Hulu and how Streaming Co-Opted Mid-Budget Franchise Films (TL;DR Hellraiser and Prey were pretty fun movies)

 I recently resubbed for a month to Hulu just to catch the new Predator movie (Prey) and the new Hellraiser movie, which thankfully fell within the one-month slot of time I had paid for. For the price one one month (with ads) which is just going up to about $9/month it's a pretty good deal, cheaper than movie tickets, for three films that would be perfectly fine theater fare in a different time, but which are just too low in the budget, thrills and star power set by blockbuster films these days. Don't get me wrong....I would rather watch a more well thought out mid-range film like Hellraiser than sit through any more Disney Marvel films right now, but it's pretty clear that there's a subtle and permanent change to where entertainment can be found going on now due to streaming services. 

Either way, the real problem in the end is one of value: as soon as I saw these two movies I unsubbed from Hulu as their general mix of films and shows is simply not enough for me to keep up with it, not when there is so much competition. I'll wait and resub for a month when they have yet another interesting movie worth watching. Maybe someday someone will make some new original property that's just as interesting as watching these tired old properties get revified like some Herbert West experiment, too....who knows!

That said, it is worth mentioning that both Prey and the new Hellraiser were quite fun, and they both appeared to make an earnest effort to capture the essence of their franchises. Indeed, Hellraiser felt like a better sequel to Hellraiser 2 than the subsequent 8 films that actually (and shamefully) do bear the series' name. Prey, meanwhile, had some curious gaffes and a shiny coat of "made for TV" on it, but still managed to be a far more entertaining and successful Predator film than the last theatrical release, by a hard mile. 

Although people may gripe about streaming and how many services there are now, I guess we can at least be happy that they haven't (yet) returned to the Cable model of exorbitant, costly packages stuffed with channels no one actually wants, in a medium over which you have no control as to when you want to view a program. So there is that, I suppose. 

Ghost Recon: Predator

I admit, I've spent a lot of time playing Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands, thinking about how the engine for this game is really amazing, and hoping like hell that the bonus costume, the "wasteland warrior" suit, isn't just a fun oddity, but a suggestion that Ubisoft realizes that their "terrorize Bolivia" simulator would be even cooler as a post-apocalypse simulator, or a zombie survival sim, or even....wait for it....a Predator sim:



Well, looks like I got one of the three! Looking forward to trying this new mode out.....Wildlands was made to be a Predator sim.

The Final Aliens Post: A Decent Critique

Ben Kuchera of the Penny Arcade Report has an interesting article on why he feels Aliens: Colonial Marines failed as a game sequel to the movies, and why making a game out of the films is so difficult, if not impossible. It's a good read and I am inclined to agree with much of it in principle, even if I am far less harsh in my experience with the game, having found myself not even noticing or being bothered by so many of the features that apparently drove Ben and others nuts. The alien behavior, for example....I did not notice or was not bothered by poor AI during the play. Was it there? I guess, maybe. Truth is, I was enjoying the ride and was not bothered that the game experience wasn't a precise emulation of the style and feel of the movie in that way....I pretty much just assumed that we were dealing with a story about a group of more experienced, less cocky and more well-informed marines who weren't as foolhardy as the ones from the movie. Unlike Ben, I guess I entered the game not expecting it to be an emulation of the Aliens film, but its own thing, spinning off from it, and using the medium of video games to do what it could to give us an experience in that universe.

That said, I bet the guys behind Dead Space could have nailed it.

Anyway, read his commentary, I think it's an interesting perspective and carries through with the previous games, although I am less inclined to agree that throwing predators into the mix has been a very useful story tool....and in fact feel that the AvP games and movies have largely been let downs to both franchises.