For director Dan Trachtenberg, “Prey” was only the beginning in time-jumping the “Predator” franchise back to the Comanche Nation 300 years ago. With “Predator: Killer of Killers,” Trachtenberg not only embraces animation for the first time but also expands the time-jumping motif in an anthology film that spans Scandinavia in 841, feudal Japan in 1609, and the Battle of the Atlantic in 1942.
This means Predators fighting Vikings, samurai, and ninja, and World War II fighter pilots. The surviving humans then compete gladiator-style on the Predator planet, eventually going up against the titular “Killer of Killers” Yautja.
“It was really a pleasure to experiment and find crazy notions and ideas, and then let them literally just be that way,” Trachtenberg told IndieWire. “ It was pure indulgence. And, of course, marrying that with stories that are really emotional and intense, and characters that are facing conflicts before the Predator even shows up.”
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In “The Shield,” Viking warrior Ursa (Lindsay LaVanchy) leads her clan on an expedition to avenge the death of her father and faces off against the Predator Brute, equipped with a sonic charge from a wrist gauntlet. In “The Shield,” two warring brothers, samurai Kenji and exiled ninja Kiyoshi (Louis Ozawa), take on the Predator Assassin, who wields, among other things, a spear that transforms. And in “The Bullet,” aspiring pilot Torres (Rick Gonzalez) goes up against Pilot Predator and his high-tech spaceship in a dog fight.
Trachtenberg, who made “Killer of Killers” simultaneously with the upcoming live-action “Predator: Badlands” (November 7), was eager to explore all three underdog stories in a painterly CG style of animation similar to Netflix’s Emmy-winning “Arcane.” Joining him as co-director was Josh Wassung, co-founder of acclaimed visualization studio The Third Floor, which has a long association with Marvel. Wassung has worked with Trachtenberg on many of his projects as well, and convinced him after some tests that his company was prepared to tackle an animated feature for the first time.
”The test results were very cool and they all had something to prove, which ignited things, and I’m thrilled that people are responding to the animation because a lot of people worked really hard,” Trachtenberg said. “What’s rewarding is that the animation medium allows for a lot of experimentation because it is so art forward that something can be both beautiful and brutal, which is an aesthetic that I’m always fascinated by and prefer to engage in.”
This allowed more daring creature design, fight choreography, camera movement, and lighting.
“We have to figure out how to get a guy in his suit and it changes a little bit, and then we can only film it for it to hold up in live action,” added Trachtenberg. “So the designs really become stylized and move in ways we always hoped they could move. And all of that was something that we could only make in this kind of movie.”
Of all the creature designs, the Predator Brute proved the most challenging. “ Where do they go? How do they fit? How can we best use them? And when that leapt to the forefront of, ‘Oh, my gosh, that’s definitely the Viking era Predator,’ we realized it was now going earlier even than ‘Prey’ was. It tasked us with figuring out it’s gotta have tech, but it has to still feel pre from what ‘Prey’ had,” the director said.
Trachtenberg was also proud of the “Back Biter” creature featured on the Predator planet. “ I think that was Josh’s idea to put the mouth on the back of the head,” he said. “It became my favorite idea of the whole thing. What a cool design. I would love to do more movies with just that creature.”
But linking the three stories to generational conflicts set in different periods is what most animated Trachtenberg. “ There’s a line in ‘Magnolia’ that says, ‘You may be done with the past, but the past ain’t done with you.’ And that is a theme that I think is the most important one for us to examine, period,” he said.
”And so whenever there’s a chance to tell a story about generations dealing with things, characters trying to break cycles, and underdogs, that is what I find most compelling. So this movie really has all of those things.”
“Predator: Killer of Killers” is now streaming on Hulu.
