“Predator: Badlands” blew everyone away at the box office, and it’s not hard to see why. The way the film uses themes of found family and intergenerational trauma brings a fresh perspective to the “Predator” world, and that’s without mentioning the fact that it makes a Yautja (the real name of the franchise’s titular species) the good guy for the first time. Want to learn more about how the film changes the “Predator” franchise forever? Click our video above for all the details.
In previous “Predator” films, the Yautja characters are typical movie monsters for the most part, which is probably why the series never bothered to build much of a universe for their alien creatures on the big screen. But “Badlands” gives them a whole language, and it’s one created by an actual expert in that field, linguist Britton Watkins. This adds cultural depth and a feeling of real existence that the Yautja sorely lacked in previous films.
We also get to visit the Predator homeworld, Yautja Prime. While the planet was briefly shown in “Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem,” the two “Alien vs. Predator” movies are not considered canon, so having “Predator: Badlands” start on Yautja Prime is another big moment for the franchise. “Badlands” also officially made the “Alien” and “Predator” franchises one by teaming a Yautja with a Weyland-Yutani synthetic, which has huge implications for both going forward.
Badlands merges the Predator and Alien franchises
“Predator: Badlands” is the first film in the series to move away from a horror-based, creature-feature tone. Instead of being a cat-and-mouse game with a hunter chasing its prey, it’s essentially a coming of age film about a group of misfits who find affinity with one another. The Yautja have generally been depicted as loners in the franchise before this, so getting to see them within family units is an entirely new experience. “I wanted to make sure that the Yautja species was treated seriously and with dignity,” director Dan Trachtenberg told the Los Angeles Times. “We’re asking people to empathize with a monster, with something that was the slasher in a slasher movie to some degree, decades ago.”
“Badlands” even has something new to say about how Weyland-Yutani synthetics behave and act. You might have missed that “Alien: Earth” broadened the definition of how synthetics behave and introduced hybrids to the mix, but “Badlands” gives audiences a new window into the way synthetics think. Thia (Elle Fanning) has her own mind and her own emotions beyond being forced to do what she was programmed to do. In one of the best moments in “Predator: Badlands,” she comes to question the whys and hows of what she was made for and if she and Dek should be friends or enemies. If you want to learn even more about the many ways “Predator: Badlands” changes the “Predator” universe forever, watch our video above.