With that said, you can imagine that I'll be a little disappointed when I watch a movie with aliens who are, oh, not quite up to par.
Okay, maybe disappointed isn't a strong enough word. Violently hateful is probably a better description.
Yes, for every silicon-based sentient microbe colony there's a dozen cat-like aliens. Science-fiction is inundated with xenobiological trash. Some of these inferior excuses for extraterrestrials are so bad that I can't help but lie awake at night imagining their poorly thought out planets exterminated in righteous plasma. So, with no further delay, let's take a look at the pathetic world of...
The Worst Aliens. Ever.
10. The New Paradigm Daleks
I will never forgive Steve Moffat for these abominations. Ever.
9. The Aliens (War of the Worlds 2005)
There are plenty of things not to like about the 2005 version of The War of the Worlds, not the least of which is Dakota Fanning's horrible, ungodly screaming. In fact, when compared to the main characters, the aliens seem downright pleasant
But as it turns out, the characters are bad and the aliens are also bad and this movie is just bad.
First of all, take a look at that picture, that's not a terrifying invader; that's a mutant frog with a triceratops head. It's little eyes and tiny teeth don't make it scary, just oddly cute and nonthreatening. Plus, it doesn't look particularly alien. Weird by Earth standards maybe, but that's it. It's not scary, just slightly weird. Certainly a far cry from the hideous octopus-like blood-drinking brains from the book.
Does that mean this whole movie was a waste? Not necessarily, the Tripods were very cool...and that's about it.
Also, take a look at this. This is the alien from Independence Day (Which was awful for completely different reasons.). You'll notice that they both look exactly the same.
8. Robin Williams
Robin Williams is not funny. He's tedious and obnoxious to such an extreme he's received actual death-threats. So how bad can Mork be when a man so annoying as to insight feelings of murder calls the character a bad idea?
Bad. Very bad.
7. Everything from Star Wars
I've come to hate Star Wars over the years. Slowly, day by day, my memories of it sour more and more. No doubt some day I'll just straight up start burning their merchandise on my front lawn.
The aliens from Star Wars are a very special kind of lazy. They all follow the same formula: oddly colored human body + weird head. And that's it. Go ahead, rewatch those movies, you'll find that the majority of aliens, with the exception of Jabba are all people with weird heads.
Of course, we mustn't forget that behind these half-baked costumes are painfully one-dimensional comic reliefs.
6. Klaatu from the Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)
First of all, I have nothing against Keanu Reeves, the man's a Highlander after all. That doesn't change the fact that The Day the Earth Stood Still was a stupid movie with a stupid premise.
In this picture, Neo plays Klaatu, an alien sent to Earth to tell the Human race that if they don't start driving electric cars and using solar power they will be exterminated to save the Earth from our evil greedy ways.
First of all, you can't have your protagonist threaten omnicide and expect the audience to sympathize with them. Also, if these aliens are so advanced that they can quickly exterminate the most wide-spread species on this planet wouldn't it be easier to give us the technology to make a cleaner energy source? It wouldn't be that hard, they wouldn't even need to kill anyone.
Aliens like these really frustrate me. We're supposed to think they're our moral superiors and we need to feel ashamed for being Human. Meanwhile they're killing countless people on-screen as they lecture us for being violent and primitive. I won't stand for it, no amount of giant glowing marbles will convince me otherwise. These aliens are hate-mongering eco-terrorists that rival the Daleks for sheer brutality. But while the Daleks are gleefully evil, these snobs try to pass themselves off as the good guys.
That will not do.
With that said, Gort was still cool and the original movie actually did make sense. I encourage you all to see it. Also, Ted Logan isn't to blame for this mess, just Green Peace.
5. The Kzinti
This is probably the only creature on this list I feel guilty for resenting. The Kzinti aren't bad characters per se, they've got lots of interesting quirks. Their society is interesting and Ringworld was much improved by their presence. They're like Klingons, they're a credible threat but when the time comes to really show things just got serious, they're the first ones to get the beat-down. TVTropes would call this the Worf Effect.
The only problem is they're cat-like aliens.
I hate cat-like aliens because no matter what planet they come from, they're just cats. I know this seems like a weirdly specific thing to get fussy about, but surprisingly there's a ton of cat-like aliens floating around.
Why did everyone suddenly decide beings from another world must look like Mr. Whiskers? Because people are feeble-minded. Rather then really work their brain imagining something bizarre their primitive brains fall back to cute little kitties.
Now that I think about it, I don't have a problem with the Kzinti at all, I think they're great. It's all the other alien cats that I hate.
And furries.
4. Those Idiots from Signs
I don't need to tell you what an incredibly stupid movie Signs was. Plenty of other websites have pointed out in excruciating detail just how completely nonsensical this tripe was...but I'll tell you anyway.
First of all, the big twist in this movie is that the aliens are allergic to water.
Let that sink in for a moment.
Okay, ignoring the fact that Earth's surface is over 70% water why would you invade a planet with hostile natives that you have no defense against except poison spray? Keep that in mind, poison spray from your hand versus, well, anything us Earthlings have.
Secondly, why are these aliens naked when they invade a planet? What's the point of that? Humans wear clothes and we spend all our time on this planet.
So, in review, what we have here are creatures who think it's a good idea to invade a planet they're allergic to while wearing no protection whatsoever and their plan to subdue the natives (with nuclear weapons) is to spray their asthmatic children with poison. And while we're at it, why did they invade Earth in the first place? What was it that they wanted!?
And I'm supposed to believe that they were smart enough to invent space travel?
3. The Protoss
The Protoss of Starcraft are a race of mouthless telepathic warriors and they are relentlessly dull. They inhabit a weird niche in sci-fi: they're a race of alien religious zealot warriors with a predominately blue color scheme. Like cat-aliens, this is a bizarre cliche which has nonetheless endured, especially in video games.
All their units in the game use blue energy stuff to attack with, whether it be blue energy swords, or globs of blue energy stuff in their ships. They're sufficiently advanced aliens and nothing else, there's nothing else to their personality as a species.
I get it, the point is that they're supposed to be cool. But that's the problem, the Protoss aren't cool, they're just bland. Plus, they're the basis for an extremely boring stereotype all aliens in video games seem to follow.
Speaking of which...
2. Everything from Halo Ever
If there was ever a franchise that embodies everything wrong with science-fiction, video games, and fourteen year old boys in general this would be that franchise. Halo is a dull-minded mess of boring level design, flat characters, stupid plot and horrendous aliens.
First of all, the so-called Covenant, the primary antagonists, are obviously a stand-in for radical Islam. The first game came out in 2001 after all. They're everything wrong with the Protoss multiplied a thousand fold, playing the "scary religious fundamentalism" to it's furthest, justifying their war against Humanity as the will of their prophets or whoever. The same thing we've seen a thousand times thanks to them. But the problem isn't just the alien's boring lack of identity, it's that visually, they're a check list of sci-fi stereotypes. You have standard bugs, large gorillas, dudes with weird faces a la Predator and alien birds, among others.
Of course, one can always find exceptions, even in this mess. Apparently, in the later games there's large jellyfish-like beings that the player can occasionally find, from what I've read of them those sound pretty cool.
But everything else sucks.
1. Space Smurfs
This.
This is what is wrong with the 21st Century.
My family is baffled that I don't like Avatar. At first glance it does sound like the kind of thing I'd enjoy: a well thought-out ecosystem, the whole movie taking place on another planet, a very well designed and realistic space ship at the beginning. It all seemed to be going so well for the first five minutes.
But then came the ridiculous blue cat-people.
Everything about this movie from it's misanthropic environmentalist message to the long-winded first act to the impossibly stupid alien design is wrong. It embodies a paradigm shift that started in 2000 that has been rotting the brains of every man woman and child on this planet to make us believe we're inferior to simple-minded animals.
First of all, ignoring the society of these imbeciles for a moment, their biology makes no sense. The planet in the movie clearly has a diverse ecosystem with creatures that don't look like they would come from Earth, so why is the local sentient species blue Humanoids? And don't tell me it's convergent evolution because that's not good enough. These are the personification of the appeal to nature fallacy and the juvenile belief that the movie-watching public cannot sympathize with a character that doesn't look like them.
The overblown environmental "message" is so stupidly obvious, the aliens literally "connect" to nature using their hair braids, all the while looking like they just walked off the set of Dances With Wolves.
It's the same balderdash The Day the Earth Stood Still tried to pull, demonizing the same creatures watching the movie and presenting a farcical alternative. I place the blame for the blossoming misanthropy of this generation solely on movies like this. It's fiction like this that makes teenagers turn to vampires and blue-skinned cat people for emotional support. It's grooming an entire generation to believe it's influence on this planet is nothing but negative.
People are not perfect, of course, but I'd rather be living among puny Earthlings if it means I'm not surrounded by self-righteous overgrown smurfs.
I will never forgive Steve Moffat for these abominations. Ever.
9. The Aliens (War of the Worlds 2005)
There are plenty of things not to like about the 2005 version of The War of the Worlds, not the least of which is Dakota Fanning's horrible, ungodly screaming. In fact, when compared to the main characters, the aliens seem downright pleasant
But as it turns out, the characters are bad and the aliens are also bad and this movie is just bad.
First of all, take a look at that picture, that's not a terrifying invader; that's a mutant frog with a triceratops head. It's little eyes and tiny teeth don't make it scary, just oddly cute and nonthreatening. Plus, it doesn't look particularly alien. Weird by Earth standards maybe, but that's it. It's not scary, just slightly weird. Certainly a far cry from the hideous octopus-like blood-drinking brains from the book.
Does that mean this whole movie was a waste? Not necessarily, the Tripods were very cool...and that's about it.
Also, take a look at this. This is the alien from Independence Day (Which was awful for completely different reasons.). You'll notice that they both look exactly the same.
8. Robin Williams
Robin Williams is not funny. He's tedious and obnoxious to such an extreme he's received actual death-threats. So how bad can Mork be when a man so annoying as to insight feelings of murder calls the character a bad idea?
Bad. Very bad.
7. Everything from Star Wars
I've come to hate Star Wars over the years. Slowly, day by day, my memories of it sour more and more. No doubt some day I'll just straight up start burning their merchandise on my front lawn.
The aliens from Star Wars are a very special kind of lazy. They all follow the same formula: oddly colored human body + weird head. And that's it. Go ahead, rewatch those movies, you'll find that the majority of aliens, with the exception of Jabba are all people with weird heads.
Of course, we mustn't forget that behind these half-baked costumes are painfully one-dimensional comic reliefs.
6. Klaatu from the Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)
First of all, I have nothing against Keanu Reeves, the man's a Highlander after all. That doesn't change the fact that The Day the Earth Stood Still was a stupid movie with a stupid premise.
In this picture, Neo plays Klaatu, an alien sent to Earth to tell the Human race that if they don't start driving electric cars and using solar power they will be exterminated to save the Earth from our evil greedy ways.
First of all, you can't have your protagonist threaten omnicide and expect the audience to sympathize with them. Also, if these aliens are so advanced that they can quickly exterminate the most wide-spread species on this planet wouldn't it be easier to give us the technology to make a cleaner energy source? It wouldn't be that hard, they wouldn't even need to kill anyone.
Aliens like these really frustrate me. We're supposed to think they're our moral superiors and we need to feel ashamed for being Human. Meanwhile they're killing countless people on-screen as they lecture us for being violent and primitive. I won't stand for it, no amount of giant glowing marbles will convince me otherwise. These aliens are hate-mongering eco-terrorists that rival the Daleks for sheer brutality. But while the Daleks are gleefully evil, these snobs try to pass themselves off as the good guys.
That will not do.
With that said, Gort was still cool and the original movie actually did make sense. I encourage you all to see it. Also, Ted Logan isn't to blame for this mess, just Green Peace.
5. The Kzinti
This is probably the only creature on this list I feel guilty for resenting. The Kzinti aren't bad characters per se, they've got lots of interesting quirks. Their society is interesting and Ringworld was much improved by their presence. They're like Klingons, they're a credible threat but when the time comes to really show things just got serious, they're the first ones to get the beat-down. TVTropes would call this the Worf Effect.
The only problem is they're cat-like aliens.
I hate cat-like aliens because no matter what planet they come from, they're just cats. I know this seems like a weirdly specific thing to get fussy about, but surprisingly there's a ton of cat-like aliens floating around.
Why did everyone suddenly decide beings from another world must look like Mr. Whiskers? Because people are feeble-minded. Rather then really work their brain imagining something bizarre their primitive brains fall back to cute little kitties.
Now that I think about it, I don't have a problem with the Kzinti at all, I think they're great. It's all the other alien cats that I hate.
And furries.
4. Those Idiots from Signs
I don't need to tell you what an incredibly stupid movie Signs was. Plenty of other websites have pointed out in excruciating detail just how completely nonsensical this tripe was...but I'll tell you anyway.
First of all, the big twist in this movie is that the aliens are allergic to water.
Let that sink in for a moment.
Okay, ignoring the fact that Earth's surface is over 70% water why would you invade a planet with hostile natives that you have no defense against except poison spray? Keep that in mind, poison spray from your hand versus, well, anything us Earthlings have.
Secondly, why are these aliens naked when they invade a planet? What's the point of that? Humans wear clothes and we spend all our time on this planet.
So, in review, what we have here are creatures who think it's a good idea to invade a planet they're allergic to while wearing no protection whatsoever and their plan to subdue the natives (with nuclear weapons) is to spray their asthmatic children with poison. And while we're at it, why did they invade Earth in the first place? What was it that they wanted!?
And I'm supposed to believe that they were smart enough to invent space travel?
3. The Protoss
The Protoss of Starcraft are a race of mouthless telepathic warriors and they are relentlessly dull. They inhabit a weird niche in sci-fi: they're a race of alien religious zealot warriors with a predominately blue color scheme. Like cat-aliens, this is a bizarre cliche which has nonetheless endured, especially in video games.
All their units in the game use blue energy stuff to attack with, whether it be blue energy swords, or globs of blue energy stuff in their ships. They're sufficiently advanced aliens and nothing else, there's nothing else to their personality as a species.
I get it, the point is that they're supposed to be cool. But that's the problem, the Protoss aren't cool, they're just bland. Plus, they're the basis for an extremely boring stereotype all aliens in video games seem to follow.
Speaking of which...
2. Everything from Halo Ever
If there was ever a franchise that embodies everything wrong with science-fiction, video games, and fourteen year old boys in general this would be that franchise. Halo is a dull-minded mess of boring level design, flat characters, stupid plot and horrendous aliens.
First of all, the so-called Covenant, the primary antagonists, are obviously a stand-in for radical Islam. The first game came out in 2001 after all. They're everything wrong with the Protoss multiplied a thousand fold, playing the "scary religious fundamentalism" to it's furthest, justifying their war against Humanity as the will of their prophets or whoever. The same thing we've seen a thousand times thanks to them. But the problem isn't just the alien's boring lack of identity, it's that visually, they're a check list of sci-fi stereotypes. You have standard bugs, large gorillas, dudes with weird faces a la Predator and alien birds, among others.
Of course, one can always find exceptions, even in this mess. Apparently, in the later games there's large jellyfish-like beings that the player can occasionally find, from what I've read of them those sound pretty cool.
But everything else sucks.
1. Space Smurfs
This.
This is what is wrong with the 21st Century.
My family is baffled that I don't like Avatar. At first glance it does sound like the kind of thing I'd enjoy: a well thought-out ecosystem, the whole movie taking place on another planet, a very well designed and realistic space ship at the beginning. It all seemed to be going so well for the first five minutes.
But then came the ridiculous blue cat-people.
Everything about this movie from it's misanthropic environmentalist message to the long-winded first act to the impossibly stupid alien design is wrong. It embodies a paradigm shift that started in 2000 that has been rotting the brains of every man woman and child on this planet to make us believe we're inferior to simple-minded animals.
First of all, ignoring the society of these imbeciles for a moment, their biology makes no sense. The planet in the movie clearly has a diverse ecosystem with creatures that don't look like they would come from Earth, so why is the local sentient species blue Humanoids? And don't tell me it's convergent evolution because that's not good enough. These are the personification of the appeal to nature fallacy and the juvenile belief that the movie-watching public cannot sympathize with a character that doesn't look like them.
The overblown environmental "message" is so stupidly obvious, the aliens literally "connect" to nature using their hair braids, all the while looking like they just walked off the set of Dances With Wolves.
It's the same balderdash The Day the Earth Stood Still tried to pull, demonizing the same creatures watching the movie and presenting a farcical alternative. I place the blame for the blossoming misanthropy of this generation solely on movies like this. It's fiction like this that makes teenagers turn to vampires and blue-skinned cat people for emotional support. It's grooming an entire generation to believe it's influence on this planet is nothing but negative.
People are not perfect, of course, but I'd rather be living among puny Earthlings if it means I'm not surrounded by self-righteous overgrown smurfs.
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