283: Prey (2022)

SPEAKER_08 0:04

Do you say the predator or predator?

SPEAKER_04 0:06

The feral predator.

SPEAKER_08 0:08

Mr. Predator. Greetings and salutations, and welcome to Hack or Slash. If you're joining us again, welcome back. This is as far as you go. No more. This is it. If this is your first time listening, welcome to the party. We are a horror movie review podcast dedicated to telling you whether a movie is a hack.

SPEAKER_03 0:28

A total joke? A waste of time.

SPEAKER_08 0:31

Or a slash.

SPEAKER_03 0:32

Totally killer, pun intended.

SPEAKER_08 0:33

We believe horror is for everyone, and as such, we're rating these movies with the perspective we've gained from our varying walks of life and the flavors of fear we fancy most. My name is Chris, I'm your friendly neighborhood slasher enthusiast. This week I'm joined by the Superfly Space Guy Mac.

SPEAKER_03 0:47

Do you want him to be comfortable or alive?

SPEAKER_08 0:49

The classic horror connoisseur Sean.

SPEAKER_05 0:51

It won't matter how sharp it is if you're too afraid to use it.

SPEAKER_08 0:54

The paranormal pair more Binks. I'm smarter than a beaver. And emerging from her slumber to return to us for a special appearance, the cowardly creeper Ryan. Next time you're cooking. Welcome back, Ryan.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

How does it feel? Hi, it feels so weird. I feel like I've never done this before, which is absolute nonsense, because I've done hundreds, literally. Literally hundreds, but hey, it's only been six months. Yeah. I'm very happy to be here. I'm super excited.

SPEAKER_08 1:20

I am happy that you're joining us for this particular one. It feels like uh, you know, the fam's all back together, but we do have a special message from you from one of our staff members.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Hello, hackerslash hotline. This is Nathan, and I'm calling into the show for the first time ever, because it's a special occasion. Our beloved Cowardly Creeper is back for one night only. Ryan, as you know, we miss you, we love you, and it's going to be so nice to hear your voice again on this episode. You've always been an important part of the show, even when you're not here, and I just feel so uh lucky that I get to consider you one of my friends. I hope you'll join us again for another random episode in a few months. Otherwise, I'll see you in October. Bye, friends.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

I feel like I'm not cool enough to be missed like that, you know? You absolutely are. You've have clearly made an impact. Well, I'm thankful for that. And I do hope to be back for another one soon besides just, you know, maybe pop it in in October. But hopefully when I come back, I'll have like, I don't know, exciting things to share or something. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see how it goes. Or, you know, depends on what movies come out, I suppose.

SPEAKER_08 2:37

Well, folks, Ryan is joining us this week to unpack a sci-fi film that captivated audiences when it premiered on Hulu last year. Before we get down to business, though, we have some follow-up.

SPEAKER_03 2:47

Let's follow up on a season, specifically the spooky preseason. This October is gonna be huge. We're celebrating our sixth anniversary, our 300th episode, and we're even hosting our very own live show at our meetup on October 13th in Orlando, Florida.

SPEAKER_08 3:04

Hell yeah, come get some. Literally.

SPEAKER_03 3:06

Now the spooky season isn't limited to October, though. And in fact, the spooky preseason starts right now. From August 1st through 31st, we're running a challenge for our listeners. We want you to help us pregame for the spooky season by joining our free Discord server and mingling with the family. The term Discord server may be new to some of you, but that's okay. It's just a free app or website you can visit to connect with us and other fans of our show. You already know we believe horrors for everyone. We say that every episode. You may not know, however, that the ultimate goal for our show is to foster an environment in which conversations about horror movies are used as catalysts to build enriching connections between people. It's literally happening right now as we record.

SPEAKER_08 3:44

It really is. I mean, look at the way we've all come together, honestly.

SPEAKER_03 3:47

And we offer a safe, inclusive space for fans to be fans and connect over a shared love of horror movies. To celebrate that throughout the month, each Discord member will gain points just for participating in our community by talking about all things horror, connecting with each other, and participating in our live stream chats. On October 1st, though, we'll announce the community member with the most points, and our top three winners will receive a special package containing merch we're actually designing specifically for our October theme. We'll also have a little something special for our runner-ups. So to recap, join our Discord, have fun with the Hackerslash family, get points, win cool stuff. You can learn more by following the link in our show notes or by going directly to go.hackerslash.

SPEAKER_08 4:29

Well, this week's film has a step back into an era where the survival of your tribe depended on your strength, courage, and ingenuity. This film drops us into the unforgiving wilderness of North America in the year 1719, where the Comanche Nation had already established its territory. We're beckoned into a world of pride and resilience, and a time when danger lurched around every corner and in every shadow. This film follows a Comanche tribe already engaged in the unending battle for survival as they face a threat far beyond their wildest imaginations, an adversary that defies the laws of nature as they know them. The film was originally positioned as simply a tale of a Comanche woman who was defying gender norms and traditions to become a warrior. It was later revealed, though, to be a film placed at the very beginning of the Predator franchise. The resulting film became one of the most watched movies in the United States during its premiere on Hulu and earned glowing reviews from both critics and audiences alike, largely because of its effectiveness and blurring the lines between reality and fantasy, between the ordinary and the extraordinary. This week we're talking about prey. Who's seen this one before?

SPEAKER_03 5:33

Let's get down to business to defeat the predators. I have seen every Predator and Alien movie several times each, probably.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Okay, so I saw this, and this is the only Predator movie I think I've ever seen.

SPEAKER_05 5:46

It's on brand.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

I know. I haven't changed.

SPEAKER_05 5:49

This would be my second time watching it. I don't know if I've actually seen every single Predator movie in the franchise. I've definitely seen the first one. I want to see, I want to say I've seen the second one, but after that, I I I it's kind of a blur. I don't know if I have or if I haven't. But who knows? Maybe if I watch them, it'll spark a memory.

SPEAKER_07 6:09

So it looks like I might be uh off the regular path here because this is my first time watching this movie. But to be honest, it's also because I figured we were going to review this at some point in time. So it was kind of one of those things where I'm like, well, at this point, I might as well just save it for when we get to the episode. So I I basically have seen this just now. However, when it comes to the franchise as a whole, definitely seen Predators, like the first one, because hello, Arnold, absolutely, and then Alien versus Predators, both of them, was like a cultural reset, you know, like that was a time in the theater, just a time in general. All the other movies, though, I have not seen.

SPEAKER_08 6:51

Yeah, I saw this movie last year shortly after its release, and I was immediately struck by what a great addition this was to the franchise. However, that being said, I guess I can't really talk too much because I've only seen the first and second Predator movie. I've never seen anything past that, including Alien vs. Predator. So who am I to judge? Is that fair? I don't know. But Binks, since you hadn't seen this, what were you expecting going in?

SPEAKER_07 7:15

Honestly, that it was just gonna be so great. I feel like everybody was raving about this movie. Such high expectations, to be honest. I I figured it was gonna be a good time. I had heard it was one of like the best movies of last year. So, you know, sometimes, and I've said this in the past, like when those expectations are so high, I kind of like expect the worst then. Because what if it's just too good to be true? But you know, we're about to find out. I th I think it was a good time though, for the most part.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

I think I got lucky because I had no idea what this movie was gonna be about. I didn't know it was in the Predator universe when I turned it on. So I think I was able to just avoid all the hype around it and just sit down and like enjoy it. So I guess expectations are generally high. I had none, and it it just made for such a perfect watch the first time I saw this.

SPEAKER_07 8:07

Which I guess like for me, it's just it had also been so many years since I've seen a Predator movie too. So I was like, wow, it's been so long since a Predator movie has been out, or at least it's felt that way. And then I'm like, okay, now that we're getting a little revamp to the whole franchise with this prequel, I guess, how good could it possibly be? And then it supposedly was. So I was like, all right, I gotta give it a shot.

SPEAKER_05 8:31

Good old college try.

SPEAKER_07 8:32

A good old college try.

SPEAKER_05 8:34

I think it's just interesting, just in the time frame that it takes place in, because right, it's it's a prequel, it's back in time, like it's not a lot of advanced technology, so it's gonna be interesting to see how this Predator shows up to the people of this timeline and how that kind of matches up.

SPEAKER_03 8:53

You know, I think my expectations were all based on the trailer and not on other people's viewing of it because I watched it pretty early on after it released, but I think watching the trailer, I just kind of expected like an Odyssey. I was getting a very grand kind of feeling. Uh, it got me really excited. I expected it to be just epic. Obviously, this is not my first time, that was last year, but this time I just expected to find some more details, you know, little little gold nuggets that I missed the first time around.

SPEAKER_08 9:22

Yeah, I think I watched this at the sweet spot in time last year to be able to appreciate it for what it was without the hype doing too much against it. Kind of like the experience I had with Hereditary, right? Still haven't seen it because the hype got to it really quickly and I just haven't been able to separate it. However, going into it a second time, I wanted to do something different with this experience. Now, the cool thing about this movie is that it was already filmed in English, but there's also the Comanche language dub that's available. So this time I decided to put on some headphones, remembering that it had a pretty good sound design, and then I re-watched it with a Comanche language dub, and man, it made for a much better experience. And I was still nervous, I was still spooked by the predator's presence and brutality, and oof, I was still totally caught up in this main character's journey. So one might say I was enthralled, captivated, enchanted, even.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

I'm so sad I didn't know that was an option. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_05 10:21

Same.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

That sounds like it would be so good. It's right there on Hulu. You know, right there on Hulu sounds like it's right there on Hulu, but you have to know that that's like I've never ever picked that as an option. So when would I, you know what I mean? When would I decide, oh, let me look at the other language options. That's totally fair. I feel like because they're like the heart and soul of this movie, watching it like that would be amazing.

SPEAKER_03 10:45

What's really cool though is they brought the original actors back to actually do their own voices, and then they did that cool thing where they make the words fit to their mouth movement so it doesn't look like you're watching a really bad dubbing from the early 20th century.

SPEAKER_05 10:59

Oh yeah, I love that. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_08 11:01

For sure. I think the experience of watching it though, the only time I really felt it was being able to hear in the quiet when it was clearly a VO versus just like spoken or even done with the original cut of the film. It's still solid. Like it didn't distract me at all, but it was the only time that it kind of stood out as, oh yeah, this is it. But the the performances, like, oh my gosh, the performances in that language is just stunning. And like it because it's the original cast, it matches so perfectly well.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

Well, I can't imagine how much better that would be because the first time I saw this, I was blown away while I was watching it. Like it set me up to be so captivated by this story. Again, I'm not like really a predator kid, you know. I'm y'all know how I am. I haven't seen everything that I need to see in the world. So I don't have any like preconceived notions. I'm not worried about, you know, are they gonna do Predator right? I don't really care about him, if I'm being honest. So while I'm watching this movie, I am just deep in this Comanche story, and like I only care about what the character stories are, not even the extra side stories that are happening. It's honestly the the feel of this movie is what I think like alien predator kind of movies should feel like. Like you should be in the story and they're just there.

SPEAKER_07 12:23

Yeah, I I I I think I get what you're saying. Like I was more invested in the main character and like the culture of the of the Comanche tribe and just like how they like the dynamics between the main characters, all that more so than I was the predator. And that's not to say that that's a bad thing, though. Because I think like I would imagine, especially alien versus predator and stuff like that, like it's it's all fluff in a way, but like a good fluff, right? It's entertainment and it's action and blah blah blah. But I feel like you don't really get a lot of like meat and potatoes of like a storyline when it comes to some some action movies or sci-fi action or like horrors or whatever, you know. So I I I can agree with you on that one for sure.

SPEAKER_08 13:03

I think it's partially because it's almost as if the predator in this movie is there for scale and reference as like an established baseline, you know what I mean? And all the other characters or things that happened in this movie are growing around the predator. Not to say that the predator doesn't have its own evolutions in its own ways, but I think that's really, really interesting. I felt like no matter what I did with these characters, I was always appreciating them through the context of seeing what the baseline is, which is the predator.

SPEAKER_05 13:34

Yeah. I I think all of you said really good words, right? You said enthralled, captivated, invested, and and those are all feelings that I think all of us had watching this film because to your point, like the story is so good, and the character development and everything surrounding this predator movie is really good. I will say I really loved the relationship with the dog. That was first and foremost. Sorry, but that that was just such a a wonderful, beautiful relationship that I just really enjoyed throughout the film.

SPEAKER_08 14:04

Don't apologize for that. It was beautiful and perfect.

SPEAKER_05 14:07

I know, yeah, you know, but you know, we're thinking of like the story. Everyone's talking about the story here. So I think that's what really surprised me in this film. Because when you do, to your to your point, Binks, when you do look at action movies and specifically even other predator movies, they are just kind of here's a bunch of action, not much backstory, not much character development, just a lot of like you know, manly muscles running around fighting this predator and things like that. And this one was completely different from that. And it invested you in the story about this woman in the tribe, trying to, you know, make it, you know, in the tribe as a warrior, right? Trying to be different in the tribe and stand out. And like it just it was such a it was such a great take on this approach to the to the film, and I think it just added so much value, and it was really surprising to see that, and it wasn't something I was expecting from the film.

SPEAKER_03 15:05

This this film truly does have something different going on. I think, you know, I was expecting something epic. What I was not expecting necessarily was an amazing hero's journey in this film, and it is legit. Like, I don't know, it gives me nostalgia for all those 80 movies we grew up with. You know, it's like never-ending story where we get to follow a hero, and especially someone who like does not necessarily show up as a hero in in in many cases, but in this case, they get to be the hero. And it's just it like, you know, captivating is a great word because it really draws you in because you want to see them triumph the entire time. You know that there are really high stakes and you want to see them actually triumph here. And it's I mean, it's it's honestly like watching a version of the Odyssey or something. There is just so much going on, this massive journey. All these, all these different characters that are always at risk, and in many cases, you know, we we lose a couple of them. But yeah, I think while watching it, there was just like every moment had something going on that kept me from looking away.

SPEAKER_08 16:09

Yeah, Mac, I I felt very, very similarly the first time around, and I cannot wait for us to unpack all these characters, and particularly our central character, and her of evolution and how she changes and how she grows in this movie in the second half when we get into our spoiler zone. But let me tell you this sitting in for a second time, already knowing the beauty of this story, already seeing how incredible these performances are, I really wanted to dig in and see what I could remember from the original franchise, the very little bit that I've seen. And I'm surprised how much on a second watch I found that there are links back to the franchise that totally washed over me the first time I ever saw this movie. And right, okay, listen, it's a prequel. It's obvious they had to have breadcrumbs, they had to have lines to draw back to the rest of the films. We have to be able to connect these stories beyond just having a predator. But nothing in this movie felt so ungracefully jammed in or forced that it felt like fan service. This feels like it could have served as its own perfectly good standalone first film ever, and then everything else would come on after it, and it would feel like it was methodically planned out. I absolutely agree.

SPEAKER_01 17:29

I don't even think the word prequel really should apply to this movie. I understand that it does, but it's not like this movie is spending the entire time explaining to you how we got where we get in the universe. You know, it's it's just a movie that happened before the last one, but they don't link together in a way like you need to see A or B. You know what I mean? And I love that because I don't care about Predator, and I do care about this movie. So they did something very successful in now. I'm like partially bought into the franchise. Now I gotta be a part of it because I'm such a fan of this. I gotta, you know, I can't I can't be, you know, leaving the rest of the people behind, leaving the rest of the movies behind. I think the only thing I was really surprised about in this movie was the supporting group of people that were involved, because I didn't see that coming. I think I don't wanna spoil anything, but they play a very significant part, but it's just but it's just handled perfectly, and I I wasn't planning for that. I was kind of planning for, you know, this is something getting attacked by something, and these two forces are fighting against each other. And we have some a third party involved, which is an interesting approach.

SPEAKER_03 18:38

No, I was looking for golden little nuggets the entire time I was watching this, but the thing that actually surprised me, the thing that I missed, was at the very end of the movie, at the credits, and there is that cool little animation, and I saw it last time, but I don't think I truly paid attention to what was being shown, and it kind of got caught me off guard and it got me really excited, and I don't want to spoil it because spoilers, but watching that all the way at the very end, I was like, oh man, this makes me one enjoy this movie even more, and two, makes me incredibly hopeful.

SPEAKER_07 19:08

Are you telling me that there's a post-credit scene?

SPEAKER_03 19:11

No, it's it's kind of pre-credits and it's just the animation. It's really cool animation. It's done by Comanche artists, which is really cool as well.

SPEAKER_08 19:21

Oh, I know what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Seeing that credit sequence, Mac, is exactly what inspired me to just go back and watch Predator 1, Predator 2 right after it. Didn't end up doing it, but man, the vibes, they were there.

SPEAKER_07 19:35

Well, I'll tell you one thing. We're talking about things that surprised us, so I'll be the Debbie Downer, just a smidge. I was a little bit disappointed by the CGI. Just a s just a smidge. I know, don't look at me like that, Mac. I'm just saying, okay, hear me out. It was just a little bit off-putting, but not like in a this is like horrendous type way, but just enough where it was it's just so starkly different. I don't know. I don't know. The way that Predator is handled obviously needs it is required, like there has to be a CGI element to it, but something about his design and the way it was executed in such a stark environment where it's that's the whole point of the plot. I don't know. I'm listening to myself right now and I realize I sound ridiculous, but I just I wasn't here for it, and I feel like I'm not the only one.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

Banks, I support you. It's not just you, you're not the only one. It's just the thing, I think it has to do with just the setting, but there's just a couple times, especially with like the goo, it just like stands out a little too much, and you're like Oh, but it was beautiful. It wasn't not beautiful mostly, and like I enjoyed his face and everything plenty. Like, I'd never had any issues with that. There's just some parts where it's just like, okay, like I know what we're doing here, but there's a couple parts that I it kind of you can feel the CGI a little more than like it's one of those things you don't want to notice it. I support you. Don't let these people bully you.

SPEAKER_08 20:57

Thank you, Ryan. I would be really curious to see which moments you're referring to, and then compare it to when CGI is actually used in the movie and see if it's the same things. Because there's I'm I'm impressed how much was actually done practically here, and it was more than I expected. I think going into this, I assumed that there was more CGI than there actually was.

SPEAKER_07 21:20

I'll I'll and when we get to the spoiler zone, I can be a little more specific, maybe, and then we can fact check me a little bit because I highly doubt that what I'm thinking of was practical effects.

SPEAKER_08 21:31

I'm sure, I'm sure not, but there are some things where I was like, oh, okay, this is definitely CGI, then I found that it was practical. I'm like, what the fuck? And then there are some things that are obviously CGI, well, not obviously, some things that when I was like just looking into something behind the scenes of the movie that I found out was completely CGI, that I was like, oh wait, what?

SPEAKER_01 21:49

It was just a little off uh caught me off guard. But also, either way, you don't want the effects to stand out like in a specific moment, you know, when something else is happening on screen. And you don't like, you know, if it's special effects of a friggin', I don't know, werewolf evolving, like that's the moment. But if the moment is like a fight scene and all of a sudden you realize the effects, that's not successful, even if it isn't CGI.

SPEAKER_03 22:13

I'm I'm curious to hear later as well, because there are actually some moments here that I am happy are CGI and they are related to animals because they actually I thought the CGI was so good that when you're watching some of those moments, initially I was like, oh no, like oh, it just makes me feel sad to see this thing at risk here. And then you're like, Wait, it's it's pixels. It's okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

Well, it's pixels either way. For sure, they weren't gonna kill animals.

SPEAKER_08 22:38

I'm looking at you, part of the 13th, 1980.

SPEAKER_05 22:42

Yeah. Lots of animals were harmed during the making of this film. Yeah. Oh. Yeah, no, I think you know, that actually might be the most horrific part of this movie because this film is definitely not scary. It's more of an action sci-fi than a horror film. There's just not much of anything to be frightened of in this one. I I can see this having some slasher vibes, kind of, but really it's just action-packed kills.

SPEAKER_07 23:08

I mean, yeah, there's definitely no jump scares, but there's a whole lot of murder. So if you don't like that, I would steer clear from this one.

SPEAKER_08 23:15

Uh let me just say though, that this movie had me the most, even on the second time watching, the most tense and the most concerned that I think I've been in a horror movie in a long fucking time. Like, truly, like I know what fucking happens in this movie, and yet still I'm over here like, oh my god, no, please don't go. Run, run, run, evade.

SPEAKER_06 23:36

Evade.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

If you watch this in a good setting, a nice TV, a sound bar, dark room, loud, like it is creepy. And and especially the first time, there's a lot going on, and you can't necessarily predict it the way I think a lot of movies can be predicted. I I it's not scary, but it's thrilling. This is like a sci-fi thriller to me.

SPEAKER_03 23:59

There's I think a couple things at play here though, because if you're talking about the animals, yes, I think they created some really good moments of suspense. Um, I think they they had us fearing for the lives of some animals here, specifically one from the start. But I think the other aspect here is gonna be the predator. And the predator is absolutely gnarly, very different from previous predators. Not scary, but I wouldn't want to face that thing in thumb wrestling, let alone the hunt. So, yes, it's not scary. I'm with you. It's more sci-fi thriller, sure. That's kind of what I'm here for, though, so I'm not gonna complain about that. And like I said, I've seen every one of these movies, some of them multiple times, some of them many times. But honestly, this one hit me because it was so different. This is truly like a redefinition of what's possible for the Predator franchise. I honestly wish the alien movies got this kind of a treatment. It has kind of this other like there's other movies that are set in the Wild West or in early America, and they're they're survival movies. There's that one with uh Leonard DiCaprio I still haven't seen.

SPEAKER_08 25:04

The Revenant.

SPEAKER_03 25:05

Yes, Revenant. So I haven't seen that one yet, but I have seen The Edge. That is one of my favorite movies. And that like there's just something about being in the wilderness and having to survive when there's big, scary animals trying to eat you. And this one just goes a step further and makes an even bigger, even scarier kind of animal, the threat. And so it I think it really kind of lends itself to being out in the middle of the woods and having to survive. That's it. Like it just plays like so many of those other stories. And so, what if it's an alien? It doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_05 25:35

Yeah, I think that's a good way to put it. It definitely feels different. Uh, I think it feels original, even though, in essence, you know, they added some stuff, different elements, different time period. It is, in essence, the same scenario as previous predator films, right? The backbone, predator shows up, hunts you down until you can find a way to stop or kill it. But this takes you to an interesting time in history. It gives you a much better story, it adds some elements that I'm sure we're gonna talk about in the second half, where I think is really interesting, and I think you're kind of hinting to it, Mac, and and I can't wait to dive into that. But yeah, this just feels different and fresh. So definitely gets originality points.

SPEAKER_07 26:17

And I'll say, you know, uh Dan Trachtenberg, he did 10 Cloverfield Lane, and I know that Cloverfield as a whole, you know, there's feelings about it in general. But I actually saw 10 Cloverfield Lane for the first time recently, and I was thinking to myself, like, man, when watching Prey, I was like, man, he does really good at trying to like taking an existing franchise or story and like still having a little bit of a twist, having some fun with it without like you were saying earlier, Ryan, like making it very abundantly clear that this is a part, or you were saying it too, Chris, that this is a part of a bigger franchise, or like you know, basically like shoving it in your face. Oh, all of the Easter eggs, all the things, because you mentioned it, Chris, uh, that there's so many connections and little like things that connect the stories and and the different movies, but I didn't even notice it myself, and I've seen some of them, it's been a long time, but it's such a good standalone, and so 10 Cloverfield Lane also similarly. So, you know, props to him. I think he did such a good job with you know creating its solo movie that clearly re-engages people into the whole franchise as a whole, gets people wanting to watch the movie that that seems like success in and of itself.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

I don't feel like I'm qualified to comment on the originality of this as far as the Predator universe. However, the originality of this woman-focused story that doesn't feel like it's yelling feminism at me is original and not usually done well. And I appreciate it very much. So I gotta give it the props for that. For sure.

SPEAKER_08 27:54

This movie is an absolute breath of fresh air for all the reasons all of you have described very well. It manages to give us a familiar topic and even a familiar concept in terms of a woman becoming a warrior while doing it very differently and very holistically, and it creates these lovable characters that I you can't help but root for, right? And I think it continues to be a fresher breath of air all the way through its ending moments. Mac, you're talking about it earlier. Even the and credits keep you watching and make things interesting. And you know, there's a moment that happens in the final act of this film, and it's as, you know, we're kind of de-escalating, coming down from the resolutions, and there's a moment exchanged that makes me think of a deleted scene I read about in this movie. And I I'm gonna drop a link in the show notes to it. We're gonna unpack it in the spoiler zone, particularly as we get to characters. It made me realize how much more there is to these people, even than what we see on screen. Like these are proper characters that are very lived in.

SPEAKER_07 28:57

Yeah, I'd agree. I think the ending is maybe the best part. Maybe yeah, I I think so. Because I'm thinking of it now in my head, and it's like an incredible conclusion, and it's all because of the arcs for these characters, in particular the main character. Something that you were saying earlier, Ryan, that's like it's not like the fem feminism that's like shoved in your face type thing either. It's just it's lived in, like you're saying, it's relatable in a way that I guess I just didn't expect for myself. I yeah, I think it's a really, really good ending again for an action sci-fi that sometimes you kind of just anticipate, you kind of can predict in some way, but you don't necessarily expect the feelings and the emotions that kind of get coupled in with that.

SPEAKER_01 29:42

Yeah, I have to agree. I think the ending of this movie is as successful as the rest of it, and it's not super predictable, but but it is an an outcome that feels satisfying, it feels good, it's not like a you know a silly happy ending in any way or anything. It's it just feels like an authentic part of the story, just like everything else.

SPEAKER_05 30:01

Yeah, absolutely. I I really enjoyed the ending of this movie. It was jam-packed with action, it was intense. The final scene was such a great shot. It was truly a great way to end the film. But I am curious about this deleted scene now.

SPEAKER_03 30:14

Oh yeah, we all want to know. Can't wait to find out. But I I think you've all said it best, you know. But the the ending here is a perfect wrap-up to the movie. Um, I think something gets taken from us, something gets taken, you know, from our character, but something is given back. There is, like you said, this satisfaction that you get to at the end, but it just left me wanting more. Like it was so effective that I was like, give me the next episode in this. I need it. I need this character, I need that character with more predators. That's what I need, because the the formula up to this point worked out just so well, and she developed perfectly to now be the warrior that she knew she was from the beginning of the film.

SPEAKER_08 30:57

Well, it sounds like I can imagine where the scoring is gonna go. So let's go ahead and start making our way there. Now, before we actually rate this movie, Sean, how would you describe the gore score?

SPEAKER_05 31:07

Well, this film definitely has some graphic scenes. We're talking about impalements, limbs being sliced off, decapitations, and more. And it's not just people. So the gore doesn't feel too in your face like some of the gore porn movies out there, but it definitely has enough gore and violence to earn itself a respectable high gore score.

SPEAKER_07 31:26

And what about the animal report? You know, quite frankly, yeah, this animal report's fucked. Pito is m you know, knocking on doors at Hulu and causing a scene. I I don't even know how much more detail I can get, guys. Just buckle in. You're gonna get a little bit scared and be on the edge of your seat for not just the typical animals that we kind of keep a watch on, you know, like it's it's all all of them. They're all at danger.

SPEAKER_08 31:54

All bets are off, it seems. Yep. Yep. Well, let's go ahead and get into our ratings then. Prey from 2022. Is it a hack or a slash?

SPEAKER_07 32:02

I'll start us off just because I, you know, I don't have much much more to say. Like I mentioned, it's my first watch going into this, and it's just been a long time since I've seen a predator movie. And also, we haven't really done any heavy sci-fi horrors, at least in a in a bit. So I kind of went into this excited with a lot of hype, like I mentioned at the beginning, and not a lot of skepticism like I typically do for movies that have a lot of hype. And now that I'm on the other side, I only had one small complaint about the CGI, but everything else was just really entertaining, a refreshing twist, badass main character, great side characters, incredible story, incredible environment. And I'm not one to be really a big fan of action anything, to be real with you. But I was really invested, and I think that that says a lot. So, quite frankly, you know, Chris, you said it. You had an idea of where this is going. It's a slash for me.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

As it should be. I think it's easy to predict our ratings on this one. We haven't been very like stringent in what we're saying here. We're like, I love this movie so much. I obviously am gonna slash this. I don't care about Predator at all, like I've said 42 times now, but he's cool in this movie. He's great. I'm into it. I enjoyed that part a lot. But the Comanche people in this movie are everything. They give you life, and I had no idea that that's what I was going in for. These characters feel so authentic. The movie is so cinematic, okay? I this is this was a movie that was supposed to go to theaters and then didn't, right? So it ends up on Hulu, which means people are, I don't know, watching it on their iPhone. And if you watch this on a small screen or in like a I don't know, kind of a mid-situation, you're missing out because like the experience of watching this is so beautiful and cinematic. The story is so good, the people are beautiful, their settings, everything like it they give you these like flyover shots that are like what you think you'd see if you're watching a movie, you know, kind of like that western style where you get a lot of like scenic views, okay? I thoroughly enjoy this movie. I it it could be a part of any universe in the world and it wouldn't matter to me. I love it. I didn't have any expectations, and it made me have like the best experience watching it the first time. And re-watching it was still so good. And y'all know I don't re-watch movies. I enjoyed re-watching this movie, and I should do it again and and listen to the Comanche language, that would be amazing. So hard slash for me.

SPEAKER_05 34:39

So while this is definitely not a horror movie to me, and I know Binks and I have struggled with this part from time to time on this show. I can see where people get hints of horror out of it. It has its moments, and if we're going to call it horror, then we better throw the OG Jurassic Park in the mix because that felt more like a horror film than this one did. All that being said, this film is a really good watch. I really enjoyed the story and more specifically the way it was told. I was invested in the characters, and some of the shots in this movie were absolutely gorgeous to look at. The action was plentiful, the kills were pretty good, and there were a lot of them. I really enjoyed watching this film for a second time, and it makes me want to revisit the franchise. It's getting a slash from me, but you cannot convince me that this is a horror film.

SPEAKER_07 35:28

Oof, the hot take. I love it.

SPEAKER_03 35:30

Whether or not it is, I'm not bothered. I think Prey might be the best Predator movie since the original Predator. Even then, it might be a tie. And Predator 1, Predator 2, both of them, fantastic. This one's up there. Everything after that gets progressively worse. So this was such a nice change. This film was nearly perfection. Action, adventure, high stakes, great special effects, great dialogue, great acting, solid pacing, perfect characters. It's just beautiful all around. Even amongst movies we've slashed, this is at the top of the list. If you haven't seen Prey, pop your popcorn, grab your drink, sit down for a wild ride. And if you have seen it, do the exact same thing and enjoy it all over again. It's the definition of a slash.

SPEAKER_08 36:12

Well, far be it from me to mess a good thing up. I'm not going to beat around the bush here. This movie is an absolute slash, and I find no difficulties squaring this entry up in the franchise as a horror film through and through, bro. It's a slash on so many levels, right? From its stunning cinematography, right? Uh to its compelling performances and the utter brutality that unfolds in its runtime. This has a main character that's so easy to root for and fall in love with because of the way this movie paces itself and it focuses on the parallels between its core protagonist and its big bad antagonist. Like you get to see these two characters grow against each other in a really fucking cool way that reminds me a lot of Michael and Lori, but that's just me. Every part of this film, from the Comanche language version of the movie to the Easter eggs tying into the greater franchise lore, felt like it was done with love and with reference. And I think that's what makes it even better. Listen, this isn't why I slashed the movie, but when I found this out after slashing the movie, I was like, fuck, this is takes it to a whole other level. They actually employed two Comanche activists to rewrite the script and avoid inaccuracies and cultural stereotypes, which is amazing. And what feels even better than this, like the cherry on top of a great film, because being entertaining, being captivating, being thrilling, and being gorgeous simply is not enough, is the interview with Amber Midthunder that I read. And she said the Comanche people did have a voice in this process. And in doing the Comanche language version of this movie, that was with the Comanche Nation. That was with real Comanche language speakers. And even on the movie, we had an internship program for native people who wanted to be in the film industry who could get their hours working in the unions there. And now there are people who did that program who are in the union now who are working on movies. I've linked that article down in the show notes so you can read more on the making of this film, but for now, I can't fucking wait to dive into the spoiler zone for this one so we can keep unpacking it. For now, Prey has earned a universal slash. And if you haven't seen it for yourself yet, you can click back down and link in our show notes to find where you can see it right now, and we'll be right back with the spoiler zone so we can unpack it together. We'll see you in a bit.

SPEAKER_02 38:49

Fancy dancing in a different dimension, and get to the top of because we're elevating the nightlight to a cosmic level with me on the jungle. You're likely wondering what is jungle. And in this jungle, it's like this rain. Check out the neon jungle. Use code hack on below for a 15% discount on your first light speed journey. And remember, it's a neon jungle. If you feed, you can rave.

SPEAKER_05 40:13

We have 30 kills for the predator, seven kills for Naru, and one kill for the animal kingdom. I gotta say, I thought the gore looked pretty good in this one. It doesn't feel as on the nose as something like Saw or Hostile or anything like that. It's graphic yet tasteful in a way. It shows you just enough for you to understand the severity of what's unfolding without being too over the top to where people couldn't handle it. And I loved how they used the scene where Tabe gets sliced across his chest in a sort of callback or foreshadowing rather to the OG 1986 Predator where Billy Sol, the Native American tracker, did the same thing to attract or bait the Predator. Yeah. So good. So good. Now, we don't see every single kill on screen, but there are still plenty to choose from. So let's talk about it. What were your favorite kills?

SPEAKER_08 41:08

Ooh, ooh, ooh, okay. I want to go first real quick, and I want to point out that you get like three, I think almost massacres, like a scene, scenes in which multiple people are just dropping, right? You have the Comanche massacre, the French massacre, and the French trapper massacre by Naru when she's like going back for sati. But my favorite comes with the French massacre, and this is the shield decapitation. This guy is up against the tree. He's looking at the predator, he knows his seconds are numbered, and yet that shield goes straight through his fucking neck and also drops down a tree. Wild.

SPEAKER_01 41:51

350 kills, and you picked the one I picked.

SPEAKER_07 41:56

Yeah, picked the one that we probably all picked because it was also my favorite kill. I got backups, but you know, it's great. Well, because of the little, you know, even with the little blood shooting out, I was like, ugh, this is nasty. Okay, I do have a backup, but it's actually sadly an animal kill because I was just it's not a favorite kill, but I was freaking floored. That wolf was despined, like just the spine ripped out with just that. I was like, oh, they're really like saying, fuck it. Yeah, I'm like doing the damn thing.

SPEAKER_08 42:26

The way that little pooch was still stumbling a second, because you thought, okay, maybe it didn't nothing really happen. Oh, it reminds me of every other like early 2000s horror movie, which someone is like bisected, except like they're still kicking for a second, and then all of a sudden they collapse.

SPEAKER_01 42:42

That and the peeled and D veined snake, I was not prepared for that the first time. Like it just still moving around on the ground, it still had its little rattler.

SPEAKER_06 42:52

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:52

And just like, oh, snakes are scary enough. A naked snake is horrifying.

SPEAKER_03 42:58

Well, I'm I'm gonna say that I I had the shield kill as a backup, but it was not my main one. The net kill was fantastic. Oh yeah. Because what a way to go. You're you're caught in a net just like you had the predator caught in a net, or at least you thought you did, and you're thinking, oh man, I'm I'm not gonna be able to get out of this. But then the net just collapses back into itself, and what what we didn't even get to see. We just like got to feel what was happening. I just want to know, did it like did the dude just like get evaporated? Did it just turn into meat cubes? That was like a very gnarly way to go. It's just getting pushed through a tiny little net.

SPEAKER_05 43:35

Incredible and visually really cool.

SPEAKER_08 43:37

It's giving Resident Evil those lasers.

SPEAKER_05 43:40

Oh yeah. Yeah. What what about the what about the blue coat dude? Like it was just hilarious. It was like a good moment of comedy where he's trying to shoot the predator and it backfires and he shoots himself in the fucking face.

SPEAKER_08 43:54

You know, it reminded me of Halloween Kills. Obviously, much better, much more realistic, but Man, this motherfucker really fires that gun thinking, oh, I got you now, bitch. Hits the fucking skull. Dude, what?

SPEAKER_01 44:06

I feel like we're not talking about the most important best kill, which is predator being killed. Oh yeah. Yes. Do you say the predator? Or predator?

SPEAKER_04 44:17

The feral predator.

SPEAKER_01 44:18

Mr. Predator. Mr. Predator. Losing his life to his own mask. Like that was obviously the best kill, if not the beheading.

SPEAKER_08 44:26

It's giving hoisted by my own patard.

SPEAKER_01 44:28

Right, right. I loved it. Also, the fight with the bear. Like, I don't I didn't want the bear to die, but damn, that was cool.

SPEAKER_05 44:34

Okay. Yes. A hundred percent. I was gonna say it's probably an unpopular choice because the bear was such a good kill, even though I hated to see it happen and I was like rooting for the bear the whole time. But it was really just the shot at the end where he's holding the bear up above him and the blood is just gushing down on him, like exposing his body. So you can. I don't even know why he's saying his, because it may not even be a male, it's just an its body, just blood all over it, you know.

SPEAKER_08 45:02

Oh man, yeah. Brother Bear was actually one of my favorite scenes. So I know we'll just discuss it here and not there, but that was so fucking tense. And we had already seen the wolf get gutted at this point, right? So to see this absolute feat of like what feels like Herculean strength to just drop all this blood over, knowing that it's like gutted as he's holding it, because all we see is him punch the shit out of it to kill it with one punch, and then it's dead by the time it hits the floor. Man, that was that was wild. And honestly, a place where I did not give a fuck about the CGI at all. Yeah, I mean the bear didn't look too bad, I feel like it's tough.

SPEAKER_01 45:47

It's a tough one.

SPEAKER_03 45:47

I thought the animals look great.

SPEAKER_07 45:49

Yeah, because like that's that's an example of that I would say a CGI is necessary, and it was like, okay, yeah, I can notice, but it wasn't bad. So that's not the the the CGI that I thought was not great. It was honestly the I don't know how I feel about the way that Predator goes invisible on and off, and like sometimes there was certain moments where it was just super fake to me. Like it was just so like ugh, this is all one big green screen and it doesn't make sense to me, you know? And again, that could be very, I could be very off, I could be very wrong. But there were just a few moments here and there where he's just transitioning from like his like cloak, I guess, his invisible I feel like I'm being Harry Potter here with an invisibility cloak, like you know, but that that whole bit it just seems so forced and awkward when it was just going on and off or things like that. So it wasn't really the animals at all, actually, but it wasn't so bad. And I will also the neon the the neon green blood was just a little too neon, although that was practical effects, that wasn't CGI, so that's fine. I loved it, but I will say you know, wasn't a big fan of the CGI though, but I my other favorite things, like you know, small visual critique, the rest, fantastic, such great cinematography, lighting in general was incredible, and that scene of of um Naru and the Lion or whatever, like on that tree, incredible moment. If I could frame it, I would.

SPEAKER_08 47:19

Another excellent example of great CGI.

SPEAKER_07 47:22

Wow. Okay, so that was so that was well, I mean, I guess for the animal, obviously, but just in general, that entire Yeah, so she's English fake.

SPEAKER_08 47:30

So she's on like a tree-like platform, right? But the animal is added digitally and the scene is darkened digitally. Everything, like everything about the lighting was digital.

SPEAKER_07 47:41

All right, no, no, no. Then that makes sense. I I guess I just I I thought you were telling me that the whole thing, like even she was not actually there, like that was superimposed. That would have been like why.

SPEAKER_08 47:52

Actually, I'll drop a link to I think what's pretty famous, right, is like Dead Meat's kill count channels. He actually has a kill count on this video, but you can see some of the behind the scenes of when they're compositing all the CGI and watching them layer in the fucking lion. So good.

SPEAKER_01 48:08

Nice. Really quick before we move on. I know I don't do the animal report anymore, and we are we did our favorite kills, but my favorite uh alive was the dog. The dog was my favorite alive. The fact that he didn't lose the dog was such a 10 out of 10 experience. Like they did so many things well in this movie, but not killing the dog was like top tier. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 48:29

That dog, Sadi, was such a professional distraction. I know. And the fact that Sadi comes back with a little catch, like pre-bear situation. Oh my god, she like manages to escape the mud, and this dog brings back a fish, like, oh hey, what have you been up to? She's like, There you are.

SPEAKER_05 48:46

I literally said to myself, if this dog dies, I'm fucking done.

SPEAKER_08 48:51

That dog was single polidly the thing that kept me the most afraid in this whole fucking movie because I needed it to survive. And I think what's really interesting is, and uh maybe I would love to hear maybe your your interpretations of this. I remember walking out of that movie, seeing it the first time with the English language. I remember thinking Sati is is female, and I know the dog who plays, the dog is named Coco. I know the dog is actually female, but then in the Comanche language version, there's a quote and exchange between Naru and her mom, and they actually refer to the dog as he. So I don't know. I was like, man, am I crazy about misremembering this whole thing? Had to go back and confirm that Coco is a queen.

SPEAKER_03 49:36

Interesting. When we were first starting the movie, I will tell you my wife saw the dog and immediately asked, Is that dog gonna die?

SPEAKER_06 49:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:44

And I was like, um, I don't think so. I'm struggling remembering. Spoil it right away. You know, I wanted to be a little suspense.

SPEAKER_01 49:52

Hopefully, our listeners' wives listen to the first half of our podcast episode. So instead of asking their husbands, they can find out here if the dog dies. Or if the animal report is a little rough. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 50:06

Well, to be fair, with our animal reporter just being fucked, we would not have been giving a good warning.

SPEAKER_01 50:14

To be fair, still helpful. You should still be warned because there's a lot of there's a lot of animal shit happening here. It's just not the dog. There's origin dog deaths, you know.

SPEAKER_07 50:25

Like if we want to get into the you know where canines come from, that wolf was destroyed.

SPEAKER_04 50:31

Yeah, yeah, true.

SPEAKER_08 50:33

Not the 23 and me animal report. Ancestry dot dog.

SPEAKER_07 50:39

I'm just saying, and and also, and also technically he, she, I guess, was bit like bitten, or not bitten, sorry, no, with the bear trap. Yeah, was injured. Just the tail. Just the tip. Just the tail. Yeah, but I still but just the tip. And the tip was enough to get me a little scared. I was like, oh no, we already have an injury this this early into the movie. Yeah, can we do this? But see, they knew what that's what we were worried about, so they just gave us that little bit, and then all the other animals got got annihilated. Right. They were like, the dog is safe, everyone else is getting despined, skinned, destroyed, beheaded.

SPEAKER_01 51:15

Those naked bison were horrifying. Oh, the bison. Such a creepy way to introduce the French trappers into the story because I didn't see it coming at all. And then, oh my god, it's just insane seeing that like field. And the up-close shot that we get of like the eye and like uh like close to the head of oh my god, horrifying.

SPEAKER_08 51:37

It was so fucking good and such a great moment to introduce that, especially with how horrific it is, because it shows you the nature of how these indigenous lands fell to people, right? And the complete waste of resources. Because when she stumbles upon this entire field, I think you're immediately supposed to wonder, oh my god, the predator. But then you're like, nah, just just French trappers. What we would assume is predator, but really, these aren't even threats to the predator. The predator would have just walked on by. Maybe he would have like fucked around with one, but he would have watched it realizing that it was grazing on grass and was like, ah, okay, this isn't fun. It's so it's inconsistent with what the predator was looking for. And then we see the cigar tossed at its remains, we see the chains, and we see really it's all just pure waste.

SPEAKER_04 52:28

It's terrible.

SPEAKER_08 52:29

But what I think is interesting is like when you apply that reasoning for just a moment and you think, no, there's no way this is the predator, it harkens back to what I think was my favorite part of this movie, which was the way it's cut and how intentional its scenes are, particularly the cinematography of a moment where we see the food chain in action, we see the shot of a bug crawling on that cloaked predator, only for a mouse to eat it, and then the rattlesnake eats the mouse, and then the snake sees the predator because it can see whether it can sense its body heat. Man, that little chain of events, so fucking good. I think I think that combined with just like the poetry that this movie has in its cuts, and I'll get more into that later after you all share, is just stunning. This movie was so intelligently edited.

SPEAKER_01 53:21

Yeah, my favorite visual absolutely has to be like the cinematic flyover shots. I love them so much. Yeah, they're just they give the perfect feeling of like the Great Plains before a bunch of people came and ruined the vibes. It is exactly what this movie needed. And again, I just wish it had come out in theaters. I feel like in a theater this movie would hit even harder. And those cinematic shots are the like the moneymaker that I need to see, like in IMAX.

SPEAKER_05 53:50

Yeah, those were some really, really beautiful shots for sure. Like the flyovers, the shot of the woods, and and to touch on that, one of one of the visuals that I really liked was early on where you see where you see Naru and and Sari standing on the cliff, and it's just that beautiful shot of the two of them, and that open, like, wilderness, and then you see like the then you see like the spacecraft or whatever coming through the sky, which to me that was the only time that I didn't really care for the CGI, but the title card and everything, but all that before was beautiful, just really, really well done.

SPEAKER_03 54:27

It's it's hard to pick a favorite visual in this movie because the entire thing is visually stunning, like everything, every moment of it is beautiful. So I had to go simple. I had to pick the predator itself. I think of all the predators that we've seen in all of the movies, I love the look of this one, and I'm so glad we got to see a different type of predator because the whole idea was you know, human beings come in all shapes and sizes, and so not every predator needs to look the same. And so we went with a different look, we had different gear, we had that the whole like bone mask instead of the traditional one, because if this is in the past, they don't know what they need to thrive here on Earth. So we got that like fresh start effect where they're just showing up and you know, we're gonna we're gonna see what happens here on this little planet. It was just such a solid look, it it just felt so perfect for an untainted land.

SPEAKER_08 55:22

Okay, I have a question for you, Mac. With you having known the chronology of this franchise, one thing that's very significant about this movie is that people assume it derails the canon that has been established by Alien versus Predator and so on and so forth, but the director is very clear in saying this is this predator's particular predator first time on earth. And he's wearing this skull. And there have been some folks who have pointed out that the shape of that skull mean it might means it might be a xenomorph thoughts.

SPEAKER_03 55:57

Uh first of all, I love that. That's amazing. Whether or not it derails alien versus predator, I truly don't care because Alien versus Predator should not exist. I mean, it was entertaining, right? Let's give it some credit. But it also tried to like go back and derail some other stuff. So yeah, I think that's kind of broken anyway. So I think this is setting things right. Now, the whole shape of the mask and per potentially being a xenomorph skull, I don't know if that's true. That's a fantastic detail, and I truly hope that it is because the two of them interact in many ways across however many hundreds or thousands of years. So yeah, that I kind of love it even more now because that's that's amazing. But yeah, I mean, when you go through a lot of the details, like the gun, for instance, great little detail to throw in there because that's in Predator 2. So that's a fantastic choice to have that in there. But I just think that like this predator feels very different from other predators. I'm here for it. The gigantic predator in the movie The Predator was the opposite, just a really stupid choice. This was very smart, this was clever, this was good thinking. This is like, let's go into the backstory of the predator species and think about how the fact that like they're all different. Everyone we see is different.

SPEAKER_01 57:14

Side note, shout out to them for giving us a better name than evidently all the other predator movies that you can't discern between. But like, why is it so hard to communicate what movie we're talking about between alien and predator? Prey, great name, good job.

SPEAKER_03 57:28

It truly is so we've got Predator, Predator 2, you've got Predators, and also the Predator.

SPEAKER_01 57:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 57:34

So uh yeah, not good.

SPEAKER_01 57:36

And Alien does the same thing. Uh you know, in a different form. Like when there's like but they did Prometheus, that worked anyway.

SPEAKER_03 57:44

Right, but I think you know, even at the very end, I I know you didn't like that neon green blood banks. I loved it. I thought it was so great. It fits with the canon, but to see its blood all over Naruto at the very end of the story was like such a beautiful shot with like the decapitated head glowing green, blood everywhere, blood smeared across her face. Yeah. Just as a thing, the predator in its entirety in this film looked so good.

SPEAKER_05 58:09

I was just gonna say that like war paint. It was so cool.

SPEAKER_01 58:13

I think we also just need to quickly address while we're on visuals. Naru is so beautiful, and sh it it's just great when you get to spend an entire movie watching a chick like this, okay?

SPEAKER_08 58:25

I just you know, shout out to Ryan coming back for an episode, proving she's the real lesbian here. Absolutely, I agree.

SPEAKER_01 58:33

I'm just saying, like, you know, the storyline doesn't support the patriarchy, but she's hot, so I kind of am, you know, like I'm here to tell everyone this is an enjoyable watch, specifically because she's just so she's she's beautiful. Let's just be real.

SPEAKER_08 58:49

Okay, she really is, she really is. But you know what? I'm gonna I'm gonna not spend too much time thinking about how gorgeous she is, and actually take this back to what I a little bit of what I was saying earlier, and that is the parallels between them. There are a lot of moments that end on one character and start on another doing almost the same thing, right? So there's a point where we have the wolf scene, for example. The wolf goes for a rabbit. As soon as the wolf has a root rabbit in its mouth, the predator fucks up the wolf, right? And then they go on this whole situation. The immediate cut after that scene with him killing the wolf is Naru failing to kill a rabbit, right? And then we have moments later where the alien is mending its wounds while she's tending to hers. And you see this poetic progression between the two of them, and it shows that, like, yes, they're very different in terms of their approach, and it's showing why she may not be the stronger predator, she may not be the more experienced predator, but she is the one who thinks the most. Even though they do go to great lengths to point out that this predator does stop, this predator does observe, but it also goes to the thrill of the hunt and it exercises its sheer brutality and really is just here to fuck shit up.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:13

Yeah, I think I I think that's a a good point for sure. I I think just watching that progression was really awesome. I also kind of to add on to a little bit of that, I also really enjoyed the play on kind of showcasing the food chain like you were talking about, but also showcasing and emphasizing the fact that humans are really the most destructive and dangerous predator on this planet, right? And now we're just talking about the focus on this like French trapper clan or whatever that's here, and they're just I think someone said it before, they're just killing these animals for sport, and it's such a destructive and terrible thing. And I just really liked the progression of the food chain and just emphasizing that humans are really or can be really terrible to this planet.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:03

Well, I think it's also interesting to show that this predator kills a snake, kills a wolf, kills a bear. But the trappers are there to kill every bison they can for their skin. That's it. That's all they want from the animal is their skin. That predator makes use of uh every part of the animal that he can, which is their skull, sometimes their spine, sometimes their skin, and then he leaves the rest behind. So he's also a little wasteful too. That's that's a bit unfortunate, but you know, because you can only you can only take so much as a trophy. But yeah, I think that is like that scene that that that you all mentioned earlier where we get that disgusting visual. It's a good visual because we should feel bad. Because that kind of situation should make us feel bad. And so I I think it's actually a good choice that they went up close, that they made it feel gross, that they like disgusted us. That was a really smart choice in this in this movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:56

Yeah. The Predator is like glass Tupperware, bad for the environment. And uh the trappers are like single-use plastics, you know, like the waist level is very different. He can he'll use that skull a few times at least. Nice, nice. This is honestly such a great fucking scale.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:15

It was a really cool choice to bring in the trappers, right? Because we could have left them completely out of this and just focused on Naruto and her tribe. But I think it was really cool to show that collision of cultures because the humans, the predators, we have a lot in common. They're they're hunters, do a lot of things that our hunters do, but even then they're not as bad as we are, apparently. So I loved it. The scene where Naruto gets her, I don't know if you want to say revenge, but she kind of gets even with them when she's freeing her best friend, her dog. She goes into beast mode and absolutely decimates them. And I loved it. I don't know if she was fueled, maybe when she saw all those poor animals sitting there riding in an open field, maybe that maybe that gave a give her a little bit of energy to uh to take them all out as soon as she could. But that just like felt so, I don't know, it felt like vindication in that moment where she moved so fluidly between each one of them. There's like how many was it, like six of them coming at her all at once, and she was able to like nonstop move in between, take them out, take their knife, do this, do that. Such an amazing, an amazing action scene because a lot of times you get the standing around bad guy who's like waiting his turn to get killed, and we didn't have to do that here at all. She was bouncing back and forth. It was perfect.

SPEAKER_08 1:03:33

Okay. Yes, I fucking love it. And I think what was really interesting about that is considering her, I wouldn't even say her rage, but really her force just kind of coming to her in this moment after she was found trapped and trapped like a fucking animal. B, put in a cage, and then they walked her dog on a leash. And then she sees that her brother is in a cage. So at this point, even though they are known to skin an entire field of bison, and she doesn't really completely recognize that yet until she sees the cigar in a in a few moments, even though she sees that, she sees that she's being treated worse than an animal in this person in this moment, right? So then she goes back to save her dog, and they're about to kill her dog. And there's just this really beautiful evolution that comes out of her in which she says, No more, this is as far as you go, right? This is it. And man, okay, I I just love this for her character because it reminds me of a line from my favorite scene, and it's not the flashiest scene, it's a very subtle moment for her character. And I do wonder if this is uh the point in which a deleted scene comes into play. But after everything happens with her brother, after he's made the war chief, she wakes up, she gets her stuff ready in the morning, and she sees the rest of her tribe. But what is she really seeing? Is she seeing their fragility? Because she knows that this thing is out there, right? Is she seeing the preciousness of their lives? Is she no is she is she just there knowing that they're gonna be slaughtered if she doesn't act, even though nobody else will believe her? And she goes back inside, she grabs her supplies, and she says to Suddy, if they don't see, then show them. And that comes all the fucking way full circle, yes, at the end, but it also comes full circle when she slaughters the fucking trappers because they did not see her as a threat, and she showed them.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:34

Yeah, look, I I completely agree. That was actually one of my favorite scenes as well. I think it's just a great, obviously, you know, full circle moment to prove that yes, the movie's called prey, and you're assuming that she is the prey or the Comanche tribe is the prey, but in actuality, really the predator is ultimately what becomes the prey at the end. So I think that that's really great. If I had to pick Other, you know, I guess it'd be a collection of scenes or moments that I think are are really beautiful. It's the the the few moments that we get between her and her mom, you know, you know, in the hut, having the conversation of like, you know, what she needs to be doing versus what she wants to be doing, what she thinks she's capable of versus what her what well, not her mother really, it's what everyone thinks that she's capable of. Small little tidbits, shots of them, like, you know, she's sharpening her, you know, I guess like her her dagger or something. Like, you know, she's doing that while the the mom is obviously cooking up something. Like it's so casual, but so powerful as well, um, that I thought was shot beautifully, but also just a beautiful moment in general, to develop that character arc that is has incredible payoff in the end.

SPEAKER_08 1:06:51

Yeah. I think the coolest thing about her character arc is thinking about just the lengths that she was put to when auditioning for the role, and then thinking about how emotive she had to be. But the article that I'm gonna link down in the show notes, and I was talking about that deleted scene earlier, right? It's the moment where she feels like the character clicked for her, where everything made sense to her. It was the moment where she discovered who Naru is and also who the director saw Naru as. And it's a moment where it's pre-hunt, and there's a little girl who's trying to fasten a bow. And I wonder if it's the same little girl that we see kind of just like looking at her with this like glowing admiration at the end. But she's looking at her, and then Naru stops, she helps her, she shows her how to do it, then she teaches her how to do it, and the girl does it. And the girl just looks so powerful and so proud of herself at the end. That's when Naru's like, This is why I have to do this. And so, man, what a fucking great scene that would have been to actually see in the movie. Granted, I I can understand maybe why it was cut because I feel like this movie paces itself really well, but I think that would have that goes to even just show Binks how incredible her character arc is.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:04

It does feel like anything she did on screen was amazing. I think my favorite scene is even though it didn't go well, the lion hunting scene. Because it's just, you know, she thinks this is gonna be her moment, and I really enjoyed that as part of the movie, and the fact that it wasn't her big hunt moment, and obviously that storyline, you know, ties to so many other things in the movie, but I visually it was beautiful character-wise, it was awesome. I I think that was just one of the scenes that you really feel like you know what's gonna happen, and I don't think it went the way anyone really expected, and it does feel kind of like sad when you find out she got taken home and like woken, you know, she wakes up in the morning and realizes she was just brought home and she didn't she didn't finish what she thought she was going to, but it's just so good still, so good to see, and also the friggin' lion cat situation, horrifying. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_08 1:08:55

Yeah, okay. Can we give a quick shout-out to two things though? One, her brother completing the kill, having used her plan and getting the glory for that. But then two, the fact that that guy was talking all that shit just to get snatched by a cat out of a tree.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:09

Yep. Yep. Also, how does she not end up with a concussion? Because like it looked like she clearly hit her head on a rock on the way down.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:16

Yeah, what's a concussion in the 1700s?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:18

That's right. They're like, if she wakes up, she's shake it off, you're good.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:22

Pretty much it.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:23

Let me tell you, so there's some really good scenes we're talking about here, and I had some of these written down, but one scene that stood out to me that I really enjoyed was the scene where uh Naru and Itzy are in the tall grass and they're like hiding or they're laying down in the tall grass, and it was just really beautifully shot. And I loved that moment when Itsey is got the bow and he's saying that we've got him, but Naru realizes that the laser sight is set on him, and she says, No, he's got us, right? And then they just he dodges or she pulls him out of the way, dodges it, they start running, and then even just seeing Itzy like get shot, or just I don't even know. It almost looked like he got like imploded, but I I think he may have gotten slashed up. I'm not really sure, but it was such a good shot.

SPEAKER_08 1:10:16

Oh, yeah, that little explosion of blood. Also a great callback to an earlier Predator movie in which some guy just gets nabbed and said, Shh.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:27

Yeah. It was it was a nice change here to not have the like instant explosive ordnance go off when we saw the red dots, because that's I think what you're expecting when you get the little arrows instead, it kind of matches the the setting a lot better. And it was also kind of a nice surprise because obviously we see it in use at the very end when it it takes out this alien, his own weapon, which is kind of fun. Um, but it's like you can't if if that thing hits you, it's game over. And that's how it was in the other predator movies, but before it was explosive, and so it was like boom, your head gets exploded, it's game over. This thing is just like silent, it's smooth, it's like this Predator where he's in this hunter mode, and I just I loved that change. But as soon as those dots lit up on his forehead, it just gave me so much nostalgia for all the other predator movies because it was that, yeah, we just saw you know the scene before that, but I think in that moment, it felt like every other use of those dots. It was nice to see, though, that even though we go through a lot of her tribe in this movie, there's a lot of them that die. The ones that we do get to see and hear interact, like we kind of care about them. And in other movies, right, you usually don't. They're just soldier number seven, their head explodes, it's whatever. In this one, we have like full dialogue, we get to know them, even if they're kind of jerks to her, we get to know them and we kind of care a little bit, and then boom, their limbs are getting cut off. They treated characters here, I think, so different from every other predator movie, and it was such a nice change.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:54

Okay, so I'm sure Chris has more to say about the Comanche angle of this movie, but here's what stood out to me intensely. This movie feels good because marginalized people aren't the group, like this isn't the predator showing up and hunting people that we've already we already know suffered through all of their existence. Like, does that make sense? It it feels so intentional that it's not like, hey, this this evil thing came from space and like now it's gonna kill you all after all the other white people are trying to kill you and all these, like, you know what I mean? There's all these things going on because we're in America, we're watching a movie that has people that we already have this this historical basis in our mind, right? So if they had done this movie in a different way where it felt like the Comanches were like being hunted in any way, I understand that several of them die, but if it felt like that, this movie would have a completely different uh angle to it, I think. And they did a lot of stuff really, really well in the movie. This isn't the only thing that I want to like yell and praise about, but that is one thing that like really stood out to me that I realized like really changes how you feel about the movie as a whole because of the choices they made in regards to that.

SPEAKER_07 1:13:08

I couldn't agree more. And kind of going to what Mac was saying, I think it has a lot to do with the fact that these characters have names, they have stories, you like you feel for them on top of the fact that they are not purposely hunted, like you're saying. Like it's the predator is just out here like killing what he deems a threat. That's from a snake and a rabbit to someone else, you know. So because the predator isn't intentionally hunting down the Comanche, right? It's I feel like it sets the movie up to be a situation where the Comanche really are, you know, like I guess like really defending themselves, like they are proving themselves to be a threat enough to eventually obviously be, you know, killed in certain circumstances, but there's that always that hesitation. Even at the beginning, the predator isn't just instantly just out here killing them, you know. So I think it's very refreshing. I think that's why this movie's praised so well, it's done so well, it's given this marginalized group an opportunity to be at the forefront of horror where they are rarely if ever. So I I think that that's incredible in terms of character building and everything else.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:24

Yeah, you know, it reminds me of uh a game that I've recently become addicted to called uh snake.io and you play like snake like you use two back on your Nokia phone, right? And so, but you're playing against other people also playing it. And so you can just play and then try to collect the little things and and and get bigger slowly but surely. But the real trick to playing the game is to go after the biggest threat you can. And so when you're when I'm when you first start playing it, you you kind of go slow, you're kind of cautious, but then you realize what you need to do for the fun of the game is you gotta go for the biggest that you that you can. And sometimes you lose, but sometimes you win. And that is the game that this predator is playing is what is the biggest threat? I'm gonna take them out. Unfortunately, the predator didn't meet orcas. Really should have met some orcas because they are probably the biggest threat right now, you know. But what's nice about this in this movie is that he like you said, he doesn't focus on them because of who they are. He simply is gonna go after who's the biggest threat in this movie, and he was right. In that particular case, they were the best adversary for him, and they won and he lost.

SPEAKER_08 1:15:29

Okay, Mac, but at what point in that game do you de-glove the snake?

SPEAKER_03 1:15:32

You don't. When you when you uh when you hit one of your enemies, they just turn into like a bunch of little dots that you can get.

SPEAKER_08 1:15:39

I'm gonna need a hundred hundred percent more de-gloving before I try it.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:42

Right.

SPEAKER_08 1:15:44

Absolutely hate it. Yeah, okay. So, you know what, Binx, you mentioned how these characters feel so real, feel so lived in, right? Like they're real people with real stories. I really loved the dynamic between Tabe and Aru. Especially because you can see this strain there, but also this love there. There's this conflict because you can see that he wants to support her, that he wants to believe, but then he does lose his faith when she can't finish off the cat. And of course, there's just enough opportunity there for him to take advantage of the moment, go back and kill the cat. And and it's difficult, right? Because then we get this moment right before the French trappers are absolutely massacred by this thing when they're tied up against the tree where she admits her insecurities and he's building his faith back in her. And you know, he sacrifices himself to give her enough time to run away. And I think their love as siblings is such a great heartbeat in this movie.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:47

Yeah, the care- I mean, it just all of it, the character development was so good between not just the two of them, but just just the whole story surrounding them, surrounding just the whole tribe. Like it was just so it just felt so real, so invested in watching her, you know, take her place, right, in this tribe and and becoming this warrior, and and almost taking the place of her brother because her brother was that for the tribe, right? You could tell that he was uh the chief warrior or whatever, and and it was just um and and even that moment you're talking about was where that line that just is is just shows up throughout the whole movie. This is as far as I go, right? Like it's just such a powerful line, and they use it several times throughout the movie, and that was such an impactful time to use that too.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:39

Yeah, these characters feel so authentic. The whole movie feels so authentic. And one of the other things that stands out to me so strongly about this movie is how it handles having a strong female lead. I do not want ever a movie that's like, dude, look at this. We put a chick up front. We we're this story is being led by like I don't care. If you make me, if you're shoving it down my throat that you're trying to show that women are cool and we can do shit, I hate it, right? Like, I don't understand why we can't just have stories that have women in them that don't feel like you're forcing me to see a woman with a story with women in it. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_05 1:18:21

Like 100%.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:22

It always feels so forced to me, and I hate it so much. And this movie, I don't think you even think about the fact that she's a woman, other than it just it's just the story. Like it doesn't ever feel like they're like, dude, dad's over here, he's kick-ass. But look at her. You we we're gonna show you her, but there's also all these other dudes you should think about. Like, no, it's it's a woman-focused movie, but it doesn't feel like they're trying to do it at all. It's so cool. It's like it feels unintentional. Like it doesn't feel like they wanted me to praise this girl. It's like, oh, we just made the movie, she just happens to be a chick.

SPEAKER_08 1:18:57

Yeah, I think that it's because they just show you the progression of a character who's finding herself, right? I certainly felt it though, when you had an entire group of men failing to heed a woman's warning. Like, that's very familiar. We've seen that a million times. However, it doesn't, it doesn't feel like that's the central focus. What I do think it feels like is honestly, and I love this in a great way, the predator seeing their toxic masculinity as a threat, right? Like they are going through this bravado, this much this machismo, this, you know, the predator is there in that area seeing her get pummeled around by these dudes, and then she's just bound up very easily, right? And then all of a sudden he sets his sights. So I absolutely love that angle completely.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:45

I think it it feels kind of the same for the Comanches as well. It doesn't feel like we're oh dude, look at us. We put these these people in this movie. It's it just feels like a love letter to them almost, not like we're using them for clout, you know? And it's nice. It's just that things are handled so well in this movie, and I think it's so rare.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:04

Yeah, we definitely cover false superiority in this movie a lot, which is great because it's something that she internalizes and that she's fighting with because she knows that she can do more, she knows that she can provide them something different in the tribe. But she's she's fighting the fact that she's kind of internalized what they've told her, which is that you can't and that you shouldn't, and all this other stuff. And by the end, she realizes her place, she realizes that she is you know the biggest swinging dick in the room. And it's great because because she has this awareness, she knows what she's capable of, and they don't, and that gives her an advantage because she knows that they're not actually superior, whether it's the other dudes in the tribe or the French trappers, or at the very end, the the predator itself, you know. She realizes that, like, if you know, once you know who you are and you know what you're capable of, that's when the gloves come off and that's when you can do some damage. The French trappers obviously assume that they're superior to everyone around them, right? Because they have the biggest technology. Predator shows up, game over dudes, you're nothing. Literally blow you up and chop your heads off, right? So, yeah, I mean, and then even through just like the hunting scenes where they have the tools to take down a rabbit, they have the tools to potentially, you know, provide a meal or something, right? But then a mountain line shows up. You ain't nothing. Like this one mountain line can mess you guys up. And so, yeah, I mean, this whole assumption of superiority is proven false time and time again throughout this movie, which is great. But the only reason she's able to succeed is because she just like brushes that crap away and just accepts who she is herself.

SPEAKER_08 1:21:42

Who is that girl I see staring straight back at me?

SPEAKER_03 1:21:46

Okay, I I mean I didn't want to make too many Mulan references this this episode because that would really detract from it, but you you got some vibes going on. It's okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:54

You know, the worst part of this movie is that these awesome characters and these this group of Comanche people are not on the big screen. It the worst part is that this wasn't released in theaters. It sucks. I hate it. I want to see this in theaters so bad, that's all I can say. The absolute worst part is that you didn't get to see it in IMAX. Literally, that's my worst part of the movie. That's why I said it first because I knew y'all was gonna take it.

SPEAKER_07 1:22:21

That's such a good, good point. Yeah, man, what look, streaming? I understand they have original content and they've got their big hits, and like I get it. But don't you ever sometimes wonder how like the mean one got a theatrical release and this didn't? Like, that's kind of where I'm at. In the same fucking year, bro. Terrible.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:42

In the same year, just terrible.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:43

They deserve for more people to see it than the people that have Hulu. Like the acting is amazing, the story is amazing. Nobody even has to talk about it being a predator movie. Just I just want to hang out with everybody in a theater and watch this. People with Disney Plus can see it too. Not wrong. House of Mouse, baby. I'm sure the Disney Plus crowd isn't that like super into Predator.

SPEAKER_07 1:23:03

Yeah, I highly doubt, I highly doubt that. But I mean, whatever, maybe we're wrong. The point is, I completely agree. Should have been in theaters. My worst part, it just seems like the only thing I could think of is really the CGI, and it's not that's ass that's like making it seem like, oh, it's terrible CGI though. So I kind of hate saying that, but I'm I'm really just throwing it out there because I have to. I don't like how the predator becomes invisible and like the whole little orange-ish, reddish tones of when it's hit. It just seems odd and it didn't go with everything else, but whatever. And maybe the neon green. But I like the neon green sometimes, not all the time, though. It was I don't know, it was just very confusing a little bit, but that's it. But again, that's me being nitpicky. No one hate me, no one come at me in the comments and whatnot.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:52

Well, I'm I'll go I'll admit that the worst part of the movie for me, because the movie is basically perfect, um, is just the animal deaths. You know, it's it's just always a hard time anytime there's animal deaths. In in previous recordings, we've talked about that sometimes that makes the movie a hack. That's not the case here at all. I mean, thankfully the dog survived as the dog was meant to because it's man's best friend. But you know, we got we got the bear death, the wolf death. Those are those are kind of tricky because they're large mammals, and so watching that it hurt, it hurts a little bit. I kind of wish they were just replaced with more trapper deaths.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:26

Yeah, that's fair. It is tough to see the animals die. I do understand, you know, obviously why it was shown, so I can't be a hundred percent mad at it. And I I agree, I don't think there is much here to dislike. And if I had to, I don't know, try to come up with something different than what everyone has said here, I guess it could be that maybe it would have been cool if they played or leaned into the horror element just a tad more and like maybe made it a little bit more slasher-like and showcased the predators stalking the human victims and giving us some good jump scare kills. But then again, it's hard to say because the movie didn't really need it. It's still really great without it. And if you did it that way, maybe it wouldn't have been as good. So it's hard to really say, but I'm just going out on a limb here.

SPEAKER_08 1:25:13

Well, you know what? This movie is damn near perfect, and I find, at least in my case, that it got better the more I watched it. So I'm certainly gonna be watching it again. I think the next time I do, I will do it in a franchise binge where I just start with the best and get to the worst.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:32

Oh gosh. I so okay, so that the animation at the end of the movie, if you haven't seen it and realized what it shows, go do it. I think I probably just forgot from the first watch, but it shows that more predator ships show up. And in Predator 2, we know that like we get that Danny Glover moment at the very end, which is pretty awesome. I was hoping we would get that here, but we didn't get it, right? But it shows that like three more ships are like showing up after she's defeated this thing. And that got me so hype for more. And I know the director has like has the ideas, like ready to go. But not only would I love to rewatch this again, this is number two for me. Number three is going to be with the subbing and the dubbing flipped, but I hope they keep making more in this exact same style with this exact same tone, with this incredibly high level of execution, so that I could binge watch an entire new anthology.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:24

Yeah, for sure. I think this one was was great the second time around. It it also sparked an interest for me to revisit the franchise, so maybe I will have to watch them all. Although I have a feeling that it's gonna be this one and the original, and I don't know how great the other ones actually are in actuality. I I don't recall, so we'll see. But I'll still watch the franchise through. I don't know how soon that is gonna happen, but I will definitely re-watch this one again at some point.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:51

Yeah, I also will for sure re-watch it, but since I've just watched it and now for the first time, I'm actually gonna just do a predator marathon probably in the next couple weeks, and then maybe sometime next year I'll come back to this for sure. But it this is, of course, I mean, we universally slash this for a reason, guys. This is incredible. What a great and like Ryan was saying earlier, great standalone as well. You don't even really need to do the full-blown franchise binge if you don't want to. Definitely high rewash value.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:22

I do want to watch this again with the Comanche dubbing and here, because I feel like that would be a different experience, but I it'll probably be a bit it hit the second time, though. I feel like it'll hit again the third time.

SPEAKER_08 1:27:32

Oh, absolutely. And I can't wait to see what Mac has in store to hit for us in fact or fiction.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:36

Okay, because Ryan is literally sitting right next to me, she gets to go last in each one of these, just so we know. Just in case she peeks over. Don't peek over, Ryan. No cheating. Number one, to get the feeling of a nearly untainted America, the film was shot on ranch land in North Dakota.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:50

I mean, I could I guess I could potentially see that being factual, so I'm gonna go fact.

SPEAKER_07 1:27:57

What if the trick is that it's South Dakota? So I'm gonna say fact.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:00

Yeah, you never know.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:01

I thought about this mid viewing, and I'm thinking we went other country. I feel like it's like uh, you know, New Zealand, something like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:09

You're pretty close in that it is another country, but it's quite far away. It's actually Canada. This was uh filmed in Calgary, Alberta. That's far away. Blame Canada. No, it's far away from New Zealand, though.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:20

Alberta, once again, man, so many great things are filmed in Alberta.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:24

Yeah, they must have low taxes on people making movies there. No, I'm joking.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:29

I don't know, it looks gorgeous. I kind of want to go visit now. Right. Number two, to keep things super secret. Squirrel, the film went by the spy name of Skulls.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:37

Fiction.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:38

I don't know why, yeah. I don't know why I want to say fiction for that.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:41

That just sounds ridiculous.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:42

Fiction.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:43

It's probably gonna be a fact.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:44

Oh, dude, I'm totally going fact because I feel like if you have to have a fake name for your movie, you have to make it like comically bad.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:51

Okay, so this one is indeed a fact. Um now, depending on your source, they can either refer to it as skull or skulls, but yeah, that was their little development name to keep it, you know, kinda hidden from everybody.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:01

Nice.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:02

Number three, Boneface, the Feral Predator, had over 25 servos to control his aggressive as fuck facial expressions.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:09

What's a servo?

SPEAKER_03 1:29:10

It's like a little motor.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:11

Hmm. That's fact. That that has to be fact. I mean those those facial expressions were frightening and yeah, motorizing. I don't know. Just feels like a thing.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:20

Yeah, I don't know much about the effects or what they did with the predator, but um it I know it probably took a lot. I don't know, but I'll go fact as well, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:31

I'm gonna go fiction based on a machism. That number seems too low somehow.

SPEAKER_08 1:29:36

You know, the real question is whether or not the servos were serving.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:40

That predator was serving face. This one is a fact, I think it was about 27, but uh the film had 35 years of technological advancements over the original, right? So servos got a lot smaller. But this was important because this predator has his mandibles out almost always in full view the entire time he's on screen.

SPEAKER_08 1:29:59

And you only fucking see that guy for about six minutes in the whole fucking movie. That bitch. We should have seen him more. No, I mean we shouldn't have. It's perfect. Don't don't don't change a thing. But still. Six minutes. Fuck.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:11

Also, I love the idea that we can refer to something as mandibles, you know? That's cool. Having mandibles. Mandibles. Mandibles. Number four. Amber Midthunder almost didn't make it a her audition due to the anxiety she felt from potentially leading a major franchise film.

SPEAKER_07 1:30:24

I mean, yeah, I'd have hella anxiety. That's a fact. No pressure or anything like Jesus.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:30

I mean, it definitely could be a fact. I don't know if this was her debut or or anything like that, but um I'll go I don't know. I'll I'll go I mean, it feels like a fact. I'm just gonna go fiction to go against the green.

SPEAKER_07 1:30:42

I don't I I I don't I'm like pretty positive it wasn't her debut, though. It isn't her d debut, but I mean you're still leading a very, very famous franchise.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:30:54

So I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:54

I'm I'm just gonna go fact. Feeling feeling good in my heart.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:58

Well, this one's a fiction. Hey! Hell yeah. So when she was auditioning, she didn't even realize it was a predator movie. She knew it was about a young Comanche woman who wanted to be a hunter. She had to navigate an obstacle course in character, but she just assumed it was part of a historical film. Nice. Sometimes you gotta keep even your own actors in the dark while you're in development. You know, why not?

SPEAKER_01 1:31:18

She's like Predator?

SPEAKER_07 1:31:20

Never heard of him. I've I've heard that like used as a tactic for a couple movies that have been out recently where they literally didn't even tell the per main character that what they were even casted for in the role.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:31

Uh you know, to be honest here, the director also didn't want even the audience to truly know what the movie was about, to realize that it was predator-related. Initially, when they were gonna make some trailers, he wanted to show it as just like her character, the hunting, fighting her fight, right? And then you would see something in the sky, which is that that shot we get. So it worked. It works.

SPEAKER_07 1:31:54

This is this is what he did with Ten Cloverfield Lane as well, because you don't necessarily know that it's it's a Clover. I mean, people just assumed because the name Cloverfield, but in reality, you have zero clue that it has anything to do with the other movies.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:08

So he's I love Ten Cloverfield Lane, it's so good.

SPEAKER_07 1:32:11

I'm glad. I thought I I thought maybe I was like giving a hot take when I mentioned it was good. I was like, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:17

And that takes us to number five. In April of 2023, Dan Trachtenberg stated he has plans for five follow-up predator foods, ranging from Western, like cowboy, settings to urban, modern day settings.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:28

I I want to say that he may have said that there are others to come, but five, including a Western, I'm going fiction for sure. And if that's true, holy shit.

SPEAKER_07 1:32:37

Yeah, that seems extreme. And then be careful because you got a good thing going, and I and I'm scared for you. If you do a little too much, you might cross a line that I don't know if you can come back from. So I'm gonna I'm gonna say fiction.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:53

I'm also gonna go fiction because when Max starts saying numbers, I don't trust him.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:59

Uh yeah, this one's a fiction. Um now he does have plans, like I mentioned earlier, for other films if they do get to be made. Uh but five just seems ridiculous, and and those settings I made up as well. Now, in the chat it was mentioned that there was talk of perhaps a samurai-based movie, and I am a hundred percent down to see that if that does come out, but you never know. Yeah, we're gonna get like Predator versus Doc Holiday. And that's been Factor Fiction.

SPEAKER_08 1:33:26

Well, there you have it, folks. Prey from 2022 has earned a universal slash. Now we've certainly had a robust discussion here, but it doesn't end here by any means. We want to know what you think.

SPEAKER_07 1:33:37

Would you have survived against the Predator? I definitely would not have. But let us know. You can join in on the conversation by hanging out with us for free in our Discord. Click the link in our show notes to sign up.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:48

If you've enjoyed listening to this episode, consider becoming one of our patrons. Visit patreon.com slash hacker slash to enjoy more of the show with early access, extended episodes, bonus content, and live shows.

SPEAKER_08 1:33:58

We'll see you next time, folks. And remember, not every smart creature can learn.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:02

I'm ready for my Catania.