Predator: Killer of Killers

A Viking, a Ninja, and a World War II pilot encounter fierce intergalactic hunters.

I’m a little bit wary of the Predator franchise.

When it’s good, it’s great, they’re some of my favorite movies, but for the most part… it’s more bad than good. So, when I sat down for this film, it was with a bit of trepidation. Not only does this franchise disappoint me more often than not, but in my opinion, it’s fair to say that, whenever a live-action franchise decides to tell a side story, and they decide to do it animated, then the chance of it not being very good goes up considerably. Now, that’s not because animated things are bad, that’s because, when a studio decides to do a film from one of their franchises, and they decide to do it as an animated film, it’s usually because they don’t want to pay the kind of costs that you usually have to pay for live-action projects. It’s a cost-cutting measure first, not a creative one, and when you have that kind of attitude from the start, it's often pretty apparent in the quality of the rest of the project too. Usually. At least, in my opinion. So, this is me going the long way around to explaining why, when Predator: Killer of Killers starts out with some of the bombastic lore bullshit that is common to this franchise, I wasn't exactly surprised, I was more resigned, as this meant that the film was starting out with two red flags.

“Go forth among the stars and seek only the strongest prey. They shall be your trophy. Become the killer of killers.” — Yautja Codex, 0522/74

What do those numbers at the end mean? Are they supposed to be a date? Is it supposed to be the verse number from whatever the Yautja Codex is? Who knows. Beats me. Also, who the fuck cares? But if pressed, my guess would be that this is an excerpt from what is basically the Predator bible.

The reason this is a red flag is because, it reads like the kind of boring-ass faux-tough guy bullshit that a Snyder-cultist would write, which is what most of the Predator lore is like. Dumb, boring, too straight forward. There’s no poetry to its presentation. No meat. No style. No grandeur. Zero flare. This is supposed to be the Predator’s bible, their Holy Writ, the spiritual basis of their culture, right? And yet, it’s written with the same ham-handed, dead-eyed, over-compensating subtly you see on the “tribal thorns and machine gun” festooned tshirts that MAGA dads wear while shopping for groceries in the suburbs: “We don’t call 911, we’re armed.” Ugh. It's just... terrible shit, and such a bad way to start.

I guess we’ll see. I’ve hit play. We're doing this.

Besides, your more immediate question is probably…

“I get the idea of a Codex, but what the fuck is a Yautja?”

The Yautja is the name that has been unfortunately bestowed upon the alien species of the Predator franchise by some unknown fucker who really shouldn’t have been allowed to make the decision. Pronounced Ya-OOT-ja, if you absolutely must, but if we are being honest here, maybe it’s better to just never say it out loud, becomes it’s dumb.

Anyway, the Yautja are known for being alien Big Game Safari Hunters. They are an extremely technologically advanced species, known to use invisibility cloaks, energy weapons, sensory enhancements, and animal mimicry, along with bombs, blades, spears, and nets, all to stalk and kill the most dangerous of prey all across the galaxy, including humans. The Yautja do it for the sport, for the honor, and most of all, for the trophies.

For a proper hunt, the Yautja prefer to travel alone and without backup, to an exotic locale of some kind. They usually choose a hotter climate, as they see via infrared. They also often choose places that are experiencing some kind of armed conflict too. This is all so that they can find the toughest “beast“ in the area, the local “Lord of the Jungle,” basically the baddest mother fucker around, so that they can then stalk it and kill it and take its skull as a trophy. The more dangerous the prey, the more honor that comes with taking that trophy.

Now, some may say that the Predator’s advanced weaponry and camouflage gives them an unfair advantage, and that’s true, but then, that’s big game hunting, right? It’s not like anyone is out there hunting a lion with a knife. And it's not like it's a guaranteed win either. In fact, the Yautja pretty much never win. In the lore, sure, they win all the time, they're some of the most fearsome warriors in the galaxy, but as far as the actual stories in all the films, books, and comics are concerned... they never win, not in the end, because they're not the hero, they're the threat, the plot point, the hero's challenge. So, when the Yautja hunter is inevitably killed by their prey, the last man standing, their fellow Yautja collect the body, and often pass on some kind of trophy to the victorious prey before leaving. The hunt is a one on one battle, y’see, so the victor is honored and respected, whether its the hunter or the prey. Occasionally, a particularly tough victorious prey might attract more hunters, those eager to reap even more glory by taking a trophy from a prey so dangerous that it killed a hunter, which is why Batman has had to deal with them more than once. Sometimes, in order to avoid capture, or if their death would mean that their technology might fall into the hands of their prey, the Yautja will set off a self-destruct, which is an explosion the size of a small nuclear warhead.

This kind of feels like they're being a sore loser.

Either way, this is what the Yautja do, they hunt, and they have done it on Earth for centuries. Not only that, but they have also had contact with those giant ancient terraformers and seeders of primordial life, the Engineers, as well as the aggressive and very dangerous endoparasitoid extraterrestrial species that we all know and love, Xenomorph XX121.

Outside of the films, in the books and comics and video games, the Yautja lore quickly gets pretty dumb pretty quickly, and that’s probably where you will find out more about the whole Codex thing, but I wouldn't bother, it's not worth the effort. Mostly because that shit is mostly the kind of lazy garbage that only ever feels like a rip-off of Klingon stuff in posturing and intent. It’s just obvious and boring and tedious faux "warrior culture" crap, nothing but a bunch of junk and gibberish that takes up way too much space for what is otherwise a very simple concept. Unfortunately, at this point, it’s not going anywhere, so I guess we’re stuck with it.

Whatta ya’ gonna do?

It’s maddening though, because there’s a specific formula for making a good Predator movie. It was established in the first movie, and cemented in the second. It’s real simple, and works really easily, and if you never deviate from it, you’ll still have an endless series of seeminglty fresh takes, and for the most part, all the lore does is get in the way.

As for the formula, it's simple… it just has to be a someone else's story.

That's it. Whether it's the Guns of Navarone, or Dirty Harry, or a detective chasing a serial killer, or a superhero protecting their city, or a rebellious princess trying to prove her mettle, or a warrior hunting for revenge, or the long-simmering rivarly between two brothers finally coming to a head, it has to be a someone else's tale. A good one too, preferably. Also one we all know, featuring characters we're familiar with. It’s better if those characters are not only familiar archetypes, but cinematic icons too, well-known champions. The prey needs to be the kind of hero that we all know usually triumphs, someone who regularly overcomes the extreme challenges they face in their world. This is why the very first Predator movie starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and a bunch of G.I. Joe-looking guys. Heroic archetypes. Cinema Icons. It needs to be their story, and it needs to stay their story.

Then the Predator shows up and starts wrecking shit.

Throwing the two elements together, the classic and reliable quantity that is our hero, and the unpredictable wild card of the alien hunter, means that not only does our hero gets a new challenge, one they might not overcome, on the flip side, it’s a worthy hunt for the Predator too, because we already know that the Yautja hunter is after some very dangerous prey. That’s the whole trick. And you can do it over and over again too. Different setting and different heroes, different stories for the Yautja hunter to crash, and suddenly, it’s a whole different movie.

It’s very easy.

The problem is, most of the films, most of the novels, most of the comics, and most of the video games in the Predator franchise either ignore, or just don’t understand the formula, and as a result, they’re bad. Or, well… they’re bad because they’re bad. Bad script, bad direction, bad effects, take your pick, bad everything, but ALSO…

They’re bad because they don’t follow the formula.

Like, instead of picking a new story for the Predator to crash, they’re often too concerned with the wrong aspects in the movie. It’s always shit like “What if the Predator fought a samurai?” Which is fine, but where they fail is that they don’t tell us why we should care about the samurai, they’re only focused on katana vs claws, and that kind of shallow 2D fanservice shit is boring. Thats why Predators (plural), and THE Predator (singular and specific), as well as the two awful crossover films, Alien vs Predator and Alien vs Predator: Requiem, were shit films that completely missed the mark, as do most of the comic books too, and really, the less said about the various novels the better.

Luckily, besides Predator and Predator 2, the original films, both the DC/Dark Horse comic book Batman versus Predator and also, the last film Prey, did follow the formula, and they were great. Unlike the Alien franchise, this series seems like it still has some life in it. Because as it turns out, despite it’s red flags…

Predator: Killer of Killers is pretty good.

Another anthology film, telling three separate tales that all converge into one at the end, the three separate stories are The Shield, The Sword, and The Bullet…

The Shield is the first story. It’s the tale of Ursa, daughter of Einar, known as the Sea Queen, the Stormbringer Shieldmaiden, and the Valkyrie of the Northern Seas. She and her crew, and her son, Anders, are hunting a man named Zoran, the man who killed her father long ago. Ursa is pretty much a supreme badass, and when she charges into battle, it's with a pair broken shields with sharpened edges, which is pretty cool.

The Predator watches as they come ashore at the eastern edge of Russia along the Baltic Sea. It watches as they massacre a Krivich outpost. And it watches as Ursa and her crew come to Zoran’s snowbound fortress and make quick, bloody work of the garrison, before killing Zoran himself in his throne room. Ursa’s long hunt for vengeance is over.

That’s when the Predator uncloaks in their midst.

A massive creature, its right hand replaced by a lever-activated sonic punch weapon, the Vikings refer to it as Grendel. It makes quick work of her crew, and buries her son under the rubble of the fortress, and finally, it is only Ursa and the hunter atop the cracking ice of a frozen lake.

Stylistically, there’s some obvious 13th Warrior influences here, but the film does a nice job of telling a story of raiding and revenge, before unleashing an alien hunter. The character designs are cool, the action is a great. It’s fast-paced and well-told.

This was a lot of fun.

The Sword takes place in Japan, 1609. Kenji and Kiyoshi are the two sons of a samurai warlord, and their father has trained them for war for their entire lives. As a final test, he pits the boys against one another. Kenji refuses, and receives a scar from Kiyoshi for it. Kenji runs away.

Twenty years later…

Their father has passed, and Kiyoshi has taken his place as lord. Kenji is now a wandering ninja, and he returns home to face his brother. Infiltrating the castle, Kenji takes out the guards, and confronts his brother in the throne room.

And from his high perch atop the castle, the predator watches…

There’s a lot of the classic samurai vs ninja stuff here, especially in the way it uses the Japanese castle. It’s a good time. Great design. Great action. It also showcases a lot of cool Japanese weaponry, and also has a nice full circle arc to the story.

This one was also a good time.

The Bullet is set in 1942.

Torres is a Navy pilot flying Wildcats in a carrier group patrolling the North Atlantic during World War 2, and he has been grounded for being a bit of a rule-breaking maverick. But when his squadron is taken down by a Predator spacecraft, Torres takes off in a broken-down fighter to join the fight. High up in the clouds, he finds himself facing a legendary foo fighter, and now he must look to the sky to save him, look for a sign of life, look for something to help him burn out bright, all while looking for a complication, looking 'cause he’s tired of lying, and to make his way back home, he’ll have to learn to fly.... hiiiiii-igh!

An unknown amount of years later, Torres is back home from the war, and thats when the predators show in a space ship and snatch him, revealing as they fly away that crop circles are really just Yautja markers.

This was definitely the weakest of the three stories. The action wasn’t all that impressive, and was often too ludicrous to be fun. There’s a whole “hanging off the plane wing” sequence in the middle of the dog fight that is beyond believable, even for a silly sci-fi movie about an alien big game hunter, and for me, that really kills it. Not that it was all that hard to do, because the fight choreography is all over the place anyway. And all that aside, the Predator’s grappling hook missile makes no sense to me as a weapon. I don’t know what it’s supposed to do that would logically make it more appealing that just, I don’t know, a regular gun. So for me, the whole fight was a snoozer. I feel like a more traditional dog fight would've been more fun.

On top of that, it’s briefly mentioned early on that the carrier group has been fighting Vichy forces in the North Atlantic. This was a real thing, of course, but still, it’s weird to add this detail in as a throwaway line. All it does is highlight this very deliberate and very non-traditional choice for what is otherwise a very basic, very familiar WW2 background, especially when the Vichy planes never even show up at all during the story, so what's the point?

Why specifically say that they’re not fighting Nazis?

Why choose to inform us that the heroes of the story are not fighting the most familiar and expected enemy of WW2? Now, I don’t know why the creators chose to do this. I haven’t read anything where anyone has asked them about this choice either. Honestly, it’s such a brief mention, I bet most folks didn’t even notice it, and like I said, the American fighters never fight anyone except a single Predator starship, but whether it’s a major plot point or not, it’s a very deliberate decision, and it‘s the kind of decision that makes me narrow my eyes suspiciously.

But whatever is going on there, the truth is, I’m just not that hot on the idea of planes for a predator story. Big Game Hunter and fighter planes? It doesn’t mesh well. I mean, nobody hunts birds using a hang glider, right? They justify the title of The Bullet because that’s the name of Torres’ fighter, but it could’ve just as easily been the story of an American soldier in the middle of the Battle of the Bulge. So yeah, for me, this one was disappointing.

Still, like Meatloaf says… two out of three ain’t bad.

In the final act of the film, The Shield, The Sword, and The Bullet converge into one story, as we see that Ursa, Kenji, and Torres are all collared, and being held in the same cell. At first I wondered if the filmmakers were just brushing aside the fact that the Yautja apparently have time travel, but I later realized that they are storing the people they snatch in cryo-chambers.

This is where the whole idea of expanding the lore of the Yautja, of exploring their culture outside of being big game hunters, of making them a character, instead of leaving them where they work best, as an atagonistic plot point, starts to rear its ugly head for me. I just don't see the upside of any of this.

Sure, you can say "Well, not all of them are hunters, some of the Yautja are probably accountants, or sales managers, or bartenders, or podiatrists, or chicken sexers, and they probably want to enjoy a bit of sport on their day off too. Not everyone can have the honor of being a hunter." And sure, I agree with that, that totally makes sense when you're creating an fictional culture. They can't all be warriors. But still, my response is... who cares? No one wants to know what Jason does on a Tuesday, after Camp Crystal Lake has closed down for the season, so who cares what the Yautja do when they aren't hunting down action movie stars? Besides, what does yet another Klingon-warrior-culture rip-off really bring to the table here? We already have the Luxons, and the Moclans too. And all that aside, is an arena battle really more fun than another hunt? Even the fox hunt from the terrible Predators (plural) movie is better than a gladiator fight.

But y'know... spilled milk...

Anyway, the three warriors are sent out into a massive arena. They are given weapons, and are commanded to fight against each other, and also against a giant beast, all for the entertainment of the cheering Yautja masses.

Standing above them, on a kaiju-sized alien-elephant skull, is the main dude, the big guy, Mr. Yautja himself. You can tell that he's mr. big stuff, because he wears this elaborate spinal cords and rib cage cloak, which is probably really difficult to sit down comfortably in while wearing, which is probably why he’s standing. Ursa calls him Grendel King, and if they refuse to fight, he will detonate the bombs in their collars, killing them.

And like I said, the whole gladiator thing seems a bit too far outside of the whole “honor of the hunt” idea, but that aside, the action is fun, if a bit drawn out at this point. Also, it does answer for us that age old question… samurai vs viking? And the answer is, it's fucking bad ass either way.

I am descended from both, just fyi…

But I digress...

Predator: Killer of Killers ends well, doing a "John Wick 2 ending" meets the "very end of Raiders of the Lost Ark" thing. It‘s fun, and it wraps up very nicely with just the right amount of tease for a potential second film, and just enough fan-service to tie the film into the Aliens franchise, while also answering the question of what happened at the end of Prey.

A few bumps aside, I enjoyed this a lot. I honestly wasn’t expecting much, I certainly wasn’t expecting the film to adhere to the formula, but it does, for the most part. Using some iconic settings and imagery, as well as familiar tropes and characters, much like Prey, Predator: Killer of Killers is a refreshing return to form for what was once a flagging franchise.

As a result, even though I’m still wary of the idea of making the Predator the main character in the upcoming Predator: Badlands, mostly because that means lots of emotive grunting for dialogue, and subtitles that are nothing but melodramatic Klingon-like declarations, now, when I do eventually stream it, it’ll be with a little more hope than I otherwise might have had.

So… thumbs up, folks.