My Thoughts on “Prey” (2022)

Foreword: 

  


This was originally written and posted on DeviantART on Wednesday August 17, 2022. I’ve written brand new reviews for the two Alien vs. Predator movies and for Predator 2, now it’s time for me to repost my review of Prey (2022) that I wrote back in 2022 when the movie actually came out. It is my final task before reviewing Predator: Killer of Killers, the latest installment in the Predator franchise from the same director, Dan Trachtenberg. It is second prequel film in the Predator franchise, but it is another first. It’s the first animated film in the Predator franchise and it’s the first anthology film in the franchise. I wrote a post about the trailer to Predator: Killer of Killers, where I talked some of my gripes and concerns based on what I saw in that trailer if you’re interested in reading that. Let’s just say I’m not 100% on board with that movie yet. I haven’t been sold on it yet. I’ll see what I think of it when I get to it, but for now, I’m talking about Dan Trachtenberg’s first foray into the Predator franchise, Prey (2022), the film that actually revitalized the franchise. Something that both Predators and The Predator tried to do, but ultimately failed at. 

Now, before this movie was announced, I and many others were convinced that the franchise was dead. The Predator did a lot of damage to the franchise’s reputation and its viability as a brand. It didn’t seem like they were ever going to make another Predator movie after this. I even made a 20 minute long video about how both the Predator and Alien franchise were both dead due to their respective bad installments, The Predator and Alien: Covenant on my old channel, The Sci-Fi Dragon, which I have since deleted. Not just the channel, but the video as well because I wasn’t very proud of it and I regretted even making it. But, I have matured since then, my perspectives on things has changed, so when I do eventually talk The Predator, I will try to be as fair in my assessment as I can and not be clouded by all the negative reviews that movie already got. 

I don’t want my opinions to be influenced by others too much, and I want to watch each movie I choose to review with a fresh lens. The fact that Disney also bought Fox also put the franchise’s future into question. Were they actually going to anything with it, or they just going to sit on and collect on royalties. Because this is an R rated franchise and Disney prides itself on being a family friendly company. Any movie that has the Disney label is automatically assumed to be for kids or families. In fact, a lot of fans were worried about the franchise’s future under Disney because of how they handled the Star Wars franchises, and fans didn’t want that to happen to the Predator franchise. Even the original creators of the Predator franchise, Jim and John Thomas were evidently worried about its future at Disney as they tried to snag the rights away from Disney so that they could become the full legal owners of the franchise and shop it around to different companies like Lionsgate, which they obviously failed at. 

So, imagine our surprise when a trailer dropped in 2021 for a new movie called Prey, and we learned that it was a Predator movie and that it was a prequel. I know the movie was probably announced before this, but I was completely unaware of its existence until I saw that initial trailer. I didn’t even think it was a Predator movie until I saw all of the comments saying that it was, and then my interest was peaked. It was interesting for them to go with a prequel instead of another sequel, but they definitely needed something to shake things up. Though, the fact that they titled it Prey makes it a bit confusing to talk about because there are bunch of other movies called Prey

There’s the 1977 movie called Prey, which is a British sci-fi horror film 🇬🇧 about about a carnivorous alien 👽 that lands on Earth 🌍 and befriends a lesbian couple ⚢ and convinces them to help him on his mission of assessing the viability of humans as a potential food source. That one seems like it’d a good candidate for Brandon Tenold’s show. There’s the 2007 movie called Prey, which is about killer lions 🦁 and stars Bridget Moynahan. There’s the 2009 movie called Prey, which is a supernatural horror film about a group of friends (3 couples) getting stranded in the West Australian desert 🇦🇺🏜️ and succumbing to supernatural forces, which  judging by the trailer, include some kind snake 🐍 or worm 🪱 monsters 🤷‍♂️. Even though the movie is Australian 🇦🇺, I can’t even tell if the characters are supposed to be Australian 🇦🇺 or American 🇺🇸 because their accents aren’t that thick to where you could tell that they were Australians 🇦🇺, and the plot summary on the Wikipedia page for the movie is very vague and didn’t really explain anything. Apparently, one of the characters is American 🇺🇸, but that’s about it. I’m assuming the other characters are Australian 🇦🇺, but I’m not sure. The plot summary on the Wikipedia page was really bad at explaining things. Then there’s the 2019 movie called Prey, which is Canadian documentary film 🇨🇦, which looks like it’s about the Catholic Church ⛪️ and the sex abuse that has taken place there, which is why it’s called Prey. It’s a pun or a play on words because it’s about the Catholic Church ⛪️, the priests there are supposed to be praying 🙏, but instead they’re preying on children sexually who attend church ⛪️. 
 
There’s the other 2019 movie called Prey, which is an American horror action flick 🇺🇸 which was produced by Blumhouse, and is about a woman ♀︎ that turns into a monster after she got possessed by a malevolent spirit when she was a kid. There’s 2021 movie called Prey, which is a German movie 🇩🇪 and a Netflix exclusive about a group of guys ♂︎ who are stalked relentlessly in the woods 🌲 by a woman ♀︎ with a gun. Then, there’s the 2024 movie called Prey, which is another killer lion 🦁 movie, which makes even it confusing to talk about with the 2007 movie. There was another killer lion movie 🦁 that came out in 2022, and is almost exactly like the 2007 Prey movie and the 2024 Prey movie, although this one wasn’t called Prey, it was called Beast (2022), starring Idris Elba and Sharlto Copley. The same year as this Prey movie oddly enough. Then, there are a whole bunch of movies called The Prey, a lot more than movies just called Prey, and then there’s a video game called Prey, two actually, one from 2006 and the other from 2017. 
 
Then there’s a book 📖 called Prey, which was written by none other than Michael Crichton, the same author as the original Jurassic Park novel 📖, the Lost World novel 📖 (I don’t say original because it isn’t the original Lost World novel 📖, the one by Arthur Conen Doyle is), the original Congo novel 📖, the original Andromeda Strain novel 📖, the original Rising Sun 🇯🇵 novel 📖, and the original Sphere novel 📖, and those are just the books 📖 he wrote that got film adaptations. I understand what they were going for why calling the movie Prey, you know a predator needs its prey or you can’t have a predator without prey, prey arguably comes before the predator. It seems like the perfect title for a Predator prequel, and obviously they went with it, but they picked such a common title. It gets confusing to talk about, and you have to put the year next to it just so that you’ll know which one you’re talking about. And it’s not they stuck with this naming convention calling the prequels Prey, and the sequels Predator, since the movie that came out after, Predator: Killer of Killers, uses the Predator name instead of Prey and that movie also takes place in the past, long before the first Predator movie. So, there really was no point in calling this movie Prey other than to be cute. They thought they were being clever by calling it Prey, even though they really weren’t. I even wrote in one of notes for my Predator: Killer of Killers review that they should’ve either called this movie Predator: Great Plains since it takes place on the Great Plains and is about Comanches, or called Predator: Killer of Killers, Prey: Killer of Killers or even just Prey 2

It is a bit confusing and frustrating how new installments of franchises get named, like Mortal Kombat 1 is called Mortal Kombat 1 even though it’s the twelfth installment in the Mortal Kombat franchise and the sequel (if it gets one) is going to be called Mortal Kombat 2 even though it’d be the thirteenth game in the franchise and there already is a Mortal Kombat 2, a pretty good one in fact, or so I’ve heard. I haven’t actually played it. And if that wasn’t enough, the ninth Mortal Kombat game is just called Mortal Kombat, sharing the exact same title as the original 1992 classic that started it all. And of course, the fifth game in the series was called Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, the sixth game was called Mortal Kombat: Deception (or Mortal Kombat: Mystification in France 🇫🇷), and the seventh game was called Mortal Kombat: Armageddon. The eighth game is technically Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, but some people don’t count that. Even the spinoff games are not consistent when it comes to their titling. The first spinoff game was called Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero ❄️, setting up this convention that every Mortal Kombat spinoff game that focused on a specific character or group of characters would have the Mythologies moniker. Kind of like what X-Men Origins: Wolverine tried to do. But, like that film, this did not stick as the spinoff game after that was called Mortal Kombat: Special Forces, no Mythologies label, and then the third and final spinoff game as of this point was called Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, still no Mythologies label. At least the animated movies have stuck with the Mortal Kombat Legends title so far. 

Resident Evil is pretty inconsistent with its titles too, the second game is called Resident Evil 2, the third game is called Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, the fourth game is called Resident Evil – Code: Veronica, the fifth game is called Resident Evil Zero, which is actually a prequel to the first Resident Evil game, the sixth game is called Resident Evil 4, the seventh game is called Resident Evil 5, the eighth game is called Resident Evil 6, and just when you thought they were getting consistent with how they were naming these, the ninth game is called Resident Evil 7: Biohazard ☣️. The tenth game after that is called Resident Evil Village (no colon in between, though it was stylized in a way that the VILL in “Village” would spell out the number 8 in Roman numerals, VIII), and the upcoming eleventh game is called Resident Evil Requiem, which is the same title as the second Alien vs. Predator movie, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, although that movie actually had a colon in its title. Although to give points to Resident Evil Requiem, it actually uses the word “requiem” in its title in a way that actually makes sense isn’t just an acronym was meant to tell people what it was rated like AVPR was. That’s not even counting the numerous spinoffs this series has had, or any of the remakes, ports, or remasters. One of the spinoff games, Resident Evil Outbreak is now canon to the rest of the series as Resident Evil Requiem references that game a lot, and the main character, Grace Ashcroft is the daughter of a character from that game, Alyssa Ashcroft. Though, that’s not to say the other Resident Evil spinoff games aren’t canon, some of them are and we knew it at the time they came out, like the Resident Evil: Revelations games, but a lot of people didn’t know if Resident Evil Outbreak specifically was canon or not until the trailer to Resident Evil Requiem dropped and the main character’s last name was revealed. 
 
Doom is also inconsistent with its titles, as the first game is called Doom (obviously), the second game is called Doom II: Hell on Earth 🌎🔥, the third game is called Final Doom but it wasn’t really the final Doom as there were way more games after this, the fourth game is called Doom 64 since it was released on the Nintendo 64 (although it wasn’t later ported to the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Stadia, XBox One, and PC), the fifth game is called Doom 3, the sixth game is just called Doom, the seventh game is called Doom Eternal (no colon), and the most recent eighth game is called Doom: The Dark Ages. And that’s just the mainline entries, I’m even including the spinoffs or remastered versions, like Doom 3: VR Edition or Doom 3: BFG Edition, which, from my understanding, seeks to underplay the horror aspects of the original Doom 3 and restore the more action-packed running and gunning gameplay and tone that the series is known for. I also don’t count the expansion pack that Doom 3 got called Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil.  
 
Metroid is largely the same story but a bit more pronounced. First game is called Metroid, second game is called Metroid II: Return of Samus, third game is called Super Metroid because it was released on the Super Nintendo, the fourth game is called Metroid Fusion, the fifth game is called Metroid Prime, which spins off into its own series and is essentially a prequel to Metroid II, the sixth mainline game is called Metroid Zero Mission, the seventh game is Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, which is a direct sequel to Metroid Prime, the eighth game is called Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, which is the third game in the Metroid Prime sub series, the ninth game is called Metroid: Other M, which is also sort of a spinoff and not really canon to the rest of the series and is also the most divisive and contentious game in the franchise amongst the fan base and for that reason is often seen as the “black sheep,” the tenth game is called Metroid Dread, and the upcoming eleventh game is called Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, the long awaited fourth entry of the Metroid Prime sub series. I’m not even counting any of the spinoff titles like Metroid Prime Pinball, Metroid Prime Hunters, or Metroid Prime: Federation Force (which many people consider to be the worst game in the entire Metroid franchise), the compilation game, Metroid Prime: Trilogy, or any of the remasters or remakes, like Metroid: Samus Returns, which is a remake of Metroid II, and Metroid Prime Remastered, which is the game I’m currently playing. 
 
Then, there’s the 2018 Halloween 🎃 movie which is just called Halloween 🎃, even though it’s supposed to be a direct sequel to the original 1978 Halloween 🎃 movie by John Carpenter, ignoring all of the sequels that came afterwards, including the sequel that John Carpenter wanted to make and had a hand in (as producer), Halloween III: Season of the Witch 🎃. Not even the Predator franchise itself isn’t exactly immune from this since besides the whole Prey and Predator: Killer of Killers debacle, Predators and The Predator have almost the exact same title as the original except one adds an S at the end to make it plural and the other adds a “The” to the title. Not only that, but they each tried to present themselves as the definitive sequel to the first Predator movie even though there only is one definitive sequel to the first movie and that’s Predator 2. It has a number 2 in the title, it’s official. People have gotten these confused with the first one, like anecdotally, my grandma started watching The Predator, thinking that it was the first Predator with Arnold Schwarzenegger, until I had to explain to her what isn’t the same movie and that it was a sequel/reboot, even though I didn’t use those exact words. 
 
And Alien is all over the place when it comes to titles, with the second movie being called Aliens, the third movie being called Alien 3, the fourth movie being called Alien Resurrection (no colon in between), the fifth movie being called Prometheus, the sixth movie being called Alien: Covenant, and the most recent seventh movie being called Alien: Romulus. Prometheus is the odd one since it does even have Alien in the title, and Ridley Scott was being all coy about it being an Alien prequel even though it totally was. It was at the very least meant to be an Alien spinoff movie that was going to spawn into its own series, with them all being called Prometheus and the next movie was going to focus on, or at least address the Deacon Alien at the end of Prometheus. Until Prometheus received mixed-to-negative reviews, and Ridley Scott’s original plans for a direct sequel to Prometheus were scrapped, and he did a more of a traditional Alien movie instead with Alien: Covenant, though he still incorporated a lot of Prometheus elements, some of his original ideas for that canceled sequel. I guess it’s fitting for the black sheep of the franchise to not even have the Alien name in its title. 
 
The Jurassic franchise is also pretty weird with its titles. They straight up switched from calling them Jurassic Park to calling them Jurassic World, even if it’s a story that takes place in the past, during the time before or during the events of the original Jurassic Park trilogy. Like, like does every Jurassic show or game have to called Jurassic World? Why can’t they be called Jurassic Park? Why couldn’t Jurassic World Rebirth be called Jurassic Park Rebirth since this it’s supposed to be a soft reboot that intentionally hearkens back to the original Jurassic Park films, while still retaining the more unpopular or contentious elements of the Jurassic World films like the hybrid dinosaurs 😒. They also seemingly gave up on using colons since both Jurassic World Dominion and Jurassic World Rebirth don’t have colons in their titles, or they forgot to add them. Don’t even get me started on the Fast & Furious franchise, they pretty much just gave up after the third film, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, and are just making it as they go along, which you could say about the films themselves. You could even say that they were already inconsistent with the names since the second movie was called 2 Fast 2 Furious

People weren’t really sure what to expect with Prey (2022). They didn’t know if it was going to be good or not, since it was the fifth entry in the Predator franchise, it was coming right after Shane Black’s The Predator, it was the first Predator film made under Disney, and it was being released straight-to-streaming, being released exclusively on Hulu. Though, it was released on physical media, a year or so later. But, it was being directed by the same guy who directed 10 Cloverfield Lane, Dan Trachtenberg, and people liked that film including me, and Trachtenberg had to have been somewhat of a Predator fan to agree to direct this. So, people were at least willing to give this one a chance, and see what he would bring to the table. “Couldn’t be any worse than what Shane Black did,” a lot of fans thought. And then the movie finally released on August 5, 2022, and pretty much blew everyone away. It actually ended up being good, a lot better than anyone initially expected when it was first announced or when they first saw the trailer. In fact, some have even said that it’s a great film and the best Predator movie since the first one, though I personally wouldn’t go that far. I still prefer Predator 2 over this one, in fact I think I actually say that in the review itself, and there are things that go against it and prevent it from being my favorite or being the best Predator movie since the first one. But, it is still damn good. If I could, I would buy the Blu-Ray or the 4K 💿, I like it that much. 

I do like that it focuses on Comanches. Native Americans get so little representation in movies, TV shows, video games, etc., probably owing to the fact that there are so few genuine Native American actors (not simply actors of other races playing Native Americans), that we’ll pretty much take what we can get. Sort of like Avatar (2009) and Avatar: The Way of Water 💦, this movie has been embraced by the Native American community as a whole. Like, I’m a Pueblo Indian, I’m from the Pueblo of Acoma, and even a lot of them embraced this movie when it came out, even though it focuses on Comanches, who were a different kind of Native American than Puebloans. Comanches are Plains Indians, sort of like the Apache, Lakota, Dakota, Sioux, Cheyenne, Osage (the tribe that the book 📖 and movie, Killers of the Flower Moon 🌼🌕 centers around), Omaha, Kitsai, Mandan, Kaw (or Kansa), Crow, Blackfoot, Lipan, Gros Ventre, Arapaho, Assiniboine, Sarsi, Nakoda (Stoney), Pawnee, Ponca, Otoe, Quapaw, Wichita, Yanktonai, and Tonkawa. While tribes like the one I’m from, Acoma, are Pueblo Indians, or Puebloans as they’re referred as nowadays. We’re more concentrated in the southwest whereas as Plains Indians like the Comanche tend to live in the Great Plains, which where they get their name from. Parts of the Great Plains are in New Mexico, but the majority of it isn’t, and we Puebloans live in more arid desert environments 🏜️ compared to Comanches or Lakota. But, even still, even if we come from different regions, even if we have different cultures and languages than the Natives featured in this movie, a lot of Puebloans still embraced. And with this movie, I feel a lot better about them embracing it as opposed to the Avatar movies, since this one features actual Native Americans, rather than aliens 👽 that vaguely resemble Native Americans. In fact, I’ve seen more Native Americans openly embrace this movie than I’ve seen embrace Killers of the Flower Moon 🌼🌕, which is a movie that actually tackles real Native American issues, a historical drama that focuses on real events that happened on a Native reservation, head on. In fact, I don’t even know how many of them even know that Killers of the Flower Moon 🌼🌕 even exists. I haven’t heard a single person in my life talk about that movie, even though you’d think they would considering they talk about pretty much any other movie about Native Americans. 
 
I’m just happy to see Native Americans in a movie instead of another western or a historical drama. I mean, this still takes place in the past, it is still a period piece, these are not modern day Native Americans which I’d like to see more of in movies and TV shows, people forget that Native Americans are regular people who live in the modern world like they do, and are not something from the past that no longer exists, we are here, we exist, it’s time to start acknowledging it more. But, they are in a much different situation than they usually are in movies, they’re facing off against an alien 👽 rather than simply facing off against colonialists or the US military 🇺🇸, which they do in this film as well. They face off against these French fur traders 🇫🇷, which they have an extremely adversarial relationship with them, and they end up getting killed off by the Predator, which is called the Feral Predator in this, or the Mupitsi, which is the name of an actual creature in Comanche folklore. This is not another movie talking about how Native Americans were victimized and oppressed by white people, this is a full blown science fiction action flick, a genre mash up that Native Americans don’t usually get to participate in, and if they do, they usually aren’t the main characters. But, in this film they are, and outside those French fur tradesmen 🇫🇷♂︎, they’re the only group of people that we see in the entire film. 

Naru is our main protagonist, she is the one we’re mainly rooting for, and she is the only faces off against the Predator and defeats it. She even gets the gun that eventually ends up in the hands of Harrigan in Predator 2, a couple of centuries later, even though it really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense how the gun ends up in the hands of the Lost Tribe Elder. The movie largely ignores the events of the events of the Predator comic, Predator: 1718, and comes up with its own explanation for the pistol featured in Predator 2. Although, they do sort of allude to the comic book by featuring an Italian character 🇮🇹 amongst the French fur tradesmen 🇫🇷♂︎, who’s working as a translator or interpreter for them, and that apparently is supposed to be the same character featured in that comic, Raphael Adolini. But, even if it does feature that character, it still ignores the events of that comic book, and leaves a bunch more questions than answers. Like, how it did get from Naru to the Lost Tribe Elder Predator at the end of Predator 2? In the comic, it made sense because it was Elder Predator that was hunting Raphael and his men ♂︎, just younger, and when Raphael dies, the Predator takes it with him and keeps it even when he becomes an Elder, until he decides to give it to Harrigan as a reward for killing the City Hunter Predator. But here, it doesn’t make sense. 
 
What makes even less sense is that I learned that Naru is featured in Predator: Killer of Killers, in a small cameo role. The Predators kidnapped her and take her to their home planet, or a planet that they control, and put her in a cryo status pod, because they were impressed with her skills and wanted her to fight in this gladiatorial arena that they make every human who successfully killed a Predator fight in. I had that spoiled for me after I watched Carnage Count’s video on Predator: Killer of Killers. Again, changing the mythology of the Predator just for the sake of changing it. It’s not as stupid as the whole DNA thing 🧬 in The Predator, but it’s still kind of dumb. It’s literally the original concept for Predators, back when it was still called Predator 3 and was going to feature Arnold Schwarzenegger as Dutch Schaefer. Even the concept of Predators was kind of dumb and didn’t really make sense with the other movies, like why would Predators, regardless of whether they were regular Predators or Super Predators, abduct people and hunt them on another planet? Why not just come to Earth 🌎 and hunt people? If simply kidnapping people and taking them to a game preserve planet was always an option, why they weren’t doing that all along? Why didn’t the Jungle Hunter or the City Hunter do that? 
 
The fact it’s the Super Predators doing this is even dumber because they’re bigger, badder, and better than regular Predators that we were used to seeing up to that point, and yet, they don’t have the balls to go to Earth 🌎 and hunt humans? They have to kidnap humans and bring them to a planet that they control, where they make the rules? That doesn’t seem very fair. It doesn’t seem like something the strongest, bravest, and most hard core warriors would do. If anything, it makes the Super Predators look weak and like downgrades compared to the regular Predators, makes them look like sissies (not that there’s anything wrong with sissies, as in, femboys ♂︎ 😉, not sissies as in cowards, those kind of sissies suck and not in the good way). Like, the Jungle Hunter and City Hunter would easily kick the shit out of the Tracker Predator, the Falconer Predator, and the Berserker Predator. This is another reason why I’m unsure if Predator: Killer of Killers is any good or not, or if it’s worth watching. I’ll talk more about that when I get to Predator: Killer of Killers and Predators. This is the supposed to be the positive section, and it’s getting quite negative. 

Amber Midthunder is great in this role as Naru, and I hope we see her in more stuff in the future. I actually don’t know if she was in anything before this, or if this was the first thing she was ever in. If this really is her first role, this is a damn fine first role. This is the kind of performance that leads to bigger roles, hopefully. The other actors in the film are good too, not all of them are Comanches, but they are all Native Americans and they all give good performances. Especially Dakota Beavers, who plays Taabe, Naru’s brother and foil, and ally throughout the film. I don’t remember if he lives or dies by the end, I think he lives. If I’m mistaken, please correct me. 
 
Apparently, he’s supposed to be the past life of Sonny Landham’s character in the first Predator movie, Billy Sole like one of the earlier drafts of the script revealed that Billy was a reincarnation of Taabe, and Billy’s last stand is reframed as subconscious memories of his past life, which I think is stupid. It adds a supernatural element to an otherwise science fiction franchise and it kind of impresses old stereotypes about Native Americans that we’re all mystical and magical instead of regular human beings. I’m glad that aspect was left out of the final movie and Taabe is his own unique character with no connection to characters from the previous movies. It would’ve just cheesy and contrived for the sake of having a direct connection to the previous movies. I mean, this movie already has the flintlock pistol from Predator 2, we don’t need that. In fact, I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if the inclusion of the flintlock pistol was a replacement for Taabe being an ancestor or past life of Billy Sole. 
 
I do like that they dubbed this movie in the Comanche language, I thought that was a nice touch and a cool gesture and a nice way of paying respect to the culture after featuring it so prominently in the film. I wish other films would do that for other indigenous cultures, like Lilo & Stitch (2002) having a dub in the Hawaiian language or Brother Bear 🐻 having a dub in the Yup’ik language. This makes it the second mainstream film to be dubbed into a Native American language, after Star Wars, or Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, which became the first film in history to be dubbed into a Native American language, in that movie’s case, Navajo. I also like the music in the film, especially the end credits theme called “The Hunter,” was actually composed by a woman ♀︎, Sarah Schachner, which is pretty cool. You don’t see too many female film composers ♀︎, and you don’t see many of them work on movies like this. This movie singlehandedly revitalized the franchise, it breathed new life into it, in a way that I didn’t think was even possible after The Predator. If I’m not even completely sold on Predator: Killer of Killers yet, I do appreciate the Predator renaissance that we seem to be living in. 
 
If you told me back in 2018 or 2019, or even in 2022 when this movie was released that we’d be getting two Predator movies in a single year, I would’ve told you were crazy. But here we are, we got Predator: Killer of Killers earlier this month and then we got Predator: Badlands coming out in November. I did get my wish about wanting a Predator movie with a Predator as the protagonist with Predator: Badlands. Still no Asian pirates 🏴‍☠️ though. The only thing missing are some video games and comic books. I know we got Predator: Hunting Grounds, but that was back in 2020 before this movie came out, and it wasn’t that good from what I hear, at least not when it first released. I don’t know it did get better over time as they patched it up and added some additional content to actually make it worth playing. Which is the case with a lot of games nowadays. I wish Dark Horse Comics was still doing Predator comics, they made some of the best Predator comic books. And it all thanks to this movie and extremely positive critical and fan reception it received. None of that would’ve been possible had this movie not been as good as it was and if people didn’t like it as much as they did. This is something that Robert Rodriguez and Shane Black could’ve only dreamed of achieving. 

The only thing I really don’t like about the film is the design of the Predator. I don’t mind the Predator’s all CGI in this movie, or that it’s a mixture of CGI and practical effects and they did use a guy in a suit like the other movies and then enhanced it with CGI, in fact that’s probably what they should be and what they and everyone else is doing. They’re using practical effects, yes, but they’re enhancing it with the CGI. Because let’s face it folks, as much as people say they like practical effects and hate on CGI, there are things that practical effects simply cannot do and only CGI can do. Like, the movie, The Substance used a lot more CGI than people realize or that the filmmakers themselves will admit, things that in film that people may think were done practically were actually done with CGI. That’s not the issue, in fact, that seems to be what they’re doing with the Predator in Predator: Badlands, the issue for me is the actual design of the Predator, how it looks. 
 
I hate how the Predator looks in this film. It doesn’t even look like a regular Predator, it looks more like a Super Predator or like that Upgrade Predator from The Predator, in fact, it isn’t a regular Predator. It’s another variant or sub species or something that hails from a different region of the Predator home world than the regular Predators do. Once again, we can’t just have a normal Predator, we have to have a larger, different variant, an “upgraded” version, or a new species or sub species 😒. The things that these writers and directors pull out of their asses to have a new type of Predator than the standard one that we’re all used to and like quite a bit. I think I can speak for a lot of people and say that we’re all sick of it at this point 😑. Just give us normal Predators, none of this Upgrade Predator, Super Predator, sub species bull crap 😒. The mandibles are too far apart and don’t cover the mouth at all, the mouth is always open, it looks awful. This is genuinely one of the worst Predator designs I’ve ever seen, and the ones in Predator: Killer of Killers and Predator: Badlands look just as bad, if not even worse in some instances, and I’m not the only one who notices this. I like the Feral Predator’s biomask, I like his armor, I like his weaponry, even if the plasma castor was sorely missed, it’s the face that doesn’t do it for me. The face is the one thing that no body has been able to get right besides Stan Winston, the guy ♂︎ who originally designed it in the first place. It does make sense why no one has been able to do the face as good as Stan Winston did, very few people can do anything as good as Stan Winston did. 
 
It’s interesting how the Feral Predator starts out hunting animals before hunting humans. He hunts a rattlesnake, he hunts a wolf 🐺, and he hunts bear 🐻. It’s like he’s working his way up the food chain to figure out who is the quickest, toughest, baddest, smartest animal of them all, and he quickly finds out that it’s humans. We are the most dangerous game. And who is the quickest, toughest, baddest, and smartest amongst this group of humans? It’s Naru of course. The movie sort of implies that this first time that a Predator has ever hunted humans, which doesn’t really make sense. Given how ancient the Yautja are, and how much more advanced they are compared to us, you would think that they would be hunting humans long before this, but whatever 🙄. This is just changing the Predator lore for the sake of changing it, regardless of whether or not it makes sense with the other movies and with what we know about these creatures. One more thing I’d like to add before wrapping up this foreword is that I added an update to my Deep Blue Sea review talking about the Arrow Video 4K release 💿 that came out a few months ago. I talked about wanting a 4K release 💿 of that movie, and now we have one. I couldn’t leave it hanging like that, and people thinking that I didn’t know that it had a 4K release 💿, I do know. So, I wrote an update so that people reading that review know that I know that it has a 4K release 💿. 



(This is the poster for Prey (2022).)
 
 
 

I just finished watching Prey, the Predator prequel that no body really knew was coming out until a few months before it was released. Or at least, I didn't know that it was coming out until a month or so ago. This movie was by the same director as 10 Cloverfield Lane, Dan Trachtenberg, and that seems to be his M.O. He'll make a movie and then release it with very little advertising until a few months or even a few weeks shortly before its actual release. On top of that, the movie shares a title with many other movies.

Prey is one of the most used titles for movies, like you would not believe how many movies use the title, Prey. The other movie I remember seeing with the title, Prey was this killer lion movie 🦁 starring Bridget Moynahan, who sort of looks like Sandra Bullock, which is why I confused her for her. And coincidentally, I saw a TV spot for an upcoming killer lion movie 🦁 called Beast which stars Idris Elba and shares its title with an Indian movie 🇮🇳. The movie even has a similar plot to Prey (the lion movie 🦁) where it's family, they're trapped in a South African game reserve 🇿🇦 and they're being hunted by man-eating lions 🦁, or in the case of Beast, just one lion 🦁, a male lion 🦁 which doesn't make sense.

Male lions 🦁♂︎ don't really hunt, female lions 🦁♀︎ do all the hunting, unless the male lion 🦁♂︎ is separated from his pack, then it might hunt on its own. And if the male lion 🦁♂︎ is unable to hunt his natural prey, that's when he'll hunt humans, which is why those lions 🦁 in that movie, The Ghost and the Darkness were hunting humans in the first place, and that movie is based on a true story. It's based on a real case of man-eating lions 🦁.

But, the use of the title, Prey isn't limited to just movies. There's a video game called Prey, and there's a book 📖 called Prey which was written by Michael Crichton, the author of the original Jurassic Park novel 📖. So, maybe the filmmakers behind this movie shouldn't have just titled the movie, Prey, and perhaps they should've titled it something like Predator: Prey, or Prey: Predator or Predator and Prey, or Prey: A Predator Story; that last one's a joke if you couldn't tell 😂.

Or if you really wanted something more generic, but to the point, Predator: The Beginning, or maybe even Predator: 1719 since the movie takes place in 1719. You know, just to avoid confusion with all of those other movies, video games, and movies called Prey. But, that would've just ruined the surprise that this was indeed a Predator movie.

But, enough rambling about the title and the release, what did I actually think of the movie? I thought it was pretty good. Now, obviously, it's not as good as first Predator movie from 1987, and I don't like it as much as Predator 2, but it is still a solid entry. Before I actually watched it, I was genuinely surprised at how much praise it was getting. I fully expected it to get bad or mixed reviews like every other Predator film after the first one, including the two AVP films.

But, no, people are loving this movie, and calling it the "best Predator sequel" even though it's a prequel and not a sequel. After watching it, I don't entirely agree that it's the best Predator sequel, that honor goes to Predator 2, but I do think it's the best Predator movie since Predator 2. It easily beats out Predators in my mind, even though that movie's pretty good too.

Now, it wasn't the Predator prequel that fans have been asking for since it's not adaptation of the Dark Horse Predator comic that told the story of that flintlock pistol that Harrigan (Danny Glover) received from the Elder Predator in Predator 2, the one that said 1715. So, no pirates 🏴‍☠️, but Comanches. But, the pistol does appear in this movie at one point (spoiler alert 🚨), and since this movie takes place in 1719, the events of that Dark Horse Comic could've easily have still happened. Even though it does raise the question of how the Predators (or Yautja as they're called) actually get a hold of that pistol since it's still in position of humans by the end of this movie. I don't know if we'll ever get a film adaptation or film interpretation of that story, the story behind that 1715 pistol.

But even if we never get the 1718 story on film, after seeing this movie I would really love to see more Predator prequels like this in the future, but focused on different people and different cultures in different locations on Earth 🌎.  Since this movie was about Comanches, maybe they could have the next movie be about pirates 🏴‍☠️, but not the 1718 pirates 🏴‍☠️ that you're all probably thinking of. I was thinking of more Asian pirates 🏴‍☠️, from China 🇨🇳 or Okinawa or places like that.

Maybe, the movie could focus on a pirate lady ♀︎ similar to the real life female pirate ♀︎, Zheng Yi Sao, who was the commander of an entire pirate federation and probably the most successful female pirate ♀︎ in history. That would be something completely fresh and something we haven't seen before just like this movie was. If the people at Twentieth Century Studios (I still can't get used to calling it that) aren't thinking that, that's a truly missed opportunity.

But, this movie's particularly intriguing to me because the movie's about Native Americans, Comanches, and I'm a Native American. I'm not the same type of Native Americans as these ones in this movie since I'm a Pueblo Indian and these guys are Plains Indians; very distinct indigenous groups culturally and geographically. But, it's always nice to have some representation even if it's not the same kind of Indian as me. And the Comanches in this are not portrayed in the usual stereotypical way that most Native Americans are portrayed in Hollywood movies, they're portrayed in a very respectful and dignified way.

When the trailer came out a lot of people complained that the Comanche characters were speaking English and not their native language. The trailer gave the impression that the Comanche characters never spoke any Comanche and they just spoke English the whole time. But, after watching the movie, I can assure you that they do speak Comanche at some points during the movie, even during some pivotal moments. But, some people want this movie to pull an Apocalypto and have the Comanche characters speak Comanche through the whole thing.

That would've been cool, but I can kind of see why they didn't go with that approach. They wanted the movie to be more accessible to more people, and having the characters speak Comanche the whole time, and having subtitles wouldn't have done that; at least in the eyes of the studio. But, the fact that they included any Comanche at all, and the movie shows their culture in a respectful manner is pretty good.

I don't know for sure if any of the actors in the movie are Comanche or even Native Americans though. All of the actors in this movie are unknowns, as there are no big actors in this movie whatsoever, so maybe they are actual Native Americans. They certainly look Native to me, so that's good enough for me. Everyone does a good job in this, but the stand out is the lead actress, Amber Midthunder. Her performance was great in this movie, you rooted for her character the whole time and wanted her to succeed, not just in defeating the Predator, but also proving herself to her tribe as an excellent hunter.

I hope she's in more stuff after this, she potentially has a long career ahead of her if she decides to go on with this acting stuff. The guys ♂︎ playing the French trappers 🇫🇷 do a good job too. They do a great job at making you hate them, and you want to see them get decimated by the Predator which they do in one awesome action scene.

Speaking of the Predator, they changed its design significantly. It's not a Super Predator or anything in Predators or The Predator, it seems to be a regular Predator, but it looks significantly different than the regular Predators that we've seen in the 1987 Predator movie or Predator 2, the AVP films, and even Predators and The Predator. I don't really like the new design that much, and I wish they stuck more closely to the design in the previous movies.

They can still change some things, to make it distinct from the other Predators just like was done in Predator 2, but still mostly maintain the same general look. The thing bothers me about it is that the mandibles never close all the way, they stay open the whole time. The mandibles are like the Predator (or Yautja)'s lips, they protect its mouth, so it should be closed whenever it's not in use. But, this Predator's mandibles are always open. That's a nitpicky thing, but it still bugs me.

On top of that, the Predator is completely CG, and not a guy ♂︎ in suit in all the previous Predator movies including the AVP movies, which will certainly be disappointing for anyone who likes practical effects; which is probably most Predator fans. But, at least the weapons and gadgets this Predator has are pretty cool.

They do away with the plasma canon, opting instead to go with an arrow shooting weapon, like he shoots arrows out of one of his gauntlets. The also introduce some other new weapons like this grenade or bomb type weapon, these little flying balls with blades on them, this new blade weapon, and of course, a shield which is razor sharp and can cut through flesh.

This Predator is definitely lower tech than any of the Predators in the previous movies as he mainly uses melee weapons and no energy based weapons, but he is still much more high tech compared to any of the humans. Also, his biomask is pretty cool and unique from any of the biomasks from the previous movies.

All in all, this is a pretty good Predator movie. It's much more serious than the previous entries in the series, especially Shane Black's The Predator. It definitely leans more into the horror than it does the action, as it mostly relies on suspense and survival horror aspects rather than big explosive action scenes in the 1987 Predator movie or Predator 2.

The period setting as well as the focus on suspense and chilling thrills made this movie feel more like The Revenant than say, Commando, Rambo, or Lethal Weapon. Though I certainly like this movie way more than I liked The Revenant, which might be a controversial opinion since The Revenant was a highly acclaimed movie when it came out and won several awards, including the Oscar for Best Actor for the star, Leonardo DiCaprio.

Anyway, the movie managed to show people that there is still some life left in this series, and that it has a direction it can possibly go after so many presumed the franchise was dead after the release of The Predator, which many people found disappointing and underwhelming. I even said that the franchise was dead, even though I had not seen The Predator for myself but just was going off from what I heard from other people.

I even made a YouTube video where I talked about the apparent death of the Alien and Predator franchises, which I since regret making and have deleted from my channel 😅. But, this movie came out of no where and pretty much proved me and my terrible video wrong, so that's pretty awesome.

I've already said what I might want to see in a future Predator prequel, if they continue on in this prequel direction. If they were to do a sequel, maybe they can do one that delves more into the "cosmic" side of the Predator lore, show us more of the alien stuff 👽, show us the Predator home world, maybe show us more alien species besides the Yautja or the Xenomorph (since they are still in the same universe as far as I can  tell), or have it take place on another planet. 

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, Predators, and The Predator tried to delve more into this side of the Predator mythos, but they didn't really do that far with it, not as far as the Dark Horse comics went or even that video game, Predator: Concrete Jungle went. Speaking of Concrete Jungle, I wouldn't mind seeing a Predator movie with a futuristic cyberpunk setting, even if the more urban setting would be a bit too similar to Predator 2, which was the main inspiration for Concrete Jungle.

But, having an actual Predator be the protagonist would be an interesting way to shake things up. But, that's if they do sequels instead of prequels after this. If they do more prequels, then I want to see Asian pirates 🏴‍☠️ with a main female pirate 🏴‍☠️♀︎ inspired by Zheng Yi Sao.

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