We were giving some of the guys a hard time about the way they use their mics at work- some yell into it, some hold it down by their bellies so you can't hear them, and a couple of guys, for some reason, squeeze the hell out of their mics so they make these godawful sounds. Leon is the worst offender by far- he has these huge bulldog hands which are not made for delicacy. So it was ironic that he was the one razzing John about his mic etiquette.
"You sound like that space alien in that movie, what's it called there, you know . . . " and he put his fingers up to his mouth and wiggled them in the universal sign language for Predator.
"Yeah, Predator." Then he clucks his tongue in a fair approximation of the predator's vocalizations. We all laugh.
"I love that movie," I say.
"Yeah it's wild. He could imitate whoever he heard. Perfectly! And he could make himself invisible!"
"No shit!" said John, clearly impressed.
"But he was a trophy hunter that sunuvabitch. Took their heads. The first time I seen him there he was hunting Arnold Schwarzenegger."
"If it bleeds, we can kill it," I say in my best Arnie voice.
"Yeah! And then the next time I seen him there, he was hunting drug dealers. But the last time I seen him, he was hunting that alien from that other movie, what the hell was it called there . . . "
"Alien!" I say.
"Yeah, Alien!"

Michelle decided that she would like to see Predator. Even though it's one of my favorite movies ever, I told her I didn't think she would like it very much- it's just a bunch of guys running through a jungle shooting at an ugly alien. And getting shot by it. But it also had two guys who would go on to become governors of American states, so I guess there is some historical value. Anyways, we watched it last night and I loved it as much as ever, and Michelle, well, she had some good laughs at some of the cheesy lines and was also heard to remark, "Men are strange."
Well. The image you see above is an early concept for the predator, and here he is again sans helmet:

This was a design by Alan Munro, who said, "The original maquette for the creature was extraordinary. It was a frog-like body with intertwined sinews everywhere. There were large air-cavities up the arms and in the chest. Aesthetically, it was gorgeous." Well, having seen the suit in the Special Features of the DVD, I'm not sure I agree. Nor did anyone else, luckily. Director John McTiernan decided on a different direction. Something more like "a Masai warrior. Rather than squat, bulky and tough, he wanted it tall, with very upright posture . . . statuesque. Conceptually he turned it into a mystic warrior going through a rite of passage." So Stan Winston was brought in and he came up with the classic design we know and love.
(Images and quotes above are taken from Paul Chadwick's article Alan Munro: Midwifing a Predator which appeared in Dark Horse Comics' Predator #1, June 1989)
And just because it's so beautiful, here is the back cover from the very first Alien Versus Predator story ever printed, from Dark Horse Presents #36, February, 1990. Painting by Dave Dorman. All images copryright of Dark Horse or Fox or someone other than me.)