WARNING: Major spoilers for The Predator ahead.

After The Predator's ending, it looks like the hunter is about to become the hunted. For over three decades, the deadly space game hunters (known as Yautja in expanded materials) have meanced some of Earth's most powerful warriors, hunting them in jungles, cities and purpose-built pyramids, as well as transporting them to space game preserves. Now, though, we're going to bring the fight to them thanks to the introduction of the Predator Killer.

The Predator ostensibly follows a group of mentally-unstable, discharged soldiers - self-dubbed the Looneys - who cross paths with a classic Predator and later the hybrid Ultimate Predator hunting him. Over the course of the film, Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook) and his new comrades learn that the Predators are planning to take our heating planet for themselves, with the classic versions coming to Earth to provide us a way to fight back. By working together - and with no small amount of help from Quinn's autistic son, Rory (Jacob Tremblay) - the Loonies are able to defeat the Ultimate Predator, although only Quinn, Rory and scientist Casey (Olivia Munn) survive.

Related: All 6 Predator Movies Ranked (Including The Predator)

Throughout The Predator, the enduring mystery is what exactly the "gift for humanity" that the Predator has bought to Earth is. It's a static MacGuffin, something all parties - Loonies, Predator, the government and Ultimate Predator - are looking for, even if they don't know quite what it is. It's teased when Quinn saves Rory from Traeger (Sterling K. Brown) on the ship, and is finally revealed in the final scene. But first, what exactly is going on with the warring Predators?

The Predator (Finally) Reveals What The Predators Really Want With Humans

Ultimate Predator in The Predator (2018)

At first, it looked like The Predator's major addition to the mythology was going to be the idea of hybridization. The "classic" Predator was enhanced by human DNA, while the Ultimate Predator was so upgraded it stood eleven feet tall and didn't need a mask to temper the species' affronting heat-vision. Early versions of the film even had a sequence where various other hybrids would attack the heroes, but it was cut as part of the movie-altering reshoots.

However, all of the hybridization is just an entry point into what's really going on. In a major retcon, it's revealed that the Predators aren't just sport hunters as Casey alleges, but are attempting to upgrade themselves with every hunt. Pulling the spine of a felled prey isn't about the skulls (although trophies are part of the culture) but to get DNA via the spinal fluid to help better themselves; successfully hunting a species gives the Predator the abilities of that species. It appears that things have accelerated in recent years, with artificial genetic selection leading to the lab-created Ultimate Predator (as seen by Rory in the mask).

That's not the only thing accelerating. As climate change heats up Earth and threatens to wipe out humanity, the Predators are hunting more often in a bid to get as much of our survivalist DNA as possible before we go extinct, with the long-term plan being to claim the warmer planet for themselves. Essentially, the hunting is all part of a bigger alien invasion plot. Not all Predators agree with this, though, leading to the multiple factions seen in the film, and the central MacGuffin: the Predator Killer.

Related: Predators is the Only Worthy Predator Successor

The Predator Killer Armor: What Is It And What Can It Do?

The Predator Blades

In The Predator's final scene, Quinn and Rory are taken to a secret base where they're going to help discover more truths about the invaders. They're shown the gift from the Predator ship, which ejected before the Ultimate Predator's self-destruct. It opens up, revealing what Rory translates as "the Predator Killer". After a slow build-up, it's revealed to be a gauntlet similar to those seem worn by the Predators. However, unlike the one that the McKenna's co-opted, this one isn't designed for the aliens but for humans. When attached - which this one does after being opened - it forms a human-sized Predator armor in a manner akin to Iron Man's nanotech armor from Avengers: Infinity War.

This armor is a sleek silver with piercing red eyes, and a considerably more svelte build to the standard Predator. In terms of weapons and abilities, we see that the Predator Killer has the classic invisibility and, from the multiple tracking dots, several plasma canons. It's presumably kitted out with more than that, and there's definitely room in the pod for some other weapons like the ever-useful staff from Predator 2. Even as is, though, the armaments make it one of the most powerful suits seen yet in the movies, meaning that humans have a serious advantage over any returning hunters.

Throughout the movie, we've seen several humans use Predator tech. Quinn wears the gauntlet and evades capture using invisibility; Rory controls the ship remotely, views a hologram creation of the Ultimate Predator, wears the mask (with the help of tape), and later gets hands-on with the Ultimate Predator's craft; Traeger uses a shoulder canon in the finale (before accidentally blowing his head off); Casey befriends a Hell-Hound and uses invisibility to sneak up on the Ultimate Predator. Clearly, while this is science beyond our current developments, we're more than capable of using it. What the Predator Killer does is give something purpose-built. And that's going to be very important...

Page 2: The Predator Turns The Franchise Into An Alien War

Predator in a spaceship in The Predator movie

The Predator Killer Is The First Weapon In The Human/Predator War

The Predators want Earth - but humanity isn't too keen on the idea. The Predator's biggest change wasn't to the motivations of the Predators per se, but more the implication for the future of the franchise. For the longest time, this has been a mash-up of 1980s action films and horror monster with a sci-fi twist, but now it looks like the series is stepping out to being an alien invasion revenge thriller. Think Starship Troopers with even uglier motherf*ckers (and less satire).

Related: The Predator: Every Easter Egg & Movie Connection

The Predator Killer is humanity's first weapon built to work against the Predators, providing Quinn - who claims it at the end - a fighting chance without the need for mud or makeshift traps. But this lone armor needn't be the be-all-and-end-all. Like a figurative monolith, the technology on display could usher in a new period of technological development. In all previous Predator films, the alien has been killed and almost all trace of it destroyed (either by emergency self-destruct or other over-watching Predators). This time, bodies and ships remain before we even get the Predator Killer, providing humanity with its first proper look at how they work. The future situation in a sequel to The Predator could be similar to Terminator 2: Judgement Day where the surviving T-800 skeleton was used to actually create Skynet, or Alien where the nefarious Weyland-Yutani wanted the Xenomorph to derive new weapons from.

Space travel, new weapons, perhaps even hybridization. It's all to come in a sequel...

What The Predator Ending Means For A Sequel

The Predator sequel is being set up to be about the war, but there's several ways to take it. The obvious suggestion is that, using the newly-developed tech, Quinn and co. will head into space and take the fight to the Predators. This could see us visit the Predator homeworld properly after a brief tease in Alien vs. Predator: Requiem. The cheaper flipside is it becomes a defense game, with humanity getting ready for the increasing frequent Predator attacks.

Of course, neither deal with the big problem that The Predator raises: human extinction. If climate change really is that close to wiping out the dominant species on Earth, then that's a bigger concern than a few space aliens coming for a closing down DNA sale. It's possible the leaps forward caused by the Predator Killer will allow us to find a way to avert catastrophe, or the development of interstellar space travel will render our home planet redundant. This development could even lead to the colonizing seen in the original Alien films (which, per the Alien vs. Predator spear Easter egg, is canon).

Related: How AvP Saved Predator (But Possibly Killed Alien)

One other aspect a sequel to The Predator really should look at is the possibility of a team-up of various heroes. Dutch (Arnold Schwarzenegger in Predator), Harrigan (Danny Glover in Predator 2), Lex (Sanaa Lathan in Alien vs. Predator), Royce and Isabelle (Adrien Brody and Alice Braga respectively in Predators) all survived their Predator run-in, and would be perfect to form a team of sci-fi Expendables. This has already been flirted with - Arnie has been close to returning four times (a couple of which we'll look at later), while Laurence Fishburne's Predators role was conceived as being for Glover - and now we're talking about taking on the aliens, the time seems right.

This is, of course, all dependent on box office. At the time of writing, The Predator is currently tracking to open around $30 million; enough to see it beat The Nun to the top spot but less than AVPR. Could this be another Independence Day: Resurgence, where a new entry in a Fox franchise served as a backdoor reboot into a "humans taking the fight to the aliens" story until terrible box office stopped it dead? Hopefully not!

Page 3: The Predator Ending Before The Reshoots

Boyd Holbrook in The Predator

The Predator Ending Before Reshoots

As has been widely reported and openly discussed by the filmmakers, The Predator underwent substantial reshoots early this year, with particular attention paid to the third act. The nature and motivation of these changes is still up for debate: director Shane Black has repeatedly cited it was primarily to move the sequences from day to night, but the choppiness of the editing in the finished movie and overall confused flow suggest something more fundamental.

Indeed, we know that two whole sequences from the later part of the film were cut: the Looneys fighting with good guy Predators and the team getting attacked by hybrid Predators when approaching the ship. No trace of these scenes or related subplots is in the finished film, with the Ultimate Predator's hunt in woods looking to be the replacement; it changed the deaths of several major characters. However, based on script leaks, the final showdown with the Ultimate Predator played out about the same, with survivors Quinn, Casey and Rory together taking the beast down.

Read More: The Predator Reshoots Explained: Every Cut And Change Fox Made To Shane Black's Movie

Early leaks suggested that the victory would beeline directly into an Arnold Schwarzenegger cameo where he recruited Quinn for a Predator fighting cause, although the Governator turned down such a small part. The second trailer then showed the survivors looking up at the sky and Quinn saying "come and get us, motherf*cker", an Arnie free-adaptation of that idea. It's up in the air whether the Predator Killer was part of principal production and came after that beat or the reshoots replaced it, although the disconnected nature of the scene and shaky CGI suggest the latter.

Whatever the case, considering what we got, the planned Arnie appearance and a similar cut scene from Predators, it's clear that Fox's grand plan with the series has always been about taking the fight to the Yautja.

The Predator Killer In Other Media

Machiko Noguchi in the Predator Comics

While this is the first time a human Predator armor has appeared in the movies (although Lex in Alien vs. Predator was gifted a makeshift shield and spear from Xenomorph body parts), the idea isn't totally new to Predator canon. Following the original movie in 1987 and throughout the 1990s, the Predator was a major license for Dark Horse Comics, who greatly deepened the mythology (this was where Alien vs. Predator first emerged) including some human companions to the aliens.

Most prominent is Machiko Noguchi, the human focus of the original AvP comic. Similar to Lex, she survived being in the middle of the Xenomorph/Yutja conflict and was branded as a result. However, unlike Lex her story continued, with Machiko joining a Predator clan and working with then on several hunts (until an attack on humans had her question her identity). During this time, she worse a human-sized Predator mask and armor. A little weirder, there's also Caryn Delacroix (again part of the AvP series), who was kidnapped to be the trophy wife of a Predator and later took up a mantle herself. The term "Killer" was also used to describe a clan of Predators who sought only to kill their prey, not hunt.

Both of these human characters are shown working with the Predators and eventually turning on their violent compatriots. This is obviously very different to where the movies are heading, but shows that the human Predators teased at the end of The Predator really have been a long-time coming.

Next: Read Our Review Of The Predator

Key Release Dates

  • The Predator 2018 poster
    Predator
    Release Date:
    2018-09-14