Predator: Badlands is the seventh standalone Predator movie, and it differs to its predecessors in one specific way.
The Predator franchise kicked off in 1987 with Arnold Schwarzenegger doing battle with the titular alien in a Central American jungle.
Sequels and prequels followed – as did a couple of Alien vs Predator crossovers – that transported the franchise to different locations, and even onto new planets.
This week, we’re getting Predator: Badlands, which connects to the Alien movies in one specific way, while doing something that no Predator movie has done before.
Predator: Badlands doesn’t feature humans
Every Predator movie released thus far – Predator, Predator 2, Predators, The Predator, Prey, and Predator: Killer of Killers – has featured humans doing battle with the trophy-hunting monsters.
But Badlands doesn’t feature a single human being at any point. Instead, the film focuses on an outcast predator teaming up with a synth to complete a mission on a dangerous planet.
That planet is filled with monsters of various shapes and sizes, many of which are trying to kill the mismatched duo, but there isn’t a human anywhere to be seen.
Badlands writer-director Dan Trachtenberg – who also oversaw both Prey and Killer of Killers – told us that was always the plan, saying in the below video, “I really wanted to do the premise: the predator’s protagonist, and no humans in the movie.”
That said, although there isn’t a human in the movie, the relationship between predator Dek and synth Thia is inspired by movies that are all about human relationships, with Trachtenberg revealing that comedy Midnight Run and western True Grit both influenced his violent buddy movie.
Badlands is also the first standalone film in the franchise to receive a PG-13 certificate rather than an R. But while shooting the movie, Trachtenberg said that the lack of humans would also allow him to push the boundaries of what’s acceptable in a movie with that lesser rating.
“We don’t have any humans in the movie, and so we don’t have any human red blood,” Trachtenberg told Bloody Disgusting. “We’re hoping that’s going to play to our advantage.”
The director added: “We’re going to go as hard as we possibly can within those constraints, and we think we’ll be able to do some pretty awesomely gruesome stuff, but colors other than red.”
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