May 21, 2012

Alien Encounters: The Super-Nice and the Ultra-Scary

by Kyle Rupprecht | Published June 9, 2011

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MALEVOLENT ALIENS

War of the Worlds (1953)
directed by Byron Haskin
Based on H.G.Wells’ classic novel, the original War of the Worlds was made during the height of the Cold War and can be seen as a parable of America’s 1950s paranoia. The movie revolves around alien invaders from Mars, who plan to exterminate Earth’s population. The movie was the prototype for many sci-fi B-movies centered around malevolent creatures from outer space. Unlike Klaatu in The Day The Earth Stood Still (released two years prior), the War of the Worlds aliens are unsympathetic, faceless beings who coolly and dispassionately attempt to annihilate mankind. The movie was remade into a Tom Cruise mega-budget blockbuster (with considerably more elaborate special effects) by Spielberg in 2005. Although the remake’s budget and star-power was much bigger, the original remains the more successful adaptation of Wells’ work.

Invasion of Body Snatchers (1956)
directed by Don Siegel
In this terrifying sci-fi classic, based upon Jack Finney’s novel, a small-town doctor (Kevin McCarthy) learns that everyone around him is being replaced by creepy, emotionless alien duplicates who plan to take over the world. What makes the premise so frightening is that anyone, even close family members, might be a malevolent alien. Perhaps in part due to this chilling notion, Finney’s timeless work has been remade three times, most successfully in the ultra-creepy 1978 version with Donald Sutherland and Jeff Goldblum, and least effectively in the 2007 bomb The Invasion, starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig.

Independence Day (1996)
directed by Roland Emmerich
Obviously inspired by War of the Worlds and the flying saucer movies of the 1950s, Roland Emmerich’s big-budget alien invasion epic brings together a large cast of characters, including Bill Pullman as the U.S. President, Will Smith as a cocky fighter pilot and Jeff Goldblum as a computer whiz. This band of heroes must battle super-intelligent yet nefarious aliens, housed in a gigantic spacecraft, who plan to invade and destroy the Earth. Like most malevolent alien movies, there is no attempt to dimensionalize or understand the villainous creatures of Independence Day (although admittedly the moviemakers don’t make much of an attempt to flesh out the human characters either). With its flashy special effects and nifty alien designs, the movie was a huge summer blockbuster and proof that, as long as malevolent aliens make a ton of dough at the box office, we’ll be seeing them on screens much more regularly than the friendly ones.