This article is part of a directory: Game Rant's Ultimate Sci-Fi Guide
Table of contents

The new Predator sequel, Prey has released to widespread critical acclaim. Critics, casual viewers and hardcore fans alike have praised the film for its strong performances, intense action setpieces and originality. Prey is set in the year 1719 in the midst of European colonization of the Americas. It follows a young Comanche woman named Naru, a gifted healer with dreams of becoming a hunter like her brother, Taabe.

Related: Most Memorable Quotes From Predator (1987)

Her struggle to break through cultural taboo and prove herself forms the bedrock of the film's message, brilliantly intersecting with the story of the Predator landing on Earth for its first hunt. The film is full of memorable moments over the course of its tight 100-minute runtime. Here are some of the best that Prey has to offer.

Spoilers Ahead

7 Arrival Of The Thunderbird

Predator ship flies overhead

Like a sign from the gods themselves the massive Predator vessel barrels through the clouded sky above Naru, with the thunderous roar and red glow of its engines as the only indication. Of course, the film goes out of its way to portray the moment of the Predator's arrival in a such a way, with Naru even interpreting it as such by referring to it as the arrival of the Thunderbird, though this is merely her way of explaining something she did not truly understand.

Related: A Brief History of Aliens Versus Predator Games

It's an interesting way to frame the event, especially since anyone of this particular time period would do the same depending on their beliefs. This foreboding opening scene excellently sets the tone for movie going forward.

6 Predator Vs. The Bear

Predator lifts bear over his head

Predators, or Yautja as their species is known, are pretty strong creatures. Forget all their fancy technology and armor, these guys are brutish figures that can usually overpower their opponents during a fight if they feel like it.

Nowhere else in the film is this more on display than during the creature's bout with a huge grizzly bear, in which the Predator not only kills it with one blow, but proceeds to lift its hulking corpse over his head, letting its blood pour over his cloaked figure. Talk about soaking in the victory!

5 Fur Trapper Massacre

Predator holding his shield

Like the bear, the French fur trappers are in way over their heads when they attempt to capture the Predator. In addition to using his own raw strength, the Predator not only uses his own weapons, but the human's own tools against them as well. The Frenchmen are completely outmatched as the extraterrestrial picks them apart one by one in various different ways.

Related: Predator: What Do We Know About Yautja Culture?

The scene is tremendously gory, with some men getting brutally hacked to death, cut to pieces by razor wire, sliced into pieces via shield and, in one instance, having a bear trap thrown onto their head like a Frisbee, crushing it. Naru and Taabe can only listen from afar as the men are brutally massacred.

4 Taabe Vs. The Predator

Taabe spears the Predator mid-air

Taabe had already proved himself a capable warrior by this point in the film, but to go toe to toe with a Predator practically alone and actually do well is absolutely incredible. Using every tool at his disposal, Taabe leaps and dodges around the Predator, using his smaller size to his advantage in a way not seen in a Predator film before.

Unfortunately, he is no match for the alien hunter's advanced technology, which it uses to get the drop Taabe. Though defeated, the Comanche warrior was still able to inflict one last wound on the Predator before being killed by stabbing him with the skull of the lion he killed earlier in the film. This last act gives Naru the opportunity to escape and plan her revenge on the feral Yautja.

3 Blood For Blood

Big Beard tries to shoot Naru

After losing her brother, Naru escapes to find the cowardly leader of the French trapping party known as Big Beard alone by the river. Seeking an opportunity to bait the Predator, as well as get revenge for what he'd done to Taabe earlier in the film, Naru captures the man and severs his leg at the knee. The scene somewhat plays like that of a horror film, with the man being slowly woken up by rats swarming and chewing on his wounds in the night.

The scene is also one of several in which Naru is able to display her ingenuity, such as how she uses the frenchman's weapons against him as well as the Predator, whilst ingesting orange tutsia to hide her body temperature, hindering his heat seeking vision. It's a great scene that serves as perfect set up leading into the film's climax.

2 The Final Battle

Predator stares down Naru

What makes the film's climactic showdown so great is that it's a showcase of everything Naru had learned up to that point. No longer the inexperienced, aspiring hunter, she expertly leads the Predator into a trap in the wilderness; into her domain. Naru not only uses the monster's hunting style, weapons and even lumbering size against him, she uses her environment as well, sticking spikes in trees and even submerging him in the same mud pit that she almost drowned in earlier in the film.

Related: Predators Was A Better Sequel Than The Predator

The best part, however, is how Naru takes advantage of the tracking ability of the Predator's helmet to finally kill it. All of this makes for an extremely satisfying climactic battle, with actress, Amber Midthunder's victory cries perfectly capping off the scene.

1 Naru Is A Warrior

Prey Amber Midthunder

Naru's journey as a character is undoubtedly the heart of the film. In the beginning of the film she is a gifted yet inexperienced and headstrong young woman with dreams of following in her brother's footsteps. She fails time and again but always seems to learn the right lessons from her failures, until she is ultimately victorious over the Predator.

Carrying the head of her defeated foe, coated in its glowing green blood, she is finally accepted by her tribe as the warrior she always knew she was, but had yet to prove. The culmination of her character arc is satisfying in every way it should be.

Prey is streaming now on Hulu.

More: Prey Review