Go easy. He's just a girl

Uh yeah, the entire point is that it's a badly disguised trap because he's expecting the Predator to notice and walk around, essentially using the Predator's arrogance against it. That was the plan.

I think the log may have been part of the sharp stick trap with a rope slung along the ground beneath the spikes that would with the weight of the log dropping pull the pred into the sharpend sticks above both trapping and wounding

First of all, You doubt for Dutch and his ability to plan is disappointing. Of course he planned it like that. Second home alone came out after predator, so Kevin set predator traps for the wet bandits.

Quite the gamble

I mean yeah, that's how a lot of movies work. The hero takes a big gamble, risks it all and it happens to work out for them.

Holy shit i remember that rope slinging upward in the movie and remember thinking “that’s quite in your face” seeing the big black rope silhouette. THAT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE THAT DUTCH WOULVE DONE WHAT HE DID

I like another explanation below better where Dutch had all angles covered

Reverse pungee trap explanation wins. Didn’t know Predator was female

I'm glad you were educated on how this trap was supposed to work because I was about to get to typing. lol.

Including the Dutch angle?

Even the Ingraham Angle

Doesn’t he look at the pit, keying Predator to it?

Wait… given the look of total loss followed by ecstatic realisation, I thought Dutch had mistaken the direction of the trap and just lucked out? His ‘come and do it’ was a sincere attempt to lure the predator in.

Wait… given the look of total loss followed by ecstatic realisation, I thought Dutch had mistaken the direction of the trap and just lucked out? His ‘come and do it’ was a sincere attempt to lure the predator in.

Wait… given the look of total loss followed by ecstatic realisation, I thought Dutch had mistaken the direction of the trap and just lucked out? His ‘come and do it’ was a sincere attempt to lure the predator in.

I really don’t think that’s the case, and the way that moment is shot does not support that interpretation.

You see Dutch both crestfallen that the predator sees the knives and dodged the trap, and when he has a moment of realization that his counterweight is positioned perfectly.

I mean, the way it's shot makes the spikes super obvious to the point I always wondered how the giant Predator was ever supposed to not notice them. Add to that the way Dutch yells and tries to goad it into continuing down, telegraphing to the Predator a suspicious desire to use that path.

Maybe it's Schwarzenegger's acting but what you call 'crestfallen' also just looks like him dropping the act and realizing that the Predator is going for it. When it approaches, he's completely calm and you actually see him giving it a confident sideways look before he checks if the Predator is in the right spot, the shot of the counterweight as much for him as it is for the audience to understand what's happening.

But that’s just not at all how the scene is shot. This is seriously the first I’ve heard of this interpretation.

Here’s the scene: https://youtu.be/lOoOP2l_ahQ

Dutch has clearly made an effort to disguise the spikes by camouflaging them with leaves. And he’s actively goading the predator to follow him through the kill box.

The movie makes a big show of the predator almost doing it too, but accidentally bumping into the spikes and thus noticing the trap. Then we have a sequence where we, as the audience, are watching the alien internally debate the best path forward. That tension only works if we, and Dutch, actually want the alien to move into the kill box.

And then, when the predator decides to just go around, the film is clearly showing Dutch’s reaction as first a sort of “you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me” defeated look and then a realization that his counterweight is perfectly placed to drop on the alien’s head.

This thread is seriously the first time I’ve seen people argue that Dutch spent all of that time creating a decoy trap that the Pred was supposed to almost walk into, then notice, then move himself to an arbitrary position under the counterweight for the “real” trap.

As opposed to the rather straightforward read, that it was a combination of luck and quick thinking that enabled Dutch to pull victory from the jaws of defeat.

Yes I've seen the scene, I literally just described it. You're also just repeating what I said. I know he disguised the spikes, I know he's trying to get it to move down the path in a very obvious manner. That doesn't negate what I said, it really just supports it. The way the Predator notices the spikes, it would have had to seriously crouch down to be unaware of this trap. And it gives Dutch a cocky 'I know what you're doing' look before it walks around.

Point being, the original trap is extremely obvious and Dutch is being extremely obvious in wanting the Predator to move down that path.

Dutch doesn't move, he doesn't panic, he seems to know exactly what's gonna happen and he waits for the Predator to get into place, making sure it's underneath and then kicks off the trap. Your counter suggestion seems to be that he just got extremely lucky that he placed his counterweight exactly in the spot the Predator ended up moving to by circumventing the original trap.

I'll concede that there's an original trap he would have sprung if the Predator had kept going but I'm sorry I'm not buying this idea that Dutch is surprised and caught off guard when it doesn't fall for the original trap. The whole idea here is 'You thought you were the top hunter, but I outsmarted you!'.

You might be confusing the scene being shot to heighten tension for the audience with Dutch just getting lucky because at the end of the day, we the audience are meant to think "oh shit, what is he gonna do now?".

All of the direction and the acting support what I’m saying, and it’s been the understood meaning of the scene for decades.

Dutch is no less of a hero just because his hastily jerry-rigged trap doesn’t work as planned. It’s to his credit that he thinks quickly and still comes out on top.