One Final Thought: Predator (1987)

Jul 25

Written by: Brian Sumner

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Sometimes in Hollywood, even the greatest of superstars can’t help but fall victim to typecast and unfair expectation. Perhaps a certain actor may have a distinct look or presence that inevitably garners villainous roles for their acting resume? Or someone who portrays the “funny guy or girl” one too many times seems to be stuck in the “friend zone” of acting gigs? How about the simple fact that a certain era of filming can lead to unfair expectation being placed upon an actor or director?

We encountered something along those lines on our podcast, and actually, it reared its ugly head rather quickly in our history.

This year during Season 3 of our podcast, Jim Miller and I have been taking a stroll down memory lane and rereleasing our original run of Dude, What?! Originals from our time on the Homers Radio Network. An episode that we originally released on July 15th, 2019, Episode 46 titled “Pray or Prey?” was the episode we covered the film Predator, starring Arnold Schwarzeneger. The idea and the topic of unfair expectation became a very in-depth conversation as we discussed the differences between two Arnold Schwarzeneger, 1980’s “classics.” I use that word loosely considering the other film we were comparing Predator against was Commando.

I puked a little in my mouth just writing the name of that movie down . . .

The topic of expectation going into Predator weighed heavily on my mind as we had already covered Commando (yuck) two years prior. The stench and nasty layer of subpar-ness and mediocrity that was blanketed over me after watching that terrible film made me incredibly trepidatious and almost put off by the idea of even attempting to cover another Arnold film from that time period. I had Predator in my back pocket and in the fallout of Commando, I made a quick decision to shelf that option until I found myself able to hold down solid food again. Yes…Commando was that awful to me.

Hilariously enough, I didn’t even rank Commando a 1 out of 5 or Dude, Where’s My Car?! when we reviewed it. In retrospect, I truly don’t know what I was thinking. Perhaps I was so taken aback by the lackluster plot, dialogue, characters, story, direction, EVERYTHING!!!! . . . that I just solely looked at what the film did from an action standpoint and went with that. Which would explain why I gave two different rankings for that film.

PTSD. It has to be that . . . maybe Stockholm Syndrome. Point being, I was not of sound mind and body. . .

Fast forward two years, we were approaching the middle of summer. 4th of July was on the horizon and Jim and I had been having some ups and downs, starts and stops with the podcast. It was a weird time for us. The recording/editing schedule had finally taken its toll on me. I had no drive. No energy.

We desperately needed a recording space that WASNT my bedroom . . .

“How was I able to keep my wife during that time?

Oh yeah . . . my huuuugggeee, sense of humor.”

The studio build was underway (had been underway) but the both of us were heavily bogged down by our real life jobs and it’s crazy work schedule (and I can’t talk about that without mentioning my wife again - Crystal also worked at FedEx so all the pain and suffering and mental anguish from the job that we constantly went on about, she experienced it doubly because she had to listen to US complain about it on our podcast being recorded in my bedroom!!! . . . but I digress). We just couldn’t seem to get a good footing on recording and then one day towards the end of June, 2019, I messaged Jim and said, “We should get together and record on the 4th . . .”

Of course, Jim was ecstatic and jumped all over it so we got together to discuss what and how we would put together that episode. Naturally, we decided to put a little 4th of July spin on the episode and you guys can check it out here for all the bells and whistles that came with that All American, Light Up the Sky, Freedom Rules type Extravaganza of an Episode!

‘MERICA!

I knew that with our recording schedule being somewhere between sporadic (at best) and damn near extinct, I had to bust out a film that would really blow Jim’s socks off. What could it be? What film would just absolutely crush Jim?

“Oh . . .oh I know. Ohhhhh, this is going to be good . . .”

Since Commando, there had been a number of times that I had added Predator as an option during the movie selection portion of our show. I had particularly noted how Jim would become edgy and a little flustered at the mere mention of Predator. This was not overlooked on my part. I had been taking extensive mental notes. I knew that Predator would be a game changer of any episode and I knew that the longer I could hold off on it the better the pay off of Jim’s reaction would be. I was not wrong.

To say that I manipulated the situation to get Predator into the forefront would be an understatement. I Jigsawed that setup so masterfully that even Jigsaw himself would’ve said, “No Brian…I do not want to play a game . . .” It started with setting up the categories during the Marvel Dudetable Discussion when we had comic book guru and former super producer from the Homers Radio Network, Roger Turner, in the 2420 West Studios. As with previous guests on our show, we gave Rog the chance to dictate the direction of the show. Knowing that we already had his brother, Stephen A. Turner, on the show previously and that he had chosen the “Ahnold!” category, I knew that Rog would naturally follow suit if “Ahnold” was a category option. This was my chance to hit Jim with the Predator uppercut!

Here’s the funny thing about this whole situation: we released the Marvel Dudetable Discussion on April 21st, 2019 . . . WE DIDNT RELEASE A NEW EPISODE FOR ALMOST 3 MONTHS!! At the time, we thought 2019 was a very tumultuous year. We had no idea what dastardly plans the fates had in store for the world just six months down the road.

“Shhhhhh…we don’t talk about that…”

After releasing an update on the feed to just kind of let people know, Yes, we are still here!, we finally got to Episode 46 and my time to shine with Predator was now upon us. I was more than ready to eviscerate anything and anyone in my path related to Predator because I was so sure of myself that we were on the doorstep of another version of Commando. There was no possible form of vindication on the dockets for ol’ Arnie as far as I could see.

Arnold.
Action.
1980’s.
It was going to be a verbal bloodbath!

You know what the best part of having built-in expectations with regard to cinema? It makes the movie viewing experience so much more palpable and enjoyable and has more impact when those expectations can be shattered. It was so easy in the 1980’s to put out action films that had high budgets for explosions and car chases but low need for acting and story development. If you could come up with great, gritty action sequences, you really didn’t need to have a great story in order to make a semi successful film. The cookie cutter format of action films from the 1980’s became dry and predictable and catered solely to people who would react more to a fiery explosion than a strong developed story.

Predator did what a lot of its contemporary films of the time couldn’t do. It could think. It could develop. It could mature as a story. It had depth. It had intelligence. And it had Arnold. Arguably one of the biggest and most influential action stars ever to grace the silver screen, Arnold Schwarzeneger did something in this film that I really wasn’t expecting:

“He acted the hell out of this part…”

Action is action is action is action. A monkey can put together a compelling action sequence with some zany dialogue in its midst (and I’m pretty sure it was a monkey that wrote Commando) but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s any good. However, with Predator, the action made sense. The violence made sense. The dialogue made sense (with exception to “Stick around” and “Knock Knock”). Predator found its success by actually creating a world and nurturing the growth of the story within this fictitious world. You care about the characters. You care about the next step in the jungle. You want to see how these heroes will eventually stack up against their adversary. Arnold Schwarzeneger as Dutch was compelling on-screen work in the sense that you believed his emotion when you saw the slow unraveling of his team at the hands of the Predator.

Dutch and his crew are the best of the best from a military standpoint. They’ve seen it all! But not this. Not the Predator. And it scares Dutch.
Not to the point of crying and whimpering and wanting to go home but enough for Dutch and his team to drop the sense of bravado and realize,

“We have a job to do that is going to take all of us doing our parts and working together to survive. This is serious shit.”

Seeing the realism in the way the characters interact as their world is slowly crumbling around them to this unseen, invisible force is truly remarkable considering the parameters I laid before you earlier.

Arnold.
Action.
1980’s.

Any sense of a movie review vendetta that I had going into watching Predator was quickly erased as I was presented with a smart, intelligent, well written, entertaining story of man vs beast, military vs extraterrestrial. The seamless layering of varying genres of film that didn’t create muttledness was truly a wonder to behold. I was shocked. I’m still shocked when I look back on it.

The preconceived expectations I carried into the viewing of Predator were a blessing and a curse. A curse in the sense that I was harboring ill will towards this film before it even started and a blessing because I was able to be pleasantly surprised by just how great the movie turned out to be. So I’m now stuck as to whether or not I should carry preconceived notions going into films so that I can get that hit of dopamine when a film actually delivers or stay even keeled without expectation and risk being let down tremendously? Truly a question for the ages. But I will say this, for Predator, having that grudge going in really made it so much better when it blew my mind!

Knowing what I know about the trajectory of Arnold Schwarzeneger’s film career, especially in the sci-fi realm, Predator could have very easily typecast him forever had the script been anything less than stellar. In my opinion, because Predator’s script was so damn sound and so damn good, it paved the way for Arnold to be viable and believable with top notch action and sci-fi roles in his future. Without Predator, there is no Arnold Schwarzeneger and that’s my One Final Thought.