Despite the film establishing this very early, I didn’t see it coming. I was so very pleased with the way Prey subverted that expectation and worked the solution around Naru’s expertise of medicine – the Orange totsiyaa flower that lowered body temperature. The film was very much theirs and both actors do tremendous work to carry it.Įver since we saw Naru submerged in that mud-pit in the trailers, I had been expecting to see that factor into her character figuring out the classic “Predator sees via Infrared” moment. It was such a believable and lovely brother/sister dynamic that I thought worked really well, and had me rooting for both of them. I also really loved her chemistry with Dakota Beaver’s Taabe. A lot of Prey’s runtime is with minimal dialogue, or none at all, and the weight just falls on Midthunder’s shoulders to carry the film through her physicality and she absolutely nails it as far as I’m concerned. When Naru is screaming in triumph and success at the end of the film, I’m right there with her.Īmber Midthunder did a fantastic job. I found it so cathartic to take this journey with Naru, to see her hone her skills and improve over her failures and finally succeed. It’s a trait that I’m sure many of us share and have experienced throughout our lives. It was really refreshing to see Prey actually devote time to a character arc that we see progress throughout the film and that is in Naru’s journey to prove herself.Īnd like much of what Prey tries to do, Naru’s desire to prove herself is something that is very primal. I’d argue that most of the character development within the Predator films is around realizing the importance of teamwork, with Jerry from Predator 2 or Royce from Predators. I think it would be fair to say that the Predator films aren’t well known for character development. The flexibility of the Predator franchise comes not just in the time frame, or the genre you place the creature in, but in what you can do with the characters as well. I love the narrow focus in Prey and it really lets the film just follow Naru. Prey is such a tight film! The focus is primarily on Amber Midthunder’s character Naru, with Dakota Beaver’s Taabe supporting. There’s so much to talk about with Dan Trachtenberg’s Prey that I just don’t know where to start! I will be discussing specifics within the film, so beware spoilers. And what I found in Prey was far more than just a Predator going around rampaging people dressed in historic outfits.
With Prey I was excited! It was a Predator film finally doing what I’d been wanting to see for so long, but never expecting to be able to. This wasn’t a production where I’d read previous drafts and had specific expectations going into it – to be confirmed, or completely turned around.
Unlike Predators, unlike The Predator, I didn’t go into Prey with any concern over being disappointed. To their credit, all the films after the original did try something different with Predator 2 dropping us into the cop genre, Predators took us to a different moon entirely and The Predator attempted to give the Predators a different objective rather than a hunt.īut it’s taken until Prey for the Predator franchise to try doing cinematically what the expanded universe has been doing so successfully for so long. This is something the films have never capitalized on despite Predator 2’s ending serving that potential up on a plate. Dark Horse made great use of this flexibility with some fantastic comics, and Titan Books published a brilliant anthology that played in the same sandbox. This is a lesson that the expanded universe learned really early on. You can take the Predator and drop it into another genre, or another timeframe, and build a narrative around it quite easily. One of the elements of the Predator franchise that I absolutely love is how flexible it is.
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