Dan Trachtenberg’s Predator: Badlands cements the director’s status as someone who really understands how to push this franchise forward without going too far. Everything feels organic and the IPs die-hard fandom is far more likely to accept the changes he brings to the table instead of instantly disregarding them solely on the basis of their being changes. For the third time in a row, he has delivered a project that not only ranks high in the franchise’s nearly 40 years of film history but throws a major curveball at the audience. For instance, with Prey, he took things back to the 1700s. With Predator: Killer of Killers he took the Yautja to animated territory without sacrificing an ounce of the live action films’ spirit.
And, with Badlands, he has outright taken the Yautja, a race that once menacingly laughed in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s face and turned him into a sympathetic protagonist. But that’s just part of the film’s push to take Predator new places, as is witnessed in the film’s final scene.
Spoilers for Predator: Badlands follow.
When it was first announced that Predator: Badlands would be the first installment to make the Yautja the protagonist, many fans quite understandably raised their eyebrows, wondering how such a story might be possible. The answer, as it turns out, is relatively simple. This Yautja, Dek, has an awful father.
His father, Njohrr, has no love for Dek, who is the runt of the family. As far as Njohrr is concerned, Dek is a disgrace, and he tasks Dek’s brother, Kwei, to kill him. Instead, Kwei gives his brother a chance, pushing him back into a transport ship and sending it to Genna, which the brothers have discussed as the home planet of the Kalisk, a beast that even Njohrr fears. However, before the ship gets off the ground, Dek is forced to watch his brother lose his head at the hand of their father. Now, Dek is still intent upon making the Kalisk his first hunt, but not to impress his father so much as to show his father up and then exact vengeance for the death of his brother.
In about 10 minutes we get to know Dek, understand how he feels alienated, how the Yautja have a pretty rotten custom of executing those they see as weak, and how Dek wants nothing more than to be a part of the clan that wants nothing to do with him. We also see him gain a specific motivation and contend with grief.
By the film’s end, he’s learned that the Kalisk is actually more of an innocent creature than a beast. If anything, the homicidal actions of his clan are beastly. There isn’t inherent strength in taking life. As Elle Fanning’s Thia (a Weyland-Yutani synth missing her lower half, courtesy of the Kalisk) points out to him, there’s a creature on Earth called a wolf. And, at the head of a pack, there’s the alpha. It’s not the alpha because it kills the most, but rather because it is seen by the other wolves as the most capable and likely to put itself between danger and the remainder of the pack. Thus, true strength is found in having folks around you that you value, who you go out of your way for, and who you fight for.
By the time Dek heads back to Yautja Prime, he’s no longer a lone wolf, as it were. He’s the alpha of a pack that includes Thia and Bud, the child of the Kalisk. He has learned what strength is in a way his father has never known. And, because Dek bests his father in combat, he understands strength in a way his father never will.
That’s the conclusion of the narrative. The other Yautja of the clan don’t look thrilled about the outcome, but it’s revealed that they aren’t the ones Dek needs to be concerned about. At least not immediately. This is because a ship is heading his way, and after Thia asks if it houses a friend, he replies in the negative, stating it’s his mother.
Where has Dek’s mother been? Has she been watching from a distance to see how Dek and Njohrr’s conflict turned out? We don’t know. We don’t even know what she looks like. Thus far the only female Yautja that has ever been seen was in the Alien vs. Predator comics. All we know right now is that, according to Dek’s denial of her being friendly, she’s no better than his father. In fact, she might be worse. It’s a very exciting build-up into a potential Badlands sequel. Here’s hoping the film performs well enough to make that potential film a reality.
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