 |
This article or section needs copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone or spelling. You can assist by editing it now. A how-to guide is available.(February 2007) |
| Predator | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical poster |
|
| Directed by | John McTiernan |
| Produced by | Joel Silver Lawrence Gordon John Davis |
| Written by | Jim Thomas John Thomas |
| Starring | Arnold Schwarzenegger Carl Weathers Elpidia Carrillo Bill Duke Jesse Ventura Kevin Peter Hall |
| Music by | Alan Silvestri |
| Cinematography | Donald McAlpine |
| Editing by | Mark Helfrich John F. Link |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) |  June 12, 1987 |
| Running time | 107 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English Spanish |
| Budget | $18,000,000 |
| Gross revenue | $60,000,000 (US) |
| Followed by | Predator 2 |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
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, Alien vs. Predator in 2004, and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem in 2007.
Contents |
Background
The Predator film utilizes the 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.
Production
Development
For a few months, following the release of Rocky IV, a rather humorous 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 marvelous screenplay. The Thomas script for Predator was originally titled "Hunter." (In behind-the-scenes pictures, this title can be seen on the film equipment).[1] 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. After enlisting his former boss Lawrence Gordon as co-producer, the two approached Arnold Schwarzenegger with the lead role. "The first thing I look for in a script is a good idea," the former bodybuilder explained when asked about his interest and concerns about the Thomas script. "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 believeable. I liked the idea of starting out with an action-adventure, but then coming in with some horror and science fiction." John McTiernan was hired to direct Predator, his first studio film. 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. 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.[1] 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 Afro-American Bill Duke, who co-starred alongside Schwarzenegger in Commando, provided the right ethnic balance. 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-eqsue hunter.[1] 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.[1] Jesse Ventura's autobiographical book also alleges Van Damme intentionally injured a stunt man.[2] Eventually, Van Damme was removed from the film and replaced by the late actor and mime artist Kevin Peter Hall.[1] Hall, standing at an imposing 7 foot 2, had just finished work as a sasquatch in Harry and the Hendersons.
Cast
- Arnold Schwarzenegger as Major Alan "Dutch" Schaefer
- Carl Weathers as Major George 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
- Sven-Ole Thorsen as Russian Officer
Also See List of characters in the Predator series
Filming
Principal photography began shooting in the jungles of Palenque, Mexico, near Puerto Vallarta, 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 haulted 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.[1] Schwarzenegger's weight loss was a professional choice. McTiernan lost the weight because he avoided the food in Mexico due to health concerns.[1] 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.[3] 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."[3] 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!"[3] Hall stated in an interview that his experience on the film, "wasn't a movie, it was a survival story for all of us."[4] For example, in the scene where the Predator chases Dutch, the water was foul, stagnant and full of leeches.[4] 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.[4]
Creature Design
The film's creature was originally designed with a long neck, a dog-like head and a single eye.[1] This design was abandoned when it became apparent that the jungle locations would make shooting the complex design too difficult.[1] Originally, the studio contracted the makeup effects for the alien from Richard Edlund's Boss Film Creature Shop.[5] However, problems filming the alien in Mexico resulted in the makeup effects responsibilities being given to Stan Winston.[5] 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.[5] The design did not work in the jungle locations. After six weeks of shooting in the jungles of Palenque, 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.[5] Winston said the creature's famous mandibles make-up was originally an idea of noted film director James Cameron.[1]
US Army Special Forces Weapons
- Dutch was armed with the M16 Assault rifle and a satchel charge.
- Dillon, Hawkins, and Poncho were armed with the MP5 Submachine Gun. Poncho also had an M32 grenade launcher.
- Mac was armed with the M60 machine gun.
- Billy was armed with the M16A2 rifle.
- Blaine carried a 6-barreled rotary Minigun, which he referred to as "Old Painless," fed from a backpack ammo box.
For Predator weapons see Yautja
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.[5] 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.[5] 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.[5] The glowing blood was achieved by green liquid from chem-lite sticks used by campers.[5] 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.[5] It was nominated for an Academy Award for Visual Effects.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack was composed by Alan Silvestri, who was coming off of 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 resights a few lines from the song as he's chasing the Predator after it escapes from their booby trap.
Plot
The film begins with a mysterious spacecraft entering the Earth's atmosphere. Meanwhile, 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's old army buddy and CIA agent, Major George Dillon (Carl Weathers), joins the team. They travel by helicopter to their destination within the jungle. They are dropped behind the border where they find a downed helicopter as well as traces of rebels being followed by U.S. soldiers. This unusual situation is noted by the team and they soon discover slain U.S. soldiers hanging from a tree, all of them skinned and mutilated. Dutch reads the dog tag of one of the victims and realizes it to be his friend, Lieutenant James Hopper, a Green Beret squad leader stationed in Fort Bragg. He questions Dillon as to why Hopper's unit was in the jungle and Dillon denies knowing what had taken place. Dutch asks Billy (Sonny Landham), an American Indian and the tracker of the team, what happened to Hopper and his men. Billy can't find a good explanation for the incident. Later, 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, with intelligence from his team members following the attack, learns 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. Dillon tells Dutch that he used him "to get the job done" and that Dutch and his team were "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. The group halts when Billy believes he sees a mysterious presence within the trees. While Dutch tries to figure out what Billy is looking at, Anna attempts to escape. Dutch orders Hawkins (Shane Black) to capture her. Hawkins catches up and tackles Anna. He tries to calm her down when, all of sudden, he is slaughtered by the stalking creature, who takes Hawkins' body. Poncho (Richard Chaves), a Chicano and the interpreter/translator of the group, asks Anna in spanish what happened and she responds by saying, "the jungle came alive and took him."
While searching for Hawkins' body, Blain (Jesse Ventura), armed with a minigun, is shot and killed by the creatures' Plasma caster. 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. Mac starts screaming and opens fire. When he runs out of bullets, he arms himself with Blain's minigun and continues firing. The remaining members of the unit join him in a "mad minute", saturating the jungle with bullets. They finally stop firing and to their amazement, are unable to find any bodies and cannot locate Hawkins' body. Dutch tells Poncho to put Blain in a body bag, but Mac assures Dutch that he will do it to honor his vanquished friend. Anna figures they managed to wound the creature when she finds its' glowing green blood on a 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 Mac wrestles with what he believes to be the creature that killed his friend. When using a flashlight to examine the kill, the group sees that it was a wild boar. The team finds it funny at first, but stop laughing when they see 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. Dutch decides to lay a trap for the Predator knowing now that they are all being hunted. While they are awaiting the Predator, 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 walks out into the clearing to get the creature to move and expose itself. Suddenly, the creature is sent into the air inside a net, but escapes using its' Plasma caster, blasting a log off a tree that swings down and seriously injures Poncho. Mac and Dillon pursue the Predator claiming they want "payback" for their lost comrades. They agree to take down the Predator together, planning for Dillon to sneak up behind the Predator and flush him toward Mac for the kill. However, they are out-smarted by the Predator. The Predator blasts Mac in the head, killing him with its' Plasma caster. Dillon gets his arm blown off and is finished off with the Predator's wrist blades. Dutch, Billy, Poncho, 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 Predator kills Billy easily and catches up with the rest, killing Poncho and slightly wounding Dutch. Aware that the Predator will not kill an unarmed person because it would be "unsporting", Dutch denies Anna from using a gun and tells her to "get to the chopper." Although wounded, and with the creature on his tail, Dutch escapes by sliding off a cliff, dropping into a [[river], and falling down a waterfall. He swims to land and puts his face in mud, thinking he has escaped. The Predator splashes in the water behind Dutch. Dutch quickly crawls through the mud, covering his body, to a cave-like area with tree limbs and waits for the Predator to kill him. The Predator emerges from the water and Dutch finally sees the Predator without the use of its' cloaking device. The Predator doesn't appear to see him. Once the Predator leaves, Dutch realizes the Predator couldn't see him because he was covered in mud. The mud blocked the heat from his body and made him invisible to infrared vision. Dutch, lacking firearms and utilizing his newfound camouflage, prepares for a showdown with the Predator. He creates a variety of primitive weapons, including bow and arrows, two spears with knife blades on the tips, and two M203 grenades, 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. After nightfall, Dutch starts a large fire and lets out an intense war cry and awaits the Predator's arrival. Dutch, hiding atop a tree, surprises the Predator using a modified explosive-tipped arrow that damages the Predator's cloaking device, therefore making the Predator visible. The Predator, enraged, fires his plasma caster all over the jungle trying to flush Dutch out into the open. Dutch falls from the tree and runs for cover while being shot at by the Predator. Dutch gets his pair of spears and throws one at the Predator, who roars in agony. He follows a trail of the Predator's blood into a cave. The trail of blood stops and he senses the Predator sneaking up behind him. He grabs a pouch of gunpowder hung around his neck, lights it, and throws it over his shoulder. It explodes and Dutch runs and jumps, grabbing hold of a tree branch, but it breaks off because of a blast from the Predator's Plasma caster. Dutch falls into a pond below, washing away the mud. The Predator corners Dutch. The two face each other and the Predator decides to remove its' high-tech weapons in favor of a "fair fight" in hand to hand combat. The Predator casts off its Plasma caster and its Bio mask, showing its true face. A fight follows where, because of the huge difference in size, Dutch seems to be getting the worse of the fight. However, Dutch tricks the alien into following him into a booby trap, springing a huge log which crushes the Predator. The Predator is mortally wounded and covered in its own glowing green blood. The Predator activates a self-destruct Device attached to its wrist and begins to mimic a maniacal laugh patterned after Billy's laugh, which the Predator heard earlier when Hawkins told Billy a dirty joke. Dutch runs for cover as the Predator self-destructs and a massive 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.
Plot Theme
There are a number of parallels between the plot of Predator and the plot of the ancient Anglo Saxon poem Beowulf[6]. 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.
Reception
Released on June 12, 1987, Predator quickly shot to the top of the box office in its first weekend, and remained there for over a month until Paul Verhoeven's Robocop supplanted it as number one. 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 found the concept behind the movie plausible. Roger Ebert 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 $60 million at the box office. In 2007, Entertainment Weekly named it the #22 greatest action movie of all time. The film scores a 7.6 on the IMDB website and 76% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Trivia
- The minigun used by Jesse Ventura fired blanks, producing minimal recoil. It was powered by a remote generator, with the cord concealed beneath Ventura's pants.
- Jesse Ventura was delighted to find out from the wardrobe department that his arms were 1" bigger than Arnold Schwarzenegger's. He suggested to Schwarzenegger that they measure arms, with the winner getting a bottle of champagne. Ventura lost because Schwarzenegger had told the wardrobe department to tell Ventura that his arms were bigger.
- Due to health and safety regulations, Arnold Schwarzenegger was not allowed to light his cigar inside the helicopter near the beginning of the film. As a result the glow was added optically in post-production.
- During the closing credits, Shane Black is seen prominently displaying a copy of Sgt. Rock #408 (Feb. 1986). In the DVD commentary, John McTiernan notes that at the time, Arnold Schwarzenegger had an adaptation of Sgt. Rock in production, and that's why the comics were on set, so he could read them. He described the scene where Dutch walks up to Billy, who senses the Predator's presence out in the bush, as a "Sgt. Rock moment".
- Supposedly, Jerry Goldsmith was originally approached to score the film, but was unavailable.
- An attempt was made to get shots of the Predator swinging from tree to tree using a monkey in a red special-effects suit. However, the monkey kept removing the suit and the idea was abandoned.
- The studio would not allow John McTiernan to shoot this film in anamorphic widescreen due to the complexities of the optical effects. As a sly sort of retaliation, the director added an anamorphic version of the film's opening 20th Century Fox logo, which looks noticeably stretched on screen.
- Two waterfalls are used in the climax of the movie, both near Palenque, Mexico. The first is Misol Ha, just outside the village (beginning and end of the sequence), and the other is Agua Azul about an hour's drive away (the middle part of the sequence).
- During an episode of Mythbusters, they discovered that covering yourself with mud does not conceal your body temperature. After a short time, the mud on your skin becomes warmer.
- Body count = 64
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.
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Haufrect, Ian T. "If It Bleeds, We Can Kill It", 20th Century Fox, 2001.
- ^ Ventura, Jesse. "I Ain't Got Time to Bleed: Reworking the Body Politic from the Bottom Up", Signet, June 12, 2000.
- ^ a b c Gire, Dan. "Schwarzenegger on Predator", Cinefantastique, December 1987.
- ^ a b c Gire, Dan. "Predator: The Man in the Suit", Cinefantastique, December 1987.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Robley, Les Paul. "Predator: The Original Makeup", Cinefantastique, December 1987.
- ^ BEOWULFIANA:MODERN ADAPTATIONS OF BEOWULF
External links
- Predator: Collector's Edition
- Predator: The Hunted
- Predator at the Internet Movie Database
- Predator at Rotten Tomatoes
- Predator at Box Office Mojo
 American films of the 1980s |
|---|
| 1980 •1981 •1982 •1983 •1984 •1985 •1986 •1987 •1988 •1989 |
