3 reasons why Predator is so much better than its sequels

Shane Black – the Shane Black – has signed on to co-write and direct a new instalment of Predator titled, in reverse Fast and Furious style, The Predator. It seems a great move: Black is one of the best screenwriters of his generation, a very good director, and appeared in the original movie as Hawkins, the glasses-wearing, joke-telling first main victim of the eponymous beast.

If anyone can get a handle on an ailing franchise it’s him, but there’s a reason why all the Predator sequels have been far weaker than the original. Three, in fact. Let’s take a look at them, shall we?

They’re not built around Mr. Universe

It’s easy to pin most of the blame on Predator’s ever-weaker sequels on the fact that Arnie isn’t in them*, but that misses the point somewhat. Yes, Predator 2 would have been stronger had it been Arnie and not Gary Busey leading the government’s incredibly stupid xeno capture team (as originally envisioned), but even the Governator’s charm and sheer presence wouldn’t have saved what was – at best – an uneven movie. Mainly because, bar superficial similarity, Predator 2 simply isn’t structured in much the same way as the first.

The reason the original Predator works so well – the reason Schwarzenegger works so well within it – is a combination of timing and good directing. In 1987 Arnie was at his physical (for movies) peak: the perfect combo of remarkably jacked but not freakishly so, older but not old-looking, his somewhat boyish features hardened by a deep tan, crew cut and stubble while still maintaining that mixture of playfulness and seriousness which was his main appeal.

T2 – and with it his career peak – was four years off, but in ’87 he was big enough that people were going to see Arnold movies for Arnold and little more, his image built on being the ultimate warrior, America’s reigning champ, Peak Human. And Predator is sold this way, from the trailer which intones that the alien has picked “the wrong man to hunt” to almost every frame of the film itself. The original movie is a heavyweight bout which Don King would kill for; WrestleMania as scripted by a ten year old boy or John Milius: an undefeated alien hunter vs Arnold F***ing Schwarzenegger, and the rest of the guys in it are just the undercard.

Think of the ease in which the rest of his team are despatched, or more remarkably the speed of it. We know we’re building to a main event showdown between Arnold and the Predator, and the deaths of his men builds both the alien and Arnie’s rep: their deaths are the most elaborate sizzle reel in history. Like all good main events, the fight between the two is prefaced by theatrics and montages, mood lighting and entrance themes: it even has rules, as evidenced by the alien’s refusal to use its more ‘unfair’ weapons. Predators and especially Predator 2 (with its focus on gang warfare and police bureaucracy), on the other hand, feel less like an exaggerated apex of combat sports and more like mass brawls: unfocused violence which doesn’t escalate but merely ends. Arnie is the key to making it all work, and a particular Arnie at that.

The jungle setting is perfect…for the first movie

Oh how the creators of Predator 2 must have laughed when they had the idea to set it in the ‘urban jungle’ of LA. In fairness, it did lead to a great opening shot, but LA is also both too big, too recognisable, and far too filled with Other People for it to work. Tip: if your deadly intergalactic big game hunter is the second most violent thing in town, after a bunch of drug dealers who cut people’s hearts out, then you’re not really focusing on the right things.

LA’s sprawl doesn’t work because there’s little tension to it: most of it is set in that sickly orange daylight, nighttime just looks like day with the contrast turned down, and you get the feeling that the characters – and more importantly, the audience – would just hop on the interstate and high-tail it out of there at the first sign of trouble.

The jungle environment works, however, because both Arnie’s crew and the audience are a) cut off from humanity and b) not quite sure what’s coming next. The jungle’s natural camouflage is great for cranking the inherent tension of trying to escape an invisible hunter in the way that a series of geometric rooms, corridors, and streets isn’t. In Predator, it could be close at any time, and given the amount of time we spend watching the team from its POV, it is.

Both the squad and the audience spend a lot of time adapting to and fighting against the jungle: in Predator 2 they’re fighting against other people, and in Predators they’re fighting against yet more Predators, which dilutes the appeal somewhat. (Unlike in Alien, the Preds aren’t insectoid: they’re mammalian. They have personalities. They can f***ing talk and fly spaceships. Introducing more of them doesn’t exponentially ramp up tension, it introduces yet more underdeveloped characters.) The jungle offers natural yet subtle variations on a theme, different but no less dangerous places for both the hunted and hunter to hide and strike from. Have you seen downtown LA? It all looks EXACTLY the same.

The Predator’s reveal works wonderfully…once.

The jungle also acts as a great equaliser between Arnie and his potential murderer: it hides both of them in plain sight, and eventually (via waterfall) removes the alien’s one great advantage: mainly, that it’s f***ing invisible. Contemporary reviewers were quick to label Predator as a simple Aliens knock-off with a cool gimmick and a big star, but they’re not quite right: it’s actually a combination of both of the first two Alien movies, boasting the macho firepower and posturing of the marines from James Cameron’s sequel in smart concert with the original’s shapeshifting, stalking alien enemy which blends in with the environment better than any human can.

Alien is lauded for not properly revealing its starbeast until the very end, as most good horror should. Predator takes it a step further, somewhat inverting the norm: Arnie’s squad (and us) can’t physically see it even though we and they want to. Later Predator movies don’t have this luxury: we’ve already seen it, and although Stan Winston’s character design is excellent its appeal is naturally diminished with each go-around.

It’s no surprise that the only scene in any of the sequels that gets close to the tension of the original is the first sequel’s bungled xeno capture sequence in the meat packing plant, which riffs on the marines’ first encounter with the nest in Aliens and changes the stakes for both the soldiers and the audience. It does this by putting both us and them in the same shoes: we think we know how it operates until it shows us something new. The quasi-remake that was Predators has very little new to offer, and the less said about AvP, the better.

Shane Black will be aware of all of these issues, of course, and it should be noted that he’s by far the best director to take the series on since John McTiernan (who also made Die Hard) helmed the original. But he still has a huge job on his hands, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he took the series in a slightly more tongue-in-cheek direction rather than the po-faced retreads which have come before.

*Yes, I know Arnie appears on a monitor in the background of one of Predator 2’s scenes. No-one cares.