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Movie Extraterrestrials
Topic Started: Aug 20 2008, 05:45 PM (1,897 Views)
Ànraich
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It's been bothering me lately at the way extraterrestrials are portrayed in movies. Take for instance Independence Day. The aliens were defeated when a man using a MacBook hacked into their mothership's computer.

First of all, a MacBook? Really? And secondly, if it has the power to navigate the aliens across star systems, the alien computer would have power like we could never imagine; given they had one.

The next movie is Signs. I don't think I even need to say anything more, but I will for the sake of discussion. If an alien race was advanced enough to travel across the stars, why would they invade Earth? First of all, they melt when they come in contact with water, the same substance that covers over 70% of the planet. That's like a group of intelligent slugs invading a salt mine; it's just a poor decision that something intelligent wouldn't make. Secondly, the aliens had no armor (like tanks and artillery), no firearms, no aircraft, nor any kind of machinery or artificially created items whatsoever. If they can build a spaceship that travels thoughout the stars, surely they can create a weapon of some kind, or at least clothes that protect them. But no, they attack with "poison gas" that is apparently naturally produced in their big arms and released through needles. This gas is also potent enough to mildly aggravate a small child's asthma.

What do you think of movies like that? The only movie I have ever seen portray intelligent aliens in a fairly realistic way was the new War of the Worlds. They had big machines, death rays, teleportation, and most importantly, did not look human or even human inspired. The only problem I found was that they failed to account for the microorganisms on Earth that they had no natural defenses against. That's not exactly something you can just say "oops, sorry I forgot" too.
Edited by Ànraich, Aug 20 2008, 05:46 PM.
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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Carlos
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I honestly think many alien movies make our outer space "friends" look bad. The director of Signs has even been criticised of being better as a director than as a screen writer (his movies suck. Take a look at Village; evil pig furries? What the hell?)
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Hmmm... Maybe the aliens use Windows ME?
Aliens in general aren't portrayed very well. If you look at the anthropomorphic technology... Bleh... (Technology built for primates)
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lamna
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Well the original war of the worlds was inspired by people. Wells was a dirty red so he wrote the Martians to be like imperialists, or at least what he thought them to be like.

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Ànraich
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I could understand a primitive alien race using spears or soemthing similar, a sharp pole is a simple useful tool. But things like giant hammers, swords, rifles, ect. Those are all built specfically around a human. As are computers. I'm sure there are some species out there with brains advanced enough (naturally) that they don't need computers. Perhaps some just never invented them and found a way to do math by hand in an advanced way. I'm also sure there are biological computers out there as well.

We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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In the original War of the Worlds, the throw-away explanation for the Martians failing to account for Earth microbes is that they were so far advanced they had long ago eliminated the threat of disease. Since the invasion was their first desperate push to Earth to save their dying species, and they had only made observations from a distance, they were unaware of Terrestrial microbes. The aliens in the most recent film adaption don't have that excuse, since it seems they've had a presence on Earth in the form of the buried walkers for a while. They should have been able to collect information and develop the appropriate vaccines and medicines to counter our microbes.

Independence Day, as a modernization of War of the Worlds, follows in the theme of the aliens being destroyed by a terrestrial "virus." The ID aliens unfortunately made their computers universally compatible with all forms of operating systems. I'll let that one slide since it kind of makes sense for an alien species that goes around hacking into local telecommunications networks to coordinate their assault. What's unforgivable is that don't appear to any form of virus-protection on their computers. That's just asking for trouble.

The ID aliens don't rank too highly on my list of favorite movie aliens, but in an alternative interpretation, their one of my favorite post-humans. I don't think this has any official backing and might have just been a wild idea invented by one of my friends -- can't remember the exact source on it anymore. The concept goes something like this: After defeating the aliens, humans are able to salvage and reproduce much of their technology. We begin spreading into space, adapting ourselves to live in new environments. Some of us missed Jeff Goldblum's environmentalist message and continue consuming the resources of world after world, until, eventually they are few and far between. Fortunately, we're hyper-intelligent by this point and develop time travel. A group of post-humans goes into the past to colonize worlds we missed the first time around. Eventually we invade a planet that is just beginning to master spaceflight, not recognizing it as Earth. We're defeated by the locals who steal our technology and start the cycle again for the first time. Repeat as necessary.

The Signs aliens are my absolute most hated movie alien. The salt-mine-invading slugs is the perfect analogue for their stupidity. I would never dream of landing on Venus without several feet of protective gear between me and that toxic atmosphere -- so why would these guys come to Earth? Another one of my friends tried to rationalize this by saying that the aliens we see in the movie aren't the masterminds of the invasion. They're a genetically engineered slave-species serving the real alien overlords. This species was designed to make escape an exercise in suicide. The few we see are foolhardy renegades trying to make their way on a planet that is inherently hostile to them.

As for my favorite movie alien, I'll have to think about that one.
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lamna
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My favourite film alien is the Ymir. One of Ray Harryhausens early works he is a creature you can't help but feel pity for.
A peaceful creature ripped from Venus as a egg and brought to a strange planet, where it grows at a accelerated rate. All it want to do is be left alone and eat sulpur, but the US military and the Italian police (Who have flame throwers. What are they for? Crowd control?) want to catch it to find out how it survives the deadly vapours of Venus (Perhaps because it lives on Venus?), which killed all but 1 of the crew of the rocket ship.

Attacked by, dogs, farmers, and the military Ymir escapes from Rome Zoo where he was sedated by a electric current and after defending himself from a elephant tries to escape and ends up cornered at the Colosseum, brought down slowly in a hail of Panzerschreck and Tank fire
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Edited by lamna, Aug 21 2008, 08:36 AM.
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Yautja, ftw.
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Aug 21 2008, 03:40 PM
Yautja, ftw.

yeah, the Yautja are great.

(I heard that they caused the K-T extinction...how long have they been around? Permian times?)


but for sheer biological creativity and mental adaptability...the graboids in the Tremors movies. as long as they are alive, they get smarter.
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Aug 21 2008, 03:50 PM
but for sheer biological creativity and mental adaptability...the graboids in the Tremors movies. as long as they are alive, they get smarter.
But they are prehistoric worms not extraterrestrials? XP
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lamna
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No they are soviet secret weapons.

The whole thing about Tremors is we have no idea what the creatures are.
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Aug 21 2008, 04:13 PM
Rodlox
Aug 21 2008, 03:50 PM
but for sheer biological creativity and mental adaptability...the graboids in the Tremors movies. as long as they are alive, they get smarter.
But they are prehistoric worms not extraterrestrials? XP

they could easily be both. (they're found in Permian and - I think - pre-Cambrian rock...identical to their modern forms)
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Movies like king kong and Ymir are just plain true. People are scared of the unknown and in this day the best way to know something is to shoot at it. I love primape logic.
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lamna
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I enjoyed Planet of the Dinosaurs, but in my mind they were transplanted there by aliens.
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The whole thing about Tremors is we have no idea what the creatures are.


In the second movie they appearently find a fossil that suggests they were on Earth since the Precambrian; therefore, they kinda resemble the worms in Primeval. Still, there's no reason to think they aren't aliens
Lemuria:
http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/5724950/

Terra Alternativa:
http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/forum/460637/

My Patreon:

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