This audio clip (from my CriterionCast appearance this past Friday) sums up my estimation of the transfer on the new "Ultimate Hunter Edition" Blu-ray of Predator. In short, it doesn't look like a movie shot on film in 1987. If you don't feel like listening, I'll reduce and condense my thoughts on it below.
Don't trust the people saying "I don't know what people are grumbling about, this is better than it's ever looked!". These people either A) haven't seen a movie this old projected on 35mm recently enough (whether this one or another), or B) have no idea what they're talking about in general.
Understand that my opposition here is not based in some purist "no DNR ever ever ever" devotional belief. Rather, I'm coming from the position that this is an example of going way too far to appease uninformed whiners who hate any film grain whatsoever. That was the big complaint about the barebones original release of the movie on Blu-ray: it was too dark and grainy and dirty. Yes, it needed a cleaner, better transfer. This brazen over-scrubbing of the movie is a chilling precedent to set as the mass-market standard. Yes, "it's only Predator, not Citizen Kane," but the mass market dictates the standard of digital presentation and preservation in a big way. This is not "the look and sound of perfect", not by a long shot.
I'm saying this as a member of the generation that was either not yet born or under ten years old when Predator was originally released. Many of my contemporaries who also review DVDs and Blu-rays on blogs all over the net have heaped praise on this transfer, and this is a great litmus test of their degree of authority on these matters.
The most widely-distributed screen captures (shown here on The Digital Bits) do a good enough job of showing how Schwarzenegger's stubble looks like it's airbrushed on his face in certain scenes. The DNR is worse in some areas more so than others, but it is pervasive and contributes to a plasticky look throughout the whole movie. Netflix it if you must, but realize that buying this title encourages this as the new definition of "pristine" in the home theater world. This interpretation will not stand, so far as I'm concerned.