Every single alien movie premise refuted

[Guest Vitamin X]

Oddly enough, I got this off an NFL.com column, and the guy goes on a long-winded rant that had nothing to do with football, but that I liked because I agreed with it.

 

Martians: Even Dumber Than Humans Aliens, computers, clones -- at the movies they're all trying to take over the Earth. Why would they want to? And I don't mean just because of pop music. In the Matrix  movies, sinister computers enslaved humanity, sustaining men and women in elaborate racks tended by medical droids, while an incredibly complicated simulation tricks everyone into thinking they are experiencing normal life, thus preventing revolution. Why did the sinister computers do this? Because, the Matrix movies explained, the computers depend on human body heat as a power source. This makes absolutely no sense. First, body heat isn't a "source" of energy -- body heat originates with food, which requires sunlight as its energy source. If the malevolent computers wanted heat, it would be far easier and cheaper to build nuclear reactors, or even burn the crops grown to feed the captive people who give off the heat.

 

There's not enough room in Hollywood for the both us. 

There's not enough room in Hollywood for the both us.   

In Independence Day, Earth is attacked by aliens who live in space aboard an ultra-gigantic starship, calling no world home, using planets solely for resources. Why do they want to conquer Earth? To seize its resources. Maybe Earth-like planets are rare, but the likelihood is there are thousands, if not millions, of Earth-like worlds in the galaxy. Wouldn't it be far more appealing to mine an uninhabited Earth-like world than to stage an elaborate global military assault -- which, even if successful, will consume resources?

 

Hark back to the television miniseries V, in which aliens land in California and pretend to be friendly in order to buy time to position forces for the conquest on Earth. Their sinister objective: They want our water. Water is among the most common substances in the cosmos! The immense Oort Cloud of comets that surrounds the solar system has an estimated 40 times the mass of Earth, and most of that mass is water. Super-advanced aliens could simply pull their starcruisers up to the Oort Cloud and take all the water they could carry without having to stage an elaborate invasion and overcome armed resistance. Meanwhile, we don't yet know why outer space beings are trying to take over the Earth in Threshold and Invasion, the new network aliens attack series. All we are sure of so far is that aliens are obviously attacking, yet government is doing nothing. Maybe FEMA is in charge of alien response, too.

 

Now to Steven Spielberg's The War of the Worlds. We're told that thousands of years ago, super-advanced aliens buried hundreds of attack tripods across the Earth to be activated during an invasion. But if the bad aliens were here with overwhelming force thousands of years ago, why didn't they just seize the Earth then, when there was no resistance? Meanwhile, humanity has engaged in centuries of excavation for sewers, tunnels and subways, yet no one has ever stumbled across even one of the alien machines. Plus, since the tripods are buried under cities how, thousands of years ago, did the aliens know where the cities were going to be built? Anyway, it turns out the sinister aliens want to drain human blood for use as fertilizer for some hideous plant-thing that will turn our world into a planet like theirs. But if the goal was to turn our world into a planet like theirs when they came here thousands of years ago, why didn't they just deploy the hideous plant-thing then?

 

My main death-ray blast against The War of the Worlds movie is that it represents another case of Hollywood buying the name of a famous work, then producing dreg with only passing resemblance to the famous work. H.G. Wells' 1898 book presented a complex struggle between humanity and its attackers; Spielberg's version presents human beings as appalling fools who practically deserve to be wiped out, while reveling in scenes of slaughter of the helpless and destruction of U.S. cities. Somehow Spielberg manages to glamorize violence, dumb down great literature, be misanthropic and be anti-American all at once -- quite a feat even by Hollywood standards. Wells' book was written at the peak of the imperial era, when European powers were seizing African and Asian lands under the pretext that industrial superiority gave Europe a right to conquer. Wells wrote a parable to ask: If superiority justifies conquest, why shouldn't another world conquer ours? In the book, the Martians believe their technical superiority entitles them to seize whatever they want and kill whomever stands in the way -- exactly what European imperialists believed. Wells' 1898 War of the Worlds was an indictment of the notion that might makes right, and played a role in turning European public opinion against imperialism. The Spielberg movie is just explosions and screaming, every last trace of intellectual merit squeezed out -- quite a feat even by Hollywood standards.

 

Death ray update: MIT students recently used cheap mirrors to prove it is possible, at least, the Archimedes built a solar-powered death ray that set Roman warships aflame 2,200 years ago.

 

Not sure if it belonged here or in GC, but since it mostly talked about movies, thought it had its place here.

[nl5xsk1 0]

^ From this week's TMQ article. I read him pretty much every week ... it's always a good read, once you learn to skim through the less interesting rants. This week's was good (as in the alien article that you posted) but sometimes it's just a long-winded rant about something like molecular biology or something ... and it's just too painful to really read.

 

But I agree, I dug his poking major holes in all of the alien/sci fi flicks.

[C Dubya 04 0]

Yeah, I read TMQB too. He's the guy that got taken off of ESPN.com for saying somekind of rant against Disney.

 

The War of the Worlds rant is particularly good and true. But I don't blame Spielberg. People want to see things get blown up in movies nowadays, so he gave the people what they want.

[nl5xsk1 0]

Yeah, I read TMQB too.  He's the guy that got taken off of ESPN.com for saying somekind of rant against Disney.

 

The War of the Worlds rant is particularly good and true.  But I don't blame Spielberg.  People want to see things get blown up in movies nowadays, so he gave the people what they want.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I think he said something that was deemed to be anti-Semitic, and that's what got him canned, more than just an anti-Disney comment.

 

And while I agree that Spielberg was just giving the fans what they wanted ... he shouldn't have called it War of the Worlds if it's not going to be a remake of the actual flick.

[dubq 0]

But I agree, I dug his poking major holes in all of the alien/sci fi flicks.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Feh, those are hardly 'major' holes. The whole point of sci-fi is imagination. Things don't HAVE to make sense..

 

 

 

Also, I see he had nothing to say about the first three Alien movies ...he would've received a crucifixion from me if he had.

[The Metal Maniac 0]

If you're gonna poke holes in the Matrix movies, it begins and ends with this:

 

Humans BLOCKED OUT the sun. The lack of sunlight would have killed every single plant on earth, which would have lead to the death of everything, as there wouldn't be any plants to convert CO2 into oxygen.

 

Besides, they didn't feed the humans crops; they fed them ground-up remains of other humans, and they say this in the first movie.

 

Also, it's arguable that one of the reasons aliens attack Earth is not just to get our resources, but to wipe us out so that we'll never start travelling to other planets for resources, becoming direct competition for aliens. Like, maybe they figure that we're close enough to interstellar travel to be a threat, so they'll kill us before we can get off the planet.

[Guest JMA]

I'd be interested in knowing what the most scientifically accurate sci-fi movie or television show ever created would be. Any theories?

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

Aye, vivi. I notice he didn't try to fuck with Dan O'Bannon's baby (the Alien franchise). Why? Well...because it's not all that impossible. There are organisms that are parasitic, live inside of you, and then leave when they're fully developed...so why not an entire race of things that grow inside you, kill you when they leave your body, and then try to continue their race much like insects do?

 

Yeah, fuck you. Don't fuck with the dwellers of LV-426!!

[2GOLD 0]

Why doesn't someone just make an alien film where the aliens DON'T lose by the stupidest of things?

 

War of the Worlds- been here for thousands of years, studying and waiting. Yet not ONE of the aliens thought of taking a water and air sample to make sure it was safe for them to drink and exist without helmets?

 

Signs- Water again...only this time, it BURNS them. Again, not one of the super smart aliens thought of a basic water sample to see if it would KILL them? Just because you tell me you are super smart doesn't mean I'm going to buy it with results like these.

 

ID4- Apple compatible software. Some Apple software shit isn't compatible with Apple computers! So their technology is light years ahead of us, they can make super shields, giant death beams but their software and computer technology is on par with ours?

[Ted the Poster 0]

Well maybe they didn't do a lot of graphic designing, and thus had no use for Apple technology...

[chirs3 0]

I don't recall the Matrix movies actually saying the machines were using human body heat. Using humans as batteries, yes, but nothing about body heat.

 

Independence Day - if there are thousands of Earth-like worlds out there that they could have gone to to suck up resources, couldn't we assume that many of those planets have life, and the aliens would have to invade anyway? Maybe they saw humans were the least advanced species. Plus, we have no idea how advanced their interstellar travel technology is - we know they can build big damn ships, but we don't know how fast they can go. There might not be another Earth-like planet for a long ways away. We might be the closest, and so, worth the effort. Especially if they were on a tight schedule. Didn't the alien (through Pullman) say they used up all their own resources, and needed ours to survive? If we're right next door to them and they don't have much time to work with, of course they're coming for us.

 

EDIT: Nope, guess they didn't say that. Just read the quote on IMDB. They're like locusts, suck up resources and move on, blah. Nothing about survival. So there goes that theory.

 

War of the Worlds - Why didn't they deploy the blood sucking thing way back then? Because there weren't a lot of people way back then. If this thing sucks out human blood for sustenance, it makes sense that they'd wait until the planet was overflowing with humans.

Edited November 6, 2005 by chirs3

[LaParkaYourCar 0]

Yeah the article started off with a huge mistake so I found it hard to get into. Like was said above in The Matrix they never said the machines used "body heat" for energy.

[Guest JMA]

Yeah the article started off with a huge mistake so I found it hard to get into.  Like was said above in The Matrix they never said the machines used "body heat" for energy.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It did mention "body heat." I'm watching it right now. But it also mentioned more than just body heat, though.

[Ravenbomb 0]

Why doesn't someone just make an alien film where the aliens DON'T lose by the stupidest of things?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Dark City

[Guest JMA]

Why doesn't someone just make an alien film where the aliens DON'T lose by the stupidest of things?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Dark City

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That did have a great ending.

[dubq 0]

Aye, vivi. I notice he didn't try to fuck with Dan O'Bannon's baby (the Alien franchise). Why? Well...because it's not all that impossible. There are organisms that are parasitic, live inside of you, and then leave when they're fully developed...so why not an entire race of things that grow inside you, kill you when they leave your body, and then try to continue their race much like insects do?

 

Yeah, fuck you. Don't fuck with the dwellers of LV-426!!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

[Golgo 13 0]

I always reasoned that it was hubris in some of these alien flicks as to why they get killed by our own water, atmosphere, bacteria, or whatever. Not necessarily creator oversight, the aliens just never feel the need to check due to their own prideful arrogance. It's stupid, but it's also nature and history that these conquerers get so full of themselves that it leads to their downfall. In which case it's not so much about the ending as much as it is the lesson.

 

Then again, though I've never seen War of the Worlds, I really doubt Spielberg was going for something like that, as it seemed like nothing more than big, dumb action with a high pricetag.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

I have no problem with stupid aliens getting killed by our atmosphere. But aliens like the ones in War of the Worlds that clearly know a lot about Earth's biology should know better. And if they are highly alergic to bacteria, shouldn't they have been killed off when they got the machines here in the first place? Mars Attacks makes more sense than that movie.