I did come across this podcast channel last week browsing through Soundcloud called Predator Movie Minute. Now, I only listened through one podcast and decided it wasn’t my cup. However that podcast did bring up an interesting observation that made me look at the movie Predator (1987) from a different angle. How it was actually quite an anomoly if you compare it to the overall late 80’s action movie scene of the time.

In the movie Predator we follow this group of American military rescue team on a mission in South America. Each one of these guys look like they could star in their own Rambo inspired action flick. All big and muscled and armed to the teeth. At first it all starts off as any late 80’s action film. The team of action heroes dispatches the camp with the enemy soldiers with not much effort, leaving a blown up carnage in their wake.

But then as they are heading towards the extract point, things change. Encountering the Predator, the ultimate, intergalactic hunter, out in the jungle as it stealthily dispatches one action hero after the other with the same level of ease as they dispatched those guerilla troops at the beginning. These guys are the best there is and we get a scene where they are firing everything they have at the direction where the Predator was spotted.

After wrecking absolute havoc on that entire section of jungle, one of them checks the area out and then comes back with the words “we hit nothing”. This one line perfectly encapsulate what an anomaly the Predator movie is. In nearly every late 80’s action movie the hero ALWAYS hit something firing his gun, while rarely ever receiving as much as a scratch in return. Here in this scene they burn away a small ocean of bullets in one designated direction and they hit nothing.

All that ammo wasted and the hunt on each one the action heroes remaining continue, until the main hero played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, being the only hero left alive at the end, does the only thing he can do. Get rid of his gun and start fighting on the Predators rules. Fighting like a hunter, not a soldier. So! In conclusion. What worked in almost, if not literally, every action hero of the late 80’s does not work in the movie Predator.

Thought that was just a bit of an interesting new angle to look at this movie from that I felt like sharing with you this sunday. Comments down below. Have a good one.

NaaN (Now, always and Never)