Why You Liked … Prey

During the 80s and 90s, arcade culture boomed. Gloomy environments filled with phosphorescent lights beckoned for a hero. These game systems were limited in scope due to the hardware of the time, but still gave rise to classics like Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and Street Fighter II. These games didn’t need sprawling narratives or complex mechanics. Their stories were simple, straightforward, and uncompromising. You needed to step up, and it was all on you.

At the same time, home gaming had its own renaissance, led by systems like the NES, which introduced the world to The Legend of Zelda. Zelda was intimate and passionate, drawing players into a world where they wondered what life might be like if they were Link, tasked with a simple mission: save Zelda. These games were story-rich but pared down by today’s standards. Where some might see simplicity, others saw purity—a distilled essence of heroism and adventure.

This was the crucible of purity and heroism that shaped a young Dan Trachtenberg. Immersed in these iconic games, he grew up to be the man who tells the stories we crave—stories with strong character dynamics, clear objectives, and a sense of purpose. Prey is arguably the best straightforward-yet-intense survival narrative since the original Predator.

Predator fans haven’t been well-served by the franchise. While the initial movie scored well, the quality has trended downward over five sequels, culminating in the disaster that was The Predator. While I think Predators was underrated by audiences, The Predator is one of the few movies that triggered my gag reflex. I figured director Shane Black, who starred in the first one, would understand what made a decent Predator movie.

I was wrong.

Prey gives us quite a different movie—one that lifts review scores above what we’d expect for a film born into streaming. And it’s easy to see why: Prey strips away the excess that’s encrusted the franchise, delivering a direct adrenaline injection.

We find ourselves in 1719 on the Great Plains of North America. Our hero is Naru, a young Comanche woman played by the astonishingly talented Amber Midthunder. She yearns to prove herself as a hunter to her tribe, but mostly to her long-suffering brother. She is just the kind of hero I love: someone who grins when they fight. Sure, the role of hunter is traditionally held by men, but Naru wants to know why that is and why she can’t.

Her brother has no shortage of valuable feedback for her, and as we know, feedback is a gift. His lessons arguably set her on the path outside tradition, where she melds what makes Naru great with what makes Comanche hunters great. In this fusion, we begin to see what might defeat the Predator, but perhaps we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Complications

A challenge with Naru’s existence is that very few people she knows think it’s okay for her to be a hunter. She faces ridicule and challenges at every turn. You could argue she isn’t a very good hunter at the start of the movie, and you’d find little resistance to that. She’s not been trained or afforded the same advantages as the people around her.

It’s easy to see these members of her tribe as antagonists, but Naru doesn’t. She sees them as family, people she should prove herself to, and when the chips are down, people she must save even if they’re dicks. Sometimes family can be dicks, but that doesn’t mean we want a monstrous trophy-hunter alien to skin them and boil their remains down for stock.

While it would have been easy to bring in some kind of cowboy nonsense in this movie, director Trachtenberg resists, instead opening our eyes to a different foil: French fur trappers who have also encountered the Predator.

There’s a subtle twist here, one that might be easy to miss. While Naru’s tribe has a straightforward goal of not dying—something I can get behind—the French trappers are looking for trouble. We get some insight into their atrocious hunting behaviours and see in them something of the Predator: creatures that are hurtful, and worse, wasteful. However, the big difference between them and the Predator is that they’re also without honour.

It’s this honourless voyage that makes us get a little excited when they decide to take a swing at the king. We know beyond all doubt they’re going to get fucked up. What we’re not prepared for is how good it feels when it happens. As audience members, we should be on the side of humans everywhere, but it’s clear through Trachtenberg’s depictions that some humans are … more equal than others. This lens allows us to examine humanity in general, and ourselves in particular. Are we leading the kind of life that would allow us an honourable death? Are we living honourably?

A Better Wheel

Naru’s not just trying to bulk up quick before she hunts—she’s got brains. This is what allows her to meld herself with the teachings of her tribe, and it’s this deeper connection to a thoughtful hero that allows us to connect with her more deeply as the story unfolds.

An example of this is when she upgrades her axe. Not content to toss it away—because, as it turns out, that just gives the Predator more weapons to use against you—she perfects the art of throwing her axe but attaches a rope to it. This is less “tag and release” and more “reusable booster rocket to get to orbit.” She builds new tools to combat a new threat.

However, Naru’s not just building a better axe. She’s building a better Naru. Her hero’s journey is one of survival, sure, but also of self-discovery. She adapts, using her knowledge of the land and the Predator’s weaknesses to outsmart the technologically superior alien. When you take a swing at the king, you better not miss, and Naru is not one who likes to miss.

At the end, we see Naru using her weapons and traps to confront the Predator in a showdown. It’s not just that she grins when she fights—that’s important—but that she becomes the warrior she always aspired to be, and the warrior her brother believed she could be as well.

The Ending

Naru doesn’t really want to be a hero. She just wants to be seen and recognised for her contributions—not just those her tribe expects, but the ones hidden beneath what she appears to be.

There’s something of all of us in this. As kids, we don’t usually say we want to be a tax attorney. We say we want to be a firefighter, or an astronaut. There’s a kernel of greatness in all of us, but so often the world around us won’t let it bloom. We must always be sensible, practical, and predictable.

In her hero’s journey, Naru doesn’t just become a better person. Like all heroes, it’s her determination and sacrifice that allow new things to bloom, such as the growing understanding in her tribe that things don’t always have to be what they were. That people, the very heart of us, can be something better and stronger, as long as we have something worth fighting for.

Our friends. Our family. Our way of life. It’s all the same, and Naru lets us be seen.

Speaking for the Voiceless

There’s another unspoken element to Prey and its view on heroism. Part of being heroic is doing what’s needed, not what’s glorious. We often mistake heroes for those who get the rewards, but in reality, it’s the heroes who make sacrifices so the rest of us can be free.

What’s impressive in our day of accidental cultural appropriation is how Prey brings in people like Jhane Myers as Producer and Cultural Consultant, and Juanita Pahdopony and her nephew Dustin Tahmahkera as Comanche Consultants, to be authentic to Native Americans in general and the Comanche Nation in particular. Indigenous people have had a rough ride, and Native Americans are no different. By centring Prey on the Comanche Nation, we don’t see a creative decision.

We see a statement.

It’s this meta-narrative of Prey that impresses me. Prey uses a popcorn blockbuster to tell stories for the voiceless. We see the Comanche Nation not as the villains of our Westerns, but the genuine people they are—looking out for their families, standing by their friends even when they’re dicks, and refusing to bend the knee in the face of overwhelming might and tyranny.

Trachtenberg’s decision to make the protagonist a young Comanche woman was a deliberate choice to showcase a new kind of hero—one that challenges the typical Hollywood archetype. By doing so, Trachtenberg not only diversifies the representation of heroes in mainstream cinema but also highlights the courage and resilience of indigenous women, who are often overlooked in both historical narratives and contemporary media.

This elevates voices that have historically been silenced, allowing them to be heard well beyond the movie’s debut. And when I think about this, I also think about a young Dan Trachtenberg, either in those arcades or at home on his NES, learning what it means to be a hero.

And I think we can agree: he succeeded. By setting himself aside and putting others at the front, Dan has paid the price so others can be seen. Trachtenberg’s legacy in Prey is a great movie—flashy and fun, and full of heroism and strength. But it teaches us what family is, what true honour means, and what it means to sacrifice.

This is a lesson that will outlast us all.