Predator: Badlands just got a truly kickass new trailer that showcases a young Yautja on its first hunt, tracking down an unkillable quarry on a hostile alien planet. He's not alone, as Elle Fanning's Weyland-Yutani android Thia is along for the ride.
The trailer's twist is, the connections to the original Alien franchise go much deeper than Fanning's android, whose inclusion in the film has been no secret for some time. I won't spoil the rest yet - you'll see it all in the trailer, below:
Alien and its sequel Aliens are, in my opinion, just about the best one-two punch in movie history. They're two of my favorite films of all time. So you better believe I popped hard seeing not just a platoon of Space Marines in the trailer, but also a version of the P-5000 Powered Work Loader that Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley pilots at the end of Aliens.
And that's not even mentioning that Badlands looks like a wild action movie all on its own, and a worthy follow up to director Dan Trachtenberg's pitch-perfect film Prey, which completely revitalized the franchise.
I'll admit, the current trend of rebooting franchises by peppering new films with out-and-out references and homages to the previous films can feel a little tedious at times, even in otherwise solid movies (I'm looking at you, Alien: Romulus).
But I like the crossover potential, and bringing in the Space Marines and some of their most iconic equipment from the Aliens franchise seems like a good way to start the move toward a more fully realized shared universe, and hopefully an eventual Alien/Predator crossover film that truly lives up to its potential without immediately bringing in a Xenomorph and blowing all the tension right away.
Predator: Badlands releases in theaters November 7. For more, stay up to date on all the news about sci-movies and sci-fi TV shows.
