Predator: Badlands Director Reveals How The Surprise Stranger Things Cameo Happened — And How They Learned Yautja Overnight
Predator: Badlands sneaks in a Stranger Things connection you won't see coming — a twist that could change the rules of the hunt.
Predator: Badlands does not take the big swing some fans wanted with an Alien crossover. Instead, it sneaks in a different kind of surprise: a voice cameo from the Stranger Things guys. Yes, the Duffer brothers quietly became the ship voice in a Predator movie, and the backstory on how that happened is delightfully nerdy.
The Stranger Things connection you did not see coming
Director Dan Trachtenberg told Variety that they were mixing Badlands on the same stages where Stranger Things was working, with some of the same sound mixers bouncing between both projects. When it came time to create the ship's computer voice for Dek's ride — specifically the Yautja ship voice, as in the Predator language — Trachtenberg took a swing and called up the Duffers.
They were not prepped for it. He handed them a sheet of Predator phonetics that included things like "N, G, I, L, A" counting as a single word, wished them "good luck," and sent them into the deep end of Yautja, which, shocker, is not exactly Duolingo-friendly. The idea was always to mangle the performance into something alien anyway. Trachtenberg says they blended the brothers' takes together and then ran a bunch of extra processing to get the final sound — and it worked.
- Who: Matt and Ross Duffer (Stranger Things creators)
- What: The voice of Dek's ship's computer, aka the Yautja ship voice
- Where/When: Recorded while Badlands and Stranger Things were mixing on the same stages, with overlapping sound teams
- How: A crash course in Yautja phonetics, multiple takes, then heavy treatment and layered processing to make it truly alien
- Why: Trachtenberg figured, why not ask the neighbors?
Hideo Kojima is into it
On top of the cameo fun, Badlands just got a public thumbs-up from Hideo Kojima, who praised the movie's gaming DNA and where it points Hollywood. His take:
"The film also takes heavy visual inspiration from video games. It represents a new direction for Hollywood entertainment led by a new generation of filmmakers who have inherited the global 'memes' of manga, anime, and gaming culture."
That is Kojima on Twitter, and if you know his taste, that is a pretty strong endorsement.
Predator: Badlands is in theaters now.