Shane Black Directing Predator Sequel! - Part 2

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A comment from Fred Dekker's personal Facebook page, talking about the "Friendly" Predators that were removed from the Movie. Found it posted on AvPGalaxy.

Or, you know, don't introduce a ton of terrible new ideas that completely destroy the franchise. Looked at his Facebook page after that, and he seems quite salty that barely anyone liked the Movie.

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Someone should've commented with a pic of the "thumbs up" the Predator does in the movie:whatever:
 
Someone should've commented with a pic of the "thumbs up" the Predator does in the movie:whatever:

I'm drawing a blank. When did this happen?

And really whats wrong with a Predator using that gesture? The Predators are a highly intelligent sentient race that has been watching human civilization for thousands of years. They are capable of comprehending a thumbs up gesture and using that gesture.
 
I still haven't watched the Movie, but I recently saw a clip of the thumbs up scene. Yeah, this Movie was a Shane Black Movie through and through. I hope he'll never gets anywhere near the franchise again. He left his mark and it nearly killed the franchise.
 
The franchise's been dead since 1990. None of the sequels have been successful.
 
In reply to the FB comment a page back. Humour wasn't this movie's biggest problem, but their attempts at being funny did suck all the same.
 
I'm drawing a blank. When did this happen?

And really whats wrong with a Predator using that gesture? The Predators are a highly intelligent sentient race that has been watching human civilization for thousands of years. They are capable of comprehending a thumbs up gesture and using that gesture.
It happens at the end of the Predator’s escape from the lab. He kills all the men in the back of one of the trucks leaving the base. Hearing the commotion in the back the driver asks if anything is okay, so the Predator takes a severed arm with a thumbs up gesture and sticks it through the little window to answer.

In the context of the film I actually didn’t mind it, I actually found it to be kinda clever, but I can understand why some people have issues with its goofiness.
 
The thumbs gag upset people because it was a type of joke or humor you wouldn't see in this type of franchise. It was this weird gory slapstick that didn't really seem to fit Predator.

I admit making sequels and reboots for such dedicated fanbases can be difficult, but whatever.

Dekker's passive aggressive Facebook post is kind of annoying.

I don't think people are upset they tried something new. I think people are upset they made a bad movie that was badly conceived. The new "sci-fi" ideas also made no sense, broke the universe, and contradicts everything that came before.

Not to mention they totally abandon the ideas they do introduce later in the second half.
 
I’m wondering if Sterling’s character originally had a different death. When it happened I wasn’t sure if I missed something because it was so quick.
 
I’m wondering if Sterling’s character originally had a different death. When it happened I wasn’t sure if I missed something because it was so quick.

Yeah, I had the same reaction. I was like, "Wait, did he just die?"

I enjoyed this movie but it was a mess. It's okay if you just want to turn your brain off for two hours but boy was it dumb.

I also think Hollywood should just make a superhero movie called "Autism Boy" and get that trope out of its system already.
 
I groaned out loud at the thumbs up scene. You wouldn't have got that in the 1987 Predator movie, which is really the tonal standard these films should be aiming for.

The tone doesnt need to be the same in every film.

Thinking about the humor in the film and Black trying something new for the franchise makes me think of Terminator 2. The first Terminator was a gritty thriller/horror film. In the next film Cameron did some really different stuff and went as far as to turn the villain of the first film into a kind-hearted father figure for John. It's ok to introduce different tones. The issue is Black and the other people in charge tried to do it and fumbled.
 
The tone doesnt need to be the same in every film.

Thinking about the humor in the film and Black trying something new for the franchise makes me think of Terminator 2. The first Terminator was a gritty thriller/horror film. In the next film Cameron did some really different stuff and went as far as to turn the villain of the first film into a kind-hearted father figure for John. It's ok to introduce different tones. The issue is Black and the other people in charge tried to do it and fumbled.

I see what you're getting at, but just to be clear, I didn't say the tone had to be the same - I said the tone of the 1987 film is what new Predator films should be aiming for. They've tried humour and brevity and it doesn't work. The 1987 film had a constant air of impending doom because Dutch's team was essentially alone in the jungle, being hunted down one by one and fighting for their lives against an unknown assailant. There is a constant tension as they slowly move through the jungle in near silence. The odd bit of humour - like Hawkin's jokes - was never made at the expense of the main characters or the storyline.

The Terminator example is a little skewered also. Cameron changed the characterisation by having Arnold play - essentially - a new role. Still a Terminator, but a different one with different programming, which allowed them to add *some* light-heartedness in places and allowed the by-now-much-more-famous-Arnold to switch from the villain to hero role. But I never felt this came at the overall expense of the film's tone, which was still comparatively bleak thanks to the recurring references (and Sarah's dreams) about the impending nuclear apocalypse - not to mention Robert Patric adopting a similar role to what Arnold had in the 1984 original, of a near unstoppable and emotionless machine who is constantly hunting them. Cameron thought all this through carefully and made sure the humour was subtle enough that it didn't tip in the wrong direction, unlike this in T3.

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When you make your central character - a killing machine - farcical, you're going down the wrong route.

By comparison, Black deciding that a Predator would suddenly sit in the back of a human vehicle and offer a thumbs up with a severed arm - that just seems like a random and spontaneous decision which should really have been relegated to a blooper reel somewhere.
 
The tone doesnt need to be the same in every film.

Thinking about the humor in the film and Black trying something new for the franchise makes me think of Terminator 2. The first Terminator was a gritty thriller/horror film. In the next film Cameron did some really different stuff and went as far as to turn the villain of the first film into a kind-hearted father figure for John. It's ok to introduce different tones. The issue is Black and the other people in charge tried to do it and fumbled.

I mean comparing this film to James Cameron and T2 seems almost criminal.

I admit, trying to do these things is hard. If it's too different, people get angry. If it's too similar, people still get angry. How do you find that balance?

I think Terminator 2 works as a successor to Terminator, just with a budget about 10 times the size. Also, it doesn't contradict or screw up what was established in the first film.
 
I agree it doesn’t need to be the same tone but T2 respected and built from the first movie. That’s the problem people have with this movie and why people are still arguing about The Last Jedi. They both changed what the franchise was just for the sake of “doing something different” whereas T2 built upon T1.

Sure, you’re gonna have a lot of fans who like the direction but that just means you’ve split your core base. Marvel doesn’t do anything to that extreme with their movies so you have nothing but success and it’s funny that the only Marvel movie that need a “so and so is a good movie and here’s why” YouTube video was also directed by Shane Black.
 
Yeah, there are ways of doing something different without crapping on what came before. T2 is a bit of a different animal than T1, and Aliens is a very different type of film from Alien, but both clearly took what was established and built from that. The Predator was... something else entirely.
 
I want a new film with larger than life action stars that can rival the original crew (although Arnie himself might be impossible to live up to). The Rock, Batista, John Cena, Jason Momoa, Chris Hemsworth and maybe Vin Diesel for starters.
 
I know people will always says the Predator should be the main focus of Predator movies but it’s really a franchise that would benefit greatly from bigger names actor(s).

I think had they actually gotten 50 cent and got a bigger name than Holbrook as the main guy, the box office numbers would’ve benefited from that.
 
I want a new film with larger than life action stars that can rival the original crew (although Arnie himself might be impossible to live up to). The Rock, Batista, John Cena, Jason Momoa, Chris Hemsworth and maybe Vin Diesel for starters.

Nah we’ve gone down the alpha male route too many times. Make it an all female affair. Female predator vs some female badasses.
 
I know people will always says the Predator should be the main focus of Predator movies but it’s really a franchise that would benefit greatly from bigger names actor(s).

I think had they actually gotten 50 cent and got a bigger name than Holbrook as the main guy, the box office numbers would’ve benefited from that.
The original Predator is still one of my all time favourite films. None of the others have got me that interested for various reasons. I think the chemistry of the main crew is very important, but also I don't want them to look like everyday joes who happen to be badasses as that hasn't worked at all since. The characters feels too similar to every other film out there. Maybe this franchise needs some caricatures like the original.
 
Nah we’ve gone down the alpha male route too many times. Make it an all female affair. Female predator vs some female badasses.
That could be very cool but I don't think it's a reason to not also try going down the route that the first film did at some point. And the problem for me is that the other films didn't have the kind of over-the-top alpha males of the first film, or at least not actors that are much more alpha than people you see every day. So maybe it is time to actually try the comic book style Predator 1987 ridiculous alpha male route rather than the modern Jason Bourne style alpha male route.

For an all female film who would you suggest as the cast? (as that would interest me a lot too)
 
Eh, I’d rather see the Predator franchise embrace the intergalactic route we saw in Predators. Maybe something where the Predator is the protagonist up against some others species that actually needs to be put down.
 

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