PREDATOR (1987) Breakdown | Easter Eggs, Hidden Details, Making Of & Ending Explained

[Music] foreign [Music] spoilers show I'm your host Paul and after our breakdown of Terminator 2 I promised I'd be back with another big Arnie movie this week you have decided to tackle the Sci-Fi Action film Predator which is easily one of the best movies from the 80s like a lot of Barney's early action films the movie's a classic and in this video we're gonna be breaking it all down this includes Easter eggs hidden details and also the making of trivia that shows how good this movie really is because some damn fool accused you of being the best now weirdly the idea for predator was actually inspired by Rocky and a joke that one of the writers overheard the punchline was that after Rocky IV Balboa had beat the Russians and had no one else that he could fight all that was left was aliens and after a rocky vs ET joke this inspired screenwriter Brothers Jim and John Thomas to go make the movie although they didn't necessarily lean into the rocky thing they clearly took ideas from Rambo and in my research I actually expected to come across some stuff on sliced alone him and Ani had a big rivalry at the time but unfortunately Sly fighting ET something we're just gonna have to imagine now there's also some Urban myths centered around aliens that do somewhat have their roots in reality it has been rumored this film only got put into production cause James Cameron's classic had been so well received would be years before Alien 3 got put into production and this 20th Century Fox wanted to get something out in the downtime according to the rumors this is why Predator got Green Layer but it was actually in production during 1985 this was a whole year before aliens release but it has to be said that the success of it pushed the film further along originally titled Hunter the first draft centered around a group of alien hunters made up of various species that all had various goals it was basically a safari trip to Earth with the focus on the creatures before things were reworked to Center on a soul Hunter this would be tackling the most dangerous game in the universe which was going to be shown to be man that's right yeah most dangerous game in the universe I'll spoil Avengers end game two days before it releases don't you worry about it now originally there was only gonna be one Target and this would be a Native American character which is kinda poignant looking back as we know the lead would be reworked into Arnie and the Native American character would then morph into Billy however why I'm saying it's poignant is because decades later we get the prey prequel which would of course center around a Native American character battling the Beast now when Annie came in he suggested that they send her around a team of crack Commandos because he wanted to make a film like the Magnificent and seven over time the script was reworked several times with them eventually ending up with what we got in the end this would culminate with the elements of the modern world being Stripped Away so that all that was left were primitive weapons come the end of the film The Hunter becomes the hunted and I've always loved how the Dynamics of this movie flip for the end foreign ER is of course one of the most iconic creatures of all time and it stands out for a number of reasons designed by Stan Winston it's about who's meant to resemble a tarantula and its skin also shares similar properties to Locust however it wasn't always this way and had they stuck with the original design then the iconic creature would have looked totally different the first design was Far More insect-like in its appearance with only describing it as a bug with a duck's head as Jean-Claude Van Damme was actually brought into play the role and this is because he was seen as someone who could bring agility to the performance if you've ever watched the behind the scenes stuff then you've probably seen some of the footage with him and the actor actually shot several key scenes this included the moment in which he killed Dylan and Van Damme's been pictured alongside cold weathers several times on set there's also a shot where a bright red version of it races through the jungle and this was a technique that they used to create the cloak the bright red was used because it was the exact opposite of the green of the Jungle and the blue that you got in the clear skies the creative team would come in and film two takes with a suit running through one whilst it was absent in the other the one with it missing would be filmed with a wider lens and thus a vague outline of the alien could be seen with a footage bending around it using chroma key techniques they then dropped the red suit out and what we got in the end was the brilliant cloak effect and that of course made it to the film but what didn't was Jean-Claude Van Damme complaining that the suit was too difficult to move around in they then brought in Stan Winston to redesign the character this new version was eight and a half feet tall with Kevin Peter Hall now in the role it was extremely difficult to move around in still and they often had to use a bungee rig and other tricks to keep it in place the suit was so heavy that the tree at the end is actually made out of concrete and this is because a real one wouldn't support the weight all had a nightmare on set the guy was constantly worn out but as a thank you director John tiermann ended up including him in the movie at the end Dutch is picked up by a chopper and the pilot of this is none other than the actor sadly he passed away in 1991 and this was after he contracted HIV from a blood transfusion all died a month short of his 36th birthday but his performance will live on forever in this and Harry in the Hendersons now for iconic as the Predator is I don't think the movie would have been as big of a success without its core cast if you've been following our aliens retrospective then you know how much we talk about how important the side characters are in a film like Alien 3 when almost all the characters looking act the same it's difficult as an audience to get attached to them other films like alien and aliens have several memorable cast members so when you're watching them get taken out you actually feel something that's when I feel like the case is with predator and all these characters definitely Stand Out Rick tinan really wanted them to build up some camaraderie and he actually had the cast training together for weeks before they started shooting beginning at 6am they'd run through Fitness and firing regimes that made them all come together as one cohesive unit however as I'm sure you can guess the these guys had let's say some friendly competition that led to some hilarious stuff happening on set when you got a guys wouldn't miss the universe several times people are obviously going to want to try now do them on screen and look the most Macho in this movie of Macho men everyone was getting a belly to work out before going to set and Carl Weathers has talked about some of the stuff they got up to he said that Jesse Ventura would arrive 15 minutes before Arnie and he'd pour a bottle of water over himself as he was coming in this made only think that he'd been sweating due to waking up hours and the Sony start arriving earlier in order to try and beat him well this got in on this too and he said that it got to a point where they were working out at 3am however weather is said that he'd act like his physique was given to him naturally and he'd work out away from all the actors so they couldn't see a Ventura yeah he was over the moon after learning from the Wardrobe Department that his arms were bigger than anise delighted he suggested to the actor that they have an arm measuring contest and the winner of this would get a bottle of champagne and of course the loser would be embarrassed however jira lost because it turned out that Arnie had told the Wardrobe Department to tell him that his homes were bigger I think when you see the characters you can kind of feel this camaraderie leaping off the screen and it helps to make the character so memorable now one thing I actually forgot until doing this breakdown was that the movie begins with a shot of the ship coming into Earth akin to the opening of the thing this teases what's to come and it instantly lets us know that the movie's about an alien now when talking about this movie A lot of those are sparked too completely forgot this is how it opens up and we question whether it kind of spoiled a mystery that this movie centers around this is something the creative team apparently wrestled over two but ultimately in the end they settled on keeping it I think without it you just have no idea what the Predator is when the movie finished so this at least gives you an idea of what's going on anyway from here we go to the crew coming in and watch them getting off the chopper everyone's got their own luck Barney's easily given the best intro of them all sitting in the seat we watch him sparking up a cigar and this is something actors smoke throughout his entire life Carl Weathers actually blames only for getting him hooked on them as he gifted him a box on set and never looked back either way he's the portrait of masculinity and it cements a tone that they're going to be going for however because of health and safety Arnie wasn't just allowed to spark one up inside a helicopter so the Flames we see were actually added in post-production now only it was obviously coming off the back of Commando and the similarities actually go just beyond the tone the movie has the fictional South American country and I call Valverde which is also summing up pops up in this film mctiernan would also go on to direct several films in the die-hard franchise too and those films contain a mention of it as well so technically yeah they're all in the same universe so mixed here and intend to do little things that connect all his movies a bit off track yeah yeah but die hard as John McLean coming off a plane bring his wife a giant teddy bear unwrapped around it is a big red bow in the hunt for the Red October we end with Jack Ryan boarding a plane and he also takes a teddy bear with a red bow around it save that for our die-hard breakdown but we watch as Dutch arrives to learn about the mission a helicopter carrying a cabinet minister has apparently gone down Behind Enemy Lines though as we learn there is more to it now interestingly the person they're trying to find is called Jim Hopper which is the name of the character David Harbor plays in stranger things Shane Black's character is also called Hawkins and potentially they use both of these to influence the show either way at this point we're introduced to Dylan now we get what's one of my most favorite moments in film you son of a I love how the handshake sort of changes into an arm wrestle and it shows how competitive that Dutch really is it also solidifies the idea that he's the best and it makes sense why the Predator views him as an equal now the way the mission is pitched is that it's played as a rescue mission which is the only way that they would have got Dutch on board this is actually hinted to us earlier in the scene when Dylan asks why Dutch didn't help out when they were in Libya good old days yeah like the good old days then how come you passed on Libya huh oh that wasn't my style come on why'd you pass we Rescue Team not assassins so we get the idea that Marley is upright and that his team also works alone Channel my team always works alone you know that they actually gave a little note to this in the credits and the entire crew's name will appear in one block together this is because yet they work alone and these credits also contain a detail that ties back to the group in that we can catch shame black reading a copy of Sergeant Rock which was used as the basis to influence the Commandos this was a comic that Ani was actually planning on adapting and he brought several of them to the set to read during the downtime as we know that never got made but at least it's still got a place appearing in this movie a shame black was brought in to do rewrites of the dialogue and he'd get his own chance at a predator film decades later Shane black was behind the Predator but yeah the last the less said about that the better anyway we watch as the Choppers fly in and hear the song Long Tall Sally by Little Richard [Applause] this song actually appears later on in the film and Max sings it at one point [Music] I love the red light filter that they have yeah and it could be used as a way to foreshadow the bloodshare that the crew are about to face this moment with the helicopters of course mirrors Vietnam and we learned that both Dylan and Dutch were deployed there during 1979. no more respect still in though because he's got a desk job and we see how the crew instantly sets him out dropping in they scout out the area and eventually come across a collection of skin corpses we will have to blur this because of YouTube but if you've seen the film then you'll know all their skulls are intact later on though the Predator adds the cruise to his collection and he didn't bother with these guys because he didn't see them as equals instead it's a calling card a signal the Hanson and the Predator actually acts a lot like a hunter hunters will tend to survey and stalk their price silently and they'll fool them until they get the perfect shot there's also the equipment he uses and Hunters sometimes use wooden pipes to mimic a duck call I kind of feel like this is why the Predator uses Billy's laugh and it lines up with how Hunters act in real life now Billy finds bullet casings any guesses that the Green Berets were firing Wally into the jungle this is something that the characters later do because as we know they can't see the Predator they're clearly panicked and just firing at random man I feel like this gets flipped come the final act when Dutch makes himself invisible through using mud he manages to get the upper hand and he lands a devastating blow this course is the Predator to start firing randomly and it shows just how much the roles have reversed at this point blame breaks out his minigun and this is actually something that we've seen in our breakdowns before have you watched our Terminator 2-1 then you'll know how he talked about the one there being a similar model to what's shown in this movie although it actually goes beyond that I I learned something myself and this is the exact same gun that's used in both films it's also at this point that we get the Predator's Vision now we can see things from its point of view in this movie we only get the film infrared ones but the sequels show it has more than just these two however Reddit user x-ray girl127 pointed out that you do get other hints towards it having a remote you wouldn't be able to avoid the tripwires without having additional ones unless there has to be more on top of what we get now just in the same way that it observes them before striking we see his Dutch also does this too spying on the camp they make a plan and we get a big bombastic over the top scene played out like a classic action movie this shows us exactly how good these guys are stick around and Arnie actually improvised this line which I think shows you know that they're just they're Hamming it up now in the lead-up to it they come across a Claymore Mine which Blain nearly triggers however we watch as they stop and disarm it ever resourceful they actually use his mind later at roughly the one hour minute Mark and the one they planned for the Predator is the exact same mine you can tell it's because Max sticks a twig in the top of it which he later pulls out when they're setting up a trap Dutch also pushes a truck in which confuses is the enemy and it allows the group to strike whilst they're unaware of what's happening now these are the tactics the Predator uses too with confusion in the element of surprise being a prime weapon none of the rebels ever had a chance and we later learn this is why the group is called in turns out they were actually brought in to stop a soviet-backed Invasion and the Green Berets from before were actually on the same Mission the cabinet minister was really CIA and the paranoid arises for what's going on you get the feeling that we don't know what's happening and this is heightened by whatever's in the jungle I love how there's almost this superstitious element to it and the Predator could easily be seen as a ghost it's an apparition a personification of death and we'll talk about the symbolism behind this later in the video capturing a rebel named Anna they head for the Border as the area is too hot for the helicopters to land now speaking of a different kind of here we of course have the jungle itself and what we learn about the predator species it said that they come during the hottest years and then around office Story the Elders of a village used to tell the children when I was little we found a man he looked like like budget is in the hottest years this happens means the demon who makes trophies of man seen as a demon we know in hindsight that the Predators come from a hot planet and they've started visiting us more and more due to the Earth heating up our Duke saves Dylan by killing a scorpion on his back and I was wondering if this was reverse symbolism from backstabbing them probably a reach but the Predator lighter picks us up and studies there and I'd like to think this identifies a scorpion as a predator and this is why the group become even more elevated and stairs the Hawkins tells Billy a jug which makes him burst out laughing and this is what the Predator ends up recording oh it actually plays his back very very faintly and this is what tips Billy off that summing might be watching them [Music] this is what the creature of course also uses at the end Nana plays it back after setting up the self-destruct and suddenly landham who played Billy was Infamous for his short temper and he was Notorious for getting in fights on set when people wouldn't hit the Thumbs Up Button the studio actually had to hire a bodyguard for him whose sole purpose was to protect other people from him now as they move further in we can clearly sense that something soft before this video I I of course knew all this stuff with Van Damme and I was thinking like they must have had to reshoot so much of the movie just due to the suit change how about when you re-watch it you don't actually see the Predator that merch and outside of the third act the costumes barely in it instead we get long shots at nothing other than the jungle and I love how this gets you to also look about the scene to see if you can make it out also just this bit was killing me laughing a bit oh look there's a part where only just walks in holding a massive machine gun at a perfect right angle and this is solely just to make his bicep pop out even more no way is that anyway hold the gun like that you would never be trying to do that but my man's done it because he's that hard and during these moments we also get a snake creeping in and these animals can also sense infrared just like the Predator now Anna makes a break for it which is when the Predator attacks and we get the iconic sort of rattlesnake clicking foreign if you listen closely you can actually hear this very early on in the movie and it happens just before they discover the skin bodies later on we actually hear the creature's voice and this was portrayed by Peter culley in case you don't know he also voiced Optimus Prime and I love how you can kind of hear the similarities in the performance he was the one who developed the clicking sound because he said the Predator's face reminded him of a Dying crab anyway Blaine shot two with a predator attacking from the trees and in a nice nice carryover we see he's wearing an MTV t-shirt not a massive detail but when we saw him getting off the chopper he was wearing it at the start I appreciate the continuity in the costume department now the blast comes from the Predator's shoulder Garden which was named the parrot gun by the creative team Mack actually gets a look at it and its eyes glow gold just before it runs off this was done to mimic the eyes of a cat which of course to some is a predator too mainly if you're a mouse yeah but it leads to them just firing into the jungle blood is found which lets him know can be killed and this was made through using the liquid from inside glow sticks now that night we cut the macro menacing over the good times he had with Blaine and he's clearly been affected heavily by his death a wild ball leaps out in attack ask them and aftermath kills it we get a really cool detail I think you could have found something bigger where's the girl now what you're seeing closely again and see if you notice anything I think you could have found something bigger you where's the girl so in it we can hear Billy's laugh but he's not on screen when this is going on when we cut back to the group none of them are laughing either and I think this is actually the Predator mocking Mac I think you could have found something bigger you where's the girl it turns out this was a distraction to take Blaine's body and it tips them off that it's acting like a hunter searching for its trophies they try and even the odds by setting up their own traps and as we wait we see Mack shaving his head this was improvised by Bel Duke and they quickly scrambled to put some fake blood onto it and we can see this when we get the nice cut away and then cut back to see it bleeding I love the shot where we think Dutch might have it in its sights but it turns out it's actually sneaking up behind him again in panic it fires off randomly but this sets off one of the traps which then hinges Poncho Mac runs to Avengers friend's death and Dylan rushes after him which in some ways helps to redeem the character of course that was him because he saved him from the Scorpion before but eventually this leads to both the character's deaths I feel like the Predator uses its recording Tech once more as we hear Max say a line which then gets repeated over here over here the max had his turn into lasagna and the characters shot directly through the skull later on when the Predator is cleaning its trophy we can actually see his skull and tell that it's his due to the big hole in the middle of it now Rob Ager has done a fantastic breakdown of just this scene that you should definitely check out right after this I don't want to just copy the whole thing and it's about eight minutes long but it talks about the techniques that are applied here it starts off with what's known as a farewell look between Dutch and the character that's often used as a way to set up their death as he sneaks through the leaves we watches the camera somewhat stalks him and it even brushes the leaves out the way making us feel like it's been hunting him he's a character who's been in denial the entire movie but the close Zoom to his face comes in as he has a moment of realization looking back at him is Max Stone Cold eyes which Rob said represents the face of death it then mimics Max voice from when he saved him from the Scorpion and this makes him spin around just like the scene from before foreign thanks anytime anytime anytime we watch as Dylan looks through the jungle and you can actually catch the Predator just before he does we get a wide shot where we can see it standing on a branch and it then cuts to Dylan who at first misses it he then looks back which is when he spots it but I got it before you mate and you deserve to die now when Dylan's arms blown off you can see the white out which allows the beam to travel to it directly bit of bit of well we'll see we'll see in the wires there and I feel like a dick for pointed out but I'd get comments if I didn't either way it leads to Billy's death and the Predator picks off Poncho leaving just Dutch and Anna we get the infamous line [Music] which Ani's actually said is his favorite catchphrase going over the waterfall we see as he swims in and the giant tree can be seen which becomes part of the action later on Dutch gets to the Shore by the Predator still stalks him and it's at this point we see the creature in all its Glory the water damages the cloak and it lets Dutch know that there are actually ways that you can force it to appear now it's also with this that he discovers the mud masks his Heat Signature which means that he now has a way that he can go invisible this is a weapon he's now got the power to take it on and he spends a day setting up traps to take it in the night Home Alone eat your heart out and Dutch is now here to show who's the king of the hunt foreign ER Heats its blades too and Mac also uses fire as a way to draw its attention it of course sees in heat vision so it will constantly be drawn to this and what we get an excellent Showdown that happens between the pair there's clear nods to Apocalypse Now and it devolves into an almost animalistic battle played out amongst the Wilderness everything about the movie feels so stripped down now and and totally it's completely opposite to the opening act of the film there's barely any dialogue at all and all the bombastic and over-the-top bravado has been Stripped Away to tell a more centralized cerebral story this movie would massively influence the action films that followed it and when analyzing it for this video I actually realize this could be seen as a turning point in the genre the Eddies are of course completely over the top when it came with their Heroes but the 90s changed things up and started playing more with the Everyman who was a quick thinker John McLean would of course come to embody this but the tonal shift can be seen in this movie too we start off with a big send-off of the 80s catchphrase heavy bombs but head towards more personal and grounded battles that don't have much dialogue now the Predator actually best Dutch and he has him at his Mercy but due to honor and him actually providing a fight he decides to go hand to hand after revealing his face it's such an iconic and masking scene and the focus on the mandibles really elevates the character talked earlier about Stan Winston coming up with the idea for the the main alien but apparently it was James Cameron who added this bit in according to the Legends anyway we watched the bidding Through The Eyes Of The Predator and it's clear Dutch isn't really a match for him physically however he has his carefully laid traps which will allow Dutch to smash him like it's the like button do it do it come on come on kill me I'm here come here do it come on smash the like button of us I'll ask twice and I'll do it now the Predator avoids the first trap but Dutch's backup plan ends up being the one that works Dutch had one last trick of his sleeve but unfortunately for him the predated too we get the iconic countdown scene with a predator playing out Billy's laugh and Dutch runs for his life as he tries to escape the blast [Music] now I have seen people saying that there's no way Dutch could have survived a nuke and in the second film we learn how big the blast was according to that it destroyed 25 kilometers worth of terrain so you're probably thinking how did he get out of this well there's actually a lot of things that people misinterpret about the ending and most thing that the Predators are so looser when it's actually not the case if he was then he would have just set the bomb off without a countdown because why even give the guy time to escape if you just want him to die along with you as we see the explosion starting up we can see that electricity lights at the forest this shows that it's not necessarily A Fuller nuke and that it has electrical properties too won't get any emps or anything like that because a whole different subject but yeah it's not really a typical blast and there are more more of a focus on electricity now the PS2 game Predator Urban Jungle explained this explosion was more designed to wipe out the Predator's ship and all evidence of its existence there's also a brilliant post on Reddit by user ghost w your mom that actually explains a lot of the scene and I think when we go over it you might start to see the movies ending in a different light now Predators have an honor culture similar to the Vikings where they seek seek to die in glorious battle to get into Valhalla the Predator is rightfully beaten in combat and then Dutch comes in over the top to deliver the killing blow however as you see Dutch begins to hesitate he's potentially gonna show the alien mercy and spare him which will rob him of his earned honorable death so the next best thing to do is go out in a self-imposed blaze of glory rather than just simply dying and bleeding out on the floor he knows that he could kill Dutch with the touch of a button but that would make him a sore loser so he sets off the self-destruct the Predators can set the yield of their self-destruct system and he clearly didn't turn it up to 11 but rather gave Dutch enough that he could realistically get enough distance between himself and the eventual explosion as for the Billy laugh this comes across like the Predator's mocking Dutch and thinking that he's gonna die however the Predator isn't really doing a last laugh and it's just playing back the only way that it actually knows how to convey something in his language it's not an actual laugh per se and rather it's playing back Billy's lap because it's one of the recordings that it picked up so yeah huge shout out to them they're coming to a bigger but that's me just cherry picking the main points of it let me know if you agree with that or not but it does kind of reframe the ending and how it plays out either way we end with Dutch being rescued and taking out in a similar manner to how he arrived it's a complete tunnel shift to them coming in at the start though and it perfectly reflects the hell that he's just gone through now we end with the credits which include the cast smiling and giving a little nod to the audience this is supposed to be a homage to all the war films like The Dirty Dozen the Great Escape and it became a staple of the genre that just helped to Define it those would have full credit scenes in them with names and it's something that the older movies adopted as an evolution of the curtain core the actors would come out at the end and give a bow and in war movies they were used to give the idea that everyone was part of a brother hood kind of funny how everyone filmed their own bit for this section except Donnie who they just reused footage for he's the only one who doesn't smile but I can't find anywhere why this was the case and have no idea why it happened if you know then let me know below and that wraps a predator clocking in at a body count of 69 humans one scorpion one ball and one Predator we now have one of the best action movies of all time going back to it made it really opened my eyes to how much you changed things and it's up there as being one of the big reasons that Ani would become the highest paid actor of all time at one point in the 90s though people often criticize his acting abilities he definitely put his heart and soul into this and even sacrificed a lot of his own personal life to get this movie made only actually married Maria Shriver during production with him leaving on a Friday and returning back to work on the Wednesday to get the ball rolling guy apparently was gonna have a honeymoon but his wife could tell he was distracted and she said just go make the movie and we got what we got all in all the work at that comes through and what we get is a film that hits on every level it's got a great memorable Supporting Cast an unforgettable villain and a film that evolves and changes over time it leaves us with what's an incredible movie and I hope that you've enjoyed the breakdown on it too if you did we again we'd appreciate the thumbs up and make sure you subscribe for videos like this almost every day you want to be extra generous and you can click the join button and support the channel for the price of less than a can of coke at your local chippy as a thank you you'll get to see videos like this before everyone else does and it makes a massive difference in keeping us independent and yeah just helping out with everything we really really appreciate it and if you want something else to watch then definitely check out our Brighton of Terminator and Terminator 2 which will be linked on screen right now you've had some copyright issues with it and Studio Canal won't let us use footage of Terminator 2 in Europe however we've disputed it but this it's a bit all over the place and kind of going back and forth if you want to watch it though you'll have to visit through using a VPN connection connected to America uh so sorry for all the Hoops on that but yeah we are trying to sort it out anyway thank you for your patience and hopefully I'll see you all about another video soon by the way I've been Paul you've been the best I'll see you next time take care peace

Channel: Heavy Spoilers

Views: 1,040,692

Keywords: predator, predator breakdown, predator ending explained, easter eggs, hidden details, things you missed, movie twist, predator movie details, predator movie breakdown, predator explained, predator movie reaction, predator movie easter eggs, horror movies, ending explained, predator things you missed, predator analysis, film analysis, predator 2, predator timeline, arnold schwarzenegger, movie breakdown

Id: 0WdVfPx2c-E

Length: 30min 57sec (1857 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 29 2023