Predator (film)

Predator is a 1987 science fiction movie that was directed by John McTiernan and released on Friday, June 12, 1987. It featured actors Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Bill Duke, Sonny Landham, Elpidia Carrillo, Richard Chaves, Shane Black, Jesse Ventura, Kevin Peter Hall, Sven-Ole Thorsen and R.G. Armstrong. The jungle scenes for this movie were located in southern Mexico, near Palenque. The movie was filmed in Puerto Vallarta.

The movie effectively blends the '80s hard action-movie genre with a healthy dose of sci-fi horror. Energetic and masculine, the movie was successful enough (earning $60 million in the United States alone) to generate a sequel, Predator 2, in 1990.

Taglines:

Soon the hunt will begin.
Nothing like it has ever been on Earth before. It came from another planet for the thrill of the hunt. It picked the wrong man.
In a part of the world where there are no rules, deep in the jungle where nothing that lives is safe, an elite rescue squad is being led by the ultimate warrior. But now, they're up against the ultimate enemy. Nothing like it has ever been on earth before. It kills for pleasure, it hunts for sport. But this time, it picked the wrong man to hunt.
We cannot see it, but it sees the heat of our bodies and the heat of our fear.

Plot

The story begins in outer space. A dark, featureless spacecraft hurtles toward Earth. As it makes a close pass on the night side of our planet, it ejects an object that enters the atmosphere and leaves a fiery contrail.

Scene change — somewhere on the coast of Central America. The mission begins when six U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers led by Major Alan "Dutch" Schaefer (Schwarzenegger) are ordered by General Phillips (Armstrong) to rescue a Guatemalan cabinet minister who has been captured by guerrilla forces after his helicopter crashed in the jungle across the border.

Along with CIA man Dillon (Weathers), the team is dropped behind the border and begins looking for traces of the minister and his escort. They find the crashed chopper, which appeared to be a "reconnaissance bird", rather than a transport, as well as traces of a dozen rebels being followed by several men with American equipment. It is noted that the pilot must have been hit with something akin to thermal vision, given the accuracy of the shot.

Shortly thereafter, they discover three dead U.S. soldiers hanging from trees, all of them skinned. Dutch recognizes the dog tags of one skinned man, and questions why they were out in the middle of the jungle — Dillon claims to know nothing. The search and rescue mission continues, and they soon discover the guerrilla post and the hostages being held there. The team attacks and destroys the guerilla base but the prisoners are already dead and turn out to be CIA men. Dutch confronts Dillon and discovers Dillon made up the cabinet minister story, and also admits that the skinned soldiers that had gone missing were ordered there as well.

With all guerrillas killed and a female prisoner, Anna (Carrillo), in their custody, they proceed to their rendezvous point for evacuation. As they move through the jungle they are stalked by something that they are unable to see.

The group stops when Billy (Landham), the team's tracker, notices something in the trees that makes him nervous. Anna attempts to escape, with Hawkins in pursuit. He reaches her, but the creature attacks and kills Hawkins (Black) and Blain (Ventura) before vanishing into the jungle using active camouflage. However when Mac (Duke) spots Blain falling to the ground and rushes to him, and sees what appears to be a large, transparent man with flashing yellow eyes. Mac opens fire, running out of ammunition quickly and grabs Blains mini-gun, unloading a full box of ammo as his teammates arrive and also start shooting. As they attempt to kill it by saturating the jungle with bullets they succeed only in slightly wounding the Predator. (A scene a few minutes later shows the creature treating its wounds, revealing fluorescent green blood.)

They mount a defensive position with claymore mines, flares and trip wires. The Predator attacks again in the night and destroys the defensive position. The creature steals the body of Blain without alerting anyone or setting off any of the traps. Early in the afternoon of the next day, the soldiers once again mount a defensive position, this time by preparing a net in an attempt to capture the "killer". The creature falls into the trap but breaks free. Another cannon shot cuts the branch serving as the anchor for the trap and it hits one of the team, Poncho Ramirez, in the chest, injuring him badly.

The predator escapes once more and later goes on a killing rampage that finishes all of Dutch's men with the exception of himself and the female prisoner. Surmising that the Predator won't kill a victim unless they are armed, Dutch kicks a gun out of the woman's hands and tells her to get to the evac helicopter.

Dutch escapes the creature and falls off a cliff into a huge river. Thinking he escaped, Dutch desperately scrambles through the mud-covered ground upon hearing the Predator land seconds behind him. Knowing he can't escape in his condition he resigns himself to a fatal end by huddling against a mass of thick branches and logs. Dutch sees that the stalker is a humanoid alien being utilizing advanced weaponry. Particularly impressive is the device that allows it to "bend" light. As the creature gets closer it pauses and is distracted by a small animal in the underbrush. The creature is unable to detect Dutch because of the mud he is covered with, which shields him from the creature's infrared vision.

Dutch waits until the creature is out of his sight and, lacking any more firearms, begins preparing primitive weapons; spears, arrows and a powerful bow, with which to battle his enemy. Dutch also uses his last grenade launcher rounds to construct a small makeshift bomb. The scenes of his preparation are intercut with scenes of the creature's true intent; it collects the skulls of its victims as trophies.

After nightfall, Dutch sends a war cry that is heard by the creature, an intentional tactic to attract it. During the battle, Dutch is able to damage the alien's camouflage device, making it easier to track. The creature also removes its helmet, revealing a deep-set eyes and a frightenning mandibled jaw with four large fangs. The showdown ends with both enemies being wounded, but the Predator more so; Dutch tripped one of his booby traps on it, dropping a tree log on it. Dutch then approaches the Predator pinned under a stump and as he is about to kill his helples opponent he stops and stares at it asking, "What the Hell are you?" Mortally crippled, the alien activates a nuclear self-destruct device that leaves a large area of jungle burned, although Dutch saves himself in traditional action-movie fashion by jumping out of the way of the atomic blast. The rescue team arrives and airlifts Dutch and the woman out of the jungle.

Themes

Despite its action-based plot, Predator does have a few notable themes. The concept of humanity warring with nature is prevalent, even beyond the jungle setting and the tactics used by Dutch's team in trying to fight the monster, such as the huge net they rig to capture it. Unfortunately for the team, the jungle surroundings prove to be more useful for the creature, its camouflage and agility being the perfect tools.

There are also slight references to the Vietnam War and the methods used by guerrilla forces during that conflict. The mutilated and flayed soldiers found early in the film reflect the terror tactics of the Viet Cong and their attempts to demoralize American soldiers. Additionally, the Predator itself lends to this theme due to its ability to attack, kill, and escape nearly undetected, often with the bodies of its victims to be kept as trophies. Furthermore, both Blaine and Mac are Vietnam veterans (they reminisce about how the Central American jungle reminds them of similar conditions in Cambodia).

Plot Parallels

Some claim to see "clear parallels" between the plot of "Predator" and the plot of the ancient Anglo Saxon poem "Beowulf".

In both stories a group of elite foreign warriors arrive in an area suffering the depradations of a mysterious, almost-invisible monster that has defeated other warriors on their own ground — in "Beowulf" a great hall; in "Predator" the crashed (or downed?) helicopter.

The newly arrived warriors sleep in or near this place, and the monster comes in the night to attack them. They fight, but the warriors' weapons and tactics are ineffective against the monster, who is protected by near-invisibility, and magic that deflects weaponry. Picking off the warriors one by one, the monster takes, or returns and steals, the corpses of its victims, to keep as trophies.

At one crucial point the monster flees the warriors after being wounded in the arm. A sign that the monster has been wounded, an indication of its mortality, is seen in the finding of its blood, a substance of unnatural colour. (In "Beowulf", two related monsters are dealt with in succession, but in "Predator" they are conflated into one.)

In both stories, the hero discards some of the potent weapons with which he has been equipped (a firearm in "Predator"; the legendary sword Hrunting in "Beowulf") when he realises they are useless against the monster, and in the end he is protected by his own special armour (simple mud, in the "Predator" version).

Ultimately, he uses ingenuity and cunning to protect himself and outwit the monster. He turns its own weapons against it and fells it by his own singular might, removing its head (or, in "Predator", prising off its helmet) in final victory.

Both stories contain the element of gradually coming to know the nature of the mysterious monster(s), and learning how to counter it.

This is made more apparent by Jim and John Thomas' admission that their parents read Beowulf as a bed time story when they were kids.

Details

The original alien was going to be a more insect-like creature, and was going to be played by Jean Claude Van Damme, but it was decided that it wasn't scary enough and was re-designed. Van Damme quit after two days, unhappy with being cast as an uncredited special effect; though it has also been said that he could not bear the uncomfortable heat inside the costume during filming.

The revamped "Predator", played by the late Kevin Peter Hall, is equipped with an impressive line of weapons, including a shoulder-mounted plasma cannon (plasmacaster), metal armor, wrist computer system, medical-survival kit, wrist-mounted double-edged blade, cutting tools, and a cloaking device that bends light rays, rendering the creature almost invisible. It also has access to a personal atomic weapon accessed by the wrist computer system which serves as a 'self-destruct system'.

One of the most effective aspects of this movie was the merging of the villain's design and the driving force of the suspense in the script. In all Horror and SciFi-Horror movies, one of the leading methods of generating suspense is to slowly reveal the villain throughout the movie. This is usually done using fleeting glances and extreme closeups.

However, in Predator, the inclusion of the mask, heat-based vision, stealthy behaviour and the cloaking field allowed the creature to be slowly revealed without using these gimmicks. This "hiding in plain sight" method increased the suspense of the film, as well as creating neat easter eggs for interested fans. For example, a diligent fan will notice the predator's distinctive chatter in the scene where the skinned corpses of several GI's are found.

An interesting fact about Predator is that three of the movie's stars went on to become gubernatorial candidates, two of whom, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura, won election.

Trivia

There is also a series of novels, comics, computer games, and a movie that connects Predator with the Alien series, called Alien vs. Predator. An arcade game in the series features a fighter based on Schwarzenegger's character.

The line "Run! Go! GET TO THE CHOPPER!" (also spelled as "GET TO DA CHOPPAH!") has become popular on the Internet, and has been used a lot recently by SportsCenter anchor Scott Van Pelt and Neil Everett in hockey highlights. The line, "If it bleeds, we can kill it," is also used by Van Pelt when the Nashville Predators lose. Another famous line from the film, "I ain't got time to bleed." spoken by Ventura's character, Blaine, subsequently became the title of Ventura's 2000 autobiography.

The helicopter pilot at the end is the man who plays the predator, late actor and mime artist Kevin Peter Hall.

Kevin Peter Hall passed away April of 1991. He died of the AIDS virus which he contracted through a blood transfusion after a major car accident in Los Angeles.

Predator was the director John McTiernan's first studio movie. The studio wanted writer Shane Black to watch over McTiernan because it was his first studio film, so Black was hired for the part of Hawkins in the film.

Both director John McTiernan and Arnold Schwarzenegger lost 25 pounds because of this movie. Schwarzenegger lost the weight before the movie shot because his role called for it, but McTiernan lost the weight because he did not eat the food in Mexico, fearing it would make him sick.

The mandibles of the Predator were the idea of James Cameron.

The General Electric Minigun used by Blain in the film has become a running gag in the books of Robert Rankin; after the words: "Fires up to 6000 rounds per minute. 7.62 x 51 mm shells. 1.36 kg recoil adapters. Six muzzle velocity of 869 m/s." were uttered by Elvis in They Came And Ate Us. (In reality, the blowback from such a gun is so powerful that no one would be able to stay upright and shoot it -- it has to be vehicle mounted)

Some speculate the Elite from the game Halo took their design from the Predator in that they both have plasma weapons armor cloaking, a warrior tradition, four mandibles and melee weapons. In addition, they both have a war cry and both are stronger faster and tougher than most humans, and both are bipedible

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