Trachtenberg gives more details on Dek, the main Yautja in Predator: Badlands!

Chris

Bloody-Disgusting have released a new interview with director Dan Trachtenberg, regarding Badlands and in that interview, a number of details were revealed (I've listed the main points below with quote references below):

• Dek is a runt
• Dek fights his brother as part of a training exercise
• Dek is prideful and looking to prove himself to his clan
• He's also fighting to earn his unsupported father's approval
• He chooses the Death Planet as his testing ground
• The Death Planet is called Kalisk
• Trachtenberg confirms Thia's (Elle Fanning) Weyland-Yutani link - confirming she is a synthetic
• Regarding Thia, Trachtenberg says: There’s a unique hook to her character that is exciting in the pairing of [her and Dek].

The opening shot has Dek careening over a glistening landscape shot top-down Akira style, immediately giving Trachtenberg’s vision a fresh visual language compared to other franchise entries, like how Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi pops as a Star Wars movie with unique stylistic choices. An action sequence follows between Dek and his Yautja brother—training battleground stuff—followed by Dek’s prideful desire to select Kalisk as his hunting ground, known as the “Death Planet,“ where he’s to prove his unsupportive father wrong. Dek’s ultimately fighting for acceptance in his own clan, with his own bloodline, and if his fight with Kalisk’s first challenge says anything—where he defends against an onslaught of forest murder vines—Dek is a formidable warrior with everything to prove.

Elaborating on Trachtenberg's impression of what the Predator is and what it isn't:

There’s an adventurousness and vibrancy to Predator: Badlands that’s not always present in Predator films. Entries have uniformly been more action-centric than horror-forward, but this continuation feels more story-driven. “I never thought [the Predator] was Jason Voorhees or Freddy Krueger,“ explains Trachtenberg. “[Predators] had a code [like] hitmen or crime underworld Goodfellas. I felt like there was something cool to explore within that culture that’s different than just adding a bunch of stuff on top of it. It felt like we’re mining [ideas] as opposed to just throwing [more] at the franchise.”

You can read the whole interview here!