How PREDATOR: KILLER OF KILLERS Sets up The Franchise’s Future Tai Gooden | usagoldmines.com

The Predator franchise is continuing in a big way this year with the arrival of two different new films in the series from director Dan Trachtenberg. After revitalizing Predator with 2022’s Prey, Trachtenberg not only has this fall’s Predator: Badlands hitting theaters, but the animated film Predator: Killer of Killers, which is currently on Hulu.

Even as work began on Badlands, Killer of Killers was a secret production. The announcement of this project just came a few months ago. An animated anthology film, Killer of Killers tells three different stories set in three different time periods about Predators hunting the likes of Vikings, ninjas, and World War II pilots. But a movie made in secret turns out to have even more secrets in store inside of it.

Killer of Killers actually concludes with a fourth story not mentioned in the promotional campaign which brings the first three together. In addition, that story ends up providing some huge tie-ins to the franchise’s pastmost notably Preywhich also providing some exciting set up for the franchise’s future. 

To the Victor Goes More Fighting

Each of the three stories in Killer of Killers ends with a single survivor among a larger group who’s finally able to defeat the respective Predator hunting them and their people, including the viking warrior Ursa (voiced by Lindsay LaVanchy) in 841 A.D., the ninja Kenji (Louis Ozawa) in 1629, and US World War II pilot Torres (Rick Gonzalez) in 1941.

But glimpses shown in between each story of these characters seemingly sharing the same space and now wearing strange mechanical collars sets up the big swerve at the end of Torres’ story. After his triumph in his confrontation with a Predator, and now back home in the US at his father’s garage late one night, Torres sees a Predator ship flying above him before the hunters take him into space.

Sometime later, he awakens to find himself in a metal stasis pod where he’d been asleep for an indeterminate time. He then ends up in a cell with none other than Ursa and Kenji. This confirms the Predators have come back for others who have successfully defeated one of their kind before, likewise keeping them in stasis so they don’t age until the Predators decide to awaken them.

Taken to an outdoor arena, a translation device tells the trio to fight to the death, with the winner to face the fierce-looking leader of the Predators. (Well, it’s not clear if he’s the top leader, but he is certainly the one in charge of those we see on this planet.)

Overcoming the urge especially from Ursa to battle one another like the Predators want, the three humans ultimately work together to try and escape. And though the Predator leader cuts Kenji’s arm off as they flee from him, the trio make it onto a ship that Torres figures out how to fly. Then, a large harpoon shot by the Predators stops them midair and keeps them from leaving the planet.

Unable to pull the harpoon out from inside the ship, Ursa leaps back out back to the ground, destroying the weapon that shot the harpoon and cutting the ship loose in the process, even as the Predators surround her. Torres and Kenji then manage to fly off the planet, only for the Predator leader to yell “Let’s go hunting!” in the Yautja language. A whole battalion of ships fly off in pursuit of the two humans who escaped them. 

And so ends Predator: Killer of Killers, as the film’s title appears. EXCEPT

The Return of the War Chief Naru in Predator: Killer of Killers

Predator: Killer of Killers has an additional scene after the film’s title card and it’s a big one. We see that the Predators did not kill Ursa, but they have put her back into stasis. They move the pod she lays in past what we quickly realize are hundreds, if not thousands, of similar pods stored upright, which each appear to have someone inside them. We see the glass covers to these pods from afar, but it’s clear that not all of these chambers have humans in them. Some of them with contain alien beings from other worlds the Yautja have hunted on. 

As they push Ursa’s pod past another row of pods, we stay with the unmoving pod at the front of that row and begin to zoom in on it. We can see a human female behind the glass. And as we get closer and see the war paint on her face, it’s clear who it is. The music from as music Prey underlines that we’re looking at Naru in the Predator: Killer of Killers.

Yes, the awesome hero of Prey, played by Amber Midthunder, is another one of the prisoners on this distant planet. She was no doubt taken from her home because she’d once proven she could defeat one of the hunters. The closing credits of Prey conclude with animated images of three Predator ships returning to Naru’s tribe. And the Killer of Killers ending certainly seems to indicate that, like we saw with Torres, there was no fair fight during her second encounter with this species. Naru was outnumbered, which led to her capture. 

It’s worth noting we actually have no idea what year this final story takes place in. It is sometime after Torres’ abduction from Earth in the 1940s. But is it still the 40s or a bit later? Is it now our present? Or is it our future? Or course, none of that would make much difference to Naru. She’s from the 1700s, so it’s all the future to her. 

Badlands May Give Us the Next Step, but Naru’s Coming Back Regardless

Now that Killer of Killers has turned out to have this big connection to Prey at the end, it obviously makes it all the more notable that Dan Trachtenberg has yet another Predator movie opening in just a few months with Badlands. That movie is very clearly set in our future. However, Killer of Killers has now made it possible for most of these characters to coexist at the same time, depending on when the Predators wake them up. 

Last weekend, I went to an early screening of Killer of Killers held by Beyond Fest and American Cinematheque. At that event, Trachetenberg got a question about the big Naru cameo. He confirmed it was teasing a specific plan he had for a future Predator installment. As he explained, following Prey’s success, while trying to come up with what to do next, “Three cool things came to mind. This one [Killer of Killers], Badlands, and another cool thing” 

It’s now clear that the third “other cool thing” concept involves Naru, with Trachtenberg explaining that, when it came to her silent cameo in Killer of Killers, “Because Badlands is next, we wanted to make sure that people knew that there’s still something in store for that character.” 

When asked if we might see any overt connections to Killer of Killers in Badlands, Trachtenberg stayed coy. He did note because the films were developed concurrently, some of the Predator vehicles and tech are similar. He then added, with a grin, “But in terms of narrative connections, you know, who’s to say?”

Whether it ultimately ties back into Killer of Killers plot wise or not, Trachtenberg said there were definitely surprises in Badlands, in the same way that Killer of Killers ends up teaming all three of its lead characters from across time in a fourth story that wasn’t part of the marketing. As he put it, “Badlands is f**king awesome. It’s like this [Killer of Killers]like you were not expecting to have all the stuff that is in here. Equally, Badlands is not what you expect and it is a full f**king meal just like this.”

The Pistol From Across Time in the Predator Franchise

One other fun curveball Killer of Killers throws at us is the return of a very familiar weapon from the Predator films: the flintlock pistol once owned by Raphael Adolini. 

This centuries-old pistol got its introduction at the end of Predator 2. Danny Glover’s Mike Harrigan received it from a Predator as a seeming sign of respect after he was able to defeat and kill the Predator that was hunting through 1990s Los Angeles. Then, in the 1700s-set Prey, when Naru comes across a group of ill-fated French fur trappers, one of themRaphael Adolini, whose name Harrigan saw inscribed on the side of the pistolgives her the very same pistol to fight the Predator hunting her people. 

Killer of Killers provides this pistol its third onscreen appearance to date in a funny moment when the Predators tell their captives they may use a weapon “of their tribe” to battle one another. Ursa and Kenji are happy with the axe and sword they’re respectively given. However, Torres is bewildered by the antique pistol he’s meant to use. It’s already ancient to him and hardly the kind of gun he’d find most effective. Ultimately, someone knocks the pistol from his hands in the arena. It remains behind on the planet with the Predators when Torres and Kenji flee. 

Prey ended with that pistol still in Naru’s possession in the year 1719. But now we have a pretty good idea how the Predators ended up with it given they took Naru at some point, and she likely had it on her at the time. This also indicates Killer of Killers’ finale likely does take place within the 20th century and no later. Predator 2 takes place in 1997 and, by the end of that film, Harrigan possesses the pistol back on Earth. 

Unless, that is, the pistol eventually changes hands yet again from Harrigan back to the Predators. That sounds wild. But look, if you really want to begin asking questions about how the Predators function, you might ask why Harrigan was simply given that pistol as a sign of respect and allowed to leave by several other Predators at the end of Predator 2, given Killer of Killers shows the Predators instead abducting those who have defeated their kind. Then again, it seems like they tend to do this a good deal later after their hunter loses. So did they only let Harrigan go at that immediate moment and eventually came back for him? Does that mean Danny Glover could come back as Harrigan, even in a movie set far in the future? And hey, do you think the Predators ever came back for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Dutch!? 

Perhaps we’ll get some insight into how this all works in either Predator: Badlands and in whatever Dan Tratchenberg has planned for the follow-up to that film. Regardless, it’s great to know he has plans to eventually bring Amber Midthunder as Naru back into play in a way that she very much deserves. 

Hope you can quickly adjust to the big leap forward in time Naru, because you’ve got plenty more Predators to fight from the looks of things.

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