Aliens from Hollywood have invaded Earth!!Mar 02 '03 (Updated Mar 04 '03) Write an essay on this topic.
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10 Best Alien Films Wow, what a great topic. Aliens!!! Day to day life on earth is so self absorbed that thinking about the implications of life outside of our cozy little wet and warm world is usually not on the agenda. But, it is a great topic, full of speculation and big ideas. Sometimes thoughts of alien lifeforms can border on the mystic, other times it can set off tremendous fear of the unknown. Hollywood, eager to cash in on human fears, has come up with many tales of alien encounters running the gamut from peaceful friendly beings who want to enlighten us to world destroying monsters. I really enjoy good science fiction and occasionally will indulge in the guilty pleasures of the bad stuff too. It’s all great fun and both the good and bad concepts can stimulate thinking outside the box. It seems like the 1950’s were a particularly fertile period for science fiction, both on paper and on film. So, I’ve broken my list in to two categories with the best of the 50’s first, then the rest of "Alien" filmdom at the end. These are in no way rated according to any preference order. Movie Titles below are linked to Epinions pages of reviews for each. Best of the 50's 1. War of the Worlds. George Pal outdid himself for this gem. Martians ships glide in to the earth's atmosphere like large meteors. Locals investigate and are incinerated. Man's best weapons are useless against the invaders and humanity is on the verge of extinction. The ending is dramatic with redemption for the earth coming in the most unexpected way. 2. Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The original one with Kevin McCarthy is much more menacing and scary than the Donald Sutherland remake. Black and White helps keep the mood somber in this one. Alien plant pods are found all over that are growing into replacements for humans. They take on your identity while you are sleeping and are replacing the human population with hive mind look alikes. The theme here is loss of self . The protagonists battle to stay awake and to keep their identities intact while all around them are replaced and hostile. 3. The Day the Earth Stood Still. This film asks, what would happen if a sophisticated alien civilization were alarmed at mankind’s tendency towards war and destruction and possible contamination of the civilized galaxy with nuclear weapons and violent behavior? Michael Rennie lands his large saucer craft in the middle of Washington DC to announce that earth must stop this behavior. He is a kind but firm diplomat who winds up befriended by Patricia O’Neil’s character but the object of fear by others. All transportation on earth is stopped for one day by the aliens as a demonstration of their power. Great film, low on special effects which makes it even more powerful as a message film. 4. This Island Earth. 1950's electronics engineers ordered replacement parts from a strange mail order catalog. The parts arrive and the scientists are amazed at how well they perform. So they order more stuff including an unknown called an "Interoceter", a kind of video communication device. Once they assemble this strange device, they are congratulated through the machine for having passed a test. They are then recruited by a man named Exeter with a huge bulging forehead and wind up traveling to Metaluna to help save that planet from invasion and destruction by the Metalunan enemies. Much better than it sounds. 5. The 27th Day. This was one of those small black and white films made in 1957 that did not get a wide audience. The premise is a strange visitor from a distant planet comes to earth and brings 5 people on to his ship, a Russian soldier, a Chinese peasant woman, an English "bathing beauty", an American newspaperman, and a German scientist. Each one is given a capsule of incredible destructive capabilities that will expire on the 27th day if not used. Each goes home where their governments get wind of this. This is a cold war film meant to teach about the evils of communism but it's more than that. It's a dramatic exploration of ethics and human motivations. Very dramatic in a gripping way as the expiration date approaches. A little dated but still one of my favorites. I bet you never heard of it. From here on it gets tough to weed out the very best from the merely good. So here goes for the post 50’s crop: 6. 2001, a Space Odyssey. Much has been written about this film. It broke many barriers but many viewers have no idea what they saw, even if they saw it dozens of times. You must read the book to understand what this film is about. It beautifully displays visualizations of scientific concepts and spiritual speculations like no other film before or since. Kubrick touched on a theory that evolution on earth has been guided by some all knowing beings or caretakers at critical points in our distant history. The idea goes there were interventions to force an evolutionary change in the course of our development. Kind of a far fetched idea but it leaves lots of room for interesting developments. Maybe this one shouldn't really be Science Fiction. It's more like religious speculation but oh so good, even today. 7. Contact. Jodie Foster playing in Carl Sagan's story. The story brings to the fore the old idea that any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic. How do you prove something has happened if you have no evidence and your experience is way beyond anything anyone else could imagine as being possible? We don't really meet aliens or do we? Is it real or a dream? 8. 13th Warrior. I can hear the groans from here. No one I know liked this one. NO ONE! Well I guess I'm just weird. I found the dark mystery, the photography, the heroic characterizations of the barbaric Vikings, the horrific depictions of the cave dwellers, I found it all fascinating. It could have happened, couldn't it? So, why is this categorized in with Alien films? This may be a technicality but I think it works. The cave dwelling creatures are explained in the book as being Neanderthals. They are sufficiently different from the more modern humans for me to characterize their encounters as Alien. Maybe a technicality but I think it works. 9. Starship Troopers. Man's worst nightmare. In the future, interstellar warp speed travel is a fact of life for humans. An extremely hostile species of insects are spreading through the galaxy destroying all other forms of life and occasionally hurling city buster asteroids to earth. Buenos Aires is leveled by one. This film derives from an old Heinlein tale but leaves little of the original. But it is still appealing on a gut level. This is not a pleasant future. The government is very militaristic, almost fascist in character. Earth is involved in a life or death struggle for survival against the bugs. The cast is young and way too attractive but I guess that's part of the appeal of this over the top look at a projected bizarre future. Action galore. Enough to make any testosterone soaked brain leap for joy. Explosions, bodies ripped apart, huge bugs on the attack numbering in the millions!!! Everything in this film is done on a big scale. Not for the faint hearted. 10. K-Pax. Mystery man played by Kevin Spacey seems to appear out of nowhere and bewilder everyone. He winds up in the care of Jeff Bridges character, a shrink in NYC and relates that he is from another planet. Circumstantial evidence starts to convince the doctor that he may just be an alien. We as outside observers are never quite sure and the film digs deep in to buried memories and terrible tragic events. A real thoughtful film that will leave you unsure even at the end. This list just does not do justice to this intriguing topic. I'm sure I left out lots of excellent alien theme films. But these are my choices. So, hopefully I've let the reader on to some new ones and listed some of their own favorites too. Note: I did reuse excerpts from some of my own writings from a very old Epinions review about Sci-Films in general. This is not plagiarism since I wrote the original material. Note 2: I added hypertext links on March 3, 2003 for the movie titles. Note 3: many Thanks to eplovejoy for his encouragement to write this review. DC  |
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