{"id":297635,"date":"2026-02-18T16:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T16:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/297635\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T16:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T16:30:08","slug":"badlands-almost-had-even-bigger-links-to-the-other-predator-and-alien-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/297635\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Badlands’ Almost Had Even Bigger Links to the Other ‘Predator’ and ‘Alien’ Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

The beauty of Predator: Badlands<\/a> is it\u2019s as connected, or disconnected, to the larger Predator universe as you want it to be. On the one hand, it\u2019s purposely set hundreds or even thousands of years<\/a> beyond any other story in the franchise, making sure it\u2019s not beholden to the events of any other film. And yet, it\u2019s also filled with lore connecting it in a larger context<\/a> to Yautja culture as well as the Alien<\/a> and Predator franchises. Eagle-eyed viewers may have even seen a very, very quick cameo by Naru, the star of Prey, and, apparently, her appearance was a relic from a version with a few larger connections.<\/p>\n

Naru appears briefly early in the film when Dek is aboard his brother Kwei\u2019s ship. Kwei explains that, to become a full-fledged member of the clan, Dek will have to choose a dangerous prey and go out into the universe and hunt it. As they speak, Dek scrolls through several holograms of options, and almost exactly after Kwei says the word \u201cPrey,\u201d Dek scrolls by a hologram showing the outline of Naru, the Comanche woman who killed a Yautja way back in 1719, and whom Predator: Killer of Killers reveals<\/a> was later frozen by the Yautja.<\/p>\n

Where is Naru now? Is she still alive and out there to be hunted? We don\u2019t know. But, speaking to Screenrant<\/a>, Badlands director Dan Trachtenberg revealed other characters from the Predator and Alien franchises appeared in that scene very early in the process when they put in temporary VFX. \u201cYou passed a xenomorph [from Alien], you pass by Dutch [from Predator] and Naru,\u201d Trachtenberg said. \u201cAlso, the creature after it was the Back Biter creature from [the end of] Killer of Killers\u2026 We really wanted to nod to our favorite characters that the Predators have fought against.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, as the process went along, the scene got \u201ctruncated,\u201d so those characters all but disappeared. \u201c[Dek and Kwei] had a longer conversation, or they said the same idea of \u2018Pick Your Planet,\u2019 and all that stuff, but it was a little bit longer,\u201d he said. \u201cSo there were more holograms to be in the background. And what we have now is more soft focus in the foreground.\u201d<\/p>\n

We feel like, while it\u2019s fun that they tried to get those characters in there, ultimately, the right decision was made for them not to be. Anything that takes an audience\u2019s attention away from this story and these characters has the potential to hurt it. But maybe you disagree. Let us know below.<\/p>\n

Predator: Badlands is now available on 4K, Blu-ray, DVD, and streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The beauty of Predator: Badlands is it\u2019s as connected, or disconnected, to the larger Predator universe as you…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[67416,146,85,46,397,45429,45430],"class_list":{"0":"post-297635","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-dan-trachtenberg","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-movies","13":"tag-predator-badlands","14":"tag-prey"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}