38 Years Later, a Major Detail About the Original Predator Has Been Confirmed

The Predator franchise is still going strong with the release of Predator: Badlands, which topped the box office on its opening weekend, with a worldwide haul of around $80 million, with half of that earned domestically. Now the viability of the Predator franchise is unquestionable, as director Dan Trachtenberg has made a hit feature film prequel for streaming (Prey), a hit animated feature on streaming (Predator: Killer of Killers), and a hit blockbuster film (Badlands). Moreover, Trachtenberg has been the architect of a larger, interconnected narrative that not only connects his films but also weaves their new lore in with the canon of both the older Predator movies and the Alien film franchise.

By telling its story from the perspective of one of the Predators (or “Yautja”), Predator: Badlands was able to explore more of the culture that defines and drives the alien race of hunters. And, while the story of a lone outcast earning his respect as a hunter couldn’t offer too much cultural insight, Badlands did manage to make one thing clear about the Yautja that have appeared in these films: they are not all of one clan, or race.

Predator: Badlands Confirms There Are Different Yautja Clans, With Different Codes

The first Predator movie featured a Yautja hunter who was clearly adept at hunting in a jungle environment. However, Predators (2010) made it a major plot twist that the traditional Jungle hunter Predator we’d come to know and love had been supplanted (literally and figuratively) by a new race of Predators that were bigger, stronger, and darker-skinned. Dubbed “Super Predators,” this new class of warriors had even better hunting technology and accessories (“Tracker’s” alien dogs, “Falconer’s” drone bird, “Berserker’s” upgraded helmet, armor, guns, blades, and hunting gear). To drive home the point that there was a new era of Predator taking shape, Predators pitted Berserker in a climactic battle with a Jungle Hunter Yautja, and showed just how powerful the Super Predator class is, comparatively.

Director Dan Trachentenberg’s trilogy of Predator movies (Prey, Killer of Killers, Badlands) has all featured warriors from the desert regions of the homeworld, Yautja Prime. These are the same Super Predator types seen in Predators, and there have been at least two distinct desert clans we’ve met so far: One is the clan of “Njohrr,” the feared leader who believes in Yautja doctrines of strength so deeply, he’s willing to kill his own son, Dek, a “runt,” to honor them. Dek is Yautja who goes on to become the great hero and hunter of Predator: Badlands. The other desert clan we’ve met is “Warlord’s Clan,” run by the fearsome Grendel King. That clan sent the “Feral Predator” hunter to 18th-century Earth in Prey; Killer of Killers revealed the Warlord Clan has been targeting Earth’s warriors across many centuries, and has broken from Yautja Code in a controversial way.

One Predator Clan Has Broken The Code

Predator 2 turned a horror film series into an entire franchise universe when it included the epilogue of a Yautja hunting party coming to retrieve their fallen comrade, and reward LAPD Lt. Mike Harrigan (Danny Glover) with the now-infamous flintlock pistol that was once the trophy of the Feral Predator (and then was owned by Naru, the warrior who killed him). Not only did the franchise get a MacGuffin it could trace throughout different projects, but it also suggested for the first time that the Predators were an alien race with an entire culture and history behind them. And, that culture included the tradition of honoring and rewarding those warriors who successfully bested them in combat.

…Or so we thought.

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Predator: Killer of Killers was an anthology film built around a pivotal revelation about the Yautja: not all clans follow the Code. The Yautja warriors of the Jungle Clan were seen to be “honorable” during the hunts of Predator and Predator 2: they only hunted armed combatants; spared a female police officer (Detective Leona Cantrell) who was newly pregnant; gave up tactical advantages like armor and weaponry to face opponents like Dutch Schaefer (Arnold Schwarzenegger) hand-to-hand, and properly rewarded humans who won in combat by leaving them alive and/or bestowing priceless heirlooms upon them as trophies.

The Desert Clans, specifically the Warlord’s Clan, on the other hand, has proven to not be nearly as honorable as their jungle cousins. In Predators, it was clear the Super Predator class was willing to hunt, imprison, and kill the lighter-skinned jungle hunter types; both Predators and Killer of Killers also showed the Warlord’s Clan holding to a much looser interpretation of the Yautja Code. The Warlord Clan doesn’t adhere to the traditional system of hunting worthy prey and either claiming their skull and spine as trophies, or dying in battle and leaving the prey with the clan’s respect, as well as a trophy. Instead, the Warlord Clan prefers to use whatever advantages possible to kill prey, even when their alien technology is far surperior.

More than that, the Warlord Clan seems to have its own agenda the supersedes the shared culture of the other Yautja. The clan’s leader, The “Grendel King” wants to create a hunt that’s on another level: instead of going to worlds and hunting the strongest prey, the Warlord’s Clan is gathering all the best killers, of any era, from across the galaxy, and using them to test themselves on a whole other level. The end goal has been made officially clear yet, but it’s not hard to imagine: if the Warlord’s Clan wants to firmly establish itself as the greatest hunters of all the Yautja, killing the prey other Yautja couldn’t would be the way to show it.

And that’s a cinematic story we definitely want to see told. Don’t you? Let us know in the comments, or over on the ComicBook Forum.