Prey will have a specific connection to the original Predator film.
In an interview with director Dan Trachtenberg, Time Out asked how the prequel harkens back to the 1987 action classic Predator. One of the more notable aspects of the film is its First Nations link, as embodied by the main character, a young Comanche warrior named Naru (Amber Midthunder). While he teases the possibility of even more emphasis on that link, he explains that the original film's Native American character, Mercenary Billy Sole (Sonny Landham), was a major inspirational source for Prey. "My friends went to see Predator and told me about the scene in which Billy fights the Predator on a bridge over a waterfall," Trachtenberg said. "But when I saw the movie, that wasn’t in it, and I wanted to see that movie. Spiritually, Prey is connected to that moment."
Trachtenberg previously said that Prey would have its fair share of Easter eggs and callbacks to iconic moments from the franchise, some of which were unintentional. "There were so many moments where we were almost seduced by putting in more and more Easter eggs!," explained Morgan in an earlier interview. "'Get to the chopper!' is not in this movie despite so many people wondering, 'what if there was a horse named Chopper?' We didn't go all the way there, though there are tonnes of intentional and unintentional nods to the first movie."
Prey sets the clock back on the series to 1719, where warriors of the Comanche nation face off against one of the legendary intergalactic hunters. In describing how he pitched the movie to Fox Studios, Trachtenberg said he wanted to make "A Native American story, to make a Western that has no cowboys in it. That's a movie which really does not exist. It shockingly doesn't. I wanted to make a movie that would be told primarily visually and through action." Notably, Prey will be the first film to offer both an audio dub and subtitles in the Comanche language.
The first Predator movie starred Arnold Schwarzenegger as the leader of a mercenary group who is hunted by the high-tech alien in the Guatemalan jungle. It was followed up by sequels in 1990, 2010 and 2018. Additionally, the franchise has not only expanded to novels, comic books and video games, but also crossed over with another sci-fi horror series, Alien, in feature films released in 2004 and 2007.
Prey arrives Aug. 5 on Hulu and Disney+.
Source: Time Out