Dek roaring at the Killer Vines in Predator: BadlandsCourtesy Of Weta FX
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Grant Hermanns
Published 25 minutes ago
Grant Hermanns is a TV News Editor, Interview Host and Reviewer for ScreenRant, having joined the team in early 2021. He got his start in the industry with Moviepilot, followed by working at ComingSoon.net. When not indulging in his love of film/TV, Grant is making his way through his gaming backlog and exploring the world of Dungeons & Dragons with friends.
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Warning: Some SPOILERS lie ahead for Predator: Badlands!After nearly 40 years of leaving audiences terrified of their potential existence, Predator: Badlands delivers the first-ever Yautja protagonist to root for, and the team behind the film put plenty of thought into his creation. Being set on the alien planets of Yautja Prime and Genna, the movie is led by New Zealand actor Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi as Dek, the runt of his tribe and outcast on the verge of execution.
Keen to prove his worth to his Njohrr, his father and the leader of his tribe, and get revenge for his brother Kwei after he sacrifices himself to keep his sibling alive, Predator: Badlands sees Dek setting off on a journey to Genna to track down the purportedly unkillable Kalisk. While on the planet, Dek not only comes to learn new ways of hunting, but also befriends damaged Weyland-Yutani synth Thia, played by Elle Fanning.
Directed by Dan Trachtenberg on a script from Patrick Aison, who he developed the story with, Predator: Badlands has garnered largely positive reviews from critics. One of the more notable elements praised has been the movie's emotional approach to making Dek the franchise's first-ever Yautja protagonist, with some comparing it favorably to that of the T-800's role in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
As the film continues to prove a box office hit, ScreenRant's Grant Hermanns interviewed VFX Supervisor Sheldon Stopsack and Animation Supervisor Karl Rapley from Weta FX to discuss Predator: Badlands. In looking at the movie's depiction of its Yautja protagonist, particularly the use of facial replacement rather than solely going for a prosthetic mask, Rapley began by acknowledging the challenge of "mak[ing] an audience empathize and respond to that creature," recalling one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's iconic quotes from the original film
Karl Rapley: You go back to the '87 Predator, and what they could do with animatronics then. As Arnold said, "You're one ugly mother effer!" How do you make an audience empathize and respond to that creature? The movie was going to live or die on that. It was about trying to create an emotional response with the audience, and make him something you could connect to.
In getting to utilize more CGI than the early Predator movies, Rapley felt that the Weta FX team fell into a unique trap in which "you're trying to give yourself boundaries and give yourself a range." No more important in that is Dek's facial expressions, which Rapley praised Schuster-Koloamatangi for delivering "an amazing performance that we could build around." From there, Rapley and the rest of the animation team worked to find "analogs of human expressions to transfer across" to Dek.
Animatic of Dek investigating his arm in Predator: BadlandsCourtesy Of Weta FX
Describing the process as being both "an interesting journey" and one of "trial and error," Rapley says the team ultimately found "less was more" effective for much of Dek's facial performances. Recalling their conversations with Trachtenberg, the goal they all agreed on was a balance of "trying to find something that would honor the history of the franchise," as well as "push it a little bit further." They also were afraid of straying too far with their Yautja character and "make it cartoony."
Stopsack chimed in to assure there are still "a lot of practical prosthetic effects" put into Dek's creation for Predator: Badlands, with the team having pondered if they could "tap into the original animatronic approach to things" with the movie's CGI. This subsequently led to early tests to figure out how much could be done practically versus with VFX, with it having become "pretty obvious that the demands" of Dek as an emotional character "meant we needed to have the ability to tap into CG":
Sheldon Stopsack: We had to broaden things, to open it up and get into more depth for his emotions and expressiveness. That's really where Karl and his team did their absolute magic translating Dimitrius performance, which was an anchor that was already an incredibly strong foundation for us. But how do you translate something from a human actor's performance into something that is anatomically and inherently not human? You have to find this bridge for interpretation. That was artistically driven, and it's all keyframed effectively.
Rapley further pointed out that one of the trickier elements for the animation team was "having a character without lips" as well as having "mandibles," which led them to determining a way to get the "same consonants" and "same sounds" that an audience can believe in. One scene, in particular, Rapley is proud of for how it conveys the Yautja's emotions is Dek's crash landing on Genna, in which after he's launched from his ejection pod, "it's just him for a long time, reacting and processing."
As he lay there in pain and frustration, Dek "has to go through a full range of emotions," with the Predator: Badlands protagonist experiencing everything from a feeling of "beaten down to 'what the hell's going on?' to processing his brother's death." This all ultimately culminates in his explosion of "full-on anger" being cut short as he begins to realize "the danger of his environment." Rapley recalls the scene being "a big task" for all involved, particularly given it's "a very long take" and required the team "committing to the journey."
Stopsack confessed that he didn't "want to single out one performance" that he and the Weta team worked on for Dek in the film, as he praised there being "so many that I wouldn't really do them justice and be fair." That being said, he did point out the importance of the movie's crash scene as allowing viewers to "start actually seeing a bit of a different personality in Dek" compared to the more "aggressive and ferocious" emotions seen in the movie's opening on Yautja Prime:
Sheldon Stopsack: You see anger and vulnerability, and that range continues from there. It's almost like you're being slowly eased into the broad range that you ultimately get to see from Dek in the movie. It eases the audience into getting used to seeing different emotions from him, and that continues when Dek is looking after his wounds, or when he's playing with the glow-worms, and you all of a sudden see his surprise. The Predator's emotions slowly build up, and it makes the audience more and more comfortable seeing a different side of him. I think it works absolutely brilliantly.
Trachtenberg Frequently Spoke With Weta About His Video Game Inspirations For Predator: Badlands
ScreenRant: This franchise went to streaming briefly for Prey before coming back to the big screen. What was it like getting to be a part of its big screen return?
Karl Rapley: I was a Dan Trachtenberg fan for a while. I had seen 10 Cloverfield Lane and Prey, and I knew he was a kid of the '80s and '90s who was also into video games like me. So, I wanted to get a chance to work with them, and I was like, "Maybe something will come up, and WETA can fit that gap." And it did! This project came along, and I jumped on it. I was like, "Yeah, I want to be part of that." Being an '87 Predator fan as well, it's one of those touchstones for my generation growing up. I loved being part of it, and this one was quite unique in terms of how it flipped the script. Audiences responded to that, which was great. In this movie, we zig when everyone thought we were gonna zag, and it was really gratifying to see the public reaction.
Sheldon Stopsack: Yeah, I came in from a slightly different angle than Karl because I didn't know quite as much about Dan as Karl did. And while I fully admit that I'm a fan of the Predator franchise, I'm really a big fan of the original. I was also a kid of the '80s and '90s, so you really grow up with this idea of the OG Predator movie. There's a big, high bar there. But as I got my head around it, watching Prey in anticipation of getting involved in this one gave me a glimpse of what Dan is capable of and what he's up to. And then, as Karl alluded to, reading the script and understanding that this is actually a very different twist was really exciting to see. That got me excited to segue into our journey.
ScreenRant: As far as the Predator franchise goes, I feel like that power loader fight is the biggest scale fight of any film. How did you make sure it didn't feel too big for what is a rather grounded Predator movie?
Karl Rapley: My first meeting with Dan was talking about exactly that sequence, and his initial pitch was for the film to be quite a bit shorter. I think it was maybe about 90 minutes, so it had to be quite punchy. He talked through the beats, the exchange of blows, and the reversals that needed to happen. And then we went away with a small team here and just hammered out the beats, trying to find the most engaging way to tell the story. We were talking about Jurassic Park, and we were referencing Last of the Mohicans, in terms of fights that are decided by one move, or that are quite short and punchy. That was a touchstone for Dan, these two titans coming together. We were placing the camera low to previs it and trying to show the weight of these two creatures, but also involve Dek and have him scurrying around and doing his thing. Dan didn't want the hero to be outside of the arena, so there was the challenge of trying to fit him in as well. Honestly, it was a lot of fun to put together. We had about five weeks to work on that, and then they went out in the middle of the night to filming it on a farm one hour outside of Auckland. That was crazy. Then we got those plates back, and started post-production, animating and Sheldon making it look beautiful. It was such a cool fight to be part of.
ScreenRant: I was going to ask if there were any video game inspirations, since you threw out your love of video games earlier.
Karl Rapley: Oh, Dan was throwing them out. Even for the ice crystals, he was like, "Do it like the ice in Destiny 2!" I think there were quite a few more, actually.
Sheldon Stopsack: It's no secret that Dan is into the video game sphere as much as he is film. I've heard a number of times how much he's actually broadening the spectrum, not sourcing just from film references and ideas in the cinematic universe, but also stuff from the game universe. That's quite cool and quite refreshing, because you get very different input in a way that offers a twist on all of this stuff.
Karl Rapley: Yeah, it was funny. Dek gets stat-wiped at the start, and gets all his weapons taken away.
ScreenRant: One of my favorite comedic beats is Thia trying to repair herself in the first Kalisk fight and immediately getting separated. I'd love to hear about the visuals of her putting herself back together, and finding the visual language to really sell the comedy and chaos of that moment.
Elle Fanning's Thia looking off to the side looking worried in Predator: Badlands
Sheldon Stopsack: I should point out that the particular shot you're referring to, where Thia stitched herself together, wasn't WETA's doing. It was actually a different vendor. But the whole sequence of Thia and Dek approaching the Kalisk's environment and having the standoff with the Kalisk was our doing. That came to us post-vis at the time; we didn't actually previs that one. Dan had gone and shot these plates with Dimitrius running around and reacting to the Kalisk, and it was our job to sort of make sense of it and place the creature, and it was a process of putting that together with the Kalisk, and trying to stage it in the right way. And then Dan had to go back to re-edit it, trying to find the sequence because it was a bit of a tough one to balance at the start. The comedy is great. Dek's like, "I'm the big, bad guy," and then Kalisk roars back, and you just see Dek flying across the screen. It's shorthand visual comedy, which is really fun and explains a lot without having to overlap the point.
ScreenRant: Did you have any involvement in the fight between Thia's upper body and her legs with the soldiers in that third act?
Sheldon Stopsack: That was certainly our doing, yes. From a work point of view, anything from Dek approaching the Weyland-Yutani campsite on was WETA. And that included the fight between Thia's upper and lower half, which was quite fun. And, as it turns out, it's a bit of an audience favorite. A lot of people really, really respond to it. The principal idea was really to try to capture as much of this as possible in-camera. There was obviously Elle as Thia's upper body, whenever you see her face and performance, but she also had a bunch of stunt doubles. This is where the lower half comes into play. The lower half was effectively acted out as a stunt double, up to the hip, and then the upper top of the costume was sort of blue to cancel out. We push a button, and then it magically disappears. [Laughs] That's not true, but the whole orchestration was meant to be as practical in-camera as possible to get the gags and ideas in. But as you probably guessed, that didn't solely stay true at all times.
Karl Rapley: The guts of the sequence were great. When it came to us, you could already see how it was edited with the flow and the stunts and stuff. Then we got to add to that, which is ideal. Some of the moves were a little extra, like when the pair of legs runs up the synth and does a flip over, and then the other synth takes the head off with the crowbar. We had to go to a mocap stage there. We had a couple of stunt performers, and we rigged up a harness. We had them run up a wall, then we pulled the harness, and they flipped over. We acted all that out here. Then we put that into CG, put on the computer, and added some keyframes to that because of posing and landing and everything. We base it on reality as much as possible, but you always have to add a bit more to try and hit those hero poses and things like that.
Sheldon Stopsack: What you ended up basically seeing on screen was a bit of a mix. There were some shots that ended up being practical, and we just matched moves effectively and camera tracked the bits and pieces to augment the top or lower half of the torso, depending on what you see. And then in other shots, as Karl said, we needed to help it along and spice it up a little bit. We opted for a replacement of the legs, so it was a bit of a mixture of what served the story and the beats best, in terms of the performance and the action you wanted from it.
ScreenRant: When you have a body replacement like that, what is it like on the animation side? How do you make sure the power of a kick or punch in a body replacement is felt as much as it would be from a practical performer?
Karl Rapley: It's not easy all the time, but we're very lucky. We've got a nice resource here, the big mocap stage right next to us. We've got the stunt performers, and we're holding punching bags that they're kicking or punching to try and give the right feeling and impact. You can't trick the audience too much in terms of that physicality, so we have to find something to hone in on. We pride ourselves on being as physically real as possible in a lot, in a lot of ways. But it's always hard because CG always tries to fight weight believability, so you always have to work extra hard to get that in there.
Sheldon Stopsack: Motion capture performance is a benefit when making it grounded, because you get the physicality as you capture it effectively. If anything, it works in your favor in some ways. If you have two stunt actors exchanging blows, you've got to be careful that they don't hurt each other. There's always a little bit of a hesitance, basically, and you may not fully land a kick or a punch. The benefit of doing this at a mocap station is that the post-production process offers a little bit of liberty with different boundaries. You can work with padding, and you can be a lot more physical to really make sure it conveys the right energy. You try to leverage it as best as you can. But we're always super mindful if we have to replace something with CG, to honor the intent. We have to honor the energy.
Be sure to dive into some of our other Predator: Badlands coverage with:
- Our Predator: Badlands Review
- Our guide on how Predator: Badlands connects to the Alien franchise
- Dan Trachtenberg teasing what's next for the Predator franchise after Badlands
- Dan Trachtenberg on how he was inspired by Star Wars' C-3PO and R2-D2 for the film
- Dan Trachtenberg on abandoning a Tarantino-esque Predator movie set in World War II
- Dan Trachtenberg revealing which original Predator character he wants to bring back
- Dan Trachtenberg on the sneaky Stranger Things cameo in Badlands
- Dan Trachtenberg explaining how Badlands breaks the franchise's planet-based trend
- Dan Trachtenberg explaining why there are no human characters in Predator: Badlands
- Elle Fanning and Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi revealing the surprising level of practicality behind the film
- Stopsack & Rapley on how Predator: Badlands' ending fight was nearly very different
- Stopsack & Rapley on the "massive evolutionary process" behind the Kalisk's design changes
Predator: Badlands is now in theaters!
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Predator: Badlands
10 stars 9 stars 8 stars 7 stars 6 stars 5 stars 4 stars 3 stars 2 stars 1 star Like Follow Followed PG-13 Action Science Fiction Adventure Thriller Release Date November 5, 2025 Runtime 107 minutes Director Dan Trachtenberg Writers Dan Trachtenberg, Patrick Aison, John Thomas, Jim Thomas Producers Brent O'Connor, John Davis, Marc Toberoff, Dan Trachtenberg, Ben RosenblattCast
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Elle Fanning
Thia / Tessa
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Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi
Dek / Father
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