FAQ for
Predator (1987) More at IMDbPro »

The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. Spoiler tags have been used sparingly in order to make the page more readable.

For detailed information about the amounts and types of (a) sex and nudity, (b) violence and gore, (c) profanity, (d) alcohol, drugs, and smoking, and (e) frightening and intense scenes in this movie, consult the IMDb Parents Guide for this movie. The Parents Guide for Predator can be found here.

No. Predator is based on a script by screenwriters Jim and John Thomas. The story goes that the Thomases wrote the screenplay after hearing a joke that Rocky Balboa had run out of earthly opponents and would need to fight an alien if a Rocky V movie was going to be made. Hence, they came up with a script for Predator. A sequel, Predator 2, was released in 1990. A spinoff movie, AVP: Alien vs. Predator, that unites the Predator with the creature from Alien (1979), was released in 2004, followed by a sequel, AVPR: Aliens vs Predator - Requiem, in 2007.

The original concept for the Predator was a shape-shifting monster who carried a spear gun. This concept was found too difficult to film, so it was scrapped. However, a good bit of the footage was filmed with this concept in mind, and was kept even after the creature design was changed into the version seen in the movie. The shot of Blaine being hit in the shoulder was a leftover shot and shows the original weapon being used...if you watch the DVD and slow it down, you can clearly see the blade-like weapon slicing through the top of his shoulder.

Correction: there was no spear gun used. The Predator shot the animal that Blaine was looking at to get him to turn around. His plasma cannon was fired, hit the animal, it exploded on Blaine, and he turned around and was hit too. He is sprayed with blood in the shot, not cut with a weapon

Correction Correction: No one knows the answer to this, only cast and crew but the spear theory used by the original concept of the Predator has been discussed so is still a possibility.

No. The log was a counterweight for a spike trap Dutch had set up. He had cut wooden stakes and tied them to a log over the top of a ditch, and set a trip wire under it. The wire was tied to the log. The idea was that when the Predator tripped the wire, he'd be hoisted up and slammed into the spikes. When Dutch tried to sucker him into it, he almost fell for it, but saw the spikes at the last second and went around. Unfortunately for him, he stopped and stood over Dutch directly under the log counterweight, so Dutch tripped the trap himself, dropping the log on the Predator and disabling him.

It's never explained but it's likely just a part of their hunting ritual. In both movies, the skinned bodies are obviously deliberately left hanging and waiting to be discovered as a kind of warning message or taunt to let others know that they are being hunted.

They are not trophies because the Predators don't even take them away with them unlike the skulls.

Although the Predator displays three of his trophies onscreen, we witness the deaths of all six of Dutch's team members, leaving many wondering what happened to the remaining skulls. It's very likely the Predator collected trophies from all six victims, but did not show them all. The skull with the hole in it is said to be Poncho's, since he was shot in the head. However, Poncho was shot in the left side of his head, while the hole is on the top of the skull, so this is either a goof or someone else. The others are unknown. One of them may have belonged to Billy, as we witness the Predator rip Billy's spine from his back and clean his skull, and the other was probably Blain's, since the Predator entered the squad's camp to retrieve his body.

Although some believe the skull with the exit hole was Mac's, we see that Mac wasn't shot in the head, but in the chest. Some say that the angle from which he was shot created an exit wound through the back of his neck, and this, combined with the camera angle on his death, gives the appearance that the blood bursts from his head. However, when freeze-framing Mac's death scene, the blood can definitely be seen coming from Mac's forehead, not his neck. After his body falls down, his leg can be seen twitching, which also seems more compatible with brain trauma (because a shot through the chest and neck would likely sever the spinal cord, so the legs would no longer be able to receive nerve impulses from the brain). But in the brief shot of him laying on his back when Dillon finds him, you can clearly see he has a big hole in his chest, yet his head is unmarked. This is likely another continuity error in the movie, where the crew may had filmed a portion of this scene already and changed the set-up for the second part, creating a goof.

The targeter appeared to give off heat so he was probably cleaning them heating the blood off or heating them up so he could sharpen them. It might also have been tempering them: heating them up, then cooling them rapidly to make the metal they were fashioned from stronger. It's the same process used to make just about any kind of knife.

Given the Predator's sense of sight, it is also possible that the purpose of the laser is to illuminate chips and nicks in the blade, that could then be polished out.

Major Dutch Schaeffer: Team Leader

Billy: Scout/Tracker

Mac: Sergeant, 2nd in command/Assault.

Poncho: Demolitions/Translator (possibly medic)

Hawkins: Radio Operator (possible medic)

Blaine: Heavy Weapon Support

Dillon: CIA Liason. Mission Supervisor.

It is never explained in this movie. See Predator 2 for more information.

Dutch's team were strictly a rescue team only, not assasins. The team were under the impression they were simply going into the rebel compound to rescue hostages and a cabinet minister and that they were given the assignment because they were the best.

Dillon's orders were to assemble a team to destroy the rebel compound - there was in fact no one to rescue. The cabinet minister was in fact a CIA agent who had been killed. The motivation behind the order to destroy the compound (which had been hidden for months) may have been retaliation for the death of the CIA agant and Jim Hopper's crew who were the original team sent in before Dutch's men. Dillon knew Dutch would never take on the assignment if he told him that all he was to do was destroy the compound so he cooked up a story about a cabinet minister and hostages needing rescue.

Dillon used Dutch to simply get a job done. Dillon and the CIA had been looking for the compound for months and had sufferred the loss of Dillon's own men (Jim Hopper's team) and a CIA agent so it was also a personal attack on the rebels. Dillon used Dutch to get revenge for the CIA. Even though the Predator was responsible for the deaths of Hopper's team