15. Prawns
Ah yes, these guys. You know, when I first heard about District 9 I thought "Apartheid with aliens? That's a stupid idea!" but very quickly I was convinced otherwise and a large reason why was because of the aliens, insensitively called Prawns by the Human characters. They're big nasty bugs with face tentacles, making them look like a certain Great Old One.
Plus they subvert the all-too-common trope of all-powerful alien invaders. Yes they have superior technology, yes they have a giant spaceship looming over South Africa and of course they have irresistible weapons, but they're powerless here on Earth for reasons I can't remember being explored and I think that's wonderful.
Plus, any movie that can make me tear up when the aliens die is a good movie.
14. Tholians
Ah yes, Star Trek. As I'm told, when I was a tiny baby in the 90's I would run towards the T.V. every time I heard the opening to The Next Generation and I would occasionally take my uncle's model of the U.S.S. Voyager and run around the house with it. Yes, I was an adorable child.
Recently, I've been watching episodes of the Original Series. My favorites being The Doomsday Machine and The Trouble With Tribbles. But another episode stands out to me for it's creatures: The Tholian Web.
The unfortunate part is that the Tholians themselves only appear onscreen for a couple seconds and they don't actually leave that much impact. Yeah, they have a cool voice and they look like they're made of crystals but that's all you see of them.
Flash forward a few weeks when reruns of Enterprise are on. I was intrigued as it was a Mirror Universe episode which are, with no exception, always good. Too my surprise it had Tholians in it and it was a sequel to the only other episode with them in it.
13. Buggers
Idontknow is always recommending terrible things to me, like browser-games and books, one day in particular he told me to read something called Ender's Game. And he kept telling me. And kept telling me. Eventually, out of politeness I finally bought the book.
I read it all in about three days. There's plenty of things to like about it, foremost is that the author predicted the invention of the Internet long before computers were commonplace. But even better then that are the resident aliens: The Buggers. Now, no description is really given for what the Buggers look like except that they're insect-like so I just assume they're typical bloopity-bloop aliens, which is fine with me. Also, as far as I know, they're the earliest instance of a hive-mind species. You'll notice later on in this list that I like hive-minds.
12. Body-Snatchers
I love a good 50's Sci-Fi movie and Invasion of the Body-Snatchers is one of the seminal works of that era. Like hive-minds, the concept of a creature assimilating or replacing a person is just plain appealing to me. So of course, the Body Snatchers are on this list. Sadly, I haven't gotten to see the 50's version yet, only the new one from 2007 version and the one with Lenard Nimoy and Jeff Goldbloom which I think is the superior version simply for having those two in the same movie.
Even better is that they were a pretty obvious metaphor for Communism. But they're better than just your garden variety Communism, they're sentient vegetables that will kill and replace you.
Just look at him.
11. Anything from Darwin IV
Back in the 90's there was a guy named Wayne Barlowe who one day he asked himself "Am I a bad enough dude to design an entire extra-terrestrial ecosystem?". Turns out he was and Expedition was published. This is the story of three artificially-intelligent probes which are sent to the planet Darwin IV to investigate the strange creatures living there.
Like the Groveback...
...Bladderhorn...
and this weird looking thing, the Daggerwrist.
I haven't found a copy of this book yet but I want one so badly. If you happen to see a copy at a garage sale of used book-store I seriously recommend getting it for the pictures alone. Especially considering that none of them have eyes and they're all bioluminecent. Is Spock bioluminescent? NO.
Well that's all for now, but there will be more hideous space-things have more tomorrow!
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1 comment:
I really dont like aliens and monsters. I feel them like artificial and there is nothing real in them. So, if you are an alien lover, this post is belongs to you.
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