#328. 'Predator'
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This episode is a deep dive on John McTiernan's 1987 Predator, with Sonny leading the charge by declaring it a genuine "perfect movie" — an efficiently told, visually sharp action-horror-sports hybrid that nails everything it sets out to do, part of McTiernan's untouchable run through Die Hard and The Hunt for Red October; JVL agrees on the storytelling and praises the sound design but pushes back hard on the creature design, calling it underwhelming next to the Alien xenomorph, while Mike — watching Predator for the very first time — raves about the horror atmosphere, the diegetic-music helicopter-introduction scene, and Arnold's one-liners, though he's skeptical of the mud-as-camouflage science. The crew also previews the new theatrical release Predator: Badlands, which Sonny likens to a Kong-versus-Godzilla kaiju movie and dismisses as "Predator Muppet Babies" for trading the franchise's big-game-hunter premise for an underdog-believes-in-herself, Pixar-style arc. Before any of that, the first third of the show is pure banter: JVL spirals down a rabbit hole of pricing out a full home-arcade multi-cade cabinet (complete with debates over Sonya Blade artwork and a plea for listener advice), Sonny recounts accidentally ordering ten bunches of bananas off Amazon and turning the surplus into banana pancakes, and Mike recaps a cold, suburbia-adjacent Cub Scout campout where the dads snuck peeks at World Series Game 7 on their phones. They wrap with a grim rundown of October's dismal box office — led by Black Phone 2 and a Halloween re-release of KPop Demon Hunters — and a look ahead to Wicked: For Good, Zootopia 2, and Avatar 3.
From the show notes
A perfect movie!
Full transcript
Mike00:00:00Ask her. Ask her what she saw. Ask her what happened to Hawkins.
Guest00:00:05Go ahead, ask her. ¿Qué pasó hoy? ¿Qué fue lo que viste? Te dije lo que sé. Fue la selva que se lo llevó. ¿Qué más quieres que te diga? She says the same fucking thing. The jungle that came alive and took him. Billy, you know something. What is it?
Mike00:00:26I'm scared, Pacho.
Guest00:00:28Shit. You ain't afraid of no man. There's something out there waiting for us. And it ain't no man.
Mike00:00:47Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I'm your co-host, Mike Warren. Joining me, as always, are my two co-hosts, who are two ugly motherfuckers. Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Join us over at Sub-Beacon.com. Tell your friends and family, if they want to listen to this show, they got to do it at Sub-Beacon.com. Join the conversation in the comments. Say hello to us on Instagram, Sub-Beacon.com. At Sub-Beacon, Sub-Beacon, Sub-Beacon, Sub-Beacon. Later on in the show, we are going to be talking about Predator. But first, JVL, what is going on with you?
JVL00:01:22Boys, I'm on another journey. Oh, boy. Remember my brief flirtation with getting a pinball machine?
Sonny00:01:31Did you never, you never got like a proper pinball machine? You never pulled the trigger?
JVL00:01:34I couldn't pull the trigger. You never pulled the whatever the thing that. Plunger. Plunger. The plunger, yeah. It's just, it's just too much money. Pinball is so expensive. Like just to get in the door with the economy stern model is like seven grand. Yeah. And then the maintenance on these things. Like you've got to. You've got to. You've got to learn real quick how to repair because the pinball is very temperamental as a machine. So I never pulled the trigger. But a couple of weeks ago, I, I saw an arcade one up machine. You've seen these things before, right? Yeah. Costco, Walmart, Target, wherever, right? Like the little three quarter size arcade cabinets. They've got like maybe 10 games on them. You know, you'll get like Galaga, Galaxian, Ms. Pac-Man, Dig Dug, blah, blah, blah. I looked at one of those and I thought maybe that could scratch the itch for me. Maybe I could get an arcade one up and that, that could do it. And so I, you know, I just started doing a little research on the arcade one ups. And I thought, well, could you mod an arcade one up? If you, if you get your arcade one up, could you then make it better? And you can, you can. There's a whole modding culture, a tuner culture for the arcade one up machines. Of course there is. But you're still going to be basically limited. And I mean, you could do some major mods. You could do some major surgery where you like pull out their little control board and install your own computer into it. But that, that's going to be beyond anything that requires me to solder electronics. Like realistically, I'm not going to do it. Yeah. So, uh, there's a level up from arcade one up where you can go to like a full arcade cabinet and a full size and you can get it with not like 10 or 11 games, but like 200 games, 300 games. And those are pretty nice. So I started looking into those and we're still talking about the upright cabinets, right? Yeah.
Sonny00:03:35The upright cabinets, the upright cabinets, standard, you go to an arcade or a pizza hut or something. Yeah.
JVL00:03:42So I, I, I was interested in these and I started doing more research on it. And it turns out that with these, they're a little fly by night. So at this level of arcade camera, a, the craftsmanship is, is very, very flimsy. You're talking like MDF, not, not real wood. Right. Uh, the interior is just like whatever wires they've got laying around. Uh, the parts are all from China. They got, you know, you could have rats nesting inside them and the emulators that they use might work or might not work. Sometimes they have like limits on them. Like you can only play a game 20 times and it gets disabled. Sometimes the game lists are like, oh, it's 400 games and it's. 300 versions of the same game.
Mike00:04:28Yep. So it's a little, little tough.
JVL00:04:31Uh, so then you get up to the, there's actually a, a world of multi-cades, which are quite nice. So like the, uh, the dream arcade machines, uh, and these things are a little more pricey, uh, but, but little bit better craftsmanship, their communities behind them, supposedly, uh, even some customer service behind them. And you can, something, some of these things will play like 3000 games, you know, so now you're looking at like everything from asteroids to like the, the donkey Kong and even like pulp was, you know, like stuff that goes up through like the mid to late 1980s. And, uh, and so I was pretty interested in these guys and I was gonna, I'm gonna, but then something else caught my eye and there is a, there's a final tier of these things, uh, and that, you know, if it's the final tier that you are, the two, the, the two, right. And so paradox arcades and extreme home arcades, two, two companies, one in Texas, one in Stevens point, Wisconsin, Stevens point, the setting of the fictional TV show live in Maddie, maybe the, which I think of as the Seinfeld of Disney television. And, uh, these things are full wood. They are not being run on raspberry pie. They are run on like full gaming PCs. They are not 10 ADP screens. These are 4k 42 inch screens. Wow. Uh, Sanwa joysticks, very nice joysticks, 17,000 games, basically everything from space invaders and pong through PlayStation three. All right there. Every shooting game, every driving game, all of them. The games and these things are fantastic and you can, they, they are customizable to the tits. You can make this the coolest fucking thing you've ever seen. And, uh, I have slowly gone from, huh? Maybe I'll get an arcade one up machine too. Oh, oh yeah. Me the 43 inch Goliath with the LCD marquee.
Sonny00:06:56Let me ask a question. So it's, if, if it's a 42 inch screen, is it like, it's not like square, like a Pac-Man screen, it's like, like a HDTV screen.
JVL00:07:07So it's like an HDTV screen and the games are, they're all formatted for at this level, you're not getting like the Japanese or the Chinese knockoff code. You're getting, uh, a, a bespoke crewman called big box, which has really, really nice, uh, optimized emulation. So the, uh, the borders are like full of artwork. So, you know, you're on a, you're on a, whatever, what a 16, nine screen. And if you're playing Ms. Pac-Man, obviously Ms. Pac-Man doesn't take up 16, nine, right? Ms. Pac-Man just takes up a, a little rectangle in the middle. And so what you get on the sides are these beautiful artwork in the borders, which is displayed. And you know, I, there are a bunch of dream cast games cause I was a dream cast lover. Oh, you were every dream cast game is there. Every version of got, got all the tech in every soul caliber, every st remember the vector graphics, star Wars. Oh, yeah, I, I played that and that, uh, yeah, you got Sam, you got Samurai
Sonny00:08:14showdown on that bad boy. You got Neo Geo games.
JVL00:08:16Oh, all the Neo Geo SNK games are there. The full Neo Geo port is there. And it's got this incredible operating system, which allows you to to find them, but you can search by system, right? You can search alphabetically, but you can then all just favorite them so that, uh, you then have a whole separate, like on the thing it's like, oh, here are my favorite games. And so you just go right into there, boys. I'm trying to, I'm trying to come up with reasons not to do this. Aside from the fact that Shannon might kill me, like dead. Give us, give us a, why would, why would she, what are we talking about? But what are we talking about? Cost? That's, that's, I think that's why I mean, you know, when you amortize it out, it really, I mean, if you're talking about, uh, if you're talking about like, just pretend that you go to an arcade and every time you play a game, you're putting in 50 cents now, right? This thing pays for itself right. Quick. I mean, you're basically making money. I mean, at some point the games are paying you to play them. And, uh, it's, I don't know, like the idea that I can. It's four players. So I could play gauntlet or the Simpsons or the X-Men game or the classic team Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game with my kids that G money can have G money will be the coolest fucking kid in all of New Jersey. He'll, he will be Ricky Schroeder from silver spoons. His friends come over and he's like, Hey guys, why don't we all play on my arcade machine? Suck it.
Sonny00:09:53Does it have Fortnite and Minecraft?
JVL00:09:56No, well then the kids play those things. No, no. The kid, the kids would be into this, getting to mash buttons on like the old school X-Men. You remember the old school side-scrolling X-Men the four player X-Men game. Yeah.
Sonny00:10:11Is it a four man cabinet?
JVL00:10:12Yeah, that's right. Oh, it's a four man cabinet, but like, okay, but I have four children. It just makes sense.
Mike00:10:21Here's what I would be looking for are like the specialty cabinet games, like like cruising USA or big buck Hunter, you know, and like, like you can't play those on the little joysticks, you know? So like, well, what do you have for me?
JVL00:10:36That's why you buy the, the, the guns that come with them or the steering wheel that comes with it. Not come with it. These are add-ons, but, uh, but, oh yeah, you can get like the recoil. You can choose to get like the big buck Hunter guns, which are the, you know, with the, the cocking, you can choose the time crisis style guns with the recoil. You can go, of course those are extra. So you do have to be willing to pay. So I just think, I mean, what would you guys think would be a reasonable, and I mean, once you, if you're going to buy something, then do you want to get like that mid tier that like maybe the customer support works, maybe it doesn't. And like, I don't know, it's a 10 80 P screen and I, you know, I, I mean, it's only got like 5,000 games and not 17,000. I just, if you're going for the catalog. Myself up to the highest trim level. And I wonder if you boys, does this speak to you? The touring, uh, uh, the touring cabinet is really what you're going. Does this speak to you, boy? You're just like sitting there shaking your head, Sonny. You're staring at me, but I feel like this all makes a lot of sense.
Sonny00:11:44I mean, I think you should, I think of course you should buy it and you should get all the guns and the, the, the, the cockpit seats and whatnot. Like, can you get, can you get like the, can you get like the, what's what, what was it? The afterburners? What was the, the, the F 16 game where you're, Oh yeah, no, I can't that.
JVL00:12:02They can't have that. They don't have, you can't do that.
Sonny00:12:05Uh, well, I mean, so I, when you mentioned this, I thought back to college. So I, you know, I graduated from college in 2004 and we basically had, we had probably like a cheaper version of this in our fraternity house and like the
JVL00:12:21basement we had, we had a kids who are electrical engineering majors. They could have just built it themselves in a semester.
Sonny00:12:26I mean, it, that's basically what it was. I was like, nah, it was not, it was not a professionally, but, and it was also the other thing about it is, and this was my question, uh, for you JBL is what precisely is the right situation on these games? Because if somebody tells me that they are selling me a board that has 17,000 games, spanning the gamut of Atari to Nintendo, to Sega, to a PlayStation, I am a little bit skeptical. This is on the up and up and has been cleared with all the proper officially
JVL00:13:03licensed and that there is no IP theft going on here at all. That's my understanding.
Sonny00:13:08Sonny, that's your understanding. You haven't, you haven't, you haven't asked though. You wouldn't want to, you wouldn't want to, you know what?
JVL00:13:14It's one of my, it's one of my top questions that I will ask the proprietor Chris at paradox games who I've already spoken to. I haven't spoken to the stream. Uh, you, the custom art. So the, you get custom art on the cabinets, they'll make whatever you want. And, uh, I would say some people go for like classic, like, Oh, I want a lot of Mario characters. Some people want like a lot of mortal combat Pac-Man. I do see out there in the world. A lot of, what is the term the kids use? Gooner. A lot of, a lot of gentlemen on YouTube showing off their multi-cade cabinets who have chosen to get. Basically, like, you know, a whole, I got the girls from dead or alive too. That's what's on the side of my, that sounds like that sounds about right.
Mike00:14:05For the, uh, the target, a lot of eight, a long target customers.
JVL00:14:10So Sonny, I don't expect Michael to condone this.
Sonny00:14:14No, no, I, uh, I, I mean, I do deserve something nice.
JVL00:14:18Don't I?
Sonny00:14:19This is of course, of course you do. You should buy it. Of course you should buy it. That's that's neither here nor there. I'm not, I'm not, but I will. Say that my own personal experience with the very similar machine that we had, which again, had the gamut of games from like 1941, you know, the airplane shooter.
JVL00:14:37Oh, that's a game. Obviously you get that. Yeah.
Sonny00:14:40Which great. Everybody loves 1941. That's a, that's a fantastic game up to Zaxxon, right? Like it was, it was from numbers to Z from, from one to Zed. Um, I will say that my own personal experience with it was that I ended up playing like the same three games every time.
JVL00:15:00Yeah. And I imagine they're probably like 80 games that will become my go-tos. And I can already tell you like, well, it'll be like, you know, for the four player games, it's like gauntlet and there was, there's a Sega made a sci-fi version of gauntlet, which was really cool because you got like a lot of upgrades. And anyway, unimportant point is I feel like I deserve this. And my question to you boys is, are there purchases where you talk yourself up, like you go in thinking, yeah, no, no, I need this. And then the further down the rabbit hole you go, you're like, oh no, I couldn't live like that. What am I a farmer? I need the LS actually the ES makes more sense. The GT now the GT. Now we're talking.
Sonny00:15:48I, I, my, my answer to this is no, because I'm a congenitally very cheap person. And I always end up regretting it. I always end up. I always end up regretting.
JVL00:15:57This may surprise you Sonny, but I am not a cheap person.
Sonny00:16:01I am. I like, I, I, I really am in it. You know, we, we talk a lot about buying things on it, but like, remember when I bought that eyes wide shut jacket for $60 and I was like, this is the steal of the century.
JVL00:16:14I was like, yeah, I'd pay 500 for that.
Sonny00:16:17I would not have gone. I would not have gone above like a hundred on that. You know, maybe, maybe 150. I don't know. Um, but like, that's like, I'm just, I'm just kind of, I'm just kind of a cheap person. So that is, that's neither here nor there. Um, no, with me, it's always, it's the opposite. I get like, I find like whatever, like the base model acceptable version is. So like that, my, my 4k Blu-ray player is perfect example of this, which is like, I have like not quite the entry level 4k Blu-ray player, but pretty close to it. I have like the cheapest Sony you can get that also has Dolby vision. Um, and I have come to regret this. I've come to regret this for a bunch of reasons for, for not, I regret as regret as the wrong word, regret is a strong word, but there are things about it that I don't like that could be better with like the $900 Panasonic version there. The amount of there's, and then, and then, and then I started going down the rabbit hole and I found like a $2,700 4k Blu-ray player. And I was just like, that's probably pretty extravagant, but I don't know, I bet it, I bet it decodes those pictures real nice. I bet it's got some real cool gear inside.
JVL00:17:32Sonny, if you spend $2,700 on 4k discs, why would you not get the best machine to, to display them?
Sonny00:17:42You, you it's, I, I cannot answer that question in any way, except to say that like I would break out in hives if I purchased it. I just would, I would feel, I would feel, I would feel that feeling that you Catholics feel all the time. What's that called?
Mike00:17:56Uh, it's guilt.
Sonny00:17:57Guilt. There we go. That's it. That's the word. I would feel that I feel it all the time and I would just, I wouldn't be able to enjoy it now that I could, I could probably talk myself into that 800, 700, $800 Panasonic player. If, if, if, if, if there's a good sale, there's a good sale. I just won't tell. I just, I can't tell my wife about it is the thing. Cause I already have like six Blu-ray players. So I like, I mean, I, well, no, but, well, they're all different though. They're all different.
JVL00:18:26There's, there's like, there's, you have, you have different region players.
Sonny00:18:30There's, there's, there's just the original initial Blu-ray player that I bought when I, you know, but then, uh, you know, there's also a region free Blu-ray player. And then there's my PlayStation five, which I bought with the disc drive. Cause I thought, I, well, you gotta have a disc drive cause I want to watch the 4k movies. And then after I found myself going deaf because the drive was so loud on that, I was like, I gotta get a, I gotta get an action. Actual 4k. So I've got four, I've got four working currently in operation, uh, Blu-ray devices in, in my house. That, that, that feels like an HD DVD player still, uh, plugged in.
JVL00:19:11I gave, I gave mine away.
Mike00:19:12But that, that, that, that feels like the, a different version of the, of JVL is like getting, going up in, in trim here, right? Like.
Sonny00:19:26No, no, because they all do different things. They all do, they all do different things. They all do different things because, because I like the, the, the Blu-ray player was just like, is a Blu-ray player. Like I need, and then, and then I realized, and then I realized once I was, I was having trouble finding some things in, on Blu-ray in the United States. A lot of these, a lot of these discs were available for very cheap as imports. Yeah. And so I was like, I am actually saving money. I will save money by getting the region free. Blu-ray player. Boy, did you? Because, because you'll see you, the disc only costs $10 instead of $30. It's the, you know, it's.
JVL00:20:04And you know what? At that point, you got to buy more and more of them to keep saving more money.
Sonny00:20:09That's right. Well, if you don't, if you don't justify the purchase, what's the point?
JVL00:20:17It's clear as clear as day. Michael, this is, I, so I would just, I have not like put out a, a.
?00:20:25Blag.
JVL00:20:26Big for this, but I, I will say this here. Do anybody here who has any experience in the home arcade space? What I am a little nervous about this because it is sort of a major life purchase and anybody who has advice or thoughts, especially about the two main brands I'm looking at paradox arcades and extreme home arcades. Please let me know. Yeah. Let us know in the comments. Yeah.
Mike00:20:53I would love some help with this purchase. Yeah. Help give, give, give JVL some advice here.
JVL00:20:58Yeah.
Mike00:20:59All right. Well, well, let's, let's revisit that when we, when we have some advice. Put a pin in this one. We'll come back to it. Exactly. How much money would be too much to spend?
Sonny00:21:08Well, I already told you like. 17,000 games at $5 a game on a low end. That's. What if it's 50 cents a game? If you're spending, if you're spending less than, if you're spending less than $85,000, you're coming out ahead.
JVL00:21:22I mean, it just seems right. And for the art, I should probably get. Sonya blade in a bikini. Right.
Mike00:21:31They'll also.
JVL00:21:32Hey, tell us in the comments who you.
Sonny00:21:34Only, only if you get Pete's Ambrose's wife.
JVL00:21:38Oh, right. Yeah. Well, I mean, most people are going to want the, the animated version, not the, the real girl, right? Gross.
Mike00:21:49All right. Uh, how are you boys? Sonny? What's going on? Sorry.
JVL00:21:52I just took up 20 minutes with this, but I really do need help because I want to fucking. Buy this so hard. I can't even tell you. It's like the only source of joy in my life. I just want to be able to sit around and play old video games on a monster screen with a real joystick. I think that's all anyone wants.
Mike00:22:12My son, what's uh, no, no, no. What's going on Sonny?
Sonny00:22:15Uh, very quick for me the other day, uh, I got a knock on the door. Amazon delivery guy was there as it happens like four times a day in my house. Um, and. Uh, he dropped off four bags and I looked at him. I was like, okay, I didn't, I was like, all right, thanks. And I looked at my phone. I was like, what did, what did we order? And it was, uh, it was fruit. It was fruit from, uh, from, I guess, whole foods. Uh, and I texted my wife, I was like, Hey, did we get a bunch of fruit for, uh, for Charlie's birthday party? Cause his birthday was, uh, is coming up, uh, was, was coming up. It was like that day. I was like, do we get like a bunch of fruit? For a fruit platter or something? She was like, no, no way. I just needed to hit the, I needed to hit the, uh, minimum to get free shipping on this, uh, filter for the fish tank. Like, oh, sure. All right. So we got a bunch of fruit and I was like, okay, all right, whatever. That's fine. And so then I go to the bags again, four bags of fruit and I open, I bring them to the counter. I put them on the counter. I opened the first bag and it's full of bananas. It's like two or three bunches of bananas. I was like, oh, bananas. I, I, we were at a. Bananas. I needed some bananas. How much I opened the second bag, we'll, we'll get to that. Uh, uh, I opened, I opened the second bag and it was also full of bananas. Again, like two or three bunches of bananas. I'm like, okay, that's, that is now too many bananas. This is, I rarely have too many bananas, but the third bag, I swear to God, another bag full of fucking bananas. And I was like, I was all right. So now. I've got, we have, I've like, I lined them all up on the, I was like, we have 10 bunches of bananas here. Open up the third bag. It's like, it's like a pint of blueberries and a pint of raspberries and one apple. And I, I, I, I stack all this up on the counter and I look at it and I, I, I nod my head slowly and I pull, I pull the order back up on my phone and I'm looking at it. And next to bananas is the number 10, 10.
Mike00:24:25Yep.
Sonny00:24:26But it's not 10 bananas. It's 10 bunches of bananas. So I, I, so we have, we have now, uh, interestingly, they cost about $10. How much can 10 bunches of bananas cost? Michael $10 turns out. Um, uh, the, uh, we, so we, we have like no shit, like 70 bananas in the, in the house and I have been, I have been housing bananas. I have been eating. I have been eating. I, every time you're eating bananas for every meal, I've been, I've been putting bananas in the kids' lunches to take to school. They hate that. They hate that. Oh my God. Do they hate that? They want apples. They do not want bananas, but you know what? Kids, we all have to make sacrifices in these tough times. Uh, I, I've been, I've been coming up with different recipes. I've been on the Weight Watchers app trying to find different banana recipes. I've been making, I've been making smoothies. I got some, I got some frozen berries and I put them in. With two bananas and a little bit of 2% milk and, uh, mix them right up. It's very drinkable. That's a drinkable drink. I'll tell you what. Uh, and then, and then, uh, the, the other day we very, very exciting. We made what I can only describe as banana pancakes. There's bananas and eggs and you, you whip them together. Bananas and eggs. You whip them together and you put them on the griddle and they cook up kind of like pancakes. They're, they're not, they're, they're not pancakes, but they're flat and they're, you
JVL00:26:04know, anyway, not quite a crepe, not quite much closer to a crepe, much closer to a crepe,
Sonny00:26:13but not, not a crepe either. It's, uh, it, I, there weren't bad again. It's literally just bananas and eggs and I love bananas and eggs. I, you, I, you can't go wrong with bananas and eggs in my, in my opinion. I'm not. I, I'm not going to, I would not go out of my way to make this again necessarily, but it was, uh, it was, uh, you, you make the little banana pancake, you put a little powdered sugar on it and it's, it tastes great. It's wonderful. I swear to, we still have like 40 bananas left. I don't know what I'm going to do with my life.
Mike00:26:42Wait, wait for him to get Brown and then you make some banana bread.
JVL00:26:45Well, I've, I've never had any luck with making banana bread.
Sonny00:26:50I've always, it's always come out bad. I've never been able to do it. I don't know why. I don't know what I do wrong. Uh, but. But anyway, uh, we'll probably try making some banana bread, maybe some banana, some banana, oatmeal muffins or cookies or something.
JVL00:27:05There's always money in the banana stand. That's true.
Sonny00:27:07There's always bananas in the banana stand. I can tell you that much.
Mike00:27:10Take a banana, take a banana, take a dollar, take a banana, take a dollar.
Sonny00:27:14That's all that's been going on with me. Just eating bananas all day. Every time I walk by that basket, every time I walk by that basket, one more banana in the stomach.
Mike00:27:22Oh man. Well, you won't have a potassium shortage. Um, that's for sure. Uh, um, all right. Well, uh, thank you, Sonny. Good luck with your, uh, banana hoard.
Guest00:27:31Thank you.
Mike00:27:32Yeah. Uh, so what is going on with me? Not much. I, um, I slept on the ground on Saturday night at the, uh, at the Cub Scout, uh, camp out.
Sonny00:27:46Oh, Cub Scout camp out.
Mike00:27:48Yeah. And, uh, it was very cold and it was okay. So long story. I think what I, when I first started this podcast, we were with a Cub Scout pack and it didn't work out. It wasn't great. And we kind of stepped away from Cub Scouts. And then in this kind of last year of Cub Scouts, uh, my oldest wanted to do it again. Um, and we joined a different pack that has like basically all the kids in his, like a bunch of his friends are in it. And I'm like, why didn't we do this earlier? I don't know. He asked the same question. Why didn't we join this pack earlier? But it's much more. Low key. It's much, it's better. We have, uh, one of the dads runs the, the, the den for us and he's just, just fantastic. He's, he does it just the right amount of like seriousness, but also like not serious at all. It's great. So I got, we, we went to this camp out. It's basically the last camp out for, for, for him because they'll be graduating and going on to Boy Scouts. Um, and it was the first one for him as well with this pack. So, uh, but it's a good time and I know all, you know, a bunch of the dads got to meet somebody. Some of the new ones and, and he's running around with all of his friends. Um, but it's an interesting, uh, it was an interesting location where this, uh, camp out was Sonny. I don't know where, like, you know, you had your, your journey that you described last week of, um, going from one campsite to the other, but were the ones, the, the, the two that you went to, they're like four scouts, correct? Is that, or okay.
Sonny00:29:24They're like owned by the scouts. Yeah.
Mike00:29:26Correct. All right. So that's, that's the, that's how it was with, with us. And, um, it's in a part of Northern Virginia that is like when this scout camp was, when the land was purchased and this area was established as a scout camp, I am sure that it was in the middle of nowhere and it is no longer in the middle of nowhere. And like, in fact, I've been going to this area enough to know that like I've seen it gone from like all halfway the middle of nowhere to like just suburbia in the time that I've in the 15 years that I've lived in, in this part of the country. And, um, and so we had the experience of like, we had, you know, you like drive in and there's like a kind of a loop road with all the campsites and there were four other packs there that weekend. Um, and we had rented two campsites that were right next to each other. Cause, um, we had rented two campsites that were right next to each other. Cause we had so many kids and, um, but it was like in this area where like in the woods and then right behind the woods, like, like right behind the woods is like a road. And then behind that road is like a housing development with like new houses right there. So we're sitting there around the campfire, uh, you know, doing all of our Cub Scout stuff. And it's like, and it felt. It felt like we were in just somebody's backyard because like, we could see the houses, we could see the lights and like all the kids are like, we're in somebody's backyard or like, Oh no. Yeah. But, uh, kind of actually, and there were debates about whether like all the dads, like once the kids would go to sleep or just like go knock on somebody's door and asked to watch the rest of the world series, um, game seven. So, um, but Oh, you missed game seven. Well, we were all like kind of watching it on our phones, sitting around the campfire and sure. Oh, there was, I'm sure there was. Cell service wasn't a problem. Cell service was not a problem at all. Um, but, uh, but it was, it was just funny because my memories of as a kid going on scout camping, uh, trips was either the front lawn of the, like I said, I think last week, the front lawn of the church where our Cub Scout pack was based or like pretty deep in the woods. Like we'll walk pretty far into the woods. So like, it was just, it was, it was a, it was a different experience. Um, and, uh. And I did not enjoy sleeping, uh, on the ground. I, I, I resolved if we go camping again, I'm got to get one of those cots, you know, those camping cots.
JVL00:32:05Did you have a, did you have an air mattress? No, no air mattress.
Mike00:32:09I had a sleeping pad, not inflatable. I had two kind of, uh, no, one was egg crate. One was like a foam and one on top of the other.
JVL00:32:20You deserve better than that, Michael.
Mike00:32:22Well, you know, I grew up like, that's what I slept on. And when I was a kid, you know, or like when I went backpacking, like I didn't sleep on any pad.
JVL00:32:30It was just start thinking out that the, the foam egg cradle do. And then you're like, well, I need a self inflating.
Mike00:32:35Oh, I need the thermo rest King size. Right, right, right. Um, but, uh, anyway, it was fine. I had some very funny experiences, uh, with, we launched off these like, uh, two liter bottle rockets that the kids had made an earlier one, like on this sort of, uh, you like put it on the stand and you put pressurized air into it and then you let pull. The pin and it flies up in the air. Um, so it was good. And I had, uh, the only thing I will say is, um, I, that I was very proud of and I got the sense that like all of the dads of the fifth graders, you know, again, the last year for Cub Scouts, um, like they were all pros at this because we were all up and like ready to go before anybody else. Like we were like, all right, let's like, let's get the hell out of here. Um, and I. I have to say, I woke up, uh, and, uh, I had my own tent. My son was with his friend in a separate tent. Um, I woke up before anybody and broke down everything and had everything packed and ready to go at like six 45 in the morning. It was, it was great. It was great. It was like, what an accomplishment. So that's, that's, that's pretty good.
JVL00:33:50Yeah. Anyway.
Mike00:33:51So that was my, that was my, uh, experience. Uh, should we? Should we move on? Yeah. I'm, I'm actually excited to talk about predator. Yeah. But let's talk quickly about box office because I mean, we keep saying it, but it's another abysmal weekend at the box office. If there's nothing out, black phone two is, uh, is once again, uh, the number one or maybe no, it's the first time it's on, it's, it's, it's still on the charts, but it's not number one, regretting you chainsaw me on the movie Reza arc. We discussed that last week. Um, interestingly, I wanted to talk about this, but. Sonny, you may have other thoughts, um, uh, for K-pop demon hunters, they put it back in theaters for the Halloween weekend and, uh, it ended up at number four for the weekend. So just shows you how abysmal things are.
Sonny00:34:40Uh, no, this was, I think this was the worst October in like 25 years or something. I like it was, uh, it was, uh, it was, it was really bad. And there were, there were a couple of, uh, somebody who Scott Mendelsohn, maybe it was, uh, broke it down why this happened. So like original. Uh, this was the week, this was the month that the, uh, the Michael Jackson biopic was supposed to come out, which is like Lionsgate is convinced is going to do Bohemian Rhapsody numbers. Um, so a lot of, a lot of, uh, people kind of cleared out of this space. And then there were some horror movie that was supposed to come out and got, ended up getting pushed to early next year, uh, cause it wasn't ready or something. Um, but like basically like three, there were, there were three big movies that were supposed to come out this month at all. Ended up getting pushed out at the same time. And as a result, there just wasn't a ton this, this whole month. Um, and the stuff that did come out just didn't land. I mean, the Springsteen movie, uh, you know, nobody, nobody really wanted to see Tron Aries as a, as a pretty big bomb. Um, black phone two is holding. Okay. Like $60 million on that movie is probably a pretty good number. Um, you know, uh, for, for its budget, I doubt it was that expensive. There are only like six people in the movie. Um, so I, I don't think it, it could have cost Blumhouse and, uh, universal that much, but it was, um, no, it's been a, it's been a, just a real abysmal month. It's a, it's been a real, real bad month.
Mike00:36:10So what do we have coming up for like the holiday season or is it, is it more just nothing?
Sonny00:36:17Well, there's, there's wicked, wicked two. Wicked two is going to be big. Wicked two will be big. That's that, that's going to, that's going to do numbers. Uh, Zootopia two. Zootopia two is coming out. I think that will also do numbers. Um, probably not. It probably won't do inside out two numbers or remember inside out two was enormous to, you know, 600 million domestic, something like that. I don't, I don't think it's going to be quite that big, but people like Zootopia. So I think that'll do okay. Um, uh, and then, uh, Avatar three, Avatar three comes out in December and that movie, that movie will, that movie will gross $1.9 billion worldwide and then nobody will ever think about it again.
JVL00:36:55Well, I mean, everybody's talking about it, right? I mean, everyone will be around to the movie right now. You hear people clamoring saying, I can't wait for the next Avatar. I've been, I have theories, all the fan theories that are out there, fan theories, the Reddit boards are exploding.
Mike00:37:14Yeah. And I, and I, I definitely did not find out that there was an Avatar three coming out, uh, just 30 seconds ago. That's definitely not the case.
Sonny00:37:23Well, I got good news for you, Mike.
JVL00:37:25Quick name, the planet. Oh, Pandora. I know that one. I know that one. Look at you. Okay. Not bad. Pandora and the Navi.
Mike00:37:35And, uh, like, how could you forget it's imprinted in the culture? Um, so anyway. All right. Well, that's, that's, that's great. That's, that's, that's, it's, it's going to be, uh, every kid on my street was dressed
Sonny00:37:48like a Navi warrior.
Mike00:37:52Uh, any other body paint, any other box office thoughts? Anything to. No, no. So why don't, so, so why don't we move on? Hold on.
JVL00:38:00There is a new predator movie though.
Sonny00:38:02Oh, there is a new predator movie. New predator movie. Is it already out? Comes out on Friday. It comes out today, this Friday.
Mike00:38:10But is it on Netflix or something?
Sonny00:38:12No, it's in theaters.
JVL00:38:14Can I, can I ask something, boys? Have you ever seen TV spots for a movie like the predator spots? Because it's, they're pushing very hard in three. And so the TV spots do something weird with the like black bars across the top.
Sonny00:38:34And they come out of the black bars.
JVL00:38:35In an attempt to make it feel like it is glasses-less 3D. And I mean, at least for G-Money, it worked. Like G-Money wants to go see this thing so hard.
Sonny00:38:46He's like, I've never seen anything like that. Look at it. It's coming out of our TV.
JVL00:38:51Interesting.
Sonny00:38:52Has G-Money seen Avatar 2? Did he go?
JVL00:38:56No.
Sonny00:38:57Is he going to see Avatar 3? Are you going to take him to see Avatar 3?
JVL00:39:00Yeah. Yeah.
Sonny00:39:01How old is G-Money now?
JVL00:39:03Nine.
Sonny00:39:04Nine?
JVL00:39:05Yeah.
Sonny00:39:06He doesn't like scary things, right?
JVL00:39:13Correct. But Avatar isn't really scary.
Sonny00:39:16No, no. I'm not thinking of Avatar. I'm thinking of Predator Badlands, which is the new Predator movie. It doesn't look scary.
JVL00:39:21It just looks like adventure stuff. It's scary?
Sonny00:39:26Yeah. No. It's very much like the movie it most calls to mind or the series it most calls to mind is not Predator at all, but the Kong versus Godzilla movies. Yeah. It's a lot like those. It's kaiju? If he likes those movies, he'll probably like this.
JVL00:39:43He loves those movies.
Sonny00:39:45I think he would probably be fine with this then. It's a little more violent. I mean, it's PG-13, but the only reason it's PG-13 is because... Because everybody who gets killed is a synthetic or CGI, like a CGI monster. So there's definitely still some violence. There's definitely still some, but none of it's human, so it doesn't really count. Question. Question.
Mike00:40:10Are the Predator and Alien universes completely merged at this point?
Sonny00:40:17More or less, yes.
Mike00:40:19Okay. I would love to read an article about... Maybe it's not that interesting, but how that happened, or they just kind of fell into it after...
Sonny00:40:31I'll tell you how it happened, Mike. I'll tell you how it happened, Mike. Corporate synergy. It was corporate synergy. They're both owned by 20th Century Fox. And 20th Century Fox was like, hey, why don't we have them fight each other like they do in the comic books? It's like Jason versus Freddy, right?
JVL00:40:50Yeah.
Sonny00:40:51Yeah. So, well, Jason versus Freddy was trickier, though, because those were owned by... By two different studios. But it was literally just like somebody at 20th Century Fox was like, wait a second. We own Predator and we own Aliens. Is Ridley Scott going to say no if we throw him a million dollar check to mash them together? Make them kiss. Who's stopping this? Nobody.
Mike00:41:18And it turns out nobody. And they got Paul Thomas Anderson to make the movie.
Sonny00:41:23Yes, exactly. The good... The good Paul Thomas Anderson.
Mike00:41:27I think it was Paul W.S. Anderson.
Sonny00:41:30Yes, it was Paul W.S. Anderson. That's the joke, Mike. If people didn't get the joke, they don't deserve the joke. Okay, sorry.
Mike00:41:38Okay. Okay, so Predator Badlands coming out in theaters. Do you want to tell us, Sonny, anything about that movie before we move on to the original?
Sonny00:41:48No, I'll discuss Predator Badlands in the course of discussing Predator.
Mike00:41:52Got it. Okay, so why don't you give us a big boy review of Predator?
Sonny00:41:55Okay, so Predator, directed by John McTiernan, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Carl Weathers, Jesse Ventura and Sonny Landham, all in Shane Black. Shane Black's in this. It is, I use, I talk about this in my review. I use the phrase perfect movie in a very specific way. I don't, when I say something is a perfect movie, I don't mean it's the best movie, though oftentimes the best movies are also perfect movies. You know, The Godfather is both one of the best movies of all time. And a perfect movie. But when I say perfect movie, usually what I mean is something like Predator. And Predator is the film I go to as an example of what I mean when I say a Predator, when I say a movie is a perfect movie. Because what Predator does is it sets out to do a very specific thing. It does that specific thing. And it does it at a very high level. It does it at a very high level, both visually, in terms of the visuals, in terms of the script, in terms of the action in this case, in terms of the characterization. This is a movie where we are introduced to what? We are introduced to about seven or eight different soldiers, right? And they all have distinct personalities. And they all have distinct personalities, despite each of them getting about two lines of dialogue in the first 10 minutes and having a different wardrobe each as they walk out of that helicopter. Like it is it is the most efficient piece of storytelling I think I've ever seen in a movie. And that is that is this whole movie. This whole movie is just efficiency. It's only one hundred and seven minutes long, and it runs you through two entirely different genres of film, really almost three entirely different genres of film. And it does all of the kind of classic 1980s action stuff at a very high level. It looks great. It has great. It has one of the all time. Great creature designs in this movie. I joke sometimes about how Hellraiser there are like 18 Hellraiser movies because that movie had one good character design in it. Well, there's only been like six Predator movies, and the Predator design is a million times better.
JVL00:44:10Anyway, I want to fight you right now. I think the the Predator creature design is underwhelming. Oh, well, you sound design on the Predator is fantastic. Yes.
Sonny00:44:25All right. All right. It's JVL. You'll have your turn. Great score in this movie. Speaking of sound design, the set, the score in this movie is fantastic. I only really think there is one. There's one. It's not even a false note. It's just kind of an unnecessary note, which is the the the the the. It's the sequence where Bill Duke is saying goodbye to Jesse Ventura. And it's got like the kind of taps music playing. You know, the like and he's like got the moonlight. But it's such a cool looking shot. And like I would I am happy to spend time with Bill Duke. He's a fine actor. The whole thing is it it glides on rails like it it moves. And what I mean by that is not just that it it, you know, from moment to moment, it's good. I'm what I mean is that it has an abrupt genre shift halfway through the movie where it goes from an action adventure. Film to a horror film. And then almost it's almost like a sports movie at the end. Like this is what I mean when I say that it has almost three different like the there's there's the action adventure kind of standard 80s Arnold Schwarzenegger quippy one liners teams of badass doing badass things. And then there's the horror section of the film where it's a slasher movie and a monster is hunting them and killing them. And you don't really know. What's going on? But you know that there's this alien that is that is hunting them. And then the last part of the movie is like it's again, it's like an underdog sports movie. It's the the the the overmatched boxer figuring out how to beat his opponent. It just takes place in the jungle with with Arnold Schwarzenegger and a bunch of logs and a bowie knife. It's it is it's a perfect it is a perfect movie. It's a perfect movie. And like John McTiernan has this run. Between this, I would go from this in 1987 to the Thomas Crown Affair in 1999. It's a stretch of six movies. It's in a row. You have Predator, Die Hard and The Hunt for Red October, which are three. Those are three perfect movies. The again, by my definition of like it's doing a thing. It does that thing incredibly well. And it it just moves incredibly efficiently through through the film. And then he makes he makes Medicine Man, which is a miss. I don't I don't think Medicine Man is that good. But then he makes Die Hard with a Vengeance, which is amazing. Then he makes Last Action Hero.
Mike00:47:08That came before Die Hard with a Vengeance. What's that? Last Action Hero came before Die Hard with a Vengeance.
Sonny00:47:14Oh, yeah. Last Action Hero, then Die Hard with a Vengeance. And then where are you sure?
Mike00:47:18Yes. Last Action Hero, 93.
Sonny00:47:20Last Action Hero, then Die Hard with a Vengeance. And then the Thomas Crown Affair. And like that is that. That stretch of seven films or whatever. Again, you take out Medicine Man. Not very good. But six for seven. All of them are very good. I I there are not many modern runs like that outside of your like Nolan's or, you know, whatever. It's he he was he was working at a very high level and it all started with Predator. And again, I like defy you. I defy anyone to watch this movie. And come away with it. I come away from it unimpressed by how it does the thing it sets out to do. And that's the very key distinction here. Like, I'm not saying that Predator is Citizen Kane. I'm not saying that Predator is the Wizard of Oz. I'm not saying it is, you know, the all time height of cinematic achievement. This is not Robert Altman. It's not, you know, whatever. But it is it is an incredibly well done high concept. Popcorn action movie that holds up because it does everything it sets out to do perfectly well.
Mike00:48:33All right. JVL, you do you have thoughts on?
JVL00:48:38Yeah, I mean, so part of what you're talking about, Sonny, is the difference between dialogue and storytelling. And the dialogue in Predator is bad. The storytelling. Stick around. Is.
Sonny00:48:50No, no, but that's good. That's good, though.
JVL00:48:52I love that. I love it. Right. I mean, the storytelling is. Establishing character and moving right. Giving everybody clear motivations and moving from place to place. I'm what interested me about it most. I haven't seen this movie in a long, long time. The extent to which it still has a little bit of like 70s paranoia in it. Like it feels like a Vietnam movie. In the first in the way that like the Lethal Weapon movies have a lot of Vietnam going on in them. Right. Riggs Riggs is talks about killing guys in Laos. And these guys are all I mean, these characters in the movie clearly would have been Vietnam veterans. It is when you first start out. It's not clear that you're in South America. Like you could be in Southeast Asia.
Sonny00:49:45I so I when I when I watch this movie as a kid, I thought they were in Vietnam. Like the first two times I saw the movie, I did not realize that it was supposed to be Central America until like. The third time I saw it.
JVL00:49:56And and the other piece of this is, again, when you're set up in the camp, you're at. Who is this general? Is he an American general? What's going on? Why is the CIA there? And it turns out the CIA is lying to everybody. It has that, again, like 70s paranoia thriller molded on to what is a commando style, like shoot them up action movie. But which is being executed, as you said, like at a very high level of competence. And and but the dialogue is bad, right? Like, you know, like, how do we establish the character? Like, well, he tells two jokes about big pussies, about big pussy jokes that he's telling. Neither of which are funny. Good jokes. Right. So this is bad dialogue. I like them. But it is. But they're supposed to be bad jokes. Good character establishment. They're supposed to be bad jokes. Right. And every. Anyway, it's it's very good in that way. The one thing I disagree, though, is character design. I've all creature design. I have never liked not dislike. I have always been left cold by the predator character design in ways that like the alien. Is just a song like the xenomorph is amazing. There are plenty. It just left me cold. I think of the predator design as the most interesting thing about. It is the sound work and the sounds that he makes are, I think, what are the iconic things about him in a way that the actual, you know, the mandibles and the dreadlocks and all that stuff are very me.
Guest00:51:41All right.
Mike00:51:43But I don't know.
Guest00:51:43Maybe you guys disagree.
Mike00:51:44The sound, the sound is like is unreal. So I guess I should come clean here that I had not seen first time predator. This is my first time. I, I realize that like predator, predator two was something that I definitely saw parts of, if not the whole thing on cable. But, but cause I, cause I remember Danny Glover, you know, and, and, and, and, and that, so the, like, that's my memory of predator, but it's also like, like predator was just a thing in my childhood that existed. Like, so I would actually disagree with you JVL, like it's iconic because. I knew what it was before I ever saw any of the movies. And it was like every, you know, like I remember kids playing predator, like on the playground, you know, it's like, oh, I'm like predator, you know, I'm, you know, it's like, it was like, like being Darth Vader or something, you know, it was just like.
JVL00:52:42The idea of the character is also fantastic. Like big game hunter from another planet. Totally.
Mike00:52:47Who like collects skulls, uh, skulls and, and skins them alive anyway. So, but I went into this with basically. You know, but it is funny how much of it is not just the, the, the creature itself was like something I was just familiar with, whether it's a bunch of the lines that, that Arnold says, you know, get to the chopper, you know, or, um, oh, you want ugly motherfucker, like all that stuff, like leads, we can kill it. Right. Exactly. Um, I mean, obviously the, the, one of the greatest memes of all time, the, the, uh, is, are they, are they shaking hands or are they arm wrestling with, um, uh, with Arnold and, uh, and Carl Weathers arm wrestling.
Sonny00:53:32No other movie is going to give you midair arm wrestling.
Mike00:53:34Exactly. It's great. Um, it's so ain't got time to bleed. I mean, it just, it's so it's, I, I, I love, and there's all those fantastic Arnold lines, you know, only that only Arnold delivers, like stick around, you know, uh, uh, knock, knock, you know, which is just, it's that.
Sonny00:53:55I, I wa I was watching this, I was, I was watching this movie 15 years ago with some friends and when the stick around line happened for some reason, I lost it. I could not stop laughing for like five minutes afterwards. It was one of the, I like, it was, it was, it was just, I love, I love the one liners.
Mike00:54:13Uh, quick digression on, on the Arnold one liners, which I love and are fantastic. I will say like, you knew that he, like we were past. Like peak Arnold, when his one liners in eraser really fall flat and my brother and I were watching that like, like 15 years ago and like, we just like burst out laughing, but not in a good way, like in a bad way at those one line. It's like, Oh, like he, he didn't have it anymore. Or like the movie did. I know eraser was not a good movie, but anyway. Um, but I love them here. So I keep, so I came into this movie really not expecting, not knowing what to expect. Um, and the horror. So, okay. A couple of thoughts, the horror elements of it. I mean, to hold up, it's like, it's like, doesn't do it justice. Like it is, it's scary as hell. Like it is really frightening when they're, and it's, it has this like claustrophobic feel, which is weird for a movie that takes place outside. And until the very end basically takes place during the day, right? Like all of the commanders. And, um, and it's, I dunno, it's just the, it's, it is very frightening. And in fact, I would say the, the horror of it falls away when we see the more we see of, and by the time we see the full predator, like in his, you know, without the cloaking, like then it's really not, it's not as scary anymore. Even with the mandibles, like, it's like not scary. It's like, it's like you said, it's now it's like a box. It's like a boxing movie.
Sonny00:55:55Yeah. Yeah. That's what I mean. Like it's at, at a certain point towards the end, it is not a horror movie anymore. And it, it reverts more back to like a kind of standard action film. But I do think, I do think it has weirdly that sports movie element to it. That is funny.
JVL00:56:12You say that I'd never thought of as a sports movie, but it's right. And I know that what you're saying is right, because at the end, this time when Schwarzenegger is holding up, the rock or the, the wood, and he's going to kill the predator and he decides not to what immediately I thought was, Oh, what this movie needed was for the predator to look up at him and say, you and me friend. And for the two of them to them, the idea is the two of them team up to go hunting and killing people in the next movie. Sure.
Mike00:56:46Right.
JVL00:56:47They wind up with a grudging respect for each other and, uh, and, and they, they wind up unlike partners. Oh, no, I was thinking that no, the predator, he's a kidnap and rescue veteran. He's an alien who plays by his own rules together. They are totally, totally, um, going back to gotcha.
Mike00:57:09Is that his name? Oh gosh.
Sonny00:57:11I think it's the name of the species. Mike, come on. I, they're not, they're not, they're not just called the predators. They don't just, they don't just come from predator prime.
Mike00:57:21One thing I do not need. And I really appreciate this movie. It doesn't do is I do not need any more backstory than this. No, no, I do not.
JVL00:57:29I don't want none backstories. Um, although I did find myself thinking this afternoon as I was prepping for this, we're at the economics of the predator planet, right? Faster than life. Travel is always going to be incredibly expensive as a resource unit. Uh, the idea of a single person FTL ship is just a shot. So is this. Like, is he the 1% of his civilization?
Sonny00:57:58No, no. Well, they pour, they pour all of their resources into space travel because every time you see the predator homeworld in the movies or the animated series or whatever, it looks like a real dump. They, they all live in hovels.
JVL00:58:11That's so interesting that they figured out faster than light quantum entanglement.
Sonny00:58:15All they want to do is hunt almost.
Mike00:58:17It almost doesn't make any sense. Um, so, uh, going back to the beginning of the movie, I want them to be friends at the end. No, I, uh, no, I, as I, as I said, I was trying, I wanted, I wanted the predator to hand Arnold, Arnold, the trophy, you know, um, like, uh, like in karate kid, um, so, uh, no, I, I appreciated Arnold's here's the thing about the Arnold, um, predator fight, which is like, it's pretty remarkable and incredible to like have a face off like that, where Arnold looks small. Like that, that was the other thing that like, you know, occurred to me, which is like, gosh, like Arnold looks like one of us all. I mean, not really, but like, you know, next to the predator, you know, it's like, it's just looking into a mirror.
Sonny00:59:04It's like, I was like, it's me on the screen.
Mike00:59:07Um, so yeah, no, but what I want to say was the, um, the scene in, uh, in terms of like establishing all these characters, the, the long, tall Sally scene in the, in the helicopter is also, it was, I was like, I, I loved it. I was like, this is, this is. What you say, sunny, perfect movie. This is a perfect movie scene, right? Like it's got it in my favorite part of it actually is, you know, the, the, the little Richard is like playing the whole time and like, you're getting to know these guys and all these just different subtle ways and you hear the joke. And then the, the, you know, the, the, the Indian tracker doesn't laugh at the joke and all this stuff. Um, sexual Tyrannosaurus, right? Exactly. Um, can't believe he was going to be governor. Um, uh. But then like, I love the little detail where he turns off the music from the boom box. Like they were listening to it in, it was, it was w what's the right word? It was diegetic music, diegetic sound.
Sonny01:00:06Yes.
Mike01:00:06It was not, it was not, it was not, uh, you know, we, we weren't hearing it. They were hearing it. And I just, I love that little detail. Um, I do have a couple issues. One with the mud really have masked Arnold's body heat. I find that hard to believe. Is there, has there been any science? On this? Like he smears some mud on himself and now the predator can't see him. I don't know. What do we think? Yes.
Sonny01:00:33No, I don't, I, I, I don't, I don't know. Thermodynamics. I'm just as I thought over here, I just thought it was a little, it was, it was a
Mike01:00:46little far fetched in the, uh, in the alien, uh, more of your nitpicks here. Um, the, the first. Okay. So the first moment you see the cloaking device stuff, like you see the predator through the cloaking, um, device effect, it did take me out a little bit. It was like, it was like the one thing that felt a little dated, but then I grew, I was reading about how they fit, how they did it. And I really appreciated the kind of like, it was like old school special effects. They, they sort of, but like used it a new way, right? Like they like basically filmed it twice and they filmed the background without the projector in like a wide angle lens and then like superimposed the two shots. So that's why, how it looked like it was like camouflage in the, in the form I was impressed, um, but it looked a little dated to me. Um, and, uh, And that's, that's, those are my notes. Those are basically my notes. Um, oh, I could have used a little more, uh, from the general at the beginning, like, like I just, just like, uh, just a little, just a little more, I don't know, like a little more of a. He felt a little underdeveloped as a character, but no, but I think that it's so funny
Sonny01:02:00because I, I watching it again this time, uh, I was, there's this great little moment where you see the general smile at Dutch in a way that suggests both familiarity. Like here's, here is my friend. Here is a person I consider a friend. And also like, here is a person who can save me because that is, that is what he is mounting on from Dutch. And it's, it's, again, it's just this, like, you know, McTiernan has a very good. McTiernan does so much stuff so well in that first 10 minutes, like the way, the way the guys are shot coming out of the helicopter, where you can see how they are all dressed. Right. You see how that you like shoot it. So there, there are two, I'm talking about two distinct shots here or two distinct setups. There's one setup where you're looking into the helicopter and you see them all, um, and how they're dressed. They're kind of dressed uniquely to their own style and you know, one guy's in like basically a suit, the other guy's in t-shirt, whatever, uh, Jesse Ventura is in his MTV shirt. Right. And, and then, and then you, you shoot it, then it shot from the side where you're seeing the side, you're seeing them come out of the helicopter and the sun is behind them. And they're all, uh, in deep shadows. It's all like, they're all washed out in black, right? They're they're basically, it's almost like a black and white shot. And, or a silhouette shot. It's a silhouette shot as well. Sorry. That's, that's the word I'm grasping for here. It's a silhouette shot of all the guys that makes them all look the same. So it's like you have, you have the individuality of the individuals and then you have the team that looks the same as they come off because they work as one cohesive unit. It's just this perfect visual image, um, that I, you know, it. People say they don't, you don't make it, people don't, people say you don't make movies like they, they don't make movies like they used to. And they don't because that is like a, just a, like a very simple thing that you just have to kind of intuitively instinctually know. And people don't know how to shoot things like that anymore.
?01:04:07Yes.
Mike01:04:08Or it's like, it's dumbed down. Right. Because like Paul, that's had a lot of moments like that, Sonny, what's that?
Sonny01:04:15Red notice had a lot of, a lot of every shot was thought through with that sort of care.
Mike01:04:21Yeah. Oh, oh. Well, another thing I really liked. Yeah. Was the fake out with the where he's, where the predator is using Mac's voice on on Carl Weathers because you yeah, that's right. And you think, oh, he's about to strike, but then no, no, no. Bill Duke is still alive and he's actually calling for, or like actually like grabs him and the little fake out on that. Cause I was like, oh, like he's gonna, he's gonna use the voice and, and trick him. And then he doesn't. And then he eventually does. Ah, just great.
JVL01:04:56I love it. Can you believe that they made this movie in 1987 and the girl didn't take her shirt off?
Mike01:05:01Well, I mean, she was barely in the movie, right? Like it was, I was, I was, I was watching, I was like, are there going to be any women in this movie?
Sonny01:05:10Frankly, one, one too many female characters in this movie.
JVL01:05:12That's my, that's my one note, my one, my one note, no, no, she, she has to be there.
Sonny01:05:19She does. She does have to be there. She does have to be there.
JVL01:05:22She has to be the innocent. She's there. She establishes the predator's character. You need, you need the predator to not kill her to establish his honor code. Exactly.
Mike01:05:35I guess also I've, I've found that I've found that whole thing ridiculous too.
Sonny01:05:38It could be a kid. It could be like a, it could be like a teenage boy, teenage, a child soldier. We need short rounds. Pass.
JVL01:05:45Give me the very, very attractive Mexican lady and not a short round.
Sonny01:05:53He could be a little fun. He could be a little helper We got, we got big problem, dodge.
Mike01:06:02So, um, also I, sorry, I actually don't buy that. Like the predator knows she's not holding a gun, but he can't see anything unless he's got the body. I don't know that I found that ridiculous.
Sonny01:06:16Like this camera thing identifies weapons.
?01:06:19Okay.
Mike01:06:20All right. Uh, any other thoughts on predator before we go? Get outta here.
?01:06:25No. Perfect. I love it.
JVL01:06:28I'll save it for outtakes.
Sonny01:06:29I'll save for outtakes.
JVL01:06:30I have one.
Sonny01:06:31I just want to explain why these movies work and the new predator movies don't.
Mike01:06:38Okay. Okay. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. We'll, we'll, we'll talk about that. All right. Uh, leave a comment, uh, sub beacon.com. Tell your friends and family, say hello to us on Instagram.
Sonny01:06:47And we'll talk to you next time. All right. All right. Very high concept thing here real quick. Uh, so, so the, there were, there were three predator movies, uh, that were just predator movies. There were two alien versus predator movies. And then there was the Shane black predator movie, which we're not going to talk about here. Cause the worst fucking thing I've ever seen. Is that the predator in the, the predator, but in the first three predator movies and also the alien versus predator movies, the concept of the movie is very simple. Big game. Big Earth, uh, and hunts very dangerous game. So in the first one, it's Arnold and his team and the, the, you know, communists in the, uh, in the second one, it's, uh, it's, it's weird because it's almost like a new Jack city, like urban crime movie. Um, so it's like, it's predator comes to Los Angeles and hunts gang bangers and the anti gang crime unit. Right. Uh, the third one predators is, is kind of inverts it a little bit, but it's still, it's like the predators gather a bunch of like a, a plus killers on earth or from earth and take them to like a predator, big game reserve. Right. And then there are the alien versus predator movies, which again are like predators versus the xenomorphs, which again, same idea here, predators, big game hunters hunting, very dangerous game. I don't love the new series of predator films, uh, that, that have been spearheaded by this guy, Dan Trachtenberg for one very specific reason. And that is that they are not about them. That they are not about predators come to earth and hunt the best of the best, um, in prey. It's this, uh, it's this, uh, female Comanche squaw who like, she really believes in herself and she thinks she should be a warrior, but nobody else believes in her and she like messes up early on. She does. She hunts badly and she, she screws up and nobody believes in her, but she believes in
JVL01:08:50herself and her movie. Brave.
Sonny01:08:52I would say this is not, it's not to say. It's similar. It's not, this is predator via Pixar and then, and then in the, in the animated film predator killer of killers that came out earlier this year, it's three vignettes that are all exactly this. It's like people who are disrespected and told that they don't belong as warriors fighting a predator and defeating them and winning because you know, again, what matters is you, you believe in yourself and this, the one that's out this weekend, a friend of mine, uh, uh, Brett, um, Brett. I'm from Twitter. I'll just call him. Uh, he, uh, he described the movie as predator Muppet babies and that's not wrong. That is not, that is not wrong. Like it is the concept of the film is a runt predator who the, his father, the leader of the clan wanted to kill is sent to, uh, escapes, escapes being killed. His brother's killed in front of his eyes and he escapes to this place called the death planet. Jenna. Where he is going to kill the deadliest game of all that even his father is afraid of. Even his, even his father is afraid of and yada, yada, yada. They, they put together a, a, a family is formed of outcasts from the Wayland Yutani corporation and like a, a baby Yoda style, you know, little, little space creature there. And they learn that there's more important things in life than just completing the hunt like family. It's, it's like, I'm just like, what do we do about family? It's like a, it really is the fast and furious of these dumb movies. Um, but I, uh, I, I dislike this. I dislike this. And I, I was trying to put my finger on why, and it really just does. It feels like, it feels like something, a writer's room full of like millennial psychiatrists would have come up with to be like, you really just got to believe in yourself, man. And people will tell you you're not good enough, but they're wrong. And if they, and even if they aren't wrong, you should still do it anyway, because why not?
JVL01:10:59And it's very, it's just like, it's like, because it seems like the predator always loses. Well in, so for a bad ass, a game hunter, they just keep dying. They do. They do killed by primitive people with like, you know, sticks.
Sonny01:11:13You would think you would think that they would get better at this, frankly, but you know, I don't know. We really do see the worst of the predators. Like there, we should see like the all-star predator team. The Harlem globetrotters, the predator dream team, the Harlem globetrotters of predator just coming to earth and like slaughtering entire, entire, you know, villages of what?
Mike01:11:34No, but this, but this makes sense. Like the, if it's like the rich guy playing the most dangerous game, right? Like we're giving the predator fail sons. Totally. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. The predator depo babies are, uh, are the ones going, yeah. Send them off to earth. You know? Um, yeah. He'll have a great time.
Sonny01:11:53How much trouble can you get into on earth?
Mike01:11:54No, that was, did we have his money? Okay.
Sonny01:11:57Send them to earth.
Mike01:11:58Chad. The predators name.
?01:12:00Chad.
Mike01:12:01I'm sure. It's fine.
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