Dan Trachtenberg Talks Developing A Predator Language & Predator Effects in Predator: Badlands

Prior to the official announcement of Predator: Killer of Killers, film journalists had been invited to a preview event to view the trailer and interview writer/director Dan Trachtenberg. Naturally, they also took the opportunity to ask Dan about the upcoming live action Predator: Badlands at the same event, and he spilled some beans about what we can expect (as reported by ComicBook.com)!

The earliest official details about Predator: Badlands was that the film would feature a Predator as one of the protagonists of the story. This presented a problem for Dan Trachtenberg and the production in regard to developing the Predator culture further and how they communicate.

“That’s one of the cool things of the movie, is that, outside of very brief glimpses in other films, we’re on Yautja Prime, what is known as Yautja Prime mainly from extended universe stuff. There’s a lot in this movie that is more from the extended universe than is from things that are properly in the movie. I should mention the language. We, insanely, decided to really treat that properly and worked with, we reached out to the guy who does the Na’vi language [in Avatar], who was very occupied, and recommended his mentee. We did it the way that, for The Lord of the Rings, you would do Elvish, for Game of Thrones, you do Dothraki. Except for those, there’s more precedent, for us, there’s very little. As we discovered, with him being a language expert, all the stuff, and frankly, actually working with [Predator special effects artist] Alec Gillis, all the stuff that you’ve seen in other Predator movies is complete garbage. There’s no sense of it. People from the Internet have tried to make sense of it, but none of it was made with intention.

So we decided to make it with intention and we completely developed the language, so everything they’re speaking has actual rules and structure and all that stuff. And written as well as verbal. Very early on, we just did explorations, concept art explorations of what Yautja could be. I wanted to be very careful in making this, that I not fall into a trap that is making something that is more lore-focused than story-focused. I think, lots of times, when people do more in a franchise, there’s a tendency to really go whole hog into the Senate trading committees and whatever. I thought we should just have a little sliver of that, but not let the movie be like, there could be some expectation when people hear the premise that the movie is going to be all about the inner workings of the Yautja culture and that’s not — we wanted to still make it feel genre, feel very specific. Really, what it is, it’s an inversion of the premise of now the Predator is on a planet. He’s going to be hunted by things and has to use his guile to figure out stuff. While we were writing, we were doing concept art and things like that to figure out the world-building of it all.”

Dan Trachtenberg also went on to discuss our upcoming Predator hero, who goes by the name Dek, confirming that the man inside StudioGillis’ suit wasn’t a return performer, but a new performer – Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi.

“Let me tell you, this guy, Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi is the actor’s name. We had a very specific casting for Dek. We thought we would want a stunt guy and this was a real opportunity, because all the other Predators need to be like seven-foot-six. It’s very specific people that aren’t often trained stuntmen,” Trachtenberg pointed out. “They happen to be that size and they decide to get into this business. [Prey star] Dane [DiLiegro] did want to be in the business, but he also was an ex-basketball player, he was the one who played the feral in Prey. Here, it was the first time I was like, ‘Oh, we can get a proper stunt guy to be the guy who can move in the ways…’ And at one of our castings, we had a number of stunt guys and then this dude Dimitrius came up and the way he moved just had a great swashbuckle to it. He just was so cool. We set up a little physical obstacle course. That’s how we cast him. Then he did some dramatic stuff from the movie and it was awesome. I was not at all prepared for what he actually does, it’s so … I could not believe, how did we luck into this guy? It’s crazy that we found him. Then he gave so much to the movie and learned the language and, I mean, that language is, not everyone can do it. I can’t do it. I can’t even pretend. You have to make a whatever [click sound] in the back, and he can just do it. He would learn it that morning, if we changed lines or whatever, and it was incredible.”

Though Predator: Badlands does continue the tradition of featuring a performer inside a Predator suit, it steps away from that convention like Prey did with the Predator’s face being a digital effect. Speaking at the event, Dan Trachtenberg confirmed that Wētā Workshop was taking over the duties of bringing Dek’s face to life in Predator: Badlands.

“We did a very new thing with the creature. The thing that’s been special about Predator is that it’s had practical suit effects. It’s one of the first big pioneers of that art. All the movies have featured that craft. The problem is that … when we did some early tests for this movie, we realized the obvious thing, is that it’s typically a horror character. It pops out of the shadows for a few seconds and we see glimpses and it’s cloaked for so often. This movie, you really wanted people to connect with Dek. Unfortunately, the rotors that go inside the mask that is usually adorned for the Predator not only affects all the physicality of the creature, so it makes people move a certain way, but also it just does not have the articulation to bring people in and connect to a creature. We were trying to do this thing of, we want you to bond with a horrific-looking creature. The methodology was a guy in a suit, and you’re seeing suit, the whole thing, other than his face. The face is all digital, largely handled by Wētā Workshop.

The thing I should have mentioned, that I think is very cool about how we’re treating the faces — the CG is so that, we expressed this in Prey, where we had some [scenes] we would augment a lot,” the director clarified. “There was a lot of handover between the practical and digital, like in his hands and picking up things and things you would never notice. Some things, unfortunately, were a little bit noticeable. A lot of that, it was when we went to a face occasionally and it became a creature face. The cool of what we’re doing … where it’s digital, it’s meant to match the suit. So it’s not matching creature flesh, it’s matching his suit, which has a look to it, which Wētā makes amazingly, and should feel like an alien creature, but it’s still a little different than like when you see a full CG Gollum or any alien creature in any cool Alien. It’s that flesh is different than suit, and so the face perfectly blends in and is matching that suit quality. So, hopefully, it looks like real material.”

The writer/director also went on to discuss how Predator performer Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi was involved in the facial performances of Dek as well.

“It’s why there’s some of those dots there, he’s totally driving the animation. But then also, and this is important to say, is that it’s very much also shared with animators that are … if something in the look didn’t quite hit what we needed to … we’re really in this process where we’re discovering how to animate this face. It’s very different than Gollum or [Planet of the Apes] that are a one-to-one translation to a human face. They’ve got these mandibles, and we just discovered the other day, whenever Dimitrius blinks, we might not want to see the Predator blink. That might just be an eyebrow movement, and we tried that. Like, ‘Oh yeah, that feels more like that emotion.’ And how to make his smiles and snarls and whatever work with the mandibles, they’re different than the mouth inside. It’s all been very tricky and we’re, thankfully, really finding our way through it.”

Thanks to RoguePred1987 and skhellter for the news. Keep your browsers locked on Alien vs. Predator Galaxy for the latest Predator: Badlands news! You can follow us on Facebook, X, Instagram and YouTube to get the latest on your social media walls. You can also join in with fellow Alien and Predator fans on our forums.