Predator Collector's Edition (DVD)

In my mind, the best Arnold Schwarzenegger film of all time has got to be Predator. I know you Terminator fans may consider that blasphemy but I love this film and have loved it since the first time I saw it, and it is a wonder I didn't own it on DVD yet, but now you have the chance with a special edition to take it home, but is this edition really all that special?

Predator follows a team of commandos that have journeyed into the jungle of Central America on a mission to track down terrorists that had taken some missing airmen captive. Unfortunately once the mission is successful a whole new can of worms is opened once the team finds they are being hunted by some form of an alien warrior.

Obviously timed to coincide with the release of Alien vs. Predator the Predator 2-Disc Special Edition takes aim at giving the fans what they want with a special edition DVD as well as promote the new film, but despite the interesting featurettes they are all old news to die hard Predator fans, except for the audio commentary by director John McTiernan.

Up to bat is disc one, which does have the one reason I say buy this DVD and that is that the movie is presented in DTS sound and if there is any one thing I am always impressed with it is that DTS sound takes movies to a whole new level. Besides that you get two separate commentaries and one hidden Easter egg.

First up is McTiernan's commentary, which is actually quite good and really, out of both discs, the best of the bunch. He goes into detail on several of the things you will see on the second disc and adds a couple little anecdotes that keep you interested.

The one thing he said that really caught me off guard was a comparison he makes to cinematic violence and Columbine, which I think is a bit hypocritical since this film has at least one gun shot to the head execution and then there is his violent action film Die Hard. I don't know killing is killing to me and guns are guns, I have a hard time blaming film for society's problems.

Then you have one of the worst "special" features I have ever seen on a DVD as you are supposed to read yes read a "Text Commentary" by film journalist/historian Eric Lichtenfeld, and his interviews with several people that took part in creating the film. Maybe as a news article this would pass as interesting, but in subtitle form during the film I could not believe it. I felt so sorry for whoever had to sit down and type this up at Fox, I feel for you, I really do.

As for the second disc pretty much everything you are going to get was all created in 2001 from the featurette "If It Bleeds, We Can Kill It!" The Making of Predator to the seven featurettes included in "Inside the Predator" going over stunts, Arnold, the gattling gun, a.k.a. "Old Painless", a tribute to Kevin Peter Hall who played the Predator, the camouflage, life in the jungle and character design.

You will also get a feature titled "Predator Special Effects," which includes five different clips of the red suit design used in creating the Predator camouflage effect and a variety of Predator camouflage techniques that were subsequently never used and substituted for the one you see in the film.

Then there are a couple of outtakes and a deleted scene featuring Arnold being chased by the Predator, which did little for me, but on a whole the features, while dated, will be good for those that had never seen them, I, for one, was one of those people. One cool little bit I noticed was that the slate board being used to indicate the start of a scene shows that Predator was originally being titled "Hunter." I know, not too important, but interesting nonetheless.

As for the DVDs Easter Eggs the press notes say there are four and I managed to find three of them and here is how you get them:

Disc 1

• Go to "Special Features" and highlight MAIN MENU and push left, then hit enter to access a feature with director John McTiernan on learning film.

Disc 2

• Go to "Inside the Predator" and highlight "CLASSIFIED ACTION" and push up, then enter to access "JESSE'S ULTIMATE DREAM" of working with Robert De Niro.
• Go to "Predator Special Effects" and highlight MAIN MENU at the bottom and push left, then enter to access "STAN WINSTON PRACTICAL JOKER" and see just how Stan Winston dealt with some bullfrogs and what he did about them.

The Easter Eggs are actually not that bad, especially the Stan Winston one.

The oddest thing I found on this edition is that there is no trailer for the film available, instead there is just an advertisement for the Alien Quadrilogy, which has been out for quite some time now.

Other than that there are some photo galleries and a cheesy little section devoted to the Predator's arsenal, which is obviously another little teaser for AVP, which by the way did get a tiny mention on the first disc, but nothing so important that you need to know what it was about. If you want to preview the film we have more than enough multimedia links for you right here.

Overall, I love this movie and if you don't own it already, or do own the earlier release but would love to have one with superior sound quality then this is for you. If you are a special feature buff you are likely to be disappointed, but we can't win every time can we?