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movies with aliens.
Aliens the misunderstood things of SF. Why don't movies, or books for that matter show us life in the alien's world, or for that matter more of their story and why they do what they do? We see them painted clearly as "the bad guys" because that's what the story shows us, but we don't ever get much apart from a few throw away lines here and there as to why they are doing what they are doing? Pisses me off so many times in a ton of movies and books....... For instance I do not accept the piss weak explanation for the aliens in ID4..... I think there was a huge society of aliens there and it's just glossed over by saying "they swarm from planet to planet pillaging." but clearly they have ranks, levels and a social order. In the books they said they had scientists, workers, and such... They probably even had civilians.... Anyway end of my rant.... Feb 27 14 04:51 pm Link In "Avatar" the humans were the pillaging and destroying assholes. Feb 27 14 05:16 pm Link watch star wars and star trek. aliens are fully developed characters with realistic motivations in these franchises. also, what about Cocoon? Greatest aliens ever... Feb 27 14 05:21 pm Link Tropic Light wrote: Yes because we wanted the stuff under their soil. And didn't want to ask. Feb 27 14 05:31 pm Link DEP E510 wrote: Actually yeah I liked the aliens in Coocoon, but they freaked me out a bit in the first movie. Feb 27 14 05:33 pm Link AdelaideJohn1967 wrote: You remember details I had forgotten... Feb 27 14 05:49 pm Link Vulcans seem pretty friendly. But yeah, i hate how almost all alien species are portrayed as some monolithic block of peoples, all similar in thinking and intent. I know Sci-Fi uses them as analogies for ideas and themes but some more realistic variations would be nice. Feb 27 14 06:19 pm Link Go watch some Dr. Who. Some real Dr. Who, not this new stuff. Feb 27 14 06:42 pm Link The Spaces Between wrote: You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile. Feb 27 14 06:57 pm Link ET, the aliens were pretty benign. The humans were the threat. Same with Starman. Feb 27 14 07:16 pm Link Close Encounters of the Third Kind Contact Cocoon E.T. K-PAX The Abyss Earth Girls are Easy The Iron Giant The Man Who Fell to Earth My Favorite Martian They're not always bad. Feb 27 14 07:29 pm Link AdelaideJohn1967 wrote: Yes!! Tawny Welch.....Raquel's Daughter......she was so hot in that movie!! Feb 27 14 07:33 pm Link Eros Fine Art Photo wrote: I wanted to go see "The Man Who Fell to Earth" when it came out because David Bowie was in it. I liked that movie. Sad story though. Feb 27 14 07:34 pm Link AdelaideJohn1967 wrote: I think ID4 was trying to return to the 50s-style hostile aliens after a fairly long period of benign or misunderstood ones in the media. Feb 27 14 08:29 pm Link AdelaideJohn1967 wrote: Feb 27 14 08:40 pm Link Enemy Mine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB87kN6UTLg One of my favorite movies ever made. More recent "Paul" Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, granted they blow up the Earth but at least they remake it, so really no harm no foul. Another of my favorite alien movies, technically a horror flick, but still just great movie is "Fire in the sky" Feb 27 14 08:53 pm Link AdelaideJohn1967 wrote: For starters, such a movie rarely, if ever, has time to include a travelogue to the invader's home planet. Does every World War Two movie take out valuable time to show what life was like in 1935 Dusseldorf? Feb 27 14 09:07 pm Link Artifice wrote: "I'm a Doctor, Jim, not a bricklayer!" Feb 27 14 09:16 pm Link Galaxy Quest. Woo-haa! Ah don' care who you are, THAT'S FUNNY! Seems to me, in most alien movies, there are two basic themes: 1. Aliens are homogeneous, monolithic, evilly greedy, and destructive, vs. inept and ignorant humans, often ham-strung by bumbling military- and/or corporate-types (except for the good and tolerant scientist, who inevitably saves the day), and 2. whether they're acting as individuals, or as military or corporate apparatchiks, humans are evilly greedy (except for the scientist, see above) vs. homogeneous, monolithic, but well-intended aliens. It's rare that you see aliens portrayed as discreet individuals, with individual goals, motivations and characters. Often the implication is, "if only we foolish humans would all get together and be nice, believe the same thing, do as we're told, and stop being so _individual_, everything would be fine! Feb 27 14 09:35 pm Link The Man Who Fell To Earth. Enemy Mine Feb 27 14 10:08 pm Link Cherrystone wrote: Ah..... One of my favourite movies, ruined in recent times by "Keanu (block of wood) Reeves" and that awful remake... Feb 28 14 12:27 am Link Greg Holt Photography wrote: I loved all the movies mentioned except "Paul" it just bugged me. Feb 28 14 02:08 am Link AdelaideJohn1967 wrote: We just watched ID4 on Blu Ray the other day (haven't seen it for years), but have to say it's one of the dumbest movies ever, even worse than when I saw it in 1996, but not quite as bad as his utterly shite 2012! Feb 28 14 02:13 am Link Intelligent and thought provoking movies about Aliens... Close Encounters of The Third Kind Contact Starman Fire In The Sky Alien Predator The Thing (1982 version) Sci-Fi movies that could have been so much better... Mission To Mars Red Planet Prometheus Aliens (total dumb shoot em up, but Weaver was superb) The one movie I'm waiting to see remade Forbidden Planet (please don't let it be Emmerich or James Cameron!) Feb 28 14 02:21 am Link Alien Nation. The movie opens three years after an alien slave ship containing 300,000 "Newcomers" crash lands on Earth. The movie touched on themes of racism, assimilation and preserving cultures in the guise of a "buddy cop" film. The central characters were a bigoted human policeman forced to take on an alien partner. The short lived television show, based on the movie, was fairly well done. Feb 28 14 03:27 am Link I think a great deal of sci fi isn't about aliens as such. Many are entertainment and thrills. So they rely on exploiting fears. A human fear such as not being able to reason with an adversary (say Alien or Aliens) can be exploited to such end. Or reflect societal concerns eg fear of communism= Invasion of the Bodysnatchers. Even ET isn't about Aliens as such it's about fear hostility and empathy towards an outsider. So sci fi is about human condition not the alien one generally. Add to that the tendency for Hollywood to simplify things into good guys and bad guys. Star Wars is an uncomplicated western to my mind. As is Avatar. Nothing wrong with that but not really about aliens. A few movies that stand out as exceptions (though even then they ponder alienation, understanding ones enemy, migrant issues etc which are human concerns) as having greater depth are: "Enemy Mine" : a very under rated 1985 German movie but with Lou Gossett and Dennis Quaid , in which two enemy pilots (one an 'ert-man' the other a Drac, are marooned on a planet and have to co-operate. Involves something totally alien an unexpected. "The Man who Fell to Earth" David Bowie as an alien suffering on Earth "District 9" problems of migrant communities, disillusionment and apartheid explored in a truly different sci fi movie So thats three that consider alien perspectives I guess. But one doesn't have to have this to enjoy I don't think. I am a big fan of the three movies inspired by the 1930s short story " Who Goes There?" The original fifties movie of "The Thing" completely deviates from the shape shifting body snatching menace in the story but is nonetheless an exiting chiller. The John Carpenter version is much more closely based on the short story and the ending is cleverly done as the story ending is a little different, but poses the same question. The new version is an intelligent prequel, Norwegian made, and again a gripping movie if you liked the Carpenter version. I don't think we need to know about the alien motivation. The motivations of the organism are explained by Macready throughout : it is just multiplying, spreading, hiding : it is simply surviving. Ultimately stripped of humanity and emotion, this is the purpose if all life. The movie was criticized by Richard Schickel in Time as being " in a near vacuum emotionally, it becomes too domineering dramatically and something of an exercise in abstract art." yet the flip side Jay Scott in The Globe and Mail called it "a hell of an antidote to ET" . The movie is however of cult status among Arctic and Antarctic scientists. Themes of isolation, camaraderie, overawing dramatic minimalism of the icy wastes and how insignificant we are, and the fundamental hostility of nature I would suggest as reasons why. It is watched in the arctic and antarctic at scientific bases including the one I was stationed at. Precisely the reason many don't like the movie is the exact reason we like it. It's bleak; and to be there you have to embrace that. It's just as much about simple survival to us. Incidentally our base plane in Greenland was the same plane type (restored and fuselage lengthened) as the aircraft in the 1950s version. So that movie is also enjoyed. 'Aliens' the movie strips two life forms to the same underlying theme: the Maternal instinct. So is this not powerful as motivation? Is there anything more important ? And sometimes those are in competition and conflict with different species. Sometimes art doesn't have to over complicate themes and characters sometimes it can reduce it to the essential to make statement. We've given human motivations to animals in cinema lets not give the Disney treatment to aliens too much too! Then you have the Predator movies. The alien motivation is that its a tribal hunting society. It's not about conquest but taking on a respected adversary. That I guess frightens some as alien but I think that motivation is well crafted over the series, particiularly the last one. I don't think it needs to be any more than that it's just deals with our fear of being hunted. Just good entertainment. Feb 28 14 04:22 am Link Eliza C new portfolio wrote: This movie is a real gem. I love it to bits. Feb 28 14 05:02 am Link AdelaideJohn1967 wrote: Yes it's a recurrent trope in literature drama and cinema. What is special about this one is the twist with the pregnancy. Yes it's a gem of a movie. Feb 28 14 08:42 am Link If it makes you feel any better, the movies on these alien planets are not unlike ours. Accusing us of wanting to test them, tell them what to do, and/or destroy/rape/pillage their world. Feb 28 14 09:36 am Link Yes, they are generally misunderstood.  Feb 28 14 09:48 am Link Battleground Earth hasn't been mentioned. John Travolta and his fellow aliens are fully realized characters. Not very nice but quite human like. There is a lot of humor in the film. As for Avatar it was way too long and a reflection of 50s and 60s westerns I grew up watching on Saturday morning. Cowboys and Indians with good guy bad guy roles reversed. Feb 28 14 11:36 am Link Stanley L Moore wrote: BE is one of the most hilarious SF movies ever made. I'm just not sure that most of the funny parts were intentional. That flick was one steaming Mount Everest of dog poo. Feb 28 14 11:50 am Link I loved Enemy Mine and the nod to other possibilities of reproduction (although what they offered up wasn't inherently practical). The Thing scared the bejeebers out of me when I was a kid. The Carpenter remake was a really good movie, and I will sing its praises, but I lost my scary-scifi virginity to the original Thing. When that dead dog tumbled out, when that door opened to the Big Carrot - oh, man. I've never met anyone in real life who admits to watching Battleground Earth. And I am part of that population. Feb 28 14 11:10 pm Link London Fog wrote: The absolute coolest thing about this movie is that Jeff had an action figure made of his character! I laugh every time I think about that -- Jeff Goldblum, action figure! Feb 28 14 11:40 pm Link Oh, speaking of bad Sci-fi -- anyone remember "Green Slime"? With such deep dialogue as: "Do you realize what you’re asking?" Ranking shouts. "I realize what I’m asking," replies Thompson. So what if the alien is this case was green slime -- still misunderstood! (jk) And who can forget "The Blob". OK, sorry -- please disregard the hijack. Feb 28 14 11:50 pm Link ImagineAerie wrote: Not me - I didn't even know who Steve McQueen was at the time. I just knew he didn't really look like a teenager. Feb 28 14 11:54 pm Link Justin wrote: Yes the original is really chilling. Mar 01 14 12:46 am Link Justin wrote: I saw it with two friends at a dollar matinee in West Seattle. Huge theater with maybe twelve people in the audience. We almost got kicked out three times for laughing too hard. Mar 01 14 02:55 am Link ImagineAerie wrote: OMG I love this..........And the theme song is so cool.... And hip Mar 01 14 03:19 am Link Eros Fine Art Photo wrote: LOVE that movie. Mar 01 14 08:20 am Link |
