Predator: Badlands is set to be a major reinvention of the Predator movie playbook, and in doing so, it can also address one lingering issue with the franchise. The third Predator movie, helmed by director Dan Trachtenberg after 2022’s Prey and the 2025 animated movie Predator: Killer of Killers, Predator: Badlands is set to take place several centuries in the future, but that is just one of how it will be a major shift for the Predator universe. Additionally, Badlands will also be the first Predator movie in which a Predator (or “Yautja“) will be the protagonist, with the movie centered on a Predator named Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi).
With such a completely new Predator movie premise to work with, Predator: Badlands can also open the possibility for something the Predator franchise has never done before. Simply put, with Dek as the hero of Predator: Badlands, a Predator might finally be in a position to win by the end.
Predator: Badlands Needs to Show a Predator Triumphing Over Humans
The story of Predator: Badlands will focus on Dek as an exiled Yautja, with Dek finding an ally in a Weyland-Yutani android named Thia (Elle Fanning). The Badlands trailer shows Dek battling a diverse collection of enemies, from other alien lifeforms to at least one other Yautja hunter, and what appears to be a fairly large group of humans. While there will seemingly be some kind of human-Predator alliance in Badlands, the presence of humans also sets up another mandate for Badlands to dive into by showing what it looks like when a Predator stands victorious over a human adversary.
To be sure, that’s not a foreign concept to the Predator franchise. Every Predator movie ever made shows the Predators slaughtering countless humans in their path and claiming their skulls as trophies. However, the Predators have always been defeated by the end, when one or more of the humans they’re hunting devises a battle plan to get the better of their Yautja opponent. Badlands has a real opportunity to show a Predator as the true victor of its conflict with human enemies, with the role the movie’s human characters potentially play in Dek’s battle for survival. The Badlands teaser also seems to be cognizant of that in one key way by presenting Dek as being at a disadvantage against every enemy he faces. Because that certainly has never been the case for any Predator seen before Badlands.
The Predators Have Lost to a Lot of Humans (& Badlands Can Change That)
The Predators are nothing if not formidable alien warriors and hunters, a fact that every Predator movie goes out of its way to emphasize. The average Yautja is significantly larger and stronger than even the strongest of humans, but this is hardly their only advantage. The Predators are also far more technologically advanced than humans, arriving on Earth with extremely high-tech weaponry along with their famed cloaking device that grants them near invisibility to the naked eye. In every Predator vs. human match-up, there’s no question that the former is the heavy favorite.
Even still, humans have found plenty of ways to work around the Predator’s strength, skills, and technology, notably by finding ways to block their body heat from the Predator’s infrared vision to give them an advantage. Between that and some genuine warriors’ skill and ingenuity of their own, the human protagonists of the Predator franchise have defeated opponents who have the scales tipped in their favor in every possible way. Because of that, the Yautja hunters seen in the Predator movies have never had the chance to emerge victorious over any of the collective groups of humans they’ve faced. With Badlands flipping the dynamic to make Dek the first outright Yautja protagonist of the Predator franchise, he can claim a victory over the movie’s antagonistic human characters that has eluded his brethren since the franchise began. That also opens the door for other ways that Badlands could be a radically different kind of Predator movie.
Why Predator: Badlands Could Be Very Pivotal to the Predator Franchise
In positioning itself as the first Predator movie with a Predator lead, and one set in the distant future on a setting far removed from Earth, Predator: Badlands already has multiple novelties baked into its story. However, Dek being the first Yautja to potentially defeat an entire squadron of human enemies – and doing so with the audience on his side, no less – the precedent could be set for Badlands to re-imagine the Predator’s entire role in their long-running franchise. If Dek is the Predator hero of Badlands resonates with audiences, who’s to say will be the last Predator hero or anti-hero? Moreover, the apparent connections that Predator: Badlands holds with the Alien franchise also open the door to a new Aliens vs. Predator crossover, but not necessarily one of the kind that Alien and Predator fans might immediately think of.
If Dek is fighting a group of humans in the context of a Predator movie, there’s nothing to say he or another Predator cannot do the same in a future Alien movie or series, and once again as a protagonist rather than a villain. Badlands, including connective tissue with the Alien franchise, could establish a scenario in which the Alien vs. Predator wing of both franchises is revived, but in a way that isn’t exclusively predicated on Xenomorphs battling Yautja. Badlands might be pointing to a future in which the Alien and Predator franchises can cross-pollinate characters and settings in ways that serve both, with the occasional Alien vs. Predator match-up included for good measure.
Most of all, Predator: Badlands might be embarking on the most expansive exploration of the Yautja culture yet, shining a light on the sheer quantity and diversity of Predator tribes, and showing them as not necessarily a monolith in terms of their warrior mindsets and relationship with humans and other species. For all of that to come to pass, though, Predator: Badlands can and should finally give Dek the distinction of being the first Predator to truly defeat the entire collection of humans he faces in the movie and show such a Predator triumph through the eyes of a skilled and determined Yautja.
Predator: Killer of Killers is now streaming on Hulu and Disney+, and Predator: Badlands will be released in theaters on November 7th.
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