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Aug. 14, 2022 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
45:04
Prey is Everything Wrong with Modern Movies
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Time Text
I believe I'm live, but I'm just going to make sure that everything's working in the background before anything happens, and I boomer the whole thing.
Okay, it seems it's working.
How's it going, everyone?
Hope you're very well.
I've got a controversial take because I've just watched Prey, the latest film in the Predator franchise.
Now, just as a quick backstory, I've enjoyed the Predator films for many decades.
I used to collect the Alien vs. Predator comics, in which there was an entire Predator storyline.
And then there was an Alien Storyline, a Predator storyline, the Alien vs. Predator storyline.
I had that from issue one onwards.
So I'm something of a veteran when it comes to this.
I obviously really used to love the Alien vs. Predator game that came out like it must have been 1999, something like that.
Fucking hell, I sunk a lot of hours into that game.
And it was good fun.
The multiplayer was just the best.
And so we're going to be talking about this Prey film because didn't like it.
Everyone's like, oh, no, see, it's pretty good.
It's better than I expecting.
Better than I was expecting.
Like, Angry Joe was like, oh, yeah, I've got some good things to say, shockingly.
And you can see the poor lads at the Red Letter Media are just like, oh, God, just fucking kill us.
I haven't had the time to watch Red Letter Media for a while, right?
And so I thought, oh, I'll get to see what their take is on it.
And you can see they are just sick of movies.
are just fucking sick of movies and like Jay and Mike's face is just they're just tired man They're just tired.
And I don't blame them because movies these days fucking suck.
But nobody can put their finger on exactly why.
And then one comes along like Prey that is okay.
It's okay.
And everyone's like, guys, guys, guys, this one was alright.
It's like, fucking hell, look at our lifestyles.
We used to have good movies, man.
People used to actually enjoy going to the Simma.
You used to look forward to going to the Simber.
Like, I watched the most recent Jurassic World film.
And it was such a catastrophic pile of shit that I was just, I'm not even going to bother talking about it.
It's not even worth explaining why this is a giant catastrophic pile of shit.
But Prey is not a giant catastrophic pile of shit, but it is the best you will ever get.
Ah, suddenly you're, what, what, what?
What do you mean?
This is the best fucking film Hollywood can produce at the moment.
I'm not joking.
It is the best you will ever see from here on going out.
There are no more masterpieces coming.
You understand that, right?
Films in the West are over.
So get used to having your memories repackaged in a shittier package and sold back to you with the promise that this is going to be good.
A new starry eyed, maybe this will be the masterpiece film that used to be made like in the 20th century.
No, there are no more masterpieces coming.
This is the best you can get.
It's over.
It is over.
Filmmaking in the West is over.
And I'll explain why in pedantic detail.
But before we do, can I brag about my Warhammer minis?
Can I do that?
Am I allowed to do that?
Because if there's one thing that's getting better, it's my painting.
I don't know why I feel the need to shill by what I'm a painting, but I spent so many fucking hours on this that I'm going to, right?
And the thing is, I was talking to Adam Friended, and Adam Friend was like, look, you've got, like, you know, nice lights.
You've got good camera.
Why don't you like stop taking shit photos of them and actually take some good photos?
And I was like, what difference is that going to make, Adam?
Oh, my fucking look.
It made all the difference, right?
Look at the quality of this photo.
It just doesn't, like, doesn't this just look amazing?
I'm not saying it because I painted it.
I'm just like, holy shit, the camera is everything, man.
The camera is everything.
It wins everything for you.
It makes everything look exactly as it's supposed to look.
If you get, like, diffused lights and a good camera.
And this was just taken on a mobile phone.
This is a mobile phone camera.
So I'm like, fucking hell.
I'm actually like, wow, I'm really proud of that, right?
Then you got like this, one of the scarab Terminator aspiring sorcerers.
Again, just like, fucking hell, man.
It's the way the light softens everything.
It blends everything.
And it makes the metal shine at the right angles and stuff.
Just the whole thing.
The whole thing looks great, right?
And so you can just put them all out.
And they're like, holy crap.
Like, I'm sorry, I'm not trying to brag, but like, I've never seen my painting look.
It doesn't look this good in my own eyes.
So I'm just telling you, right?
Cameras are deceptive.
I'm sure these don't look this good when you're holding them.
I'm sure they don't, right?
And so I took some photos in the same lighting of like stuff I painted for Pete.
Like this is obliterated.
I was like, okay, that's not bad.
But man, my captain in Terminator Armo, I'm just chuffed.
Like, he is just the shit.
I'm really proud of him.
I don't know why I've got to go on the internet and brag.
Hey, guys, look at something I paid, but I just have to.
I spent a lot of time on this shit.
I'm really pleased how it came out.
Just saying.
Anyway, let's get into it.
Let's get into it.
Let's get into how they massacred my boy.
Right.
So, there's a lot to talk about.
And let's get the surface level things out of the way that everyone is saying already, right?
It was not an unwatchable film.
By any stretch of the imagination, in any way, shape, or form.
In fact, at no point did I feel that this film was bloated or boring or just not trying to tell me a story.
At no point was I disappointed with the viewing experience, right?
So this, again, turn off your brain, popcorn movie, perfectly good.
And if that's what you're looking for, I assume you're not like running a film critic channel.
But if you are, fine, you know, okay, whatever.
And if that's what you're looking for, fair enough, good for you.
Perfectly good film experience.
You can enjoy it.
No problem.
But for those people who are concerned about what's under the surface, well, let's have a look at what's under the surface, right?
I mean, just I don't.
I'm just profoundly disappointed with this predator.
I'm sorry.
I just.
Why doesn't his mask cover his whole face?
Why does it look like his mask was made from the dead body of something?
Like, you know, the predator isn't actually a savage, right?
Like, is this bone thing here?
Like, he looks like he shouldn't be using metal tools, right?
Like, the predators had a sophisticated civilization.
They just had a very different moral value system to human beings.
And their value system was based around getting incredibly impressive kills to impress their massive gargantuan women.
Because predator women are massive for some reason.
And the predator men have to prove themselves in order to get laid.
It's like, right, okay, that's fine.
That makes perfectly good sense.
They are a sophisticated space-faring race.
The fuck am I looking at?
I mean, okay, whatever.
Just, it doesn't even matter.
It's just not important in any way, shape, or form.
It just looks shit.
I mean, the predator himself is ugly, but that's fine because that's the point of predators, right?
I mean, they're meant to be ugly.
And I don't mind them.
I realize there's a person in the mask, by the way.
I mean, I don't know who it is.
I just found this funny.
Predator in a suit amuses me.
But it just, okay, fine.
You know, they look different.
Okay, that's fine.
It's the things he's wearing.
And this.
Oh, I'm not even getting into the stupidity of how he acts.
But then it's the actors, right?
And now this is, I think, really the problem.
And I talked about this in a breakdown of the latest Matrix movie that I did on LedSeas.com.
Again, the inauthenticity of everything.
Everything is unauthentic.
It is synthetic.
It is something that has been made by a focus group.
What does the predator have, bro?
Oh, he's got the claws.
Oh, he's a savage hunter.
Oh, we should make him look like a savage hunter, right?
In fact, Games Workshop suffers from much of this problem, which is the hollowing out of the essential moral nature, the values of the thing that they are trying to reproduce.
And so they are stuck merely with the aesthetic coating, the gloss on top of what made the thing what it was.
And so, the great example of this, there's a meme going around at the moment of the space wolves.
They've got wolf helmets now, you see.
It's like, fucking why?
Why would they do that?
Well, they're space wolves, aren't they, bro?
It's like, okay, right, I realize that in Games Workshop, like, and again, in the Predator franchise, the people who made these things have probably died of old age, right?
And so the new generation have come in.
But the new generation do not understand the generative engine, the beating heart of the property that they've taken over.
And instead of putting any amount of time or thought into it, they've just looked at the surface-level cosmetics of the thing.
And they're like, right, okay, the predator has to look like a savage.
No, he has to look like a fucking alien, a sophisticated space-faring alien.
He does not have to look like a fucking savage.
And again, like, this is with everything, like, like in the latest chaos manual for 40k, it's like, oh, they've got plus two damage or something on flamer weapons.
Like, why?
Oh, let the galaxy burn.
It's like, no, that's a metaphor, right?
Space wolves is a metaphor.
Like, the predator being like a savage hunter is, again, a metaphor.
It doesn't mean he has to look like a fucking savage.
They don't have to have bonuses to flame weapons for no reason.
They don't have to wear wolf helmets, right?
It's a metaphor for a spiritual condition about the thing, you materialist cunts, right?
You don't understand what you're fucking doing because you are fundamentally retarded.
Because you have been, you are a product of modernity and your brains are far too small to understand the box in which you're trapped.
And this is what Lana Wachowski did us all a great favor explaining.
So look, we are in these fucking glass-steel monstrous prisons where we are treated like pets and we are given everything we could possibly need.
We've got all the exercise we want, all the sleep we want, all the food we want.
We have no fucking stimulation.
We are totally taken care of.
And all of the stimulation comes through the black fucking screen in our hands.
That's our world.
That's it.
Right?
We don't do anything.
And so what do we have to do?
We've got to theorize from a focus group.
We've got to sit there.
Oh, right, okay.
We need to extract a theory of predators.
No.
What you need to do, if you want to learn how to write a predator film, right?
There was something that used to be done called method acting, right?
Where the actors would go and do the thing, and that would teach them something about the thing.
As in, you would, like, I mean, for this, I guess you'd go and live in the woods for a week and get all of your food from hunting and trapping, right?
Now you know what a Comanche Indian lives like.
You know what it's like to be in some small way.
You're not just abstractly talking about the thing and thinking that this means something because it doesn't.
Your theories do not necessarily represent reality, right?
And so this is the main star.
What's her name?
Thunder.
I can't remember her name now.
I can't believe it's not on the screen for me to.
Amber mid-thunder, right?
I say, hey, she's part of the Sioux tribe.
It's like, yep, she probably is.
But the thing is, right, I went and looked her up.
Okay, well, let's find out.
Well, her mum runs a casting firm in Santa Fe.
When she was a toddler, she sat in her mother's office after school.
Right, so she wasn't out trapping and hunting.
Okay, that's fine.
I don't expect her to be.
But this shows us the kind of human beings to which they have access when they're making their films.
This is a person who's grown up in California.
She's been very safe.
She's been very well treated.
She is in the glass steel prison that is treating her like a pet.
She is in no danger in most situations.
And so she, and she obviously, you know, is part of this.
She's grown up in this.
And so, and I don't mean to sound like rude or anything, right?
She's 25.
I wouldn't have known she wasn't 12.
Right?
She is so neotonous.
She is so youthful looking.
I was shocked to find that she was actually a fucking adult, right?
Now, that's not her fault or anything, but there's just something, piss off Frank Shek.
There's just something about the face of someone and the hands of someone, the muscle tone in someone's arms of someone who has grown up in an upper middle class modern life that means they are just not like humans in previous eras, right?
This is a very 21st century problem, right?
Because at least, if you go back 50 years, Clint Eastwood, for example, right, when he's like, you know, a man with no name, he must have been in his mid-20s when he first did that, but he looked like he had a bit of life experience, right?
He looked like he'd been punched in the face once or twice, right?
He might have been bullied at school.
He might have had to, I don't know, gone runs, or I don't know, something, you know, some sort of like gritty experience where he had at least not had everything his way all the time, right?
But I'm sorry, this person's skin is flawless.
Like, I'm sorry that she's chubby in the face.
I'm sorry.
Like, she's obviously well-fed.
Like, this is just it.
There's some lack of verisimilitude to this.
I just can't buy that that's the case.
And it's not that there's anything.
I don't even know what can be done about this, right?
But, like, it's all the whole way through.
Like, look, there's no muscle tone in any of these people.
It's like, sorry, if you spent your entire life in the wilderness, like, you know, trapping, hunting, whatever, as a Comanche Indian.
Do you think?
I mean, I can't imagine.
Like, Comanche Indians, I couldn't actually find a photo of them without a shirt on.
So they wore shirts, by the way.
But, like, I can't imagine that they were just like, again, untoned.
Like, they'd never really done any long-term physical exertion.
And, I mean, this.
This, I'm pointing out, you might think, okay, this is really shallow.
This is really like, oh, you're just being a pedant.
It's like, maybe, maybe, maybe.
But it all speaks to the authenticity of the experience.
It's the reason why films in the past were great and films now are not great.
Because there's this bizarre, absolutely bizarre way, modern way of speaking.
Again, the filmmakers do not understand that they are doing when they fucking do it, right?
It is in this, the French, the French of all people, right?
The French rationalist Enlightenment explorers.
That's the time period we're talking about, 1717 or something like that, 1711.
That call the predator a demon.
These people believe in demons.
At no point do they talk about the predator as if it's a mythological entity, as if it's a spirit.
Like, Native Americans think everything in the forest is a spirit.
Like, everything is like some sort of, you know, spirit of the forest, mythical woods.
And I'm not trying to sound condescending.
There's nothing wrong with viewing things in this way.
Because that is just a method of understanding a thing's interaction.
But these people are not for some reason superstitious about this invisible monster that's stalking around the woods with like what I can only assume from their perspective would have looked like magic.
But instead, oh, no, no, this is technology, right?
This is technology that she's...
Oh, I'm going to figure this out.
Okay.
I mean, honestly, I thought it begged belief that she was so easily taught how to use the gun, right?
I was watching it.
I'm like, okay, I don't know how to fucking.
I wouldn't know how to load this.
But I mean, the French guy explained it to her once.
Fine.
Maybe, maybe.
But this is avian technology.
What the fuck are you doing?
Oh, now she's going to use it.
Like, she knows how it works.
Like, and I mean, in the end, where she gets the predator to shoot himself in the head using his arms.
Like, what?
Are you serious?
Like, there's this problem of anachronistically.
And this is something that Rousseau does a good job of explaining, and Nietzsche as well.
Like, there is a way that moderns think, and we project it back onto people of the past, and they simply did not think this way.
You know, she is approaching things with a very almost scientific method, right?
That's just not the way that Comanche Indians would have approached the world with.
It's not they were irrational or something like that.
It's just they simply had a different fucking paradigm by which they approach things.
And so hearing them speak in modern contractions and things like this, it was just again.
The whole thing is just very much, it films like a bunch of drama students playing dress up and just with a really good budget, just with a lot of effort put into it.
To me, I just felt drama students.
That was the whole thing.
And again, the way they look.
Sorry.
Oh, sorry.
Oh, right.
Okay, that's an 18th century Comanche woman.
Is it?
Right.
Okay, gotcha.
Because, I mean, this is what they actually look like.
Like, there are photos of these people.
And oh, look at that.
They look fucking deathly serious, don't they?
They look just texturally different to this woman.
I mean, I don't know how to describe it.
If you can't see what I'm seeing, like, there's a seriousness about these people.
There's a weight, a gravity.
These people are bearers of civilization.
Like, there's something more going on behind the eyes.
And again, it's just...
I don't know how old this woman's meant to be, right?
But like, again, I just can't.
I just can't bear to see.
Like, she's 25.
And you wouldn't believe it, right?
Because like, this is what living in a difficult world does to you, right?
You may not know the Afghan girl, right?
This was taken in, like, 1982 or something like this, 1984.
This photo on the left, where it's this 12-year-old Afghan girl.
And man, look, that's an intense stare for a 12-year-old, right?
Intense stare for a 12-year-old.
Do you not notice that there's something different about the face, right?
There's something that, like, she's she can't muster the expression that this girl can muster.
She has not had the life experience necessary to be able to give you an intense can I open this image a bit more.
See, an intense stare like this.
Like, holy fucking shit, man.
Like, these are just different worlds.
different worlds and it's just and this right this picture on the right she's 30 yeah Right?
30 years old.
You wouldn't have guessed it.
Five years older than her.
Fucking hell, man.
Like, life changes you, right?
When you actually are exposed to problems and dangers and difficulties and suffering.
When you're not, when you're raised in Santa Fe, part of the Hollywood machine, and you spend all of your day in an air-conditioned office after going to school, and again, no slight to the actress.
It's not her fault.
She was not responsible for the way she was raised or anything like that.
And I'm sure she was raised perfectly well.
I'm sure she's a perfect, and she was a good actress, isn't it?
But there's just something about the texture of the thing that I can't stop seeing.
I can't get away from this.
This is the lack of authenticity is because the people who are making these films aren't really authentic to what they're trying to represent.
They don't really know the life struggles of people who end up with this kind of expression, right?
So, moving on from that.
And again, like, these guys just felt like Californians, like, when I was watching them.
They don't speak like Native Americans.
Going back to the sort of like, you know, imposing modern modernity on something, an 18th century Indian tribe.
They didn't speak like Native Americans.
Like, the Native Americans, they would say different things in different ways.
Again, it just felt like drama students wearing Native American costumes and pretending.
Like, it just didn't feel right.
And, oh, God, I hated the motivation of this woman.
Oh, God.
I'm sorry, Red Lottamedia.
I'm sorry, but this is insufferable girl boss bullshit.
And I just can't take it, right?
And I'm sorry to, oh, I know you're like, I don't want to talk about culture.
It's like, yeah, well, me either, but this is what they're doing to you, right?
They're doing this to you with this film, which is why.
What's your motivation for wanting to be a warrior?
Well, glory.
I don't know.
Like, success.
I've just got a burning desire to conquer things.
Right?
These are all legitimate things to say.
Not, you told me I couldn't do it.
Listen, right?
I also don't think you can shove a massive watermelon up your ass.
I just don't think you do.
What's it?
What are you going to do?
That's a bullshit motivation.
It's such a bullshit motivation, right?
And it's so petty and small-minded.
I have a little chip on my shoulder.
I've got a chip on it.
You tell me I can't do something.
Okay, great.
Great.
Now you've got to go on, then go and prove.
Because the problem with this is that it shows that they don't actually think about something themselves.
They are not self-motivated people.
They are merely reactive people.
They are not leaders.
They are followers.
They are the slaves of other people's opinions, right?
That's not what a hero is.
A hero is doing something in spite of what people think.
Not because of it.
Doesn't matter if, like, a bunch of people, like, oh, you know, this, I don't know, whoever it is, wants to be a revolutionary, and then everyone's like, oh, that's a bad idea.
You get killed.
It's like, look, I've got to do this.
I think it's the right thing to do.
Right?
That's what she should have been saying.
Why do you want to be worried?
So, look, I just feel it in my veins.
It's just in my blood.
It's in my soul.
I can see how it should be done.
And I feel a calling to it.
Something like that would have been, you said I couldn't do it.
Oh, fucking cry about it, missus.
All right.
It's pathetic.
And then at the end, where there's like this little girl tribeswoman, who's come back, she's the only person that comes back, obviously.
And she's just looking up and it's like, what?
What?
You're all going to do this now, are you?
Oh, you're all going to do this, right?
Who's going to raise the children of your tribe?
Oh, no one.
Brilliant.
Good, good thinking.
I'm sure this tribe's going to last a long time.
But I mean, okay, and when no one's telling you that you can't do this, well, then you're not going to be doing it for the fun.
You're not going to do it because you feel like you should.
Like, and that's the thing.
When you've won, at the end of it, you're okay.
You're now the warrior chief of the tribe.
What now, warrior chief?
Oh, I don't know.
I didn't really want to do this.
I only did it because I have a chip on my shoulder and you said I couldn't do it.
So what now?
You're in charge.
Oh, fuck's sake.
I didn't want to be in charge.
No, you didn't.
But this is the course you chose for yourself because you've got a chip on your shoulder.
So what now?
Again, it's just obvious feminist messaging.
I'm just so tired of it.
Again, it speaks to the inauthenticity of the character.
Like, if the character, like, it didn't have to be a girl, right?
It could have been a weedy guy, or it could have been, you know, like in a different scenario, a nerdy guy, or something like that.
Or just someone with a disability or something like that, right?
It doesn't have to be to show everyone else, again, making you subservient, pathetic, contemptible, right?
It could have been for yourself.
It could have been, I don't know if I can do it.
I think I should.
I think I need to prove this to myself so I can be sure I have what it takes.
This is a test of my mettle.
It's not to show you.
That's again, such a pathetic, pathetic, contemptible way of framing anything.
I just.
And everyone's just like, well, you know, that's just the way.
No, it's fucking shit.
It's absolute shit.
Like, if you don't understand how that is the core of that, that is a description of all of feminism.
Well, we want it just because you said we couldn't have it.
Okay, now you've got it.
What do you want to do with it?
Meow, I can't find a husband.
Well, you decided that men don't get to do the things that men used to do, that women used to like them doing.
Now you're the one earning six figures.
You're the husband.
Where's your wife?
Oh, I can't find one because I don't know what the fuck I'm supposed to be doing here.
Essentially, I've been just upended the entire system to take myself completely out of the prescribed, like by nature, structure that I would have fallen and gone and through.
And now I'm in a new world and I don't know what's going on.
And I don't know what my obligations are to other people.
And I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing.
But fuck it.
Feminism.
Honestly, I just.
It's pathetic.
It is fucking pathetic.
It's the worst motivation for any character.
You know, it's again, it just screams of privilege, right?
For, like, and this is the whole thing, the thing I found about this whole thing, right?
This, this woman, like, playing it, the character, like, came across like she had been fucking landed in this tribe by aliens, right?
That she had no responsibilities, right?
If this character is 25, well, let's say she's 18 or something like that, right?
Where's her husband?
Where are her children?
None of the braves have got wives, as far as we can tell.
But you see that, you know, like the people in the tribe, they're all basically wearing the same sort of clothes.
And at one point, you see her, like, they're all walking one way, she's walking the other.
Oh, very, very symbolic, right?
But that's the point.
No one in a tribe ends up with no responsibilities or obligations to anyone else, right?
It just doesn't happen.
But she is acting like she is some fucking Zoomer in California where it's just like, right, okay, you're free to get on and do whatever you want.
You know, no one's going to ask anything of you.
No one's going to expect anything of you.
Oh, you just go and be a warrior.
I mean, you know, like, you have things to do.
Like, she, like, like, this character in the film had just got out of medic, you know, Comanche Medic University, and now I don't know what I'm going to do in my life.
I guess I'll get a job being a warrior because you told me I can't.
It's so fucking stupid.
Like, the other characters in it feel like they're part of a cohesive civilization, right?
They feel like part of the society.
They have things to do, and they have, like, you know, they're doing those things when you see them.
It's like, there we go.
Things have to be done, and you are the people to do them.
It's like, yeah, well, I want to be a boy.
I want to do the boy thing.
It's like, all right, but you actually would have already had a bunch of obligations that now no one's going to do.
Because you're just going to not pull your weight.
Right, okay, don't worry about it, though.
Don't worry about it.
Someone else will tell.
I'm sure.
Pisses me off, man.
And so this is what I mean when, like, everything about this is surface level at best, right?
And don't get me wrong.
Like, the packaging of the story is okay.
You know, it's well made.
And it is much to their credit.
They minimize the use of CGI.
Like, you know, we can go through the story in a minute.
And, like, because obviously there are stupid decisions in the story, but it's not terrible.
But I feel that everyone's expectations are just so low that, like, you know, all of these things are just, well, I mean, I see what they're saying.
At least there's a coherent narrative structure, even if it actually doesn't make much sense if you think about it.
But there is a coherent narrative here.
And thank God, I'm just so glad to have a coherent narrative that I will just accept this as being something decent, even when this is clearly bullshit, right?
So let's just go through the plot, as it were, right?
So what I find interesting is she, at the beginning, is like, oh, I'm going to be a warrior because everyone said I can't.
It's like, yeah, but you actually kind of suck.
Like, she never hits anything in the beginning.
And it takes her ages.
But okay, fine.
Okay, whatever.
Whatever, whatever.
She's not Mary Sue.
You know, she has to work for a bit.
Good.
Good for her, right?
The only thing I actually liked here was the Thunderbird.
Like, I saw people complain about that, but that's actually a part of Native American mythology.
And that's a lens through which this sort of phenomena would be interpreted.
So I actually did like that.
And it annoys me that they kind of, that was the one dip into like being a Native American that they took, right?
The Predator decides he has to go around beating up rattlesnakes and wolves.
Why?
Which is stupid.
But, you know, they have to go fight a mountain lion.
Okay, fine.
That's fine.
And the brother kills the lion and cares about it.
Okay, fine, whatever.
Don't care about any of that.
Then they come across the skin bison, which, okay, the French did this, as you find out later.
Spoilers, by the way.
Okay, fine, whatever.
But then she's attacked by a grizzly bat and it's like, why?
Like, the grizzly bear has got this fresh deer kill.
It's like a big fucking carcass.
It's eating.
It's like, I smelled human girl.
I must spend the next 20 minutes chasing her down and trying to murder her.
I don't think a bear would bother.
I really don't think a bear is going to bother running up a mountain to try and kill this girl.
If it's got, like, literally a, you know, 300 pounds worth of meat in front of it, I think it'd probably just eat that.
But then you get the fight with the predator and the bear.
And holy fuck.
Okay, look.
Bears are insanely strong.
Insanely strong.
And the predator seems to nearly lose to the bear, frankly.
You know, the bear at one point has got the predator down.
And, you know, the bear is beasting it.
And eventually the predator kills it.
And it's like, okay, well, that's cool.
But the whole time she's just like sat there watching.
It's like, okay, well, fine.
Not exactly how to describe it.
Not exactly someone who's taking the initiative, right?
But that's fine.
Not a problem.
She flees.
She gets away.
That's fine.
Now, at this point, I'm wondering why the Predator takes any interest in her whatsoever.
She's got no skills.
She's not like an alpha predator.
Like, in the previous Predator films, like, well, at least one and two, it made sense why the Predator was going after the targets it picked.
Right?
It made sense that the Predator wanted to kill Dutch and his men.
It made sense that the Predator wanted to kill, was it Harrigan?
Sorry, I'm going to have to blow my nose because it's snotty.
I can't remember Danny Glover's character's name.
But these are the cops.
These are the ones who are defeating other people.
They are warriors in their own right.
And so the Predator's like, right, I'm going to take those out.
And they are obviously killing lone wolves and things in this one.
Why her?
She doesn't defeat anything.
Like, she gets knocked by the cat.
The lion.
She gets captured by the French.
Like, she's not any kind of top dog warrior.
Why would the predator care about her at all?
You know, and so, okay, fine.
But anyway, she gets captured by the French.
And I have to say, I found the French highly amusing.
I was just like, yep, that's your average Frenchman right there.
But I don't care.
Like, at least some people looked rough.
You know, French trappers out on the frontier.
At least they looked rough and ragged.
But, right, so.
Yeah, they take her captive.
They're tied to a tree.
She had weakened the cougar, enabling him to kill it.
The creature kills most of the French...
Oh yeah, that's...
Yeah, right.
So, like, okay, so you've got literally, like, 20, 30 French guys there, all armed with rifles of some sort, muskets, whatever.
And, I mean, do we any of them even wound it?
Like, this thing, I'm doing it wrong.
It's the predator.
Fine, you know.
And so it just kills.
It just cuts through all of them like hot knife through butter.
Okay, fine.
No problem at all.
But surely it should then cut through her like hot knife through butter.
I mean, it cuts through the Native Americans pretty effectively.
Although, you know, I mean, they put up a fairly good fight until, obviously, it kills them.
But, okay, fine.
Okay, you know?
But one of them teaches her how to use the flintlock pistol.
Okay, whatever.
The predator, like, the setup for this drug lowers your body temperature.
So, like, the predator won't see you.
It's like, I mean, I see what you're trying to do.
And it's not terrible, but it's also, like, really, I mean, how low you'd have to, like, halve your body temperature practically to be the same as, like, the surrounding area.
And you don't just, like, like, it's just instantly down to, like, 25 degrees or 22 degrees or whatever.
So it's like, right, that seems catastrophic.
I mean, I don't know anything about medicine, but it just strikes me that if you go from 37 degrees to 22 degrees, like that, like, the doctors are probably going to be like, mate, you're fucked.
Right?
But anyway, whatever.
It doesn't matter.
Not important.
You know, that's just a MacGuffin, basically.
Okay, fine.
You know, it's not terrible.
It's not great, but whatever.
But anyway, then her brother and her have a fight with the creature.
He, you know, stabs it, blah, blah, blah.
She manages to get the predator to sever one of his own arms, which is like, okay.
And then she has her confrontation with it in the mud-filled bog.
And it's just like, right.
So she sets up a trap using the predator's helmet.
because it's presupposed that she understands a lot about the Predator.
Like, it is presupposed that essentially she is an audience member and understands that the Predator's mask...
I don't know why the Predator is shooting when he knows that his darts follow the three dots and he doesn't have the mask.
So if he doesn't know where the dots are facing, why would he point the thing at her, fire it, and expect it to hit?
It's just madness.
But the fact that she would be capable of working this out, where it's like, no, look, an 18th century Comanche Indian would be like, look, this is a demon.
This is evil demon weaponry.
I don't think she'd be able to figure it out.
It just stretched credulity for me.
But fine, whatever.
Just whatever the fuck ever.
But anyway, yeah, she gets back and she's declared a war chief.
And it's like, okay, well, you didn't want to be the war chief, but now you are the war chief.
What next?
And obviously it ends there because we don't know.
You know, she doesn't know.
What did she do it for?
She'll be the war chief forever now, is she?
Anyway, so was there anything else about this that pissed me off sufficiently?
It's just it's not good writing, right?
It's just like it's not terrible either, but it's not even that it's not terrible.
Whoever made it, like the actual competence in making the film, putting things together to keep the viewer engaged in something is fine.
I mean, at one point, she kills like six French guys in the camp on her own.
Like, she goes in there like a ninja and kills six Frenchmen.
No, I've said it.
Maybe she could.
Just teasing.
Come on.
Just teasing.
Like, no, you wouldn't write it so that a guy goes in and just in hand-to-hand combat kills six other men just, you know, in like she's barely even breathing hard at the end of it.
It's like, look, man.
Like, the problem is the weight of the attacks, right?
To do some real damage, to really fucking hurt someone, it's a lot of work, right?
Go next time you ever, if you're if you've never been to a gym, go to a gym, get the punching bag, and start hitting the punching bag, right?
Spend a couple of good three or four slugs, and you'll feel yourself.
Then do it for like a minute, just slugging this punching bag.
And by the end of it, you will be pouring with sweat.
Absolutely pouring with sweat.
It is a lot of work to put a lot of weight into a blow, right?
And so when she is just like flinging this thing around, like, again, when she's throwing the axe, it's just like, I know you can't throw that, like, 30 feet with a flimsy throw like that.
You need to put your back into it and snap your wrist, you know?
And so it's like, okay, whatever.
And she kills all these Frenchmen.
It's like, and there's just these mega blows.
Oh, he's dead.
It's like, okay, all right, whatever.
You know, this is what was good about Kingdom of Heaven, right?
A lot of people give Kingdom of Heaven a lot of shit, right?
But Kingdom of Heaven's action seats felt weighty, right?
There's a bit where Legolas, what's his name?
Fuck, I can't remember his name.
But you know, the guy who plays Legolas is in Kingdom of Heaven.
And there's this bit where, like, four knights have come to kill him.
And he's like, right, I'm not even armed.
Shit.
And so he gets up and he, like, leaps on the first one with, like, a shard of pottery.
He's smashing him in the face.
You'll smash him, you know, a bunch of times to get him down.
And then he takes this on the, and it's just like there are parts where he's like staggering, holding the sword before he, like, oh, you know, goes for it.
And it's just like, okay, like, by the end of it, he's obviously exhausted.
You know, there's genuine effort that's been put into this.
But, like, it's like these people think that everything is a video game.
It's like, right.
Okay, so, you know, Weapon X has, you know, interfaced with, you know, Skull Y. Right, okay, that's a death, right?
Okay, so you just need top, top, dop, dop, dock, right, done.
And it's like, okay, no, that's just not how violence works, right?
It's effort.
Again, like, I used to, I used to do a lot of like wrestling with my friends, man.
And you wrestle for like two or three minutes, and you're putting all of your effort in because you want to win.
And by the end of it, you are both just fucking exhausted.
And these people are just doing all of these ninja moves.
And it's just nothing.
And again, I'm just like, right, okay.
This is just the best they can do.
This is the best you're going to get.
I bet this is the most enjoyable film that Hollywood produces all year.
And it's merely because of the editing, really.
And the fact that it was shot actually in the woods and not at a green screen.
Which, again, okay, give them credit.
But is that really?
Is that not the product of low expectations?
It seems really low effort to me.
But, and I just want to really go back and highlight the thing about the emptiness of the under failing to understand the generative principles within it, right?
There's nothing particularly honourable about this predator.
And that's actually really annoying, you know?
Like, it just, like, there's that.
The Frenchman's got, like, he's missing a leg.
And his gun doesn't work.
And the predator still kills him.
It's like, why would it do that?
He's had his leg chopped off.
He's laying there.
He's got no way of hurting the predator.
Why would the predator bother?
Like, it's meant to be.
It's not just a movie monster, right?
It's got an ethical agenda here.
It actually makes decisions about right and wrong.
And this is just totally overlooked in this film.
And ham-fistedly done.
Again, just generic movie monster now.
With a generic girl boss action hero who can just slay six men in hand-to-hand combat because she can.
And now she's, oh, look at that.
She's the war chief of the tribe.
Even though she didn't really want to be, she was just doing it to spite her mum or something.
And it's just like, fucking.
Is that heroic?
You know, what lessons have I learned here?
What am I taking away from this story?
You know, as a representation of a potential and possible reality, what am I taking away from this?
Like, in what way has this enriched my life?
You know, in what way has this challenged my notions of what it is to be a human?
You know, what?
What?
You know, and I'm not, maybe it's unfair.
Say, well, look, it's just a shit predator movie, man.
What are you talking about?
It's like, yeah, maybe.
But there was quite a lot going on in the original Predator, if you think about it.
Like, these ultra-badasses, like, they spend the first, like, 20 minutes of the movie being, you know, proving that ultra-badasses, they're not afraid of shit.
And, oh, there's something that's actually made them piss themselves.
Literally fucking piss themselves.
And that, you know, that's an important lesson.
That's actually an important lesson.
There's always a bigger guy out there, you know?
As badass as you think you are, well, you know.
But anyway, I don't know.
Like, you just.
The whole thing just.
It's inauthentic skin suit repackaging of your member berries.
It's like you remember the predator.
Fucking I used to.
Anyway, just I'm sure dishonourable predators do exist, but in what way was this stressed that this was one of them?
You know, we don't and if there's no way of discerning, who cares?
But anyway, so I wasn't impressed with this.
It's not that it was a badly constructed movie or anything like that.
And, you know, I watched it and I had a good time watching it.
I wasn't bored.
I was like, okay, yeah.
But it's just everything that's wrong with the industry.
they don't have any life experiences that come anywhere near what they need to understand what it is that the people involved in the actual, like, you know, things that the, they're portraying the people going through actually have.
But I mean, just, and it's down to silly things like these facial expressions.
Like, I'm just not buying it, man.
I'm just not buying it.
And so none of this comes across as being authentic to me.
Or comes across as being kind of shit.
And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but anyway, I guess I'll end it there.
And let me know what you think in the comments, and I'll see you on the podcast tomorrow.
I'm on there with Voice of Wales.
The guys who literally got deplatformed for doing nothing wrong have just won a legal case against the Welsh police.
So we'll be talking about that, as well as other things.
So have a good evening, folks, and I'll see you all tomorrow.
See if I can not boomer it.
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