My Thoughts on “Predator: Killer of Killers”

 

(This is the poster for Predator: Killer of Killers. I’m using the teaser poster again despite already using it in my post about the trailer because I don’t really like the new poster they put out shortly before the release and I couldn’t find a larger version of it besides 1080 x 1600 pixels. There is one on Alamy that’s 2025 x 3000 pixels, but that one costs money 💵 and it isn’t even available to purchase in my country. So, I’m just going to have settle with this poster, it looks better anyways. Hopefully no one gets confused when they try to search for this review on my blog later on down the line.) 

Alright, I’ve done Alien vs. Predator (2004), I’ve done Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, I’ve done Predator 2, and I’ve done Prey (2022). Now it is time for my final task before I lay off the Predator reviews for a while: reviewing Predator: Killer of Killers, the first animated Predator movie and the first Predator anthology movie. If you want links to those other reviews, click here, here, here, and here. Going into this, I knew there were things in the movie that I probably wasn’t going to like. I knew I wasn’t going to like the Viking story, and I was right; I knew I was going to like them going to another planet and fighting in some Predator colosseum, and them showing Naru at the end, and I was right; I knew I wasn’t going to like the art and animation style, and I was right; and I knew I was going to like the Predator designs in this or like how they changed the lore surrounding the Predator (which ties into the point about them going to another planet), and I was right. 

 

My expectations for this movie were pretty low, despite all of the good reviews it got from critics and the extremely high Rotten Tomatoes critic score 🍅, it has like a 95%. I don’t even think Prey (2022) has a critic score that high, not even the original Predator movie from 1987. And I say “critic score” so that people reading this will actually know what I’m talking about. Some people, a lot of people, when they talk about Rotten Tomatoes scores 🍅, usually they’re talking about critic scores, and not audience scores. But, they don’t make that distinction, they just say “Rotten Tomatoes score 🍅,” and that’s it, implying that there’s no difference between what critics think of a movie and what audiences think of a movie. And that is the case with this movie, most critics loved it, while fans are a bit mixed on it. 

 

Sure, the majority of Predator fans probably love it, simply because it’s animated, and it’s an anthology film with a couple of scenarios that a lot of Predator fans have been wanting to see for a long time like “Predators hunting samurai (and/or ninjas 🥷)” and “Predators in World War II.” Even if the execution of those scenarios in this particular isn’t quite what Predator fans had in mind. Like, when Predator fans said they wanted a Predator movie set in World War II, I’m pretty sure they weren’t picturing a Predator hunting World War II pilots in the air while inside a spaceship. I don’t think they pictured dogfights, I think they were probably thinking a Predator hunting American and Japanese soldiers (and marines) 🇺🇸🇯🇵 on an island in the Pacific Ocean, like in that one fan film from 2013 that didn’t even have a title. 

 

I mean, Peter Keyes did mention Iwo Jima in Predator 2, meaning Predators must’ve hunted people there, and probably on other islands in the Pacific, like Okinawa, Peleliu, Guadalcanal, and Saipan. I can’t believe Dan Trachtenberg didn’t think of that when he was crafting these scenarios, and coming up with that. Instead he stuck it in the European theater, like just every other movie that involves World War II does, and didn’t have the Predator hunt soldiers on the ground, but rather, hunt fighter pilots in the air 🤦‍♂️. I like World War II fighter planes too, I like dogfights, but come on 😑. Guess, my submarine idea from my post about the trailer wasn’t so dumb after all, if an established Hollywood director is willing put something like this in the movie.

 

This would’ve been a chance to take something mentioned in Predator 2 and make it a reality. Instead, he keeps shoving in the same Predator 2 reference that we’ve seen before and everyone knows about, the 1715 pistol. We get it, it’s a cool reference, you saw Predator 2 and were willing to acknowledge it, I like that movie too, now will you will stop shoehorning it into every movie already 😒? If you are going to keep referencing Predator 2, at least reference something else besides that damn pistol for the umpteenth time. I practically rolled my eyes 🙄 when Torres picked up that pistol and they did that close-up shot to reveal the date written on the side, just so that you would know that it was in fact the same pistol from Predator 2, if you actually saw Predator 2. Which I’m guessing a lot of people who saw this movie, and praised it probably didn’t, you wasted that one reference. You’re referencing it for nothing. You including that pistol yet again doesn’t answer how it got in the hands of the Lost Tribe Elder, and why, after everything that pistol has been through and what it was used, would he ever want it? Give us Predators in Lebanon 🇱🇧 (Beirut) or Predators in Cambodia 🇰🇭, instead of Predators in Scandinavia. It makes way more sense, like what the hell is a Predator doing hunting humans in Scandinavia during the winter ❄️? 

 

What happened to Predators only hunting when there’s heat 🥵 and conflict. It barely made sense in Alien vs. Predator (2004) when they had Predators going to Antarctica 🇦🇶 to hunt Xenomorphs in a pyramid beneath the ice 🧊, and their only explanation (or excuse rather) for that was that Antarctica 🇦🇶 used to be hot 🥵 and green, and it didn’t have any ice 🧊 or snow ❄️ on it. But, even then it didn’t work since we see a Predator during its ritualistic manhood hunt ♂︎ a hundred years prior in 1904, and by then, Antarctica 🇦🇶 definitely had ice 🧊 and definitely not green. What’s this movie’s excuse? Sure, they got the conflict part down, but they forgot about the heat 🥵. Heat 🥵 is a key component in what makes a Predator a Predator, or Yautja if you we want to use their actual species name. If you take that away, I’m sorry, but you’re kind of missing the point. Some fans like myself, who didn’t really care for this movie, and didn’t like what it did to the Predator lore and how it changes the Predators’ behavior. 

 

But, because I had low expectations, and I was already spoiled on a lot of stuff, and knew there were things wasn’t going to like it, I ended up not being as disappointed as I would’ve been if my expectations were super high and I was genuinely looking forward to it. I’m just doing this just to get it out of the way, so I can take a break from the Predator stuff for a while, at least until we get closer to the release of Predator: Badlands, in which case I’ll review Predators and The Predator. Though, I am kind of worried about Predator: Badlands a little bit after watching this movie and I’m starting to doubt that it’ll actually be good or if the franchise as a whole is even in capable hands with Dan Trachtenberg at the helm, especially if he tries to tie this movie into Badlands, which I wouldn’t be surprised if he did. I mean, why else would he make these movie back-to-back and release them the same year? I see right through you, Dan Trachtenberg, I see what you’re doing it, and I’m not liking it, not one bit 😡. 

 

I may review a couple of the games in the mean time, like Predator: Concrete Jungle, or Aliens vs. Predator (2010), or maybe even Aliens Versus Predator 2 from 2001 and 2003 (the game was released on Windows in 2001 and on Mac OS in 2003), even if I don’t have access to those games and can’t play them myself, but it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve reviewed a game that I didn’t actually play and only saw the longplay of. But, there are other things I want to review on this blog besides Alien or Predator movies and games. One of which is Stitch! The Movie, the movie that kicked off the Lilo & Stitch animated series from 2003 to 2006, which is the other thing I want to get this review out of the way for. Stitch! The Movie will be the next review after this. 

The fact that they only featured three stories is kind of a huge letdown. This is why I wish that this movie had taken a similar approach to other such animated anthology films that seek to expand the universe like The Animatrix, or Halo Legends, or Batman: Gotham Knight, and had at least five or six stories, and that they weren’t directed by the same guy ♂︎, but rather by multiple directors. They had a real missed opportunity here to do the Amengi storyline from the expanded universe, something that was only told to us in books 📖 and the back of the packaging on certain NECA figures. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, the Amengi are an alien species 👽 that so far only exists in the expanded universe. The expanded universe which may or may not still be canon (if it was ever canon). They actually started out as the original Predator design from the very first Predator movie (the one was going to be played by Jean-Claude Van Damme), but they were actually made into a separate species within the Predator universe called the Amengi. They were actually made into an integral part of the Predator lore and the origin of the Yautja as we know them today. 

 

According to the description on the back of the package of the NECA figure of the Alpha Predator, the Amengi were a highly advanced race of insectoid aliens that invaded the Yautja home planet called Yautja Prime, and enslaved their primitive ancestors, the Hish-qu-Ten, or just Hish for short, who were much smaller and weaker compared to their Yautja descendants. But, the Hish were able to fight back and staged a rebellion against their Amengi overlords, taking back control over their planet. All thanks to the DNA augmentations 🧬 made to the Hish that the Amengi made to them to make them stronger and more fierce warriors for their gladiatorial matches that the Amengi made them fight in for their own entertainment. So, in a lot of ways, the Amengi were the architects of their own demise by treating them so cruelly and modifying their DNA 🧬 to make them bigger and stronger than they were before, and letting their own military become so weak and complacent over the centuries. The Hish were able to defeat the Amengi in a matter of days. After defeating the Amengi, and taking back their world, the Hish, now called the Yautja, adopted the Amengi’s technology as their own, and basically turned the tables on them by hunting them and enslaving them. 

 

It’s sort of like in the Matrix lore how the Machines started out as slaves to the humans but then after exiling themselves from humanity, forming their own city-state, Zero-One (which none of the human states formally recognized), and improving themselves through rapid technological advancement, they defeated the humans in a devastating war, and then turned the tables on them and enslaved humanity, using them as batteries 🔋 while keeping their minds locked in a virtual reality prison. Although, the original idea was that the Machines used humans as processors for a biological computer, recognizing that human brain 🧠’s potential for computing power, and that’s why they created the Matrix, it was all for this neural network that they wanted to build. 

 

But, the Wachowskis thought that it would’ve been too complicated for most audiences to understand since most people back in 1999 still didn’t have a good grasp of computers 🖥️💻, and didn’t understand any of this computing terminology, and the actual reason why the Machines keep people imprisoned inside of pods and their minds preoccupied inside the Matrix wasn’t that important and was just a plot device. People didn’t understand Tron and its use of computer terminology and computer concepts, and that movie came out in 1982. Computer knowledge hadn’t really advanced amongst the general public by the time The Matrix came out in 1999. So, they changed it to batteries 🔋 and had the Machines use humans for energy, as a source of bioelectricity ⚡️, so that audiences would have a better chance of understanding it. I mean, audiences back in 1999 would already have a tough time wrapping their heads around the Matrix itself, they didn’t need to add brains 🧠 being used as microprocessors for a neural network as well. 

 

The Predator book 📖, Predator: Forever Midnight expanded upon this by saying that the Amengi are still being enslaved by the Yautja to this day, and basically build all of the technology that they use on their hunts. So, the Predators, according to this book 📖, didn’t actually build any of their technology, and instead had a slave species build all for them. But despite this, the Amengi are described as being very happy and content with their current status as slaves, so that they’re given plenty of technical puzzles to solve and a steady supply of the honey-like substance they consume. They are unquestionably loyal to the Yautja despite their past history of hostility and despite them being slaves. Meaning that the Yautja probably treat them pretty well (far better than the Amengi themselves treated the Hish), and they do not fear a rebellion for this reason. 

 

Probably because they know from their history how they liberated themselves from the Amengi’s oppression that they know better not to do anything that would trigger and fuel any resentment amongst the Amengi towards them, because the Amengi could easily rise up and overthrow them just like their ancestors did. This is really cool, I like this addition to the lore. It’s a great way to utilize and repurpose a rejected design. This makes me wish even more than this movie had been more of an Animatrix or Halo Legends style anthology where we got to see this origin story play out. That way not all the stories here wouldn’t be just be Predators hunting humans like we’ve seen a millions times now at this point. Of the stories we did get in here, I would say the middle one called The Sword is probably my favorite, and it’s probably a lot of other people’s favorite one as well. The trailer kind of tricked us by making it seem like it was going to be a Predator going up against a bunch of samurai, but really it’s about a Predator going up against a ninja 🥷. 

 

The story is about a couple of rival brothers, Kenji and Kiyoshi who go down radically different paths, with Kiyoshi becoming a samurai and the lord of the region, and Kenji becoming a ninja 🥷. The story really starts when Kenji attacks Kiyoshi’s castle upon their father’s death, and nearly almost kills Kiyoshi, only for the Predator of that story to show up, and start fighting Kenji and killing a bunch of Kiyoshi’s men ♂︎. So, Kenji is the protagonist, and ends up being the only survivor after the ordeal because despite it being revealed that Kiyoshi survived his fall since he landed in the river, he gets killed by the Predator, being stabbed by its wrist blades and succumbing to his wounds, but not before he and Kenji manage to kill the Predator first. There’s almost no dialogue in this entire short, except for the very beginning when we hear that quote, and at the end, when Kiyoshi repeats that same quote back at Kenji shortly before he dies. 

 

The short actually gave me some of Star Wars: The Old Republic vibes because of the rivalry between the two brothers and how there’s little dialogue. It reminds me of the rivalry between the two Valkorion twins, Arcann and Thexan in that cinematic trailer, though they weren’t actually rivals for most of that trailer and were actually pretty close, despite Arcann slipping further and further into the Dark Side. It’s only when Arcann tries to kill their father, Valkorion in a fit of rage 😡 and Thexan steps in to stop him, but Arcann ends up killing him, and Valkorion is impressed by Arcann and train him in the Dark Side of the Force. It has everything that animation fans like to see, and which critics see as prestigious. I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the good reviews this movie got were because of this one short. It certainly wasn’t for the other two, or that last 5 or 10 minutes on the Predator homeworld, Yautja Prime called The Battle 🙄. 

The Bullet is probably most people’s least favorite short of the three, but my least favorite is definitely the first one, The Shield 🛡️. I don’t like Vikings, I don’t care about Vikings, they don’t interest me at all, and when I learned that one of the stories in this movie was going to involve Vikings, a lot of my enthusiasm for the movie went away 😒. The only time I’ve ever carried about Vikings was in How to Train Your Dragon, and even then, it only went so far I only watched the first one and none of the sequels despite everyone saying how great the sequels are 🙄. Don’t get me started on that live action remake that came out just a month after the live action remake of Lilo & Stitch. Two Chris Sanders projects getting remade in live action, and both of them suck ass (and not in a good way) 👎. I am glad that the opening to Atlantis: The Lost Empire was changed to show us the fall of Atlantis, instead of showing us some stupid Vikings finding the Shepard’s Journal 📔, though it might’ve been worth it to see those Vikings get blown the fuck up by the Leviathan. 

 

I also hated the characters in that short, all of them, including the main character, Ursa, I thought she was pretty unlikable and not a protagonist worth rooting for. I would’ve honestly preferred if it focused on her son, Anders and he was the protagonist instead, because Ursa wasn’t cutting it. And what makes that short even dumber is the fact that the Predator in that story (who I guess is called Grendel since that’s all of the characters in that story refer to it as) has a weapon that creates shockwaves that shatter everything they touch, but some reason, it just deflects off of Ursa’s eponymous shield 🛡️ and bounces back at the Predator, killing him instantly. Her shield 🛡️ isn’t made of a special material like vibranium or adamantium, it’s just a regular wooden shield 🛡️ that Vikings used to use back then. It should easily shattered into a million pieces after being hit by that Predator’s shockwave weapon. 

 

She just acts aggressively, refuses to listen to reason, and tries to kill the other main characters of this movie, Kenji and Torres several times in the final short of the movie, when they’re in that arena. And I get it, she’s a Viking, that’s how a Viking would react in that situation and she’s traumatized by the death of her son, but still, I wanted her to die so bad. But no, she just gets put on ice 🧊 (yet again 🙄), and that’s when we get that stupid final shot of Naru also in cryo stasis, possibly teasing a direct sequel to this movie where she’s woken up and leads the humans captured by the Predators in a rebellion against them, or perhaps an appearance in Predator: Badlands. 

 

If it were up to me, I would swap out the Viking story with a story set closer to present day, like one during the Iraq War 🇮🇶. I would really like a Predator movie set during the Iraq War 🇮🇶, or during the War on Terror in general, but if we’re going to keep doing these anthology films, then I’d like one of them to be about a Predator hunting soldiers (and marines) in Iraq 🇮🇶, maybe even some insurgents and terrorists as well. If we can’t have the Amengi storyline, then give me a story set during the Iraq War 🇮🇶 of 2003-2011. I mean, the character Kelly O’Brien from Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem was an Iraq War veteran 🇮🇶, so why not? I would also do away with the whole section where they’re on Yautja Prime, and not have any of the stories be connected with each other, but rather be disconnected stories that simply take place within the Predator universe and expand the Predator universe in different ways.

Even if The Bullet isn’t anywhere near as good as The Sword, and it isn’t what I wanted to see from a Predator story set during World War II, I was still with the movie, I actually kind of enjoying it. The moment they got to the other planet, which I’m pretty sure is Yautja Prime, is when the movie really started to lose me. What is it with these newer Predator movies and their insistence on taking place on another planet. Given how much I’ve talking about wanting them to do a story about the Amengi, you might be wondering why I’m so against a Predator story taking place on another planet, including the Predator homeworld, and why I’ve been complaining about it so much throughout this review, well, it’s not so it taking place on another planet that bothers me, what bothers me is that the Predators are abducting humans and bringing them to this planet and others. 

 

It started in Predators, with the introduction of that game preserve planet where Predators drop people they’ve abducted from Earth 🌎, as well as other lifeforms they’ve abducted from across the galaxy to hunt them, instead of hunting them on their own respective planets, and now it’s continuing here, in Predator: Killer of Killers. In fact, this movie is very similar to Robert Rodriguez’s original concept for Predators (back when it was still Predator 3), how Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character, Dutch Schaefer was abducted by the Predators and taken to their home planet to fight in gladiatorial matches against the toughest and meanest creatures from around the galaxy, because that’s pretty much what happens here. Ursa, Kenji, and Torres get kidnapped by the Predators, and brought to their home planet to fight in gladiatorial matches with the goal of facing this one Elder Predator I guess, who’s hosting the whole thing. 

 

It makes no sense, and it doesn’t fit with what we know about the Predators and their behavior. Like, if Predators really did kidnap people who successfully killed one of their own, why didn’t take Dutch or Harrigan from Predator 2? Unless Dan Trachtenberg plans on revealing at some point that Dutch and Harrigan are on the planet too and are on ice 🧊 like Naru and Ursa, which would be really stupid and I’m really hoping Trachtenberg doesn’t do that. Again, I said in the foreword to my Prey (2022) review, but it really just feels Trachtenberg is just adding things and making changes to the Predator lore just for the sake of adding things and making changes, regardless of whether or not it makes sense or lines up with the other films. When it comes to the expanded universe, he acknowledges it, he acknowledged Raphael Adolini by including him in Prey (2022), but again, he’s picking and choosing. 

 

He’s taking things from the expanded universe that he likes, while ignoring other things that he doesn’t like (I’m assuming), but you can’t just pick and choose and take one thing from the expanded universe that you like and then leave everything else out. You have to acknowledge it all. The whole debacle surrounding the Star Wars expanded universe, and Disney’s handling of it, should’ve told you that. He’s also trying to make the Predator franchise more his own, and it seems like he’s acting as if he owns it or was the original creator of it when he wasn’t and he doesn’t, just like what Ridley Scott is doing to the Alien franchise. That’s why he included Naru in this movie, because she’s his character, she was from his movie. He’s trying to bring all of the characters from his Predator movies together into one larger movie, one larger narrative, based on what this movie seems to be setting up. 

 

After Predator: Badlands, I really do hope Trachtenberg hands off the reigns to someone else, because I am starting to grow tired of his vision and his characters in the Predator universe, and I feel this franchise could another fresh voice because I hate to break it you, but Trachtenberg is no longer fresh. I would hold this opinion, even if Badlands ends up being a good movie and I actually end up liking it. But, even if I didn’t care for the movie going to Predator homeworld or any of the gladiatorial stuff, or even just the ending to this movie in general, I do like that we actually get to see a Predator speak, speaking their own language. The only other time in the franchise that we’ve heard Predators speak and speak in their native language was in Aliens vs. Predator (2010), how that unnamed Predator operative was giving orders to Dark throughout the game, and in turn, telling the player what to do, and he does it while speaking the Predator language. 

 

I’m guessing that this is just a little taste of what’s to come in Badlands since the Predators will be on screen for much longer and will talk to each other in their own language. They’re showing off in this movie that they got an actual linguist to create the Predator language and make it an actual language that could be spoken by voice actors. Also, what is up with the Predators always losing in every hunt? Wouldn’t it kill for the writers and filmmakers on these movies to have at least one story where a Predator actually succeeds in their hunt and doesn’t die by the end? This is another way that this movie would’ve benefited from having more than just three stories, they could’ve shown at least one or two stories where the Predators actually win, and instead of only having ones where they lose. It really takes away from the threat level and badass-ness of the Predators, if we never actually see them succeed in a hunt and we always see them lose. It makes it seem like they’re weak and ain’t shit, which you do not want to do in a Predator movie. The Predator should be coolest one on the screen, not the humans. And the way the Predators in this movie get taken out, just makes them look foolish, especially Grendel, who gets taken out by his own shockwave weapon after it deflects off of Ursa’s shield 🛡️. This movie made the Predators look like idiots. Even when the other Predators in the other movies got outsmarted and taken out, they didn’t come out looking like idiots, while here, they do. We already have all kinds of action movies with humans fighting and shooting each other, we don’t always need to see the humans succeed in every movie. 

Speaking of which, why is the movie called Predator: Killer of Killers? I know it’s a Predator movie, and they literally say “Killer of Killers” a couple of times in this movie, but it’s still a prequel set before any of the other Predator movies and focusing on characters from the distant past. What was even the point in calling the previous movie, Prey when you’re just going to title the next movie, Predator: Killer of Killers and it too takes place in the past and focuses on some different type of warrior from the past fighting a Predator? Why not just title it, Predator: Great Plains, or call this movie, Prey 2 or Prey: Killer of Killers since it too is a prequel and is arguably a direct follow up to Prey (2022) and focuses on a similar idea? It even has the same character from Prey (2022), Naru, she makes a brief appearance in the film’s ending, in what is quite possibly the dumbest and most pointless cameo ever. 

 

You thought all of those proposed scrapped cameos they wanted to do in The Predator were stupid, well this just takes the cake 🍰. It’s even similar to how they were going to do it in The Predator, where the character is in a cryo stasis chamber (you know the kind that are sort of coffin shaped for reason) unconscious, it’s so stupid. People mocked The Predator for wanting to bring Ripley or Newt back for a dumb cameo, and yet are okay with it when it’s Naru? That doesn’t make sense, please make it make sense. Because now, Prey (2022) is the odd one out. All of the Predator movies have the word Predator in them except that one. I hate that, I same some degree of uniformity in the titles of sequels and prequels because it makes my job a lot easier. Not that I’m getting paid to do this, this is just a hobby for me right now.

I obviously didn’t like any of the Predator designs in this. I think I made that pretty clear already. Okay, I do sort of like the design of the Predator featured in the second story, The Sword. It has a much more slimmed down figure, looks more like a traditional Predator than the other two, at least on the body, and has weapons that more closely resemble ones used by the other Predators from the other movies, except a tad more ninja-like 🥷. This particular Predator, who I guess I will call the Shinobi Predator, is like more like a ninja version of a Predator 🥷, which is fitting considering he goes up against a ninja 🥷 for most of the short. All of the Predators in this movie are Predators versions of the warriors that they face. But, the Shinobi Predator is the one that I liked the most. It’s the face, it’s the face that bothers me. Once again, they can’t get the face right, and the mandibles are too far apart, and ignoring the original biological function of the mandibles, simply so that the Predators can open their mouths wider when they roar. 

 

The Shinobi Predator doesn’t even have top mandibles, just bottom ones, and the biomask he wears only covers the top part of his face, which all of the Predator biomasks do. The Fighter Pilot Predator (or Sky Predator I guess you could call him) doesn’t even wear a biomask, or at least, not a full one. It’s literally just a nose piece that only covers middle part of the face, and the top part of the mouth. I’m guessing the explanation for that, and while the other two Predators in the movie look so different from the regular Predators in the other movies is that they’re sub species from different regions, sort of like the Feral Predator in Prey (2022). But then it’s like we can’t just have regular Predators anymore, we have these different species and sub species that are bigger and stronger than the regular Predators that we got used to see in the franchise up to this point. 

 

I blame Predators for introducing this sort of thing, and setting a precedent for it because every Predator movie since has had a different Predator in it than the regular ol’ classic one that we all know and love. It’s just like with the Alien franchise, we can’t just have regular Xenomorphs anymore, that’s not good enough, we have to have all these hybrids, offshoots, precursors. Like Alien: Covenant focused more on the Neomorphs than on the one regular Xenomorph, and they had way more screen time than the regular Xenomorph did. And of course, Alien: Romulus had to shoehorn that alien/human hybrid creature that looked straight out of Prometheus. The mindset behind introducing these new forms, these new species, sub species, hybrids, offshoots, and precursors is to up the ante and keep things fresh. How do keep the threat level or intrigue of a creature from a long running franchise? You create an offshoot of it, something that is sort of like it, but different enough to not just be the same exact creature. 

 

But, there comes a point where you do this sort of thing so much that effect becomes lessened each time, and it makes it stale and stops being fresh, and you just start to miss the old creature, and I feel like we’ve entered that point with Alien and Predator. Just give us the classic creature, looking exactly how they used to look, stop introducing these hybrids, new species, sub species, offshoots, and precursors, and stop taking the focus away from the classic creatures and pushing more towards these new creatures. It’s not fresh or exciting, it’s boring and played out, and it cheapens the effect each time you do it. You cheapen the very creatures on which these two franchises were built on. 

 

But still, even if they are different sub species, that shouldn’t change the look of their mandibles or what they’re used for. The biological function would stay the same, just like how every human species, and every primate species for that matter, had lips 👄. The mandibles are like lips 👄, they cover the mouth, keep it moist and protect it from any outside abrasions. It’s not like they’re limited by animatronics or anything, this is animation, they could easily do the mandibles how they did them in the first two movies, where they completely cover the mouth when they’re closed. 

 

Speaking of the animation, I’m not a fan of the animation or art style in this. I don’t like this blend of 2D and 3D animation that we’ve been seeing a lot these days (in pretty much every animated movie that isn’t done by Disney, Pixar, or even Illumination), it’s overdone and it doesn’t even look good, especially because how choppy the animation often looks. But, it didn’t bother me here in this movie as I thought it would, but I would’ve still preferred the movie had more traditional 2D animation rather than this weird blend of 2D and 3D, where they try to make the 3D animation look 2D, even down to the movements, even though all that does is make the animation look choppy and like it has no in-betweens. Like, just do one or the other and give us the real deal, stop this hybrid or mimicry stuff because it’s getting old now. Make it look crisp and clean, and make the move buttery smooth. That goes for whether it’s 2D animation or 3D animation. 

 

I thought people hate choppiness in animation, and yet so many people are accepting and liking it here and in other stuff like Blue Eye Samurai, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem 🥷🐢, KPop Demon Hunters, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, and the Spider-Verse films. Arcane is really what started this trend of blending 2D and 3D animation together like this in this way, and so many other animated movies (both in the West and in the East) have copied that look including this one, and I don’t know why. I don’t know why so many people like it, or just accept it as just the fact of life in animation. 

 

I don’t like it, I think it looks awful, and I want to see less of it. I refuse to KPop Demon Hunters because it has type of this animation and art style, and also because it looks overhyped as hell. Though that one long continuous shot where Ursa is killing all of those guys ♂︎ in that village, before getting to Zoran was pretty cool, not gonna lie, especially when she slices one guy ♂︎’s head off, but it does make you wish that it was done in 2D, or if the animation was a bit more fluid. The idea of Predators having cybernetics is pretty cool and has potential, but here it was mostly poorly executed, especially with Grendel, who’s cybernetic arm is only really used to kill him off in a really stupid way 😒. 

 

I can’t in good conscience recommend this movie to anyone, especially hardcore Predator fans. I feel like it would only piss them off because of how it mishandles the Predator mythos, and how changes things or adds new things in ways that don’t make sense, that are contradictory, and are ultimately unnecessary. And the characters, with the exception of Kenji, are unlikeable and don’t hold a candle to any of the characters in the previous Predator movies, especially Predator and Predator 2, but also even Alien vs. Predator (2004) and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem. Hey, I know those aren’t considered top tier movies in either franchise, but Alexa Woods is still a great character, should be held in the same regards as other protagonists in this franchise like Dutch, Harrigan, Naru, and even Royce from Predators. 

 

I know a lot of people didn’t like the casting of Adrien Brody in that role, and a lot of people thought he was miscast and wasn’t right for the part, and didn’t buy him as a badass, but I thought he did pretty good job in the role and is a pretty believable badass. And I didn’t actually hate any of the characters in Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (human characters that is), I thought they were fine, and I even genuinely liked a few of them like Eddie Morales, Dallas Howard, and Kelly O’Brien, who I mentioned before. I even liked Dallas’s brother, Ricky Howard. All I can see is I hope Predator: Badlands is better because this isn’t cutting it. It’s not a good follow up to Prey (2022), it doesn’t live up to the potential of what an animated Predator movie or what a Predator anthology film could be, the fact that it’s the first doesn’t sit right with me, it doesn’t execute the few good ideas it has very well, and it doesn’t work as a fun little side project because there’s nothing fun or side about it. Dan Trachtenberg is trying to tie it into the main films and craft his own little Predator cinematic universe with his own little set of characters, pretty much making the mistake Shane Black made 🤦‍♂️.