For the first time in the franchise’s 38-year history, Predator: Badlands transforms the series’ iconic hunter from antagonist to protagonist, centering its narrative on a young Yautja warrior’s journey of self-discovery. Director Dan Trachtenberg’s latest installment shattered box office expectations with a franchise-record $40 million domestic opening weekend and earned the highest CinemaScore rating in series history, validating his bold creative gamble. The film follows Dek, an undersized predator branded weak by his clan’s brutal standards, who escapes execution and crash-lands on Genna—a hostile planet where he must hunt an unkillable apex creature to prove his worth.
Set further in the future than any previous entry in either the Predator or Alien franchises, the narrative pairs Dek with Thia, a damaged Weyland-Yutani synthetic played by Elle Fanning. The chemistry between the runt Predator and the severed robot torso forms the emotional core of what critics describe as an inventive buddy road-trip action comedy. With a fully developed Yautja language and the franchise’s first PG-13 rating, the film pushes toward surprisingly empathetic territory while maintaining visceral action, creating a character-driven story that redefines what a Predator film can be.
Dek’s Banishment from Home
The film opens on a planet called Yautja Prime, home to a clan of predators known as the Yautja. We see a predator named Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) sparring against his brother Kwei (Mike Homik) as part of a test. Despite giving it his all, Dek fails to best Kwei. According to Kwei, Dek lost because he was fighting consumed by anger. Time passes, and we find Dek and Kwei talking aboard a spacecraft. We learn that Dek lost one of his fangs while trying to save Kwei.
Dek prepares to undertake the traditional Yautja hunt to prove his worth and earn his place as a clan member, despite already having failed the initial sparring test. This tradition requires hunters to bring back their prey. Dek sets his ship’s destination to fly on autopilot to Genna, a planet inhabited by an unkillable monster called the Kalisk. Dek boldly chooses the Kalisk as his hunting target, ready to risk his life to prove himself. Shortly after, Dek and Kwei welcome their father, Njohrr (Reuben De Jong), who serves as the leader of the Yautja clan.
Njohrr brings up the rule that weak clan members must be executed. Shockingly, Dek is deemed weak because his body is small by predator standards. Despite Dek’s intention to undertake the traditional hunt, Njohrr refuses to allow him this opportunity, convinced his son will fail. Njohrr orders Kwei to execute Dek immediately. But Kwei betrays the order and uses all his abilities to save Dek instead. Thanks to his help, Dek manages to escape in his ship and heads for Genna. Meanwhile, Njohrr executes Kwei for defying his command.
Unlikely Alliance on Genna
As he approaches planet Genna, Dek’s ship slowly breaks apart from atmospheric pressure. For his own survival, Dek is forced to abandon the spacecraft and make an emergency landing. When the time comes, Dek becomes determined to take down the Kalisk to honor Kwei’s sacrifice. As he begins hunting, Dek gets attacked by a plant-like monster. He fights for his life to defeat the creature but ultimately chooses to run—the monster is just too powerful.
Continuing his hunt, Dek enters an area filled with thorny plants. Shortly after, a monster we’ll call the Dragon uses the plants to its advantage to ambush Dek. In that same location, a woman named Thia is trapped in the monster’s lair. She activates her translator feature to communicate in the Yautja language and warns Dek that the plant thorns contain a paralyzing toxin. Thia realizes the Dragon wants to immobilize Dek using those thorns. When the Dragon attacks, Dek runs while trying to dodge the thorns but gets hit and starts having trouble moving. Before losing consciousness, Dek throws his weapon to Thia. She frees herself and immediately kills the Dragon just as it’s about to devour Dek.
Afterward, Dek’s condition slowly improves thanks to the antidote Thia gives him. When they start talking, Thia reveals she’s a synth—an android made by Weyland-Yutani tasked with researching Genna. Based on her experience, Thia can confirm that Genna’s environment is absolutely deadly for humans. She also mentions she’s witnessed several predators hunting the Kalisk over time, but none survived, and Dek might very well meet the same fate.
Despite having lost her leg, Thia offers Dek a deal: she’ll show him where the Kalisk is, but only if Dek helps her retrieve her leg first. Dek refuses because Yautja clan members follow the principle of hunting alone. However, he’s ultimately forced to accept since his prey tracking device is broken Dek starts carrying Thia toward her destination, using a special device to keep her secured to his back.
Journey Through Deadly Wilderness
Throughout the journey, Thia shares her extensive knowledge about the various creatures inhabiting Genna. During a rest break, Thia tells him she’s been on Genna for the past two years. Along with her team, which includes a synth named Tessa, Thia built a base for their research mission. Then one day, Tessa invited Thia to explore Genna’s wilderness so she wouldn’t get bored working in the lab all the time. That’s when Thia and Tessa were attacked by the Kalisk and got separated. The same attack caused Thia to lose one of her legs.
The next day, Dek and Thia continue their journey and come across a monster we’ll call the Bull. After Thia mentions that the Bull is prey for the Kalisk, Dek decides to hunt it for food. However, he postpones the hunt when he realizes the area where the Bull is standing is covered in razor-sharp grass. The Bull’s body, fortunately, is resistant to the grass. When a small monster named Bud approaches Dek, the Bull flees. Dek uses nearby trees to pursue the Bull without stepping into the razor grass area.
But Bud starts bothering Dek again—almost as if it wants him to fail at hunting the Bull. While fending off Bud, Dek is forced to divide his attention because the Bull keeps moving closer. At the height of the struggle, Dek finally kills the Bull using his signature Yautja blade, enhanced with a laser element. Shortly after, Dek and Thia are attacked by another monster we’ll call the Nightmare. Thanks to Bud’s unexpected help, they both manage to escape. The Nightmare shifts its focus to hunting the Bud, creating an opening for Dek to finally kill it.
Later that night, Dek tries to share some of the monster meat with Thia, but she declines since she’s a robot that doesn’t need food. The Bud, however, accepts Dek’s offering. Interestingly, the Bud spits on Dek as a sign that it now considers Dek family.Dek doesn’t want to form an emotional bond with the Bud. Meanwhile, Tessa has managed to survive and is currently recovering. Every synth on Thia’s team is connected to the Weyland-Yutani network. Through this network, Tessa can detect the presence of a Yautja member on Genna—in this case, Dek.
Tessa’s system classifies the Yautja as a threat to their mission. Once she’s recovered, Tessa starts searching for Thia. In the process, Tessa and her team manage to eliminate monsters without much difficulty thanks to their advanced weapons. Tessa finds Dek’s crashed ship on Genna and, while entering it, accidentally discovers a bomb capable of freezing its target’s body.
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Betrayal and Capture
Some time later, Dek and Thia finally reach the facility where Thia’s team once worked, now heavily damaged by the Kalisk’s attack. Thia manages to find her severed leg and uses the medical equipment that’s still operational to reattach it to her body. While waiting for the recovery process, Dek holds Thia to her promise to reveal the Kalisk’s location. He’s shocked to discover that Thia has secretly called her team.
Before they arrive, Thia urges Dek to leave immediately. She does this because she knows her team will kill him, as the Yautja are considered a threat to their mission. As it turns out, Weyland-Yutani has tasked Thia’s team with capturing the Kalisk all along. From now on, Dek has to compete with Thia’s team. Dek leaves, feeling betrayed because Thia went back on her promise to reveal the Kalisk’s location.
While still near the base, Dek uses flammable materials to create a massive explosion, successfully luring the Kalisk to the location. Dek fights with everything he’s got to kill the Kalisk. Due to the effects of their intense battle, Thia’s leg recovery process gets interrupted. She uses weapons left behind by her team to fight the Kalisk. Thanks to Thia’s help, Dek is able to pull off a series of moves and eventually manages to decapitate the Kalisk.
However, the Kalisk recovers quickly because it possesses super regeneration abilities. It corners Dek and prepares to devour him but ultimately lets Dek live because it smells the Bud’s scent on his body. A few seconds later, Tessa arrives with the freeze bomb she stole from Dek’s ship. Thanks to that Yautja bomb, Tessa successfully captures both the Kalisk and Dek at once.
As time passes, Dek wakes up being held captive by Tessa, who has been leading the operation to capture the Kalisk all along. Tessa declares that from now on, Dek is Weyland-Yutani property, just like the Kalisk, which is locked up elsewhere. Afterward, Tessa reactivates Thia, who was also detained, and informs her that she’ll soon be sending the Kalisk to Weyland-Yutani to be used as a research subject.
Tessa believes the Kalisk’s super regeneration abilities could be utilized as a breakthrough in the medical field. Tessa cynically thanks Thia for unwittingly creating an opportunity that allowed her to successfully capture both the Kalisk and Dek. She then conducts painful experiments on Dek to investigate the abnormality in the predator’s body size.
Thia finally stops the experiment to protect Dek. Tessa orders her subordinates to prepare to lock Thia up and deactivate her for betrayal. But once Tessa leaves, Thia follows Dek’s instructions to trick one of the synths monitoring them. As a result, that synth is destroyed by what appears to be a Yautja children’s toy but functions as an actual weapon. Taking advantage of the chaos, Thia leads a rebellion and successfully helps Dek escape alive.
Dek’s Counterattack and Rescue
Dek jumps into a waterfall to escape Tessa’s team. After evading pursuit, he manages to locate his crashed ship and uses the medical supplies on board to heal his wounds. He searches for weapons since the ones he carried were confiscated by Tessa. Unfortunately, he doesn’t find any because Tessa’s team had already looted his ship’s weapon stores. Dek finally grabs a mask that seems to be a treasured keepsake from Kwei.
Once he’s recovered, Dek starts looking for Genna’s dangerous flora and fauna that he can weaponize. He collects samples of the razor-sharp grass as a close-range weapon and captures a creature that shoots acidic liquid for long-range attacks. Afterward, he returns to the facility where Thia recovered her leg and discovers the Bud there. Observing the Bud’s behavior and physical characteristics near the location where the Kalisk attacked, Dek realizes the Bud is actually the offspring of the Kalisk.
Shortly after, Dek finds Thia’s severed leg, which had been left behind and trapped in debris. Because Thia’s leg contains tracking technology that still functions, Dek uses it as a homing device to locate Thia. Time passes as the leg leads Dek to the Weyland-Yutani base on Genna, where Thia is being held. Dek uses the acid spray to kill one synth unit, then manages to kill several synth thanks to a distraction created by Thia’s leg. While spreading out through the base, Dek, the Bud, and the mobile severed leg (operating autonomously) successfully kill a number of synths, each using their own methods.
After eliminating the guard synth, Thia’s leg manages to free Thia and reunite with her. Dek actually saved Thia to repay her kindness. When meeting with Thia, Dek reveals his discovery that the Bud is the Kalisk’s offspring and explains that he now feels obligated to save the Kalisk so the creature can be reunited with its child. Thia emphasizes that they need to move fast because the Kalisk will soon be transferred from the base to be shipped to Weyland-Yutani.
Following Dek’s strategy, Thia struggles to free the Kalisk but fails to unlock its cage because her status as a member of Tessa’s team has been revoked. With Bud’s help, Thia manages to kill one of the synths that was about to capture her. She then uses the synth’s eye to unlock the cage, which operates via retinal scanning. Meanwhile, Dek, using his combination attacks, successfully destroys many of the surrounding synths.
Shortly after, Dek faces off against Tessa, who’s operating a mech robot as a weapon to fight him. On the flip side, Dek now shifts his focus to making Tessa his trophy in the Yautja hunting tradition. While Dek is still fighting, the Kalisk finally appears and immediately attacks Tessa for revenge. Dek and the Kalisk work together, causing Tessa’s robot to sustain heavy damage from their combined assault. In her cornered state, Tessa tries to kill the Kalisk with the stolen Yautja laser weapon, but before she can act, she gets devoured first by the Kalisk. When things are finally safe, Dek gives the Kalisk a warm touch as a sign that he wants to make peace with the creature.
Shortly after, the Kalisk suddenly convulses in distress before its body begins breaking apart from within. This is caused by Tessa, who survived being devoured and is attacking the Kalisk from inside its body. Tessa prepares to kill Thia with the Yautja laser weapon, but due to Dek’s attack from behind, she fails to act and ends up paralyzed. The Bud then rips off Tessa’s head to permanently kill her.
Return and Final Reckoning
Some time later, Dek returns to planet Yautja Prime with his repaired ship and meets with Njohrr while being watched by many members of the Yautja Clan Dek declares that he has completed his hunt while presenting Tessa’s head as a trophy. To demonstrate his worthiness, Dek demands to be given a Yautja device called a cloak that can make the user’s body invisible, a technology reserved for honored clan members. However, Njohrr refuses to acknowledge Dek’s success because he considers both Dek and Kwei to be clan traitors.
Njohrr orders two of his warriors to execute Dek, but Dek manages to kill both warriors because he’s become much stronger since leaving Yautja Prime. Njohrr finally fights Dek himself so he can execute his own son. At the climax of the battle, Dek manages to defeat Njohrr and rips off his father’s clan leader mask. At this point, with Dek standing victorious over him, Njohrr finally acknowledges Dek’s strength and offers him a place as a clan member. But Dek refuses, declaring that he already has a clan that accepts him—referring to Thia and the Bud.
Before Njohrr can respond, the Bud, now fully grown into a formidable creature, appears and devours Njohrr’s head. Dek doesn’t intervene because he believes his father’s cruelty has earned this fate. The Bud and Thia have become members of Dek’s clan. At the end of this moment, Dek takes the cloak from Njohrr’s severed hand. A few seconds later, the clan members prepare to attack Dek to punish him for his actions. To make matters worse, Dek also has to face his mother, who arrives with a large ship. And that’s where the film ends.
