There have been a number of attempts to revitalize the Predator franchise. They put the species in a city, pitted them against xenomorphs in two Alien crossovers, took us to their home planet to fight against them, and eventually tried a “back to basics” approach with Shane Black’s disjointed The Predator. Like the original, The Predator was a testosterone-drenched action/dark comedy about a bunch of military bros going up against an alien threat, only this time they’re going up against a bigger, badder Predator with bigger, badder weapons.
Dan Tratchenberg’s Prey goes back to basics, not in mimicking the genre and vibe of the original, but in the way Dutch (Arnold Schwarzenegger) did in the original film. Prey strips itself of modern or extraterrestrial settings — focusing on Comanche warrior Naru (Amber Midthunder). Ostracized and belittled for her gender, Naru seeks to not just observe battles, but partake and to prove herself to her tribe all while a Predator scours the area.
Prey understands that while this is the first time Naru and her tribe have encountered this species, that’s not true for the audience. Conversely, it also understands that though we’ve encountered this species on numerous occasions, we’ve yet to see this particular Predator, in this environment, in this time period.
To start, Prey puts particular emphasis on what and why the Predator kills. It wants to prove itself and doesn’t go after anything that isn’t a threat. In the first 20-ish minutes, there are two scenes establishing earthbound predator/prey dynamics. In the first, a field mouse is struck by a rattlesnake, with the Predator quickly impaling the snake. In the second, a rabbit is stalked by a wolf. Just as the instantaneous strike of the rattlesnake is matched by the Predator’s quick kill, the wolf’s prolonged pursuit of the rabbit is matched by a longer battle between the wolf and the Predator. As the wolf takes time to observe its prey, the Predator takes its time to observe this dynamic.
These scenes affirm how the Predator can observe and match its prey, how it distinguishes different enemies and finds unique ways to go about distinct threats, but more than this, it reaffirms our own understanding of the Predator. While in the 1987 original, where fragmentary glimpses build up to the reveal of a new species, now, the species is as familiar to us as a rattlesnake or wolf. But while the Predator and wolf’s fight is almost shot like a nature documentary, Naru’s first glimpse is shot differently. While hiding from a bear in a dam, she witnesses the Predator take on the wolf. Instead of wide shots showing the Predator and wolf, we get Naru’s tight, claustrophobic perspective from inside the dam. She can see what’s going on with relative clarity, but she can only observe in a disoriented, impressed, and fearful wonder. She is still the prey, and the Predator only goes after other predators.
It’s fortunate that Tratchenberg and company didn’t simply take the classic Predator design and put it in a new setting. The design and weapons are certainly familiar, but just as the muskets are less sophisticated than the weapons of past films (and are as irrelevant as ever in fighting the beast), so have the Predator’s weapons. After the bear moment, there’s a terrific scene where Naru is found by a search party of her own tribe. Consisting of men, they don’t listen when she warns of the new, unseen threat, once more belittling her on account of her gender. The Predator, of course, shows up and makes quick work of the search party, but this scene tells the audience that there are things we don’t know about this particular Predator. When the iconic red target triangle shows up on some poor sap, we know it’s bad news. When he’s fatally impaled by three little spears instead of blown to smithereens, however, the threat still registers as familiar, but also as something new, putting us in the same position as Naru.
Little additions like this, a new skull-like mask that shows the mandibles (whereas the 1987 mask concealed it), a shield that doubles as a decapitator, among other things add some little details that make up for a fresh experience. We respect it, we understand it, but there is still more to learn, and only by knowing this can Naru survive.
Prey makes other effective uses of its time period. French settlers make for effective secondary antagonists, adding another layer to the predator/prey dynamic. In a delightful scene, the settlers’ misunderstanding of the Predator comes back to haunt them, when they try to use Naru and her brother Taabe (Dakota Beavers) as bait, blissfully unaware that by doing so, the settlers have made themselves the target. This scene simultaneously allows Naru and Taabe to learn about the Predator the way the Predator learned about the rattlesnake and wolf: by observing it in its own element.
This is the essence of how Prey brings the franchise back to basics. It turns the tables and reminds us of that core Predator/prey dynamic that made the first film so effective. Throughout, Naru embraces her place, not as a woman in the arbitrarily designated gender roles, but her place as prey. It’s a role we all inhabit in one way or another, whether the Comanche men or French settlers like it or not.
When these Comanche men prepare to fight the Predator, a bound Naru hides behind a fallen tree, begging the men to release her. It’s a magnificent metaphor for the core of the film: the men tell Naru to stay in her place, enforcing the expectations of the world onto an individual, while Naru, as an individual, is in a place they all should be. Naru shouldn’t be bound, and they all should be hiding from the Predator, because only in hiding are we safe to observe, and only through observation can we learn to fight back.
It didn’t revitalize anything. It was an epic let down.