It Is What It Is: Part Three – Narrative and Originality in Predators

June 3rd, 2011 | POSTED BY Sean Watson

ACT 3.

Predator: Arnie goes toe-to-toe with the Predator; he triumphs. The whole area’s completely decimated, and the two main characters are rescued.

Predators: Adrien Brody goes toe-to-toe with the last Predator; he triumphs. The whole area’s completely decimated, and the two main characters are trapped on the alien planet.

There are obviously a lot of similarities between the two films—their narrative structures are almost identical—but there are a couple of major differences. Firstly, the main protagonist is given a character arc. In Predator, Arnie is all about getting to da choppah and being totally ripped; he doesn’t change during the course of the entire film. In Predators, Royce starts as a selfish loner, but by the end changes when he sheds his self-centered agenda and comes back to the rescue. Royce’s motivation for this change isn’t really explained, and it’s really there more for climatic tension than it is for character development, but that’s fair enough, in a way. The arc allows Isabella’s peril, from both Eric from That ‘70s Show and the Predators, to build until Royce comes to the rescue. It’s a cliché, but you can kind of see what they were going for: Isabella is conveniently changed from battle-hardened sniper to damsel in distress in the third act to raise the stakes in the final confrontation. It’s not inspired writing, but at least it’s functional.

The other major change is setting the film on an unnamed alien planet. When I first heard this I thought it was a pretty smart concept; it sounded like it would turn the tables on the heroes, giving the Predators a home advantage and making the planet itself a potentially dangerous and unexpected environment. The problem is, it doesn’t. The planet is so similar to Earth that most of the characters don’t even realise where they are, and the Predators don’t utilise any advantage they might have. The alien planet adds nothing that the original didn’t have with the jungle setting; the main characters are trapped and have only one hope of escape—the helicopter or the spaceship. Other alien worlds, like Avatar’s Pandora, Aliens‘s LV-426 and Pitch Black’s M6-117, show how much potential was wasted. These worlds can set the mood and tone of the film. They carry with them an identity that makes the film feel unique and allows the alien worlds to be both grounded and familiar to the audience, while also containing fantastical and foreboding elements. The planet in Predators may as well have been Earth; there’s nothing that sets it apart and there’s no originality in its design.

There’s no doubt that sequels are hard things to do right, especially if you’re a new director to the franchise. It can’t break the original’s tone, but also has to feel like your own creation—an unenviable task. Looking to James Cameron’s Aliens, which, granted, is a predictable and unfair fight, I think we can view one component that underlines how confused Predators actually is. Nobody likes exposition; there’s usually a scene about three quarters of the way through your typical Hollywood movie when one character will openly state the preceding events in case one person in the audience has just woken up and has no idea what was going on. Exposition is tedious and always feels forced, but in a sequel like Predators it’s an absolute necessity. In a sequel, exposition will appear pretty early, its job being to refresh the memory and to get all new viewers up to speed. Spider-Man 2’s opening credits had the entire first film replayed in the form of Alex Ross paintings, and Aliens is even more blatant with its exposition. Within the first twelve minutes of the film, Ripley, having just been defrosted, is thrown into a room full of suits and meticulously explains the entire first film. She talks about the eggs, the alien, the acid…nothing is left out. This scene is pretty much only there to stop the 1% of the audience that stumbled into the movie without any prior knowledge from complaining that they don’t know what’s going on. Now, let’s look at Predators.

After the group’s first run-in with the Predators, they fall from a waterfall, and the female lead Isabella explains the entire first movie in explicit detail. Isabella’s monologue is only there for the audience; like with Aliens, it allows anyone unfamiliar with the franchise an easy chance to catch up. But why does it appear forty minutes into film? We’ve already seen the Predators; we understand the premise. So what’s the point, unless we retroactively apply the information to what we’ve just watched? The exposition is irrelevant to the first-time viewer, does nothing to progress the plot, and only serves to confuse the narrative. She states that the Predator sees in a thermal vision and that Schwarzenegger covered himself in mud to block this ability. Now, if I were in that group I’d be caked in so much sludge after hearing that that I’d have trouble breathing, but does any of the gang do anything with this new information? Nope. This leads me to two possible conclusions: either none of the guys actually believed her story and were only placating her, or they all deserve to die. Nobody involved in the making of this film thinks you haven’t seen Predator; it’s in our collective cultural psyche, it’s an iconic villain that everyone has a passing knowledge of. The attempt at exposition doesn’t even try to do its job to inform the audience or the characters; it’s just a massive signpost that screams REMEMBER HOW GOOD PREDATOR IS! And this is Predators‘s only trick: to constantly take our fond memories of the original film hostage and beat them into submission.

(Cont.)

Pages: 1 2 3

Adrien Brody, Aliens, Arnold Schwartzenegger, Avatar, Carl Weathers, J.R.R. Tolkien, James Cameron, Jesse Ventura, John McTeirnan, Lawrence Fishburne, Lord Of The Rings, Narrative, Nimród Antal, Pitch Black, Predator, Predators, Robert Rodriguez, The Hobbit