10 Reasons Why The Predator Is Better Than You Think

One of the most fascinating things about this film is the way in which Black is able to both honor and mock the original films, all in the name of crafting a distinctly personal love-letter to the original film.

The film is full of callbacks to earlier films, including recontextualizing classic lines ("Get to the choppers!", "You are one beautiful motherf***er"), referencing prior Yautja attacks in 1987 and 1997 (the period settings of the first two films), and even featuring props (the Xenomorph-tail-spear from Alien vs. Predator). And it even builds on the lore fascinating ways, explaining why the creatures have dreds and that they steal the spines of each planet's greatest opponent in the name of splicing those genes into their own.

But it's also quick to mock the franchise and its lunacy. There's an entire running gag about how the Predator is really a dumb name for anyone to call the Yautja because they're really more like "a sports hunters" or an "intergalactic bass fisherman". To which Sterling K. Brown's Will Traeger deadpans, "Well, we took a vote, Predator's cooler, right? F**k yeah."

The result is a film that doesn't take itself too seriously, even as it is making inspired new additions to the lore, and it's all the stronger for it. It's an 80s B-movie through-and-through.

If you need further proof, cinematographer Larry Fong has teased on Twitter that there's an old-school Van Damme Predator suit easter egg hidden in the film, and we found it. When Rory goes trick-or-treating with the Predator mask on, viewers can see a man walk by on the left side of the frame wearing an even goofier version of the infamous red-suit from the first film's earliest days.

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See? Loving and bitingly satirical, all at once.