Where does “Bad Lands” fit into this franchise?

In modern cinema, franchises have the first and last word; And the main priority of the studios is to continue the stories in any way, and make a sequel and a spin-off for them. And with some of these franchises as vast as the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s sometimes difficult to know where the new installment fits into the timeline. The movie “Predator: Badlands” is no exception to this rule, especially when we realize that it is not only related to “Predator”, but also to “Alien”.

The story of “Bad Lands” takes place after all the movies “Alien” and “Marauder”.

Dan Trachtenberg, the film’s director, recently spoke about this in an interview with Variety. In response to the question of where “Bad Lands” is placed in the series’ timeline, he answered that they deliberately took the story of the film to the farthest time in the future so that it does not interfere with the previous versions of “Marauder” and “Alien”. He also revealed that he was “excited” from the beginning that the film would take place after Alien: Resurrection (1997).

The adventures of “Resurrection” take place in the year 2381, that is, 250 years after the first part of “Alien” by Ridley Scott. With these details, the adventures of “Bad Lands” probably take place around the year 2400. This point is very important, especially when we get to the Bad Lands references to Weyland-Yutani, a super-corporation that you may have forgotten about, but during the Resurrection story, one of the characters says that it was bought by Walmart. It also means that humanity is still living on the planet, and it’s truly amazing that we’ve lasted that long without destroying the planet.

One of Trachtenberg’s main reasons for taking the story of “Bad Lands” to this particular era of Earth, in his own words, was that “I didn’t know exactly what was going to happen in the movie “Alien: Romulus”, and I didn’t even know much about the “Alien: Earth” series.” Therefore, it made sense to proceed cautiously and it was considered a smart decision. One of the main attractions of Trachtenberg’s “Marauder” films is that they proceed independently and do not have to do with other versions so that we are not distracted and focus only on the main story.

Taking the story to this time period allowed Trachtenberg to do his own thing while maintaining the structure of the previous two episodes that he had created. The adventures of “Hunting” (2022) take place in the early 18th century, and the events of the animation “Marauder: Killer of Killers” also take place in several different historical periods and include three stories. The first episode takes us to distant centuries and to the cold lands of Scandinavia, where warrior culture and tribal life are central. The second episode moves to Japan and the age of samurai and ninjas, a period where war ethics, swordsmanship and codes of honor play a defining role. The third episode reaches the era of World War II and brings the audience with a young American pilot who is facing the Nazi forces.

“Bad Lands” hasn’t sold enough at the box office yet for the studio to decide to continue it, but if that happens, they’re in a good position and can easily make a few sequels to this movie; Especially considering the final dialogues of the film, which we will not spoil. Whatever it is, Badlands’ unique time period allowed it to be a fun action movie and showcase a fresh side to the Marauder and Alien franchises. Now the only question is what will be the next part and how much it will bring these two famous franchises together.

Source: collider