Actually Rodriguez was trying to pay homage, he just sucks apparently. Also, he was trying to correct the "mistakes" of the first one. The scene you mentioned with the Yakuza being similar to the Indian guy is a perfect example. As you say its exactly the same, same setup, same music, just different outcome. This was his way of paying homage, but also correcting the originals errors. If you remember in the original, you don't see the Indian get killed, you see him prep for it and then you hear his scream. Rodriguez thought that was a cop out, so he decided to show you his version of that fight with the Yakuza and the Predator. As most people seem to agree that Predator was far superior to Predators, I think we can take Rodriguez's judgement with a grain of salt.

Aside from that issue, I hated that the film had to have NEWER, BIGGER, BADDER predators. Not only that, they had to trash the original by showing the originally designed predator as the weak one the newer ones had captive. If you can't make something work within the established parameters, then you probably don't have anything worthwhile to begin with.

I thought the scene with the Indian from the original was fine as it was. I don't think it was necessary to see the killing, it was left for us to imagine how he was killed (wasn't seeing the rest of the team killed enough?) and then the scene where the Predator ripped out his spine (a precusor to Mortal Kombat Sub Zero's fatality ((game not movie)) ).

And yeah having the new and improved Predators was kind of stupid. So they hunted humans, other aliens, and fellow Predators? Kind of like he threw way too much into trying to "pay homage".

Oh I agree, you didn't need to see the Indians death, that was kinda the point, the Indian was arguably the most impressive warrior among them, with his knowledge of the jungle, his using a knife all the time as opposed to a gun. Then he has this prep scene and you are thinking, "wow, this is going to be some fight". And then he gets killed offscreen without much trouble. Thats how badass the predator was, that was point of that scene in my opinion. And if you can make a movie where you leave more of an impression on your audience by not spelling it out for them, you are making a good movie, if you have to resort to spelling everything out, well, then you're left with Predators as opposed to Predator.

Just think how bad the first Predator would have been if they would have stuck with Jean Claude to play the Predator. The impact of the alien would have been laughable if it was this little, bouncing thing rather than the big, athletic crazy powerful alien it ended up being. Small things make big differences in movies.

Anyone else see the new (2010) Predators?

I was quite disappointed with it. I mean for a mindless action flick it was okay, but it ripped off too much stuff straight from the original. Lines directly from the original and then the scene with the Yakuza was a straight rip-off of the Indian on the log bridge scene from the original, even down to using the exact same music.

It just seemed...lazy.

Any other opinions?

Ah..... I liked New Predator movie.

But my favorite one is "Predator 2" with Danny Glover. The last battle in the ship was quite remarkable. Especially the Predator gave old pistol to Danny Glover, that scene was cool.