Predator Badlands
Credit: 20th Century Fox
The big movie out in theaters this weekend is Predator: Badlands, the latest film in the long-running science-fiction action series.
Badlands is the second live-action Predator film from writer-director, Dan Trachtenberg, who also directed 2016’s suspense film, 10 Cloverfield Lane, as well as episodes of The Boys, Black Mirror and Stranger Things. Trachtenberg also wrote and directed the animated film, Predator: Killer of Killers. The director’s three Predator films are the highest-rated in the entire franchise on Rotten Tomatoes.
Does Predator: Badlands Have A Post-Credits Scene?
The Predator franchise is not known for post-credits scenes – or “stingers” as they’re called – but Predator: Killer of Killers broke that trend, offering up a pretty significant scene after the credits rolled. Even Prey had an animated credits sequence that teased future alien invasions for Naru (Amber Midthunder) and her people to contend with.
Predator: Badlands does have a scene after the ending title card, however it happens directly after – before the credits roll. Without giving away any details, you can pretty much rest assured that you won’t miss this unless you leave the film early. Better still, you won’t have to wait around after that.
What Is Predator: Badlands About?
Predator: Badlands follows Thia (Elle Fanning), a damaged Weyland-Yutani synthetic (from the Alien franchise). She joins forces with Dek (Dimitrust Schuster-Koloamatangi), a young Predator outcast who was exiled for being a Yautja runt. The logline reads:
Cast out from his clan, a young and “weak” Predator named Dek travels to the deadly planet Genna to prove his worth by hunting the seemingly unkillable Kalisk, only to find an unlikely ally in Thia, a damaged Weyland-Yutani synthetic, as they face not only the planet’s savage wildlife but also a sinister plot from the corporation.
In other words, this is very much a new twist on the Alien vs Predator story and a good follow-up to the disappointing Alien: Earth TV show from earlier this year.
Here’s the trailer:
This deepens the shared Alien and Predator universe beyond the 2004 film, Alien vs Predator from director Paul W. S. Anderson, though the first crossover was the Xenomorph skull in Predator 2. The Blade Runner universe remains distinct from these, though there are certainly elements that suggest it could be a shared universe, and certainly Alien: Earth had that vibe. The good reviews, plus the cool sci-fi angle, make this an exciting new entry in the series, which has seen a major revival since Prey. But I still think that Dek looks really weird.
