossover. Probably just in the comics, but maybe in the movies too, who knows? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 (These are images of different figures of the City Hunter Predator from Predator 2. Most of them are of the NECA figure while the second to last one is from Sideshow Collectibles, though I’m not 100% certain.) 

 

 

 

Even if Predator 2 doesn’t have any lines that are as iconic as the ones in the first Predator movie like “Get to the choppa!” or “I ain’t got no time bleed 🩸,” or “If bleeds, we can kill it,” “Over here,” “Anytime,” or “You are one ugly motherfucker,” it still does have some pretty good lines. “You’re cutting off my dick and shoving it up my ass,” “Okay pussy face, it’s your move,” “Want some candy 🍬,” “Shit happens” and “Take it” immediately come to mind. And if the “lions 🦁, tigers 🐅, bears 🐻, oh my” line didn’t originate from this movie (there is a chance that it might’ve), it is still memorable and one of the funniest parts of this movie. It certainly must’ve had a hand in popularizing that saying. I wish more movies (both inside and outside the Predator franchise) would quote more of the lines from this movie, especially the “cutting my dick and shoving it up my ass” one. If I have to hear another movie quote the “Get to the chopper!” or “You’re one ugly motherfucker” line one more time, I think I’m gonna lose it 😤. The “get to the chopper” line in Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem was so forced, it didn’t need to be there especially since that helicopter 🚁 at the hospital 🏥 barely even qualifies as a “chopper,” but at least it’s better than that stupid “Get to the choppers!” line from The Predator, which was referring to motorcycle choppers as opposed to a helicopter chopper like you’d see in the military. Alien vs. Predator (2004) couldn’t even say the full line, “you are one ugly motherfucker” because it was rated PG-13 and they already wasted their one F bomb on a stupid throwaway line, where Lex says “Well, I hope it kills every fucking one of them” when referring to Scar’s self-destruct device, which he plants in the middle of a Xenomorph nest and blows up the entire pyramid along with the every Alien inside. Instead they only have Lex say the first part of the line, “You are one ugly mother…” and then it cuts off. Should’ve saved your one F bomb for when quite possibly the most iconic line from the original Predator movie. Again, not as dumb as the “You’re one beautiful motherfucker” line in The Predator. 

This movie also had some amazing scenes, like the opening shootout in the streets of LA, like that was pretty cool. The scene where the City Hunter kills all of those Jamaican gang members 🇯🇲 in that Colombian drug lord 🇨🇴’s penthouse is also pretty cool even if a lot of the gorier parts were pretty cut out of the R rated version. The scene where City Hunter confronts King Willie and kills him, and then cuts his head and cleans it and mounts the skull 💀 on the trophy  wall is also pretty cool even if we don’t actually see the Predator decapitate him or see most of the process of him cleaning the skull 💀 and getting ready for display. I don’t think the NC-17 version actually showed any of that stuff, the way it was edited, it seems like it was always meant to smash cut to already after the battle when the City Hunter already killed King Willie and the whole scene was supposed to be a dark twisted joke. I do think maybe the NC-17 version actually did show more of the process of the City Hunter cleaning the skull 💀, the way that scene was edited, I think there was a bit more to that scene, and it one of the bits they had to chop down to achieve an R rating. The scene where the City Hunter changes his vision settings and then wipes out Keyes’s entire team inside the slaughterhouse was also pretty cool, and the part where the City Hunter kills Keyes by cutting him in half using his smart disc was also cool, even if that scene was likely another one that was negatively affected by the MPAA’s meddling. And of course, the whole final confrontation between Harrigan and the City Hunter is amazing from start to finish. That whole third act is exhilarating. Given how much people complained about Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem being too dark and hard to see at times, I’m surprised hardly anyone complained about the subway scene 🚇  since it’s darker and harder to see than anything in Requiem, and there’s fleshing lights so epileptics can’t even watch that scene. Even though I do like that scene a lot and think it’s another highlight of the film, especially since it shows how badass Lambert is and how much he can hold his own given that for most of the movie up to that point, he was the goofball comic relief. 

The movie also some great characters too, obviously you got Harrigan who’s a great lead, then you got Danny, Lambert, Leona, the captain and the deputy chief, and Peter Keyes. Even Tony Pope’s a great character, he’s a great asshole reporter in the movie. It’s so satisfying when Harrigan finally punches him out 👊, especially for the shit he was saying in that moment before he got punched 👊, “More victims, more mutilation.” He was played by Morton Downey Jr., who, from my understanding, was sort of like Jerry Springer before Jerry Springer, where he was a purposefully provocative figure and had a show called The Morton Downey Jr. Show, where he’d bring people on to argue and fight each other and it was all staged and was meant to be a spectacle. The term “trash TV” was coined in reference to his show. So, he was perfect for this kind of role as this really abrasive, noisy journalist with no integrity or moral compass to really speak of. He was also an anti-abortion activist, so that’s not good, that’s one political issue we probably would have disagreed on. But, it doesn’t really matter because he passed away in 2001 (March 12, 2001 to be exact), when I was only 2 years old, I was still barely even a toddler back then, though interestingly, looking at his Wikipedia page, he was a December baby like me since he was born on December 9, 1932. Since he did die in March of 2001, that meant he missed out on 9/11, what an event to miss out on after you’re gone. The Blu-Ray 💿 actually comes with segments from his show in the special features, and you can see why no one in the movie really likes Tony Pope, and why they’re always wanting to punch him 👊 and keep him out of the crime scene. 

 

 

 

(This is a banner image for Predator 2.)