If you’ve seen The Empire Strikes Back, you’ll probably remember Chewbacca carrying C-3PO in pieces on his back during the escape from Cloud City scene. It’s a scene that has gone on to be featured in various merchandise and even the LEGO Star Wars games. Now, it has become the unlikely inspiration behind the central idea of the upcoming Predator: Badlands movie.
In Predator: Badlands, Elle Fanning’s Thia strikes up an alliance with Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi’s young Predator, Dek. We see Thia rebooted after what looks like a fight with some sort of monster. Thia is a Weyland-Yutani synth from the nefarious megacorp from the Alien franchise.
The problem is, Thia has been cut in half, and her torso must be carried by the Yautja on his back as he seeks out what is described as “a creature that can’t be killed” and “the definitive apex predator.” Predator: Badlands’ working title, Backpack, makes a lot more sense now.
It turns out, the Predator carrying a synth idea was directly inspired by Star Wars. In an interview with IGN at San Diego Comic-Con 2025, Predator director Dan Trachtenberg confirmed the link, saying: “That was the initial inspiration for it.”
Star Wars, however, wasn’t the only inspiration. In prior interviews Trachtenberg has mentioned masterpiece Shadow of the Colossus as inspiring Predator: Badlands, but it turns out there are many other games that factored into the film’s companion mechanic, including Half-Life 2, Uncharted, and God of War.
“There’s a few that have influenced me over the years and definitely come together in this,” Trachtenberg explained.
“One would be the combination of Half-Life 2, when you meet the robot dog, it’s like your pet, but you befriend it, and the reboot of Prince of Persia, and Uncharted where it’s like having the companion along with the journey makes it that much more rich and entertaining. And then of course, the 2018 God of War. All of that influenced the nature of Dek and Thia in this movie, along with many other things.”
Predator fans will be keen to see how this plays out when Badlands hits theaters on November 7, but they will also be keen to see how far the clear Alien links go.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
