Warning: This post contains spoilers for Predator: Badlands.
When the original Predator came out in 1987, no one could have predicted the sci-fi thriller would result in a franchise that would eventually culminate in a found-family style comedy action flick. But that’s what director Dan Trachtenberg (Prey, Predator: Killer of Killers) gleefully serves up in his third offering from the Predator universe, Predator: Badlands, now in theaters.
Badlands tracks the coming-of-age journey of an outcast young Predator, or Yautja, named Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) as he makes a last-ditch attempt to prove himself to his clan by claiming the skull of a Kalisk—a self-regenerating and seemingly invincible monster that intimidates even Dek’s ruthless chieftain father—as a hunting trophy. But after he crash-lands on the remote world of Genna, Dek quickly realizes he may have bitten off more than he can chew by targeting a creature native to the so-called death planet. Fortunately, he soon happens upon Thia (Elle Fanning), a synthetic android who offers to help him navigate the many dangers of Genna in exchange for a lift to the Kalisk’s lair, the last known location of her severed lower half. Therein lies Badlands‘ connection to the world of Alien.
How Predator: Badlands connects to Alien
Thia was sent to Genna by evil Alien universe mega-corporation Weyland-Yutani on a mission to retrieve the Kalisk for the company’s own gain. But when she and her fellow androids encountered the beast the first time around, it tore her legs clean off, leaving her stranded and waiting for her trusted synth lookalike Tessa (also played by Fanning) to rescue her. Sadly, Tessa ends up being more committed to Weyland-Yutani’s bottom line than her relationship with Thia, and ultimately turns against her after clocking her bond with Dek as a weakness. However, Tessa is no match for the combined forces of Dek, Thia, and their spunky alien sidekick Bud (voiced by Rohinal Nayaran), who we eventually learn is the Kalisk’s child.
While Alien has been intertwined with the Predator franchise since the 2004 release of Alien vs. Predator, which was followed by the 2007 sequel Aliens vs Predator–Requiem, Badlands takes the crossover in a new direction by positioning a Predator as the protagonist of a story that has only a “spiritual connection” to Alien. According to producer Ben Rosenblatt, this pivot necessitated the complete absence of humans from the movie in order to allow audience sympathies to lie with Dek.
“[Trachtenberg] was like, ‘I would love to have humanoid characters without having humans…I think we need robots,'” Rosenblatt told Deadline. “And then, of course, Dan was like, ‘I know who makes robots: Weyland-Yutani.’ And then it was a natural collision of the two worlds.”
As for where Badlands falls on the Predator and Alien timelines, Trachtenberg opted for an unprecedented time jump to prevent any continuity conflicts with recent projects like Alien: Romulus and Alien: Earth. While no specific year is given for the events of Badlands, it takes place at least 300 years from today, making it the first Predator film to be set in the distant future.
“The secret sauce was setting our movie the furthest into the future among both the Predator and Alien franchises so that we did not have to worry about stepping on anyone’s toes,” Trachtenberg told the Hollywood Reporter. “When we first started making Badlands, I don’t think I even knew about Alien: Earth. Maybe I’d heard that it might be happening, and I also wasn’t fully aware of what exactly the story was for Fede Álvarez’s movie [Romulus]. So I just decided that we will be as far away from it all as we could be.”
What’s next for Predator?
Noting that he wanted to focus on plot over backstory in Badlands, Trachtenberg explained how he drew on the lore established by the original Predator for a narrative roadmap for the series’ new entry. “Predator was so exciting because of how different it was from the other slasher movies at the time. Michael Myers, Jason, Freddy Krueger are all forces of destruction and true monsters. When the Predator was decloaked, we saw that what it was adorned with spoke to a culture, and it fought with a code,” he told the Hollywood Reporter. “So I’ve carefully opened the door ever so slightly to give you a little bit more of a peek into that culture and code…I’ve given you just enough narrative underpinnings to connect to Dek and root for him on the gauntlet that he has to go through.”
By the end of Badlands, Dek has returned to his homeworld with Thia and Bud in tow, and avenged his brother by defeating their father in combat. However, the movie’s final scene hints the trio may soon be facing off against an even more formidable threat as Dek’s mother’s ship appears on the horizon.
With respect to the possibility of a sequel and where the franchise may go next, Trachtenberg has said he already has an idea in mind for a follow-up project. “After Prey came out, and I started thinking about sequel stuff, there were three ideas that I had. [Killer of Killers was] one, Badlands is two, and the third one is…something else,” he told SFX. “There’s a lot of cool ideas out there and none of them are just like, ‘Oh, we have to say the next part of this story because it was successful.’ All of it is like, ‘Whoa, no one has done that in sci-fi. No one has done that in Predator. No one’s done that with the creature.’ All of those ideas are generated from that instinct. So, yeah, there is definitely a third thing that I’d love to get to when Badlands is finished.”
Following his animated cameo in Killer of Killers, there’s apparently also a possibility Arnold Schwarzenegger could reprise his role as Dutch in a future Predator installment. “Obviously, the holy grail of Predator movies would be getting Arnold back in there,” Rosenblatt told Deadline. “And it’s always been something in the back of our minds that it would be really great to see him come back to this franchise that he’s made iconic, and that’s made him iconic.”
