Predator: Badlands might be positioned as the seventh official film in the franchise — or the ninth, if you choose to include the two Alien vs. Predator spinoff entries — but there’s a big problem with this, because Badlands breaks the long-running series’ established continuity.Director Dan Trachtenberg, who also helmed the last two installments, Prey (2022) and Predator: Killer of Killers (2024), returns again to expand on the mythology of the Yautja, the alien warrior species central to the series. It’s easy to see why many fans assume that Badlands is part of the main Predator timeline. But the latest sequel crosses a line no previous mainline film has, by borrowing from Alien — specifically, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, which originated in and has always played a crucial role in the Alien franchise.Credit: 20th Century StudiosRelated: Disney Abandons ‘Star Wars’ for a New Faraway GalaxyThat connection alone disqualifies Badlands from being part of the same canon as Predator (1987) and its sequels, Predator 2 (1990), Predators (2010), and The Predator (2018).While the Alien vs. Predator movies similarly used Weyland Industries to merge the two franchises, those two films were never considered canonical to either franchise, instead existing in a separate crossover continuity — one that Badlands certainly appears to echo.For all its ambition — focusing on a Yautja as the protagonist, borrowing from another sci-fi franchise, and taking place in the future (ironically, to avoid those canonical issues) — Badlands does nothing more than further blur the boundaries between Alien and Predator.Credit: 20th Century StudiosRelated: ‘Predator’ Establishes Shared Universe With ‘Alien’ and ‘Independence Day’But does canon even matter? After all, on its surface, Badlands is a self-contained story — a PG-13 sci-fi adventure about a lone Yautja, Dek, journeying across a hostile planet with a Elle Fanning’s droid Thia for company.On the other hand, it’s the third film from Trachtenberg, who previously teased the return of Naru (played by Amber Midthunder in Prey), Dutch (Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character in the original Predator), and Mike Harrigan (Danny Glover in Predator 2), in Killer of Killers.Credit: 20th Century StudiosClearly, Trachtenberg’s new Predator series acknowledges everything that came before Prey. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the continuity is reciprocated by those earlier films. Simply put, those original entries never acknowledged the Alien franchise as part of their continuity — despite that xenomorph skull popping up in Predator 2, which ultimately led to the Alien v Predator “sub-franchise”: graphic novels, video games, movies.Still, within the context of the 1990 sequel, it was nothing more than a clever wink. Now, Badlands has left fans debating over what’s canon and what isn’t and how both franchises ultimately connect in terms of chronology. The simple answer is that they don’t — but that hasn’t stopped them from pulling their hair out trying to make sense of it all on Reddit.Badlands is in theaters now.Have you seen Predator: Badlands? Let us know your what you think in the comments down below!The post No, ‘Predator: Badlands’ Is NOT Canon — Here’s Why appeared first on Inside the Magic.