Predator Speed Art and Film Ranking (Assassin Predator)
Hey guys! If you clicked here you probably came from my other channel, Tell It Animated, where I put together short animations that take a while to complete, and because of the topics I choose - mostly movie related stuff-I get pretty down and deep into each franchise I research, sometimes spending a month or 2 animating one series, and well, I develop some of my own feelings about the franchises I cover – I try to keep my opinions out of the scripts for the animations, but on this channel I'm gonna let loose.
So these videos won't be as polished as my animation channel, or have the same editing or even narrator, yeah I don't narrate my animations – I sort of hate my voice, so I hope this channel will be a way to get over my meek animator shyness and just get more comfortable with talking to people, even if those people are you fellow internet nerds. With that said let's jump into the topic of the video, and as you may have guessed from what is being illustrated on the screen we're going to be covering the Predator Franchise, counting them down from worst to first, including the AvP films, which are actually considered canon according to Shane Black. So enough of the intro, let's count these puppies down, and spoiler alert for anyone who hasn't seen these movies, because I will probably be going through some plot details.
Starting with number 6. we got AvP2: Requeim Boogaloo. Yeah this is no surprise, it's a mess, shot poorly, overly dark, forgettable characters. I didn't even include any side-characters in the animation like I usually do during this part because there was basically no important human characters, which is something every good Predator film needs, you need some sympathetic characters, instead we get a bunch of generic filler, and the action scenes are too dark to see anything in, with what should have been a great showdown between Predalien and a skilled Predator becomes murky and unseeable, it's just not a good film, sorry guys, if you like this movie that's okay, I just find it hard to sit through.
Okay now so number 5. Is the latest Predator movie, The Predator from 2018. Yeah guys I know this movie has it's defenders, but it is just all over the place. Even the editing within a scene feels choppy, and the story is hard to swallow or believe. Most of the films problems can probably be blamed on them changing the ending halfway through, apparently I've seen some photos of a whole bunch of Predators teaming up with the humans to go against the DNA Spliced-Autistic boy obsessed- giant Predator, but what we got was just another beat the Predator up with weapons again scenario and a tacked on final scene where we discover the first Predator was trying to help humanity out by bringing us a Tony Stark style Predator suit for humans to wear. And also not to mention that Shane Black hired an actual predator or deviant for a scene that was to include Olivia Munns character and would have shown us a bit more of her development, instead it just gets cut, like a blackhole. So guys don't hire creepos in hollywood, someone will find out and it will mess your movie up, look at Kevin Spacey, he ruined like 3 movies after his allegations came out, and the last season of House of Cards. Oh well this is off topic, on to the next movie.
And number 4 is the original AvP film, okay so here on out I actually enjoy these movies for what they are. The reason this one isn't higher on the list is mainly because it does a poor job at being an Alien film, but it does a pretty great job at being a Predator film, and I think Scar – the main Predator in the film- is probably one of the most sympathetic Predators we've seen on the big-screen. Sure the movie isn't perfect, like I said it breaks the canon of the Alien movies by adding in Lance Henrikson to the cast as Weyland, even though we already saw him as a different human character in Alien3, but at least he does a good job in the role and we also have Lex the main human female in the movie and first human on screen to team up with a Predator who does a pretty good job with her role. And the action in the movie is actually shot well, or shot well enough so that we can see what is on screen, it's not as dark as it's much worse sequel. So yeah all in all, this movie isn't bad it's a pretty good Predator film, but a bad Alien film.
Alrighty number 3 is Predator 2, and I'm just going to say this right now, it's kind of underrated. It has like a 30% on Rotten-tomatoes and it's IMDB score is pretty sour as well, so maybe I had low-ish expectations coming into this film, but I actually really enjoyed it quite a lot. We have the same actor appearing as the Predator in this film as the first, but with a very different look, and I really like his design. More menacing and evil looking-I saw online that they described the changes as making the Predator more urban looking, I have no idea what they means, but it's a cool design regardless. We also get Danny Glover doing what he does best - playing a cop who's sick of being a cop, but instead of it being played for comedy like in the Lethal Weapon series, it's played more for drama here, and he's also a rebel who doesn't really listen to authority, so he has a little bit of Mel Gibson's character in him here as well. And we get Gary Busey, playing a FBI agent searching and wanting to capture an elusive Predator. Gary Busey also played a villain in the first Lethal Weapon movie so this is sort of a reunion for he and Danny Glover. I also like the lore they added to the Predator series by showing their whole clan and even rewarding Danny Glover for taking one of their own down. Now I know a lot of people are going to disagree with me, I put up a poll on my Instagram page asking you guys which film you thought was better, Predator 2 or The Predator 2018, and about 70% choose the 2018 Predator film, so maybe I'm wrong, but this film is a diamond in the rough in my opinion-well maybe not a diamond, maybe like a cheap diamond alternative, but it still looks good.
Okay so the number 2 spot goes to 2010's Predators. I actually really like this movie, it's the first and so far only movie in the Franchise to take us to a Predator planet outside of Earth, and it adds back in some of the mystery, with the human characters trying to figure out what's happening and why they were dropped on to this mysterious planet. I also appreciate how different looking each Predator was in this film, the Berserker, Tracker and Falconer all have different looking armour and skills. The human cast is also pretty amazing, you get Laurence Fishbourne, Danny Trejo, Adrian Brody, among others, like it's a stacked cast, and everyone does pretty good in their roles, even Topher Grace-aka Eric Forman from That 70's Show. But I will point out that this film came out at a time when Hollywood was still trying to decide both if Adrian Brody was an action star and if Topher Grace was a movie star, and for the most part it didn't quite workout for them, but they're still in indie films coming out and have millions of dollars so I don't feel too bad for them. But over all this film recaptures the feel of the original Predator while putting it's own spin on it and delivering us characters that are at least well acted if not memorable.
So if you've made it this far you can probably guess what's number one, the original 1987 classic. Nothing beats the first one, it has the perfect blend of action, mystery, sci-fi and just a dash of horror. The characters are funny and feel comfortable with one another and when things start hitting the fan I actually care what happens to them, but not too much so it stops my enjoyment of the film when someone gets knocked off. The only thing that bothers me a little bit about the movie is the opening shot kind of ruins the mystery, because it shows an alien spacecraft going by, then cut to later when things start happening and the crew is tying to figure it out, we as the audience know that it has to be an alien, but if they kept that shot out we would have been surprised to all of a sudden have this become a creature film. But that doesn't hurt the movie too much, the director John McTiernan, perfectly delivers an action flick with just the right amount of muscle. It is worth noting that the same director would go on to direct Die Hard the year after and Die Hard 3 after that, aka the two best Die Hard films.
Okay guys, so that's my ranking of the Predator series, let me know what you guys think of the films, did you like my ranking? Yes no maybe so? Feel free to put your own ranking down below, and if you made it this far in the video let me know what your favourite Die Hard movie is, that way people who didn't watch the video but read the comments will be thoroughly confused. And yeah if this is the first time watching this channel feel free to subscribe and if you want to see this giant Predator in action021 check out my animation the Evolution of the Predator on my main channel, it's a lot more well put together than this. So until next time, have a wonderful day and never stop searching for answers.