Predator goofs

Film Deleted scenes Goofs Novelization Soundtrack Characters

This article covers all the known goofs in the 1987 film Predator, as well as its novelization.

Continuity

• When Dutch's team arrive at the beginning of the movie, a wide shot shows Blain jumping from the helicopter in silouhette, followed by Mac (identifiable by his suit), who begins to clamber out onto the weapons system mounted to the side of the chopper. However, when the camera cuts to a closeup of the team disembarking, Mac is still wholly inside the helicopter. Moreover, when he climbs out this time, he does not climb over the weapon pods but simply steps straight onto the beach.

• Throughout the film, the team utilizes various items such as grappling hooks and Claymore mines, yet they are never seen carrying such equipment when they are not in use.

• When Billy climbs up onto the ledge just before discovering the skinned bodies, he is wearing gloves, but when he shields his face after being startled by the scattering ravens the gloves are suddenly gone. He is then wearing them again when he emerges from the foliage to inform the others of what he has found.

• When Billy throws Jim Hopper's dog tags to Dutch, he catches them by the chain so that the tags are hanging from his hand. However, in the very next shot (from Dutch's perspective) the tags are suddenly cradled in his palm. Afterwards, they are hanging by the chain again.

• Jim Hopper's dog tags incorrectly give his initials as "C. E. Hopper". This may have, however, been the character's name before it was changed.

• The truck linked to the water pump is running in reverse gear. However, when Dutch lifts the truck and sends it into the camp, it is suddenly running in forwards gear.

• At the beginning of the attack on the guerrilla camp, Dutch fires his M203 grenade launcher at a rebel Huey, destroying it. In the shot of Dutch firing, filmed from his front, the launcher produces a significant cloud of grey smoke, but when the camera switches to behind Dutch to show the round hitting its target, the smoke is suddenly gone.

• Poncho hides behind a shot-up tree at the start of the assault on the rebel base. However, in the next shot, the tree is virtually unscathed, before bullets then rake it and cause the damage seen earlier.

• The ammo pack strapped to Blain's back changes orientation repeatedly; whenever he is firing his Minigun, the rectangular box is oriented horizontally (correctly), but in all other scenes, it is oriented vertically. In some cases, the change occurs from one shot to the next, yet he is never seen touching it.

• The scorpion changes orientation when Mac crushes it with his boot.

• The shotgun attached to Billy's M16 briefly disappears in one shot after the team leaves the rebel camp.

• Poncho's hands change position on his MP5 whenever the camera switches angles after he stops Anna during her first escape attempt. He also raises his gun twice as the scene ends.

• The amount of blood on Anna's face after Hawkins is killed changes between shots.

• When Blain is killed, the Plasmacaster shot punches a hole clean through his chest from behind. This would undoubtedly have destroyed the ammo canister on his back, yet when Mac arrives, he is able to fire Blain's minigun for an extended period without any problems.

• In almost all shots where the Predator uses its Cloak, its dreadlocks disappear. This is acknowledged by the special effects team, who explained that it would have been far too difficult and time-consuming to render the individual dreadlocks in the cloaked shots using the technology of the day.

• During the scene where the team mows down the jungle, there is a closeup of Dutch ejecting the magazine from his M16. In the very next shot, his hand is back on the pistol grip and he is firing again, despite having had no time to finish reloading.

• When the team set up traps around the jungle for the Predator, there are trip wires all over the ground — Dutch, in fact, almost accidentally triggers one of these when using himself as "cheese" to lure the Predator in. However, once the Predator escapes from the net, the team can be seen running around the area without any trip wires impeding their escape.

• The log that swings into Poncho is hollow when the Predator first shoots it down, but it is solid when it hits Poncho.

• After Mac is shot in the head by the Predator, Dillon inspects his corpse and finds that there is no entry wound visible on his head. Later on, the Predator is admiring Mac's skull, and it has an entry hole in the center of the forehead.

• The wound on Dutch's arm changes position repeatedly during the last act of the film.

• When Dutch collapses exhausted into the mud, he falls on the left side of his face. The subsequent shot of him spinning around (in response to the Predator landing in the river behind him) correctly shows that the right side of his face has no mud on it, as one would expect. However, when the Predator reaches him, Dutch's entire face is suddenly covered.

• During his confrontation with the Predator near the end of the film, Dutch leaps to a branch that the Predator then shoots with its Plasmacaster, breaking it and pitching Dutch into the water below. When we first see Dutch leap to this branch it is crooked, but in the very next shot of him briefly grabbing it before falling, it is suddenly a different, straight branch.

• As the Predator lies dying, it spits blood over it's face. This blood then disappears.

• General Philips' name is given as "Phillips" in the end credits; the name tag on his uniform spells his name Philips, with only one L.

Plot Holes

• When the team raids the guerrilla camp, they are still ostensibly looking for hostages, as they only know for certain that one of the captives has been executed (the one shot by the Russian advisor). Yet during their assault, they virtually raze the camp with reckless abandon, blowing up entire buildings without ever bothering to check if the hostages might be inside. Only after the firefight does Mac bother to look for the men they are supposedly there to rescue.

• After the team unleashes its firepower on the Predator, Poncho checks for signs of the creature and claims, "Not a thing. Not a fucking trace. No blood, no bodies... We hit nothing!" However, the Predator's bright green glowing blood was quite obviously spattered on some of the undergrowth when it was hit by Mac's opening salvo. Even Anna manages to discover some of this blood, wiping it on her clothes, so it makes no sense that the highly-trained and equipped Poncho would miss it.

Factual Errors

• Dutch lights a fat cigar before stepping off of the Huey at the start of the film, yet by the time he reaches General Philips at the other end of the beach, it is already several inches shorter — in reality, such a large cigar would take several hours to smoke.

• In several scenes, Mac is seen shaving. No soldier would ever shave in the jungle as it welcomes infection, which in such conditions could kill a man.

• When Blain breaks out his M134 Minigun, he 'cocks' the weapon by rotating the barrels with his hand. In reality, doing so would actually cause the weapon to fire.

• In reality, rounds for the M203 grenade launcher have a built-in safety feature whereby they must revolve (as they would do during flight) for a specific amount of time before they become armed, giving them a minimum range of around 40 meters. However, Dutch is seen using his launcher at ranges far closer than this during the guerrilla camp attack. Grenades fired at such close range would simply not explode.

• After the guerrilla camp has been destroyed, Dillon is seen calling for extraction over the radio, using the phrase, "Blazer one, I repeat, extraction necessary." In the U.S. military, the word "repeat" is never used in this context by ground forces and is reserved solely for when an individual requests a preceding artillery barrage be delivered again. Only air force pilots would use the word "repeat" in this specific context. The correct term for ground personnel would be "say again", which Dillon actually uses just moments later.

• While the team is searching for Hawkins' body, we see a reticulated python (Python reticulatus) moving on a branch. This particular species is only found in Southeast Asia, and would never be seen in Central America.
• Similarly, the giant desert hairy scorpion (Hadrurus arizonensis) that Mac kills is only native to the southeast of the USA and the northernmost parts of Mexico; it is otherwise completely absent from Central America.
• When picked up by the Jungle Hunter, the scorpion incorrectly appears colored red in his thermal vision before fading to blue and then black. In real life, scorpions do not emit a thermal signature, as they are not warm-blooded.

• The Minigun fires at 4,000-6,000 rounds per minute. When Mac opens fire on the Predator, he fires continuously for almost a minute. Not only are there no visible shell casings on the floor afterwards when there should be thousands of them, there is no way a man could physically carry that amount of ammunition. The ammunition box attached to the Minigun (seen on Blain's back before he is killed) is also nowhere near large enough to contain that amount of ammo. Furthermore, a Minigun requires a substantial amount of external electrical power to operate, and neither Blain nor Mac are seen carrying any suitable batteries.

• Although Dutch covers himself in mud, his eyes would still give off a substantial amount of heat, allowing the Predator to see him. It also would take mere minutes for Dutch's body heat to warm the mud to the same temperature as him, especially in a warm environment like the jungle, and especially if he was running around and otherwise physically exerting himself.

Revealing Mistakes

• There is no cassette in the tape player aboard the insertion helicopter, despite the fact that music is playing throughout the flight.

• The blank adaptors fitted to the M16 rifles used by several of the team and the M60 carried by Mac are plainly visible in several shots, protruding from the muzzle.

• Several times during the assault on the rebel camp, weapons can be seen firing without any sound effects.

• At the start of the attack on the rebel camp, Dillon shouts out, "Targets at the center of the palapa!" (a palapa being an open-sided hut with a thatched roof, like those found in the camp), but his lips are not moving as he speaks.

• The same shot of two soldiers being thrown through the air by an explosion is used twice during the jungle camp assault (although the second time, it is zoomed in so only one of the soldiers is visible). Whether this was caused by budget restraints, the filmmakers saving money by believing people wouldn't catch on, or was simply an oversight is unknown.

• When Anna attempts to flee, Dutch whistles for Hawkins to follow her, even though his mouth is closed.

• When Dillon has his arm blown off and his MP5 falls to the floor still firing, the wire that is wrapped around the trigger and making the weapon fire is clearly visible beneath the trigger finger, which is also not actually touching the trigger.

• Dutch sends Anna on alone to the extraction helicopter, but there is no way she could possibly know the rendezvous location, and even if she did, she has no map to navigate her way there.

• As Dutch falls over the waterfall, the footage used is clearly filmed at a different time and place, and with a much lower quality camera.

• When the Predator drops Billy's corpse onto a branch, preparing to remove his spine, Billy blinks even though he is supposed to be dead. This is most likely a mistake on the actor's part.

• In the quick shot of Dutch's final trap triggering, the vine rope that whips upwards is rather obviously matted into the scene, and not actually there.

• The mushroom cloud seen from the helicopter at the end of the film is clearly a painting; it does not billow or rise like a real cloud would.

Novelization

Continuity

• As in the film, Dutch and his men find the pilots of the downed CIA helicopter shot dead, still strapped into their seats. However, the book later states that Jack Davis (Jim Hopper in the movie) was the chopper's pilot.

• At the start of the book, the team meets in Conta Mana for their briefing, before heading across the border into Guatemala on their mission. Later, the book erroneously switches these two locations and states they are operating in Conta Mana.

• The weapons carried by individual members of the team change during the course of the story. For instance, Poncho starts out with an MP5 but is later said to be armed with an "M-202" rifle, while Mac's M60 turns into an "M-22".

• When Dutch questions Mac about his encounter with the Predator, Mac tells him that he fired at the creature with his sidearm as well as his M60 and Blain's Minigun, but this never happened during said sequence.

• During its final confrontation with Dutch, the Predator drops its spear near a waterfall. However, Dutch later finds it lying near the Predator's ship, some distance away through the jungle. The spear could have, however, been washed away by the water, or the Predator may have either reclaimed it or made use of a backup that he later abandoned as well.

Factual errors

• During the flight into the jungle, Dutch and Dillon are said to ride in the cockpit of the insertion Huey with the pilot. However, the Huey has only two seats in its cockpit, making this impossible.

• Several of Dutch's men are said to be armed with "M-202" rifles. In the US Army, the M202 is actually an incendiary rocket launcher.
• Cheetahs and hyenas are mentioned among the animals in the rainforest, but both are only found in Africa and wildlife exhibits.

• Towards the end of the story, Dutch watches the sun set into the Caribbean. However, the Caribbean is east of Central America; the sun would actually set over the Pacific.