Predator: Badlands is actually a secret Alien movie (with no Xenomorphs)

[ad_1] We all the time knew Predator: Badlands was going to be a crossover film. The primary trailer confirmed that Elle Fanning was taking part in a Artificial, a robotic manufactured by the evil Weyland-Yutani company from the Alien franchise. This makes Dan Trachtenberg’s new science-fiction epic a non secular sequel of types to the Alien vs. Predator sequence. However what the trailers didn’t reveal was simply how closely Badlands would lean into Alien territory — albeit with out truly that includes any Xenomorphs.

To be clear, this isn't a foul factor. I like the Alien films much more than I benefit from the Predator ones, and I believe Badlands is a fairly stable flick. (It’s method higher than Paul W. S. Anderson’s Alien vs. Predator.) Nonetheless, it’s all the time price figuring out what you’re entering into before you purchase a ticket.

[Ed. note: Full spoilers ahead for the plot of Predator: Badlands.]

<img width="1650" height="692" loading="lazy" decoding="async" alt="A synth played by Elle Fanning tied to the back of a Predator in Badlands" data-img-url="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/pb-tp2-088901.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" src="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/pb-tp2-088901.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" class="img-brightness-opt-out"/> Picture: twentieth Century Fox Right here’s the factor these trailers didn’t let you know: Predator: Badlands is completely chock-full of synths. Not solely will we get Fanning as Thia (a bisected robotic who presents to assist the movie’s Predator protagonist in trade for his assist in discovering her legs), she additionally performs a second synth, named Tessa. And that’s not all. Weyland-Yutani sends a complete fleet of Synthetics (all performed by the identical actor, Cameron Brown) to the lethal planet the place many of the film takes place.

There are literally extra Synthetics in Trachtenberg’s new film than in most Alien installments, a powerful feat for a movie titled Predator: Badlands. It’s attainable the director made this selection as a result of you possibly can violently homicide a pair dozen robots onscreen and nonetheless get a PG-13 score. Both method, I’m not complaining. I all the time get pleasure from watching synths get torn aside onscreen, no matter whether or not it is a Xenomorph or a Yautja (the Predators’ title for his or her species) or perhaps a human doing the killing.

<img width="825" height="464" loading="lazy" decoding="async" alt="Dek faces the Kalisk in Predator: Badlands" data-img-url="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/pb-tp3-still_015-1.jpg?q=70&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=1" src="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/pb-tp3-still_015-1.jpg?q=70&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=1" class="img-brightness-opt-out"/> Picture: twentieth Century Fox The opposite cause Predator: Badlands seems like an Alien film has every part to do with its fictional location. The planet Genna, which our Yautja hero Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) travels to in an ill-conceived try and show his toughness, is teeming with lethal alien life, starting from acid-spitting eel-like creatures to one thing finest described as a tree-monster with a large mouth. Many of those terrifying beasts would match proper in on Alien: Earth, which expanded the franchise’s extraterrestrial terrors past the enduring Xenomorph to incorporate big acid-belching bugs and a hyper-intelligent eyeball monster — two beings that will possible thrive on Genna.

I’ve seen different critics examine Predator: Badlands to Scavengers Reign, an animated sci-fi sequence set on a planet the place evolution runs wild, and every part is continually both consuming one thing else or being eaten. That’s an effective way to explain Genna, which can be teeming with vicious alien life. It additionally solidifies the Alien connection, since Scavengers Reign borrows liberally from Ridley Scott’s unique 1979 film with its story of doomed contract employees employed to fly a company spaceship via uncharted outer house.

Any method you slice it, Predator: Badlands seems like an Alien film. Simply don’t count on to see any Xenomorphs battling Yautja in Badlands. We’ll have to attend for a correct Alien vs. Predator sequel for that.