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Prey 2022 tries to be annoying to concervatives
October 14, 2025๐ 17
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#Prey #Predator #movies #review #film #cinemastodon #DanTrachtenberg
by Blender Dumbass
Aka: J.Y. Amihud. A Jewish by blood, multifaceted artist with experience in film-making, visual effects, programming, game development, music and more. A philosopher at heart. An activist for freedom and privacy. Anti-Paternalist. A user of Libre Software. Speaking at least 3 human languages. The writer and director of the 2023 film "Moria's Race" and the lead developer of it's game sequel "Dani's Race".
From 1 years ago.
Information or opinions might not be up to date.
8 Minute Read
The Predator franchise started its life as a masculine super-macho, mega-violent little B-Movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger. In my review of the first film, I even speculated, for a second, that it might have even been racist. Something that a certain side of political spectrum finds to be a quality of a movie. That certain side of the political spectrum really didn't get when Dan Trachtenberg decided, he is making a feminist, native-American movie in the same franchise.
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The film Prey ( which is a very fun play on words, considering the story the movie is telling ) is set in America before there was USA. The entire movie there is not a singe modern type of American. You have a native-American tribe ( that speaks English only so the audience will understand them ) and you have French colonizers. That's all.
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And more than that, the film's main character is a woman. A woman who is desperately trying to prove men, that she is as capable as they are. The film is asking way too much from the conservatives. Or even, it might be possible, the movie is specifically trying to be annoying to conservatives.
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So here is main issue people saying about it. Remember how Arnold Schwarzenegger with a full squad of Rambos had a hard time killing one Yautja? In this movie the Yautja is killed by one girl. Unrealistic, isn't it? Also what... there is a super-trained girl assassin? What is this, Marry Sue? What is going on? Where is the "realism"? Where is the "logic"?
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Well I guess Trachtenberg counted that conservatives would bring up specifically these issues. And he kind of made the movie in such a way as to almost count on the fact that conservatives would not watch it. So he could later giggle to himself with his friends, every time somebody brings up any of the criticisms I just brought up. Because those criticisms are kind of invalid when it comes to the movie itself.
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I mean, yes. She does defeat the damn Yautja. And yes, she is trying to prove her people that she is as capable as the men. But it is not a simple Marry Sue story.
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Our main character Naru ( Amber Midthunder who may know from Novicaine ) is a teenage-ish girl in a native-American tribe somewhere in the forest. She is a cook and a doctor. But she wants to be a hunter. For that she needs to graduate through a hunting ritual. She needs to hunt something that is hunting her.
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By the way, her casting is fucking amazing. She is just about cute enough and just about angry enough to achieve the "short orgasmic blackout". A thing that happens to me when I see characters just like her. They make my brain very happy for some reason. Maybe I need to see a therapist. Anyway...
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The funny thing is, she is kind of pathetic. She knows how to throw an axe. And she is rather smart. But her battle inexperience makes her rather clumsy in the beginning of the film. Only by the end of the film she becomes a descent fighter, through going through shit. So it isn't a Marry Sue story per se.
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Now, does she become such a great fighter as to defeat a fucking Yautja? No. What we get is a her problem solving skills combined with the little bit of fighting skill she has. Which ultimately defeats the damn ugly motherfucker.
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For example, in the original film, Arny defeats the motherfucker by getting dirty in cold mud, making Arny invisible for the Yautja. Leveling the playing field, so to speak. Since those Predators have an invisibility tech on them. Here in Prey Naru finds out that a drug that she is using to stop people from bleeding ( that makes their blood colder ) makes those people invisible to the Yautja. We do have a mandatory mud sequence. But that is used for a different thing.
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In a way, she uses all the information she observes about the forest and the creature, to trick the creature. To play mind-games with the creature. To ultimately have a chance to defeat the motherfucker. Yes, she needs to use her body here and there to stub him and stuff. But that "fighting" was never a part of the killing plan. She didn't want to stab him to death. She wanted to stab him, to manipulate him into trying to kill her. Which she used to kill him. Kind of using his own weapon against him in a way.
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When she saw ( toward the beginning of the film ) that this motherfucker can kill a bear with his bare hands ( shit... I want to say how I came with this pun intentionally. But unfortunately no pun intended. lol ), she knew that she can't fuck with him. There is no way in hell. She even says this to her brother later in the film. She literally doesn't believe anyone can kill it. But as her brother ( Dakota Beavers, I couldn't come up with a better name, lol ), does a reference to the first film, by telling her "if it bleeds, we can kill it", she starts to think that maybe she can possibly come up with something. Maybe some trap, or sorts. Something that she can do with her mind, rather than her physical strength. And that is exactly what ends up happening in the end of the film.
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I could say that Trachtenberg made a slight directorial mistake. In the final battle, there are moments where Naru does fight the creature here and there, while trying to force him into the trap of hers. And you kind of start thinking about the fact that the creature isn't fighting as well as he used to fight when killing all of the unnamed background characters earlier. It is not illogical per se. She did take her drug, which makes her invisible for him. And therefor he is a bit clumsy when trying to kill her. But Trachtenberg seemingly forgets to show it clearly. There are no shots of the Yautja's POV during the battle, which reminds the audience that he can't see her. We kind of have to remember the fact that she took the drug earlier. And actually flex a little to understand how everything works.
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The film does show the drug in action earlier, before the fight, once. There is a POV shot, where Yautja sees a different character, but not Naru, who just took the drug. Maybe, an argument could be made that refusing the constantly remind people of the fact that he can't see her, is Trachtenberg respecting the audience.
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Or you can theorize a completely different thing. Maybe Trachtenberg refused to remind people of the drug, to catch conservatives.
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Think about it, Trachtenberg specifically makes a movie that annoys the fuck out of the conservatives. The period of time is chosen to annoy them. The main character is chosen to annoy them. The main character's main motivation is chosen to annoy them. And then all of the criticisms that he knew they will have, are addressed, but are addressed in such a way that you actually need to watch the movie and focus on it to notice them. If you simply skim it, to make an angry post about how "unrealistic" or "illogical" it is due to all of the things the movie is going for, well... then... I'm sorry, but the joke is on you.
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Happy Hacking!!!
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Prey 2022 tries to be annoying to concervatives
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f4/Prey_2022_poster.png/250px-Prey_2022_poster.png)
Blender Dumbass
๐ 17 ๐ฌ 114
The Predator franchise started its life as a masculine super-macho, mega-violent little B-Movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger. In my review of the first film, I even speculated, for a second, that it might have even been racist. Something that a certain side of political spectrum finds to be a quality of a movie. That certain side of the political spectrum really didn't get when Dan Trachtenberg decided, he is making a feminist, native-American movie in the same franchise.
#Prey #Predator #movies #review #film #cinemastodon #DanTrachtenberg
Predator: Killer of Killers knows how to do a lot with very little
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/9c/Predator%2C_Killer_of_Killers.jpeg/250px-Predator%2C_Killer_of_Killers.jpeg)
Blender Dumbass
๐ 60 ๐ฌ 4
It seems like the movie Trachtenberg was going for here was way too risky and way too ambitious for a studio to green-light it normally. But if he can do that on a fraction of budget. As animation. And not a budget, something like Pixar uses for their ultra-realistic stuff and fluent motion. But on a fraction of that. He can use the trend of animating on-twos and making everything painterly, to cut all of the corners necessary to make this insane movie with the small amount of money that he is given.
#predator #killerOfKillers #PredatorKillerOfKillers #animation #film #movies #cinemastodon #review #DanTrachtenberg
Polisse 2011 is the greatest "fuck you" in the history of French cinema
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fe/Polisse_poster.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
๐ 23 ๐ฌ 1
Maรฏwenn Le Besco's 2011 film Polisse tells a story about a "child protection unit" in French police. The film is written by Maรฏwenn based on real life cases that she researched with a real "child protection unit". So the film has no bullshit in it. And yet given Maรฏwenn's personal life, this begs the question: Was this movie secretly a hate letter to Luc Besson? Was this film the greatest "fuck you" in the history of French cinema?
#polisse #maiwenn #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Predator: Badlands 2025 is like Avatar 2009 but Horror
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/90/Predator_Badlands_Poster.jpg/250px-Predator_Badlands_Poster.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
๐ 8 โค 2 ๐ 1 ๐ฌ 5
Predator: Badlands is Dan Trachtenberg's third Predator movie after Prey 2022 and Killer of the Killers 2025. And strangely enough non of these movies have any kind of connection to one other. They are not sequels. They are stand alone films, different in style and tone. Telling different stories and having different structure. The only thing that binds them together, so to speak, is the fact that they are all technically a part of the Predator franchise.
#predatorBadlands #predator #ellefanning #DanTrachtenberg #horror #action #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
The Neon Demon 2016 begs for a psycho-sexual analysis
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/9d/The_Neon_Demon.png/250px-The_Neon_Demon.png)
Blender Dumbass
๐ 29 ๐ฌ 3
Nicolas Winding Refn seems to be making only cult-classics. His 2011 Drive was a moderate box office success. But a banger of a cult-classic later on, as people understood that it is not a mere action film. Then he made Only God Forgives. A strange psycho-sexual movie where the plot lives in the crack-space between reality and dream-land. The film got misunderstood and barely made its money back. Yet those people who like it, like it very much. And then he made a straight box-office disaster The Neon Demon that made only half of its ( rather small $7.5 million ) budget back. Yet it is seems like it's the kind of movie that just begs for a deep analysis.
#TheNeonDemon #NicolasWindingRefn #movies #film #review #cinemastodon
Dora and the Lost City of Gold ( 2019 ) shows that they should not have replaced Isabela Merced
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/29/Dora_and_the_Lost_City_of_Gold_poster.jpg/250px-Dora_and_the_Lost_City_of_Gold_poster.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
๐ 13 ๐ฌ 3
Between Transformers 5 and Alien Romulus Isabela Merced played Dora the Explorer in a 2019 James Bobin film Dora and the Lost City of Gold. And just because I'm starting to become a fan of Isabela Merced ( or maybe a simp, IDK ), I decided to finally take a look at this movie. And I gonna tell you that, that reboot they did in 2025 with a different actress playing Dora, is not interesting me at all, because you can't replace Merced. She is just too perfect.
#doratheexplorer #doraandthelostcityofgold #isabelamerced #film #review #movies #cartoons #cinemastodon
Terminator 2: Judgement Day is James Cameron's Leon: The Professional
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/5e/Terminator_2-Judgment_Day.png/250px-Terminator_2-Judgment_Day.png)
Blender Dumbass
๐ 13 โค 2 ๐ฌ 1
Ever since Piranha II James Cameron shown his friendship with Luc Besson. Both directors are obsessed with marine biology, both are obsessed with strong female characters and both have a strange fascination with the youth. Luc Besson's Leon, The Family and Arthur films have strong child characters in some rather fucked up situations. James Cameron with Aliens, Terminator 2 and the Avatar franchise does the same thing. But have you ever thought how similar both the Terminator and Leon actually are?
#terminator2 #terminator #leon #jamescameron #lucbesson #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Weapons 2025 should be nominated for best picture
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/6d/Weapons_film_2025.jpeg/250px-Weapons_film_2025.jpeg)
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It is not often that a horror films appears to tickle the right nerves from the high-brow crowd of cinema critics. With 93% Rotten Tomatoes score though, it is safe to assume that Zach Cregger's Weapons from 2025 is one of those rare movies.
#weapons #horror #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Beau Is Afraid is literally me
![[thumbnail]](/pictures/user_upload/Troler/UIYEF2XCV4HI25E5.jpg)
Troler
๐ 17 โค 2 ๐ 2 ๐ฌ 6
. Ari Aster's psychoanalytical film Beau Is Afraid. The little 50 year old something boy named Beau is so utterly paranoid and lacking self worth, the entire world morphs into an extended torture scene. Since everything is told from the first point of view (POV), there is a lingering uncertainty of what is depicted real.
#BeauIsAfraid #JoaquinPhoenix #NathanLane #AmyRyan #AriAster #film #review #movies #horror #cinemastodon #ageverification #pivacy #california #ab1043
Why I'm Not Going to Watch Ice Cream Man ( 2026 ) ?
![[thumbnail]](/pictures/thumbs/icecreamman.png)
Blender Dumbass
๐ 21 โค 2 ๐ 1
If you ever read my reviews of films like Ballerina or Weapons or stuff like that, you know that I'm the kind of guy who should very much enjoy the bullshit that Eli Roth put into the trailer of his new movie Ice Cream Man that was just released into cinema. But you can also notice that it isn't a review. I have not seen Ice Cream Man and I will never see it. This is an article about why.
#eliroth #icecreamman #genai #ai #noai #aislop #film #review #movies #cinemastodon #resistance #enshittification #horror
Broken Wings ( 2002 ) is satisfyingly depressing
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/7e/BrokenWINGS.jpg/250px-BrokenWINGS.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
๐ 17
There is a feeling I'm chasing sometimes that only a few things can give me. A feeling of satisfying depression. Films like Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, or Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away give me that feeling to some extent in some of the sequences. But Nir Bergman's 2002 film Broken Wings gives it all throughout.
#BrokenWings #film #movies #review #cinemastodon
Licorice Pizza 2021 is how PTA beats Besson at his own game, while getting a Best Picture Oscar nomination
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3c/LicoricePizzaPoster.jpeg)
Blender Dumbass
๐ 8 ๐ฌ 1
As I explained in my article on the matter a quality of a film could be measured in how well it "corrupts" the audience. And being a motherfucking genius Paul Thomas Anderson decided to show everybody, who's the boss. His 2021 film Licorice Pizza which was nominated for the Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay at the Oscars. And has a fairly decent 90% score on Rottent Tomatoes, is doing the same thing as Luc Besson's Leon: The Professional, but better. To put it lightly, it shows a romance between a minor and an adult. And it says that "it's okay, actually".
#LicoricePizza #PaulThomasAnderson #PTA #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Footnote 2011 is a suprisingly good Israeli film
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/he/thumb/5/58/Footnote.jpg/250px-Footnote.jpg)
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๐ 17 โค 1 ๐ฌ 4
Footnote originally ืืขืจืช ืฉืืืืื is an Israeli film written and directed by Joseph Cedar. The film is about a very strange dramatic bureaucratic situation, where two professors, a father and a son, are in the same field, and one of them gets a honorary award for his achievements. But the bureaucrats made a mistake and told about the award to the wrong one of them.
#footnote #ืืขืจืชืฉืืืืื #JosephCedar #LiorAshkenazi #Israel #film #review #movies #cinemastodon #jews
Juror #2 is 12 Angry Men meets Minority Report
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/be/Juror_No._2_%282024%29.jpg/250px-Juror_No._2_%282024%29.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
๐ 10
Imagine being born in the year 1930, starring in films since the 1950s and yet in 2024 ( at the age of 94 ) releasing a movie you directed. If you want to talk anti-ageism Clint Eastwood is the motherfucker you point to. Hell he even made a movie about anti-ageism in the early 2000s, called Space Cowboys which is a light rip-off of Armageddon. This time thought he swings at us with a great rip-off of a 1957 Sidney Lumet classic 12 Angry Men.
#juror2 #clinteastwood #nicholashoult #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
The Naked Gun ( 2025 ) is a descent movie about enshitification, but not as funny as the originals
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/The_Naked_Gun_2025_poster.jpg/250px-The_Naked_Gun_2025_poster.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
๐ 18 ๐ฌ 1
Paramount snatched "The Naked Gun" / "Police Squad" rights from Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams and instead gave the material to a different Jew Akiva Schaffer to adopt. And while Schaffer is a good comedy / parody director, it seems like the movie ended up being just "merely clever".
#theNakedGun #policesquad #LiamNeeson #PamelaAnderson #film #review #comedy #movies #cinemastodon
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