It’s amazing how one franchise has become so successful when all it might have been was a joke about about another franchise. Following Rocky IV, a comment was made that for the fifth Rocky movie, the Italian Stallion would have to fight an alien.
The rumor is that screenwriting brother duo Jim and John Thomas saw this and decided to write an action script titled Hunter about someone battling an alien hunter. Business deals and rewrites later, Predator opened in the summer of 1987 and it became a huge hit. However the second Predator wasn’t too well received even though I think it has its merits. But an in-joke involving a Xenomorph’s skeleton led to Alien vs. Predator.
And that gave us two movies there. Then we had the underrated Predators which like Predator 2 has its good points. Next we had The Predator, a horrible installment that just felt like something we had seen before and better. It sucks because Shane Black, who was in the first one, directed and co-wrote this one but I felt his hands were tied by studio interference.
Then there was Prey, a prequel set in the 18th Century before Manifest Destiny and the Louisiana Purchase where a bunch of Indigenous Native Americans battle a predator. It streamed on Hulu but got great reviews and a positive reception from fans for Amber Midthunder’s performance as well as her dog played by Coco.
Dan Trachetenberg, who directed and co-wrote that movie, returns with Predator: Killer of Killers, another prequel that at first seems like an anthology of different time frames but soon leads to something more. For all those who have been saying they’ve wanted a Samurai vs. Predator movie, it’s included here as two brothers, Kenji and Kiyoshi Kamakami (both voiced by Louis Ozawa). Some people might have wanted a full-length movie involving samurais but I love what the filmmakers have done here.
Not to give much away, but they have given us an amazing 90-minuted animated movie that starts off with a Viking warrior Ursa (Lindsay LaVanchy) who leads other warriors on a battle to defeat the Krivich Tribe. But they end up dealing with an alien predator. This genre has become popular again with Warcraft and The Northman.
The movie is bloody and violent as the production happened at the same time of the upcoming Predator: Badlands. I don’t know how good that movie will be. But Trachetenberg is helming that one too, so it’s likely it will be very good.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 