R Rating Ep3 - Predator (1987)

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hello, everybody, and welcome back to our rating the show, where we take movie franchises, break them down by movie, and actually give them a score overall so we can see where the franchise lands on our board as a whole. Now, the past two movies that we've done, the last two franchises we did, we tried to fit the entire franchise into one episode, and it was just way too long. It was a lot of work for us. It was a ton of work for our editor, and it was too much to ask of the actual audience. So what we're going to start doing from here on out is just doing one movie an episode. We'll still do franchises, but the franchise might take us three weeks, four weeks, five weeks, depending on how many are in the franchise. So today we're going to be talking about the Predator franchise, of which there are five. So this is day one. We're going to talk about 1987's Predator with Arnold Schwarzenegger. And I'm joined today by Will and Brian. How are you guys doing today? I need to ask one of you individually, because every time you both just look at me like, what? [00:00:51] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I'm doing great. I'm doing. Thank you so much for asking, Dan. I'm doing well and run. How are you, Brian? [00:00:58] Speaker C: I'm. I'm. I'm surviving. I'm surviving. I'm making a comeback this week, healthwise. [00:01:04] Speaker A: Very nice. All right, so Predator 1987. This is the one that started the whole franchise where. Brian, I'll start with you. What is your history with this, this movie or this franchise? Like, have you seen this a lot before? Are you a big fan? This is your first time coming to it. [00:01:21] Speaker C: So this is a huge favorite of mine. I've seen this many, many times. I think I probably watched it for a reasonable number. Would probably be just like my 30th time watching the film. This is one of those films that whenever I would see it playing on TV or something like that, or catch it back in the day when things aired on a time schedule, I would stop and finish watching the movie just because I'd enjoyed it so much. And so the thing was, coming into it this time, like, paying attention to it, taking notes, really comparing it to other things, had a totally different feel for it. For me, I noticed things I'd never seen before because I was just such a huge fan of the. The genre and. And the style and everything about this that I. I guess I let a lot of things slide. So I did notice some things this time around, and it was a Little bit different. Approaching it, you know, under a microscope. [00:02:17] Speaker A: Interesting. What about you, Will? [00:02:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I've seen this movie probably a dozen times. Again, like big action movie fan growing up, due to my family enjoying those kinds of movies and you know, Arnie was a big household name. So a lot of fun, this movie for me. Watching it again and again and again. Similar to Brian, you know, actually analyzing it and thinking of, you know, the acting and thinking of the writing. It, it maybe doesn't score as high as in my mind it originally would have. You know what I'm saying? Not that it's a bad movie by any means. I still love it. But it does. Yeah, it does. You, you find a little, little things that are like, okay, maybe, maybe they could have got some actors in this. [00:03:09] Speaker A: I gotta say, I have like almost the exact same thing where like I didn't grow up with a whole lot of R rated movies. Like my parents were pretty religious and whatnot. So like, I didn't come to this till probably like late teenage years. But I was a big Arnold Schwarzenegger fan probably from like 18 to almost 30. So this is one that was definitely in high rotation during like college years and stuff like that. So like, I don't have the same nostalgia from like childhood, but definitely from like late teens, early 20s on kind of thing. I've seen this movie a ton. I'm a big Arnold fan and this is one of my favorites of his, I want to say, or at least it has been historically. Haven't watched it as much recently because, you know, kids in the house and you know, you watch different things when you're older. But I, I have a fun nostalgia for this one. And exactly like both of you were saying, watching this with a pen and paper in hand, you're like, oh, that's interesting. Oh, that's not quite how I remembered it. I, I gotta say. Like, I almost. Because it's just been a really busy week and we're out camping for a couple of days. I almost said to myself, you know what, I've seen this movie enough times, I don't need to rewatch it. I can talk about this one pretty easily. I'm so glad I watched this one again because there were, there were literally scenes I didn't remember. Like, I remember the beginning starting off with that stupid alien ship and we'll get there in a second. And I remember the like, Dylan, you son of a. But like actually getting from point A to point B on that one. I was like, I don't remember them Flying in on helicopters. I don't remember this military beginning. Like, all of that was just like, what am I watching? Like, there's the high points, which obviously you remember, but, like, there's a couple of things in between. I was like, I don't know what this is. I. I have no idea what I'm watching right now, which is really. I honestly thought I found, like, a director's cut or something. For, like, a split second, I was like, did they make a different version of this? But no. So I've. I've also got a fun level of this. I don't know that I could hit 30 times with it. I think that's a little higher, but I'm probably closer to, like, the dozen mark. That sounds about right. So I think it's. [00:05:05] Speaker B: I think it's funny. [00:05:06] Speaker C: The. [00:05:06] Speaker B: This concept for this film started as a joke. Someone was like, the only person Rocky Balboa hasn't has yet to fight was E.T. the extraterrestrial, and. And. And so was born the Predator franchise. [00:05:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I read that back. I read that as well. And it was just like, oh, interesting. That's. Did not know originally that's where that came from. And I'd forgotten that apparently Jean Claude Van Damme was originally supposed to be the Predator, which properly could have been a really acrobatic predator, but not a very imposing one. I think of Jean Claude Van Damme as a fairly small person, not towering over Arnold Schwarzenegger. [00:05:50] Speaker C: Kevin Peter hall was the superior choice by far. If you don't know, Kevin Peter hall is 7 foot 2. He's just amazing. And seeing him behind the scenes with the costume taken apart is just. You're. It's impressive. Not only his physique, but the costume that's built around him and what he had to wear is very impressive. Yeah. [00:06:15] Speaker B: It was over £200, right? [00:06:17] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:06:18] Speaker A: Massive thing. All right, so because this is our first episode doing just one movie per episode, do we want to break the movie down a little bit more? Talk about, like, scene by scene? How do we want to actually approach this? Because we tried to, like, fit in four movies into, like, two hours before. [00:06:33] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:06:34] Speaker A: Now that we've got, like, 45 minutes, we can kind of spread our legs a little bit more. Is that how we want to. Okay. [00:06:38] Speaker B: Wording is just ideal tonight. [00:06:43] Speaker C: Okay. [00:06:43] Speaker A: So you can spread our legs a little bit. How does that. How did you make that one sexual. Oh, spread your legs. Yeah. [00:06:48] Speaker B: Okay. [00:06:48] Speaker A: I was thinking, like, you know, stretch your legs. I was thinking, stretch your legs. Is What I meant to say. [00:06:53] Speaker B: No, you said what you meant to say. [00:06:55] Speaker A: I realized now I heard it. I heard it. [00:06:57] Speaker C: I was gonna let it fly. I was gonna let it fly. You guys. You guys both made references to the acting in this movie. Now, me going back into it and really paying attention to it, I did notice some things that I both appreciated that I hadn't really appreciated before, and some things that I was like, oh, that's way worse than I thought it was. Okay, first off, I. I really do think that Arnold Schwarzenegger had the worst acting in the film. I think he was the worst. His lines were terrible. When he would talk about anything that was important, any kind of. What's the word I'm looking for? Militaristic? Tactical. Like. Like any kind of tactical idea of what they're going to do. He didn't make any sense. Like, it was just words. It was like that. That doesn't even. Like, it doesn't compute with me. It was very distracting when I started paying attention to him because these were things that he would not really say in real life. And his one liners were just so cheesy and out of. [00:08:06] Speaker A: Amazing. You said amazing wrong. [00:08:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:08] Speaker C: They have their charts. They have their charts. Stick around. You know, like. Like they were super duper fun. Because you're into it, right? You're into it because there's these big buff dudes with huge guns and explosions everywhere. And it's just entertaining. And so the one liners seem to just flow and fit, but when you stop and pay attention to it, that is so unrealistic. And then his just. Just his simple dialogue and his acting and everything else was really, really terrible. When you pay attention to it, luckily, that's really not what you're there for. You're not there for his development as a character. You know, I don't know. So what did you guys think about the acting in this film? [00:08:50] Speaker A: So I'm gonna push back to the tiniest bit. I agree with you that Arnold Schwarzenegger was terrible when he was interacting with other people. But a good chunk of this movie is him just being in the jungle, being a boy scout, attacking the predator. And I thought he did a pretty damn good job at all of those scenes. [00:09:04] Speaker B: Scenes like he does. [00:09:05] Speaker C: That was right. You're right. That's spot on. [00:09:07] Speaker A: Yeah. One liners, like, stick around is kind of silly. And apparently that was improv improvised in the moment. But, like, you're one. I'm not gonna try the accent. You're one ugly. When he first Sees the alien, like, I don't know. I still use that line randomly, never to somebody, just kind of like. [00:09:24] Speaker C: And that one carried throughout the franchise. It was so iconic. Right. So, so, so there are some good ones that are, that are just so good and they stick and they're fun. And it's not just the one liners, though. It really is his dialogue with the other actors. Oh, yeah, that's what's terrible. But you're right. Him running around in the woods, his boy, he's showing off the muscles. When he's bending that bow and just flexing everything, you're like, oh, my God, you know, you know, he's making me tired. [00:09:50] Speaker A: So. [00:09:51] Speaker C: So he's awesome to watch, but his dialogue and interactions with the other people were just so terrible to me. But what was amazing and what I actually thought kind of almost stole the show and upstaged acting wise was the play Bill Duke, who played Mac. Yeah, his performance as he loses his mind going after the Predator was very impressive. I thought that was a really good job and outshone everybody. I also liked Dylan, what's his name? Carl Weathers. I also liked his performance playing that CIA agent who you're not really supposed to like. He kind of develops his character along. He doesn't believe anything crazy is happening until he actually sees the Predator with his own eyes. And then he wants to make up for his mistakes, his shortcomings, he wants to try and pull it around. And I kind of felt his. His character development was pretty decent. But for sure, Bill Duke was just amazing in his portrayal of. Of being stressed out in this film. His little, his little monologues and stuff were incredible. [00:11:05] Speaker A: Carl Weather's character, and you're more familiar with aliens, so you may fight back on this one, kind of reminded me of Paul Reiser's character in Aliens, where, like, he's the corporate guy that you're not supposed to like. [00:11:17] Speaker C: Y. [00:11:17] Speaker A: But by memory, Paul Reiser's character is a little bit more like full blown evil, whereas Carl Weathers is a little bit more nuanced and kind of like, yes, I tricked you to doing this thing that I needed you to do, but because my friend is in danger and this is the only way that I could go and try and go after my friend. As you understand, we want to bring this alien back that's going to ruin humanity. [00:11:37] Speaker C: And yeah, he felt this was the way to get the job done. You. You understood it. So he wasn't a villain, he was just a flawed character. [00:11:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Which I'm totally Okay with. [00:11:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree with most of the things said. [00:11:52] Speaker A: Which ones do you not agree with? [00:11:54] Speaker B: No, no. I believe initially the script was Arnie's in the jungle fighting the predator. There was no posse, there was no team, and Arnie didn't like that. So they, they rewrote it. And so I feel like it's. Arnie's character might not be acting troubles as much as writing troubles from what you're saying. Run. Just. You're saying more that the dialogue was not up to par, not how he's delivering the lines and. Or act. [00:12:26] Speaker C: That's fair. That's fair. [00:12:27] Speaker B: But that's, that's. That's my new. Arnie's not the greatest actor, let's be honest. That said, I feel like the characters that were added in were very one dimensional characters. You've got the tractor character, who's very good at really. You've got the big gun, badass character, the sexual tyrannosaurus. [00:12:49] Speaker C: Hey, Jesse Ventura actually did quite well in the portrayal of that character. I thought he was. It was interesting. I liked this vibrant cast of characters. And we. And again, that's something that we'll see in other films that they try to capture. They kind of fail. This one, you like these characters. They're one dimensional. They don't develop anybody other than maybe Dylan. But you, you like them and you don't really want to see them get killed. You're almost voting for one person to last longer than another. But you're right, they're definitely one dimensional. [00:13:24] Speaker B: They're very one dimensional. So what they were given scriptural wise and what they performed, you know, they got the nerdy character. They're all in there. Right. So I think what they were given they did fine with because again, I don't think a lot of these guys are well known for their acting jobs. They're well known for their bodybuilding and big muscles, giant imposing forces. Right. So I was okay. I'm okay with that. Yeah, it is what it is. It. And it's in the vein of what this movie is, which is like a pure adrenaline junkie, fun explosion fest. [00:14:03] Speaker C: It's actually meet Sci Fi, which is. [00:14:06] Speaker A: Actually one of the things that I kind of push back on this time around is the action scene where they're in the village and they're like taking out the insurgents or whatever it is. The, the rebels. Nope, whatever. The bad guys was so nonsensical to me that it was just like. It was really distractingly bad where they're just like, he's Walking around and, like, all of them are hip firing. They're just kind of random. [00:14:29] Speaker C: Terrible, wasn't it? [00:14:30] Speaker A: And just, like, things are exploding all over the place. And this happened even when my daughter's walked in the room, like, what are you watching? I'm like, I don't even know. Come back at any other time of the movie. And it's good. [00:14:39] Speaker C: One thing that I did a little touch to that scene that I did like. And this kind of falls under the scoring. The. The sound effects category was they started up the helicopter. And that helicopter just winds up slowly real. You don't even hear when it starts, but it's real subtle. And it just winds up and gets louder and louder and louder and louder. And the intensity of that battle scene just gets more and more ferocious. And that helicopter starting up just builds to a climax until they finally blow up the helicopter and then everything's just popping off. Completely ridiculous. But I'm here for it. It was fun to watch, for sure. [00:15:16] Speaker A: It was interesting because, like, they didn't in any way describe where the hostages are. And they just go in and they start blowing up every single building. I'm like, how do you. Like, we haven't found any hostages yet. Well, they're in the burning building behind you. Yeah. Just kind of walking in, like, shoot first, ask questions later. Okay, sure. It's fine. [00:15:41] Speaker B: Where they found the one damsel, so we had some female representation there. [00:15:46] Speaker C: Right. Who was not a hostage at all. You're right. Yeah. [00:15:49] Speaker A: No. One of the enemies was the rest of the movie, but not at the time they found her. [00:15:53] Speaker B: Not the rest. They cut her loose. They cut her loose. [00:15:57] Speaker A: Fair. [00:15:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. So acting not great. Maybe writing not great. Maybe the writing might not have been. [00:16:06] Speaker A: Great, but the place, plot, I actually really like. Like the idea of this movie. I. The only thing I don't like, and I kind of touched on it a second ago, is I think this movie would have been so much more interesting if you don't have that alien spaceship at the very beginning, because that tells you right off the bat what you're fighting against. You don't need to see it for a while, but, like, you don't see the alien, the predator. I wrote it down somewhere for, like, 52 minutes of this movie. Like, literally, it's almost the halfway mark before you actually see. See the alien. And I think this movie would have been so much cooler if they played up that and just be like, something is out there. It's hunting us down. We don't actually know what it Is now. Obviously there's been like five sequels now, four sequels now. So we know what predators are. Right. [00:16:49] Speaker C: Did they even have teaser trailers back then? Like they kind of did like a full on 2 minute like montage of the movies when they made trailers or, you know, advertising for them. [00:17:00] Speaker A: I'm certain I don't, I don't know what the trailer for this movie looks like, but I'm certain it would have the, the Predator in it in some capacity or very least. Like the, the way that it looks with the infrared sensors and that's fine, but like, I don't know, just something about that seems like it would be a lot cooler to me is if you're just like, what is out there? Like the fear of the unknown is stronger than the fear of what you're looking at. Right. Like somebody chat just mentioned the Jaws effect. Exactly. Like the less you see of Jaws, the scarier Jaws is. And I really liked that. It's like, wow, you were actually really, really far into this movie before you see the Predator uncloaked and you're really far in before you see him take off his mask. And that's really cool to me. Like, I wish they'd kind of played that a little bit heavier than they did, but other than that, the idea of like a team of high class, high class, highly trained men going into the jungle, fighting something they don't understand, losing to it slowly over time and it coming down to like a one on one fight. And now I do wish the Predator was a little more interested in a fair fight. It doesn't look like he's looking for that at all so much as he's just like trying to get the easy trophies. But something about the plot there really does connect me. Like that seems like a cool idea. However, I agree, I don't know, the actual writing of the script is as strong as it could have been. [00:18:11] Speaker C: Yeah, I think, you know, when he, he kills, is it Blaine that gets hit with a tree and later gets hit in the head with the photon blast? I don't think he was aiming for Blaine. He was aiming for whoever was holding Blaine. And that's why Blaine gets killed in that sequence. Because Blaine didn't have a gun. He was being carried out of there. He was like, I can make it, you know, and they're just trying to lug him out of there and he just takes that blast to the, to the side of the neck and goes down. And I was like, that's weird. He must not have been. And I realized he was trying to shoot. I believe it was Schwarzenegger that's trying to carry him. He's trying to take out Schwarzenegger at the time. Schwarzenegger's waving around his big old machine gun. [00:18:54] Speaker B: I'm gonna, I'm gonna counter on this both of you a little bit here. I, I feel like predator fights 1v1. He, he, the predator chooses a target and takes them out. And I feel like when you go bow hunting for deer, you don't put down your bow to kill the deer. You're. You're a hunter. You're going to take them down. It doesn't matter, you know, if they put down their weapons. You put down your weapons, you fight the same level. I think the predators is there to collect trophies proving they're the best hunter. [00:19:35] Speaker A: Do you agree that they don't attack the woman because she doesn't have a weapon? [00:19:41] Speaker C: I do. [00:19:41] Speaker A: So then if Arnold put his weapon down, would the predator leave him alone? [00:19:44] Speaker B: I don't think so because they've already engaged in combat. [00:19:48] Speaker C: Yeah. That's why when, when Schwarzenegger is unarmed at the end of the film, Predator removes all of his gear to go hand to hand combat with Schwarzenegger because there's, there's no weapons left. And he still wants to beat this guy, but he doesn't want it to be an unfair fight. He wants it to be a fair fight. Yeah. [00:20:05] Speaker B: I think in Arnold's case, like at the end, or Dutch's case case, I think the Predator's like, this opponent has given me a good run. Let's go, you know, weapons down and fight it out at the end. Like, I feel like it was like a sign of respect to the opponent at that point because it was engaged in such a long battle with Dutch. Right. And other, other cases, the predators is like not a challenge. Take them out, take them out, take them out. [00:20:38] Speaker C: In, in the comics and, and novels, the predator society regards hand to hand combat kills as more honorable than to use your shoulder cannon to blast them from a distance and whatnot. There's some cases where when they go hunting for aliens, to take one down with a spear or your wrist talons is just this high praise honor because it's such a challenge to do so. So you, you in their society, you get mocked for shooting an easy target and they don't want that. So they want the most challenging target they can for the highest praise. And then those kills that were the most challenging, they tend to take those skulls and trophies and put them on their trophy rack in A position of honor when they do that. So going and fetching their kills is always a top priority for them. That's why you see them string them up immediately, which is almost. Almost unrealistic. In some of the. Some of the other films too, there's like a little. A little in some discontinuity between the action sequence and the time that the Predator has the kill strung up. You're like, wait a minute, he had like five minutes and he's got those bodies already hung from the ceiling. Like, how that happen? [00:21:59] Speaker A: Like a gel or something that, like removes all the skin and everything. Like, just not a gel. Sorry. Like a. Like a smoke or something. He does something to the bodies. [00:22:07] Speaker C: Each movie he's got some different tricks to. To. To do. To. To clean them and everything. So. And. And that's the thing is that they. They do hunt to learn how to become better hunters. And so there's always a progression. And we'll see that later when we go back in time to Prey. You'll see a different type of weaponry that the Predator is using in that movie because it's a prequel. [00:22:34] Speaker A: Yeah, we'll get to pray down the road. And that's one I'm very interested to talk about as well. But there's a couple. [00:22:39] Speaker C: Yeah, they set the standard for this. Let's collect trophies. Let's fight for honor. You know, Billy goes hand to hand with him in the first place. Thing. I wish we could have seen that fight instead of just hearing him scream, which, by the way, the scream of Billy's was not. Didn't make any sense to me later. There's a. There's a lot of different sound effects in this movie that when I'm paying attention to it just didn't make any sense and bothered me a lot when I started to pay attention to it. There's duplicate sounds being used for different things that I'm like, wait a minute, that was a scream that I heard three scenes ago. Now they're using it again over here. And it's not the same thing. This isn't the Predator mimicking the sound either. This is two different people and they're using the same sound effect. There were a lot of cheap little tricks they did in there that. That I. I caught when I was really paying attention. [00:23:28] Speaker A: That's. [00:23:29] Speaker B: They probably blew their budget on the Predator costume. [00:23:32] Speaker C: Right. Or that minigun, which was so sweet. That was money well spent right there. Going down the jungle with bullets was amazing. [00:23:39] Speaker A: With the backpack, that's just a toy. Right? Like that kind of gun doesn't really exist. Like I don't think guns exist, but like that, the whole backpack thing, like. [00:23:46] Speaker C: Oh yeah, that's a real thing. [00:23:48] Speaker A: Exactly like that. [00:23:49] Speaker C: Yeah. I think they modded a minigun off. [00:23:52] Speaker B: Of like a, like a helicopter minigun. I think they modded it. [00:23:55] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:23:56] Speaker B: I don't think the one in the movie's real, but yeah, guns like miniguns on choppers exist. [00:24:03] Speaker A: Sure, sure, on choppers. But the backpack part of it is the ones like this looks like a GI Joe toy. I don't know if this is. [00:24:08] Speaker C: I, I, I don't know. I want to believe that thing's real because it's awesome. It's just awesome. [00:24:13] Speaker A: I love, I love the way, I. [00:24:14] Speaker B: Mean it could very well be real now. I don't think it was real back. [00:24:18] Speaker A: In the day in 1986. [00:24:19] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:24:20] Speaker A: I loved at one point, I never caught it before, but he like pulls the gun up and he just like cocks it by just like rotating it halfway back and forth. I'm like, is that, I don't know, I thought it was a toy 10 seconds ago. So who knows? That's exactly how you a minigun. But it's just one of those things that looks cool and probably look cooler than it was functional. [00:24:36] Speaker C: Yeah, there were a lot of things that they didn't need to do that were just cool. Like, like when, when Ventura's like, he's dug in like an Alabama tick and he's like, oh, you're bleeding. He's like, I ain't got time to bleed. You got time to duck and they shoot the grenades up in the air and blow it up. Like if you pay attention, they had finished the battle. Like those were just some leftover dudes. Like they could have just like taken their time and done any. But no, they're, they're putting in some funny banter and some cool little, you know, lobbing grenades and blowing more stuff up, which was just entertaining. That's why we're here, right? To see things explode and these amazing action sequences. [00:25:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I do like some of those scenes though because it does kind of portray this as like a long term unit as opposed to a guys who have just met each other. Right. Like the scene. [00:25:22] Speaker C: Absolutely. [00:25:23] Speaker A: I actually think is really important with. I don't know what music was. I didn't recognize the song, but I liked the song that was playing in the sense that like this was just their way of getting geared up before a mission. Other they're just kind of like chatting and talking like, that really worked out well for me, and little interactions like you just mentioned worked well for me. Even when Bill Duke's character is, like, kind of mourning the death of Jesse Ventura, like, he's not the world's best actor, but I definitely got the sense of like, oh, no, this is somebody who actually cares about this guy. Like, this actually has an effect on him, as opposed to just like, oh, crap, someone died. Well, better move on. [00:25:58] Speaker C: I don't know. [00:25:59] Speaker A: I. I really liked the overall feeling of this team, especially considering, again, not. Not the greatest actors in the world, but did a good job of forming this unit. [00:26:10] Speaker C: Right. And then. And then it puts Dylan on the outside of this team as this new recruit in there. By the way, I think I said Blaine earlier got shot in the side of the neck. Blingo is chest blown out. I was talking about Poncho. He was the guy that got hit with the log, and they were carrying him out, and he got shot in the neck when he was unarmed. [00:26:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Now, just because we're talking about the shots, whoever took the. I. I didn't write the names down. I apologize. The guy who took the shot in the chest and, like, exploded his chest cavity. [00:26:39] Speaker C: That was Jesse Ventura's Blaine. Yeah. [00:26:41] Speaker A: Right. Doesn't Arnold Schwarzeneg take the exact same shot to the shoulder later on and just kind of like. And moves on it? [00:26:48] Speaker C: It hits his. His rifle and. And, like, ricochets off his rifle and blows it out of his hand? Is. Is the one I saw. There's. But that's the thing, and we'll see this throughout the franchise. There are certain times when people can get hit with things and it has a different effect. And the Predator gets hit with things, and it has a different effect. There are some times when it's like, okay, how come the Predator seems bulletproof right now? I mean, when he's running away from the. From the minigun and they're mowing down the field and he only gets, like, a scratch on him, but then, like, Schwarzenegger's, like, puncturing him left and right with different things, you know, his spears and stuff. So there's all kinds of weird, like, inconsistencies with how tough the Predator is, and they don't do any kind of dialogue to explain that. [00:27:39] Speaker A: I just assumed that at the time where they're using the miniguns, he's invisible. Right. So it's. It's more likely that you could miss an invisible target. Whereas when ARL and him are fighting, the cloaking system seems to be offline right. And it's more like, oh, I can actually tell where you are now. Now I can aim a bit better and actually try and hit you. I do love that minigun scene because Ventura just goes crazy and nobody asks a question. They're all like, oh, we're shooting over here. Cool. Everybody just starts unloading into the forest in the same direction. And they are deforesting that area like there is nothing, nothing left over. They have no idea what they're shooting at. They're just like, oh, somebody's shooting. Cool. Let's all, let's all aim on this. It's like. [00:28:19] Speaker C: The wide angle shot from over their shoulders. Just watching the forest collapse as they just shoot lead and smoke into the distance and everything tumbling before them. It was, it was a powerful scene. It was really cool to see. Again, that's why we're here. We're watching blow up and. And we're. We're chasing aliens in the jungle. So for me that stuff just really helped this movie to become amazing. [00:28:44] Speaker B: Specifically, it also just builds on the fact that what they're fighting is well beyond their pay. [00:28:51] Speaker C: Right. Yeah. They gave it their all on that one. And they only scratched him. Of course we. We did get the line, if it bleeds, we can kill it. [00:29:00] Speaker A: Which one of the best. [00:29:01] Speaker C: Another line that's carried throughout the franchise and into and made canon throughout the rest of the whole novels and comic. [00:29:08] Speaker A: Book at this point. I think that just pop culture now. [00:29:11] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:29:16] Speaker A: I gotta say sorry. The. There was one effect in this movie that I really didn't care for, which was when he's invisible and his eyes just like glow. Just like. Oh, that does not hold up well. And maybe a bit of the lightning at the very end when the explosion. Explosion goes off like right before the explosion was kind of like, ah, it's a little highlandery. [00:29:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:36] Speaker A: But everything else in this movie holds up really, really well. I thought now a lot of it's practical effect with like the helicopter stuff like that. But those are good looking scenes. And when you first see the Predator, pretty much every time you see the Predator like that is a legit suit. Like when he takes his helmet off and you see the face up close. I have no notes. Like that's perfect. It looks amazing. [00:29:58] Speaker C: Could not be better. [00:29:58] Speaker A: Almost 30 years later, 40 years, almost. [00:30:01] Speaker C: 40 years later, you're still using it. Yep. [00:30:04] Speaker A: Practical effects so good. As opposed to like we get CGI that three weeks later looks terrible. Like we need more movies with this kind of practical effects budgets. [00:30:13] Speaker B: Yeah. For me again I'll, I'll. I'll rain this down every moment I can. It's a blend. You have to use the CG to complement practical effects. Because practical effects look real. Because they are real. Somebody had to build it. The robotics inside, like the movements are real movements. And CG still has trouble putting weight and realistic nature to those things. To living things especially. [00:30:45] Speaker C: Sometimes get stuck in that uncanny valley where it looks right, but there's something amiss. Yeah. And we just haven't gotten there. [00:30:52] Speaker B: Right. [00:30:52] Speaker C: Right. Yeah. Or it's too perfect. Yeah. Yeah. So one thing when it comes to the special effects and practical effects. Okay. The invisibility cloaking. I thought that was amazing. It looked great. Looks a little weird when he's coming out of the water and it's kind of flashy and stuff. And we see that still kind of weird looking, I guess it's. They're using an effect akin to green screen. They're taking two shots and overlaying them and fading one in and out to make him kind of. And it's okay, it works. Whatever. The cloaking invisibility thing looks great. But the best effect of all was when they don't use an effect. They zoom into the trees and you presume he's on a branch out there somewhere and your eyeballs are bleeding trying to find him. But I don't think he's there. Like, I've, I've paused the movie several times in these and I've been like scouring trying to find him. And I'm like, they're just zooming in on empty branches and it works. My. You're just, you're like, he's there, he's there and you're just like trying to find him. That was the effect that I thought was so amazing was that they didn't use an effect and just zoomed in on empty branches. [00:32:03] Speaker A: Well, it's a good way of putting you in the movie as well because that's exactly what they're doing is just staring out at nothing, trying to like, where is this thing? What. What's going on? Like, he's got to be up there somewhere. He's got to be around. But they have no idea. They can't tell if he's there or not. And it, it really does put you in that same thing. I think it would have ruined it even if there had been like a. [00:32:21] Speaker C: Something you could see. [00:32:22] Speaker A: Well, like zooming in. Zoomy and zooming in. Oh, there he is. [00:32:25] Speaker B: And then like the red eyes or whatever. Yeah, exactly. [00:32:29] Speaker A: I think it's brilliant. Yeah, you're right. That they just left it alone. [00:32:34] Speaker C: Yep. It was really good when. When Dylan and Mac are then working together to try and flush him out. And sometimes you can see him and sometimes you can't. And they show you. You see the Predator when they want you to. They overdo it with the yellow eyes. Right? They overdo. They just needed to not do the yellow eyes. They overdo it there. But you see the Predator when the characters are seeing the Predator and he's not there at all. When they're looking around for him and haven't got a lock on him. And I think it's a great way to use the, The. The effect really well. [00:33:12] Speaker B: You just talking about the. The Dylan, Maxine or their little small side quest, I guess. [00:33:19] Speaker C: Right. [00:33:20] Speaker B: It's probably one of my favorite parts of the movie because they set it up throughout of the Predator mimicking sounds and mimicking Max voice. Hey, hey, come here. And you think it's the Predator. Just get Dylan and then Mac pulls him in. And I was like, that's such a great build up and set up that they. I just thought it was a great payoff for that. That was. That was nice scene. [00:33:47] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. There were a lot of. There are a lot of sequences like that that little things happened and paid off later. You know, you see the guys hanging in the tree. They're all skinned in the very beginning. And everybody's like, what's going on? And you realize those were the guys that Dylan sent in to get his men out of the chopper. And he's trying to, like, not say anything about it at the. In the beginning. And so you kind of. When he sees the Predator with his own eyes, you kind of see the weight. He's like, wow. All these things I did, they were right. This thing's real. I need to help these guys. I need to try and balance the scales because of the mistakes that I've made, you know. And so he's all in to help Mac on that one. Loses an arm for his efforts. [00:34:37] Speaker A: He loses more than that. [00:34:39] Speaker C: Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Cool, cool. Seeing those gun drops on the ground and it's still firing, you know, and he's trying to unsling his other gun as he swings around all muscles and sweat and bullets everywhere. Yeah, it was. It was great. It was great. All right, well, Dan, do you have. [00:34:57] Speaker B: Anything else you want to, like, talk about movie wise, or do you want to try to get into some rankings here? How do you want to. [00:35:02] Speaker A: We've discussed the Team building. And we've discussed the team falling apart, for lack of better term, the team destruction. But a good chunk of this movie is just straight up Arnold versus the Predator. Like, that's legitimately about a third of the movie. Let's talk about that for a brief little bit and then we can go on to maybe our overall feelings and get the scores down. The movie turns into Arnold versus about the hour and 20 mark, giving us about half an hour of just the two of them. Like, the girls made her way to the chopper. We. Well, yeah, we get. We see her later on. So the girls made her way to the chopper. Everybody else is dead. It is just one on one. And you can kind of see Arnold has been picking things up throughout this movie about, like, how this guy operates, how this guy works. And the first really big piece of the puzzle is when he gets himself covered in clay and is like, oh, he seen through infrared. Like, he couldn't see me because of this clay watching it this time around, again, I haven't seen it in a couple years. He's not wearing nearly enough clay to mask his body temperature. He's like, he's barely dirty at all. You're just like, okay, yeah, I think. [00:36:05] Speaker B: That was a. I think that was a real world issue because actually putting him in wet mud and clay actually lowered his body temperature to like, he was shivering when filming. So they had to like play that pretty light, I think, and do what they could to fake it to make it. [00:36:24] Speaker A: Yeah. A lot of this film was films at night, so of course it's cold. He's wearing on location clay and they're trying to keep him warm with like hot lamps and stuff like that. But then it's just baking the clay onto them and it's like, well, that doesn't work. So, like, you have to keep the clay wet and him warm. There's not a lot of good ways to do that. And it's like, yeah, I get it. But it's just like watching it this time around. Like, no, you're. You're glowing red still, bud. There's no way you're masked entirely. Like, he doesn't show up at all. Like he's literally not there. [00:36:52] Speaker B: And let's be honest, that's. That's also. It's all fun action movie. [00:36:58] Speaker A: Sure. You know, gets the point across. It's a way of showing that Arnold learned and things better happened off. [00:37:04] Speaker B: So, yeah, it's. It's a fun way to, you know, get around this predator, this ultimate thing. But in reality, that heat sensor would pick him up so fast. [00:37:15] Speaker A: Right? [00:37:16] Speaker C: Yeah, well. And we'll see more of the. The failures of thermal temperature readings in. In other. Other films too. That I'm like, come on, he just seen that, you know, so. Yeah. [00:37:29] Speaker A: Now, once this movie turns into Arnold vs. Predator, is it essentially just home alone for adults? [00:37:36] Speaker C: That's a pretty good way to put it. Okay, so I have a question. [00:37:42] Speaker A: Just. Yeah. Okay, cool. [00:37:44] Speaker C: When. When he goes for the. The kill shot booby trap on the Predator at the end, he's luring him in saying, come on, kill me, kill me. I'm here, kill me. And the predator comes in and he sees the spikes and he walks around and Schwarzenegger goes, oh, no. Like, I failed. Now, part of me was like, okay, he's not a great actor showcasing this emotion of failure. Part of me was like, is he trying to play it off because he. He knows about the big log over here and he wants to drop that on the Predator. And it was all part of the plan that he was gonna get him either way. I couldn't really tell if it was just kind of like his expression was not the best for that scene or if he was actually like, he's cool with the predator walking around because he's going to drop the log on him. And he knew it was coming too. [00:38:37] Speaker A: I was taking it as the. The. I think the log was supposed to be a counterweight, right? Whatever the spikes were to like shove into him or something, right? So the log falls and the spikes jump out and that's what he's waiting on. But then when the TR starts walking around, he's like, ah, crap. Like I'm. Now I'm dead because now I got nothing left in the tank. I'm laying down, I'm in a bad situation, and the predators happens to go exactly where the dead weight's gonna be. And he's like, oh, okay. That's the way that I was. I'm not saying that's accurate, but I. [00:39:06] Speaker C: Think, I think that. I think you're right. That's what I already always originally thought. But really paying attention to it, there was kind of a look on Schwarzenegger's face and I'm like. I'm like wondering. He's like, okay, maybe he's playing along. Like he's, he's upset about this because maybe this booby trap wasn't as good. If you watch it, there's like a lasso that they. I think they edit into this with special effects to show something that was supposed to go up through the branches and, like, raise him up into the spikes. But it looks really like, after, like, done in post, it looks really weird. And you only catch it for a fraction of a second as this lasso flies up through the air. Empty lasso. And then, of course, the log drops down on him. So I just. I was just making sure I wasn't seeing things. [00:39:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I think you're right. I think he was. I think he was probably like, I'm. I'm cooked. [00:39:57] Speaker C: I'm screwed. Yeah. [00:39:58] Speaker B: And then Luck was on his side. [00:40:02] Speaker C: Right. [00:40:02] Speaker B: The placement of the counterweight, that. That reads to me pretty good. [00:40:07] Speaker A: Yeah, It's. It's too small of a target to have planned exactly where he was going to be for that to have happened. Unless it happened by dumb luck. But I know the alien can't. Well, we assume the alien can't understand English, but the fact that Arnold's, like, begging it to come and kill him just also seems wrong. It feels like for what we know of the Predator from what Arnold knows, the Predator, like, taunting him with, like, I'm gonna kill you would probably have worked out better than, like, come get me. I'm wounded. Like, that's not really how Predator, like, up until now, prayers been like, no, I wanna. I wanna kill you with you. I want to kill the person who's got the biggest gun, not just, like, the random woman who's unarmed. So when he's sitting there like, begging like, oh, come get me. It's. You're like, I don't know if that's the right tactic there, bud. [00:40:49] Speaker C: Right. [00:40:50] Speaker A: And it wasn't, because then the prayer is like, what's going on here? [00:40:54] Speaker C: Right. All right, that checks. [00:40:58] Speaker A: I don't. I never really thought about it before, but predators are pretty sore losers. Like, right. When they die, they're just like, no, I'm gonna nuke the area now. Like, Right. You don't get beyond it. [00:41:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:41:12] Speaker C: Sometimes they give up. Now, I think that's some sort of a rule that they're not allowed to leave their technology behind for the species to use, to adapt or something. That's my guess. Right. But especially in Predator 2. He gives up pretty easy in Predator 2, or tries to. And. And in Predator 1, he's like, he's crushed by a log and Schwarzenegger's holding the rock over his head like, he's done, dude, there's. He's not getting out of that one. So. Okay, time to bow out. [00:41:43] Speaker B: Beep, boop, boop. [00:41:43] Speaker C: Let's go. But, yeah, they. They don't. They don't like losing, do they? [00:41:48] Speaker A: It's also laughing at the end, or is that a recording from earlier of other people laughing? [00:41:53] Speaker C: Okay. That's one of those sound effects that they reuse and they kind of like warp it. It's supposed to be Billy's laughter, but then it gets louder and louder and more cackly. And I thought that his mask helped him to amplify sound and an ultrasound and change it. I didn't think that that crustacean face of his had the vocal cords to really put forth the sounds that were coming out of him. And so it kind of drew me out. And that ending laugh was pretty bad too. And then the other thing too, the explosion at the end. In. In later movies we're told that that was supposed to take out 300 city blocks. Yeah. That's not that big. Yeah. [00:42:35] Speaker B: I think you. We gotta remove ourselves from future movies. [00:42:40] Speaker C: At this point though, because this is. [00:42:42] Speaker B: The first and foremost, right? [00:42:44] Speaker C: Yeah. That was one of the sound effects, that laughter, which I was like, this is. This is another. This is the third time they've used Billy's laugh. They use it once before Billy actually laughs. They use Billy's laugh in the sequence where he does it and then they use it again at the end and they turn it into that raging cackle. And it was. It was a little. Yeah, it was one of those things they. They used it a little too much. Yeah. [00:43:07] Speaker B: I think there's like a couple of reasons for the self detonating one. It's a convenient way to lose all evidence of this thing being there so, you know, nobody will find out about these species. And I think the other one is like, maybe it's like a. And the cackle itself being like. This was fun. Thanks for the fun. I'm going out with the boom. This was. [00:43:34] Speaker C: Oh, I had a great. I kind of figured it was more like the harakiri or whatever where they. They slice open their guts in shame to kill themselves. This is like they blow themselves up because they're ashamed that they lost, you know? [00:43:47] Speaker A: Interesting. Okay. I. I just, I assumed it was a. I'm gonna get you. Like, you think you win. No, no. I'm gonna nuke this whole area and you're gonna die. [00:43:53] Speaker C: I like that better, actually. I like that that, that's. That rides better with their idea. Why else would he laugh and blow himself up? If he's ashamed and blowing himself up, he wouldn't be laughing, I wouldn't think. [00:44:05] Speaker A: Although I don't Know if I like. [00:44:07] Speaker B: Both of those takes, either of those takes actually. [00:44:11] Speaker A: Fair. I like your take because they kind of gave themselves a way to make infinite sequels where if the yacha are destroying themselves at the end then like, yeah, you can have them all through history because like we see now. I have not seen the Predator or Predators and I've only seen Predator 2 like once. So like Predator is the one that I'm by far the most familiar with. [00:44:34] Speaker C: And for anybody in chat who didn't catch that yacht or Hayucha is the like technical name. Like a xenomorph for aliens. It's a hayucho or yacha for the predators. [00:44:44] Speaker A: Fair enough. [00:44:45] Speaker C: I don't know if anybody got. That was the first time we've used that word. [00:44:47] Speaker A: So that's fair. That's fair. So in Prey, spoilers for the fifth movie, they're back in time. They're back like 200 and 300 years. [00:44:56] Speaker C: 1762. [00:44:58] Speaker A: 1760. Wow, that was impressive off the top of your head. [00:45:01] Speaker C: Anyways, number two and recently. [00:45:07] Speaker A: And the fact that the spoilers Predator dies makes sense why we don't have him in a museum somewhere because there's nothing left of them. [00:45:15] Speaker B: Right. [00:45:15] Speaker A: Like that's kind of a cool idea. Now you're like, okay, cool. Now we can have them in like feudal Japan or the medieval times or wherever. And yeah, of course we're never going to find them because either they're going to win and get away or they're going to lose, blow themselves up and we've got no records of them. That's if that was what they were trying for. That's really cool. I don't know if that's what they were planning for in this movie. I think it was just a one last chance to kill Arnold, show him what kind of a badass he is. Who knows? [00:45:41] Speaker B: Yeah, one last exciting explosion. Right? [00:45:44] Speaker C: I, I think there are so many good stories about the Predator in, in the comic books and graphic novels and regular novels. There's so many like you mentioned feudal Japan. There's some great samurai versions of the Predator. Like there was. There's just so many and I would like to see those. I would like to just see these one offs stories. Like Prey, a great movie, it ties in in ways and we'll talk about it later, but it ties in. But it could be a total standalone encounter with the Predator. We don't have to have this development of backstory with them that we'll see in later films that I, I didn't appreciate too much. Just put the Predator in there. Let them do battle with some badasses, you know? [00:46:32] Speaker A: No, I completely agree. Like, just the issue with. The issue with Predator, I think I haven't seen a couple of movies, but also with, say, like, Terminator, he's like, the first one's scary because it's just this unrelenting force coming after you. And then they get. They. More of the same, more of the same. Bigger budget, bigger, bigger, bigger. And it's like, my understanding is one of these Predator movies has, like, seven predators in it. And it's like, that's unnecessary. What you just need is one really terrifying, badass Predator who's just going around and like, murdering you, murdering your friends, running your family, murdering your team, whatever it is. And it's just like, that's kind of all I need. Just. Just do that, but in different settings with different people. Like, show me different versions of this story. And I'm probably relatively okay with it as long as it's not literally. [00:47:18] Speaker C: We've. We've seen similar things done in the Alien franchise. The first one was one alien hunting a bunch of people. And it was scary as the second Aliens were. Was a lot of aliens and lots of guns, and they changed all the parameters. Then they went back to it in Alien 3, and it was on a prison, which was scary. Labyrinth prisoners, you know, she's the only woman. All kinds of crazy stuff. So it was scary in that sense. And so we've seen some changing of it where it works or it doesn't work. And I think with Predator and we'll see in Predator 2, they. They stuck with the same formula, but they just changed the settings. And for me, that works. For me, that works. I just want to see the Predator do battle with badasses in different settings. And we get a taste of that in some other films. But they do change it up in some other films in ways that I don't like, where they're trying to build backstory or build character development within the Predator itself. We'll see that in Predator 2. Actually. They try and give the Predator a little bit more of. Of a. Of a personality, actually. And. And so they do try some different things in the movie. That's why I'm so excited about this franchise, because each film has so much to talk about. I'm really looking forward to getting through and. And watching the rest of them and going over with you guys. [00:48:37] Speaker A: Now, again, I haven't seen two of the movies, so don't spoil this for me. If this is the situation but from the ones that I have seen, my only real issue is, is they all seem to have the same, like, three weapons. It'd be really cool if the predators really switched up what they brought to. To battle. Like, oh, this guy really likes the shoulder cannon and the. The Wolverine claws, but the next guy, he likes X and Y instead. That would be a really cool way. But I think they stick pretty much like, no, these are the three weapons they use. Go. And it's like, all right, well, now. [00:49:07] Speaker C: We kind of have variations on the three weapons. In fact, I think Predator 2 has the biggest variations in weapons from one throwing. He's got the disc, he's got the net that he can shoot and pin him. The spear, which was. Was pretty new and different. And then in later movies, we just see different variations of all these weapons. [00:49:32] Speaker A: All right, so what do you think overall? Now we want to go by category and just do like, across the board or just like one person gives their entire spiel on what they thought of the movie and do it that way. This out, by the way, I'm. [00:49:46] Speaker B: I'm just down for the. The final scoresies because I. I still rate slightly different than you too, I think. [00:49:53] Speaker A: Fair enough. [00:49:53] Speaker C: I read different. Every single time we do this, I come up with a different set of categories to really push into. [00:49:59] Speaker A: Yeah, that's fine. [00:50:01] Speaker B: Yeah. And number is what matters most, I think. [00:50:03] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:50:04] Speaker A: All right. So, Will, do you want to start us off? [00:50:07] Speaker B: Sure, yeah. Predator again. I've seen it dozen times more. Probably great action flick. Coming back and analyzing it. Probably docked it a few tallies, but that's okay. That's the process. Doesn't make it any less of a great movie for myself. And that's all that matters is myself. Right. So get over it. No, overall, kind of blending between the genre itself. I always like to put genre front and foremost to kind of give every movie an evil even footing going into these rankings. [00:50:49] Speaker C: I feel that's important. [00:50:51] Speaker B: But overall, genre, acting, writing, direction, and if the movie holds up, Yellow Eyes, not so much. But overall, my final rating for predator is an even 80. I think it's a really solid action movie. It holds up because, you know, it's. It's what action movies really came into their own being, you know, in the. In the mid-80s, late-80s. Just like these muscly guys, over the top explosions and just grit and craziness. So I think. I think that's where lands for me overall. It's a fun ride. Acting writing aside, you know, everything else is like, it's just always hitting high notes for me. [00:51:38] Speaker C: So when, when you say genre. Yeah. [00:51:43] Speaker B: So like franchise wise, this isn't. To me, this falls into an action genre. I know there's sci fi elements, but yeah, primarily action movie. Whereas Godfather is not so much. [00:52:01] Speaker C: Right. [00:52:01] Speaker B: You know, Rush Hour isn't. [00:52:03] Speaker C: So that's not so much as a, as a grade that you put on it or anything. It just helps you to adjust the scoring to appropriate for it for a different genre. If you're comparing this to the Godfather, you couldn't, you couldn't do apples to apples with it. [00:52:18] Speaker B: That's right. So like as far as genre of Godfather, which is like mobster crime movie, it's gonna get top marks in that 20 point ranking that I give it. Right. And, and in this case Predator as an action movie, I feel like, like it's an 18 out of 20. It's a, it's a great action genre movie. So that's kind of how I, I kind of try to make it fit within the, the overarching rankings because obviously the Godfather is a better movie than Predator. But in the case of an action movie, it's, it's a great action movie. Godfather is a great prime movie. So I, I feel like I try to give it an even footing for the overall ranking of franchise. [00:53:07] Speaker A: I feel like I do something very similar to that where I go into this movie expecting an action movie. And does it deliver on that? Does it. Is it fun in that regard? Does it give me what I want from an action movie? Which is why you can kind of score the way you can. Because. Again. Exactly. If you're gonna compare this to Godfather, this is like a two. But if you compare this other action movies. Yeah. It seems totally reasonable. [00:53:28] Speaker B: Exactly. And, and yeah. And because we're solely. Because we're facing it on a franchise list. List at the end, I think it's the only fair way to give some movies a chance. [00:53:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:53:41] Speaker C: Some franchises. [00:53:42] Speaker B: Right. [00:53:42] Speaker A: So. [00:53:42] Speaker C: Right, absolutely. And you're. [00:53:44] Speaker B: What do you think these movies for different reasons. Right. [00:53:46] Speaker C: So for me, I, I agree in the action genre, I think this is one of the pinnacles of success. I, I think this sets a high bar for other action films. There are very few action films today that can muster as much fun and enjoyment for me as Predator does. This was so good that you don't even care about the flaws. The cheesy one liners, they feel great. You're loving it. You know, firing machine guns and explosive rounds into buildings where there were supposed to be some hostages. But we just don't care. That's fantastic. I'm loving it. It's every little bit of it. The. The taking. What starts out as a sci fi horror kind of monster ish theme. And, you know, Schwarzenegger whittles it down and says, hey, let's go analog. Let's go old school. I'm gonna take out all your tech toys. I'm gonna strip down to my skibbies, cover myself in mud and throw some sticks at you. And you've got this badass jungle boy running around fighting a big. It's just so much fun. This movie just is one of the greats for me. I enjoy it immensely. I always stop to watch it. I'm always smiling when I watch it. That's why this one for the fun factor just goes through the roof. And I gave it 99 out of 100 for the fun factor portion. Okay. However, the scoring, they have a great kind of drummed orchestra kind of theme that is carried out through other movies in the franchise because it is really good and it's useful. And they can build the excitement by raising the volume on this, raising the drums and everything during the heavy sequences, and lower it back down and have it a. Settle back or like whatever. It can play the whole movie long. Different variations and fluctuations of the song that. The Predator song, you know, we all know it now. It's. It's pretty good. It's. It's pretty good. And they used one song really well. The opening helicopter scene gets you pumped for this movie. Get you feeling good right off the bat, enjoying these characters. A great use of that one song. I wish they could have done a little bit more with that. However, the sound effects throughout the movie were somewhat distracting. The Predator trying to copy the voices was cool, but they kind of overused it or misused it every once in a while. And that was a little bit of a drawback. Some of the special effects were a little over the top. A little too much electricity here and there. The glowing yellow eyes was unnecessary. But aside from just like, could have used a little bit more polish. And of course, remember, they're trying to push things. They really wanted this movie to pop, so I can't begrudge them too much for that. The rest of the special effects and practical effects were incredible. To this day, we still use the same Predator costume. Like, it's still the same suit that they're using. Not the same suit, but they model the same suits. Everything after the original because it was so well done, and that's fantastic. The acting, there were pluses and minuses. I talked about that earlier, where some of the actors really surprised me in how good they could portray, you know, Mac talking about his relationship with Blaine from the past and talking to his buddy as he shares a drink over his dead body. And it was. It was really good. It was almost too good for this movie. You know, it almost stood out as, like, wow, you're really. You know, you don't need to do that. You just got to blow. Blow up. And I'm happy. So it was. It was good there, but then you had some other lines and dialogue that. Just the script. Just the dialogue and the script had some holes in it that really kind of took me out. I'm like, overall, this came in really high for me. It was an 87 overall. I. I think it's just a fantastic movie. It's fun. It's just pure fun to watch this. And it really set a great franchise up, a wonderful start, and we have had some good and bad movies that'll follow. And I'm so excited to be going over this franchise with you guys to get into all of them. [00:58:10] Speaker A: Nice. I. I agree with a lot of what you said. I think the music in this movie actually set the tone very, very well. You've got that jungle beat, like you were talking about, which is carried on through the movies as far as I can remember. It does hold up really well in this one for the most part. [00:58:27] Speaker C: The. [00:58:27] Speaker A: The helicopter scene beginning. We already touched on the music in there works really well a lot of the movie. A lot of the sounds make this tense. Like, they kind of build the tension throughout this movie as it goes. I really, really liked that. My only issue with it is at the very, very end, there's some incredibly cheesy, heroic movie music. When you see, like, Arnold stepping out of the smoke, and then, like, as he gets picked up by the helicopter, it goes back to that really tense jungle theme. The, like, Predator music, which I get. It's the franchise music. But it. All of a sudden, I'm tense again. I'm just back to, like, oh, no, what's gonna happen? Like, there's gonna be another jump scare or something. There's not. It's the credits. This is like. I didn't like the cheesy music, but, like, that felt more like where we're at in the movie. Like, going back to that. Like, you're in danger music just felt wrong somehow. Not enough to really dig the movie all that much. I really did like the sound effects in it. And whatnot. So I was killy with that again as far as sound effects go, like the Predator. Be able to use their voices again as a way to like lure them around. I really liked that for reasons passing understanding. Bill Duke's line of any time is something that lives rent free in my head for like the last 20 years. Like if you ever see me in Discord type anytime to somebody, I guarantee you I was thinking of this movie when I did that. So the music got a pretty high score. I think this movie looks gorgeous. Again, we've already touched on it. The eyes don't look very good. Some of the lightning effect isn't really good. The monster itself, the Predator, the yacht, whatever, looks insane. The jungle looks really good. The opening scene of them flying in the helicopters all looks amazing. Especially for 1987. I think they did a great job with whatever budget they had about 15 million, which is not bad for 87. It's pretty good. They made that back pretty much the opening weekend, which I thought was incredible. The acting, it's tough, man. Because I love Arnold Schwarzenegger so much. I recognize that he's not a great actor. I understand it and. And I just don't care. I still love his movies, love his one liners. I think there's so much fun. He's got so much charisma and this team. Like if you put Jesse Ventura in almost any other movie, I'm sure he wouldn't work whatsoever. He is perfect in this movie. [01:00:33] Speaker C: Absolutely. [01:00:33] Speaker A: He is Tyrannosaurus. Like he is phenomenal in this. As is Bill Duke, as is Shane Black, as is Carl Weathers. I apologize. I'm forgetting the two guys names off the top of my head. But like this cast is perfect for this film. I don't know how well they'd work in other films, but for this movie they do so well. But there are still times when Arnold says something and my brain goes. [01:00:59] Speaker C: No. [01:01:00] Speaker A: You, no second take. Try that one again. We can do better. So I did have to ding this one a little bit for that. Despite the fact that I love the cast, they're not the greatest of actors. The plot, as I mentioned, I really like the idea of this movie. Just like a bunch of people going into the jungle and just getting picked apart until they can figure out what their enemy is and then having to overcome the enemy. I really like that. I do wish we didn't know that it was an alien right off the hop. I wish it was a bit more mysterious of what is going on. Maybe the shaman character the guide could have been like, oh, you know, it's. It's. I've heard tales of this monster, something like that. You know what I mean? Like, especially now with prey out there. That'd be really cool if, like, they brought that back in some way. Like, oh, I've heard tales of my ancestors of this monster. That would have been a really fun actually. Obviously they had no idea about prey coming out 30 something years later. But, you know, if you could go back, that would have been an awesome thing to have done. An enjoyment level. I really enjoy this movie. I didn't enjoy it as much this time as I have historically. Like, I feel like the nostalgia glasses were stronger for this one than the actual viewings. [01:02:02] Speaker C: Right. [01:02:02] Speaker A: I still really liked it, but I remember loving this movie when I was younger, and now it's like, oh, that was fun. I liked it. [01:02:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:02:09] Speaker A: Not. Not a big ding, just a little bit of one. Just not quite as high as some of the other scores, but it's definitely not the 99 out of 100 that. That you give it, Brian. But I still really like this one. I am shocked that I'm coming in the lowest on this, but I'm coming in at a 79. [01:02:22] Speaker B: So not far below a little low minute. [01:02:26] Speaker A: Right. But it is still technically, like, I'm. I. I really would have thought it would have been higher. [01:02:30] Speaker B: Yeah. You obviously hated the movies. [01:02:31] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:02:34] Speaker A: We're starting off the Predator franchise with a score of 82 combined, which is pretty good. I have not seen two of the movies and I've heard they're awful. So it's probably going to attack the score a little bit. The other two that I've seen I liked. So we'll have to see if I still enjoy them on the next viewing. How you guys feel about this franchise and kind of where we go from there. But I think 82 is a pretty solid start to the this. [01:02:55] Speaker B: It's very great. It's a great, great start. It's a fun movie. [01:02:59] Speaker A: All right. And that is our rating of Predator from 1987, starring all Schwarzenegger. Now, obviously, we've got a couple more movies to go before we have a total score, but what do you think? Are we on the right track so far? Is 82 sound about right to you? Is a little high, a little bit low. Let me know down in the comments below. I want to thank Jacob from JBD Homes Productions for the editing of this video. And I want to thank Will and Brian for their time. This is a passion project of mine. And everybody is just kind of donating their time and and expertise willingly. And that's absolutely fantastic. So if you're enjoying this show, make sure you let them know. I'll leave links to their Twitch and YouTube in the description below as well. Go give them a follow, give them a like. Give this video a like. If you enjoyed it and if you want to see more of this content, hit that subscribe button. It does really help out a whole lot. Until next time, I hope you're safe. I hope you're well and have a good night. Sa.