Kevin Roegele
Do you mind if I don't?
- Joined
- May 2, 2000
- Messages
- 23,882
- Reaction score
- 76
- Points
- 73
From Wikipedia:
"In both stories a group of elite foreign warriors arrive in an area suffering the depradations of a mysterious, almost-invisible monster that has defeated other warriors on their own ground in "Beowulf" a great hall; in "Predator" the crashed (or downed?) helicopter.
The newly arrived warriors sleep in or near this place, and the monster comes in the night to attack them. They fight, but the warriors' weapons and tactics are ineffective against the monster, who is protected by near-invisibility, and magic that deflects weaponry. Picking off the warriors one by one, the monster takes, or returns and steals, the corpses of its victims, to keep as trophies.
At one crucial point the monster flees the warriors after being wounded in the arm. A sign that the monster has been wounded, an indication of its mortality, is seen in the finding of its blood, a substance of unnatural colour. (In "Beowulf", two related monsters are dealt with in succession, but in "Predator" they are conflated into one.)
In both stories, the hero discards some of the potent weapons with which he has been equipped (a firearm in "Predator"; the legendary sword Hrunting in "Beowulf") when he realises they are useless against the monster, and in the end he is protected by his own special armour (simple mud, in the "Predator" version).
Ultimately, he uses ingenuity and cunning to protect himself and outwit the monster. He turns its own weapons against it and fells it by his own singular might, removing its head (or, in "Predator", prising off its helmet) in final victory.
Both stories contain the element of gradually coming to know the nature of the mysterious monster(s), and learning how to counter it.
This is made more apparent by Jim and John Thomas' admission that their parents read Beowulf as a bed time story when they were kids."
"In both stories a group of elite foreign warriors arrive in an area suffering the depradations of a mysterious, almost-invisible monster that has defeated other warriors on their own ground in "Beowulf" a great hall; in "Predator" the crashed (or downed?) helicopter.
The newly arrived warriors sleep in or near this place, and the monster comes in the night to attack them. They fight, but the warriors' weapons and tactics are ineffective against the monster, who is protected by near-invisibility, and magic that deflects weaponry. Picking off the warriors one by one, the monster takes, or returns and steals, the corpses of its victims, to keep as trophies.
At one crucial point the monster flees the warriors after being wounded in the arm. A sign that the monster has been wounded, an indication of its mortality, is seen in the finding of its blood, a substance of unnatural colour. (In "Beowulf", two related monsters are dealt with in succession, but in "Predator" they are conflated into one.)
In both stories, the hero discards some of the potent weapons with which he has been equipped (a firearm in "Predator"; the legendary sword Hrunting in "Beowulf") when he realises they are useless against the monster, and in the end he is protected by his own special armour (simple mud, in the "Predator" version).
Ultimately, he uses ingenuity and cunning to protect himself and outwit the monster. He turns its own weapons against it and fells it by his own singular might, removing its head (or, in "Predator", prising off its helmet) in final victory.
Both stories contain the element of gradually coming to know the nature of the mysterious monster(s), and learning how to counter it.
This is made more apparent by Jim and John Thomas' admission that their parents read Beowulf as a bed time story when they were kids."
