I think this looks good. Not award worthy good or anything that ridiculous, but the kind of good where you leave the theater entertained. I mean, it is a movie about an alien hunter who comes to Earth to take down some of our mightiest warriors. I am not expecting Citizen Kane.
And yet…fandom strikes. If you read the comments on any of the articles featuring this trailer, they range from “looks like crap” to “another one where the predator comes to earth and hunts people? I wish they would explore the deeper mythos of the species and the universe they inhabit.”
Wait, what? There is a hardcore Predator fandom out there that is overly concerned with where this movie falls into continuity of the original two, plus AVP, plus the underrated Predators with Adrian Brody & Topher Grace. Seriously, that movie was pretty cool. Is this hybrid Predator going to fight with the humans or against them? Will we finally learn about Predator culture? Who cares! It is is a movie about aliens hunting humans. All it needs is big guns, crazy fights, and large explosions. That is it!
One person commented “how hard is it to make a decent Predator movie…” and then proceeded to bitch about everything in the trailer. Fortunately a few sane people called the guy out. That is the problem with fandom nowadays: if something is not exactly how they envisioned it in their mind, then it sucks and they do not want to give it a chance. This movie will fail. Why? Because fans have already declared it to be a failure. They hated the first teaser, the studio panicked and did reshoots (or so I read somewhere)–which is never good, studios should never get involved…for one thing, if the movie fails, you can pin it all on the director, but now, if it is terrible, Shane Black can say “the studio came in and forced me to make a ton of changes, this was never the movie I set out to make.”
I will give the movie a chance. I like Shane Black movies, I like Predator movies.
This brings me to the next part of my ranting today. What the hell is wrong with everyone? You ever go to a news story and read the comments? You can basically predict them word for word. The other day I was reading an article about how it would jumpstart the economy if the government paid off everyone’s student loans. I knew there would be comments about entitled brats, communists, etc. The one I was looking for though was about trades. I quickly found the comment and it was a long one about how kids need to learn a trade because they pay well and there is a demand for them.
I agree with that, but that is not the answer for everyone. Also, if everyone stopped going to college and picked up a trade, we would run into a few problems. First of all, the supply/demand would skew the other way. There would be an excess of labor, so the wages would fall. Also, sometimes you need educated people. I realize some of my conservative friends think that all college educated people are evil liberals who just want to steal their money, but that is not always the case. When you get cancer, visit an electrician for a solution. Yeah, we need doctors. We need engineers. We need chemists, biologists, etc. Do we need a better balance between the two? Yes. Do we need to get rid of the notion that either option is better/worse? Absolutely.
Sorry, that was a side rant. I keep hearing about how Americans are truly becoming more tribal with their political views. They seep into everything now. You like the Predator trailer? Then you are misogynist fascist! You hate it? Suck it libtard! It is everywhere and in everything. Like a disease. Is Lebron better than MJ? Do not read the article, just head to the comments and someone will say “poor snowflake is triggered! need a safespace?” What the fuck does that even mean when debating two basketball players?
It is sad and frustrating.
Sad & frustrating…brings me to my next thing.
I recently had jury duty. Well, I had to go to court for jury selection. I did not get picked. I was one of those weird people who actually wanted to serve on a jury. Not because I want to hold someone’s life in my hands or anything like that, but because I do believe in our justice system. It may be flawed, but it is still one of the best in the world. Before we began, the head judge came in and spoke about the importance of the jury and his words really hit home for me.
And then I had to listen to the people around me. They tried to get out of it by using just about every medical excuse possible. The girl behind me felt that if an accused person did not testify, that meant they were guilty. The judge had to explain to her twice that it is the defendants right. She still could not accept it. She thought it was stupid. Another lady stood up and said that she worked for the Department of Corrections. The judge asked what she did and the lady said she was a secretary or clerk (I could barely hear her). The judge then asked if she would be able to be listen to testimony from police and not be swayed by them because of their position. The lady said “no, I have seen too much in my years at the prison to ever believe any of these people are innocent.” What?
I looked around the courtroom and realized that most of those people were idiots. They were not understanding the instructions as the judge went over them. They were not going to be impartial throughout the trial and only go on the evidence presented. Maybe the time for juries is over. Maybe we should just have the judge make the final decision.
Is this the world we live in now? Yikes.
