#*the two chat in unholy monster gargles and the predator nods

[maxwell-grant]

Since you brought it up, how would a Shadow/Predator story go? Both are transgressors, do you go the obvious route of a Predator interrupting the Shadow's carefully laid plans, or does the Predator come back to his ship after a hunt only to hear the Laugh.

Both are good and could be in it, but I'd do something else. And for once, I'm glad I don't have to think hard at all about this because the Predator is not at all complicated and neither are my feelings for it.

I fucking love the Predator. To me, Predator is synonymous with dumb fun. It's the star of a concept so unrelentingly stupid, a slasher in a Schwarzenegger film who is both the violent foreign threat as well as the roided out gun-toting action movie star, that it loops back into genius. I always think about the fun I have quoting this movie with a friend I made in film school and how we always do the DILLON handshake as a greeting and god now I'm making myself sad again over this stupid quarantine, okay back on track.

Rewatching Predator recently also made me realize that, besides the monster being deeply cool and yeah, bloodthirsty murderer and threat to the human race it may be and all, The Predator's also the one I always root for. When it's in good films (which are, uh, 2 I guess? I still gotta revisit Predator 2 someday), you look forward to the tension it brings and the creative murders and all that. When it's in bad films, you know his kills are gonna be the only fun part of it anyway. And much like how a strong part of Jason's appeal is the gruesome ways he dismembers deeply unlikable characters, revisiting Predator makes me think: as funny and quotable as these guys may be, these assholes absolutely have it coming for what they did to that guerilla village and whoever else they trampled in their careers, and even they seem to know it.

I'm not sure how intentional it was on the movie's end, but having a bunch of macho CIA-backed military assholes as the protagonists of a slasher film is a brilliant choice because I have absolutely zero problems with watching these people be gruesomely torn apart by something that, really, is just doing to them what they do to others. There's parts of the film that definitely do feel like this was intentional and frame the Predator almost as a jungle warrior visiting payback on these invading assholes , although that may just be my brain making unintended connections, since "vengeful jungle protector enacting violence on colonizing trespassers" is a very common figure on Brazilian folk legends.

Can't imagine why. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So yeah, on paper you'd have to make it a conflict between The Shadow and Predator. Obviously the agents could not be involved since they can't die (and should not die), so this would really be a Shadow solo adventure, and The Shadow can't die either. So I guess it's gonna be a cops and robbers story sort of like the Batman and Predator crossover where the two are going on about their business until one interrupts the other's story, and then they fight and The Shadow's gotta put the Predator down and actually no, that's boring, fuck that. That's not what I want to do with Predator meeting The Shadow.

I want them to kick ass together.

Maybe it's either an outcome of them targeting the same people while trying to kill each other, maybe it's just a one-shot gruesome battle between the two that also leads to a lot of scumbags caught in between dying. Or maybe it's an anti-hero Predator who's established a working relationship with The Shadow out of a warrior's respect and, in return for teaching The Shadow how to prepare for a scenario where the Predators invade Earth, The Shadow directs it to villains that can give it a worthy fight. Maybe some rich assholes have brainwashed kidnapped Predators into a death squad they set loose in populations helpless to fight back, and said Predator wants to rescue it's allies and go home, and The Shadow wants to stop the villain, so they team up.

Maybe The Shadow upgrades his arsenal from Predator technology, or said anti-hero Predator BECOMES THE SHADOW and starts prowling the streets in a slouch hat and cape and figures it likes it so much it's gonna stay here and maybe fight some more evil assholes. Or, or maybe it's gonna return to the ship and go around dressed like that and form a society of Predators away from home who become an intergalactic fighting force for justice.

Whatever is done with this premise I think needs to be deeply, deeply stupid, and deeply fun. I want two slasher horror buddies having fun killing scumbags together in just the dumbest, most fun action-packed ride of vengeance against oppressive evil imaginable. Absolute zero braincells should be involved here.