SPOILERS are ahead for Predator: Badlands, now playing in theaters.
One of the big surprises among 2025 movies for me is Predator: Badlands. While I was already a fan of the previous Predator movies that its writer/director Dan Trachtenberg made prior (Prey and Killer of Killers), there was no promise he would go three for three. While I love all the praise for Badlands for how it handles its Yautja storyline, I want to talk about its Alien connection.
Predator: Badlands Is Rightfully Getting A Lot Of Love For Being A Franchise Favorite
Before I do, let’s talk about why fans are loving Badlands so much. As I wrote about in our Predator: Badlands review, it’s the first movie of the franchise that’s devoid of a single human character, and yet feels like the most human due to how they are handled. (Other critics really liked it too for taking the franchise in new directions).
It’s been almost 40 years since the original Predator movie came out, and I think fans appreciated not only seeing a movie from the perspective of a Yautja hero, but also Dek in particular. He’s the runt of his clan, and it’s really refreshing to see a new type of story from the franchise that perhaps makes the fictional species more relatable and rootable (for this movie, anyways).
It’s on the way to becoming the biggest Predator movie ever, following its great box office performance so far, but there’s another aspect of it that I don’t think is being pointed out enough.
But, I Need To Talk About How Much I Appreciate How Its Alien Connection Is Handled
One of the most iconic Predator movies to this day is absolutely 2004’s Alien vs. Predator, but Badlands definitely isn’t a rehash of that. I’m happy it isn’t, but, as an Alien fan myself (more so than Predator), I found myself especially pulled in by seeing a Yautja have an unlikely friendship with a synthetic.
In the movie, Elle Fanning plays two synthetic characters, “sisters” named Thia and Tessa, who are employed by the Weyland-Yutani corporation for what the company is known to do – try to bag and tag alien species for its own benefit. While at first it seemed like Thia was a way-too-helpful synthetic to Dek, it’s revealed later that Thia was using her emotional programming to supposedly manipulate him, before her actual feelings took over.
But then the movie goes a step deeper. Thia isn’t only tapped into her emotions because of her objectives; she also feels a lot in general, and while that is looked upon as weak by Tessa, it ultimately helps her form a true friendship with Dek, and they become partners in being outcasts together. I love when the Alien franchise explores how technology and humanity can intersect, and the story between Thia and Dek is such a good extension of that conversation.
The addition of Thia and Tessa to the Alien franchise (even though it’s by extension of a Predator movie) is such a clever use of synthetics that continues to grow the lore that it has had since the beginning. An evil twin sister synthetic plotline is amazing! There’s been a lot of synthetics in Alien, but Fanning’s performance as Thia/Tessa, and the storyline written for her, is already up there among my favorites. And, that scene where the top half of her and the bottom half of her fight? So good!