While the originalPredatorwas all aboutArnold Schwarzenegger’scharacter Dutch and his team getting to the chopper, for directorJohn McTiernan(Die Hard, The Hunt for Red October, Last Action Hero) it became a battle over how much “gun pornography” had to be included in his 1987 film. The scene where Dutch and company take revenge for the death of Blain (Jesse Ventura), as Mac (Bill Duke) empties the mini-gun (nicknamed Old Painless) into the jungle, came as a result of the studio wanting more “guns firing.” McTiernan said of the famous scene in an interview withToisto:
“There was a junior executive at Fox who kept insisting thatwe need more pictures of guns firing.Constantly,I got this note from the studiobecause he was sitting in on the dailies, talking to my boss,trying to impress everyone with how much he knew.So, I got these notes about howwe need more pictures of guns.Well, for one thing, I don’t just turn in a single shot. I turn out sequences. I’ve thought of an entire sequence through, and I know this shot leads to this shot.”
Predator (Edit)
McTiernan continued:
“So, when somebody is just saying they’re going to start cutting in close-ups of gun barrels in the middle of this,it’s basically because they think they’ll make money as gun pornography.That was only the surface ofhow repugnant the notes were.The fact is,he was basically just a pornographer.He was fetishizing the barrels and the white smoke coming out.I mean,it makes you feel creepy just being involved in it.”
John McTiernan Insists, ‘They Wanted More Pornography'
Predatoris undoubtedly one ofArnold Schwarzenegger’s best films,ranking right up there with the first twoTerminatormovies. But the epic mini-gun scene, which results in just a little of the Predator’s (Kevin Peter Hall) green blood ending up on a leaf, was a direct result of the studio wanting more guns in the sci-fi action flick. And director John McTiernan didn’t appreciate being bombarded with notes. McTiernan said in the same interview:
“I got that note three or four times, andI sent a message back to the studio that said: ‘I will stage a scene where you’ll get just all the pictures of gun shooting you could possibly imagine.So many that you’ll be sick, right? And then I never want to get another note about gun barrels, okay? Is that a deal?’
So, I thought, naively, that I would control the meaning of the scenesso that I could morally say it was alright.I staged it so that when they finished shooting, a guy comes running up, and the first thing anybody says is, ‘We hit nothing.'"
15 Facts About Predator You Never Knew
Cover yourself in mud, cause we’re talking about one of the greatest action movies of all time, Predator.
“I thought I was morally off the hook with his gun pornography,because I had said guns are not the answer to everything.So, the a—holes then said they now have to put it in every other movie.And thenJoel Silver puts it in all over the Matrix movies.
It’s been used in 20 movies since then, they have to put that scene in everything. That’s where it came from. I made it up becauseI was sick of the notes from the studio that were based basically just gun pornography.They wanted more pornography.”
In addition to Schwarzenegger, Hall, Duke and Ventura,Predatoralso starsthe late Carl Weathers.While his character Dillon is friends with Dutch, he forces his way onto the rescue team and ends up putting everyone in danger. In the end, though, Dillon gets the chance to redeem himself, even though thePredatortakes him out right after Mac.
While the film is undoubtedly loaded with gun-wielding action and explosive confrontations with the creature,Predatoris much more than just a vehicle for “gun pornography.” And it remains one of the crowning achievements in both Schwarzenegger and McTiernan’s respective careers.
Predatoris available to stream onHulu,at the time of this writing. And for those who have never seenthe “Old Painless” scene,fans can check it out right now.
