Super Predators

[Noyoko]

So...I understand there are some fans of the berserker predator, and believe me I'm not trying to start a flame war, just a discussion. But I really feel the "super predators" was a bad move on the part of fox (loved every other aspect of the movie) and I really don't want to see it continue into other films. I feel it's our duty as fans to somehow make sure this doesn't happen again. I mean isn't it a little juvenile to try and draw in an audience by attaching the word "super" to stuff and saying "well it's exactly the same....but bigger and stronger so we can pretend it's something new".
I hated the way the berserker looked unmasked, kinda reminded me of when I read about the Hish. It was like someone had taken my childhood hero and twisted it into some grotesque creature nothing like the original.

 

[ShadowHuntress]

Personally, I sort of agree with you on the topic of the "Super" Predator. I didn't like the fact that they did a whole "bigger better Pred" verse the "Trad Pred". I can understand if they were from different clans, which would attribute to different colorations and yes, even different facial features. Think of the different races of humans. Our features, color, ect. are all based on where we orginated. So, in theory, this would also work for the Preds if they were spread out along their planet like we are/were, correct? Topography, diet, everything is a factor in the evolution of possible races/clans of Preds.

My thing about the Super Preds is the way they acted and the fact that they were SO much bigger than the Trad Pred. They sort of seemed boardline Bad Blood, and some of what they were doing seemed a bit uncharacteristic of a Predator( however the fight between the Falcon and he japanese dude was by far my favorite scene, as it shows the Honor that preds are so famed for having). The movie in itself was great, the whole going off-world was something the fans had wanted for a long time and the Predators movie gave that (not to mention all the awesome tidbits from previous movies). I'm just not sure what they were trying to accomplish with the "Super" Preds. If they were tryng to pull in a new crowd, then they did an awesome job of it by recyling scenes from the other movies.

I do remember from the film that Nolan(Fishburne), said that the "big ones hunt the small ones", that the Super Preds hunt the Trad Preds and that it was because of some Clan fued or war.

Anyways, thoughts on this?

 

[alphademonic]

there was nothing super about them at all just take the falconer predator he got hit with a sword twice collapsed and died and the berserker was also easily killed.in predator 2 the p2  was shot many times, had his arm cut off,fell off a building and still survived.so i think if your going to call them bigger better super predators at least make them harder to kill

 

[ShadowHuntress]

there was nothing super about them at all just take the falconer predator he got hit with a sword twice collapsed and died and the berserker was also easily killed.in predator 2 the p2  was shot many times, had his arm cut off,fell off a building and still survived.so i think if your going to call them bigger better super predators at least make them harder to kill

Good point there. I totally forgot about The P2 Pred.

 

[wonko]

Well, in my opinion, all the "Predator" movies made after the first 2 were crap (poor wolf got a raw deal).  Hardly worth the time watching.  I have accepted that there will never be another Predator movie worth watching.  As far as "super Predators"... ha, that's a laugh!

Brian

 

[JehdinThwei]

Well, Rodriguez (and Antal) were attempting to do something that maintained the feel of the original, but put a twist on it in order for it to be unique. In that, they succeeded. I am not a fan of the "Super" title either. But seeing that the originator of the 1987 creature wanted to make the Predator a tribal type of character, let's look at one of the most recent tribal nations where the diversity in tribes also entailed a diversiy in characteristics; the United States.
It was just 400 years ago that this country was filled from east to west with a variety of tribes, and they did indeed have diversity in appearance. Navajos were shorter, thicker, and darker, while Algonquin tribes were tall and fair. One could tell from physical appearance alone if a Native was Seminole or Chickasaw.
So there should be no issue with size difference (i.e. dogs and wolves), but nobody ever called the Iroquois tribe "Super Natives"....nor did they call the Lakota "Traditional Natives", so I also agree that this was a misguided attempt in the marketing process.
I loved the film. I go back and forth weekly between whether Predators or Predator is my favorite; but in my thankfulness that there are 5 films (Fricken FIVE PREDATOR FILMS ) to choose from, I am even more thankful that Tracker and Falconer never removed their bio helmets. Mr. Black looked bad to the bone while masked, but like a freak of nature when unmasked. Not so much like from a different tribe, as he did a Pred that had some sort of hormone deficiency or Elaphantiasis disease.
I'm not sure why, but ever since P1, all of the masks (faces) have gone down hill. I loved the colors on P2, but the animatronic head was not as smooth and the fake eyes looked like hell (which they used in AVP-R as well, so we could actually see Wolf's eyes in the dark setting of that film. P1's head and face was a masterpiece. Berserker's was an atrocity. Don't even get me started on Scar's mandibles. Uggh!! And I liked Scar's character!
As far as "Super" relating to being tough to kill, yeah, P2 and Wolf would have to be at the top, both tougher than a two dollar steak. Followed by (and not all will agree) Scar (who was gigged 3 times by Xeno tails) and then the rest of them in no real order, all falling fairly quickly once maimed/injured.

A bad blood tribe? Ok. A larger tribe? I buy that, too. But "Super Predators"? Hell no!!!

Sorry for the fan boy post, but....well...I am a fan. And a boy.

 

[jinzin]

Lol! ^ I don't think you CAN be a Pred fan *having* this discussion and NOT have a fanboy rant to be honest. 

Speaking of which... (lol)

I know a lot of Predator fans hated the Super Preds but I really wasn't one of them. They were pretty much just like any other Pred using typical Pred tech. I know they're described as being bigger and better but that's not really what we saw. 

What we DID see was the damned clan LEADER, Mr. Black, get knocked straight to his ass by a single backhand from the Jungle Hunter. Did Black win the fight? Sure. Did he dominate the fight? Kinda. Did he do it in an impressive fashion? Considering the Jungle Hunter he was fighting was midget sized for a predator, half starved, tortured, and just survived getting blown up BEFORE the so called "Super" Preds even showed up (If you put any stock into the comics)..... NO.   No he did not. 

Now that might seem like a nothing-gripe, but when you're dealing with fanboys in a versus setting, this stuff matters. 
I'm honest enough to admit to myself, and to others when I'm having fits of unfair bias just for the sake of my bias, but I can pretty confidently say that the original Anytime Pred, and The Wolf would hand Berserker his ass to him. I doubt Black could even handle his own with Scar, and I don't even like Scar! 

Bottom line is that we saw a "Super Predator" rip a poor imitation of what the original Jungle Hunter did in a far less threatening or impressive fashion with an entire team and an army of hounds against an opposition who had no previous teamwork, that actually worked against each other, which was also confused in enemy territory. We saw him get decimated by Adrian Brody which...  I mean c'mon! Even P2 could change his vision settings. And, then we saw him knock around a stocky, beat up Jungle Hunter before lopping off his head, and THAT was were they dropped the ball. It's hard to accept what we see when we already have so many comparisons against Black's favor from previous Pred films, the execution at the end just seemed like a big middle finger to the fans of the original films and the "trad" Preds, and that's how a LOT of people took it. 

It would have been far more entertaining to have Jungle Hunter and Brody team up for the win. It would have gotten the point that Black was a bad dude across without being so upsetting to think about. But... Such is life. 

IMO if they wanted to do something different then they should have done something DIFFERENT. Like have the twisty reveal be that the Preds hunting the humans weren't Preds at all, but another species altogether (maybe a suped up version of the original alien suit design they had JVD wearin') that specifically hunted Predators and their prey. ORRR, if they were going to keep it that similar then just make them Bad Bloods and leave it at that. Meh, in any case, I think major improvements could have been made with the film but that said it was the best Predator movie IMO since the first one. I didn't walk out of the theater angry, and I made my GF buy me the Blu Ray combo when it came out. At the end of the day, I didn't see anything *Super* about the Super Preds to be sure. 

 

[Noyoko]

Personally, I sort of agree with you on the topic of the "Super" Predator. I didn't like the fact that they did a whole "bigger better Pred" verse the "Trad Pred". I can understand if they were from different clans, which would attribute to different colorations and yes, even different facial features. Think of the different races of humans. Our features, color, ect. are all based on where we orginated. So, in theory, this would also work for the Preds if they were spread out along their planet like we are/were, correct? Topography, diet, everything is a factor in the evolution of possible races/clans of Preds.

My thing about the Super Preds is the way they acted and the fact that they were SO much bigger than the Trad Pred. They sort of seemed boardline Bad Blood, and some of what they were doing seemed a bit uncharacteristic of a Predator( however the fight between the Falcon and he japanese dude was by far my favorite scene, as it shows the Honor that preds are so famed for having). The movie in itself was great, the whole going off-world was something the fans had wanted for a long time and the Predators movie gave that (not to mention all the awesome tidbits from previous movies). I'm just not sure what they were trying to accomplish with the "Super" Preds. If they were tryng to pull in a new crowd, then they did an awesome job of it by recyling scenes from the other movies.

I do remember from the film that Nolan(Fishburne), said that the "big ones hunt the small ones", that the Super Preds hunt the Trad Preds and that it was because of some Clan fued or war.

Anyways, thoughts on this?

I did try to keep the differences in human races in mind when watching. Still, the overall cranial structure seems far too different between the "super preds" and the "trad preds". It was like comparing us to neanderthals or even monkeys. Similar but so vastly different. So if the friggin skull wasn't so mishapen, I could accept the coloration differences and whatnot. I completely agree with you on the bad-blood aspect and actually I was fine with that. Bad-bloods happen, so why not include them and make the movie about that? Instead, they decide to ignore the already accepted (accepted as canon) "bad blood" and create something "new and different" purely as a marketing ploy imho. As you said the movie itself is great, love the dogs, love the other alien race (would love to see them reappear in a new movie and learn more about them. I felt they were introduced and then quickly ignored/forgotten). Actually to go further along that though, why wasn't the alien the human team's ally instead of Morpheus? That would have worked better I think. I mean did they really need to throw in a "curse you inevitable betrayal" so many times in that film? But that's all besides the point.
As for what Morpheus said, I'm fine with the idea of a "clan war/feud", and i think "rationalized" reason for the size difference was that "well we have to make them different somehow so the audience can distinguish between them easier". Die-hard fans would EASILY be able to tell the differences in skin coloration/mottling/mannerisms, but the general audience wouldn't be able to. Really though they should have just said "these are 3 bad bloods and here's their story", that would have allowed for them to extrapolate on the predator honor system and how complex it really is.

 

[Noyoko]

there was nothing super about them at all just take the falconer predator he got hit with a sword twice collapsed and died and the berserker was also easily killed.in predator 2 the p2  was shot many times, had his arm cut off,fell off a building and still survived.so i think if your going to call them bigger better super predators at least make them harder to kill

I'm actually gonna refute this. The falconer was hit with a killing blow. A man will die by either 10 cuts or 1, the difference is in the strength and precision of the blows. The berserker took an axe to the face...to the ******* face. As far as bullets, that's actually quite explained in the movies. In predator 1, he was actually shot only a couple times and WAS required to treat himself even after only a couple bullets. P2 was shot with a sawed-off shotgun at far (for a sawed -off shotgun)range; given their dense muscle structure it is unlikely that ANY of the shot penetrated his muscle tissue. Yeah that mofo lost an arm and seared the wound himself, badass, but once again, not a mortal wound (their blood seems denser and more viscous and they are less prone to bleeding out so he had the time to get that done). He fell off a building but didn't hit the ground, landed on a pipe and cascaded the rest of the way down, hardly difficult for a predator.

 

[Noyoko]

Well, in my opinion, all the "Predator" movies made after the first 2 were crap (poor wolf got a raw deal).  Hardly worth the time watching.  I have accepted that there will never be another Predator movie worth watching.  As far as "super Predators"... ha, that's a laugh!

Brian

I think they all had flaws, but I feel most of them were good additions except for a few very important oversights. The predators in AvP were given worthless equipment that wasn't acid resistant at all (obviously the story-writer had skimmed Perry's book but didn't remember dlect). In AvPR a new take on the predalien is shown, one that was very unique to every rendition that I had seen previously, kinda liked it myself. ****** dialogue and lighting in that movie were my main complaints.

 

[alphademonic]

I'm actually gonna refute this. The falconer was hit with a killing blow. A man will die by either 10 cuts or 1, the difference is in the strength and precision of the blows. The berserker took an axe to the face...to the ******* face. As far as bullets, that's actually quite explained in the movies. In predator 1, he was actually shot only a couple times and WAS required to treat himself even after only a couple bullets. P2 was shot with a sawed-off shotgun at far (for a sawed -off shotgun)range; given their dense muscle structure it is unlikely that ANY of the shot penetrated his muscle tissue. Yeah that mofo lost an arm and seared the wound himself, badass, but once again, not a mortal wound (their blood seems denser and more viscous and they are less prone to bleeding out so he had the time to get that done). He fell off a building but didn't hit the ground, landed on a pipe and cascaded the rest of the way down, hardly difficult for a predator.

what ever way you look at it the point still stands these are ment to be superior beings not men. and the toughness of the predators in the film predators is obviously not consistent with the earlier films. more so to the point being that they are so called super predators they should be twice as hard to kill not even there weaponry was superior.example in predator 1 the p1s cannon blew a massive hole in jesse ventura killing him instantly but in predators the berserker shot the convict guy in the back and him was still able to get up and fight back

 

[Felconer]

In AvPR a new take on the predalien is shown, one that was very unique to every rendition that I had seen previously, kinda liked it myself. ****** dialogue and lighting in that movie were my main complaints.

Yeah avpr contained the "predalien" which was unique some what cool in my opinion, but the main problem with that damn movie was the alien breading cycle, anybody who's seen aliens and fully understands the alien life cycle would see this was a poorly written story and truly lacked the research needed from previous alien movies/ books to make the alien infestation even possible. Cool concept but seriously incorrect

On a positive note, I did enjoy wolf and the equipment he displayed throughout the film

 

[alphademonic]

Yeah avpr contained the "predalien" which was unique some what cool in my opinion, but the main problem with that damn movie was the alien breading cycle, anybody who's seen aliens and fully understands the alien life cycle would see this was a poorly written story and truly lacked the research needed from previous alien movies/ books to make the alien infestation even possible. Cool concept but seriously incorrect

On a positive note, I did enjoy wolf and the equipment he displayed throughout the film

couldint agree more

 

[Call me Kainde]

Yeah avpr contained the "predalien" which was unique some what cool in my opinion, but the main problem with that damn movie was the alien breading cycle, anybody who's seen aliens and fully understands the alien life cycle would see this was a poorly written story and truly lacked the research needed from previous alien movies/ books to make the alien infestation even possible. Cool concept but seriously incorrect

On a positive note, I did enjoy wolf and the equipment he displayed throughout the film

^ This

When they did the Predalien breeding sequence,i just sat in the theater shaking my head in disbelief they disregarded the lore so blatantly.
It was a cheap excuse to get more aliens into the fray,and to be quite honest,a pretty disgusting one as well.Made me queesy -__-

Wolf had one of my favorite getups ever,and his introduction gave him a very high standing impression.
If it hadnt been for the botched up Alien part,that movie coulda been much better IMO.

On the original subject of the Super-Preds,
i think the main issue lies with the naming.
If they hadnt called them that,and just left it at that,it could be seen as a simple clan war.
But naming them Super preds just made it sound ridiculous and corny,and somehow tried to uplift these preds above the traditional hunters.

For a while i thought they might have been bad bloods,seeing their unorthodox/dishonourable methods (the quickfiring plasmacaster,the pred hounds,the eagle drone ) if it hadnt been for Falcon,who seemed QUITE honourable in combat when facing his Yakuza prey.