Prey's Main Characters Ranked Worst To First

After years mired in B-movie purgatory, the "Predator" movie franchise has produced a surprise winner with the prequel "Prey." Critics are raving that the movie, set in the 18th-century Comanche nation, fixes many problems with the recent Predator movies and gets it back to its thrilling, propulsive basics of a human and an alien playing cat and mouse, so to speak. In a huge step forward for Indigenous representation, it's also the first major franchise movie with an exclusively Native American main cast. It tells a simple, gripping story in and of itself, while also including small details for the "Predator" fanatics of the world.

Amber Midthunder of "Legion" fame turns in an incredible star performance as lead character Naru, but she's far from alone. With minimal dialogue, "Prey" populates its small patch of the Northern Great Plains of early America with several memorable characters, as Naru has to navigate her relationships with various other friends and foes in addition to an alien visitor. In her quest to prove herself as a warrior and a healer, she encounters roadblocks from her tribe and gets hunted by man, animal, and Predator alike. From interloping fur traders to skilled Comanche warriors, here are the main characters of "Prey" ranked worst to first.

"Prey" doesn't waste a lot of time exploring its tertiary characters, so you might have missed Paaka, the Comanche who accompanies Naru to warn her brother about the Predator, before the three of them attempt to set a trap for the mountain lion. He watches Naru sharpen a weapon and cruelly taunts her. "It won't matter how sharp it is," he sneers, "if you're too afraid to use it." Paaka's one of the worst characters just by the virtue of his sullen and unhelpful attitude. 

In just a few lines, Paaka lays out for us the sexism that Naru faces in her desire to prove herself as a warrior and hunter. Granted, when the time comes she does indeed hesitate too long to attack the mountain lion and accidentally falls from the tree, but it's not as if Paaka fares any better. After endlessly talking up the lion's razor-sharp teeth and promising that he would kill it, he gets abruptly cut off mid-sentence by the very same animal pulling him off of the tree and mauling him. In the end, Paaka's too busy being a bully to even keep lookout.

Aruka, Naru and Taabe's mother, has the thankless role that many mothers in cinema bear, of trying to talk sense into her young, brash child. She cautions Naru that the Comanche ritual of "kuhtaamia" isn't about proving herself as a warrior, but as adept at survival in the abstract sense. And she reminds Naru that her healing skills saved Puhi's life from the mountain lion attack, and that she shouldn't turn her back on these things that come naturally to her, which is sound counsel.

But narratively, Aruka is mostly there to serve as yet another wet blanket that tries to keep our killer heroine from realizing her true, Predator-hunting destiny, and so she doesn't rank terribly high among the main characters at earning our affection. She even puts a little too harsh a spice on it when she tells Naru to stay put after she gets knocked out during the mountain lion hunt: "If your brother needed you, he wouldn't have brought you here." Ouch, Aruka. You could've just said, "You just hit your head pretty badly and should probably not get right back up," or something. She may be generally in the right, but Aruka's not winning Mother of the Year anytime soon.

The only member of the fur traders to really distinguish himself individually or show any compassion, Raphael ends up playing a small but key part in Naru's takedown of the Predator, so credit where credit's due. Other than his ability to speak Comanche, he doesn't exactly do anything to help Naru and Taabe at first, aside from confirming how hopeless their situation is. Gallingly, he actually tells Naru that she should be helping the fur traders try to take down the "beast," rudely asking someone being held in a cage to pool resources.

Later, after the fur traders' disastrous standoff with the Predator leaves Raphael with one less leg than he had before, he trades a pistol to Naru for a little help staunching the bleeding. When she treats him with some of the orange tutsia flower petals that cool the blood, it helps her realize watching from afar that the effects of the flower can hide people from the Predator's heat vision. Unfortunately Raphael yelps when stepped on, and the Predator quickly shows him to the afterlife to join his missing foot. Still, he does prove mildly useful while alive, and that pistol turns out to be a pretty crucial part of "Predator" lore.

Even though they always get things wrong about it, we're treated to countless TV shows and treacly romantic comedies where "New York City is like another character." So many stories, from Woody Allen movies to "Sex and the City," lean heavily on the Big Apple to provide a sense of personality and place. By that logic, credit should be given to the Northern Great Plains of 1719 that provide the backdrop for "Prey." Like the jungle in the original "Predator," the wilderness becomes a vivid and integral part of the story, and key to the Predator's undoing.

We see the Plains in sweeping landscape shots, under austere and gloomy skies that set the mood perfectly for "Prey" and its gripping tale of survival. In a key bit of foreshadowing, Naru's near-death in a mud pit becomes an important part of her eventual victory when she traps the Predator in the exact same place. The harsh but beautiful conditions of the Northern Great Plains are as welcome an addition to the "Predator" mythos as Naru and everything else. Predators might have all the fancy light-up weapons and invisibility technology, but as humans we've got a home-field advantage that can't be beat.

Initially, Taabe seems like a cold and staid character who exists to be an antagonist for Naru. As her competent older brother, he saves her life and kills the mountain lion, and it seems like Naru will never get the respect she deserves from him or the rest of the tribe. He also awakens her each morning by rudely kicking her in the shoulder. But as he grows more impressed with her skill and determination, he reveals that it was her strategy that defeated the "big cat" to begin with, and he becomes the only male character who doesn't constantly tell Naru to go home or discount her ambitions by default. By that alone, he's one of the more memorable and admirable characters in the film.

In the second half of "Prey," he also displays some truly stunning heroics when he and Naru fight the Predator together. His aerial flip from horseback to run the Predator through with a spear might be a top-five action moment for the entire franchise, and his ultimate realization that his death is near is compelling and tragic in a movie that hardly gives us time to mourn, despite dozens of deaths. His sacrifice truly hurts, but his confidence that his sister will be the one to bring down their foe rings loud and clear. We'll miss you, Taabe.

The only reason "Prey" succeeds so thoroughly in simplifying the "Predator" formula back down to its basic appeal is because it has a uniquely compelling lead character in Naru, brought to life wonderfully by Amber Midthunder. It's almost the Predator's bad luck that it arrives on Earth right at the point in Naru's life that she's so geared up to prove her ferociousness through the rite of kuhtaamia — if the Predator waited a week, she might have killed the grizzly bear and gotten it out of her system. As the story unfolds, Naru is hunting the Predator long before it even recognizes her as a viable threat, and this ultimately proves key to her victory.

Without overplaying the movie's themes through dialogue, Naru also embodies centuries of women suffering from condescending misogynist views about their toughness. It quietly drives home a particularly powerful point about representation when Naru shares a meaningful look with a young Comanche girl after being named War Chief. She's by far the smartest human character in "Prey" — her plan to catch the mountain lion succeeds even after she gets knocked out, and she ends up turning the Predator's own technology against it. She uses her environment to her advantage, always stays alert, and ultimately saves her entire tribe from destruction. We salute the best character in "Prey," and perhaps the best action hero in the entire "Predator" franchise.