Shane Black Directing Predator Sequel! - Part 2

[MOVIELORD101]

This movie would have been more fun if it was better. I like Iron Man 3 despite some issues I have with it, but just because the guy wants the movie to be fun doesn't mean it is immune to problems. It's more than fair to critique the direction he took the franchise if you disagree with it. If we adopted your mentality, then there would be no need to critique films.

You want me to be critical? Needed more Jake Busey. They kinda over-hyped him being in the movie and his connection to Agent Keys from Predator 2 and he disappears after the start of the movie.

Trust me, I'm not always this laid back. As i said in my last post, Alien Covenant pissed me the **** off to the point I put it at #1 on my worst of list for last year. But sometimes I just want a movie I can have mindless fun with. There's no shame in it. Sometimes it's entertaining enough that it pleases me, sometimes it has too many problems for me to ignore. Take Geostorm last year, for example. I went in hoping it'd at least be stupid fun, but the plot-related issues and cliche characters bogged everything down for me. This movie didn't have that problem.

As for Iron Man 3, y'all were crying "The Manderan's not who he says he is because it was all a ruse; that twist was dumb waaaaaa". While YEAH, making Guy Pierce of all people the villain for Tony to brawl was kinda iffy, on the flip side, did you guys REALLY want Ben Kingsley to be what is for all accounts in the comics present-day Fu Manchu with magical rings that would've probably be retconned into some kind of alien tech like the Chitauri or the Kree since actual magic in the MCU wouldn't be established until Doctor Strange? Yeah, despite Killian going full-on brawler at the end, making the whole Manderin thing as a ruse actually made sense and at least Kingsley was FUNNY!

 

[Ninjablade]

In other news, iTunes is offering Predator 1/2 and Predators for $5 a piece, with the bundle being $15, and then the two AVP films at $10 a piece or $18 for the bundle.

 

[MOVIELORD101]

In other news, iTunes is offering Predator 1/2 and Predators for $5 a piece, with the bundle being $15, and then the two AVP films at $10 a piece or $18 for the bundle.

Honestly recommend the 3 regular Predator movies for $15. Ignore AVP 1 and 2; they're not worth it.

 

[Spider-Fan]

You want me to be critical? Needed more Jake Busey. They kinda over-hyped him being in the movie and his connection to Agent Keys from Predator 2 and he disappears after the start of the movie.

Trust me, I'm not always this laid back. As i said in my last post, Alien Covenant pissed me the **** off to the point I put it at #1 on my worst of list for last year. But sometimes I just want a movie I can have mindless fun with. There's no shame in it. Sometimes it's entertaining enough that it pleases me, sometimes it has too many problems for me to ignore. Take Geostorm last year, for example. I went in hoping it'd at least be stupid fun, but the plot-related issues and cliche characters bogged everything down for me. This movie didn't have that problem.

We'll have to agree to disagree here. I had a lot of fundamental problems with this movie. But if you enjoyed it, that's cool

As for Iron Man 3, y'all were crying "The Manderan's not who he says he is because it was all a ruse; that twist was dumb waaaaaa". While YEAH, making Guy Pierce of all people the villain for Tony to brawl was kinda iffy, on the flip side, did you guys REALLY want Ben Kingsley to be what is for all accounts in the comics present-day Fu Manchu with magical rings that would've probably be retconned into some kind of alien tech like the Chitauri or the Kree since actual magic in the MCU wouldn't be established until Doctor Strange? Yeah, despite Killian going full-on brawler at the end, making the whole Manderin thing as a ruse actually made sense and at least Kingsley was FUNNY!

I had no problem with the Mandarin twist in principle. But I did find Aldrich Killian himself underwhelming. He was sort of boring and the fact he adopted this philosophy because Stark shunned him at a party was weak. If Killian had been as interesting as say, Stane was in IM1 (not saying use the Stane character or that character's backstory...I am saying if the character came off as even that level of interesting) then I would have probably liked IM3 even more. I like the movie, don't get me wrong. But it had some issues. Particularly how Tony's surgery is basically never developed in the movie, and sort of happens. That plot point kind of rendered IM2 sort of meaningless (why keep using palladium if surgery was an option?).

But I am not going to make this an IM3 thread. I have said my peace on my issues IM3 had, and I will leave it at that.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Where did the studio intervene to make it worse?

The final act is probably a very good example.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Act 3 is where it is felt. I could feel trimming and things not lining up there. But even then, I do think Black's general tone he opted for before that was throwing me off, too. There simply was no attempt to make the Predators scary at all. It was just straight action. The Predator here could have looked like any generic movie monster. The Predator was always effective because of the hunting aspect and the fear involved by being chased by something so powerful. Here it was nothing like that. There was no hunt. There was just going beat for beat from one plot point to the next.

I liked the tone, but I can understand if others don't. To me, the movie was working on the premise that this is no longer a horror flick. It reminded me of T2 or Aliens, where it was still the same idea as the previous film, but from a different genre. And it was really working for me. It had proper Shane Black dialogue, it made the Predator a real character with a lot of personality, the Loonies were pretty great to be around, I was rooting for Munn,and I was even enjoying the kid.

And then I felt like we got to a point in the movie where it all felt written insdie a weekend, and just all fell apart.

 

[Spider-Aziz]

Honestly recommend the 3 regular Predator movies for $15. Ignore AVP 1 and 2; they're not worth it.

Oh cool, someone who likes both of the unpopular Predator 2 and the lukewarm received Predators.

 

[The Chris]

Honestly even before the 3rd act this movie felt so weird. Like certain characters are introduced in a way that felt like they were thrown out of a meat grinder. The Predator actions and motivations do not mesh, and man the reaction to there being high tech aliens around felt massively in the "whatever" realm of things. Also even though i loved that kid in Room and Wonder I hated his presence in this. I absolutely hated everything about that character, and that was before the 3rd act disaster.

Oh god the plot in this was horrid. I love the simplicity of the 1st one's plot, and i liked that 2 and 3 didn't stray too much even when introducing new ideas, but this one? Oh lord. I love Shane Black usually but what was this?

 

[TheVileOne]

He obviously didnt set out to make a ****ty movie. He may not even think it's a ****ty movie. Especially what he originally conceived before the third act was altered. If the film really does crap all over the lore then it's a safe bet that he didnt like or feel attached to the franchise. But I think he really was trying to do this film his own way. He pretty much did that with Iron Man 3. Iron Man 3 was tonally and in other ways out of step with Iron Man 1&2. Ditching the rock music, including the typical Shane Black Christmas setting, nerfing Tony's armor, giving him arbitrary PTSD, destroying his home and lab, making the Mandarin a washed up actor and Killian, having SHIELD be illogically nonexistent during the events of the film. Etc

If he really did try to do his own thing and disregard the lore and tone of the previous films this should have just been a full reboot from the beginning. The studio should have realized it clashed with what was established in previous films and the tone was wrong for the franchise and gave Black the freedom to make and present this as an entirely new thing not connected to the originals. Hell, Black should have known his film clashed to much with previous films. Then it could have been marketed as a full reboot and people would have had different expectations going in. It may not have improved the critical response to the film, but regardless of that I think it would have been the better way to go about this.

He and Fred Dekker's other grand idea for the third act was to have Edward James Olmos as the boss of Traeger, and there would've been a military APC with Predator allies for the third act. How is this better?

 

[TheVileOne]

Honestly even before the 3rd act this movie felt so weird. Like certain characters are introduced in a way that felt like they were thrown out of a meat grinder. The Predator actions and motivations do not mesh, and man the reaction to there being high tech aliens around felt massively in the "whatever" realm of things. Also even though i loved that kid in Room and Wonder I hated his presence in this. I absolutely hated everything about that character, and that was before the 3rd act disaster.

Oh god the plot in this was horrid. I love the simplicity of the 1st one's plot, and i liked that 2 and 3 didn't stray too much even when introducing new ideas, but this one? Oh lord. I love Shane Black usually but what was this?

Nothing in the movie makes sense. It's all just smash dab slipshod and haphazard. It's a mess of a movie.

As for going from Alien to Aliens, Aliens didn't radically **** or change what was established before like Prometheus and Covenant. It expanded on them. Because we really knew nothing about the eggs or where they came from or more about the xenomorph life cycle. There was still a lot of unknowns.

Now we have all this dumb hybrid BS. The Predators, the creatures, the Yautja, whatever you want to call them, they're ****ing hunters, and the dudes want trophies. They want dangerous hunts to prove themselves.

The first and second films show they have a moral code of sorts. The hunt is clearly some sort of rite of passage or revered event for them. They clearly believe in some sort of honor or code with the hunt, otherwise the Jungle Hunter would've ****ing ripped out Arnold's spine and called it a day. The tribe in Predator 2 would not have let Glover's character go.

 

[TheVileOne]

The final act is probably a very good example.

If anything, besides the ending, it seems they made it less hot garbage by dumping the ally Predators wearing US military camo and riding around in an APC. Probably would've had a Black Sabbath song play while they ride into battle.

Shudder to think what this would've led to.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

That would have been a lot better then what we got.

Spoiler

I wanted the obvious team up they were setting up. The ending might have worked if it wasn't a bunch of humans who clearly have no business fighting the Super Predator. Instead we get another overly dark finale, until the sun just rises in the middle of it, with a bunch of nonsensical action and no Predator to properly fight back against the Super Predator.

 

[TheVileOne]

I'm not really sure how that's an improvement.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

I'm not really sure how that's an improvement.

Well for one, it wouldn't have felt written in a weekend. Because that is how everything from the dog fight on feels to me. And that makes perfect sense, as that is the part where the obvious change in direction happens. The dialogue, character and general writing just take a huge dive.

Spoiler

But in general nothing pumped me up more watching the movie was seeing the human Predator work. He was badass, hilarious and just all around entertaining to me. Again, it would have been akin to T2, where a lot of the joy comes from the Terminator stand off. The Super Predator kind of sucked, but I think would have actually been a lot more enjoyable as a foil to the human Predator.

 

[Aximili86]

Jesus titty****ing Christ, Vile.

That's a set-pic. We have no idea for context for that, it could very well be the cast screwing around between takes on an APC never intended to have predators on it in-movie. The pants could be part of the gag. Likely are, in fact.

Stop. There's absolutely jack pointing to Shane wanting predators pulling on camo pants and commandeering humie-tech to go gang up on Big Ugly, with the studio cutting it. It's behind-the-scenes shenanigans, 99.99999%.

And we get you think the movie's the worst thing since Auschwitz, that Shane intentionally sabotaged the series due to some deep-seeded 30 year hatred/embarassment over the original. Whatever, conspiracies are your business, you really don't need to flood every page with this crap though.

Some of you other guy's takes on it sound pretty reasonable though. Tonally it's not a Predator movie, and it's a mish-mash of mood that doesn't really work. Some crazy conceptual stuff which doesn't gel at all with what we've seen before, and the dialogue's way more Lethal Weapon than Predator.

That's...what a lot of us expected. And as for the lore, the general public's not going to give a crap about any of that. I hate the human-in-predator-armor thing on a conceptual level too, and don't really have any interest in seeing a sequel follow that road, but whatever. It's not the end of the world.

We've got, what, 3 or 4 hypesters saying they had a blast with it, fun dialogue and general brutal craziness. Seems it's at least going to be a good time at the movies when you take it for what it is, rather than what we'd have ideally wanted.

Controversial, easy to buy. Even "bad as an actual Predator movie". But "not well made" in a Requiem sense, significantly shoddier than his own directorial stuff or his studio-action-effort with Iron Man 3, nah. That's hysteria, I feel.

 

[Consona]

The original film basically fulfilled the concept of Predator comprehensively and there's nothing more to add to that.

You can make whatever number of sequels, but the point has been already done. But the character is so popular there has to be sequels, so where do you go from there? Dunno. I liked this even though it was not trying to be like the original, it used those trappings like "a bunch of military guys", etc., but was telling its own story, which ultimately doesn't change the fact that the franchise came to a dead end.

It's basically one-off from the beginning and everything you add only dilute the material. I don't feel any additions to the mythology in the films brought anything that was truly needed. So it's essentially about what's offensive the least. And that ending was very much not that.

This franchise needs Nolan-level reboot treatment. (Not that I have anything against Schumacher's fever dream neon fetish style over substance with campy 60s action and cringy puns crazyness but you know what I mean.)

where Superman is constantly acting like a brooding loner

All you needed was Snyder's JL, bro.

Spoiler

Unless you enjoyed the accelerated hope and optimism cringefest we got instead.

Compared to the complete "F-you" Alien: Covenant was

I consider it to be the best film in the whole franchise. Ridley brought back the most fascinating part of the xenomorph, making him a being with dark sadistic intellect again. Something Cameron totally missed when he made some hive drone out of him. Plus David is the best character in the franchise and his relationship with Weyland and Shaw and everything about Engineers is the most interesting stuff in Alien franchise as well. And Alien being something created by David out of spite due to Weyland mocking his inability to create is way more intriguing than xenomorph just being some biological weapon or whatever.

YMMV of course, but at least we can see how very differently people perceive the same movie.

As for going from Alien to Aliens, Aliens didn't radically **** or change what was established before like Prometheus and Covenant.

Except for the radical changes I mentioned above...

The first and second films show they have a moral code of sorts. The hunt is clearly some sort of rite of passage or revered event for them. They clearly believe in some sort of honor or code with the hunt, otherwise the Jungle Hunter would've ****ing ripped out Arnold's spine and called it a day. The tribe in Predator 2 would not have let Glover's character go.

Yea. This is the dead end I'm talking about. They are trying to reinvent it somehow because they feel they have to expand the mythology but that hurts the franchise more than making it better.

The main premise it so simple they feel they have to enrich it or something. I didn't even like the group of Preds in P2. I like the idea of a lonely hunter on an alien planet.

I want new Predator films, but, I don't know, sell the rights to WB horror division or something?

 

[Ninjablade]

Honestly even before the 3rd act this movie felt so weird. Like certain characters are introduced in a way that felt like they were thrown out of a meat grinder. The Predator actions and motivations do not mesh, and man the reaction to there being high tech aliens around felt massively in the "whatever" realm of things. Also even though i loved that kid in Room and Wonder I hated his presence in this. I absolutely hated everything about that character, and that was before the 3rd act disaster.

Oh god the plot in this was horrid. I love the simplicity of the 1st one's plot, and i liked that 2 and 3 didn't stray too much even when introducing new ideas, but this one? Oh lord. I love Shane Black usually but what was this?

I agree. I wasn't really feeling the movie during the first two acts anyway. Something felt very wrong editing wise even from the start. Just as an example that doesn't really spoil anything, Olivia Munn's first establishing shot looked as if it was taken from a broader introduction scene. All of a sudden she was just there. Was odd.

Doesn't help that the third act just completely brings down the beginning of the movie anyway. A lot of exposition that just didn't align with what the movie seemed to be originally building. Darth said it best, it felt like it was written in a weekend. So many assumptions characters were just jumping to for no logical reason. They just kind of pulled a motivation out of nowhere.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

I agree. I wasn't really feeling the movie during the first two acts anyway. Something felt very wrong editing wise even from the start. Just as an example that doesn't really spoil anything, Olivia Munn's first establishing shot looked as if it was taken from a broader introduction scene. All of a sudden she was just there. Was odd.

Doesn't help that the third act just completely brings down the beginning of the movie anyway. A lot of exposition that just didn't align with what the movie seemed to be originally building. Darth said it best, it felt like it was written in a weekend. So many assumptions characters were just jumping to for no logical reason. They just kind of pulled a motivation out of nowhere.

That is where the sex offender's scene was.

 

[Ninjablade]

That is where the sex offender's scene was.

Ahhhh, that explains it. Thank you, I had totally forgot about that ordeal while watching the film. I can be a little more forgiving towards that then despite my issues with the editing.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Ahhhh, that explains it. Thank you, I had totally forgot about that ordeal while watching the film. I can be a little more forgiving towards that then despite my issues with the editing.

No problem. I noticed it just like you did and I went, "ohhhhhh". And sure enough, it was true.

I felt like the movie was clearly chopped up, and you can feel that from the first scene.

 

[Ninjablade]

No problem. I noticed it just like you did and I went, "ohhhhhh". And sure enough, it was true.

I felt like the movie was clearly chopped up, and you can feel that from the first scene.

I completely agree. The first scene of the film took me right out.

Spoiler

They should've saved the opening 2 minutes for later to use as a flashback. Would've made the awkward transition between what I thought was sunrise and night less noticeable, but also probably have fit better in general.

 

[Nathan]

The Ending is now on Youtube. Seeing it is even worse than just reading about it. After this, we either need a full on reboot or forget this Movie actually exists and scrub it from the timeline. As mediocre as the AvP Movies were, at least they didn't seem to **** around with the Predator lore.

 

[TheVileOne]

Well for one, it wouldn't have felt written in a weekend. Because that is how everything from the dog fight on feels to me. And that makes perfect sense, as that is the part where the obvious change in direction happens. The dialogue, character and general writing just take a huge dive.

Spoiler

But in general nothing pumped me up more watching the movie was seeing the human Predator work. He was badass, hilarious and just all around entertaining to me. Again, it would have been akin to T2, where a lot of the joy comes from the Terminator stand off. The Super Predator kind of sucked, but I think would have actually been a lot more enjoyable as a foil to the human Predator.

Stuff written in a weekend or on the fly isn't always bad. Just for example because the Danger Room scene got jettisoned from X-Men 2, instead Wolverine had a scene with Iceman.

Spoiler

Except nothing the regular Predator does makes sense. He's apparently there to save humanity...why is he trying to save humanity? Why is he slaughtering everyone?

 

[The Chris]

Did anyone else think that John Debney did a much better job using and adapting Alan Silvestri's original themes in "Predators" than Henry Jackman did in this? I felt like not only did Debney's new stuff fit Alan's already classic work but that Jackman's adaptation here was a little dull and slow. Nowhere near as full of life as the previous films.

 

[TheVileOne]

Did anyone else think that John Debney did a much better job using and adapting Alan Silvestri's original themes in "Predators" than Henry Jackman did in this? I felt like not only did Debney's new stuff fit Alan's already classic work but that Jackman's adaptation here was a little dull and slow. Nowhere near as full of life as the previous films.

Yes, but hearing the classic music again was one of the few things getting me from walking out.