Lflank
Well-Known Member
Some of us seem to not realize that the Pred was supposed to be a BAD guy. 
Apparently I'm quite a bit older than most of us, because I was already 26 when P1 came out in 1987, and being a sci-fi fan from birth, I hadda see it.
The immediate things I liked about it were that the FX were, for the time, absolutely wonderful (now of course with modern CGI they look kind of crude, but back then nothing like the "cloaking effect", for instance, had been seen before). The other immediate thing I liked was the whole appearance of the Pred--the fluourescent-blood and the four-mandibles thing was something never seen before, and as a biology fan it really struck a chord with me (I immediately knew that whoever designed it was familiar with arachnids). And unlike "Star Wars", where the cantina denizens were, sadly, obviously rubber masks, the Pred looked incredibly realistic, one of the first really believable aliens seen on film (better even than Alien, which in the original film was barely seen at all).
The deeper thing I liked about it, though, was philosophical. Most sci-fi (particularly in the early 80's--the time of "Close Encounters" and "ET") was all lovey-dovey, as the nice aliens came down from Heaven and taught us how to be better people. When the tv-movie "V" came out, it said, instead, "what if the aliens come down here and they want to EAT us instead?" And P1 followed the same line--in "Predator", humans are not the terribly important and superior creatures we like to imagine ourselves as, and the rest of the universe did NOT lovey-dovey us. Instead, the Pred hunted us just like we hunt rabbits. We weren't Number One.
THAT was a very profound message back in the Reagan Era.
Apparently I'm quite a bit older than most of us, because I was already 26 when P1 came out in 1987, and being a sci-fi fan from birth, I hadda see it.
The immediate things I liked about it were that the FX were, for the time, absolutely wonderful (now of course with modern CGI they look kind of crude, but back then nothing like the "cloaking effect", for instance, had been seen before). The other immediate thing I liked was the whole appearance of the Pred--the fluourescent-blood and the four-mandibles thing was something never seen before, and as a biology fan it really struck a chord with me (I immediately knew that whoever designed it was familiar with arachnids). And unlike "Star Wars", where the cantina denizens were, sadly, obviously rubber masks, the Pred looked incredibly realistic, one of the first really believable aliens seen on film (better even than Alien, which in the original film was barely seen at all).
The deeper thing I liked about it, though, was philosophical. Most sci-fi (particularly in the early 80's--the time of "Close Encounters" and "ET") was all lovey-dovey, as the nice aliens came down from Heaven and taught us how to be better people. When the tv-movie "V" came out, it said, instead, "what if the aliens come down here and they want to EAT us instead?" And P1 followed the same line--in "Predator", humans are not the terribly important and superior creatures we like to imagine ourselves as, and the rest of the universe did NOT lovey-dovey us. Instead, the Pred hunted us just like we hunt rabbits. We weren't Number One.
THAT was a very profound message back in the Reagan Era.
