"Prey": We Didn't Need Another One Until We Did.

If you were to ask me whether or not we needed to have any more “Predator” movies out there on general principle and based off of what we already have right now I would say no, but when you have an idea this interesting this unique that it almost flips the old property into an original idea then now you've got something and that “something” is what director Dan Trachtenberg found in “Prey”. Movies like this are exactly why I maintain the philosophy that there is a very tiny community of movies that I actually believe you can't do anymore of, or you shouldn't do anymore of. I simply ask if you're going to do them make sure you have an interesting way in...

The problem for instance with the latest iterations of other legacy films like the Star Wars films and the Terminator movies, If you look at them closely is anything that was changed for the most part in the new films is superficial, and aesthetic in the most surface way possible. Characters have new identities on the surface, but the core traits, arcs, and even the beats are still almost exactly the same. Rey in The Force Awakens is just a stand in for Luke, Poe is very much like Han and so on and so on. Very little is done to change what those movies were and more importantly what they can BE. The problem with the Terminator movies was much the same, an ardent refusal to go off the rails, to see what lies beyond the tracks already laid by the predecessor. This amounts to storytelling vampirism and much like vampires you can't feed off the dead, but with a movie like “Prey” what you have is that in almost every way that matters, This movie feels like an entirely different moving while maintaining the actual spirit and soul of what makes a predator movie a Predator MOVIE.

There is something more important than the “what” here and it is the “how” this movie “Prey” finds its way into telling a rich fun unique story that compliments and treasures the lore, but decidedly forges it's own path - That “how” is identity and culture. Much has been made of both the importance and the complications around identity and representation. As we argue for it we also reckon with the fact that representation alone is not enough. Throwing Amber Midthunder as “Naru” into this with the currency or cache still being around nothing but men telling a “man's” story with her as an inanimate prop would not have the power or profundity that this movie has. The “freshness” in Prey is in Midthunder herself and in the culture that surrounds and punctuates her choices as well as the films. The combination of a woman at the forefront of your movie and a woman of a particular identity in addition to her culture revitalizes and refreshes every possible angle and approach that we have. The Predator movies that have always mostly been about the triumph of individual man over beast and good ol’ American exceptionalism over everything now become a movie about the triumph of community over invading threat.

Near the beginning of the movie there is a scene where a member of the tribe is it is taken off by a lion, once Midthunder's character is alerted to the problem Midthunder's facial expression (pictured above ) elegantly folds into a distinctive portrayal of desperation, ambition, and hope. Midthunder as a performer has a sense of resolution that makes her perfect for a role like this. Her presence, her assuredness- effortless and well crafted- makes meals of scenes where she must take a stand or move past her fears. Its her moment and she knows it, but it's also just outside her reach thus the intensity of focus. Its representative of the kind of power that Midthunder has at her fingertips (especially of quiet expression) that this one look is so immersive and consequential that it acts as a setup of all of the stakes and all of the power of her eventual triumph. It was a high point for me but it was also just a part of a tapestry of performance from eyes to physicality that changes the entire energy of this film. What Midthunder brings as an actor to this role as the main protagonist of a “predator” movie is so different from anything we've seen in the lead role of a predator movie, then backing that you have what women bring that is always so distinctive from what happens when a man is in the role, and then her ethnic identity and her culture which is again so different from anything we've ever seen in these movies. Take for instance the fact that unlike all of the other “Predator” films and for that matter even “Alien” films that the tribe is not being picked off one by one in individual standoffs. Every time that we see the tribe being attacked by the predator they are together, it is always a communal experience, everything about this movie is rooted in a communal experience. From her relationship with her mother - to her relationship with her brother - to her relationship with the rest of the tribe, even while having a very charismatic lead whose POV we can funnel the movie through. In previous iterations the power of the movies were in each man going off to fight the predator alone seeking either personal glory in triumph or a Warrior's death, here the power is in the collective power of Naru and her tribes dedication to each other over all. Her final triumph is not merely an individual one, it is shown on screen to be the product of sacrifices by other tribesman, her mother Sumu’s (Stefany Mathias) medicinal teachings, and her brother Taabe’s (Dakota Beavers) instruction. I found it interesting to note the similarities in the role and Naru and the role of Emerald Haywood as played by KeKe Palmer in Jordan Peele’s “Nope”. Both young women who felt left out of their fathers legacy, both with deep connections to their brothers who do support them, both who triumph in major ways at the end.

The landscape in Prey as compared to the other films too is markedly different. In the other movies it felt more closed-in, more hot, darker even while taking place in the light of day. The jungle that always was a site for white tensions around fears they had about the peoples, became synonymous with “darkness” and “barbarity” and in that setting it only made sense that as much take place there. In “Prey” it is now the vast open plains and the “barbarians” are the civilized. It cannot be missed that this is one of what might be less than a handful of films told distinctly and ONLY from an indigenous POV. The value of this cannot be understated. It's why this movie feels so new even while revisiting the extremely familiar, but beyond that it's a reclamation of storytelling with the good being that it exists and the only one hope is that it opens doors for future indigenous to tell even more stories from their pov AND from behind the camera as well. As is Trachtenberg and co have done with privilege exactly what should be done while it exists, which is share decidedly in amplifying different stories, adventures, tales, with the added bonus being they almost inherently come with a refreshing coat of paint on past and future myths re-upholstering at the every least and reconstructing at the most the way we view and see other communities and the construction of America and what heroism looks like.