MovieChat Forums > Predator (1987) Discussion > The beginning has always confused me.......

The beginning has always confused me.... spoilers

posted 7 years ago by moonscar119
17 replies | jump to latest

- Dillon has a chopped sent in to fing the gurella camp and it goes missing (shot down by heat seaker)
- hopper sent in to find them by dillons order
- gurellas had already captured the 2 men from the helicopter (there were a total of 4 on the helicopter right? 2 pilots and the 2 passengers?)
- by the time hopper had reached the chopper, the pow's were already in the gurella camp
- Hoppers men followed the trail and the predator attacked them and strung them up
- when dutch see the prisoner shot in the head, he was one of the people from the chopper?

the rest of the movie is pretty self explanatory to me. But does my first part look right?

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One
Big
A**
Mistake
America

[–] GreenGoblinsOckVenom86 7 years ago

I am pretty sure everyone in the helicopter was killed by the Predator. The hostages the Guerillas have are just civilians of whatever nearby town/village they had captured/raided.
"I'll be back!" The Terminator

[–] Ultrashiver 7 years ago

Incorrect - The helicopter pilot took a bullet in the head. He was still in his seat, upside down.

[–] GreenGoblinsOckVenom86 7 years ago

Incorrect - The helicopter pilot took a bullet in the head. He was still in his seat, upside down.

When was this shown?

"I'll be back!" The Terminator

[–] traitorchris 7 years ago

Poncho, after looking at the downed chopper says "The pilots have each got one round in the head."

Billy then confirms that the two men from the chopper were taken. We later see one passenger get shot in the head and Mac confirms that he finds the corpse of the second passenger who was already dead when they arrived at the rebel camp.

[–] moonscar119 7 years ago

lol.... so maybe the rest of the movie is not self explanatory to me until after the scorpion part lol

so mac mentions the other guy by saying "he's dead too". that's what led me to believe there were 4 on the helicopter.

so he refers to the prisoners as "if they're central american i'm a china man."... then said the guy they came to rescue was CIA

also the "other guys they waxed, were Russian military advisers".... which guys were those? all of the people in the camp? or just some of the bad guys in the camp

- The innocent only exist until they inevitably become perpetrators. Guilt or innocence is timing

[–] nickm2 7 years ago

The Russian Advisers were on the chopper that was trying to escape the camp when it got blown away.

Why can't you wretched prey creatures understand that the Universe doesn't owe you anything!?

[–] ttaskmaster 7 years ago

The Russian Advisers were on the chopper that was trying to escape the camp when it got blown away.

What, the slightly chubby guys with the big curly hair and tanned skin who look more like generic guerillas?
Nah, they are most definitely guerillas.

also the "other guys they waxed, were Russian military advisers".... which guys were those? all of the people in the camp? or just some of the bad guys in the camp

Supposedly there is one guy, who you see for a total of one second on screen, played by an Swedish actor called Sven who has previously played Russians in a few other films. He's the guy who gets shot when Arnie does the "Knock knock" joke... He's picking up some papers off the floor, while another South American guerilla stands to the left of the screen.
That Sven guy is supposedly the Russian Military Adviser, although he's not credited thus in the actual film, or anything.

[–] the_bamboo_spear 7 years ago

He also speaks Russian. He's one of the Russian advisors.

[–] Ultrashiver 7 years ago

Watch the scene again please and watch closely.

[–] ralph_2ndedition 7 years ago

One chopper is sent in to find the camp (by people knowing it is NOT just a rebel camp). That chopper gets taken down by a heat seeking missile, which by any and all accounts is "pretty advanced for a bunch of half assed mountain boys" - but then again, something big was going down at that camp, so they probably never were half assed mountainboys anyway, were they.

Jim Hopper & co is rescue team one, probably sent in under the same pretence as Arnold & co. They find the chopper (including the two dead pilots), see the guerilla tracks and follow them.
Somewhere along the way they run in to the predator. They "fire in all directions", but hit nothing, and the predator takes them down, skin them and hang them out to dry.

Arnold & co walk the same path, finding the helicopter and thusly finding Hopper & co's skinned bodies. The predator isn't there to interrupt them so they eventually get to the guerilla camp, wreck havoc and also find out that the mission was all a ruse to get them to that very spot.

They subsequently leave the camp for the extraction point, fight the predator in installments along the way and - finally, the last man and woman standing - "get to da choppah".

The end.

[–] doowopfan 7 years ago

...wreck havoc and also find out that the mission was all a ruse to get them to that very spot...

Here is the only thing I never understood with the mission. Why were there two hostages? Dutch (and we) see one get shot and Mac finds the other guy. If Dillon made up the story of there being hostages to get Dutch in there because he knows Dutch would not go if there weren't hostages ("we are a rescue team, not assassins") then why were there hostages? See what I mean? There should be no hostages because Dillon fabricated them to get Dutch in there.

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I did sixty in five minutes once...

[–] ralph_2ndedition 7 years ago

My guess is that there were other soldiers in that shot down helicopter, besides the helicopter pilot, and that they are the "hostages" they encounter.
Of course they never were hostages, they were captives. The first time I saw it the hostage thing REALLY puzzled me when we saw one of them gunned down, just like that, for no reason whatsoever. I kept thinking "that's not the proper use of a hostage...". If you kill them off, you have no leverage.
So, the "hostages" are (as I see it) captured soldiers that, at a glance, luckily happens to corroborate Dillons made up story.

[–] ttaskmaster 7 years ago

If Dillon made up the story of there being hostages to get Dutch in there because he knows Dutch would not go if there weren't hostages ("we are a rescue team, not assassins") then why were there hostages? See what I mean? There should be no hostages because Dillon fabricated them to get Dutch in there.

The two 'hostages' were CIA agents.
Dillon lied by saying they were a Cabinet Minister and his aide.
The CIA agents were captives, effectively the same as POWs but Dillon lied by saying they were 'hostages'.

In short, he didn't lie about their existence... but he did lie about who they were.

[–] atd8vii (592) 6 years ago

This!

[–] BOandBarbecue (2264) a year ago

One chopper is sent in to find the camp (by people knowing it is NOT just a rebel camp). That chopper gets taken down by a heat seeking missile, which by any and all accounts is "pretty advanced for a bunch of half assed mountain boys" - but then again, something big was going down at that camp, so they probably never were half assed mountainboys anyway, were they

Jim Hopper & co is rescue team one, probably sent in under the same pretence as Arnold & co. They find the chopper (including the two dead pilots), see the guerilla tracks and follow them.
Somewhere along the way they run in to the predator. They "fire in all directions", but hit nothing, and the predator takes them down, skin them and hang them out to dry.

Arnold & co walk the same path, finding the helicopter and thusly finding Hopper & co's skinned bodies. The predator isn't there to interrupt them so they eventually get to the guerilla camp, wreck havoc and also find out that the mission was all a ruse to get them to that very spot..

yes. this is good description.

the only problem is all this happen in "18 hours" (as general says at beginning)

so cia chopper goes down in jungle... hopper sent in to find them and is skinned... then dutch sent in to find helicopter

all this in 18 hours?

[–] Rusty (548) 10 months ago

What exactly is the camp? What is happening there? Why does Dillon want it destroyed?

Poncho whispers that the helicopter ‘looks more like a surveillance bird to me’, as opposed to what? What is the significance of this revelation?

What are ‘Russian military advisers’ doing at the camp? Why were they killed?

What are the papers Dillon is excitedly rifling through?

What is Anna doing at the camp?

[–] PittPanthers47 (237) 10 months ago

I believe that Dillon makes the comment after the base camp is destroyed that "they would have been across the border" with this stuff in a day or two or something to that effect. This was the 1980s and the Soviets were trying to have some sphere of influence in Central America. Who was it? Daniel Ortega who was in the pocket of the Soviets? BO would likely know that better.

I know Reagan feared the Caribbean would become a communist lake if the US did not take action. Hence such actions as Grenada and the Iran-Contra thing. Very real concerns in this part of the world for the US at the time.

The beginning has always confused me.... *spoilers*

The beginning has always confused me.... spoilers