I must admit I didn't expect a Predator deep-dive at the Library, but I'm very happy you wrote it. You've got a talent for finding metaphor in the most unusual places. One thing that came to mind is that to the managerial state, anything outside the state is alien, to be killed or brought under control. Illegible things are terrifying to the managerial technocracy. Rednecks surviving a hurricane in the deep south are completely inscrutable, invisible, and thus, dangerous.
Very interesting review, and I suspect you're on to something. A lot of manly action movies of that period that were broadly dismissed as brainless jingoism actually have some pretty sophisticated themes and an anti-establishmentarian streak reflecting the technocratic failures of Vietnam and the Carter years. Appreciate the "Arena" clip also, quite possibly my favorite episode of the original series!
Solid analysis of an amazing action movie with memorable scenes & quotes. Especially interesting is the duality of Managerialism and the Predator, putting the cast between a rock and a hard place; both are nameless, faceless threats, except that one is order and the other is chaos.
Also, you said, "Men like Elon Musk dream of technology harnessed to managerial control but human meaning." this should read, "harnessed NOT to managerial control". Hope you don't mind my proofreading, just trying to help!
Too funny, I have “Men like Elon Musk dream of technology harnessed to managerial control but human meaning.“ in my copy buffer to ask the librarian what that meant. You sussed it out.
If I were to analyze this movie through the filter of Nietzsche I would sum it up with his famous "Be careful when fighting monsters lest you become one" meaning, warriors with a code of honor who turn mercenaries become soulless, like the predator. And in a hero-morality tale, they must die horrific deaths to give the viewer a clear message: (which comes from Aurelius) "Just do the right thing, the rest doesn't matter. Cold or warm. Tired or well rested. Despised or honored." These were some of the last simple cut and dried morality films. When John Wayne died. A part of America died. Or American manhood. This was an excellent synopsis. Very entertaining and thought provoking. Now do Moby Dick with Gregory Peck. It is definitely packing in themes from the 1900a and not from 1800s when the story was written. But still, all the themes and stories are the same according to Campbell. Same hero. A thousand different faces.
This review is tons of fun. Stretch to compare it simply to neolib managerial types, though. You find the same in any bureaucracy. Modern or ancient.
Varrus comes to mind, losing those eagles. But he had skin in the game, just like Dillon did, and both led from the front. Just bureaucrats trying and failing to survive in an environment hostile to too much pencil pushing.
Varrus wasn't a bureaucrat. In his day those jobs were filled by men from a different and socially inferior caste. He was pursuing his aristocrat's calling on the cursus honorum, and, having failed, died rather than lived dishonored. It's a profoundly different ethos than that inculcated by Globohomo, which ignores even repeated failure to the degree it is offset by demonstrations of ostentatious conformity.
Senators were bureaucrats, too. They spent more time doing paperwork than anything else. Their ethos was to look like big men (and at least they had to prove it, unless they were Augustus) while being anything but.
Those old Patricians were pathetic pencil pushers compared to folks like Marius. Except Sulla, who was more beast than man.
“Varrus, where are my legions?!” Took me a minute to figure out that the eagles were the standards (synecdoche maybe?). I wonder how many readers “got” this.
Interesting, but far-fetched. I doubt very much that the movie's producers intended for it to be a commentary on anything other than how many ways they could kick up the action.
And while you hope for an end to liberalism, I hope you at some point change your mind, as the West is built on liberal ideals: individual freedoms, a small, limited government, property rights, and the free market. Leftism can die any day now, as far as I'm concerned, but liberalism is what underpins every good part of Western civilization, including "normal" masculinity.
I don't think you give the creative team behind this enough credit. The 80s were full of movies that were superficially over -the-top but reward deeper viewing (I wrote about Big Trouble in Little China on that score). But even without intending to, a work of art can tell us something about the times that produced it.
No, it's not that. It's that I'm a writer and have been long enough for readers to say, "Oh, I really like your take on this!," when I certainly didn't intend for them to interpret anything that way. So I almost always fall down on the side of, "I doubt they meant that," unless the author/writer/whatever explicitly states otherwise.
I do agree 100% on that latter statement, though (art and the times in which it was produced). If someone wants to know about a particular moment in history, for example, they should really seek out that time period's literature (among other things).
I'm going to try to read your thoughts on Big Trouble in Little China. I may disagree, but these sorts of analyses are always interesting.
frankly i fear for the kind of society that the kind who would write about predator would make - "warrior" shit is more aesthetic than anything, if you intellectualize it it gets really disgusting and disastrous very quickly. i mean we're talking about glamorizing conflict and harming others - not a great way to make up societies.
frankly i get the feeling that half of substack writers haven't accessed any decent literature in their lifetimes, hence their proclivity to think that people like jordan peterson are somehow transcendant, when in reality he mostly pontificates on shit he doesn't understand. and his audience is too ignorant / stupid to know the difference.
at best one could write some kind of lacanian "othering" to the movie, but how this author tries to intellectualize it - give me a freaking break
Whenever someone screams about how stupid other people are, I immediately know that person never engages deeply with anything, because that requires listening long enough to find out what others are actually offering. Jordan Peterson is case in point. You don’t have to worship the guy to know he has a lot to offer the thoughtful person. I’m quite sure I’d rather listen to him for bits of insight than someone who thinks it’s some kind of win to whine about him.
i didn't say anyone was stupid, simply inferred that they aren't read at all on the basics. I mentioned Jordan Peterson because he's infamous for doing this, inventing new terms on the fly and grouping a disparate variety of thinkers under one umbrella that are vary vary different. "postmodern neomarxists communists" etc., where many would be considered neoliberals today (foucault comes to mind here) and baudrillard would be considered post marxist, if anything.
the general point is that the essay writer is projecting / really reaching here, i doubt any of what he tries and intellectualize and "warrior-ize" is on purpose. and like i said if you really wanted to try and do such, doing a lacanian "othering" frame would be the way to do so, not put it under some rubric of "warrior" bullshit.
he'd be better off tracing the geneology of "warrior-hero" through the ages, particularly classical literature if that rubs him the right way, aka juxtapost this to the illiad's hero(achilles? not really but whatever), or the odyssey's frankly - there's more there to do this with, and that's not saying much.
(it appears I did say "stupid" in the first response(which wasn't above when i replied), but you get the idea - these people are so ignorant they actually think predators frames well like this - it doesn't, it's a reach, and you have issues if you are reaching this far is the general point which should be obvious)
there's a reason why there are "classics" and why many still read them. and compared to the predator - yeah, um - these juxtapositions just look ridiculous. but you wouldn't know this if your reading set was small.
Well maybe, but the frame didn’t seem overdone in the least to me. Especially for a movie. I don’t hear any specifics here so I’m still unenlightened about what’s wrong with the commentary.
my bigger point is that the author is stretching here, which is fine if that's their schtick - and that we don't really want a "warrior" society at all frankly.
as far as the ignorance stick, my point is that if you don' thave a good frame to compare juxtaposition pieces to then you will think the author is a genius.
Actually, I rather like the Predator movies, I don't think they glorify violence as much as nod to the reality (life is violence), and there's no "othering" here. At best, the aliens can be seen as an apex predator hunting a lesser apex predator, with a nod to human ingenuity, deviousness, and sheer grit; or possibly, "We are Predator; look how brutally awful we are." No othering necessary.
i like the predator movies too, but i don't like people pulling shit out of them that's not there to align with their politics, which is what I took the aforementioned as -
the predator is the "other" fyi, regardless of how you shake it. it's the basis of the movie.
jesus christ this guy's substack really is the kingdom of the blind
(the idiot blocked me - go figure. always the last to have the last word)
the movie is based on othering - this would've been a far more relevant topic. you can disagree with that but i'd say that easily 3/4 of people would agree with me.
i'm talking to children here it seems. the essay was shit and ridiculous. (why) because it involved politics which weren't relevant to the actual movie. now you can talk about how unicorns are the gay intrusion into the hyper-real all you want of course (which is basically what the author did, except from the opposite perspective) but illustrations like this are just shit.
TWA all the way. The only "blind" person here is you, and you're doing it willfully.
Look, I agree that the guy took it too far; and I also agree that sometimes movies (books, etc.) can just be fun.
But he also made some good points. It was an interesting piece, thoughtful in many ways. I don't have to agree with anything to (like an adult) acknowledge that.
It has been a solution for thousands of years and if you cannot justify to me why you think violence is inherently bad when it has time and time again proven itself capable of saving civilizations and preserving everything good and Holy in this world then that’s a you problem.
You may as well tell me that water is evil or storms or fire.
Explain to me why do you think violence is always a moral evil or resign yourself to the reality that you hold a baseless opinion.
This is a better write up than any professional critic could ever hope to achieve!
Regarding the bomb, I think the idea was to wipe away any traces of the tech so the humans don’t steal it and copy it, though I’m not sure they really intended it to be nuclear and give off radiation, I think they just wanted a very big explosion.
While I agree with your assessment overall, I don’t think think it’s masculine versus feminine really, but man Vs nature. The men were not emasculated by the predator, but rather they were reduced to a primitive state that rendered their technology useless. But of course if they can’t outgun the monster, they definitely cannot outfight it.
You were absolutely correct to point out that Dutch had to lure it into a trap. He couldn’t beat it in a fight with his technological weaponry nor a “fair fight” hand to hand, so he had to outsmart it. This is meant to evoke humanities reliance on our ingenuity to outsmart nature and not to beat it through brute strength.
The predator is sort of a “force of nature” that exists beyond the managerial state, waiting for anyone to step outside its sphere of influence and, as seen with the nuclear bomb, able to destroy it. You used the term “cosmic horror” and I think that is the same, the force of nature always ready and able to wipe us out….in its own time
I can see the argument that Predator is a force of nature save for one thing- the Predator has a code. He’s not there to consume, but to test his mettle against dangerous game. He attacks the strong rather than separating the weak from the herd. Nature kills to survive; it doesn’t take trophies. The narrative emphasis on his character as an alien I think was meant to support that the jungle was not the true home of either the team or the Predator.
Man that is a great point. You’re right. He’s like a higher form of life or something. Is a “cosmic horror” a form of intelligence? I seem to recall from Cthulhu that it in fact was
Shoot I also meant to point out that Billy’s last stand was Spenglers “we must hold the lost position without hope, without rescue.” I like that you brought up the Freudian aspects of the film, and if that’s there it’s the “nature is chaos which is feminine,” and I guess in that sense it’s “emasculating” but I personally prefer the term and concept “dehumanizing” in this context
This has always been one of my favorite movies, and your deeper analysis has only served to further my love of it. Predator always struck me as a movie that was more than the sum of its parts for various reasons. While I was partially cognizant of some of the ideas you describe here, these weren't elements I took into full consideration before. Now that I've got them in mind, I think I may watch the movie this weekend through this new lens, see if I can pick up on the elements you discuss.
On a related note, it always struck me as interesting that of all the members of Dutch's team, Billy is the only one who's killed off screen. Younger me found that disappointing for the lack of spectacle, but nowadays I find it the most harrowing death. Billy was the one man who, from the moment he learned about the force stalking them, treated it with a sort of spiritual reverence. As you noted, his response to Ramirez's remark that he fears no man is to say that what they face isn't a man. Of all the members of Dutch's crew, Billy seems to be the one who best understands that they don't just face a living enemy in the Predator, but a force of destruction that has its sights specifically on them.
I think this makes it particularly fitting that he's the first of the team to try facing the Predator in a direct confrontation. He's the first to draw the knife. I think that Billy's choice to stay behind isn't simply an attempt to reclaim his manhood and honor through warrior strength, nor is it just a sacrifice to give Ramirez, Anna, and Dutch a little more time to escape with their lives. It's a spiritual battle given form, a man boldly facing down a demon with the knowledge that he is going to die. I think that's also why of everyone who was killed it's his scream that was the most agonized, and his body that was shown being desecrated for the trophy alongside Dutch's preparations. In a metaphorical sense, the Predator was making an example of him. I think that adds a little extra weight to the fact that it's specifically Billy's laugh the Predator uses at the end, too.
I totally agree. I would have expanded a bit on Billy (and the other characters) but my post was already getting a bit long. He seems to have an intuitive sense of what is happening long before he's consciously aware of it. This relates to his depiction as a tracker; he quickly gathers that something unnatural is taking place as the clues he uncovers don't match what any man or beast could do. Deduction leaves the only possible conclusion that something supernatural or paranormal is at work, something that can kill and mutilate six elite soldiers as well as his friends. That they are all going to die is the logical outcome he expects. There is only the choice of how to face it, a spiritual battle as you say.
As a side note, the ideology of diversity has metastasized into a full-blown cult in entertainment, but look how well-done it is here, narratively plausible and organic to the story. It makes sense for the characters to come from different backgrounds and for their identities to influence their development as they did. It's executed so well that it seldom even gets mentioned. The 80s were great at that.
The 80's did quite a lot right when it came to filmmaking, especially in sci-fi and horror. Predator, Aliens, and The Thing all do a fantastic job of providing casts of diverse characters from varied backgrounds with different personal beliefs in a manner that, just as you say, feels entirely plausible and organic. The characters in these stories feel like genuine people, and the films are better for it.
That said, this was also the same decade that gave us movies like Chopping Mall, Critters, and Ghoulies, so definitely not perfect. Certainly more fun than most movies today, though.
I love 80s action films and have always thought of them, especially but not only the many about Vietnam, as copes for America's post WWII military underperformance. The blame is indeed placed on the deep state managers, the insensate pencil necks/pushers ('They don't care about American boys GODDAMN IT; if they'd only let our boys fight the war their way we would have KICKED COMMIE ASS GOODDAMN IT'), but I've never recognised an *anti-managerialism* subtext.
What a dizzying take. It was a bit like being led through a maze by a deft sure-footed guide.
One thing that keeps occurring to me was that these movies (classic 80s action) were very much in the vein of an actual epic, where who the characters are is not defined through their psychology as much as it is painted in broad strokes of class and role and action. I would argue here that Dutch becomes more of a warrior rather than less. After his "rebirth" from the river he is far closer to the indigenous people whose jungles he casually invaded with his original mission; and so far closer to ancient men fighting monsters without superciliousness or arrogance.
This is one of my favorite films of all time. Thanks for illustrating why it is.
The pacing in this film is perfect, and the decelopment of the mystery of the Predator is flawless. If this film were made in the past 20 years, we'd expect an exposition dump in which some black female CIA scientist tells the team (all diverse femme-fatales) about how she knew about these aliens, and proceed to tell us every detail about them and what their purpose is.
Then of course we might get some socio-political history on the Predator race, and how they all had to evolve to be hunters because of toxic masculinity and capitalism or something.
Great take on a great movie. I am lousy at extracting tropes from films, unless they are glaringly obvious. Thank you. My take on the ending was two fold: to prove his manhood and the bigger picture - protect the world from the monster, (thereby proving his manhood....) and - maybe a bit of revenge for his dead friends?
I’ll add my voice to the praise being heaped on this essay. And I’ll note that the same general dynamic of being hunted by an inscrutable inhuman alien while being betrayed from within by an inscrutable inhuman institution is something that’s been written about a lot in the context of Ridley Scott’s Alien, where the xenomorph, the Company, as well as the android and the ship’s computer, all seem like manifestations of the same anti-humanist force. In that film it’s not warriors but blue collar labourers being killed. Something something deindustrialization and the PMC seizing power in the 1970s. Cameron tries to recapture some of this in the second film, but it’s a little too much in the surface.
EDIT: I’ll also add — and I’m sure this is not an original insight — that the film might as well have been called Illegal Alien, given its themes of foreign contagion. The working class protagonists are ordered by their corporate masters, through their HR manager (the ship’s computer, “Mother”, paging Nurse Ratched), to invite the foreign entity into their ship, into their very bodies. Corporate HQ wants to study it, not kill it. The blue collar joes know what this means for their own prospects for survival, but it takes them a while to realize just how expendable they are to their university-educated managers, who are so clinical and ruthless they seem like machines rather than men.
When young Sigourney Weaver strips down to her skivvies before realizing she’s stuck in the lifeboat with the slavering invader, we see the sexually predatory aspect of the film’s anxiety manifest. Of course she manages to deport the fucker; happy ending.
These post-Vietnam action films are big on the theme of elite betrayal of the soldier and worker protagonists, for obvious reasons. In Die Hard, it’s marriage, the family, and Christmas under attack by foreigners both European and Japanese, the FBI, and the deracinated and mercenary state of California. Missing In Action and Rambo make the Vietnam connection explicit. “Hunted by a low-life after being hung out to dry by the high and mighty” might be the common through-line.
I must admit I didn't expect a Predator deep-dive at the Library, but I'm very happy you wrote it. You've got a talent for finding metaphor in the most unusual places. One thing that came to mind is that to the managerial state, anything outside the state is alien, to be killed or brought under control. Illegible things are terrifying to the managerial technocracy. Rednecks surviving a hurricane in the deep south are completely inscrutable, invisible, and thus, dangerous.
To the longhouse schoolmarms we're the Predator.
Great movie, and a great essay. Thanks!
Very interesting review, and I suspect you're on to something. A lot of manly action movies of that period that were broadly dismissed as brainless jingoism actually have some pretty sophisticated themes and an anti-establishmentarian streak reflecting the technocratic failures of Vietnam and the Carter years. Appreciate the "Arena" clip also, quite possibly my favorite episode of the original series!
They're dismissed as jingoistic and brainless by the managerial state, which views such movies as threats to itself.
Solid analysis of an amazing action movie with memorable scenes & quotes. Especially interesting is the duality of Managerialism and the Predator, putting the cast between a rock and a hard place; both are nameless, faceless threats, except that one is order and the other is chaos.
Also, you said, "Men like Elon Musk dream of technology harnessed to managerial control but human meaning." this should read, "harnessed NOT to managerial control". Hope you don't mind my proofreading, just trying to help!
You are correct. Thank you. Fixed.
no prob, I usually don't point out typos, but when it significantly affects the meaning, it must be done!
Too funny, I have “Men like Elon Musk dream of technology harnessed to managerial control but human meaning.“ in my copy buffer to ask the librarian what that meant. You sussed it out.
If I were to analyze this movie through the filter of Nietzsche I would sum it up with his famous "Be careful when fighting monsters lest you become one" meaning, warriors with a code of honor who turn mercenaries become soulless, like the predator. And in a hero-morality tale, they must die horrific deaths to give the viewer a clear message: (which comes from Aurelius) "Just do the right thing, the rest doesn't matter. Cold or warm. Tired or well rested. Despised or honored." These were some of the last simple cut and dried morality films. When John Wayne died. A part of America died. Or American manhood. This was an excellent synopsis. Very entertaining and thought provoking. Now do Moby Dick with Gregory Peck. It is definitely packing in themes from the 1900a and not from 1800s when the story was written. But still, all the themes and stories are the same according to Campbell. Same hero. A thousand different faces.
This review is tons of fun. Stretch to compare it simply to neolib managerial types, though. You find the same in any bureaucracy. Modern or ancient.
Varrus comes to mind, losing those eagles. But he had skin in the game, just like Dillon did, and both led from the front. Just bureaucrats trying and failing to survive in an environment hostile to too much pencil pushing.
Varrus wasn't a bureaucrat. In his day those jobs were filled by men from a different and socially inferior caste. He was pursuing his aristocrat's calling on the cursus honorum, and, having failed, died rather than lived dishonored. It's a profoundly different ethos than that inculcated by Globohomo, which ignores even repeated failure to the degree it is offset by demonstrations of ostentatious conformity.
Senators were bureaucrats, too. They spent more time doing paperwork than anything else. Their ethos was to look like big men (and at least they had to prove it, unless they were Augustus) while being anything but.
Those old Patricians were pathetic pencil pushers compared to folks like Marius. Except Sulla, who was more beast than man.
“Varrus, where are my legions?!” Took me a minute to figure out that the eagles were the standards (synecdoche maybe?). I wonder how many readers “got” this.
Interesting, but far-fetched. I doubt very much that the movie's producers intended for it to be a commentary on anything other than how many ways they could kick up the action.
And while you hope for an end to liberalism, I hope you at some point change your mind, as the West is built on liberal ideals: individual freedoms, a small, limited government, property rights, and the free market. Leftism can die any day now, as far as I'm concerned, but liberalism is what underpins every good part of Western civilization, including "normal" masculinity.
I don't think you give the creative team behind this enough credit. The 80s were full of movies that were superficially over -the-top but reward deeper viewing (I wrote about Big Trouble in Little China on that score). But even without intending to, a work of art can tell us something about the times that produced it.
Milius directing Conan the Barbarian comes to mind also. There are countless layers underneath the basic revenge plot.
No, it's not that. It's that I'm a writer and have been long enough for readers to say, "Oh, I really like your take on this!," when I certainly didn't intend for them to interpret anything that way. So I almost always fall down on the side of, "I doubt they meant that," unless the author/writer/whatever explicitly states otherwise.
I do agree 100% on that latter statement, though (art and the times in which it was produced). If someone wants to know about a particular moment in history, for example, they should really seek out that time period's literature (among other things).
I'm going to try to read your thoughts on Big Trouble in Little China. I may disagree, but these sorts of analyses are always interesting.
frankly i fear for the kind of society that the kind who would write about predator would make - "warrior" shit is more aesthetic than anything, if you intellectualize it it gets really disgusting and disastrous very quickly. i mean we're talking about glamorizing conflict and harming others - not a great way to make up societies.
frankly i get the feeling that half of substack writers haven't accessed any decent literature in their lifetimes, hence their proclivity to think that people like jordan peterson are somehow transcendant, when in reality he mostly pontificates on shit he doesn't understand. and his audience is too ignorant / stupid to know the difference.
at best one could write some kind of lacanian "othering" to the movie, but how this author tries to intellectualize it - give me a freaking break
Frankly, you have no idea what you’re talking about.
Actually he does- see the response from librarian in his comments.
Whenever someone screams about how stupid other people are, I immediately know that person never engages deeply with anything, because that requires listening long enough to find out what others are actually offering. Jordan Peterson is case in point. You don’t have to worship the guy to know he has a lot to offer the thoughtful person. I’m quite sure I’d rather listen to him for bits of insight than someone who thinks it’s some kind of win to whine about him.
i didn't say anyone was stupid, simply inferred that they aren't read at all on the basics. I mentioned Jordan Peterson because he's infamous for doing this, inventing new terms on the fly and grouping a disparate variety of thinkers under one umbrella that are vary vary different. "postmodern neomarxists communists" etc., where many would be considered neoliberals today (foucault comes to mind here) and baudrillard would be considered post marxist, if anything.
the general point is that the essay writer is projecting / really reaching here, i doubt any of what he tries and intellectualize and "warrior-ize" is on purpose. and like i said if you really wanted to try and do such, doing a lacanian "othering" frame would be the way to do so, not put it under some rubric of "warrior" bullshit.
he'd be better off tracing the geneology of "warrior-hero" through the ages, particularly classical literature if that rubs him the right way, aka juxtapost this to the illiad's hero(achilles? not really but whatever), or the odyssey's frankly - there's more there to do this with, and that's not saying much.
(it appears I did say "stupid" in the first response(which wasn't above when i replied), but you get the idea - these people are so ignorant they actually think predators frames well like this - it doesn't, it's a reach, and you have issues if you are reaching this far is the general point which should be obvious)
there's a reason why there are "classics" and why many still read them. and compared to the predator - yeah, um - these juxtapositions just look ridiculous. but you wouldn't know this if your reading set was small.
Well maybe, but the frame didn’t seem overdone in the least to me. Especially for a movie. I don’t hear any specifics here so I’m still unenlightened about what’s wrong with the commentary.
my bigger point is that the author is stretching here, which is fine if that's their schtick - and that we don't really want a "warrior" society at all frankly.
as far as the ignorance stick, my point is that if you don' thave a good frame to compare juxtaposition pieces to then you will think the author is a genius.
Actually, I rather like the Predator movies, I don't think they glorify violence as much as nod to the reality (life is violence), and there's no "othering" here. At best, the aliens can be seen as an apex predator hunting a lesser apex predator, with a nod to human ingenuity, deviousness, and sheer grit; or possibly, "We are Predator; look how brutally awful we are." No othering necessary.
i like the predator movies too, but i don't like people pulling shit out of them that's not there to align with their politics, which is what I took the aforementioned as -
the predator is the "other" fyi, regardless of how you shake it. it's the basis of the movie.
You're missing the points across the board.
alien="other"
jesus christ this guy's substack really is the kingdom of the blind
(the idiot blocked me - go figure. always the last to have the last word)
the movie is based on othering - this would've been a far more relevant topic. you can disagree with that but i'd say that easily 3/4 of people would agree with me.
i'm talking to children here it seems. the essay was shit and ridiculous. (why) because it involved politics which weren't relevant to the actual movie. now you can talk about how unicorns are the gay intrusion into the hyper-real all you want of course (which is basically what the author did, except from the opposite perspective) but illustrations like this are just shit.
TWA all the way. The only "blind" person here is you, and you're doing it willfully.
Look, I agree that the guy took it too far; and I also agree that sometimes movies (books, etc.) can just be fun.
But he also made some good points. It was an interesting piece, thoughtful in many ways. I don't have to agree with anything to (like an adult) acknowledge that.
Why is violence bad to you?
doesn't pepe the frog mean fascist basically? jeez - a fascist is wondering why violence is bad. go figure
You still haven’t answered btw: why is violence bad to you?
I’m not a fascist!
fascism is too progressive and enlightenment oriented for my taste.
i have a policy of not responding to shit like this. if you don't understand why violence isn't a solution to problem solving then i can't help you -
It has been a solution for thousands of years and if you cannot justify to me why you think violence is inherently bad when it has time and time again proven itself capable of saving civilizations and preserving everything good and Holy in this world then that’s a you problem.
You may as well tell me that water is evil or storms or fire.
Explain to me why do you think violence is always a moral evil or resign yourself to the reality that you hold a baseless opinion.
This is a better write up than any professional critic could ever hope to achieve!
Regarding the bomb, I think the idea was to wipe away any traces of the tech so the humans don’t steal it and copy it, though I’m not sure they really intended it to be nuclear and give off radiation, I think they just wanted a very big explosion.
While I agree with your assessment overall, I don’t think think it’s masculine versus feminine really, but man Vs nature. The men were not emasculated by the predator, but rather they were reduced to a primitive state that rendered their technology useless. But of course if they can’t outgun the monster, they definitely cannot outfight it.
You were absolutely correct to point out that Dutch had to lure it into a trap. He couldn’t beat it in a fight with his technological weaponry nor a “fair fight” hand to hand, so he had to outsmart it. This is meant to evoke humanities reliance on our ingenuity to outsmart nature and not to beat it through brute strength.
The predator is sort of a “force of nature” that exists beyond the managerial state, waiting for anyone to step outside its sphere of influence and, as seen with the nuclear bomb, able to destroy it. You used the term “cosmic horror” and I think that is the same, the force of nature always ready and able to wipe us out….in its own time
I can see the argument that Predator is a force of nature save for one thing- the Predator has a code. He’s not there to consume, but to test his mettle against dangerous game. He attacks the strong rather than separating the weak from the herd. Nature kills to survive; it doesn’t take trophies. The narrative emphasis on his character as an alien I think was meant to support that the jungle was not the true home of either the team or the Predator.
Man that is a great point. You’re right. He’s like a higher form of life or something. Is a “cosmic horror” a form of intelligence? I seem to recall from Cthulhu that it in fact was
Shoot I also meant to point out that Billy’s last stand was Spenglers “we must hold the lost position without hope, without rescue.” I like that you brought up the Freudian aspects of the film, and if that’s there it’s the “nature is chaos which is feminine,” and I guess in that sense it’s “emasculating” but I personally prefer the term and concept “dehumanizing” in this context
This has always been one of my favorite movies, and your deeper analysis has only served to further my love of it. Predator always struck me as a movie that was more than the sum of its parts for various reasons. While I was partially cognizant of some of the ideas you describe here, these weren't elements I took into full consideration before. Now that I've got them in mind, I think I may watch the movie this weekend through this new lens, see if I can pick up on the elements you discuss.
On a related note, it always struck me as interesting that of all the members of Dutch's team, Billy is the only one who's killed off screen. Younger me found that disappointing for the lack of spectacle, but nowadays I find it the most harrowing death. Billy was the one man who, from the moment he learned about the force stalking them, treated it with a sort of spiritual reverence. As you noted, his response to Ramirez's remark that he fears no man is to say that what they face isn't a man. Of all the members of Dutch's crew, Billy seems to be the one who best understands that they don't just face a living enemy in the Predator, but a force of destruction that has its sights specifically on them.
I think this makes it particularly fitting that he's the first of the team to try facing the Predator in a direct confrontation. He's the first to draw the knife. I think that Billy's choice to stay behind isn't simply an attempt to reclaim his manhood and honor through warrior strength, nor is it just a sacrifice to give Ramirez, Anna, and Dutch a little more time to escape with their lives. It's a spiritual battle given form, a man boldly facing down a demon with the knowledge that he is going to die. I think that's also why of everyone who was killed it's his scream that was the most agonized, and his body that was shown being desecrated for the trophy alongside Dutch's preparations. In a metaphorical sense, the Predator was making an example of him. I think that adds a little extra weight to the fact that it's specifically Billy's laugh the Predator uses at the end, too.
I totally agree. I would have expanded a bit on Billy (and the other characters) but my post was already getting a bit long. He seems to have an intuitive sense of what is happening long before he's consciously aware of it. This relates to his depiction as a tracker; he quickly gathers that something unnatural is taking place as the clues he uncovers don't match what any man or beast could do. Deduction leaves the only possible conclusion that something supernatural or paranormal is at work, something that can kill and mutilate six elite soldiers as well as his friends. That they are all going to die is the logical outcome he expects. There is only the choice of how to face it, a spiritual battle as you say.
As a side note, the ideology of diversity has metastasized into a full-blown cult in entertainment, but look how well-done it is here, narratively plausible and organic to the story. It makes sense for the characters to come from different backgrounds and for their identities to influence their development as they did. It's executed so well that it seldom even gets mentioned. The 80s were great at that.
The 80's did quite a lot right when it came to filmmaking, especially in sci-fi and horror. Predator, Aliens, and The Thing all do a fantastic job of providing casts of diverse characters from varied backgrounds with different personal beliefs in a manner that, just as you say, feels entirely plausible and organic. The characters in these stories feel like genuine people, and the films are better for it.
That said, this was also the same decade that gave us movies like Chopping Mall, Critters, and Ghoulies, so definitely not perfect. Certainly more fun than most movies today, though.
YOU SON OF A BITCH
I love 80s action films and have always thought of them, especially but not only the many about Vietnam, as copes for America's post WWII military underperformance. The blame is indeed placed on the deep state managers, the insensate pencil necks/pushers ('They don't care about American boys GODDAMN IT; if they'd only let our boys fight the war their way we would have KICKED COMMIE ASS GOODDAMN IT'), but I've never recognised an *anti-managerialism* subtext.
I had Cinnamon Toast Crunch for the first time in years tonight. No soy milk, but I think your point is well taken, and I have some manning up to do.
Thanks for another great piece!
I'll tell you what they really fear and hate:
https://youtu.be/M-k_BW8iLkk?si=4ms_j5q0_TQ-bh-D
Superb analysis. I'd only say your comment on the soundtrack is missing the essential "chi-chichit-chi" between the "dadadadaDAHda" 🤣
What a dizzying take. It was a bit like being led through a maze by a deft sure-footed guide.
One thing that keeps occurring to me was that these movies (classic 80s action) were very much in the vein of an actual epic, where who the characters are is not defined through their psychology as much as it is painted in broad strokes of class and role and action. I would argue here that Dutch becomes more of a warrior rather than less. After his "rebirth" from the river he is far closer to the indigenous people whose jungles he casually invaded with his original mission; and so far closer to ancient men fighting monsters without superciliousness or arrogance.
This is one of my favorite films of all time. Thanks for illustrating why it is.
The pacing in this film is perfect, and the decelopment of the mystery of the Predator is flawless. If this film were made in the past 20 years, we'd expect an exposition dump in which some black female CIA scientist tells the team (all diverse femme-fatales) about how she knew about these aliens, and proceed to tell us every detail about them and what their purpose is.
Then of course we might get some socio-political history on the Predator race, and how they all had to evolve to be hunters because of toxic masculinity and capitalism or something.
Thank fuck the movie was made in 1987
Great take on a great movie. I am lousy at extracting tropes from films, unless they are glaringly obvious. Thank you. My take on the ending was two fold: to prove his manhood and the bigger picture - protect the world from the monster, (thereby proving his manhood....) and - maybe a bit of revenge for his dead friends?
I’ll add my voice to the praise being heaped on this essay. And I’ll note that the same general dynamic of being hunted by an inscrutable inhuman alien while being betrayed from within by an inscrutable inhuman institution is something that’s been written about a lot in the context of Ridley Scott’s Alien, where the xenomorph, the Company, as well as the android and the ship’s computer, all seem like manifestations of the same anti-humanist force. In that film it’s not warriors but blue collar labourers being killed. Something something deindustrialization and the PMC seizing power in the 1970s. Cameron tries to recapture some of this in the second film, but it’s a little too much in the surface.
EDIT: I’ll also add — and I’m sure this is not an original insight — that the film might as well have been called Illegal Alien, given its themes of foreign contagion. The working class protagonists are ordered by their corporate masters, through their HR manager (the ship’s computer, “Mother”, paging Nurse Ratched), to invite the foreign entity into their ship, into their very bodies. Corporate HQ wants to study it, not kill it. The blue collar joes know what this means for their own prospects for survival, but it takes them a while to realize just how expendable they are to their university-educated managers, who are so clinical and ruthless they seem like machines rather than men.
When young Sigourney Weaver strips down to her skivvies before realizing she’s stuck in the lifeboat with the slavering invader, we see the sexually predatory aspect of the film’s anxiety manifest. Of course she manages to deport the fucker; happy ending.
These post-Vietnam action films are big on the theme of elite betrayal of the soldier and worker protagonists, for obvious reasons. In Die Hard, it’s marriage, the family, and Christmas under attack by foreigners both European and Japanese, the FBI, and the deracinated and mercenary state of California. Missing In Action and Rambo make the Vietnam connection explicit. “Hunted by a low-life after being hung out to dry by the high and mighty” might be the common through-line.