Predator: Badlands

In Predator: Badlands find a kind of sangam for a great many of the former 20th Century Fox's science fiction and fantasy properties. Of course there's everybody's favourite invisible hunters with an added army of disposable synthetics, on loan from the corporate wing of the Alien franchise, not far behind. Such intermingling isn't new but the cross-pollination doesn't end there. Hanging on a trophy room wall in a derelict space craft there's a skull from one of Independence Day's locust-like Harvesters and, in creating a extraterrestrial environment seemingly dedicated to stripping outsiders to the bone in record time, there's more than a little of Avatar's Pandora in the mix for these bad lands. The film's approach to storytelling differs from previous Predator installments as well, harkening to the armoured, near-mute leads seen in Star Wars television spin-offs. The Volume VFX of The Mandalorian is obvious but, as well, there's something of Genndy Tartakovsky's Star Wars: Clone Wars at play, certainly in terms of the deft touch for character-based action that director Dan Trachtenberg demonstrates here. The centering of an uncommunicative, vengeful berserker as he traverses an unmapped environment isn't a million miles away from Conan the Barbarian either. Sadly, Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi's Dek, the outcast Predator of Badlands, never quite gets enough space to voice the bitter introspection afforded to Schwarzenegger's orphaned reaver. Really, all that's missing is a good, hard nod towards the Planet of the Apes. Although, having said that, there's something a little stark in play with Weyland Yutani's busy little mechanoids. Several layers of artificial hierarchy plot and probe without any clear input from a flesh and bone master. For all we know, Elle Fanning's crumbling androids toil in a far future were the post-human dreams of David (from Prometheus and Alien: Covenant) have been fully realised. 

Prey

Director Dan Trachtenberg and screenwriter Patrick Aison have worked a minor miracle with Prey. The duo have managed to propose a concept so strong that it works against the received (but failing) wisdom of how to conceptualise and plot a sequel, especially one with such obvious brand recognition. To wit: go bigger and bigger, at the expense of reason. The Predator series has always stumbled and bumbled around when attempting to expand its scope beyond John McTiernan's masterful but deliberately self-contained first instalment. Although Predator 2 seethes with an agitated, even radioactive energy, subsequent episodes have strayed further and further away from the central idea of a single invisible monster stalking a shrinking team of maniacs. In one sense the first Predator is an ultra-masculine variation on Alien - a muscular appropriation of the same tick 'em off formula that trades oily decks for a green inferno; grumbling refinery workers for a well-equipped CIA death squad. 

In Prey, the extra-terrestrial chasseur is stalking The Great Plains, its presence in the 18th century reported to the viewer in brief asides that recall the passively observed methodology of Arnold Schwarzenegger's cyborg in The Terminator. While McTiernan's creature was a ghostly presence, prodding at the soldiers it was tailing before going as far as actually attacking them, Trachtenberg's is locked into its own little sub-adventure. Although occasionally glimpsed by Amber Midthunder's Naru, a young Comanche woman who'd rather hunt than gather, this Predator is often alone, collecting trinkets and slowly working its way up the area's food chain. Suit actor Dane DiLiegro's invader uses it's reflective camouflage to flaunt a proximity to other animals while they feast upon their physical inferiors. Trachtenberg's film, both in terms of incident and the dialogue screamed by dying men, plays up the villainous qualities of this Predator. It is a cheat. A massive firepower advantage isn't enough for this monster, instead it delights in striking at its victims while completely concealed, only decloaking when confident that it's on the stacked end of an enormous power discrepancy. 

Trachtenberg and Aison formulate their conclusion around this mix of arrogance and cowardice. Their hero, Naru, has enjoyed a certain closeness to this creature that has allowed her to decode its technology and techniques. In these situations Naru has, more often than not, played the role of quarry to the bigger game that this Predator is actually poaching. She isn't viewed as a threat and is therefore irrelevant to the heat vision hunter. An early scene in which the Predator inadvertently gives a cottontail rabbit a reprieve by killing the wolf that was stalking it establishes that this alien has a blind spot, one that the physically smaller Naru can comfortably occupy. This advantage is compounded by Naru's intellectual acumen - just as she isn't constrained by the gender role that has been assigned to her by her family and society, she isn't limited by the position she hopes to grow into either. The Comanche men she brushes shoulders with have tried and trusted weapons that they rely upon - not unlike the Predator. Naru, when sensing the limitations inherent to her equipment, customises hers and transforms their utility. Naru then practices until she is fluent with these contraptions. Threaded throughout Prey is this idea that overwhelming physical strength limits those who possess it. The reliance on this power reveals an unwillingness to adapt; a desire to respond to every question with the same, mocking answer.