Honestly - I don't want them to ever do that, and I'm increasingly worried about how the new Predator movie with the Baby Predator and Halfling Fanning is gonna work. The Predator movies work SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE we know almost nothing about these things. DO NOT GIVE US BACKSTORY.
which is why an obviously totally wrong backstory would be a fun spinoff! doubt it would work as a full film, though and you just know some fuckers are going to get obsessed with the lore and eventually bits of it'll sneak into the next real film ugh
Like, I do not want to sympathize with a creature that has arachnoid mandibles and hunts sentient beings for sport. This would be like making a movie about an elephant poacher, but half the movie is building up a reason to feel bad that the poacher bit it.
Maybe they're not? maybe most aliens on their planet yes have weird teeth, but work in, idk, alien plumbing, or spaceship maintenance, or gardening, and think the hunter guys are fail guys with tiny dicks (of the arachnid equivalent)
Without knowing any expanded universe stuff from comics or whatever, my idea would be for the predators to be a ruthlessly exploitive species. As in, they're not gonna do their own dirty work, they're gonna enslave some species that is too pathetic to hunt, but not worth genociding.
I'm certainly not the first to imagine a fictional apex species that does this, since it's not far removed from our feudal system history. But it would be cool to maybe hint at that the Predators are through and through a parasite species that enslaves what they won't kill.
the Elois and the Morlochs of H.G wells are supposed to be 2 distinct species evolved from men
Best take ever!
Yeah, that one looks to be leaning heavily into the AvP lore, which could be good, I just worry it will result in something generic that doesn't play to either franchise's actual strengths.
Exactly, well said. Both franchises are about space monsters, but (broadly) one is like "what if the safari animals hunted YOU?" and the other is like "what if safari hunters from another planet hunted you FOR SPORT?" Both of those themes don't need complex backstory.
My favorite part about these is that you can completely ignore continuity and just enjoy whichever ones you like. I’d be completely fine with an incredibly dumb but ambitious attempt
True, never considered that: none of the Predator movies have ever really directly connected to any other Predator movie. And that's probably for the better.
One of the things that always bugged me about the AvP movie is that it didn’t use the best piece of lore from the Dark Horse comics—the Predators might take trophies from the xenomorphs they killed, but they didn’t hunt them for sport. That was serious fucking business for them.
The backstory already exists thanks to the comics. You can't get away from it!
Honestly, the first movie is actually insane - aside from a 5 second sequence at the beginning, you could watch the entire first Predator movie and be like "wait, was that an alien?? From outer space??" It's very much supposed to be "slasher movie monster, but the monster is actually real / alien"
I love it very much. I went to a showing with a Q&A from John McTiernan a few years back and it was absolutely fascinating. The ending of Predator 2 was originally the end of 1, but they ran out of time with Arnie so had to cobble together something quicker to film (the now iconic self destruct).
I've seen most of the movies - all but "The Predator", I believe. Even "Predators" is not bad. They reversed it, with the humans being TAKEN to a safari planet, while still maintaining the correct horror elements and mystery (like, they didn't explain the other entity killed early on).
But the most recent Predator movie, with Amber Midthunder, felt like a solid return to the core Predator story, while modernizing some of the aesthetic and prop work and tech used. And the fights were appropriately gory and terrifying.
The newer anime is good. Same director as Prey and the next live action Predator film coming is part of the same arc (same director again).
Well, first off, a very small portion of people read comics, ever. Second, even among comics people, it's kind of understood that comics are not to be taken seriously - it's just fucking around with IPs / ideas. Third, this began as a movie, was later forced into comics.
The first AvP crossover was in the comics, so they took that idea seriously!
Yeah, and those movies kind of sucked butt. And frankly, I don't like that. It misses the whole point of either franchise: to make people consider what it would be like to NOT be an apex predator. What if something bigger hunted US?? But if you have both monsters hunt each other ... okay, why?
(and actually the idea of the first Alien was partly: what if an alien reproduced via incredibly violent oral rape? And I'm not making that up: the writers wanted a way for men to be immediately revulsed)
I think it was a fun bit of lore and the crossover made sense, but it's much much better in the comics. None of the films really achieved anything more than 'passable action film' status. I'd have been happy if they'd left it at the skull nod in Predator 2.
The first comic series was incredible. Perfectly getting the point of both franchises.
I’d be more worried about it if it wasn’t made by the same guy who wrote & directed PREY. He seems to have a pretty solid grasp on the fundamentals, and is good about putting character first over stunts & gore.