Making sense of the predator series isn’t that easy because there are a lot of contradictions and problems related to the temporal continuity of the films. A lot of these problems come from the fact that, at a certain point, the Predator films were merged (kind of) with the Alien films. Since the first point of contact between humans and "aliens" takes place in the distant future and the first contact between humans and predators takes place in the present (well the 1980s), any attempt to understand how exactly the timeline works is going to be a waste of time.
I'm sure that there was some attempt to explain these matters in Alien vs. Predator and Aliens vs. Predators, but I don't remember what the explanation was exactly. Still, it's worth saying something about Predator (and Alien) because beneath the sprawling parasol of these two series are some of the best and worst movies ever made.
Timeline:
1979 – Alien. Pauline Kael wrote a beautiful review about this film and explained that what makes it so scare is the amount of time spent by the director simply letting the audience get to know the dimensions of the space ship that the lead characters are on. The advantage of this is that it gets the audience into the claustrophobic gloom of the ship and allows us to begin to see the psychological cracks between the characters before the real horror begins. This way, then it all does begin, we truly have a sense of how trapped these people are.
The other good thing is that the horror builds up very slowly and because the species is so incredibly unfamiliar (yet really cool in its conception) we have no idea as viewers exactly what it is that is going on. The alien just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
As a side note, this is the first movie I ever watched on video…but that's a story for another time (although it's a great story).
1986 – Aliens. The first movie, was all about psychological horror. I mean, ok there was a giant alien eating people, but the best part was watching the crew's terror make them unravel. The second Alien movie (this time directed by James Cameron as opposed to Ridley Scott), as more of an exercise in kicking ass—Sigourney Weaver fights an alien while wearing a robotic forklift machine. It's an awesome movie, though.
1987 – Predator. Meanwhile, in a completely unrelated part of Hollywood, an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie called Predator comes out. This movie also has Carl Weathers and Jesse Ventura in it. Predator was different from Alien in that Alien has really good actors playing the parts (especially the first one) and Predator had really bad actors. Despite this, however, Predator is still one of the best movies ever made. Part of the reason for this is that Arnold Schwarzenegger is the best bad actor who ever lived.
Here's how this works. You would think that having a guy who delivers all his lines in a complete monotone with a heavy Austrian accent would be problematic, but the thing is that one always gets the sense when watching a Schwarzenegger movie that he knows just how bad he is and he's winking off to the side and saying to his audience: "I know I suck, but isn't this fun?". By bringing us in on the joke we can never really hate Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Compare Schwarzenegger to his contemporary Jean-Claude Van Damme. Van Damme also speaks in a monotone with a heavy accent, but it always seems like Van Damme is actually trying to act and the fact is he can't. He sucks. He can do the splits really well, but there are all these heavy dramatic parts in his films and he always makes them completely wooden and awful and painful. Schwarzenegger, though, doesn't even ever try to be dramatic (except maybe in Conan, but that movie is so masterful that I can't even speak of it). Schwarzenegger doesn't give a fuck if he is convincing or not.
Luckily there is little drama in Predator so it's not an issue.
1990 – Predator 2. This movie has Danny Glover, Gary Busey, Bill Paxton (who was also in Aliens) and also Ruben Blades (who is now the minister of tourism for Panama). It is complete garbage in a lot of ways…but I still watched the whole thing. It could be because I used to think Maria Conchita Alonzo was hot. She was in a Schwarzenegger film, too, I think, but I can't remember which one. Oh, it was the Running Man.
1992 – Aliens 3. This one takes place in a prison. It's real bad. This is where the series basically went off the rails. This is pretty much what always happens with the 3rd film in any series. See: Return of the Jedi: crap. Terminator 3: crap. Star Trek 3: crap. Sometimes they pull it out of the fire for the 4th film and sometimes they don't.
1997 – Alien Resurrection. It was better than Alien 3.
Now, while all this was happening, there was a ground swell in comics, toys and probably just in general on the internet/usenet to determine who would win in an epic showdown between aliens and predators.
This conversation came alongside other famous debates, like for example who would win in a battle between Star Wars technology and Star Trek technology. Both sides have good points here, but personally I'm voting for Star Trek for reasons that, again, I'm not going to mention here, because it would just take too long.
So who would win? Batman seems to be able to defeat both Aliens and Predators, but the rest of the questions needed to be answered in:
2004: Alien vs. Predator. Here's where the backstory of each film series gets a little fucked up. Predators have been visiting Earth for a long long time and keeping a big temple full of aliens frozen under the Antarctic all that time. Or was that the second movie?
2007 – Alien vs. Predator. Oh no, ok this is the one with the alien/ predator hybrid. Really dumb.
2010 – Predators. How did Adrian Brody get into this? Anyhow, I watched this film with a lot of trepidation cause I thought, you know, it's a triquel and also what could they possibly have left to say. The movie also had Laurence Fishburn and some guy who seemed familiar but I have no idea who he was. He kinda looked like a tall Fred Savage. In the end, though, it was pretty cool. Not as good as anything else ever made, but not bad.
What Predators brings back (that the original did so well ) is the tale of journey into the woods as a trope; along with all the accompanying terrors that accompany it. The forest is just was terrifying and wondrous now as it was for our ancestors and it is just as filled now with unfamiliar dangers as it was then (although there's a lot less forest now, unfortunately). Part of the reason that so many films, novels, stories and whatever you like have been able to exploit this thing about the woods is that anyone who has ever been in a stand of trees can relate. The moment you fund yourself completely surrounded on all sides by trunks and branches it's a whole new set of rules that you play by. You don't know if you are being seen and you don't know what else might be out there. At the same time, a forest is the best place you can hide, or move great distances without being detected. Forests can sustain you, too, if you know how to exploit their resources, or they can kill you, rapidly, if you don’t know how to exploit their resources ...or you are a dumbass.
Look at this image of a bear:
Now tremble.
I was trying to explain to Laura all about this Alien/ Predator crossover thing, but since she's never seen a single one of these movies and also seems to hate action movies and movies full of people blowing up monsters and aliens with high ordinance weapons she wasn't terrible moved by my explanation. Go figure.
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