Shane Black Directing Predator Sequel! - Part 2

That last scene was like, Michael Bay Transformers levels of bad.
 
Covenant has plenty of problems, but I'd much rather watch that incredibly bizarre movie again than this milquetoast studio note of a movie. That one at least has a unique voice and makes some challenging and risky tonal and thematic choices. And Fassbender.
 
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Just saw it, I thought it was the best entry since the first, it tried a number of things and some worked while others were clunky, perhaps effected by studio interference, and there were certain jumps in the story where you could feel Black had been made to edit exposition to keep the pace up, but it was a decent Predator movie with some solid action and some fun banter.

I think the idea of putting the main hero with essentially a Dirty Dozen style group of misfits worked well and they made for an entertaining group of ragtag heroes to face The Predator. I also liked Olivia Munn in it, I wasn't expecting her scientist to be involved in so much action but she handled it well and meshed in with the misfits.

Of the "Loonies" Nebraska was my favourite and I loved the way he went out, I also thought Thomas Jane made the most of his odd role. Sterling K Brown left no scenery unchewed, I didn't expect him to be so ruthless and I think him and his mercs were a good addition to add a second threat for our group of heroes to deal with.

The Super Predator was ok, didn't love it or hate it, and I thought the kid aspect of the story worked well enough. I am curious as to what the ending they didn't use was, as I'm guessing the whole hanging onto the spaceship was something added to give the finale some spectacle, and there were things seemingly being set up between Quinn and Traeger that didn't pay-off. It was also a shame that the classic Silvestri score was prominent at the start of the film but then wasn't used in the second half of the film.

There were two things that came to mind with the final scene:

Was Arnie's cameo going to be Dutch coming out of the pod with the armor?

and

How come Casey wasn't on this new science team investigating the tech and the pod that were left behind?

All in all a flawed but fun Predator movie IMO.

7.5/10
 
I think the "Arnold shows up at the end" thing was for Predators, not this.

Can't remember much about what Shane said about Arnold here, if anything, in terms of what he'd written for it. The whole "Arnold's hooked up with the Predators since the first movie, travelling on space ships and hunting alongside them" thing always seemed so weird/wrong to me anyway, glad it didn't happen in Predators. That really gave the sense he was in-league with them, watching the events of that movie unfold and turning up to congratulate the winner. Doesn't seem like Dutch to me.
 
This was a blast!

Clearly bogged down by studio interference and the missing subplots, which were stripped out of the narrative the same way spines get teared out by the Predator, but still fun and exciting.

7.5/10

P.S.: I read about Shane Black's initial version of the film, and they really should have left it alone as it was potentially much more complex and interesting than what it was reduced to. Can't wait to get my hands on the script.
 
I think the "Arnold shows up at the end" thing was for Predators, not this.

Can't remember much about what Shane said about Arnold here, if anything, in terms of what he'd written for it. The whole "Arnold's hooked up with the Predators since the first movie, travelling on space ships and hunting alongside them" thing always seemed so weird/wrong to me anyway, glad it didn't happen in Predators. That really gave the sense he was in-league with them, watching the events of that movie unfold and turning up to congratulate the winner. Doesn't seem like Dutch to me.

No, that was meant to be this movie.
 
Arnold was at one point supposed to show up to greet Adrien Brody at the end of Predators as the leader of a group of Yautja and say “not bad kid”.
 
Yep. Which seems awfully weird, Dutch hooking up alongside the dudes who'd put him through hell all those years earlier. He never seemed the callous "survival of the fittest!" type anyway, probably the most compassionate of his squad in the original. I can't see him sort of participating in watching over a Predator hunt.

From memory early on Shane was talking about more of an exposition thing for Arnold here, giving advice to all the science-y government guys or filling in Holbrook's dude on what he knows, but admittedly that was probably before they were even filming, could have changed.
 
Nah, in the script Dutch actually shows up via helicopter, after hearing about the events and ready to hunt these things off te Earth once and for all.
 
Completely agree with @Aximili86 that any scenario where Dutch joined the Predators would soil the iconic original, glad it never happened, it would be like John Connor becoming a Terminator, I mean how stupid would that.............oh wait! :doh:

Nah, in the script Dutch actually shows up via helicopter, after hearing about the events and ready to hunt these things off te Earth once and for all.
Now that would have been great!
 
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Nah, in the script Dutch actually shows up via helicopter, after hearing about the events and ready to hunt these things off te Earth once and for all.


I was talking Predators, not The Predator. Rodriguez/Antal wanted him showing up at the end there too, spaceship (ostenibly a predator one) on the alien world, all "good job, kids! I bested one of these mandibled fellas years ago, too, welcome to the badass club! You're worthy, have a cookie!". Which feels pretty out of character to me - even if another predator came down to show respect to him for wasting the original dude, way they did with Glover in Predator 2, Dutch isn't going to just join up with them and adopt predator ways. He'd be all "faahkk yooouuuu!", Arnold style, then yell incomprehensibly, flex some muscles, and fight them too in the name of good ol' hoomanz.
 
I wouldn't really have gone for any kind of badass "Dutch shows up in a chopper/tank/Harley/etc" scenario.

The Dutch we saw at the end of Predator was traumatised, sitting in a helicopter staring into space. His entire team (who were obviously close to one another) was wiped out, and he'd just faced off against a deadly alien creature. I wouldn't have been surprised if Dutch had developed full blown PTSD after this as a result of trying to process everything he'd saw and been through.

dutch-barely-survives-his-encounter-with-the-predator.jpg


If they'd felt the need to include Arnold in this film, they could have went down a route where he's living in isolation but is actively sought out by the others (or the government) because he's one of very few humans to survive a Predator encounter. But he's resistant to help because of his PTSD, and has to overcome that fear.
 
If anything Dutch should be a drunk or something, with serious mental scars. That'd fit in with the ending of the original much more.
 
How about dutch just went on his way and retired from this line of work because his trust in those giving orders was shattered and loosing his friends was too much. I picture living in south america in the woods in a cabin smoking a cigar and hunting.
 
Well in the Predator comics, Dutch was suffering from radiation sickness and then broke out of the hospital and disappeared.
 
I wouldn't really have gone for any kind of badass "Dutch shows up in a chopper/tank/Harley/etc" scenario.

The Dutch we saw at the end of Predator was traumatised, sitting in a helicopter staring into space. His entire team (who were obviously close to one another) was wiped out, and he'd just faced off against a deadly alien creature. I wouldn't have been surprised if Dutch had developed full blown PTSD after this as a result of trying to process everything he'd saw and been through.

dutch-barely-survives-his-encounter-with-the-predator.jpg


If they'd felt the need to include Arnold in this film, they could have went down a route where he's living in isolation but is actively sought out by the others (or the government) because he's one of very few humans to survive a Predator encounter. But he's resistant to help because of his PTSD, and has to overcome that fear.



Bingo.

I think Dutch could have fit in this or a similar modern-set Predator movie, if Arnold wanted to do it, but more just like he and Harrigan sitting around a table in some off-the-books black-ops government facility exchanging war stories, and imparting wisdom and stuff they've learned to the scientists. He's definitely gotta be damaged, drunken, tired-old-man-who's-seen-it-all though.

You'd kinda figure he'd have debriefed the g-men on all his stuff by now though, sometime soon after the first movie, haha.
 
He did, Alice Braga's character in Predators confirmed it. Also both here and Ana apparently did, since we see her on Gary Busey's TV in Predator 2 showing government people around where the events of the first movie happened.
 
Yeah. Which seems to conflict pretty heavily with the idea of Arnold out in space hanging with predators (who see him as 'worthy' or whatever) and overseeing a hunt, like Rodriguez implied was the idea for the end of Predators.
 
Well that would have been a long time later. But yea, out of character.
 
Sad. Probably the most disappointing movie of 2018, and hands down the worst in the series.

It's frustrating how such an iconic movie alien can't get a decent movie after all these years. Even the fan made movies were better...
 
Sad. Probably the most disappointing movie of 2018, and hands down the worst in the series.
Well I enjoyed it, except for those last five minutes. That said, I wish more of this film would have been like the scenes in the lab with the Predator going nuts and just slaughtering everyone.

Hardly surprisingly, unfortunately. Marketing didn't do very well, and then with the rewrites and reshoots (which may have been for the better if it was indeed Arnie that was supposed to have shown up at the end). I don't think we should expect another Predator film anytime soon.

Should have ditched that ending, ditched the Dogs, and ditched the Predator on steroids (and all the hybrid factors) and stuck to basics; Predator ship crashes, Predator captured, Predator awakens in lab, Predator goes nuts and starts to kill. Team assembled (by chance or otherwise) to hunt and kill/capture.

Simple.
 
I don't know what all went wrong with this movie but it was a lot. Rewrites and studio demands probably top it off. I don't know if Black's original story would have been better but the mandated changes I read about made it so disappointing. Or maybe they improved it. Regardless this was not the movie they should have made.
 

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