It's been 35 years since Predator was released, and the franchise has now been given a fresh start courtesy of Hulu's Prey. None of the movies before this one have managed to live up to the 1987 classic, and placing the action in the Comanche Nation in 1719 means this latest effort has been unburdened of any baggage left by its predecessors.
At the end of Prey, Amber Midthunder's Naru squares off with the Predator one final time but has some help courtesy of a weapon given to her by a French fur trapper.
The Predator wipes out his men, and in exchange for Naru helping him deal with his injuries, he gives her a gun (that's ultimately used to kill the invader). Returning to camp after the beast has been slain, she presents the weapon to her elders and it's then we see that it bears the name Raphael Adolini.
Does that ring a bell?
It's the same gun that the Predator, Yautja Greyback, handed to Danny Glover's Lieutenant Mike Harrigan after he killed the City Hunter in Predator 2 . Since then, tie-in material has established that the weapon was taken from Adolini when his crew betrayed him in 1718, a year before Prey takes place.
That must mean the Frenchman who helps Naru was one of those men, but seeing as Greyback then took the weapon at that time, we have to assume this franchise isn't following those comics too closely (instead creating a new canon that fits into the movies). This gun does end up in Greyback's hands somehow, though, so something tells us Naru isn't done with these aliens quite yet.
This is a fun way to link up this prequel movie with the originals, and it's certainly left us intrigued about where director Dan Trachtenberg hopes to take the story next.
Prey is now streaming on Hulu and Disney+.