Predator (film)

Predator
Theatrical poster
Directed by	John McTiernan
Written by	Jim Thomas John Thomas
Produced by	Joel Silver Lawrence Gordon John Davis
Starring	Arnold Schwarzenegger Carl Weathers Elpidia Carrillo Bill Duke Jesse Ventura Kevin Peter Hall
Cinematography	Donald McAlpine
Edited by	Mark Helfrich John F. Link
Music by	Alan Silvestri
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release dates	June 12, 1987
Running time	107 minutes
Country	United States
Languages	English Spanish
Budget	$18,000,000
Box office	$60,000,000 (US)

Predator is a 1987 science fiction, action and horror film directed by John McTiernan and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers and Jesse Ventura. It grossed $60 million in the United States, generating the sequels Predator 2 in 1990 and Alien vs. Predator in 2004.

Taglines

• Soon the hunt will begin.
• Nothing like it has ever been on Earth before. It came for the thrill of the hunt. It picked the wrong man to hunt.

Background

The Predator film utilizes a story of the hunter becoming the hunted. The creature, known as "the Predator" (known in spin-offs as being of the species Yautja), is an alien humanoid with advanced technology and a penchant for hunting difficult game. With interstellar travel capability, multi-spectrum vision enhancement and a light-bending armor suit with equally advanced weaponry, the Predator is supposedly able to travel anywhere, hunt anything and usually succeed. Much of the Predator's history and motivation are left open to the viewer, but after the success of this film, a franchise was created with a detailed back-story on the creature, complete with a battle-based society where young Predators are trained within a galaxy of fierce beasts documented in the third movie of the series Alien vs. Predator (2004).

Predator was the first of the series, as the creature descends on Earth interested in hunting exotic game (in this case humans). In background information released after the film, the Predator scans the Earth's broadcast frequencies and chooses Central America as a location. A U.S. Special Forces unit is also en route to the same location, and during their operations stumble upon the Predator hunting humans. The military unit possesses significant firepower, which attracts the creature's attention as a more sporting target. During the film's final conflict, only one American is left (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) and a cat and mouse game begins with each adversary hunting the other.

Story

The film begins with a mysterious spacecraft entering the Earth's atmosphere. On the coast of Guatemala, a US Army Special Forces unit, led by Major Alan "Dutch" Schaefer (Arnold Schwarzenegger), is ordered by General Phillips (R. G. Armstrong) to rescue a cabinet minister. Dutch is informed they will be on their own. CIA agent Major George Dillon (Carl Weathers) joins the team and they travel by helicopters to their destination within the jungle.

They are dropped behind the border where they find a crashed helicopter as well as traces of rebels being followed by U.S. soldiers. This unusual circumstance is noted by the team. They soon discover the slain U.S. soldiers hanging from a tree, all of them skinned and mutilated. Dutch reads the dog tags of one of the victims and realizes it to be his friend Hopper, a Green Beret squad leader stationed in Fort Bragg, and questions Dillon as to why Hopper's unit was in the jungle. Evidence from the pitched battle puzzles the team.

They find the guerrilla post, including multiple rebels and Soviet military advisers. The team attacks and destroys the base with little effort and with no casualties on their part, but the prisoners were marked as members of the CIA and assassinated in advance. Dutch puts together the intelligence items gleaned from his team members immediately following the attack, learning that not only was the "cabinet minister" story false, but the slain U.S. soldiers they'd discovered had been ordered to attack the base before disappearing. Dutch angrily confronts Dillon who states that Dutch and his team are "expendable assets". With a female prisoner, Anna, (Elpidia Carrillo) in their custody, the whole group proceeds to their Rendezvous point for extraction near the border. As they move through the jungle, they are unknowingly stalked by an unseen creature who views the group in infra-red and records certain phrases they speak.

File:The Stand.jpg

The team attempting to kill the Predator. Left to right: Dutch, Mac, Dillon, Poncho, Billy

The group halts when its tracker Billy (Sonny Landham) is disturbed by a mysterious presence hiding within the trees. When Anna attempts to escape, Hawkins (Shane Black) chases her but is killed by the stalking creature.

Blain (Jesse Ventura) is killed moments later while searching for Hawkins' body. When Sergeant "Mac" Eliot (Bill Duke) rushes to assist his fallen comrade, he sees what appears to be a large, transparent creature with flashing eyes. Eliot starts screaming and immediately opens fire and is joined by the remaining members of the unit. In what is known as a "mad minute", all members of the team saturate the jungle with bullets. They stop firing and to their shock, are unable to find any bodies. The team cannot locate Hawkins' body but takes Blain's body with them. What they did not know, but is realized by Anna, was that they had only managed to wound the creature slightly in the leg, leaving a small puddle of glowing green blood on a jungle frond.

That night they decide to set up a "night defensive position" with claymore mines, flares and trip wires. Later the flares go off and Eliot wrestles with what he believes to be the creature that killed his friend, but upon using a flashlight to examine his kill, sees that what he has actually been fighting is a wild boar. And one hell of a gigantic boar it was. They had an excellent feast of roast pork and wild mangos. The team finds it funny at first, but stop laughing when they realize that the creature used the convenient distraction to come into the camp and make off with Blain's body. Now the remaining team members begin to realize they are dealing with a powerful alien creature. When questioned at daylight, Anna recalls a local legend of villagers disappearing in particularly hot years, much like this one, until their mutilated bodies are discovered. She says that the village women refer to whatever killed them as the "Demon who makes Trophies of Men." Dutch decides to lay a trap for the creature knowing now that they are all being hunted. After the various traps are set, Dutch walks out into the clearing to get the creature to move and expose itself. Suddenly a huge thing trips a net trap, but the creature struggles free, shooting in all directions and causing a dead fall log to swing down and seriously injure Poncho (Richard Chaves).

Mac and Dillon pursue the Predator claiming that they want "payback" for their lost comrades, only to find the creature waiting for them as they are killed by its advanced weaponry and tricked by its playback of phrases like "over here" in their voices. Dutch, Billy, Pancho, and Anna struggle through the jungle towards the extraction point. At a huge log bridge, Billy stays behind to make a suicide-stand against the Predator, which buys the survivors some time. The creature kills Billy easily and catches up with the rest and kills Poncho and slightly wounds Dutch. Realizing that the Predator will not kill an unarmed person as it would be "unsporting", Dutch refuses to give Anna a gun and tells her to flee towards the extraction location.

Although wounded, and with the creature catching up, Dutch escapes by sliding off of a cliff and dropping into a huge river eventually going over a large waterfall and crawling out through the mud at the water's edge. The Predator continues his pursuit, landing in the water seconds behind Dutch. Covered in mud, Dutch finally sees the creature when the advanced technology that warped visible light is damaged and he realizes that behind the cold mud he cannot be seen by the creature's infrared vision(if you look very closely, you can see the predators' view of the "mud camoflaged" face of Dutch, looking at the creature), and the creature goes to where he had left Billy's body so that he could prepare his human trophy. It rips Billys' spinal column with the skull still attached, and swings it around like a kid swinging a dead cat by the tail. Meanwhile Dutch, lacking firearms, prepares to fight the creature by creating a variety of primitive weapons, including bow and arrows, and two M203 grenades he has left, converting the shells into improvised explosive arrows. As Dutch arms himself for battle, the Predator cleans the skulls of his victims to display as trophies. The scene is set for the final showdown between the two.

File:Predator face2.JPG

A close-up of the face of the Predator

After nightfall, Dutch starts a large fire and lets out an intense war cry and awaits the creature's arrival. Dutch surprises the creature using a modified explosive-tipped arrow once again making the creature visible and the creature fires his plasma caster energy weapon all over the jungle trying to flush Dutch out into the open. This action is successful and the Predator corners Dutch. The two face each other and the creature decides to remove his high-tech weapons in favor of more sporting hand to hand combat. The creature casts off its firearms and its mask, showing its true face and a fight follows where, because of the huge difference in size, Dutch seems to be getting the worse of the fight. But, Dutch tricks the alien into following him into a booby trap, springing a huge log which crushes the Predator.

The creature, now mortally wounded and covered in glowing blood, activates a self-destruct device attached to its wrist and begins to mimic a maniacal laugh patterned after Billy's voice which the creature had copied. Dutch immediately runs for cover as the creature self-destructs and a miniature nuclear explosion ignites the jungle. As dawn breaks the rescue helicopter with General Phillips and Anna arrives on the scene (which shortly before had been hidden by a mushroom cloud) and encounters Dutch standing alone on the scorched plain. Flying back to safety, Dutch stares at the jungle in mournful silence. Dutch dies a few days later, from radiation sickness. Thats why he does'nt return in Predator 2.

Cast

• Arnold Schwarzenegger as Maj. Alan "Dutch" Schaefer
• Carl Weathers as Col. Al Dillon
• Elpidia Carrillo as Anna
• Bill Duke as Sgt. Mac Eliot
• Jesse Ventura as Sgt. Blain Cooper
• Sonny Landham as Billy Sole
• Richard Chaves as Jorge "Poncho" Ramirez
• Shane Black as Rick Hawkins
• R. G. Armstrong as Maj. Gen. Homer Phillips
• Kevin Peter Hall as The Predator and end scene helicopter pilot
• Edward J Sisto as end scene helicopter co-pilot

See also List of characters in the Predator series

Production

Predator was originally titled Hunter (in behind-the-scenes pictures, this moniker can be seen on the film equipment). Predator was John McTiernan's first studio film as director. The studio hired screenplay writer Shane Black to not only play a supporting role in the film, but to keep an eye on McTiernan due to the director's inexperience. According to the Special Edition 2-Disc DVD, both director McTiernan and Schwarzenegger lost 25 pounds during the film. Schwarzenegger's weight loss was a professional choice. McTiernan lost the weight because he avoided the food in Mexico due to health concerns.

According to Schwarzenegger, filming was physically demanding as he had to swim in very cold water and spent three weeks covered in mud for the climactic battle with the alien. In addition, cast and crew endured very cold temperatures in the Mexican jungle that required heat lamps to be on all of the time. Cast and crew filmed on rough terrain that, according to the actor, was never flat, "always on a hill. We stood all day long on a hill, one leg down, one leg up. It was terrible." Schwarzenegger also faced the challenge of working with Kevin Peter Hall who could not see in the Predator suit. The actor remembers, "So when he's suppose to slap me around and stay far from my face, all of a sudden, whap! There is this hand with claws on it!" Hall stated in an interview that his experience on the film, "wasn't a movie, it was a survival story for all of us." For example, in the scene where the Predator chases Dutch, the water was foul, stagnant and full of leeches. Hall could not see out of the mask and had to rehearse his scenes with it off and then memorize where everything was. The outfit was difficult to wear because it was heavy and off-balance.

Jean-Claude Van Damme was originally cast as the alien hunter, the idea being that the physical action star would use his martial arts skills to make the predator an agile, ninja-eqsue hunter. When compared to Schwarzenegger, Weathers and Ventura, actors known for their bodybuilding regimes, it became apparent a more physically-imposing man was needed to make the creature appear threatening. Jesse Ventura's autobiographical book also alleges Van Damme intentionally injured a stunt man. Eventually, Van Damme was removed from the film and replaced by the late actor and mime artist Kevin Peter Hall.

The film's creature was originally designed with a long neck, a dog-like head and a single eye. This design was abandoned when it became apparent that the jungle locations would make shooting the complex design too difficult. Originally, the studio contracted the makeup effects for the alien from Richard Edlund's Boss Film Creature Shop. However, problems filming the alien in Mexico resulted in the makeup effects responsibilities being given to Stan Winston. According to former Boss Films make-up supervisor Steve Johnson, the makeup failed because of an impractical design by McTiernan that included 12-inch length extensions that gave the Predator a backward bent satyr-leg. The design did not work in the jungle locations. After six weeks of shooting in the jungles of Palanque, Mexico, the production had to shut down so that Winston could make a new Predator. This took eight months and then filming resumed for five weeks. Winston said the creature's famous mandibles make-up was originally an idea of noted film director James Cameron. R/Greenberg Associates created the film's optical effects, including the alien's ability to become invisible, its thermal vision point-of-view, its glowing blood, and the electrical spark effects. The invisibility effect was achieved by having someone in a bright red suit (because it was the farthest opposite of the green of the jungle and the blue of the sky) the size of the Predator. The take was then repeated without the actors using a 30% wider lens on the camera. When the two takes were combined optically, a vague outline of the alien could be seen with the background scenery bending around its shape. For the thermal vision, infrared film could not be used because it did not register in the range of body temperature wavelengths. The filmmakers used an inframetrics thermal video scanner as it gave good heat images of objects and people. The glowing blood was achieved by green liquid from chem-lite sticks used by campers. The electrical sparks were rotoscoped animation using white paper pin registered on portable light tables to black and white prints of the film frames. The drawings were composited by the optical crew for the finished effects.

The minigun used by Blain's character (Jesse Ventura) fired blanks, producing minimal recoil. It was powered by a remote generator, with the cord concealed beneath Ventura's pants.

Plot theme

There are a number of parallels between the plot of Predator and the plot of the ancient Anglo Saxon poem Beowulf. In both stories, a group of elite foreign warriors arrive in an area suffering the depredations of a mysterious, almost invisible monster that has defeated native warriors on their own ground — in Beowulf, the great hall Heorot; in Predator, the jungle. The warriors' weapons and tactics prove ineffective against the monster, who is protected by near-invincibility (Grendel), and near perfect stealth (Predator). Picking off the warriors one by one, the monster takes, or returns to steal, the corpses of its victims, to keep as trophies.

At one crucial point in the original script, the Predator flees the warriors after being wounded in the arm (in the final film, the monster has been wounded in the left thigh). In Beowulf the monster's arm is torn from his body by the hero, Beowulf. In both stories, the hero discards some of the potent weapons with which he has been equipped (firearms in Predator; the legendary sword Hrunting in Beowulf) when he realizes they are useless against the monster, and in the end he is protected by his own special armor (simple mud, in the Predator version). Ultimately, the hero uses ingenuity and cunning to protect himself and outwit the monster.

Related media

Predator has inspired a number of comic books, video games and popular anecdotes within the media. A range of Predator comics expanded the mythology, detailing encounters with the alien creature at different points in history. Predator: Concrete Jungle is a third-person action-adventure video game released in 2005. Sci-Fi and cyberpunk writer John Shirley authored the Predator novel Forever Midnight in 2006 for DH Press. It fuses a futuristic interplanetary story with the Predator mythology. There is also a series of novels, comics, computer games and a film connecting Predator with the Alien series titled Alien vs. Predator.

External links

• IMDB - Predator page