Sci-Fi topic - Aliens vs Humans in films (1 Viewer)

[Seth Paxton]

It's not so much a case of "smarter than us" nor who wins.

It's more this attitude of when they come here, they know all about us and our planet, but when we go there we know jack squat. Why aren't they explorers too, just now learning about places they visit, even if they have aggressive intents?

And even in ST when they scan some backwater planet before landing, they still get messed up by the local yokels anyway.

Again, other genres make good use of limited knowledge by the characters. In fact, heirarchy of knowledge is a major device for tension in things like spy thrillers. The bad guy doesn't have to understand things better than the hero to pose a dramatic threat.

Case in point, North by Northwest.

Couldn't it be just as dramatic if the aliens landed on Earth but they really didn't have a clue any more than we would if we landed on their planet.

Where would you guys place E.T. in this spectrum, btw? He came to Earth and seemed rather limited in his knowledge of human life. That's more the kind of aliens I'm talking about. Just because they get here doesn't mean they already know everything or even understand where we are coming from. But if they are here to take over the world then they do, I don't understand that attitude.

 

[Patrick Sun]

The Man Who Fell To Earth

Starman

Battlefield Earth (don't stone me)

V

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (?)

Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind

 

[LennyP]

I still think the best portrayal of aliens in a movie is the original Arrival (the sequel shouldn't exist, it's the worst ever), with Charlie Sheen. They are not portrayed as too much smarter or better or stronger or advanced, just a bit, and mainly different, with a very realistic infiltration and invasion from within. Signs and The Invaders mini-series, and other similar stuff are just sheep next to The Arrival. I hold up everything of similar matter to its standard.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Harlan Ellison loves "The Arrival".

How about "Pitch Black"?

 

[Mike Broadman]

Would you watch a movie where we go into space looking for aliens, only to find some benevolent care bears that run around the woods foraging for food?

Yes, it's called Return of the Jedi.

Aliens can be vastly different than humans, sure, but they are "humanised" for the sake of creating a believable dramatic interplay with the humans. If a movie were to have aliens that were vastly different, like using EM instead of vision or some-such, then most of the movie would involve going into how these aliens function and what they're about- which is fine, but not how mainstream flicks are done. The focus in almost any movie is people- humans.

Seth, I think your idea of aliens always knowing everything about us is exaggerated. Even in Independance Day they didn't know as much, because they didn't care. They were not explorers, they were conquerors.

I don't think it's a stretch to assume that a species that has achieved long-distance space travel is technologically superior in other ways, too. Yes, different cultures develop differently, but space travel like that is so huge that they would have to know a lot about physics, relativity, and how to create and control huge amounts of power. Theoretically, it is possible to have an alien race that can zip around the cosmos with ease without weapons and poor scientific knowledge in other fields, but that would require this whole big explanation that would either be boring or take up valuable movie time away from the humans dealing with the problem.

 

[Julie K]

Why aren't they explorers too, just now learning about places they visit, even if they have aggressive intents?

Wavelength - The aliens are simply tourists who make the mistake of sightseeing near a military base. Fortunately for them they have the interstellar equivalent of AAA.
Morons From Outer Space - The title says it all. (BTW, this is hilarious and everyone needs to see it. Nicely priced at $14.99 in MGM's Midnite Movie series.)
The movies are out there that you seek, but you need to look a bit harder for them.

 

[David Rogers]

Seth's question really touches upon what our culture(s) consider to be compelling and/or interesting storytelling.
While most of Hollywood doesn't deserve the label ,it is a convenient term … and accurate in the occasional instances where they actually do tell a story, rather than just do 90-120mins of fast cuts and explosions/skin scenes like so many films drop back and punt off.
For a story to be compelling, for most folks, conflict is required. Now, conflict doesn't mean physical confrontation, though it often can. Rather, conflict indicates tension and a back and forth over a set of problems. A good story takes protagonist character (often a hero or leader) and presents them with weighty issues and problems that must be resolved to achieve a desired result. As I occasionally do, I'll refer at this point to classic stories such as those drawn from familiar mythologies.
Audiences have generally indicated what types of conflict they prefer and how punishing or difficult the conflict must be to remain engaging and thrilling. These tastes flex over time as the culture lives and breathes, but the essential nature of the need for conflict in a story and a certain level of effort required to resolve it stay somewhat constant.
Superman is one of my *favorite* examples to use in a discussion about storytelling conflict. Sit back and have fun, because I always enjoy this part!
Superman was created to be an 'ultimate' hero. He's got just about every possible heroic quality you could imagine .. and he has them in spades. He's honest and loyal, trustworthy and dependable, dedicated and tireless, fair and even tempered, and has physical attributes that render him literally capable of leaping tall buildings in a single bound. He's super fast, super strong, super sensory, super durable … and he even flies.
What a great hero. What a *heroic* hero! Here's the problem. After you establish the Superman character (which largely means you introduce the audience to him, explain his powers and abilities, and let everyone see a bit of his personality to define his outlook and disposition) … what stories can you tell that are compelling against a hero that is so super capable?
And there lies the problem with Superman … he's *too* good of a hero. Remember, conflict is what makes for great stories. What conflicts can you write for Superman that are compelling, that are dramatic and tense, when the audience is far too aware of how capable the character is? The first few times he stops a bank robbery or catches a mugger it's interesting, even entertaining, but it rapidly becomes a very droll and boring thing to watch our hero AGAIN easily defeat the bad guys. Similar to Superbowls that become blow-outs prior to half-time, Superman is team-of-the-century going up against a high school bench squad.
There are other conflicts that can apply to Superman other than personal peril … but so too there are really only so many ways, and so many times, you can threaten the city/state/country/planet/galaxy with UTTER DESTRUCTION/VAST PLAGUE/COMPLETE TRANSFORMATION/ABSOLUTE KIDNAPPING or anything else of the ilk before it too becomes tired and droll. "Oh look, in the latest Superman story ANOTHER mysterious villain threatens to DESTROY THE WORLD unless Superman KNEELS TO HIS WHIMS!" Cool the first time or two, then not cool. BTDT (Been There Done That) Syndrome crashes down hard.
So they invented Kryptonite. Taken from this link (http://www.supermanhomepage.com/comi...s-history.html), the character was invented and first published as Superman in 1938 in Action Comics #1. On the "Adventures of Superman" Radio Show in 1945 Kryptonite was first mentioned, and it first appeared in the comic in 1949 in Superman #61. Kryptonite was what you call a plot device; the sole purpose for introducing it into the Superman stories was to create more compelling conflict for the character. Notice it took over a decade of Superman stories for them to realise they needed Kryptonite. By creating and applying Kryptonite, storytellers in the Superman universe could place the character in vulnerable situations. In life threatening situations.
Suddenly you could tell Superman stories where his very life was in danger. That opened up new conflicts for the character that had previously been closed off. Where as before the most compelling the conflict could be were threats to the character's conscious (innocents being placed in danger, the drive to do everything possible to defend the entire planet and all innocents within or without), now also could conflict directly threaten Superman with his own death or injury.
Oddly enough, Kryptonite turned out to be prevalent enough for quite a large number of villains to have access to it. One would honestly question why Superman never saw the need to create a lead shielded costume to defend against his one weakness … but of course his weakness was there not for his solving, but for his vulnerability.
Star Trek also offers some interesting illustration on story conflict. The Transporter in Star Trek was initially invented because the original television show didn't have the budget for a shuttle craft set … and they needed a way to explain how their characters got from the ship they were travelling in to the surface of the planets they were visiting. However, as Star Trek fans now have seen, the Transporter becomes a serious impediment to all sorts of otherwise compelling conflicts. A writer sets up a great conflict … then it becomes clear the transporter would easily solve it. Solution? The Transporter stops working. Initially it was things like a lack of power or that it couldn't beam through shields, but later incarnations of the Trek universe applied steadily more threadbare explainations as to why the Transporter AGAIN wasn't working … similar to how often villains in Superman's universe found themselves in possession of Kryptonite just when they needed to fend off the Man of Steel.
Conflict is hard to maintain in an ongoing series, be it written or visual or something else. As your universe builds, you have to find new ways to present basically the same conflicts to retain audience interest. As all genre fans know all too well, very few writers are capable of sustaining interesting conflict over a long period of time, especially once you're into the dozens or hundreds of issues/episodes of your ongoing universe.
Unfortunately for writers, audience expectations and their "droll meters" don't really disconnect from story universe to story universe. Just as 'energy swords' are something that everyone identifies with Star Wars, so too do conflicts and story devices transfer in the minds of audiences. They want to see new and interesting stories, not the same old stuff. It is interesting to note stories of the past two decades or so, especially, have focused on very capable heroic characters with psychological vulnerabilities and weaknesses. Issues of rejection or pain, feelings of disconnect or "they owe me", etc… Spider-man, in particular, illustrates this type of heroic storytelling by giving us a hero that is heroic in aspect and ability in many ways, but who is unable to escape from the same issues and pressures that we all deal with in our own lives (bills, making ends meet, social struggles, being not-cool, etc…)
For space and space travel stories, writers are forced to deal with audience expectations. As most stories are written in the "present day" or "near future", the audience looks around and sees we haven't even traveled to another planet in our own star system. Much less have gone to other systems. With this in mind, when you present a story of alien lifeforms visiting Earth, most of the audience *expects* this to mean the aliens are technologically superior to humans. And quite frankly, it's a tall order to write a plausible explanation for life that could travel interstellar distances and yet be inferior to a planet-bound species barely capable of going to its own moon. Or, at least, one that is so yet also is explainable in an interesting and entertaining manner to the lay-audience-person. Genre fans will sit through involved story explanations that require knowledge of story logic, most 'Joe Six Packs' that are the vast majority of audiences won't and walk out of theaters muttering "that was stupid". Remember, lots of people didn't "get" Matrix, and that story clearly explained its concepts.
Humans are fairly aware of what a technological advantage means just among ourselves; nations that advance and field technology in excess of the capabilities of neighboring nations historically have clear and powerful advantages over said other nations. A study of war clearly bears this out, but a study of non-military technologies does as well (a present day example would be the ease with which communications are conducted in most Industrialized First-World countries as contrasted to the difficulty of the same problem for Third-World nations that lack the extensively deployed telecommunications grids enjoyed by technologically superior countries).
Taking all of this into account, it is not surprising at all to see a pattern of "the golden bb" in stories of Alien Invasions of Earth. The stories have a specifically identified mold they adhere to, and it ultimately results in a happy ending (aliens lose) and usually involves an "aaaaah of coooourse!" moments for characters and audiences when alien vulnerability to germs or sunlight or something of that sort is revealed. It becomes the Achilles Vulnerability through which the story is brought to a successful (happy) conclusion. This solution works in the face of other solutions audiences reject because their expectations dictate the Aliens are superior. Independence Day illustrates this concept rather well; the Aliens attack and achieve great destruction. Humans respond with their military might … and discover it is as nothing before the vastly superior Aliens. This is as the audience expects for the most part. And of course, later in the film, the aliens are discovered to be vulnerable to a computer virus that disables their superior technology … leaving the humans capable of finally defending themselves with success for the requisite happy ending.
Independence Day also illustrates the other side of this Story Sword of Damocles; that the audience will reject the 'clever vulnerability'. In that film's case, the common refrain was that most found it stretching story reality for a human technological computer virus to be capable of inflicting such damage upon the superior technology of the aliens. It probably didn't help the movie was attempting to deliver a somewhat dramatic story, rather than maintaining a certain level of "cheese awareness". To contrast, Mars Attacks! followed this same pattern, including the vulnerability at the end. It also maintained a very humorous tone throughout. The vulnerability was arguably a humorous one; that of the Martians freaking out and dissolving into puddles of goo when subjected to really really bad and really old music of the sort an odd old lady who's not quite right in the head would enjoy.
War of the Worlds did it "first", in wide form. The first time you do something, you're clever. Everyone after you is merely imitating … this is the judgement of audiences for generations now. The age old arms race among storytellers is to think of new ways to package the existing types of conflict
To round out, there's not much "serious" Science Fiction done in the cinema. Very few SF films are anything but AliensAttack stories. Fewer still, are SF stories that depict what many SF novels do … that of humans living and working in space, in the future. If SF films were commonly told from a future standpoint, of a future where humanity has spanned the stars and even perhaps built some sort of (empire/federation/republic/etc…), I think it would be more likely humans-vs-aliens stories would be more resemblant of typical human-vs-human war stories. In those types of stories, the conflict is first the actual battles, and second the struggles of the heroic side vs the 'evil' side to do what must be done to win. The closest to literary humans-vs-aliens stories seen by cinema audiences is Star Wars, and that is not only a story of humans-vs-humans, but is very stylized and cliffhanger driven at that. However, he style and tone of Star Wars are the closest SF has seen to breaking the mold most of the rest of the genre is locked into.
Until Hollywood's storytellers release their unreasonable grip on the "same old SF" stories, we're going to have to deal with these issues as audience members and movie lovers.

 

[Brook K]

I think "V" is an excellent example. The aliens, while technologically superior, are not really smarter, and they exhibit many foibles and "human" behaviors. They clearly don't know everything and while they win early victories, the humans are able to figure out scientific and technologic solutions to defeat them with inferior weapons and science.

Close Encounters is also a good example since it's aliens are apparently interested in friendly relations and learning about us.

Bad Taste could be an example of a good movie where the aliens are dumber than we are (or at least clearly not superior despite being capable of space flight).

And another would be The Last Starfighter, where a human is a better pilot than a whole Federation of alien races. In the end Alex is invited to train a new fleet of alien pilots.

Alien Nation might be an example too where the aliens are not any better or worse than us and there are "dumb" aliens.

 

[Todd H]

We humans are nothing more than squishy bags of animated water.

 

[Julie K]

Bad Taste could be an example of a good movie where the aliens are dumber than we are (or at least clearly not superior despite being capable of space flight).

Ok, I must be suffering from premature senility here. Damn damn damn. How could I have not mentioned that glorious pinnacle of cinematic perfection known as Bad Taste? My brain must be melting down or something...

 

[Jack Briggs]

Time out, for a moment:

Are we having some sort of contest here to see who can crank out the longest-possible post? Take it from me, folks, as I write for a living: There is virtue in brevity and in making every word count. Everybody from advertising copywriters to journalists takes that maxim to heart.

Some of the posts here would be much, much stronger if they were only a third of their present length (or less).

Now, back to the action. ...

 

[Peter M Fitzgerald]

John E said:
--both fit your criteria quite nicely.

 

[Jason Seaver]

What conflicts can you write for Superman that are compelling, that are dramatic and tense, when the audience is far too aware of how capable the character is?

As an aside, this is why John Byrne's recasting of Lex Luthor as a billionaire industrialist, as opposed to a mad scientist, is brilliant (and why I love Lex being President). It gives Superman a villain who is just as powerful as he, but in different areas - social, economic, and political. Luthor is a villain who can't be beaten by just beating him up. Of course, it's also a function of how the medium has evolved - the current Superman/Luthor status quo wouldn't have been workable back in the days of three self-contained stories per issue.

I think the biggest issue is just that TV and movie science fiction is seldom really about aliens - it's about human beings. Most of the time, the "aliens" are just humans, with some character trait exaggerated (see: "Star Trek") or with their appearance changed to create a fantasy setting (see: "Star Wars"). Very seldom are they truly "alien".

 

[David Rogers]

Jack,

Not to be rude, but I've been reading and posting here for about two years, and never have I seen any rules about length. About being polite, about being on topic, things like that I totally agree with and obey.

If there's some kind of word limit, please link me and I'll do my best. Otherwise ... I write until my thoughts are complete. I don't know how else to say it. I should point out my long posts typically get a good response, though.

 

[Jack Briggs]

David--there is no such rule. I'm just offering a comment about the super-long posts. Good writing makes a greater impact when it is concise and to the point--and doesn't ramble. A suggestion, is all. JB

 

[Gabe D]

I think the reason why the Aliens are always smarter or better prepared than the humans is just so the human characters can be the underdogs. People like to root for underdogs.

One example where people weren't really underdogs is Starship Troopers. The result? A box office disappointment that was compared to Nazi propaganda. People are serious about this underdog business...

And, of course, 99 times out of 100 the underdog is going to win. In a book or movie, that is. The underdog often loses in a series, since they can lose a battle but hope remains that they'll win the war (see Wile E. Coyote or Ralph Kramden, for examples).

 

[Will_B]

Four score and seven years ago... wait, wrong speech.

There's also the SciFi Film 101 suggestion that aliens were originally portrayed as being symbols of the USSR. Even though in the 1950s, people reporting contact with aliens were describing really lovely experiences where they were taught about ecology and the beauty of this planet (the whole "Contactee" movement of the 50s) the scifi films at the time were portraying aliens as Russians - powerful enemies that we'd only win against because we're ultimately better than them.

Though that movie with Gort had the message of the Contactees - learn peace or perish.

Though we still have the aliens-as-Russians type films, like Independence Day, in general the "real stories" have influenced the scifi films a lot more. As I see it there's 3 main kinds of alien films now:

- films based on the 1950 "contactee" movement, like Starman, ET, Close Encounters, even that awful tv series with the dude from Northern Exposure, which are more or less putting forth the 1950s "contactee" message of peace and connectedness

- films like ID4 which are us vs Russians

- films like X-Files which are based on the 1960s,70s,80s,and 90s "alien abduction" movement

 

[Ashley Seymour]

Jason said
TV and movie science fiction is seldom really about aliens - it's about human beings. Most of the time, the "aliens" are just humans, with some character trait exaggerated (see: "Star Trek") or with their appearance changed to create a fantasy setting (see: "Star Wars"). Very seldom are they truly "alien".
The best reply in a nutshell.
We enjoy watching conflicts between evenly matched opponents. The NFL calls it parity. How much fun would it be to watch an exhibition game between the World Series champs the Little League World Series Champs? Most truly advanced alien societies could be the even more mismatched vs humans than the baseball example.
Also, Sci-Fi is little more than 120 years old. Aliens are simply scenery for a morality tale. Our level of society today would be all but unimaginable to someone from our country of 200 years ago. The society of 200 years was not greatly technologically advanced over societies 2000 or 4000 years earlier. Where will be be in 200 years. Not twice as advanced technologically as we were 200 years ago, but exponetially advanced. Go out 1000 years and even wild imagination fails. Alien societies could easily be that advanced and more. We would be no of interest to them than a scientist making the study of a unique species of slug in the rain forest.
What could be a different type of plot device? Few if any sci-fi themes have as the primary focus the impact of the discovery of another life form - sentient or no. The Mars pseudo bacteria of a few years ago was too abstract. A true contact with another life form, even without the space battles, etc. would have a profound impact on society.
In the 1830's, a spectacular Leonid meteor show so terrified the people of this country that there was a huge religous revival movement started. A live, walking, talking ET would alter civilization unlike any event in the history of man.
How about a small mechanical probe that is found on Earth? It it studied and found to emit a signal. Not a life form, but the product of a civilization.
Sci-Fi that tries to predict the future does the same thing as the "aliens" as humans with different traits post above. Minority Report purports to show a much advanced technological society 52 years in the future. I was disappointed that all the devices were merely what is available today but with a few refinements.
Far out depictions of the future and really alien "aliens" is too unsettling. Better to stick with images we can identify - a blue and silver shop vac with a chip and it's sidekick, a gold plated manikin with a language chip.

 

[LennyP]

Off Topic
Jesus christ David Rogers! That's one long mother of a post. Who's gona read that.
You gona do a special director's edition cut&paste of that post with 48 added paragraphs?

 

[David Rogers]

I won't bother anymore then I guess.

I personally get tired of reading one line posts ... no content.