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Vikings, samurai, and aircraft oh my! Yes, please.

 ikeulhu wrote:
Vikings, samurai, and aircraft oh my! Yes, please.

Yes. Wikipedia says it is an anthology.

Oooohhhhh very interesting.

All of my yes.

And we’ve a new Predator movie coming from the Director of Prey later this year.

Which is not a direct sequel to Prey.

That approach intrigues me. We know from Prey he very much understands the Predator, and how to make a damned good film. But it was, whilst an original take, still kinda by the numbers. So I’m excited to see what his further development might look like.

Cursory google? He’s directed this as well.

Not gonna watch the Trailer, as Prey’s blew my tiny mind, and I’d like to preserve as much surprise as possible, just like Prey did.

Yes I love Prey, because it’s superb. And if you’ve don’t agree, I’ll metaphorically set about your face with a metaphorical hammer, until even a Predator would take one look at you and say “oooer, don’t fancy yours much”

Interesting. One of the reviews of Prey I saw bemoaned the fact that it had taken 30+ years for someone to figure out the formula of Predator vs “x” historical period; Predator versus Spartans, Predator vs Samurai, etc. so many cool opportunities. Seems like Dan Trachtenberg had the same idea!

Indeed.

Hopefully, this is a sign he’s carefully considered these, and presumably decided whilst each setting isn’t sufficient to carry a whole movie, there is enough there for a collection of shorts.

I respect that. He nailed it completely with Prey, as a cool historical take on the classic. And I can see how trying to do whole movies in different eras and cultures may start to feel a bit cookie cutter.

Time will tell, and joyously, we don’t need to wait terribly long.

 Jadenim wrote:
Interesting. One of the reviews of Prey I saw bemoaned the fact that it had taken 30+ years for someone to figure out the formula of Predator vs “x” historical period; Predator versus Spartans, Predator vs Samurai, etc. so many cool opportunities. Seems like Dan Trachtenberg had the same idea!

Predator vs. whoever owned the flintlock pistol from the end of Predator 2. Young me thought of so many cool stories, and I think Dark Horse comics made a story about it, but I want my Predator action on screen!

 nels1031 wrote:

 Jadenim wrote:
Interesting. One of the reviews of Prey I saw bemoaned the fact that it had taken 30+ years for someone to figure out the formula of Predator vs “x” historical period; Predator versus Spartans, Predator vs Samurai, etc. so many cool opportunities. Seems like Dan Trachtenberg had the same idea!

Predator vs. whoever owned the flintlock pistol from the end of Predator 2. Young me thought of so many cool stories, and I think Dark Horse comics made a story about it, but I want my Predator action on screen!

The history of the flintlock pistol is shown in Prey.

This looks cool. Except for that CGI animation. I would actually prefer traditional looking cell animation instead of this stuff. The faces and movements always look so stiff and awkward. Especially so for the faces.

My phone isn’t agreeing with me today….so many edits….

I enjoyed this overall - 3 short stories well told and don't overstay their welcome, plenty of action and they all link together at the end for the "4th" act. I particularly enjoyed the aerial dog fights as that's something not seen in Predator films before likely for budgetary reasons - animation gives them more scope to do what they want. Kind of strange to hear the Yuatja talk but it stands to reason that an advanced alien species would have a language we just haven't heard it before and the plot kind of needs it and it is sparingly used.

I do wish they'd stop redesigning the Predators face there are more new designs here - I get the whole sub species thing but they got it right first time leave it be.

Definitely scope for a sequel if it does well and a few easter eggs and threads left hanging to be picked up later (that final scene )

Also, species name now canon as Yautja!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Also, species name now canon as Yautja!

Now? They’ve been called that for awhile.

Not in any on-screen stuff.

I’m really enjoying this. Art style is solid, even if the slightly juddery animation took a moment to settle in for me.

Incidentally if you like Predator stuff the currently running Spider-Man vs Predator is putting up some interesting content two issues in. It’s featuring a Predator who Hunts Without Honor. It’s fairly gruesome.

It was solid. Like the others I had to take a second to get used to the animation style but the story was solid and moved well.

Well I gave this a watch tonight as I do love me some Predator action.

The animation was interesting and not your typical animated movie fare. Reminded me somewhat of a cross between comic book art and mid 00's video game graphics.
Story line was good. It's a Predator movie, so you know what's going to happen and why, so it didn't suffer for lack of "set up". It was quick, punchy and got where it needed to be with minimal fuss. The first two stories were great, but I was a bit let down by the third, which I felt not only dragged on a bit too long, but started taking the piss a couple of times*. The conclusion was honestly quite predictable, although that didn't work against it by any means. It tied up the 3 character stories in together quite nicely and gave an open-ended, yet reasonable finish.

It was really nice to see a different take on the hunt in the 3rd story. Being less of the traditional up close and personal stalk and hunt venture, and more of a scenario where the prey are already on something of an even footing having not only had warning (the previously downed fighter), but being combat ready and aware due to being on a war footing already. Not that it availed them much though!



*


All in all a good watch. A solid 7/10 gold Aquilas from me.

I’m also gonna argue that for transposing Predator to other eras, given Prey has….kinda done that? This is absolutely the way to do it.

Not every Predator movie needs to explain the rules. And the rules can only be explained in so many interesting ways.

Here? There’s a bit of that, but it’s mostly “argh argh horrible killer demon thing I’m gonna have to fight my smartest and bestest to triumph”. And finding interesting ways for that to be done.

Slowly we begin to balance its books.

Predator - Superb
Predator 2 - mixed opinions, but I love it
Predators - not as good as it should’ve been from the premise and cast
The Predator - Yeah fat old NOPE from everyone.
AvP - Squandered and uninteresting
AvP Requiem - For me a more interesting story, mired by god awful cinematography
Prey - Excellent. Easily the second best
Predator, Killer of Killers - A tasty treat for sure, but perhaps not likely to recruit new followers to the franchise despite being perfectly cromulent.

That first Predator must be some kind of extreme sports fanatic, even by their standards. The stories always talk about them liking the heat, and showing up in jungles and heat waves and the like, but this gal’s out here shirtless in the freezing cold. Who know the Preds had a polar bear club?

Also I imagine the second one watching the dude do his thing like “This is the coolest **** I have ever seen.”

I enjoyed this a bunch. I liked seeing the different people contexualize the preds in different ways. Especially the viking calling it Grendel.

I really hate the animation with it's weird sort of stop motion set up that just looks cheap and jittery like they didn't have a budget more than anything.

But once you ignore that the stories are fantastic.

The second story was particularly slick with the Predator kind of stalking around watching things play out and the third was just a very different but very fun sort of story. I could take or leave the over plot part.

For anyone interested;

For the third part, I noticed they said 'Vichy' which would mean the short followed the USS Ranger, which was the only full US carrier deployed as part of Operation Torch when the Western Allies invaded Vichy North Africa in 1942.

The choppy animation wasn't to my taste, but overall I enjoyed it. The Japanese part in particular.

I found the size of the Predators curious, though. They felt needlessly large to me.

 LordofHats wrote:
For the third part, I noticed they said 'Vichy' which would mean the short followed the USS Ranger, which was the only full US carrier deployed as part of Operation Torch when the Western Allies invaded Vichy North Africa in 1942.

Yeah, the landscape and surprised French in the town place the WW2 part in North Africa.

 Geifer wrote:
The choppy animation wasn't to my taste, but overall I enjoyed it. The Japanese part in particular.

I found the size of the Predators curious, though. They felt needlessly large to me.

Clearly a tribe of Predator Amazons.

Animation did bug me at first, but I was soon too engrossed to really notice it.

Reminded me of the Spiderverse animation.

 AduroT wrote:

 Geifer wrote:
The choppy animation wasn't to my taste, but overall I enjoyed it. The Japanese part in particular.

I found the size of the Predators curious, though. They felt needlessly large to me.

Clearly a tribe of Predator Amazons.

Couldn't be amazons. No death by snu snu.

 Geifer wrote:

 AduroT wrote:

 Geifer wrote:
The choppy animation wasn't to my taste, but overall I enjoyed it. The Japanese part in particular.

I found the size of the Predators curious, though. They felt needlessly large to me.

Clearly a tribe of Predator Amazons.

Couldn't be amazons. No death by snu snu.

Getting tossed across the room is Predator foreplay.

I haven't seen it yet, but I think in the old Dark Horse AvP novels, weren't the females noticeably larger and nastier than the males?

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I haven't seen it yet, but I think in the old Dark Horse AvP novels, weren't the females noticeably larger and nastier than the males?

Yeah. It’s what I’m basing my statements on really.

 Geifer wrote:
The choppy animation wasn't to my taste, but overall I enjoyed it. The Japanese part in particular.

I found the size of the Predators curious, though. They felt needlessly large to me.

 LordofHats wrote:
For the third part, I noticed they said 'Vichy' which would mean the short followed the USS Ranger, which was the only full US carrier deployed as part of Operation Torch when the Western Allies invaded Vichy North Africa in 1942.

Yeah, the landscape and surprised French in the town place the WW2 part in North Africa.

Just caught up with this and that third story surprised me with a very accurate depiction of Ranger, including the deck edge smoke stacks, the hangar deck catapult and the fact that she would have been the US carrier in the Atlantic in ‘42. Unfortunately let down by complete nonsense physics for the aerial combat, which let the whole thing down. I still enjoyed it, but that breaking the limits of suspension of belief stopped it from being an absolute standout for me.

I am very, very keen to see what Dan Trachtenberg is going to do in Badlands, because he really seems to get how a Predator film should work.