Predator

Question: This bugged me for years, when Billy said there is something in the trees to Dutch and in the next shot it shows the trees, is the Predator there, as in visible onscreen?

ezorro

Chosen answer: Yes. The predator can be seen not in the immediate shot after, but the one a few seconds later as they are seen walking away.

XIII

Before or after Ramirez gets hit in the face with the branch?

About 3 seconds before. If you look VERY closely (probably needing to pause the screen around 00:40:55 - about a minute after Billy said, "There's something in the trees"), there appears to be a transparent image of The Predator in the background above the major's (Arnold's) right shoulder. If this is meant to be The Predator, its body is curved around a tree trunk and its arms are extended toward the right of the screen (near Arnold's right ear), camouflaged as green leaves.

KeyZOid

The Predator - in a recognizable form - really wasn't visible until another minute later @ 00:41:55 when it was on the ground approaching Hawkins and the woman.

KeyZOid

Question: Why did Dillon really want Dutch and his team to go to Val Verde? He says it was to locate a helicopter that was shot down and to look for Hopper but, after the successful raid, Dillon is seen looking through some papers, so he wanted Dutch there for some other reason.

Answer: He wanted Dutch and his team to help him retrieve the intelligence documents he was rooting through. The Soviet officer shot by Dutch ("Knock knock!") was also looking at the same documents and was planning on moving them out of the country. The story goes a CIA operative was carrying intelligence and was shot down over Val Verde by the guerrillas who are aided by the Soviets. Dillon sent Jim Hopper and his Green Beret unit there to rescue his men and retrieve the intelligence but they were ambushed and killed by the Predator. Believing Hopper and his men were killed by the guerrillas, Dillon felt he had no option left but to hire the best rescue team he knew to complete the mission. Dillon knew Dutch didn't do this sort of black ops work so he lied to him and made up the story about rescuing a cabinet minister.

BaconIsMyBFF

Question: What's up with the predator's eyes glowing for a second while it's invisible, and does anyone know why the predators in the other movies don't do this?

Answer: In the shots where we can see what the Predator sees, sometimes when he is focusing on someone or something, we hear a kind of flash noise as he zooms in on the object. When we see the Predator's eyes flashing/glowing, that is when he is zooming in on what he's looking at.

dan coakley..

Answer: They do add the flash eyes while cloaked effect in Alien vs Predator: Requiem and Predators. I think it's both when it uses zoom-in vision and maybe to intimidate by showing itself so close to its prey. "Those eyes, just appeared."

I think he did it to intimidate Mac and Dillion.

Answer: Its the old predator design. Look closely the optical silhouette, it doesn't match. Google early predator design.

Question: While Dutch was crawling up onto the mud, and then up into that brush pile, it looked as if he was missing the huge knife that had been on his left thigh, yet later he was using the knife. Did I just miss it?

Answer: He is going for his gun. His bowie knife is on his back left hip and is still there.

Question: When Arnold is on the shore face down in the mud, the predator then hits the water. Shortly afterward it looks like his cloaking protection is short-circuiting when he is walking to shore. If it did, how could it use the cloaking device again later to cloak itself?

mozeus5

Chosen answer: Well, we don't know exactly what's going on. It may simply be that the cloaking device, for whatever reason, can't cope with water, so it cuts out. When it dries off again, normal function may simply return. Or, if it does actually short out, as opposed to simply shutting down, then some sort of auto-repair mechanism may come into play to restore the cloaking device back to a functional state. Either way it's a reasonable explanation as to why it still works.

Tailkinker

Answer: Most likely it was an act of defiance and to show that it was controlling its own death and didn't fear dying. It may also been attempting to kill Dutch in the resulting explosion.

raywest

Answer: Note that he had just learned to laugh from Billy (after hearing the silly joke of Hawkins). Maybe he misinterpreted the situation or redefined the sense of laughing for his purpose.

This is true, the Predator doesn't understand the human expression of laughter, but uses it anyway. Probably a misinterpretation by the predator.

lionhead

Answer: The predator began laughing knowing that he was about to kill himself and his greatest rival.

Answer: Dutch may have won the battle, but he lost the war. Even though Dutch beat the Predator, the Predator - by blowing up both of them - was the ultimate winner. The Predator was telling Dutch, "Got ya!" - despite your strategies, persistence, and effort, they were all in vain. But the Predator wasn't around to see that Dutch was able to flee in time and save himself. (Now who is laughing?)

KeyZOid

Question: What was the total worldwide gross of Predator 1, and then Predator 2? Sorry but imdb doesn't have worldwide takings for either.

Answer: Worldwide Gross for Predator 1 is $190,534,137, and Worldwide Gross for Predator 2 is $57,169,413.

The-Immortal

Question: What exactly is that stuff that Blane is chewing in the chopper when they're on their way to be dropped which he claims will make him a "sexual Tyrannosaurus"?

Answer: My guess is that it's chewing tobacco, which is ideal when you can't smoke cigarettes for whatever reason. It's either that or a very unpleasant snack.

Craig Thompson

It is chewing tobacco. Red Man to be exact. You can pause the movie and see the red and green lettering on the pouch itself.

Question: What hits Jesse Ventura in the face/side of the neck right before the Predator blasts the giant hole in his torso? For a second or two after he sees the skunk, something wet appears to hit him in the face and daze him. I always wondered what that was supposed to be.

damienjakk

Chosen answer: The first thing that hits Blaine is supposed to be an edged weapon. It only appears on screen for 3 frames. The predator missed, the shot was supposed to take Blaine's face off, but he turned his head after seeing the cute wildlife. Instead the weapon hit his shoulder and took his ear off, you can see this added in the second frame. The weapon now a blur flashes past on the third frame. Realizing he missed, the Predator finishes Blaine off with the plasma caster.

Answer: The Predator shoots and kills the skunk that Ventura sees. It splatters on his neck and face. Then the Predator, seeing another animal in his heat vision, which is Ventura, shoots him.

That's not correct as if it was the blood of the slain creature it would not cause Blaine to reel back by the shock of getting hit with it. You can see the edged weapon in the first, second and third frame as it slices Blaine's ear and covers his neck and shoulder with his blood.

His ear never comes off. It's actually a stun attack from the predator's kit.

Question: Before the last battle between the Predator and Dutch you see them both preparing for themselves and their equipment for battle. Why does the Predator shine his laser on his knives which makes them glow red? What's this supposed to do?

Answer: He's sharpening them.

Grumpy Scot

Not Sharpening but Tempering as the lasers heat up the wrist knives thus making them stronger.

Question: In the scene where Billy is looking up into the trees just before he finds the skinned bodies, is it just me or is the cloaked predator standing just to the left of those trees?

Answer: He is there. There are several scenes in the movie where the predator is in the shot but the other characters (and often the audience) are unaware of it.

I see him 99.9 percent of the time - that scene is the only one I have missed and I've been watching this film for over 30 years.

Answer: Nah he's not there. I see the part you think it is, but it's just your eyes tricking you. The long thin leaves give the impression it's the bending light, but it's not. If it was then the effect they are using is completely different to the rest of the cloaking effects, much too subtle.

Question: Why does the Predator use a cloaking device? As revealed in the film, it's huge and physically superior to humans, so, why hide?

ModestFilmCollector

Chosen answer: The same reason human hunters wear camouflage and hide in blinds: If they just stood out in the open with their weapons out, the prey would run away before they get a good shot.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: I am a huge fan of the movie Predator but I always have thought that the writers should've done more with the characters of Poncho and Hawkins. Were they supposed to be friends like Blain and Mac?

Answer: Blain and Mac are extremely badass action hero characters. Poncho and Hawkins are less so. It seems that Poncho and Hawkins are there for the Predator to kill, so us as an audience knows what sort of danger the characters face and also show the big guys do some action.

Dra9onBorn117

Question: Does anyone know if in the scene when Blain gets killed and the group is hosing down the jungle, if the actors were using live ammo or just blanks with pyro to take out the trees?

Answer: Its unclear but highly unlikely any studio would let actors fire such high powered weapons for real. Probably just squibs. At most, it may be live ammo being used to shoot the trees by people trained in gun fire when not on an actor's close up.

The_Iceman

Question: Why didn't Arnold and the rest of the commandos take thermal goggles or sensitive listening devices with them on the mission; wasn't the technology available?

mozeus5

Chosen answer: It's the jungle: thermal goggles would have too much interference due to the high ambient temperature and sensitive listening devices would have picked up too much ambient noise from the wildlife. When filming the movie they had to hose the area down with ice water just to cool it off enough to get the footage for the Predator's heat vision. Presumably, his technology is more advanced than our own, so the high jungle temps didn't interfere. Plus of course, their original mission was meant to be very straightforward, with no need for high-tech equipment.

Phixius

Answer: During the 1980's thermal googles worn on the face had not been produced. As far as the team wearing night vision goggles (infrared) that wouldn't have given them an advantage against the predators cloaking device. Infrared works off ambient light and they do not detect heat; there isn't much ambient light at night in triple canopy jungle and they are worthless during the day. The spectrum the predator used in the movie is thermal not infrared.

Infrared and ambient light are different. Night vision goggles use ambient light, amplifying whatever light there is, from the moon, stars, etc. Infrared and thermal are the same thing, working on heat rather than visible light.

Question: What's the name of the song Dutch and co. are listening to in the chopper?

Answer: Long Tall Sally by Little Richard.

Grumpy Scot

Question: In the scene before Billy finds the bodies, he cuts open a tree and starts drinking from it - what is he actually drinking because it doesn't look like water.

Answer: According to the script, it is water: it says Billy uses his knife to cut a thick vine and drinks the stream of water that pours out. The drops on his clothes look a bit cloudy so it could have been mixed with sap or some other organic substance.

Sierra1

You got it exactly right. Climbing "water vines" that grow on trees in tropical areas contain a substantial amount of fluid and are a reliable source of safe drinking water.

raywest

Question: What was the true sole purpose of the Predator killing people? Was it for sport, some kind of training, or was he sent to earth to do it? Most of all, at the end of the movie, why did he kill himself. He still had some weapons on him so why didn't he use one of them to kill Dutch instead of using his self-destruct device to take them both out?

Answer: The entire culture of the Predators, a species called the Yautja, revolves around hunting for honor and glory. In expanded universe material, humans are considered one of the top two species to hunt, the other being Xenomorphs (AKA Aliens), and that human hunts must be granted instead of being open to all. As for the self-destruction, it is three-fold. First, it is used as a ritual suicide similar to defeated samurai. Second, it is a last chance to kill an enemy who has bested them. Third, it destroys all Yautja technology and erases evidence of the Yautja being there.

LorgSkyegon

Answer: Predators appear to be drawn to conflict (as well as heat, which is why it's in a Jungle in the first film and during a heatwave in the second), and they seek out the most challenging prey. Obviously to a predator, a lion or something isn't going to be much trouble, but a heavily armed group of highly trained commandos is a hunt worthy of honour. They are honourable hunters, not just bloodthirsty killers, which is shown when it actively avoids the woman because she is unarmed (and is also shown in Predator 2 ignoring a woman as she is pregnant). It kills itself at the end because it's dying, and it can't do anything else, so go out with a bang, basically. If he had used another weapon to kill Dutch, he'd have died eventually anyway.

Gary O'Reilly

Question: There is a scene where after Dillon accidentally kicks a log down the hill, Mac says to him, "You're ghosting' us, motherfucker. I don't care who you are back in the world. You give our position one more time, I'll bleed you, real quiet, and leave you here. Got that?" What did he mean by that?

Josh West

Answer: To translate: "Making noise like that could get us killed. I don't care that you're a CIA agent, if you give away our position like that again, I'll kill you quietly and leave your body here. Do you understand?"

BaconIsMyBFF

Answer: I always thought that the line started with "They're ghosting us." That would make more sense.

"You're ghosting us" would suggest that Dillon's careless actions will make them ghosts, i.e. get them killed.

Phaneron

Question: The helicopter with Dillon's agents - did the guerrillas shoot it down or did the Predator?

Answer: The guerrillas shot down the helicopter using a Soviet heat-seeking missile and captured the agents after they executed the pilots. The Predator came along later and ambushed Jim Hopper's rescue team.

BaconIsMyBFF

Revealing mistake: As the Predator tends to his wounded leg, one of his claws can be seen bending as if made of rubber.

More mistakes in Predator

Poncho: Get that stinking shit out of my face!
Blaine: Bunch of slack jawed-f*****s around here! This stuff will make you a god damn sexual Tyrannosaurus! Just like me.
Poncho: Strap this on your sore ass, Blaine!

More quotes from Predator

Trivia: Jesse Ventura was delighted to find out from the wardrobe department that his arms were 1" bigger than Arnold Schwarzenegger's. He suggested to Schwarzenegger that they measure arms, with the winner getting a bottle of champagne. Ventura lost because Schwarzenegger had told the wardrobe department to tell Ventura that his arms were bigger.

Ivan-sama

More trivia for Predator

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