The long-running action and horror franchises of modern cinema often have a few difficult aspects that rear their ugly head upon a rewatch. Most just try to sweep issues under the rug, but a smart entry in the franchise could directly address and solve the challenging aspects of the past.
Prey is the fifth entry into the mainline Predator franchise which has seen sporadic activity across the past 35 years. Though there has been a fair amount of variance between the films, some themes have been reoccurring. As a fan of the franchise and the newest director to take the reins, Dan Trachtenberg finds an interesting way to put a new spin on the narrative.
The plot of Predator, Predator 2, Predators, and The Predator can be most efficiently boiled down to hypermasculine action figure-esque men doing battle with a powerful alien hunter. The 1987 original features Arnold Schwarzenegger as Major Alan "Dutch" Schaefer, leader of a group of comical commandos on a mission to a jungle guerilla camp. Dillon, Mac, Billy, Blain, Poncho, and Hawkins each represent one version or another of the cartoon Übermensch, in the brief period before they are spectacularly slaughtered. The sequel features Danny Glover and Gary Busey as hard-nosed cops, a slightly different masculine archetype with the same results. Both Predators and The Predator bring back the squadron of military men with very few exceptions. Unfortunately, the role of women in the Predator franchise has been fairly one-note thus far.
There is typically a woman or two in each film, but they don't really get to do much. The general role of the ladies of the franchise is to provide information to the heroes, then get captured or endangered to motivate their actions. The first film featured Elpidia Carrillo as Anna Gonsalves, a young insurgent woman who is captured by Dutch and his men. Anna is spared by the Yautja because she's unarmed, and she explains that her people have seen the handiwork of the creature before. She essentially leaves the film after dropping that information, getting to the chopper, and escaping alongside her captor turned savior.
The second film features a cop who gets a small taste of the action, but her role is largely the same. Maria Conchita Alonso plays Detective Leona Cantrell, who serves alongside Danny Glover's Harrigan in the LAPD. Though Cantrell does get to fire off a few rounds in an action scene, her main role is still to provide information. Like Anna, she is spared, but the City Hunter spares her because it determines that she is pregnant. Leona is more involved with the action, but less involved with the story.
Predators features Israel Defense Forces sniper Isabelle, played by Alice Braga. Despite being the second most prominent character in the film, and a fixture of most of the early action scenes, her treatment isn't much better than the previous ladies in the franchise. She also has some previous experience with Yautja, because she at some point heard the tale of Dutch's men from the first movie. Isabelle is unquestionably strong and capable, but she's still pushed to the sideline so that the men can shine. The final action scene of the film sees her betrayed and paralyzed while Adrien Brody's Royce handles the last battle. Isabelle is a substantial improvement, but she still falls into a few of the traps that the series can't seem to avoid.
Finally, The Predatorintroduces Olivia Munn as Casey Brackett, who is the apex of the franchise's obsession with having women explain everything. She's an evolutionary biologist who uses scientific knowledge to understand and communicate the new and improved subspecies of Predator. She does get in on the action in the film's final scene, and her role is important, but her contributions are weighted much differently than the male members of the team. She's an improvement in some ways, but the fact that most of her dialogue is exposition makes her a questionable step up from Isabelle.
The non-canon film AVP: Alien vs. Predator gives the audience Sanaa Lathan as Alexa Woods, who takes on the hero role. This seems somewhat groundbreaking at first, but it's clearly the influence of the Alien franchise putting her in the driver's seat. She's a riff on Ellen Ripley who wouldn't feel at home in any other Predator movie. Across the mainline franchise, most women exist to provide information and compel the real heroes to action. The recurring scene in which a Predator scans and spares a lady is meant to be informative, but it's a bit insulting that most women in the franchise are explicitly declared unworthy of participating.
Prey is set to fix all of that. The story is about a young lady training to be a hunter, against the will of her male colleagues. Naru even repurposes the trope of prior knowledge of the Yautja's actions, using them to arm herself for her own fight. Prey seems to imagine a world in which Anna wouldn't need a bunch of jacked soldiers to save her because she can save herself. This is a great lesson on how to identify and fix the problems of outdated material.