Scar just wants to fuck. Bad?

Hi all. I'm drunk. Let me argue with myself for a second:

AVP writers tend to give Predators lots of human characteristics and goals to make us care about them--or it could be a deliberate contrast meant to make the Aliens more monstrous in comparison--which almost always turns the Predators into noble heroes or "sympathetic" serial killers. (E.g., Scar is a serial killer, yeah, but he's also a bro who wants to bang mid-'00s Sanaa Lathan, which, I mean--relatable. I instantly forgive him for all that "killing" stuff. But then he got the wrong girl wet when he dumped the Queen in the ocean, so... memorable? Good job, writers?)

I'm not saying it's a bad thing to turn Predators into heroes/serial killers/etc. It's fun to turn Predators into "real" characters by giving them human quirks. And honestly, how can you not? They're basically humans, right, except they're not in any real way, and also they're aliens from space and didn't evolve on Earth, so never mind. However, I can't help but think their "human" qualities makes them worse as a concept. (Full disclosure: I'm a hypocrite. All my Yautja characters are basically just humans with snuff kinks. It's fun to write; boring to read about.)

Anyway, what the hell was my point, oh yeah: MAIN ARGUMENT: Wouldn't Predators work better as monsters?

Scar is a bad character because they tried to make him into a character. He's not a character, though. Or, I mean he is but he shouldn't have been. He should have just been. Do you know what the fuck I am talking about? LET ME FINISH.

Predator 1 is often regarded as the best Predator film, yet Jungle Hunter isn't treated as a hero or even a serial killer (or even as a "character"! Whoa holy fuck.); he's just a force of nature, or mankind's shadow, or, at the very least, Dutch's shadow, since Dutch is a soldier and is basically The Predator as a human, I think, right? So, like, Jungle Hunter is scary because he represents the darkest parts of who Dutch is as a person (and by "darkest" I mean "this is the man's career and he takes pride in it, so really, it's the brightest parts of him as a person), and now it's back for him, because only we can really kill ourselves, except when you don't, which is a lot of the time, surprisingly.

Scar is not Jungle Hunter. Well, I mean, he shouldn't be 'cause he should be his own thing. Scar is doing the opposite of whatever the hell a Predator should be doing, which is "being scary." He is soft when he should be solid. Scar is erectile dysfunction. So he's scary but in a way he's not supposed to be scary. Scar is scary because he sucks. Rather, he prevents you from getting sucked. Scar is every moment you spend masturbating to your crush's wedding photos. You've been at it for hours; you're flaccid. You have calluses. You're not in any of the photos. Remember? You weren't invited.

Jungle Hunter is scary because no one can escape him. Dutch may have "defeated" him, but it was still technically because of Jungle Hunter that Dutch later died after the events of the film (IIRC). So, like, what the fuck? Jungle Hunter is an amazing movie monster because he kills shit even after he dies. Whoa.

Everything I said here--the relevant parts, which, um, I guess you can piece that together for yourself--also applies to the very first Alien (BIG CHAP), and also the first Queen. Just as Jungle Hunter never "really" killed Dutch, neither Big Chap nor the Queen directly killed Ripley, but they gave her space PTSD and space cancer and also put a space baby in her, so. Right. She's basically dead anyway. Also she killed herself once, and then her clone killed her other cloned selves 7 times. They also took away her daughter twice. Her real daughter first, and then her Newt daughter. And also if you count the Newborn as her daughter, then they took away her children 3 times. Oh, god.

So Big Chap eventually caused Ripley's death the same way Jungle Hunter eventually caused Dutch's.
Jungle Hunter and Big Chap work as monsters because you can never really get rid of them. They are you.

^^^I guess the same feeling was invoked at the end of Predator 2 (i.e., "if you strike me down, I got some homies that'll take my place, mmmkay) and also Aliens (i.e., "I'm hiding in your ship, bitch"), but Alien 3 drops the ball (I don't even remember how that movie ends, actually); Resurrection just sucks, though its characters are good, if extremely flat; AVP has Scar in it so it's pretty bad already, and it somehow humanizes the Queen which is also bad; AVPR has Wolf which is cool, but it also has everything else, which is, ugh, god; and Predators humanized Not!Jungle Hunter by turning him into Jungle Jesus, and then he ended up getting decapitated by Satan Hunter, whose homeboy had a massive stroke at the dog races, I think, and his other less stellar Bird Watching friend had an anime fight with Token Asian #1 in a corn field. Also Topher Grace? Really? Fuck you.

Predators have always fascinated me far more when they're treated like Jungle Hunter was. I don't think that's ever been replicated--not even by Predator 2. I think Wolf came close to feeling like another "force of nature" monster rather than a "serial killer/hero" monster, but I wanna forget Requiem ever happened.

COUNTERARGUMENT: Concrete Jungle (the game, not the book). I forgot the Predator's name in that game, but from my probably extremely misguided memories of him, I think he's a fleshed out character that also gets the "force of nature" feeling across well if only because he's unstoppable and doesn't give a fuck about Italians and France. CJ is the opposite of Predator 1 in that, actually, Predator Guy's shadow is not another Predator, but a man. A Predator Man. With gay samurai clowns. Man, what the fuck was that game?

tl;dr Predator better as a monster. Not good to fuck, maybe

Scar is an asshole

Hey also discuss your characters here, I think. 'Cause you guys are good at making Predators that are interesting to read about. Why aren't none of you writing Predator books?