A Predator is being chased by a bigger and badder Predator. It manages to lose it and ends up crashing on Earth where humans take it in to be experimented on. The big Predator manages to track down the Predator after a boy triggers one of the Predator’s gadgets.
Blaine: Shane Black was in the original “Predator” movie as the first guy the Predator kills. Shane was already known for being the creator of “Lethal Weapon” at the time and when he wasn’t writing screenplays he was acting in small roles. Shane was asked to make some changes to the script for “Predator”, but he turned it down and the reason Shane acted in “Predator” was because his friend, producer Joel Silver, was bugging Shane to be apart of the project. As years went on in his career, Shane wrote more screenplays and then began directing. Shane thought about going back to the “Predator” franchise as a writer and director after having an idea for a new “Predator” movie. Shane contacted his friend Fred Dekker, who co-wrote a movie called “The Monster Squad” with Shane, and told him his ideas for a new “Predator” movie. Fred wanted to help Shane write the script because it sounded like a good idea. Shane and Fred put a lot of brain power into the story as they were developing it. Shane wanted “The Predator” to be a reminder of how deadly and skilled the Predator is. Shane also wanted this movie to be a continuation from the earlier “Predator” movies. Somewhere in “The Predator” it is mentioned when the first and second Predator arrived on Earth. So it’s no surprise a Predator is on Earth because other members of it’s species have been here before. The Predator was always hunting someone in the other movies, but Shane wanted to see something new instead of showing the same thing again. In this movie a Predator is being hunted down by it’s own kind. The Predator has become the prey. The Predator that is chasing it is bigger and more enhanced than any other Predator in the franchise. In this movie the Predator is also being experimented on by humans because they want to study them. So the Predator is also prey to a secret Government facility.
This Predator has a valuable device that was attached to it’s wrist weapon and he must get it back so that the enhanced Predator doesn’t get it. One of the things that was fun for Shane was creating a group of people to take on the Predator. He wanted this team to be a group of misfits. The leader is a sniper, Quinn McKenna, who encounters this new Predator when it first arrives. Quinn has a feeling that the Government will want to erase his memory because what he has encountered, but before he is brought in he thinks ahead, takes the Predator’s helmet and wrist weapon, which holds the valuable device the Predator is after, as souvenirs and has them mailed to his house. They are probably for reminders of what he saw. Quinn’s son, Rory, is an Autistic kid who doesn’t fit in with others, but he is smart enough to activate the Predator’s stuff. He’s also smart enough to get a job at a secret lab. Like the scientists, Rory studies the Predator, only he gets more details. Rory looks through the Predator’s memories through it’s helmet. Rory is also a brave kid. He’s not afraid to use a gun when his father is being strangled by the Predator.
The rest of the gang are soldiers turned fugitives like Quinn. The gang of misfits must fight to protect themselves from both the Predator, the enhanced Predator and the Government. The Government is always trying to keep unearthly stuff like Predators and Predator technology top secret and they’ll do anything like erase minds, harm or assassinate a regular person in order to keep it secret. Finally, there's the only female of the group, Casey. Casey is a scientist and Shane wrote her as someone who will do anything to get whatever interests her even if she has to get it the hard way. Like when the Predator escapes from the lab, she chases after it with a tranquilizer gun hoping to knock it out. It’s amazing how powerful one’s imagination can be and Shane Black made “The Predator” very violent, bad ass and something really cool to watch. There’s this one scene where Casey is handcuffed to a chair inside a barn and a guard is about to execute her, but she trips him using the chair, then uses a hand grenade, tries to jump to the bottom, but the chair she is hand cuffed to it stuck on the railing. So she is hanging there until the grenade blows up, destroys both the railing and the chair and Olivia falls down. That is one of the coolest scenes I’ve ever seen!
A month before “The Predator” was released, Olivia Munn, who plays Casey, discovered that one of the actors, who is a close friend to Shane, was a registered sex offender. Olivia informed FOX Studios and his scenes were cut out of the movie. Shane apologized for hiring a sex offender. Olivia Munn didn’t think Shane’s apology wasn’t good enough, but Shane made it very clear that he was to blame and that he was sorry for it. Olivia’s castmates were proud of her for speaking out and doing something about it because a lot of people worked so hard on this project and they didn’t want a sex offender to screw it all up. A director doesn’t know how long the movie he is making is going to be. During the editing process it all depends on what scenes are worthy to be in the movie and how the story should go as you are putting the movie together. But in the end “The Predator” became a spectacular action flick. The Predator who was on the run, left something for the humans and after Quinn, Rory and Casey have defeated the enhanced Predator, it cuts to the Government facility where Quinn, Rory and a team of scientists try to discover what it is the Predator left for them. It’s a mystery at first because you don’t know what this thing is, what it is used for and if it’s dangerous. But it turns out that the thing the Predator left behind is a suit that targets only Predators. I think the Predator that was on the run was something that thought different and disagreed with the others of it’s kind. It’s no different from what the gang of misfits were going through, which is why I think it built a weapon to go against it’s own kind. The original ending to the script involved Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character, Dutch. Dutch would show up in a helicopter after Quinn, Rory and Casey defeated the enhanced Predator. Dutch tells them to come with him, Rory asks if he wants him too and Dutch says “Especially you.” while smiling. Well I think both endings would be acceptable.
My rating on “The Predator” is five out of five stars
