Headscratchers / Predator

Works in this franchise with their own pages:

• Predator 2
• Alien vs. Predator
• Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem
• Predators
• The Predator
• Prey (2022)

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• Whatever happens with Anna after the end of the movie? I mean, afterall she is a communist guerrilla fighter that was about to be part of some major operation against an American ally, and now she is in the hands of the US military and the CIA.
  • I just watched Predator 2, and there is a blink-or-miss moment when Agent Keyes is explaining Harrigan that they are against an alien being, showing Anna in a monitor, sitting in some sort of interrogation room. Poor girl suffered a fate worse than death: spending hours alone in the same room with Gary Busey.
  • Being a communist guerilla, in order to keep an eye on her and make sure she didn't say anything to anyone, she was likely told something along the lines of: "either accept American citizenship and a spot in the witness protection program and don't tell anyone about this ever, or we'll lock you up in a secret military prison if you don't, or decide to say anything to anyone."
• Schwarzenegger smears some mud on himself and somehow that covers up all his body heat and he's blind to the predator? Badass, but still, come on.
  • I have to admit, this is a legitimate argument. The mud might mask his body heat for a while, but eventually it's going to warm up to body temperature. It's logical the first time, when he has just crawled out of a cold river and is covered with fresh, cold mud, but not in the later scene where he has painted himself with mud that has had time to dry.
  • Mythbusters confirmed this trick would not work. Kari even explicitly mentioned Predator.
    • One could possibly handwave it by the fact we do see Dutch reapplying the mud during the montage where he's building the traps. Its likely he did so several times offscreen and we were supposed to infer this was what was going on. After all, if we watched him constantly reapplying the mud, it'd suck the tension right out of the scene.
  • Fridge Brilliance time. Arnold only had to be "invisible" for a few seconds when the Predator was hot on his tail the first time the mud trick worked, which would've worked (the Mythbusters said the Mud did cloak the heat for a bit, but that it warmed up after a bit and wasn't entirely covering anyway). Later, reapplying the mud wouldn't have made it invisible, but it sure as hell would've made him cloaked. Not unlike the Predator; hard to see, but not completely invisible. Arnold leveled the playing field.
  • It was probably something in the mud, not the mud itself. We know that the Predator's helmet has some kind of "filter" to let it see more effectively. It's repeatedly stated that it's exceptionally hot when the film takes place, even for the jungle, yet the human heat signatures are very bright against a "cool" blue background, and later we see the Predator remove his mask and the cool blue background changes to be equally as "hot" as Dutch. So what if something in the mud, some mineral concentration or something, fools the "filter" aspect of the Predator's mask, making it think Ahnald is part of the background?
    • This makes the most sense - if anything, the environment would help hide Arnold. Thermal imaging (at least human thermal imaging) relies not on how hot something is, but how much heat is being emitted, so ironically, putting on a big thick sweater can help mask you to a degree from a thermal imager. A hot human against a really hot tropical jungle could blend in pretty well, even if the mask had some sort of computer to enhance the image. So unless there's something in the mud itself that makes Arnold blend in, it's a plot hole.
• If the Predator sees in a different spectrum from humans, why is the laser aiming spot from its gun the same colour as an earthling one?
  • Earthling targeting lasers are generally infrared. Infrared = Heat. So it makes perfect sense that a creature that sees primarily heatwaves would make a targeting system that uses a beam of focused heat.
  • But why so low in the infrared spectrum that it includes red?
  • Who says it's a laser sight the way we know it? Maybe it's something completely different that just coincidentally happens to be red.
  • This is also a good time to point out that in real life, you do not see the beam from a laser targeter unless there is a significant amount of dust or other particulate matter in the air to scatter the light. Normally, you only see the little red dot where it reflects off the target. Of course, the director always contrives for us to be able to see the beam because of Rule of Cool.
    • Considering that there are scenes where we do only see the dots,
  • Actually, most military grade laser sights are not in the visible spectrum - you only see them with special equipment, such as infrared night vision goggles. Maybe red isn't in the predator's visible spectrum at all, and as far as they know its invisible to the naked eye.
  • It's always worth remembering that while they want to win the Predators looking for a challenge and have a serious case of Honor Before Reason. It wouldn't be at all out of character for them to have chosen the color specifically to be visible to humans who are observant as well as a 'rule' that you give them a second to notice.
• No helmets in combat, wearing short sleeves or no shirt in the jungle, no apparent backup escape plan and the lack of any leadership or command abilities by Arnold all bug me in this first Predator film.
  • The no backup escape plan was justified in the story, they weren't supposed to be operating there, it was a covert mission. Heading to the pre-arranged drop zone was the plan and that was that. The rest of it was just Rule of Manly.
  • In every military operation, there is a built-in assumption of failure and a redundancy for that failure. Even if there hadn't been a Predator they were going into an unfamiliar area that they hadn't reconnoitered. An backup escape plan would have been a MUST.
    • But what could they have done differently? They were in enemy territory in a country where the US was not authorized to go, in jungle too thick for a chopper extraction. They could only count on getting a helo in during that short window at that one spot, so that was the plan. It's worth noting that if they hadn't been attacked by an alien killing machine it would have gone off perfectly. As for a backup plan, it's almost by definition going to be more dangerous or difficult than the primary plan because otherwise it would be the primary plan. What would they gain by switching to it?
    • Also, the backup plan would've assumed they were being chased by human guerrillas through the jungle. Soldiers don't generally create plans for the event of attack by hyper-advanced alien hunters. (Although maybe they should.)
  • As an aside, recon teams, SEALS, and Special Forces in Vietnam routinely went without helmets (the helmets at the time were better at stopping shrapnel than gaping head wounds from getting shot in the head), and even though flak vests were issued, American soldiers often conveniently "forgot" to wear them, because in the jungle they became hot, itchy, and inconvenient. And do you honestly think a helmet or a bulletproof vest is gonna stop a Predator's plasmacaster?
    • There is anecdotal evidence from VietNam vets that combat helmets can affect hearing, which also resulted in them not wearing them.
  • They weren't expecting a Predator, but they WERE expecting heavily armed guerrillas. Not to have made provisions for that would have been unnecessarily foolish.
    • However, the plan is for them to have taken care of that particular problem by the time they need to extract. With the camp quite superlatively destroyed and the speed of their escape, they only would've needed to worry about running across a couple of scouts, and only then by dumb luck. Given the team's (completely justified) confidence in their ability to take out the guerrillas, they didn't expect such a major threat at that stage of the op.
  • I think this may be a case of Truth in Television, because I've yet to see a video of real life mercenaries (and remember, Ahnuld and his troops were mercs) wearing combat helmets.
    • Their mercenary status is relevant. If it had been a legit military op using valuable soldiers, there might have been more margin for error included in the plan. This was a CIA op, and one where they weren't even using one of their own SOG teams but rather a mercenary team that Dillon describes as an expendable asset. If Dutch's team got wiped out, the CIA could just hire another one.
  • When you're a soldier, you have to wear the proper uniform/fatigues which may or may not include a helmet. When you're a mercenary, you can wear whatever the hell you want. Including short sleeve shirts, or no shirts, especially in a very hot and humid jungle. And we all know that Helmets Are Hardly Heroic.
• If the Aliens evolved with acid blood that makes them more dangerous to kill, why did Predators evolve with neon blood that makes them more visible when injured?
  • Since Preds naturally see heat instead of color, it can be assumed that they come from a planet where other creatures see that way too. That means that in their original habitat where they evolved it didn't make them any more visible.
  • It has also been established that they breathe a different atmospheric mix than we do. The expanded universe establishes that they are methane breathers (but at the same time, it also establishes that they CAN breathe our air for about 30 minutes before it causes irreversible damage to their lungs). Maybe in their natural atmosphere, their blood doesn't glow... maybe the glow is the result of something in their blood reacting with some trace gas in our atmosphere.
  • It could be that Herbert West had, at some point in time, discovered and exploited the blood of a Predator because of its special properties.
  • Just because they've been canonically linked, there's no reason for them to have anything in common physiologically.
    • Sure. That does make sense. Except that it is also canonically established that Predator blood can neutralize the acidity of Xenomorph blood. I'd love to see someone explain that, cuz random chance don't cut it.
    • Where exactly does it establish that Predator blood can neutralize the acidity of xenomorph blood? I've only heard that on the Alien and Predator wiki, I've never seen it in any of the Av P movies or games.
    • The novels and comics. And also pretty sure there's a scene in the first Av P movie where a Predator marks itself with Xenomorph blood and the acid doesn't eat its way entirely through him, meaning that something obviously neutralized it before it did more than burn a scar in.
    • That's a case of Acidic Reactions Do Not Work That Way. Acid dissolves (when it does) by chemically reacting with the dissolving material, creating new chemicals. A small amount of acid won't "eat entirely through" a Predator, the ratio of acid to Predator is too low. EU writers, not knowing their basic chemistry, decided Predators must be somehow partially immune to Hollywood Acid.
    • Even if we assume that their blood can indeed neutralize the acidity, all that really means is that Predator blood is highly alkaline, something that could easily be in fact a coincidence.
• If Predators can resort to blinkin' nukes to clean up evidence, why do they keep leaving skinned bodies around for anyone to find?
  • Because leaving skinned bodies around doesn't leave Predator technology around. That is the main reason for using nukes... not to destroy evidence, but to keep their prey from being able to reverse-engineer their technology and use it against them.
  • The expanded universe answers both of these questions, in different places. The skinned bodies are prey that did not make satisfying kills, hence why no skulls were taken. Another piece of the expanded universe showed that Predators, for all their vicious ways, have a weird conservationist attitude towards their prey, and know that if a sentient prey species got a hold of Predator tech, it could cause great damage to the species "ecosystem". The EU and AVP: Requiem have also established that when it comes to making sure there's no foul ups with lost tech or disrupted "ecosystems", the Predators will throw the "honorable hunt" handbook out the window until the mess is cleaned up.
• The entire premise of the first movie's mission bugs me. Dutch acts PISSED and SURPRISED when he discovers that their original mission was just a cover for their true mission. Unless Dutch and his men were mercenaries, his anger (and the deceit) make little or no sense. Soldiers in the US Army are expected to follow orders regardless of their personal feelings about the orders. The general would have simply given them an order and they'd be expected to follow it. The whole concept about Dutch's team only being there for a "rescue" is ludicrous and the movie could have actually preceded w/o those lines of dialogue and have the same level of clarity.
  • It's suggested that Dutch has some degree of say in the missions he and his squad takes (he is a Major, after all.) Recall the first relevant conversation that foreshadows this, where Dillon asks him, "Why did you pass up Libya?" While he could be ordered straight into the mission, his and his team's state of mind wouldn't be in it if they were being red-taped into a type of mission they objected to. It's still not particularly realistic, but this seems to be what they were going for, at least.
    • Even if he was ordered into it, there's a reasonable expectation that his CO isn't lying through his teeth about the whole thing, especially about something that changes the entire mission around. What if Dutch's plan hadn't taken out the hostage-takers at all? If he'd been more subtle and devised a clever, lower-risk way to sneak the hostages out, he would've completely blown his "real" objective through no fault of his own.
  • Dutch may not be in their chain-of-command. If Dutch reports to another, superior General that has given him standing orders, he may indeed have the clout to refuse a mission. So Dillon would either have to tell the story in order to get Dutch to volunteer, or bring the mission into the ambit of Dutch's orders so that he would have to take it on.
  • I'm pretty sure they were mercenaries. Dutch is pissed because he accepted the mission on the basis of what he was told, only to find out that it was a lie.
    • They were mercenaries. Specifically, as Arnie says: "a rescue team - not assassins". Dutch had every right to be pissed about being lied to.
  • To be fair to Dillon - they were there for a rescue. The lie was that they were rescuing CIA operatives and not a cabinet minister.
    • No Dillon all but admits that the rescue was never the goal - the goal was to stop the rebels from invading with Soviet-provided weapons. The "rescue mission" angle was just how they got Dutch to accept the mission. An extremely cynical interpretation would be that the CIA agents were set up to become captured and serve as props to motivate Dutch and his team. After all, if they were to recon the target and see no prisoners, Dutch might well have refused to make the assault. One of the agents was executed by the rebels but that would probably be within Dillon's parameters of risk for "expendable assets".
    • If that's true, then why did Dillon go with the "cabinet minister" lie instead of just tell the truth that the hostages were CIA agents? It still would have counted as a "Rescue Mission" and he explicitly said that he sent Hopper and his team in first to rescue the agents, only resorting to calling in Dutch after losing contact with Hopper and his men. If the primary objective was wiping out the camp, then best case scenario Dutch and his team wipe out the camp and rescue the agents. Worst case scenario, Dutch and his team wipe out the camp but fail to save the agents, which is what happened. The deception only makes sense if Dutch and his team make a point of not helping the Company out of their own messes.
  • Having recently re-watched the film, it is very clear that they are not active military. They arrive in civilian clothes, decidedly non military haircuts and some unconventional weaponry. It appears they are some form of private contractors which makes more sense given the mission. Should they be killed or captured in an area where the US is not involved, there is plausible deniability. This would explain the above mentioned points, namely: that they can pick and choose missions, that extraction is iffy at best and they have absolutely no backup or support.
  • Most, if not all, of the indicators you mention that suggest they aren't active military, also fit with certain special forces groups. Delta Force and the CIA's Special Activities Division, for two.
  • All that said, Dutch was on the verge of poking holes in General Phillip's "cabinet minister" story until Dillon interrupted with no further questions asked after their handshake. Dutch implicitly trusted him and was rightfully angry his old friend's lies placed him and his men at risk. Finding the Predator's handiwork didn't help. He probably shouldn't be surprised though given the mounting evidence before even reaching the guerilla hideout (and Dillon's increasingly implausible bullshitting).
• While this was probably a budget saving move for the film production, but why did the "rescue" take place in the daytime? Wouldn't the twin advantages of darkness and surprise been more effective than simply surprise? The guerrillas aren't shown to have night vision equipment nor are they to be very effective (brief attack that leaves all of them dead) and the insertion appears to have been done early in the morning.
  • They were executing the prisoners. Dutch saw them shoot one. He had to hope the others were still alive and move before the guerrillas could kill them.
  • Hollywood tactics are on full display when they assault the camp, note how Dutch just walks into the middle of the camp, firing from the hip as the bad guys conveniently take turns firing at him in the open.
• The portable helicopter mini-gun was, of course, completely impractical, but why didn't anyone bring a sniper rifle? And wouldn't they all have either M-16's or MP-5's, not a combination of the two?
  • Sniper rifles aren't manly enough.
  • More Dakka baby. More Dakka
  • It doesn't make much sense to carry a long-range weapon in a dense jungle, especially when the team is trying to move fast.
  • If, as mentioned above, they were mercenaries, then the mismatched equipment makes sense: it's all been purchased with their own money rather than issued. Alternately, the lighter weapon could've been issued to heavy weapons as a backup - you don't necessarily want to burden somebody with the huge minigun and a full-sized rifle.
  • It is common for a military unit to carry a variety of weapons. Even an infantry squad may include a combination of riflemen, grenadiers, light machine gunners, and designated marksmen. A special forces team would also have a flexible selection of tools, but tailored to the task at hand: in this case, jungle warfare including an assault on a village. So they have rifles and grenade launchers for ranged work, a minigun for support, and MP5s for close quarters/buildings.
• Did I miss something or did they have a map of the area? GPS was in its infancy at that point, so that wouldn't have been available and since they were unfamiliar w/ the area wouldn't a map be a must?
  • They did. IIRC after they raid the camp, they stretch out the map on the front of the burned out Soviet helicopter and plan their next move.
    • And later, Billy and Dutch, map in hand, talk about how their escape route really, really sucks.
• I wonder how no less than 200 pounds weighting Predator moved jumping from tree to tree on treetops without making any sound of breaking branches, etc?
  • It tends to stand on the base of the branch, near the trunk, where the branch is strongest, and seems to land lightly for the most part.
    • Also, the camo tech it has might also have secondary functions. Sound dampening or some kind of grav field that would lessen velocity from falls. It does seem to fall rather slowly.
• Why are so many people so eager to pick up a fight with a Predator after they realize that they will be hunted only if they count as interesting prey? Yeah, it's personal for some like Dutch and Harrigan, but others could just drop their guns and go "neener neener!" at a creature whose code of honour only allows hunting armed or otherwise immediately dangerous prey.
  • At what point in any of the films did any of the characters beyond the shadow of a doubt figure out that the Predator's only hunted prey that they deemed interesting? How did they know that it would adhere to its honor code and not just gut them where they stand because even if they're unarmed, they could still be deemed as worthy? (Remember that Dutch still got his ass kicked around in close combat even though he was completely unarmed and outmatched by the Predator, and Jorge still got his brains blown out even though he was unarmed and critically injured. That and one of the reasons why the Predator in the second film is adhering to its honor code so closely is because it's implied that it was being monitored the whole time by other Predators who would punish him for violating it). Think of it this way: If someone told you that the creature who's just flayed all your buddies alive, hoisted their skinless corpses up, and made trophies from their skulls, will stop attacking you if you completely disarm yourself because they think they may follow an honor code that would stop them from attacking you, would you do it?
    • It's less about just having guns vs. not having guns, and more about being a warrior or not. Anna in the first movie was clearly a noncombatant, even from what the Predator could see: She was smaller, physically weaker, unarmed, and tied up—clearly, to him, she was not worth hunting. Arnold, even without his guns, is clearly a fighter—physically fit, has command of the others, walking straight and tall, all signs of an alpha male to the Predator.
      
      Someone like Anna is like a rabbit that's already been trapped; Arnold, Harrigan? They're nice big 8-point bucks.
    • Only thing is that the only ones in both the films who seem to get a basic grasp of the Predator's honor code is, well, Dutch and Harrigan. The former did tell the only non-combatant to not interfere (and she only tries to defend herself because, well, she probably thought that was crazy), and the latter only really connects the dots near the end of the film, where there's no-one left to tell anyway (and he himself gets dead-set on hunting it down and killing it). Neither could really shake the Predator off anyway because they've already shown first-hand what they're capable of, and thus wouldn't be able to weasel their way out of getting hunted.
  • If you throw down your weapons there's nothing stopping the Predaor from just killing you hand to hand. It may even prefer to do so as it's a more impressive story. At least when you've got a gun you have a chance at hurting it, nobody's ever punched a Predator to death in the movies.
  • This video speculates on that exact point.
  • It's plausible that throwing down your weapons would save your life if you managed to think of that in time. Who however would think that an invisible being with a plasma cannon has a sense of honor?! The problem is none of these people are aware of what creek they are in. It's remotely possible (until the end of the movies) that Dutch or Harrigan could have pulled this early in the film but by the time Dutch was unarmed he was already proving to be a master trapsmith and Harrigan had basically already won. Remember he chopped off the Predators hand to prevent it from using the suicide nuke. I think that's about as close to an "I surrender" as you're gonna get out of a Predator.
  • I think that, once a Predator considers you a warrior, you're fair game even if you're not armed at the time. Deliberately disarming yourself would most likely be seen as an act of cowardice at best, and (especially if you're stupid enough to taunt the Predator) an insult at worst. Chances are you'd just get yourself downgraded from "Honoured opponent" to "Unworthy kill"- so, would you prefer to have your skull taken as a trophy, or your corpse flayed and hung up as a sign of your dishonour?
  • Alternately, disarming may be seen as a direct challenge, forget all other tactics we do this hand-to-hand right now. So disarming would just put you in a worse position.
  • I doubt a species as advanced as the Yatjua would be Lawful Stupid enough to leave such a large and obvious loophole in their honor code. Unlike an injured person, infant or someone otherwise unable to defend themselves through no choice of their own, you're probably still fair game if you have a weapon, but then drop it and getting in a position of surrender, since you've had the opportunity to fight back, but are too afraid to, which has gotta say something about the predator in question i.e. the entire point of the hunt.
• How did Dutch survive a plasma blast to the chest?
  • He wasn't hit in the chest. If you pause the movie, you can see the blast landed on his gun, and he was only wounded by the shrapnel.
• If Predators can't see in the visible spectrum, or any spectrum containing minute details for that matter, how did they ever become an advanced space-faring race? You can't just feel out the materials needed to make tools and technology.
  • They probably can see in the visible spectrum - after all, when the Predator takes off the mask, you can still see the detail that someone would need to see visible light to pick up as it beats the living hell out of Dutch. They probably primarily see in IR, though. There's also the entry on the WMG page where the Predators jacked their advanced tech from another species.
• This is more a general franchise question but how much English do the Predators actually understand? At times they seem to just be mimicking whatever whatever bit of language (usually the most recent thing) they've heard. In other cases such as the ending to Predator 2 where one tosses Danny Glover a gun and says "take it" and in Predators when they set the trap and cry for help they clearly have some understanding of the English language and aren't just parroting what they've heard.
  • Probably not much. The novels explain that hunting human is something that generally only the most experienced hunters (thus with the best equipment) are allowed to do. Which means they're probably smart enough to pick up a few words or phrases pretty quickly, but it's not like they're letting just anyone interact with humanity to study them and learn their language.
  • The elder Predator at the end of Predator 2 is implied to be very old (if that flintlock pistol is a trophy he took personally, and his prey was using it because it was the best weapon he had), so he's likely hunted enough humans to have really learned at least a little bit of English. Generally, the Predators just mimic what they've heard, though it seems implied in an early scene in Predator (where the Predator is replaying Mac's "Over here," "Turn around," and "Anytime" as well as Billy's laugh, that the mechanisms in the helmet include some software or something to help the Predator puzzle out what, if anything, the sounds mean.
  • The tie-in comic, "Predator: 1718", reveals that the "Take it" line was mimicked from the dying owner of the gun. The Predator figured what the line meant, but he is no English speaker by any stretch.
  • The Predators almost certainly don't understand a ton of English, but the one from the first movie probably reasoned out what was being said just by watching. Mac says "over here," Dillon walks over, etc. The "anytime" and Billy's laugh were just used to mess around with the humans, so meaning was less important.
  • As to the trap in Predators, that was apparently a recording of the victim, not the Predators using the language. They just played back the things he said while they were killing him — recognizing them as cries for help at most. You could buy electronic game calls that have pre-recorded sounds of animals in distress for the same purpose, doesn't mean that humans can understand crows.
  • The species might actually understand a lot of the language, but simply lacks the vocal structure to engage in more than a few words at any given time. If they've been hunting humans for a long time, they could've been studying humans for a long time and learning more about them, to ensure better hunts. Just like how humans have calls to lure certain wildlife.
  • Predators appear to hunt humans from all over the world. Their human quarry speak all sorts of languages, not just one. Sure, there could be some Yautja "naturalists" who'd understand the vocalizations of the various regions' wildlife, but for the average ritual trophy-bagging excursion, it's probably not worth it to pick up the local dialect. Heck, not understanding your prey's chitters and squawks might be considered a necessary part of the challenge.
• Why does the Predator's healing device hurt so much (at least I assume it does, based on how he roars in pain when using it.)?
  • Because he's basically performing surgery on himself. Seemingly without anaesthesia.
  • Why wouldn't the device come with painkillers of some kind if that was the case?
  • They're Proud Warrior Race kinda guys. Which sounds more impressive as a story to tell their buddies over their equivalent of beers in the trophy room, "So, then I took a shot of morphine and was feeling no pain", or "The bullet from the human who owned this beautiful skull almost had my name on it, but I yanked that puppy out and stitched it shut, and it hurt like a mother."?
  • Stitching up a wound really hurts without anesthesia, at least in humans, because nerve endings are located on the skin. If they're not going to anesthetize properly (which is a bad idea when you're in a place where people are trying to kill you, even if you are a giant alien hunter) it's going to be really painful to staple or clamp that wound shut. It looks like the Predator jams that tuning fork-looking thing in around a bunch of its own flesh and blood to clamp off the bleeder, so it was probably a respectably-severe injury.
  • Maybe their physiology doesn't tolerate anesthetic-type chemicals well. Or maybe it's simply not considered a good idea to be operating in an impaired state while on a hunt, especially if they don't want their tech getting lost.
• Why does the Predator's cloaking device short out if it gets wet? I've only seen the first two movies so maybe it explains later. Also, considering how humid jungles are, shouldn't it be shorting out all the time or at least having some problems?
  • The cloak seems to rely on the principle of using electricity to bend light. Water has properties that don't mingle well with electric devices, and a cloaking field would likely require some exposed components. But humidity is not the same as plunging headlong into a lake or river, or a rainstorm.
  • Saw this posted elsewhere, forget where, but it seems an extremely viable explanation: the cloaking device isn't actually "shorting out" because it gets wet. That is to say, the electronics aren't being short-circuited due to conductive material (water) where it's not supposed to be. Rather, because the device bends light around the wearer, this delicate operation requires a close balance of the refractive indices of the local atmosphere and the body to be cloaked. Water has a different refractive index, and putting hundreds or thousands of drops of water — each bending light in different directions at different angles and rates — just makes operating the device successfully impossible. This would mean that, if set up properly, the cloak could function perfectly if the Predator was entirely submerged. . . but moving from water to air, having air bubbles clinging to its body while underwater, and so on, would still render it nonfunctional.