The Berserker Predator - Yautja Explained (Predators)
The Berserker Predator Yautja also referred to as “Mr black” is the leader of the Super Predator clan who were responsible for
abducting Humans and other creatures from their home worlds and dropping them by parachute onto the game preserve planet as game to be hunted for sport.
Berserker stands over seven feet in height, with greyish beige skin and black dreadlocks with red tips at the ends.
He wears copper coloured armour, and has the more traditional design of mask but adorned with the jawbone of a creature he'd previously hunted, possibly of some significance, perhaps from a rite of passage similar to how some predators must hunt a xenomorph to prove themselves and will mark their mask with its blood.
(although, the NECA figure does state he has hunted Xenomorphs, so it is down to your own interpretation whether or not this is canon to his story)
Being a Super Predator, and the only one seen unmasked in the movie, he has a different facial structure to the Classic Predators, with a more streamlined forehead and swept back dreadlocks, also larger mandibles of a different shape.
As well as possessing incredible strength, agility, and intelligence, for weaponry berserker has two weapons - a single elongated wrist blade located on his right wrist gauntlet able to extend to approximately three feet or one metre in size, and a unique plasma caster with a spinning barrel, which allows for a greater rate of fire.
In addition, he also uses snare-traps.
Berserker is shown to be very skilled with his weapons as he's seen to dispatch enemies with little effort, seeing that it's explained to us that the Super Predators learn from their prey, it's possible that berserker took inspiration when crafting his weaponry from past prey that he'd hunted before, as his long singular wrist blade bears a vague resemblance to a samurai sword one of the other humans finds, showing that Predators have hunted ancient Japanese warriors in the past, as well as his
Plasmacaster working similarly a minigun which we see another member of the group, Nicholai having, so it's possible they've hunted other soldiers equipped with similar weaponry before.
A cruel merciless and sadistic hunter, Berserker does not follow traditional warrior code, instead opting to attack whenever he has the advantage, even if his prey are unable to fight back, and not bothering to remove his mask or weaponry for an even fight if his prey is smaller and weaker than he is.
This Yautja is the leader of a trio of Super Predators consisting of himself and two others - Falconer and Tracker, with the former acting as a scout for the group employing a robotic drone to scan the area ahead; and the latter member being the handler of the Predator Dogs, also known as the Hellhounds, these are used for flushing prey out of hiding;
Together they would kidnap the most dangerous creatures they could find from many different worlds and drop them onto the game preserve planet in order to seek their thrills and put their skill to the test.
I thought the Berserker was an interesting Yautja with a cool design, and some say he is what's known as a Bad Blood, meaning when a Yautja doesn't follow the honour code and is exiled from the Predator society; kind of like a criminal or an outcast.
With the Super Predators being a new species we hadn't seen before, it gave the filmmakers a chance to give us something new, and makes us wonder what the Predator will look like when he unmasks himself, which is a staple of Predator movies, when we get to see the Predators face behind the mask. Something done again in Prey.
While the original design will always be my favourite, I do appreciate them adding some of that mystery back to what's behind the mask.
I first watched predators back in 2010 when it first came out on Blu-ray, and I remember thinking it was an okay film, not bad but not perfect either, but I did enjoy it overall.
If you’d like to hear more of my thoughts on the movie itself, I’ll have that video on screen now for you.
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