Predator’s New Future Plan Means The Franchise Is Abandoning Humanity’s Best Battle Tactic

While the most successful attempts to evade the franchise’s villain involve going back to basics, the next Predator movie will abandon this ploy for a new strategy. Ever since 1987’s original Predator, the human heroes of the Predator franchise have struggled to defeat the eponymous enemy of the series. Not only is the Predator super-strong and agile, but the alien species also have advanced invisibility tech, weaponry, and eons of experience as master hunters. Humans have almost no chance against them unless they disregard fancy weaponry and embrace more traditional self-preservation techniques, as proven by two of its heroes.

The lead characters of both the original Predator and 2022’s Prey used this ploy, but the next movies in the Predator franchise will make it harder for the heroes to revisit this approach. Prey director Dan Trachtenberg will return to the director’s chair for a new Predator movie that will reportedly feature another female lead for the franchise. While little else is currently known about this upcoming Predator sequel, the new movie is apparently also set in the future. This makes it much less likely that the heroes will resort to traditional means to win this time around.

Predator Moving Into The Future Means Relying More On Technology

Both Predator’s original hero Dutch and Prey’s heroine Nauru succeeded against their alien attackers by taking a back-to-basics approach. Dutch caked himself with mud to evade the beast’s heat vision, while Naru uses herbs to lower Raphael’s temperature before Prey’s ending then sees defeat the villain with its own tech. However, Predator’s next movie is more likely to focus on advanced human technology since the sequel will be set in the future, which means the series can now move away from this familiar plot device. A future setting also means the series will likely overhaul its usual formula, providing a fresh story.

Prey was a welcome change of pace for the Predator series after both Predator II and 2018’s misguided reboot The Predator sent the villain to urban locations. However, 2010’s Predators failed to fully capitalize on its futuristic setting when the movie didn’t fully ground the movie’s action in a specific period. It wasn’t entirely clear when the movie took place and, until midway through Predators, viewers couldn’t even be sure that the movie was necessarily set in the Predator’s home world. While Prey set up various Predator sequels set in the past, jumping ahead into the future would be a fresh prospect.

Predator’s Future Move Is Good For The Franchise

Bringing the story of the Predator franchise into the future offers viewers a chance to see whether more advanced technology helps or hinders characters in their battle against the eponymous aliens. On the one hand, human technology has consistently failed to defeat the Predators so far. On the other, the franchise’s future could see humans developing more sophisticated strategies that make war with Predators more of a fair fight. The possibilities are endless since the new Predator movie could bring its human characters to any point in the far-flung future, which is something the franchise has scarcely explored until this point.