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 sci-fi, action, and horror film directed by John McTiernan and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, and Jesse Ventura. The story follows a Special Forces Unit who are on the verge to rescue hostages from guerilla terrorist group in a Central American country. What they don't know is that they are the prey of an extraterrestrial lifeform known as "Predator".

The film grossed $60 million in the United States, and generated the sequel Predator 2 in 1990. Two crossover films, with the Alien franchise were made: Alien vs. Predator in 2004 and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem in 2007.

Overview

The Predator film utilizes the story of the hunter becoming the hunted, familiar from The Most Dangerous Game-inspired stories. The Predator is an alien humanoid with advanced technology and a penchant for hunting difficult game. With interstellar travel capability, multi-spectrum vision enhancement (although Predator only shows him seeing the infrared), 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 film 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.

Plot

Opening with a mysterious spacecraft entering Earth's atmosphere, the film begins on the coast of Guatemala, where a US Army Special Forces unit, led by Major Alan "Dutch" Schaefer, is ordered to rescue a presidential cabinet minister kidnapped by guerrilla forces in Val Verde. Dutch's old army buddy and now CIA agent, Major George Dillon, joins the team, and they travel by helicopter to their destination within the jungle.

Once inserted, the team finds the remains of a downed helicopter, and later the bodies of several men who had been skinned and mutilated; they are identified to be another U.S. Special Forces unit, whose presence in the country mystifies Dutch. They soon make their way to a heavily defended rebel encampment, and take out its inhabitants in short order, save for a girl named Anna, whom they take prisoner. Dutch is enraged to discover that the rescue mission had been a set up to get him and his men to destroy the camp, after the previous team - the dead men they found earlier - disappeared in a failed rescue of several CIA agents belonging to Dillon. Dutch extracts this information from him, who confesses (much to Dutch's disgust) that he was using him all along.

As the soldiers make their way to the extraction point, the men are observed from afar by an unknown creature, who uses infrared imaging to spy on them. Once members of the team start dying off mysteriously, they become aware that something in the jungle is stalking them, whose presence is confirmed by several eerie sightings of a seemingly invisible being. Anna delivers some insight into the creature, who has apparently become a local legend for hunting humans as trophies. Despite attempts to track and ambush the creature, the team is slowly killed off one by one, until only Dutch and Anna remain. Realizing that the creature kills only those possessing weapons, a wounded Dutch sends an unarmed Anna off to the extraction point, while he narrowly escapes the creature - revealed to be a masked and seemingly reptilian being - by unintentionally covering himself in mud, which apparently hides his body's heat signature, rendering him invisible to the creature's infrared vision.

Dutch decides to face off with the creature one last time, using the mud as camouflage, and a number of improvised weapons and traps to kill it. The creature arrives as planned, but despite having its cloaking ability disabled in an attack, it manages to capture Dutch. Then in an odd display of chivalry, the creature chooses to brawl its human prey to the death, unveiling his monstrous facade and discarding his electronic weaponry before brutalizing him. Once cornered, Dutch sets off one of his traps; a suspended log that falls and crushes the creature, mortally wounding it. As Dutch approaches the creature and asks him what he is, the creature mimics his question and then activates a time bomb on his wrist device. Dutch runs for cover as the Predator self-destructs, and a massive explosion ignites the jungle.

Anna and the rescue helicopter finally arrive to pick up a disheveled but victorious Dutch. Flying back to safety, he stares out at the jungle in mournful silence.

Plot Theme

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Arnold vs. The Predator

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.

Cast

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The Cast of Predator

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

Also See List of characters in the Predator series

Production

Development

For a few months, following the release of Rocky IV, a joke was making the rounds in Hollywood. Since Rocky Balboa had run out of earthly opponents, he would probably have to fight an alien if a fifth installment of his boxing series were to be made. Jim and John Thomas, a pair of screenwriters, took the joke very seriously and turned out a screenplay. The Thomas script for Predator was originally titled "Hunter." (In behind-the-scenes pictures, this title can be seen on the film equipment). It was picked up by Twentieth Century Fox in 1985, and turned over to producer Joel Silver who, based on his experience at the helm of Commando, seemed the right choice to turn the vintage sci-fi pulp storyline into a big-budget film. Silver enlisted his former boss Lawrence Gordon as co-producer and John McTiernan was hired to direct Predator, his first studio film.

Casting

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Kevin Peter Hall as The Predator

Silver and Gordon first approached Arnold Schwarzenegger with the lead role.

"The first thing I look for in a script is a good idea, a majority of scripts are rip-offs of other movies. People think they can become successful overnight. They sat down one weekend and wrote a script because they read that Stallone did that with Rocky. Predator was one of the scripts I read, and it bothered me in one way. It was just me and the alien. So we re-did the whole thing so that it was a team of commandos and then I liked the idea. I thought it would make a much more effective movie and be much more believable. I liked the idea of starting out with an action-adventure, but then coming in with some horror and science fiction."

To play the elite band of mercenaries, both Silver and Gordon, with co-producer John Davis, put out a casting net for other larger-than-life men of action. Carl Weathers, who had been memorable as boxer Apollo Creed in the "Rocky" films was their first choice to play Dillon, while professional wrestler and former Navy UDT Jesse Ventura was hired for his formidable physique as Blain. Native American Sonny Landham, Chicano Richard Chaves, and African-American Bill Duke, who co-starred alongside Schwarzenegger in Commando, provided the right ethnic balance. As a favor to the writer of Joel Silver's blockbuster Lethal Weapon, the studio hired screenplay writer Shane Black not only to play a supporting role in the film, but also to keep an eye on McTiernan due to the director's inexperience.

Jean-Claude Van Damme was originally cast as the Predator, the idea being that the physical action star would use his martial arts skills to make the Predator an agile, ninja-esque 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. Hall, standing at an imposing 7 foot 2, had just finished work as a sasquatch in Harry and the Hendersons.

Filming

Previous commitments by Schwarzenegger delayed the start of filming by several months. The delay gave Silver enough time to secure a minor rewrite from screenwriter David Peoples of Blade Runner fame. Principal photography eventually began in the jungles of Palenque, Mexico, near Villahermosa, Tabasco, during the second week of April 1986. Much of the material dealing with the unit's deployment in the jungle was completed in a few short weeks, and both Silver and Gordon were pleased by the dailies provided by McTiernan. On Friday, April 25th, production halted so that Schwarzenegger could fly to Hyannis Port in a Lear jet chartered by Silver in order to get to his wedding on time. He was married on April 26, 1986, to Maria Shriver, and honeymooned for two weeks in Antigua, while the second unit completed additional lensing. The production resumed filming on May 12.

According to the Special Edition 2-Disc DVD release, 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. In an interview on the Special Edition, Carl Weathers said many of the actors would secretly wake up as early as 3am to work out before the day's shooting, in order to look 'pumped' during the scene. Weathers also stated that he would act as if his physique was naturally given to him, and would work out only after all the other actors were nowhere to be seen. It was reported that actor Sonny Landham was so unstable on the set that a bodyguard was hired; not to protect Landham, but to protect the other cast members from Landham. [1]

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.

US Army Special Forces Weapons

• Dutch was armed with the M16A1 Battle rifle with a M203 grenade launcher attached. (Although a 37mm flare launcher was used in the movie, and the M16A1 is a later version with the birdcage flash suppressor)

• Dillon, Hawkins, and Poncho were armed with the MP5A3 Submachine Gun. Poncho also had a M32 MGL grenade launcher.

• Mac was armed with the M60E3 machine gun.

• Billy was armed with the M16A1 rifle with a Mossberg 590 Pump action shotgun attachment. (No actual "masterkey" will fit those guns together, however a masterkey exists for the M870)

• Blaine carried a hand-held M134 Minigun, which he referred to as "Old Painless," fed from a backpack ammo box.

For Predator weapons see Predator technology

Special Effects

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.

It was nominated for an Academy Award for Visual Effects.

Music

The soundtrack was composed by Alan Silvestri, who was coming off the huge success of Back to the Future in 1985. Predator was his first major action movie and the score is full of his now familiar genre characteristics: heavy horn blasts, staccato string rhythms, and undulating timpani rolls that highlight the action and suspense. Little Richard's song Long Tall Sally is featured in the helicopter en route to the jungle. Mac also recites a few lines from the song as he's chasing the Predator after it escapes from their booby trap.

Reception

Released on June 12, 1987, Predator was #1 at the box office in its opening weekend. Its opening weekend gross of $12 million was second to Beverly Hills Cop II in 1987. Critical reaction to the film was generally favorable, with reviewers crediting McTiernan for its breathtaking pace and nonstop action and Schwarzenegger for delivering a fine performance. However, not everyone was able to follow the concept behind the movie. Roger Ebert, while giving it a positive review, still complained in his column for the Chicago Sun-Times that "the action moves so quickly that we overlook questions such as why would an alien species go to all the effort to send a creature to earth, just so that it could swing from the trees and skin American soldiers? Or, why would a creature so technologically advanced need to bother with hand-to-hand combat, when it could just zap Arnold with a ray gun." Dean Lamanna wrote in Cinefantastique that "the militarized monster movie tires under its own derivative weight." The film grossed nearly $100 million at the worldwide box office.

In 2007, Entertainment Weekly named it the #22 greatest action movie of all time. The film scores a 77% on Rotten Tomatoes.

References in popular culture

• Carl Weathers spoofed the political careers of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura in an appearance on the October 11, 2003 episode of Saturday Night Live in which he introduced himself as "the black guy from Predator" and appealed to voters to elect him governor of any state, saying of the film, "This American classic has already provided two state governors and frankly, I’d like to be the third."
• A line of dialogue from Predator delivered by Arnold Schwarzenegger, "Run! Go! Get to the chopper!" has become famous in Pop Culture and is a popular Internet meme. It has been used by SportsCenter anchors Scott Van Pelt and Neil Everett for sports highlights, including for the Nashville Predators of the NHL. The line has also been used by the band Reggie and the Full Effect and in G4's popular show X-Play. An additional line delivered by Schwarzenegger, "If it bleeds, we can kill it," is also used by Van Pelt during sports highlights.
• A line of dialogue delivered by Jesse Ventura, "I ain't got time to bleed," became the title of his autobiography published in 2000.
• In Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, one of the villains is named "Predator"
• The television show Family Guy made a reference to Predator in the episode "8 Simple Rules for Buying My Teenage Daughter" in which a fictional DVD titled "Kramer vs. Predator" is detailed. The DVD showed Ted Kramer (from the 1979 film Kramer vs. Kramer) and the Predator arguing at dinner, only to conclude with the creature shooting and blowing up Kramer.
• In an episode of Robot Chicken, a person refers to a mini-gun as "Ol' Painless."
• The film is the subject of the 2008 song "Predator" by thrash metal band Lich King.
• An achievement for the video game Army of Two is titled "If It Bleeds, We Can Kill It."
• A rap version of the movie has been made by The Anomalies.

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 films connecting Predator with the Alien series titled Aliens vs. Predator. The video game Soldat also draws heavily from Predator.

External links

• Predator at IMDb
• Predator at Rotten Tomatoes
• Predator at Box Office Mojo
• Predator: Collector's Edition
• Predator: The Hunted