From Prey to Badlands
Dan Trachtenberg has established himself as the rare filmmaker who can take a long-running franchise, strip it back to its essentials, and find something genuinely new within it. His 2022 film Prey reinvigorated the Predator series by transplanting its alien hunter to the 18th-century Great Plains, pitting it against a young Comanche warrior in a stripped-down survival thriller that was widely praised as one of the best entries in the franchise's history. Now, with Predator: Badlands arriving on streaming platforms, Trachtenberg has sat down for a wide-ranging, spoiler-filled conversation about the sequel's many hidden layers.
The interview reveals a filmmaker deeply invested in the mythology he is building, one who carefully weighs every reference and callback against the story he wants to tell. Badlands, it turns out, went through significant evolution during its development, with several major franchise connections being added, reworked, and ultimately cut before the final version reached audiences.
The Dutch Hologram and the Alien Connection
Perhaps the most tantalizing revelation is that Arnold Schwarzenegger's iconic character Dutch, the Special Forces soldier who survived the original 1987 Predator, was originally featured much more prominently in Badlands. In the film's original draft, a holographic wall included a clearly visible image of Dutch alongside a flickering Xenomorph silhouette from the Alien franchise, nodding to the shared universe that both properties have inhabited since the Alien vs. Predator crossover films.
The scene originally featured an extended conversation and additional holograms in the background, including a reference to the concept of "Pick Your Planet" and other worldbuilding details that expanded the franchise's mythology. In the final cut, however, the scene was shortened significantly, with the holographic images reduced to the point where viewers could barely see them without knowing where to look.
Trachtenberg was characteristically deliberate about the inclusion, describing the Dutch homage as "incredibly intentional" and "the most intentional" element of the film. He explained that the concept of "He is Dutch" was essentially the starting point of his creative process, the first idea that crystallized before any other elements of the story took shape.
