Ep 62 - Predator Badlands (2025)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Predator Badlands 2025. In a desperate attempt to gain his cloak and prove himself worthy of his clan deck, the runt of his Predator clan travels to the deadliest known planet to bring home the trophy of an unkillable creature. [00:00:25] Speaker B: Hello, everybody, and welcome back to our rating the show where I get together with my buddies, we talk about a movie franchise, break it down by movie, give an overall score and throw it up on the board. Today we're talking about Predator Badlands. This is the newest one from the Predator franchise. It's still in theaters and I'm joined, as always, by Will and Brian. Will, how are you doing this week? [00:00:44] Speaker A: I'm doing well. Excited to talk about a fresh movie in theaters. It's not often we do that, so it's an exciting change of pace. [00:00:52] Speaker B: Excellent. What about you, Brian? How are you doing this week? [00:00:55] Speaker C: I'm doing great. Stoked to be on another of one of my favorite franchises, the Predator franchise. [00:01:03] Speaker B: Very good. Now, obviously, this one being in theaters, I have to assume we've all seen it once. Nobody's gone and seen it twice. Right? How was your theater going? Experience. I went and saw this with a buddy on day one. Like I always saw it on Thursday at like four in the afternoon or something. The theater was almost empty, unfortunately, but. But this movie's made some pretty serious money in just the short time that it's been out. And I had a really, really decent time hanging out with my friend and watching this one. What about you guys? You check it out by yourself? Do you have someone to go with, Brian? [00:01:31] Speaker C: I went, I went with a buddy of mine and we drug our kids to it. I was a little bit worried because some of these Predator movies are, are rated violent, a lot of blood and gore. Luckily, this was just right for my, my 11 year old. He had no trouble with this. We had a lot of fun and the theater was about half full. It was, you know, one of the earlier showings, but had a great experience at the theater, so I was happy to go see it. [00:01:59] Speaker B: Very nice. What are you, Will? [00:02:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I saw this Friday afternoon. It was a matinee while my son was in school. I could sneak out and catch this movie. Went to an IMAX because it was the only thing available playing at the time. So I don't know, I think it's probably better in imax. You know, a big screen for lots of action and kind of scenic environments on the, on the planets, which is cool. That said, again, it was early, so I don't think word of mouth had spread on this one yet. So it was pretty light. I mean, it was Friday afternoon, but everybody was at work except for bums like me. [00:02:35] Speaker B: Fair enough. Now we are joined this week by a special guest. You've seen him before in the show. This is his third appearance on our rating. We're joined by Steve. He's known as the real bubba hotep on YouTube. Steve. Steve, how are you doing this week? [00:02:47] Speaker D: I am fine, sir. How are you? [00:02:49] Speaker B: Oh, I'm doing excellent. I'm actually stoked to be talking about this one. We've had a couple of horror movies in a row. Obviously Halloween makes sense and they're just not my biggest genre, even though I did end up liking some of them more than I thought I would. So I'm excited to get back into the Predator franchise and talk about something that I actually do have a love for. So. So I'm pretty excited about that one. [00:03:07] Speaker A: Now for those. Oh, sorry, go ahead. [00:03:09] Speaker B: No, no, no, no, go ahead. [00:03:11] Speaker A: I just want to do a quick shout out to Steve. Steve Real bava hotep. You could catch him on YouTube. He does movie reviews of all kinds of new movies coming out all the time, spoiler free all the time. And then he also does new gaming reviews where he has no idea what he's doing and just talks about that. So catch him in YouTube. I'm sure the link will be down below, Dan. [00:03:30] Speaker B: Absolutely. It'll be in the description when this goes on YouTube. [00:03:33] Speaker D: Well, thank you, guys. [00:03:35] Speaker B: Brian, you mentioned something I want to touch on for a second, that you brought your kid to this. Yeah. Now, a lot of the controversy with this movie before it came out was that it's rated PG13 instead of being rated R like most of the series is, if not the entire series. Did it bother you at all or were you actually happy that you could bring your kid to it and not feel nervous about something happening in the [00:03:55] Speaker A: future like a terrible parent? [00:03:58] Speaker C: I was very happy to not be a terrible parent because I like this franchise so much, and this was the only time I got to go see it that I probably would have brought my kids to a rated R movie and been a horrible, horrible dad. But this was just right. It hit the sweet spot where action and excitement and so the rated R to PG 13 didn't bother me a bit. Didn't. Didn't bother me a bit. I was. I was glad it fit in real well. And on a side note, I'd like to say welcome to the bottom half of the screen, Steve. I'm happy to have somebody down here for once. So high five, buddy. High five. Give you high five. [00:04:37] Speaker B: Very nice. [00:04:37] Speaker A: Oh my goodness. Geographically accurate, it's just Canada. [00:04:42] Speaker B: Is Canada on top? Was this your kid's first introduction to the Predator franchise? [00:04:50] Speaker C: No, I've shown him a lot of the Predator movies. Not Predator 2, that was one of the more violent ones, has some sex in it and stuff like that. So I think, I think he's seen one. And Prey. [00:04:59] Speaker B: Gotcha. Yeah, my kids have seen Prey. My twins really enjoyed it. If I, I live out of town, so I would have had to come home, pick the girls up and then go back in to watch the movie. So that's the only reason they didn't join me for this one because they, they really liked praying. They were excited to see this one too. So once it comes to Disney, I'm sure we'll watch it as a family now. Brian. Sorry, Steve. We were just talking about the rating on this one. We talked behind the scenes and I, if I remember correctly, the fact this PG13 was something that did bother you before you watched it, something that bothered you after you watched it, or did you not really have an issue with it? [00:05:34] Speaker D: I have an issue with it being kind of knocked down because Predator has always been a big bulging blood, guts, severed limbs everywhere for me. And that's one reason I enjoy it. I'm a big horror fan. So when they brought it down to that level, I'm glad that my 11 year old could go with me and he could watch it with me, but. But for my enjoyment. Yeah, it wasn't real great. [00:06:00] Speaker C: And they still have this listed as sci fi horror. There was no horror in this. There was no horror. This was action, adventure, sci fi. [00:06:08] Speaker B: I would argue like, and Steve and I did the franchise isn't horror. Like when he said like the first one started off as a horror movie, I'm like, no, it didn't. [00:06:16] Speaker C: And one or two spines. Yeah, ripping out the spines in one and two for sure. I, I thought I. And even in Prey, there's some pretty graphic decapitations and kills and stuff. In Prey, when he's going through the hunters. [00:06:30] Speaker B: It's a gruesome action movie, I'll definitely give you that. But like Mortal Kombat, they rip out spines. I wouldn't call Mortal Kombat. [00:06:35] Speaker C: Yeah, you're right. Yeah. Horror isn't the, isn't the title for this. [00:06:40] Speaker A: I think there's like, there's lots of sub genres of horror and I think Predator on a whole, not this one really as much, but on A whole, especially the OG Predator movies was more of a slight slasher. Right, Right. Some bad guy is going around decapitating, pulling spines. It's pretty dark, it's pretty horrific, but it's more of a slasher movie than, you know, any of the others. So I. I did qualify other Predator movies as more action slasher. I qualify this one as action comedy. [00:07:15] Speaker B: No, but. Okay, fair enough. I don't know. There's a lot of. [00:07:18] Speaker C: I know. [00:07:19] Speaker B: I will get to it. We'll get to it. I think the first one, specifically the first Predator movie, you can draw a lot of parallels to Alien, but the difference is in Alien, it's picking off people that are kind of helpless, which makes it feel more horrific. And it's like, dark. You barely see the alien. Whereas in. In the first Predator, it's more action based. You got Arnold Schwarzenegger throwing one liners. The entire team, while they still get picked off, are all macho men with machine guns and whatnot. It just doesn't. I just never had that tension to it that I expect from Horrible. But anyways, we're talking about Predator Badlands today. [00:07:50] Speaker C: And. And, you know, one of the reasons that this movie was able to be PG13 is because there are no human beings in the movie. I mean, obviously we have human actors, but in the story, there's no humans in it. It's all monsters and synthetics. That's it. [00:08:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:06] Speaker C: How do you guys feel about that? Did that bother you, Steve? Were you frustrated that we didn't have a body count of humans in this? [00:08:14] Speaker D: Well, yes, yes, in a way. But I think this would have been better as an Alien movie. It reminded me more of Prometheus and Alien than it did a Predator movie, honestly. [00:08:27] Speaker B: So that's something worth touching on. This is, I think the first time that the Alien franchise is, like, explicitly talked about in a Predator movie is that. But, like, as far as the actual Predator movies go, correct, we see an alien skull in the background, but that's more of an Easter egg than, like, these worlds collide. This movie definitely has Wayland Yutani all over it. It's got synthetics all over it. I don't know. Does this movie ever tell us what timeline it's in? Like, we don't really know when this happens. [00:08:57] Speaker A: It doesn't. But I have watched some interviews with the director, creator Dan Trachtenberg, or whatever his name is, and he says this one is about 200 years after resurrection. So it's far in the future. [00:09:12] Speaker C: The reason. [00:09:13] Speaker A: The reason he chose to go so far in the future was that he knew that Alien Earth was coming, and he knew that Romulus was happening, and he didn't want to, like, step on the toes of any of the other things going on by setting this in a near date of those, he didn't specifically know when those were set, but he figured he was safe pushing it into the future that far. [00:09:39] Speaker B: That makes sense. [00:09:40] Speaker C: And I just like to say that Trachtenberg did a really good job of world building in this movie by allowing space for all the other stuff that it kind of incorporates or touches on, you know, putting it far in the future, but also just like, it's so far away from everything else. He's able to do the things like. Like make the yautja the. The star of the movie and. And go into their home worlds and their clans and their laws and stuff, and I thought it was really cool. And I know he's a big fan of Predator, and I think he's done a good job with the movies he's done before, and I think he did a good job with this one as well. [00:10:16] Speaker B: Yeah, let's. Let's stay there for one second. This is the first Predator movie of seven, I think it is, that actually has the predators front and center, where they're not the antagonist, they're actually the protagonist. So we get to see a very different take on them. We get to see a little more of their culture. We get to see how they interact with the world. I really enjoyed that. Did that work for you guys as well, Will? [00:10:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't mind that. I mean, after six, seven movies, I think it only makes sense to further explore what their civilization is like. You know, we've gotten bits and pieces along the way, but it's cool to find out more. So see their language a little bit more and how they work. I like that. I like that a lot. Did they fully execute in this movie? I'm not 100% sure, because we're learning about all of this cool background on the yautja first time. I believe they call them yautja in a movie, but then they spend the entire movie humanizing this character in a way, which is kind of odd and kind of seems, like jarring a little bit. But that being said, a lot of things did work really well. [00:11:29] Speaker B: Yeah, they're definitely focusing on an outcast of the society. So while we are seeing more of the society than we've ever seen before, it's. It's still an outsider's perspective on it, as opposed to, like, One of the clan mates or something. It would have been kind of cool if we saw more of the. We're gonna spoil this movie, by the way. More of the brother from the beginning interacting with the clan and then kind of introduce us to Dak and take us outside of it. Who knows? I, I'm a huge fan of the movies Dan Trachtenberg has done though. And if he's going to stick with this franchise, maybe we'll get more of that down the road. But. Yeah, sorry. [00:12:02] Speaker A: He does, he does have another project in the works. He just. [00:12:04] Speaker B: That makes me so excited. I didn't know that. [00:12:06] Speaker A: I. Yeah, he's very, very hush hush about it right now. [00:12:09] Speaker C: I think that the. I don't know how you would make the Yautja the, the protagonist if you didn't make him an outcast, make him a runt. I mean, having the, having him be a runt works to the director's advantage because they can, they don't need to have some 8 foot giant in prosthetic limbs and stuff. They can just put a big dude in a costume, you know, and touch up the face and everything. So that worked really well. And the way the plot unfolds works well because we get to tell a story and they get to kind of humanize him a little bit. I didn't think it human. Well, I think they did kind of humanize him a lot actually. But it just works out well in this storytelling. And I don't know how you would be able to tell a similar story if he stuck to his, the Yautja codex and was very rigid about those rules. It might make some of the plot points a little more interesting, but at the same time, I just don't know how you could make a cohesive story and have a traditional predator. [00:13:14] Speaker B: It does kind of feel like that would potentially get one note after all. Like he. Dex does kind of try to stay to those ways for a while in this movie before realizing like, maybe there's more to this universe than I've been taught. [00:13:27] Speaker A: But yeah, the whole, the whole wolf analogy makes more sense as the movie goes along to Dex and the way it is unfolding makes more sense to the audience. Right. Like it, it does pair well. And I do feel that Dex was a little one note for the majority of the movie, which I was like, okay, this is why we have to humanize him. Because it's hard to. It's hard to relate to him. Right? [00:13:51] Speaker C: Yeah. Otherwise he's just another predator and it doesn't really go anywhere. And so this unfolds with a bit of an ending that I didn't see coming because he incorporates what he's learned, and he has a character arc. He changes, he evolves, and he creates his own clan, and it comes out really cool. [00:14:08] Speaker A: I thought that said we could go a whole different direction and do focus on, say, a young Yautja getting. Trying to earn their cloak and just delving deeper into their, you know, society, their lore, and be invested that way in which we don't really need to humanize them. We're just watching this and expanding their, you know, the knowledge of these Yautjas. That. That I think is a possibility, but it's a very different direction. [00:14:41] Speaker C: I. I think that's. That would actually be pretty entertaining. I think that would come out something like 300, where they show the boy growing up in. In the spartan environment and how they train them and everything. And, you know, that worked out well in the beginning of that movie. So I think you could do something like that, and I think we've got room for that to happen. You know, we. We haven't stepped on any toes with this movie. This is one aspect of. And there's lots of room for more stuff. [00:15:05] Speaker B: Right? And even if you didn't like this movie or you didn't like the direction they went with it, the nice thing is it's one character out of an entire race of characters. Like, it's not like he makes it back to the Yacha prime or something, which made me laugh, actually, and changes the hearts and minds of his entire clan or something. You got an entire city. You know what I mean? Like, it. Like the next movie could never talk about decks ever again. This is a full story in my mind. I don't need another deck story. I'll take it. Right. But I don't need it. [00:15:35] Speaker D: Right. I mean, they. They left that cliffhanger right there at the end where it's open to a sequel. [00:15:41] Speaker C: And they did the same thing in. In the. The animated movie, though. Yes. [00:15:45] Speaker A: Killer of Killers. [00:15:46] Speaker C: Killer of Killers. And we had that also. And honestly, I thought that ending was more of a joke than any. I was laughing my ass off when he says, that's my mother. [00:15:56] Speaker A: That was hilarious. [00:15:57] Speaker D: And it. It went well. Well, with the theme of the film. But I just didn't like where this film went at all. I mean, if they would have explained a little bit more about the culture, because you have predators hunt alone. You have spoilers. You know, the father wanting to kill the runt. You had, then you have the Mother with the ship going. So you think it's pretty well solitary and they're independent and everything. But then you have loyalty and companionship where his brother defies the father by keeping him alive, you know, and even though they don't hunt alone, you have that scene where. Again, spoilers. You know, the unkillable monster is being killed and the yautja shows him respect and kind of puts his head up. Yeah. So you can see compassion. You could see everything. And it just seemed like he turned away from his entire culture and history way too quick. And it. That just bothered me. [00:16:56] Speaker B: In fairness, his entire culture turned away from him. Correct. Right. Like he was. He was kicked out. He was not like a well regarded, accepted part of this. [00:17:04] Speaker D: Right, right, That's. That's true. But he still wanted to be part of that society to show that he was one of the best of that society. [00:17:12] Speaker B: For sure. [00:17:13] Speaker D: He was. He wasn't a complete outcast that didn't want to have anything to do with that society at all. So he was looking for another culture to embrace. He wanted to come back to be the best at what he grew up being. [00:17:25] Speaker C: I think he wanted to prove his father wrong. [00:17:28] Speaker B: I feel like he was a complete outcast. He just wanted to be a part of it. I don't think there's anybody other than his brother that wanted him in the clan. [00:17:35] Speaker C: Yeah, he wanted to prove his father wrong. He wanted to show everybody that his size didn't matter. And frankly, I thought he was one of the most skilled predators we've seen. And so he just wanted to come back and prove his father wrong. And then after his journey of doing this, he grows and he changes and he evolves and he still is able to prove his father wrong. I mean, he kills his father and then that's. That's no longer new. He don't. He no longer wants his father's recognition. He just wants to shut his father down and start his own clan now. Like he's. He's evolved past his original desire to just prove his father wrong. [00:18:10] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, his father killed the only person that was ever nice to him. [00:18:14] Speaker A: That he just wants his damn cloak. Okay. And then he get. Yeah, that's pretty much it out of there. Speaking. [00:18:20] Speaker C: Speaking of the cloak, Bubba, what did you think of the toys in this one? We always talk about the gear because every movie has a different set of stuff. What do you think about the toys in this one? [00:18:30] Speaker D: I. I didn't mind them. You know, I didn't really like the imprisoning. I Kind of like the net a little bit more in Predator 2. You know, that was. That's just me. I like the lack of toys. I mean, that was fun to see. To have him kind of MacGyver stuff, you know, that was really fun. That shows his. His adaptation. He can adapt to the surroundings. You know, it shows his evolution of being a warrior, which that's what predators want to do. They always hunt the best to become the best. And they adapt and learn really quickly and learn new skills. I think that was really good. You know, the. The lack of toys were better to me than the couple of extra toys that we saw in this one. [00:19:15] Speaker C: And it almost mirrored Schwarzenegger in number one. How Schwarzenegger utilizes everything around him. [00:19:20] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:19:21] Speaker B: And prey as well. Like the best movies in this franchise have the main character having to kind of Kevin McAllister themselves some weapons on the fly. And this one did that. But from the first time it's from the predators perspective, not from the human trying to kill the predators. I thought it was really clever. I really liked it. And also I just thought the whip with the right. The grass, the glass grass, the razor grass. [00:19:44] Speaker D: And how he put the. That vine or whatever, the monster vine on his shoulder. Like the plasma can. I like that. [00:19:54] Speaker C: That was a little cheesy on a string before and I was okay with that. I'll go with the acid spitting eel in place of the shoulder cannon [00:20:05] Speaker A: to the point where this acid spitting eel gets fed a few berries, will sacrifice its life to protect the predator. Like. Like it's a little bit. Felt like jumping the shark a little bit there. It was a little bit. [00:20:18] Speaker C: I agree with you. [00:20:19] Speaker B: The sacrifice was a little much for me. There's a. This movie didn't work 100%. There's definitely a couple of flaws. [00:20:23] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:20:24] Speaker B: And when the eel was like. I got you. [00:20:29] Speaker C: Yeah. That's one of those things where I give it the pass because I was having so much fun. It was the same thing with prey. The hatchet on a string was stupid, but I gave it a pass because it was so much fun. [00:20:39] Speaker B: The rule of cool does work sometimes. And the hatch on a string was just cool. And the razor whip was just cool. I. I get. They won't work. I still just like them now. [00:20:47] Speaker D: One thing I wonder about with you three, even though I am a huge. I grew up in the 80s, I'm a huge 80s action fan. The one scene where he's lifting up and there's explosions in the background and everything, I'm. Was that to you like A typical head Nod to an 80s film with over the top explosion. And whenever in the original Predator, when Schwarzenegger's lifting the torch up to attract him and he just lets out that primal scream was. Was that like, kick back to that genre? [00:21:23] Speaker B: Can you remind me which scene you're talking about? [00:21:25] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. He lights. He lights up the gas or whatever the fuel is, and that it blows up a big thing behind him. He's got the sword up in the air. [00:21:33] Speaker C: Yeah. He's attracting the big beast. Yeah, that was definitely an 80s throwback right there. Early 90s throwback, the big explosion. I also felt a similar resonance when he. He set off all those berries. They exploded and blew up every single Android, which was a little bit much, but he got them all. And the whole time he's just sitting there calmly while all the explosions happen behind him. That was kind of one of those, like, I'm too cool to even be, you know, bothered by these explosions. Which, again, it was fun, but it was a little too much from the 80s whenever. [00:22:09] Speaker D: When the building's blowing up behind the guys. [00:22:12] Speaker B: So the androids or synthetics, I guess, in this movie, not El Fanning the. The warrior ones, which were the worst warriors ever. [00:22:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:22:20] Speaker B: Was definitely one of my big sticking points in this film. I didn't care that they replaced humans with them because they can't show milk all over the place instead of blood. That didn't really bother me. But if you've got these again, I'm gonna call them the warrior class because I don't know what else they were actually referred to as. Why are they so bad at being warriors? [00:22:38] Speaker C: Like, yeah, they were terrible. [00:22:39] Speaker B: They've got these guns and they're walking directly up to the Predator. Like, shoot it from a distance. What are you doing? Why are you walking around? How did a pair of legs take out multiple bot? Like, that was one of the worst scenes for me. I'm just like, oh, no. Oh, no. Like, you don't have. Like, for one, she's supposed to be a scientist. They say specifically that the other version of her, Tess, is the one who goes out in the public. She just stays in the lab. So she shouldn't be trained for combat at all. But also she's like weighing down the fully fledged robots with just her legs. The point where she's like sticking their head on a spike or something. I'm just like, where are you getting the leverage for this? Like, the whole thing just really bothered me. It was a short scene. [00:23:18] Speaker A: I figured Brian would have issues with that too, because the physics are all [00:23:21] Speaker B: out of whack there. [00:23:22] Speaker C: Yeah, it was, it was really bad. And even that one that was just like, that one was so bad that I was like, that's, it's not that cool. That's pretty dumb. Just flat dumb. I didn't like that she was fighting, you know, two people at the same time with her upper half, her lower half, and winning her only advantage over those, you know, just, you know, one off little droid guys that she's fighting is that she's supposed to have emotions that allow her to exploit the animal life on that planet so that they can weaponize it. Right. She's supposed to use this emotion to exploit it. For some reason, I never really saw her emotion come into play other than her helping Dak change. And so I don't know why she who is cut in half is whooping the crap out of those guys left and right. Those guys were worse than stormtroopers. They were terrible. [00:24:17] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't think we saw them do anything interesting or cool the entire movie. [00:24:20] Speaker C: Right. [00:24:21] Speaker D: And they were supposed to be sent with Tessa to get the unkillable Kalisk, you know, and imprison it and bring it back. And they were so inept. It was almost like when decked defeated them to go back to face his father. What did he learn from those warrior synths? You know, I mean, they just kind of like stood there, you know, I, I, There was no big baddie in this film. [00:24:48] Speaker C: I much rather would have seen everyone struggle when they fight one or two. And maybe Dak can take on two or three at a time because he's a super warrior, but everybody else should have struggled fighting even one of them. And then you have a sequence where he blows them all up with explosives to thin out the ranks and even them out. But having the leg fight was dumb. It, that one was just, I was just rolling my eyes during that one. Like, please get me past the sequence. [00:25:14] Speaker B: Yeah, the leg fight was incredibly stupid. I didn't hate the, like, homing sequence, the homing homing missile legs, where they're, like, just trying to get back to the rest of her body. [00:25:23] Speaker A: Right. [00:25:23] Speaker B: And he's using that as a distraction. If that had been the entirety of the scene. Yeah, that would have been with that. [00:25:28] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:25:29] Speaker B: But then, like, they start fighting and admittedly they don't start doing anything until they get within, like, where she can see them, essentially. So, like, maybe there's some logic there. Like, she's controlling them from a short distance. I still didn't like it. I'm. I still didn't like that whatsoever. [00:25:41] Speaker A: That's why I said action comedy, right? [00:25:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:43] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:25:44] Speaker B: There was definitely some attempted jokes in this one. Just none of them really landed for me, including what you guys think of the. The baby Kill us Bud. Bud. Because, like, that was one of the things. [00:25:54] Speaker C: I didn't make the connection until they said it. I should have. I went, that's funny. That little guy's eyes look a lot like the big guy's eyes. And I never made the connection. [00:26:04] Speaker D: I hit it right on. I really did. Especially the way that El Fanning was more or less trying to manipulate and convince Deck to protect it and to take it, you know, because it goes back to that having emotion to exploit to. To get their own gain. You know, I kind of think she knew because she studied the kis. She knew what bud was. I. I hit it like, right off the bat. [00:26:32] Speaker B: Nice. It was the only character design or monster design in the entire movie that just felt super out of place. Like all the other monsters I actually thought were really cool. [00:26:40] Speaker A: And. [00:26:40] Speaker B: And then all of a sudden, we get ugly. Sonic running around for a little bit. I'm like, what is happening right now? It just looked awful to me. I like where they went with it, I guess. But like, the first scene, especially because the first scene's in daylight when you see him, so that you really see how out of place he looks. When it was the nighttime scenes, he looked a little bit better, but I still just didn't. [00:27:00] Speaker C: Hey, looked like a cross between a pug and a monkey and it just wasn't working for me. [00:27:04] Speaker B: No. So that sounds like it's a fail all around. [00:27:08] Speaker A: I mean, I didn't hate his design as much. I mean, it is what it is. It's hard to do full CGI little character thing. Right. [00:27:16] Speaker C: Well, if they make him look too cool, then you know what he is right off the bat. [00:27:20] Speaker A: Exactly, exactly. [00:27:21] Speaker C: And I didn't. [00:27:21] Speaker A: I didn't get. Until you see the full, like, face of the big one where you could see like, oh, it's the same nose, same eyes, just different dimensions because it's a cute little puppy version. So. But. And they don't really show the face until quite late into the game. But that said, I more just didn't like the forced mimicry interactions, like forced laughs that they wanted to pull from this baby Kalisk, this Bud character. Like, I understood the reasoning for it because it all built up to the spitting on and. And becoming like, you know, part of the calloused crew. But I just. I felt like it was. The humor was forced too much into this movie and it didn't always work. And I wasn't upset at all that this movie was PG 13. I was more upset that they chose to make it PG13 with those forced humor bits. I felt like the action and the gore effects or whatever was. Was bang on. It was great. I just felt like this is what made it feel PG13 to me. [00:28:27] Speaker B: Right. [00:28:27] Speaker A: Anything else? [00:28:28] Speaker D: Right. The. The cinematography, the. The look of the movie being PG13. That really didn't bother me at all because it was still enough action to take place of the severed limbs. It was really the storyline. It was the writing being toned down for a 10, 11, 12 year old. [00:28:45] Speaker B: That. [00:28:45] Speaker D: That's really what bothered me. [00:28:47] Speaker A: Right. But that's. That doesn't give you a PG13 rating. That's a choice. Just. Yeah. [00:28:52] Speaker C: I would have appreciated more serious writing in those scenes. Instead we got like a grogu kind of thing. It was like. It was like, I don't need a cute character. I've seen this stick before. I want something real in here. And. And they, they went away from real to give humor and it didn't add anything. If anything, it took away. [00:29:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:10] Speaker D: It almost gave me a Guardian of the Galaxy vibe a little bit. [00:29:13] Speaker A: A little bit. [00:29:14] Speaker B: The grogu is. I see, nails it on the head for me. If I'm being honest, I didn't mind that he was mimicking. Mimicking him at the fire pit. That felt like. Because you mentioned he kind of looks like a monkey. Like that kind of makes sense. We've seen monkeys do that before. It's when he puts the cloak on and follows right where the guard is. I'm just like, piss off. [00:29:31] Speaker A: And the drone for me. What do we do with this thing? Like, they're so dumb. [00:29:35] Speaker C: Like. [00:29:36] Speaker A: So. Yeah. [00:29:38] Speaker B: Did you know that universal translators are really expensive because she's the only one that has one. So they can talk in Yacha behind the garden. [00:29:45] Speaker C: The universal translation line was way too. I. I wish they wouldn't have. They could have done that better. That was one of those things where they over explained it for me and I was like, come on, we don't need this line. We can, we can figure it out. [00:29:57] Speaker B: And like, why don't the. The warriors have it? [00:30:00] Speaker A: Yeah, like how much cost is there to implement that? [00:30:05] Speaker C: Could probably figure this one out. This is 200 years in the future from a thousand years on the field. Like, this is way in the future. They all got it. Come on. That's dumb. [00:30:13] Speaker A: But it was odd, even. [00:30:15] Speaker D: So if she's the scientist and she was programmed with a synth and everything, wouldn't she just. I mean, C3PO could speak like 3 million languages. Why didn't they program her to just understand the language instead of having to give her. [00:30:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:29] Speaker A: Having to turn it on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:30:32] Speaker B: This is set in 2581, so we got some time. [00:30:36] Speaker A: Yeah, there are some choices there. I mean, I understood why it made it easy for having English speaking on screen, not just full, you know, having to read along with the action, so it made sense. But the execution, again, was a little bit flimsy. But overall, aside from, like, little hiccups there, here and there, my personal thing is that Dan overall is very good at just telling a simple story, but very, very well executed. And what did you guys think? Did you guys think that this was in line with his other movies? Like, if you think 10 Cloverdale Lane, prey, even killer of killers was three kind of separate, simple stories. But I feel like he's very good at executing a simple storyline, simple plot. Did he. Did he execute this one for you in. In regards to story or flaw? [00:31:28] Speaker C: For me, it's a yes, I think he did. [00:31:29] Speaker D: Are you saying he could take a very quick message and drag it out? [00:31:37] Speaker A: Yeah, if that's. If that's your take. Yeah. [00:31:39] Speaker B: Takeaway, I guess. Do. [00:31:40] Speaker A: Okay, maybe you don't agree at all then, Steve. Like, do you feel his past movies have done that well, or do you feel like he's. All his movies drag? [00:31:48] Speaker D: No, I'm a fan of Dan Trachtenberg. I really. I. I like pretty much everything he does. Director is fine writer on this one specifically. [00:31:58] Speaker A: Okay. [00:31:58] Speaker D: I think he should have got someone else. [00:32:00] Speaker A: Well, it's him and a couple others. Yeah. [00:32:03] Speaker D: Yeah. Well, him and Patrick Asen, but they've worked before. They were both right. Prey. And I think that was a fantastic storyline. This one, I just think they Disney plused it and they just. They. They just brought it down, you know, for all audiences and the whole family. [00:32:18] Speaker A: Right. [00:32:18] Speaker D: It just wasn't my Predator. It wasn't what I grew up with. [00:32:21] Speaker B: Which is an ironic statement because Prey was exclusively on Disney plus and this one actually went to theaters. Right. I feel like you're right. Like they're reversed. Like, praise. [00:32:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:32] Speaker B: More hardcore than this one is. This one is a little bit more family friendly, we'll say. [00:32:36] Speaker D: Right. But it's almost like when I was talking with you about. I think this would have been better. Animation is like Killer of Killers. And Killer of Killer would have done fantastic live action on the big screen. I think they flipped it. [00:32:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I think I don't have a problem. [00:32:51] Speaker B: Killers being animations, it would be reversed. Exactly. [00:32:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Like on a just over 100 million or whatever. Like this is pretty tight. [00:33:01] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:33:02] Speaker A: Whereas Killer of Killers would cost a phenomenal amount of money. [00:33:05] Speaker D: Oh yeah, definitely. But I mean is the storyline like in general say money didn't matter in a Perfect. [00:33:11] Speaker A: You know, I think, yeah, I think [00:33:13] Speaker B: there's been too many $300 million Indiana Jones movies for them to say that money matters. I think they keeping this down to 100 million was a really smart move. It's also worth mentioning this is the first Dan Trachtenberg movie in the Predator franchise that went to theaters and it is already opening weekend. Blown the doors off of any other movie in the Predator franchise, which is pretty darn impressive. So I could see his next one. I'm not saying it needs it. I am not saying it needs it. But his next movie could have a significantly higher budget if he can prove that he is a well known, well liked commodity. And like Prey I thought was excellent. Killer Killers. I really enjoyed this movie. Spoilers. I really enjoyed. I'm legit excited for the next thing he's going to do in the Predator franchise. [00:33:56] Speaker C: And Dan, with that hundred million, do you think that money was well spent on the effects in this? And I want to hear from Will too, because. Will, you like this had lots of special effects. Kind of had to, right? Because we have so many monsters and aerial battles and stuff like that. But we also had some practical effects in this. Do you, do you guys think. Dan, you go first. Do you think the money was well spent on this? [00:34:21] Speaker B: So the $105 million budget I think actually went pretty far with what they had. They'd save a ton of money on actors. There's like three people in this entire movie. But as far as the effects go, with the exception of Bud, if that's his name, the little baby Killis, I thought all the monsters looked really solid. And for having the same actor and actresses on screen multiple times, whether it be El Fanning or whoever played the drones, that also seemed pretty seamless. Now that's a pretty easy technology. We've been doing that for a long time, but it never took me out. The alien world felt alien, which doesn't always happen. I, I really don't have an issue with the budget this movie. I think keeping it small, keeping it down to 105 million is brilliant because then the Odds of them making that money back is really solid. They could have an actual hit on their hands. This is why horror movies work so well. Because you can make a decent horror movie for 20, 30 million dollars. And then even if only makes 100 million, you still tripled your budget. This only has to make $200 million to do. Okay. And opening weekend it already made 80. I think it's a brilliant move and I think it looks solid on screen. I really don't have an issue with the look of this movie. Again, with the one exception of the. The daylight baby Killis. What about you, Will? [00:35:31] Speaker A: I. I share a lot of the same sentiment. I mean, I think would I prefer full, you know, real effect, real mask work? Yes. But I completely understand that it's not practical, pun intended. Because, you know, Dec is talking you. He's without a mask this entire movie, save the end, which he has a terrible mask. But whatever. It's like you. There's no other way to go about it. And, and it worked well enough, you know, and I think, I think they spent a lot of time making sure that he looked good. And the rest, I think, yeah, for the most part, it. It plays off. Know there's a couple things here and there. Some of the fights, you know, were a little like. It's a little shaky cam, a close up because maybe you're not getting quite the perfect execution of action that you want. And I think all the Predator movies have had trouble with the weight of a predator. They're such giant beings, creatures, and yet when they're jumping tree to tree or fighting each other in the beginning, the brothers, they just feel weightless to. To them and. And it never fully feels. It just doesn't quite feel real. But I think all the predators have had that problem, so I can't really knock this one for it. [00:36:47] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a rule they've been doing since the first one. So. Yeah, that's just who they are, I guess. [00:36:51] Speaker A: They're just. They're just really hollow boned, those buggers. [00:36:55] Speaker D: Right. Well, we don't know what the gravity is on Yautja Prime. [00:37:00] Speaker A: Sure. But every. Every other time it looks normal. Right. Like everything else looks weighted normal except for when they're floating through the sky. [00:37:08] Speaker B: Well, yeah, and we know what it's like on Earth, and a couple of these movies happened on Earth and we still see them jumping from tree to tree. [00:37:13] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:37:13] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:37:14] Speaker C: What about you, Steve? [00:37:14] Speaker A: What did you think about the. The budget versus CGI in this? And then we'll. We'll Ask Brian what he thinks. [00:37:19] Speaker D: I think with the budget being so small, I would much rather have had a movie like this where a couple of scenes threw me out, like, really bad, than have the entire movie look bad, bad. So I think they budgeted very well. I really didn't have a problem with it. [00:37:35] Speaker B: What scenes threw you out visually? [00:37:37] Speaker D: Well, the introduction to the kisk, for one. I mean, it's. It's kind of hard to make a completely digital, you know, scene look like a green screen. You know, it just. It. It was focusing vivid, full color on deck and just being so large, it was really pale and it. It almost looked like green screen. And then there were some. When. When Quay was in the front and Deck was sitting in the back, it. It looked almost like an iPhone version of 3D to me. Whenever he was going in that little remote ship and crashing down, it looked really, really flat. When the monster was coming down through there, it just seems like that, you know, the. The vines that he was fighting just got so full and muddled. I had a hard time watching the action in both scenes that they were in with him. And with the sense, you know, it just. So much color going everywhere and so much action going everywhere. It just looked really muddled. Yeah, yeah, just. Just those few scenes. I mean, other than that, it looked really good for the money. [00:38:44] Speaker A: Brian, what about you? [00:38:46] Speaker C: For me, the vine scene did not look good at all. I did not like the look of the vines. They. They looked different than the rest of the planet. It looked really drew me out. And I didn't like the fight sequence with his brother in the very beginning. They were. They were not moving realistically because it was all cgi. That was just complete cgi. And. And so they didn't move realistically. That was them jumping around, you know, light as a feather again, so that one kind of took me out. However, Dax facial expressions and his look when he was. Any scene with Dak in it without him wearing a mask looked amazing to me. I could not tell if his tusks were cg. And they, like, had him, you know, wearing like a green hood and they. And they did that later or if that was practical effects that were really good, it had to be cg, right? I mean, clean. Did you research that? Do you know, because his facial expressions were amazing that I could tell what he was expressing. And he's an alien, right? With no eyebrows or. And no mouth or anything. You can see him above my shoulder here. He looked great. And so that made up for it. I think the budget Was. Was great. They did, they did a great job with what they had. I can live with the fake vines. I could live with some of the jumping around between the trees looking a little unrealistic because he, the protagonist looked great. I liked the protagonist and, and they did a good job on him. [00:40:15] Speaker A: Yeah, Dex looks awful. [00:40:17] Speaker B: That would take you out the entire film. [00:40:19] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:40:19] Speaker D: Now what they said was a whole lot of his look was practical with digital enhancement, you know? Yeah, [00:40:29] Speaker A: yeah, I've seen like he's, he's got this much of his actual actor face. Demetrius, that's his face right there when he's talking because he's actually talking. He learned the language some. I can't remember who, but somebody actually wrote out freaking ya language for him to learn. He learned it. He. He spoke it. Which is great for the chemistry on screen with, you know, your other actors. And so anytime that there's like close ups and things like that, it is CGI for the most part. And it's more like the action shots and distant shots where he had like a full mask gone. But yeah, I think they did okay with the, the CGI on his face specifically. There was very little that you could tell that was like, okay, that looks a little off, you know. [00:41:12] Speaker D: Yeah, right. And I read the deciding factor on if Dan Trachtenberg was going to do another one was based 100 on how. How well this one did. So it was almost like, I don't really believe in this. Here's a little bit of money. Show me what you can do, and if you make a hit, then we'll give you a lot more for your next venture. So I, I think the sequel is coming, or at least the other. The Dan Trachtenberg Quartet. Part four of the Dan Trachtenberg lineage, I guess you can call it. [00:41:46] Speaker C: Well, we can only hope that they bring in the colonial space marines and we have a war between the humans and the Yautja. Because, you know, when we went from alien to aliens and just went to a war drama, that was amazing and I loved it. I hope we get a war drama from Dan Trachtenberg on the next go around and we get to see some massive scenes of action with just whole armies. That would be amazing to me. [00:42:09] Speaker D: Yeah, I would love that. That would be fantastic. I'm really not about seeing a sequel where he battles his mommy. [00:42:16] Speaker C: I have no. Yeah, I have no desire to see any more about Dak. [00:42:19] Speaker D: Right. [00:42:20] Speaker B: I would watch. I trust it. Okay. Dan Trachtenberg has nailed it three times in my mind, so I would trust him if he's got a story about Dex versus his mother. I'm not saying that I want that necessarily, but if that's what he makes for the next one, he's. He's sold me a ticket already. Like, I will buy a next. [00:42:36] Speaker C: Oh yeah. [00:42:36] Speaker B: Predator movie regardless. [00:42:38] Speaker D: Right? But this became Alien esque to me. It really did. It's almost like it's not an. An 80s 90s Predator movie anymore or Predator franchise. [00:42:48] Speaker A: I'm gonna stop you there for a second. We're not in the 80s anymore, bud. [00:42:55] Speaker D: That's when the Predator was made, man. [00:42:59] Speaker B: Bulky Alien was made in the 70s. [00:43:01] Speaker A: So let me ask you this though, Steve. This is the seventh Predator movie. Do you want the same formula repeated over and over again, or do you at least enjoy the dance taking a different spin on it or trying to tell different stories? [00:43:20] Speaker D: With the Predator, I like the evolution of the Yautja itself. I do not like the complete turn away from the entire yacht culture. You know, like, right. It's. It's entire history of now they can hunt in groups and now, you know, any clan is their clan. They're not devoted to their family and their, you know, like this. [00:43:46] Speaker A: Well, but this is like a one off hero, you guys. [00:43:51] Speaker C: He didn't turn away from Yautja culture. He started his own clan. After killing his father and proving his worth, he used a tool to. To find him. He didn't make a friend. It was a tool. He made that very clear that she was a tool the whole time. [00:44:05] Speaker A: Well, maybe until the end. [00:44:07] Speaker C: And until the end. And then he incorporated the. The kalisk into his clan, essentially proving that he was. He was not only good enough to kill this thing, which, let's face it, he cut that thing's head off once. He should have got a trophy for that alone, but he was able to bring a kalisk into his own clan. And so I don't feel like he completely moved away from the culture. I feel like he evolved the culture further is what it felt like to me. [00:44:36] Speaker A: And it's not. [00:44:37] Speaker B: I don't even know if I culture. [00:44:38] Speaker A: It's just him. It's his. It's him that. Right. He's alone in this and he's now found his own clan because he. His clan has wants nothing to do. Literally wants to kill him. [00:44:48] Speaker C: Yeah, right. [00:44:49] Speaker A: It. [00:44:49] Speaker B: It reminds me less of like they're evolving the Yacha culture and more like this is the jungle Book. Like, this is a random person in the middle of the jungle. He's doing what he can to survive. With what he can find. Like, that doesn't rewrite human culture. That's one random offshoot and we're just following their story. That's how I looked at this. I literally just came up with that just now. But, like, that's kind of the idea [00:45:10] Speaker C: that I looked at this and you know what? His entire culture pissed on him. So sure, you know, he's, he's got every right to do be like, I'm gonna do my own thing from now on. [00:45:18] Speaker A: And I think we all feel similar, like, oh, this is a cool one off. [00:45:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:45:22] Speaker A: And I'm okay if it doesn't continue. [00:45:25] Speaker C: I don't want, I don't want all predators to go this route from here on. No, no, no, no, no. I like this story, but I want another story where the predators are back to being the bad guy again. I, I, I want to see that. Right. Yeah, I would agree. [00:45:40] Speaker A: I, I don't even have to have them as the bad guy. I could even, just as I said earlier, just drop us right into the culture and let us swim in there a bit and, and sure feel the water, you know, fill that out a bit. [00:45:53] Speaker D: Right. I would love to see that. It's, I was hoping to explore more, more of the culture and the history, you know, and what went on, even with individual relationship in be in the culture. You know, we didn't have to see a big, raw, a broad, vivid picture of it. Just like family dealing with family or one dealing with another. We've only seen that in, what, AVP maybe. We've, we've seen that in predators, you know, where the big ones hunted the little ones, and that's all we got. We didn't see any intimate look in it. [00:46:25] Speaker B: My only concern with, I guess, what Dan Trachtenberg has been doing, and it's not in this film, and it's not really even in prey. It's mostly in killer. Killer. So that's the one that I kind of want to be an offshoot. I don't like the idea that what predators do is they, they send one yacht to a planet, they try and hunt as many people as they can until essentially they die, because we've seen every single one of them die when they do this. And then once they die, the yacht come to the planet and kidnap the person who killed them, put them in a bio tube, and then make them fight other people in the future that, that I do not want ever again. Like, Killer of Killers is four stories in one, and I really like two of them. And I don't really care for two of them. And, like, we even see, like, the. The female from Prey and I think Dutch from. From Predator 1 in those tubes at the end of the movie. And my heart sank. I was like, no. So I'm actually super glad that's not anything to do with this movie. Like, this movie didn't touch on that in the slightest. And I hope that we never do ever again. Like. Like, that is the one thing Dan Trachtenberg has done with this franchise. I'm just like, no, thank you. [00:47:26] Speaker C: Just hard because didn't we have that in predators? We had that in printers. They drop them onto the planet. Those are all some of the best of whatever. And they took them to a refuge to hunt them, which is kind of what we got at the end of Killer of Killers. [00:47:39] Speaker D: They were the big baddies, but they had no interaction with the Yautja before. They've never seen. [00:47:44] Speaker C: Yeah, that's true. [00:47:45] Speaker D: The bad of. The bad of. Of. [00:47:47] Speaker B: Yeah. They were just on a different. Like, a big game hunt, essentially. Right. Like, yeah. Kidnapped them to put them somewhere so they can hunt them there. I didn't quite get the same vibe of that from that movie, but also, I wouldn't say that movie was a highlight in the franchise. So. [00:48:02] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. [00:48:04] Speaker A: Process of, like, kidnapping these badasses and. And doing what they will with them. Right, right. So it's a similar vibe, but not. Yeah, definitely not the same outside. [00:48:14] Speaker D: And I hate to break it to Dan, but little rumors on the new Dan Trachtenberg is that he was talking with Arnold Schwarzenegger about reprising Dutch, you know, and little things about Carl Weathers, you know, bringing him at CGI back, you know, and stuff. So I don't. You might see it. [00:48:33] Speaker B: I. I. As much as I love Arnold Schwarzenegger, I do not want him in another Predator movie. [00:48:37] Speaker C: No. [00:48:37] Speaker B: And as much as I love Carl Weathers. No. [00:48:40] Speaker C: What about just a cameo? What about just a cameo? As in. As a Him and an older self. And I don't think. [00:48:48] Speaker A: I think it's a. It would be an animated. It has to be animated. [00:48:50] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:48:51] Speaker A: He's cryo frozen in. In the same age. Right, True. So I figured they would just keep it in the animated side of things. And I don't know, maybe they do [00:49:00] Speaker D: or really, really mess it up. Like Terminator Genesis. [00:49:03] Speaker A: Here's. Here's how it's gonna go down. Deck's gonna be, like, waging war on all of Yautja. He's gonna go to this planet where they cryo Frozen. All the best warriors who have beaten ya in the past. He's gonna break them out and deck Arnie. Danny Glover are gonna. Oh, don't forget little, little prey in there too. They're gonna just get their arrows and their guns and they're gonna take down all of Yoja until they submit and all become humanized and live in harmony. The end. [00:49:35] Speaker D: You forgot Adrian. [00:49:37] Speaker B: On the off chance you're watching this, don't listen to anything he just said. Like literally nothing. Just turn the show off now. Now it doesn't get better. Like just stop. Stop everything. He just said, no, no thank you. No thank you. [00:49:48] Speaker A: My only hope is that I'm, I'm even a slightest bit on the right and he's like, oh, somebody, it's out. They don't like it. Okay, okay, redact it. Let's write something else. Fix it. [00:49:59] Speaker B: Fix it now. I, I like Arnold. I would like to see him get work. I don't need to see him go back to his previous work. I don't want to see Commando 2. I don't need a non 9th terminator. I don't want him in Predator. All of that just feels bad and wrong and like you mentioned, like he's frozen in time. Like he shouldn't be 78 year old Arnold. He should be, you know, 25 year old Arnold. And even then I don't want to see it. But at least that'd be better than old man Arnold in a live action film. I can't think of a way. I mean, like, obviously I'm not the creative behind this. I can't think of a way that they could bring Arnold in even for a cameo where I wouldn't just roll my eyes. Right. [00:50:38] Speaker C: I don't want to rely on gimmicks for this franchise anymore. I, I want this franchise to get serious, get real, move forward with great storytelling. They have the capabilities of doing that. We're building good worlds. If they want to cryo freeze people, I just hope they don't unfreeze them because I'm not interested in seeing anything done over again. I want to see new stuff. I would like to see the A clan or multiple clans come in contact with something that is wiping them out and they're trying to deal with it. And they all like, like some, like one of the predators has to get several of the clans to come together and fight against this enemy that is, that is worse than the predators. You know, maybe a, like another species, a mechanical species, right? A robot species or something. I don't know something. But I'd like to see something new and different, and I'd like to see it with a more traditional yautja predator than what we've got with Dax. Loved the Dax story. Right. Just don't need to see any more of it. [00:51:40] Speaker B: So what we're gonna get is the synthetic woman from Alien Earth and her pet xenomorph, and she's gonna raise an army of pet xenomorphs, and they're gonna start taking the yacht out. [00:51:53] Speaker C: And that's alien versus Mr. Tractor Bird. We told you shut it off. Just turn it off right now. [00:51:58] Speaker B: I told you it didn't get better. Why won't it let me maximize you? [00:52:01] Speaker A: It's gonna be pet xenomorphs versus pet kalisks. They're gonna be fighting against each other. That's what it is. [00:52:07] Speaker C: Yeah. Not. Not interested. [00:52:09] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that was a 1000% joke. Please don't do that. I don't even like the fact that they did that in alien Earth 100. Okay, now that does lead me to an interesting question. Before we get to scoring this thing. This is the seventh standalone Predator movie, meaning not including Alien versus Predator, there are now seven Alien movies. Again, we're. We're assuming we're counting Killer of Killers. We all reviewed it. I'm assuming that. I think I'm prepared to say I like the Predator franchise more than the Alien one at this point. Like, I think the highs are a little bit higher. I would say that both movies have three really good and four. [00:52:48] Speaker A: Four good. [00:52:49] Speaker B: Four good. And three pretty mad ones. [00:52:51] Speaker A: Right? [00:52:52] Speaker B: I don't know. Do you guys? I. I've got the scores, I guess, from already. We can go back. We've done all them. But, like, off the top of your head, which one? Would you be more excited for an eighth installment of. [00:53:03] Speaker A: That's. It's. That's a hard question. [00:53:06] Speaker D: I don't think you could do Alien as a protagonist or. Or anything. It's a one trick pony. [00:53:12] Speaker B: We did them as a puppy. Yeah. [00:53:14] Speaker C: Well, it's. [00:53:17] Speaker D: It's terror. It's territorial, it's animal. Like, it doesn't really. [00:53:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Even though it's a sentient being as much like. [00:53:24] Speaker B: Sure. [00:53:24] Speaker A: It doesn't. Doesn't seem like it doesn't have to [00:53:26] Speaker B: be a sentient being. I just mean a movie just. [00:53:27] Speaker A: No, I understand, I understand. I think overall, like, your question is, which franchise do I prefer? I. I think I can't answer that because they're very different in their execution still. I. I Feel like, because the Predator is like this prime hunter that wants to fight the best things. And that's a very different story than this alien xenomorph that is kind of like, I don't know, almost like a virus trying to just spread everywhere and. And kill everything. And the way the stories unfold, the way the stories are told, they're just. They're just too different. I like so many elements of both for very, very different reasons. [00:54:15] Speaker B: That's fair. [00:54:16] Speaker C: I. I'm gonna have to say that I think Dan Trachtenberg has opened up the opportunity for great world building and some great storytelling. And there are a lot of opportunities for some good stories to come out of the Predator franchise. And I think that the Alien franchise has some troubling issues in its future because they keep going back to the Alien as more of a virus. And we've also got some different issues with Alien Earth now. So I think that the Alien franchise is on unsteady footing, whereas the Predator franchise, whether you like this movie or not, is ripe for new stories. [00:54:59] Speaker A: I agree with that. [00:55:00] Speaker B: What about you, Steve? [00:55:02] Speaker D: I kind of see a blend of both of them, almost like with Prometheus, almost with the carrying on the David arc of everything. I see them merging and trying to do better than avp. And avp. The second one did Rectum. Yes. That works on more than one level. [00:55:27] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm so. I do want another David. I want to. I want them to wrap up that trilogy and. And put a lid on it, make a little more sense of it. I'd like to see something like that. I feel like we don't know what happened with that story, and I want that to be finished. Also, I love the actor who plays David and Walter. What's his name? Fassbender. Thank you, Fassbender. Love Fassbender. So I would like to see another movie there. I hear that Romulus is getting a sequel, or should be, and I'm interested in that because there were some great highs in Romulus, but there were also some very bad lows for me and Romulus, and I just don't know where it's going to go. So, like I said, I'm unsure where that's going to go. For me, the. This, you know, after. After Prey, Killer of Killers, and now Badlands. I think we've got three good movies going in a good direction, and hopefully we get the green light for a bigger budget and some real huge epic storytelling now in the Predator franchise. [00:56:29] Speaker B: Yeah. I feel like in the Alien world as much as I liked. I personally liked Prometheus I think more than the average person did. It's easy to see that Prometheus and Covenant were probably fails. And then you've got Romulus is like the first one in a long time that actually felt like that actually hit pretty large with a lot of people. Whereas in Predator we've had three in a row now that seem to be getting pretty positive reviews. So it just feels like it's more likely to continue in that way. Whereas Aliens could easily just fall off again if they're not careful. [00:57:00] Speaker A: That's true. [00:57:00] Speaker B: And yeah, I, I 100 prefer the aliens as a race and not a genetic mutation. [00:57:06] Speaker A: Right. [00:57:07] Speaker B: Spawn goo, whatever the hell is going on there. [00:57:09] Speaker A: Yeah, I guess that's it. I I see Alien as a. A sci fi more than and Predator as an action. So they're just two different genres. So it's hard for me to be like which one's better? They're just two different genres. Leave it down to my ratings I guess. [00:57:24] Speaker D: Right. I'll always see Alien as a threat. An antagonist out is something to overcome. And you can see Predator, even if it's the antagonist, you can still see him have more of a role in the movie and have more of an individualized character in being part of the movie, not just the threat of the movie. [00:57:46] Speaker A: Right? [00:57:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:57:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Not just a hive mind thing. [00:57:49] Speaker D: Right? Right. [00:57:50] Speaker B: If you like what we do and you want to support us, head on over to Patreon. There's a link down below. Shout out to our producers as well as our executive producers, including Real Bubba Hotep, who's joining us today, and Dino. And thank you to our writer, Elder JM we're not sure what we're doing at the end of the month, but we're sure it's going to be a good one. I don't know why I added that. That was entirely unnecessary. But whatever. Trying to get out saying the same names every time. [00:58:16] Speaker A: Yeah, it's all good. [00:58:17] Speaker B: Gonna get you guys do it one time. Just do something different. All right. So as per always. Oh, that's wrong Stream as for always, we're gonna have Boa Hotep go first. His score we are very curious about but is not going to impact the actual rating on the poster because he was not here for the rest of the show or the rest of the the predators that we did. But I'm still super curious where you land on this one. You did a spoiler review that surprised me or sorry, spoiler free review that surprised me. So I'm curious where you're going with this. [00:58:48] Speaker D: Well, as for this movie in general, it's not a waste of your money, especially if you can take your, your older children to go and see it. And it's more of a family friendly. You don't have to worry about getting called to DHS or anything. But either which way, I would give this movie a 72 room temperature. Seriously, the storyline, very, very weak to me. The character itself just. I went to go see the Predator that I was used to seeing. I wanted to see the Big Baddie and the Predator and what I got was a coming of age film. Even though it really looked fantastic for the most part, there were a lot of scenes that were really flat. There were a lot of scenes that were hollow. There were a lot of scenes that were really so full I couldn't keep track, you know, and you could tell it was green screen and a whole lot. So that brings it down so much. But all around, if you're looking for a good time and a good way to waste your money, it, it's worth going to see in the big screen. [00:59:51] Speaker C: What to say about this film. It, it did have its issues as we've gone over. The thing was, is that I had so much damn fun watching this film that I didn't mind most of it. That's, that's really all there was to it. I knew what I was getting into when I walked into the theater. I had seen enough clips and trailers for this because I'm an avid fan of the franchise that I had a really good idea of what it was about. I had very high hopes. My expectations were a little bit lower. This reached my hopes. So I was very happy with the film. I think it's a great, great addition to the franchise. The fun factor on this one for me was just through the roof. And so because of that it carried in some of the other areas which really weren't all that bad. Just would have liked a little bit more seriousness in some of the storytelling. Some of the humor didn't land so much. Some of the jokes were pretty funny, but for the most part I would have rather a more serious role. Overall, this movie gets an 88 for me. I, I, I think it's a really good addition to the franchise and I hope to see more. [01:01:04] Speaker B: All right. For my take on this one, I, unfortunately, because it's still in theaters, I was only able to see it the one time. I usually do like to try and go back and even catch scenes again if I can just to, like, remind myself. So I wasn't paying a whole lot of a sense. I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to the sound in this movie. So I don't really know where to land that one. But nothing stood out negatively either. So I don't give that one too hard of a score. The cinematography really worked for me in this movie. I know Bubba Hotep was talking about the green screens. I didn't personally notice that too much. There was a couple of scenes that, yeah, it looked a little wonky, but overall, it didn't look too bad to me. And I felt like we actually were on an alien world in this movie. Whereas some movies, even predators, just kind of felt like they were on Earth, like, until you saw multiple moons in the sky or whatever it was. This one actually did feel like they were on a different planet, which was really cool to see. The acting in this one is really hard to gauge because there's really only Elle Fanning doing the acting. Like, I know we talked about the Dex character, but it's so heavy in prosthetics and CGI and whatnot's going on there. I don't know 100 where the actor is and where the prosthetics end and the actor begins or however you want to word that. I appreciate that he did learn the language, and his lines were good, but even then, some of the times where he would say, say a sentence, it felt like he was repeating himself, and I'm sure he wasn't. I'm not familiar with the Yacha language, but there's a couple of times where I'm like, he's just saying the same thing over and over again. But the. The subtitles at the bottom are saying completely different things. I'm probably horrendously wrong on that, but that's the only thing that really stood out to me. The plot on this one is simplistic, and it worked for me. We've never seen a Predator story quite like this one. I don't necessarily need more of it, but I really enjoyed what I got of it. And like Brian, the fun factor on this one was really high for me. I just enjoyed it. There were a couple of things like the character of Bud or the legs fighting and taking out multiple robots that were really stupid, but they weren't stupid enough to take me out of the film for longer than while they were on screen. Overall, I really enjoyed this one. I'm giving it an 87 out of 100. Right? [01:03:03] Speaker C: Right. [01:03:04] Speaker B: Close to Brian, just a little behind him. [01:03:06] Speaker A: All right, this is for Bubba, because Bubba's rating is. It doesn't matter, obviously, but I do, I do lean closer to Bubba, but not for the same reasons. I. Again, I appreciate original Predator movie is like a hero's journey action movie. This is a hero's journey action movie. Like it's just flipped on its head where it's the Predator who happens to be a runt. Why he wasn't killed off immediately, I have no idea. Obviously they knew he was a run front. Maybe they get growth spurts really late in life, I don't know. But, you know, there's a lot of questions about the Predator or Yautja culture that really kept coming back into my mind while watching this. So I, I do wish and yearn for more yota culture because what I think Dan Trachtenberg is doing is, is really pulling from the literature that has been written, comic books and all of this other content that's out there and is. Is finally kind of bringing that to the screen, right to the very end where the mothership comes down. And that's the, the last line, the cut line. There's been mother predators in the comics and, and other literature. And they're always bigger, more menacing creatures. Like they are the ones to actually fear, but we've never seen them on screen. So even just the shout out to the possibility of seeing that was. Is kind of fun. And that's what this movie is. It's. It's kind of fun. There's lots of Great action. The PG13 rating didn't deter this movie at all for what it accomplishes in action and brutality. But I do believe they did make some choices that I didn't agree with in, in regards to the overusage of humor or attempts at humor. And that did take me out a little bit because it did. It just, it just wore on me and I understood, I understood the reason for it. You know, Dec is this like hard YA who has no want or desire to get help, but like, they wear him down throughout the film. I just feel like the humor was so over the top to get him there that it, it just kind of took me out a little bit. But overall, I, it's. It's a fun movie. Like Dan, Brian, I, I even think Steve had a good time watching the movie. Overall, it's fun to watch and I think that's why it's getting really good reviews and the wider audience base allowing to see it with the PG13 rating. It's, it's. It's gonna, it's gonna set pace for the future Predator movies, I. I figure. But overall, it's only a 76 out [01:05:41] Speaker C: of 100 for me. [01:05:41] Speaker A: I think it's a. It's a decent movie. It just, it didn't. It just didn't quite go far enough to make it a great movie for. For my, for my liking. [01:05:53] Speaker B: And with that, Predator out squeaks Alien by just the tiniest bit to become the second highest franchise on our board at the moment with a score of 74. How do you guys feel about that Predator? Well, I mean, it's quite a bit behind Dollar's trilogy, but, like, in second place, does that feel right for you guys? [01:06:14] Speaker A: I think it must feel right for Brian because his, his average is 75, so must be bang on. Brian, what do you think? [01:06:20] Speaker C: Yeah, I like it right there. I'm thinking that, like, we've. We've said a couple times now, we've had a series of good movies coming out of this franchise, and it's been pretty rocky over there at Aliens, and not to mix too many movies together here, but it. This, this feels right. And we'll see if. If we get some more out of both of these franchises. I mean, it could be a dog fight at the top of the ratings here. We're never going to catch up to dollars. That's just quality right there. But I'm happy with these and, and I'm happy with the 28 being under it. Mad Max and stuff. So I'm good. I'm good here. [01:06:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I think Brian's right. [01:06:57] Speaker B: The. [01:06:58] Speaker A: The return to form on these recent Predator movies gives it an edge for sure. And I'm. I'm okay with it taking over Alien at this point, and its placement is okay. It's okay for me. [01:07:11] Speaker B: All right, that's our rating of Predator Badlands, but what's yours? I'd love to know. Leave a comment down below. We record this over at Twitch TV, the Mongolie show every Thursday night at 9. So head over there and hit the follow button if you want to interact with us live or if you enjoyed this video. Make sure you hit the like and subscribe button so that we see you in the next one. [01:07:35] Speaker A: Sa.