Predator: Badlands SDCC Footage Description and New Connections to 1987’s Dutch

This post contains newly revealed spoilers for Predator: Killer of Killers and Predator: Badlands.

By now, anyone coming to Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con expects big reveals and big teases. Somehow director Dan Trachtenberg outdid all expectations with in his panel for the latest entry in the Predator franchise, Predator: Badlands.

In a panel hosted by Kevin Smith and featuring stars Elle Fanning and Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, Trachtenberg not only showed the first 15 minutes of Badlands, but also made some big reveals that connect to not just the franchise’s storied past, but also to its most notable sci-fi sibling, the Alien franchise.

A Good Look at Badlands

First and foremost, people came to Hall H to learn about Predator: Badlands, the third Predator movie from Trachtenberg after the 2022 prequel Prey and this past June’s animated movie Predator: Killer of Killers. Rather than just talk about his new movie, Trachtenberg cut to the chase by showing the first fifteen minutes of Badlands, with the proviso that not all of the effects were complete.

The first 15 minutes of Predator: Badlands, even in spite of their rough and half-finished quality, suggest an operatic magnum opus of sci-fi lore and bombast. This is underlined by the familial, even vaguely Shakespearean, struggle that works as the kickoff of the film.

Set on an alien world that looks like equal parts Arrakis and the Dead Sea from the original Planet of the Apes, we witness a Predator surveying this landscape by transcending from the water’s edge of a desolate ocean to the top of a cliffside by way of a reverse and laser-powered zipline. (Which again echoes the floating prologue of action in Dune: Part Two.)

This is our central hero Dek (Schuster-Koloamatangi), a Predator-in-training whose hair is still slicked back and lacking in the more flowing locks we associate with the franchise’s most beloved ugly MFers. His homeland is notably introduced as hostile with the first actual shot being of two digital insects devouring each other before a bigger reptile chows down on both. In this unforgiving world, we also hear Dek narrate the movie in a foreign language, suggesting the picture will rely heavily on subtitles. Dek tells us he’s “Yautja,” a proud race that only colloquially calls themselves “Predator” (huh). He also is considered the literal runt of the litter while training with big brother Kwei. They have a vaguely Hamlet or Lion King solemnity in their subtitled dialogue. It probably doesn’t hurt that they’re also speaking in declaratives while waging epic bloody battle over a yawning abyss.

Yet if one starts suspecting big brother Kwei might be a devious Scar, we soon learn something more insidious. It turns out that despite all the dazzling CG-assisted Predator sword fight trickery, this is still a friendly and fraternal sparring match. However, Kwei has orders from their father to execute and kill Dek. Instead he reluctantly agrees to Dek’s pleas to allow little bro the opportunity to prove his worth by going to the most hostile known planet in the universe where he will hunt an apex predator that even their father fears: the unseen and ominously whispered about “Kalisk.”

The tension rises exponentially, however, because before Dek can take off in his spaceship, both brothers are confronted by their father, who arrives with the foreboding of Sauron beneath the fires of Mount Doom. He comes in hot, too, accusing Kwei of failing to murder his younger brother in his sleep. 

“He is weak. The only way he can honor us is in death,” papa insists. He believes this so strongly that even after being told that Dek will hunt the Kalisk, the father still traps his youngest son in a net and commands Kwei to execute his brother. Instead Kwei cuts him free, triggering a sword fight to the death with his father… and let’s just say the older generation remains resilient. After tricking his firstborn with an invisibility fake out, the father beheads the son.

“To forgive weakness is weakness,” he hisses while Dek watches on, screaming for Kewi but unable to exit a spaceship his brother has trapped him in. No, this ship is locked in and will take him to the one planet in the universe where Yautja are not considered predators… but prey, as a surprisingly singsongy and chipper Weyland-Yutani robot played by Elle Fanning enthuses!

Oh, right, this is also another crossover film with the Alien franchise (more on that in a bit).

The footage we saw of Predator: Badlands is intentionally overwrought, earnest, and honestly quite badass! If the rest of the movie can live up to this prologue, we might all be getting a trophy come November.

A Message From the Company

As cool as the Badlands footage itself was, the Weyland-Yutani nod demanded immediate attention. Yet Trachtenberg was surprisingly measured when explaining his reasons for including the Alien reference.

It all stemmed from the decision to make a Predator movie without humans, as they would distract from the Yaujta protagonist. Instead, Trachtenberg decided to include a robot as a human surrogate. “And then I thought, I know somebody who makes robots,” he told the crowd.

That said, Trachtenberg was quick to stall those immediately expecting a big crossover. He explained that he prefers restraint in shared universe films, rather than “smashing their toys together.” Yet when Kevin Smith pointed out that he was already “the Predator guy” and he could be the “Alien vs Predator guy,” Trachtenberg just smiled in response. “Wouldn’t it be cool,” he said, and nothing more.

Dutch Lives

Before all of that, the panel actually began with a sizzle reel of clips from previous franchise entries. We see Dutch, the soldier played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1987 original. We see LAPD Lieutenant Mike Harrigan, played by Danny Glover in 1990’s Predator 2. And, of course, we see Naru, the Comanche hunter played by Amber Midthunder in the prequel Prey.

The sizzle reel also included footage from the most recent Predator film, the animated movie Predator: Hunter of Hunters. Right before the credits of that movie, we saw Naru once again, this time locked in cold storage by the Yaujta, presumably so they could continue practicing with her. When Hunter of Hunters first appeared on Hulu on June 6, 2025, the shot Naru immediately cut to credits. But in the sizzle reel, the camera continues past her, revealing Dutch and Harrigan, also in cold storage.

The reveal might just be a cool nod to the past. Or it might be something more, as Trachtenberg teased that he recently had breakfast with Schwarzenegger to discuss the future of the franchise and the future of Dutch in particular.

Whatever comes of the conversation, one thing is clear: the future of the Predator franchise is looking busy.

Predator: Badlands releases Nov. 7, 2025.