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Prey 2022 tries to be annoying to concervatives
October 14, 2025👁 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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The Taking of Pelham 123 ( 2009 ) is Tony Scott continuing to mess with Michael Bay
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/cf/Taking_of_Pelham_123_%282009_film%29.jpg/250px-Taking_of_Pelham_123_%282009_film%29.jpg)
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Tony Scott's 2009 film The Taking of Pelham 123 is a remake of a 1998 TV movie with same name, which is a remake of a 1974 movie with the same name, which is an adaptation of a 1973 book, with the same name. Strangely enough, apart from Denzel Washington playing the hero and John Travolta playing the villain, the film also prominently shows John Turturro and Ramón Rodríguez which, the same year, also appeared in a Michael Bay film Transformens 2: Revenge of the Fallen.
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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)
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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.
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Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen - made me cry
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/cb/TF2SteelPoster.jpg/250px-TF2SteelPoster.jpg)
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It is infamous at this point that the production of the Michael Bay quickly assembled into something from which a good script could be written. This movie started production without a script, only a rough idea of the story, which is not a bad rough idea. But all of the little details were not there at all by the time of production, leaving Bay pretty much at the helm of coming up with stuff on the spot.
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Ballerina 2025 did what Spy Kids should have but couldn't
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f6/Ballerina_%282025_film%29_poster.jpg/250px-Ballerina_%282025_film%29_poster.jpg)
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When I reviewed Havoc I wrote about this strange feeling that I dubbed "short orgasmic blackout" when I see a stupidly serious, angry face of a female character that is really cute. And one of the most cutest actors living these days is fucking Ana de Armas. Let me illustrate. We see young Victoria Comte playing Eve ( the main character ) while being 11 ( Comte was born in 2013, do the math ), and then the film says "12 years later" so now she is 23. Yet de Armas playing her is 36 ( at the time of filming ). She plays somebody almost half her age and it works. Why? She is fucking cute! That's why. And because of that I knew I was probably getting the "short orgasmic blackout" the movie.
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Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" 2005 is too epic to be scary
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/83/War_of_the_Worlds_2005_poster.jpg/250px-War_of_the_Worlds_2005_poster.jpg)
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In the recent "lie detector test" video of the legendary Fanning sisters, it was revealed that Elle Fanning was indeed jealous of her sister Dakota Fanning, when Tom Cruise gifted her a fancy mobile phone back in 2005. Why would Tom Cruise gift anything to a ( then ) 10 year old girl? Well Tom and Dakota were the two leads of the 2005 science fiction horror film by Steven Spielberg called War of the Worlds.
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How didn't I know about Les Aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec?
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D'une manière ou d'une autre, je ne connaissais pas le film de Luc Besson 2010 Les Aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec. Excusez mon français. I will continue in English now. I just had a pleasure of listening to people speak French for 2 hours straight, because I just learned about the existence of a movie that for some reason passed my radar. As you know I'm a big enough Luc Besson fan that sometimes I take his personal life blunders personally. I knew about his more obscure Arthur films. And I am anticipating his upcoming 2 films, that nobody seem to know nothing about. But somehow only now I heard about the 2010 Luc Besson film The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec.
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What is the meaning of "The Lovely Bones" 2009 by Peter Jackson?
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/9e/Lovely_bones_ver2.jpg/250px-Lovely_bones_ver2.jpg)
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In my review of Transformers 4 I touched upon the uncanny resemblance of it to Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones. I have not seen the movie when I did that. I knew it existed. I knew what it was about. I've only seen it now, for the first time. And the uncanny resemblance ( as in, the father is played once again by Mark Wahlberg and the villain is played once again by Stanley Tucci and we have Steven Spielberg's involvement ) is rather strange. It begs a rather profound question, what was the point to make the movie?
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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)
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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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![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f9/Basic_Instinct.png/250px-Basic_Instinct.png)
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It is known that the best films from Alfred Hitchcock were done during the days of the code. The restrictions on nudity and graphic violence gave us iconic Hitchcockian moments like the shower scene in Psycho, where Hitch pulls of a totally kosher psycho-sexual ejaculation of ultra-violence. When the code gave way to the MPAA rating system, Hitchcock didn't really know how to react, producing mediocre films, giving way to directors like Brian De Palma who stepped into his shoes, to give us, more-modern Hitchcockian thrillers like Dressed To Kill. But by the end of the 80s, as De Palma stepped down from this Hitch-immitation role, and before Robert Zemeckis ultimately took this title with his 2000 film What Lies Beneath, there was also Paul Verhoeven and his psycho-sexual thrillers, like 1992 Basic Instinct.
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The Audition 2015 is an interesting short-film, when it comes to film history
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You may think that 2023 Killers of the Flower Moon is the first time Leonardo DiCaprio have worked with Robert De Niro. In fact the first time was 30 years earlier in 1993 with This Boy's Life. Yet a lot of people will suggest Killers of the Flower Moon is still at least the first time both DiCaprio and De Niro worked with Martin Scorsese. That is also not true. That would be 2015's short-film, directed by Scorsese called The Audition.
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Having watched films from all the decades, a rough understanding of the cinema techniques is picked up, even when not specifically looking for them. Early decades of cinema-making are characterized by experimentation of the medium and the development of special effects.
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The Retreat from Kiska (1965) moralizes imperial Japan
![[thumbnail]](/pictures/user_upload/Troler/NBYB67XOXQ43O8R6.jpg)
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How daring must be a film studio to make a film applauding the acts of the Japanese Empire not only for the local, but the global market as well. One of the ways to do it, is to make a documentary, use objectivity as a shield for political play. Alternatively it can be about the individuals, who were concerned about the life of brethren than some pity war goals.
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Madame Web 2024 feels like it had potential
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f0/Madame_Web_%28film%29_poster.jpg/250px-Madame_Web_%28film%29_poster.jpg)
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Having a sort of a cyber-crush on Isabela Merced to the point I watched her Dora the Explorer movie made me okay with putting one of the most hated movies of 2024, S. J. Clarkson's Madame Web. One more interesting thing is that me and my girlfriend ( who is okay with me having a crush on Merced ) were discussing the American Eagle commercials and how maybe she ( my girlfriend ) looks a bit like Sydney Sweeney which also appears in this film. So I had two very strange reasons to give this movie a try. And I think this movie had potential.
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What "Zero Motivation" tell us about the self-awareness of the IDF?
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/81/Zero_Motivation_POSTER.jpg/250px-Zero_Motivation_POSTER.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
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Due to the renewed interest of the public in the conflict at the middle east, some filmmakers tried pushing and pulling a political pendulum when it comes to accepting / boycotting Israeli film-makers. It is known that film-makers ( being in the art of empathy ) usually tend to be on a progressive side. That makes a concept of an "Israeli filmmaker" a rather strange thing to fathom. But since we see filmmakers from far more restrictive parts of the middle-east find ways to speak their true minds about complex topics, despite heavy censorship, there is no shortage of progressive Israeli films. One of them Zero Motivation ( אפס ביחסי אנוש ), a tale about IDF itself, has some rather interesting points. No... Not the ones you might expect.
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Together 2025 is yet another Romantic Comedy disguised as a Horror film
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e0/Together_film_poster.jpg/250px-Together_film_poster.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 26 ❤ 1 💬 2
I see a trend lately with films like Spontaneous where it seems like the writer / director is trying to do a romantic comedy, but knows it is not going to sell, so the movie is sold as a horror film instead. Michael Shanks's 2025 film Together starring Dave Franco and Alison Brie is another such film.
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