Alien Life – How Science Fiction Failed Us

May 24, 2010 - By Phineas Delgado

As I look over the last few episodes of “How Science Fiction Failed Us”, I am drawn to a single conclusion; one I must admit that I was avoiding. We need to talk about aliens again. I know that the lovely Jacinta Baca wrote a guest piece on her feelings about humanoid aliens, and I don’t want to diminish her work on the topic. However, if we’re going to be exploring the cosmos, we’re bound to run into some of the other inhabitants at some point. So without further ado, let’s explore Alien Life together.

Now, as has been previously brought to our attention, much of the reason we see human-like or humanoid aliens in Science Fiction (movies and TV) is because of the limitations in effects, and to make them easier to relate to, especially as a protagonist. One way to separate them as aliens was to take the most normal looking ones, like Mork from Ork (Mork & Mindy, one of my top ten best shows ever), and give them utterly bizarre traits or behaviors. In Mork’s case, Orkans aged in reverse and had a culture that focused an unhealthy amount of attention on eggs. Prior to that, human-like aliens were just made to have robotic monotone voices, or halting Tonto-esque speech; understandable considering the limits of the 1950’s.

The 1960’s however, brought us the writings of Asimov, Clark and Sagan; REAL Science Fiction with REAL possibilities. From this environment, we are given the Utopic world of Star Trek. In that universe, most of the intelligent life in the galaxy was (presumably) seeded there by an ancient race of humanoid aliens, explaining the similarity in physiology of the major races in the franchise. Later on, one of the earliest of these races to develop space travel, the Preservers, visited Earth and took specimens to deposit on earth-like worlds around the Galaxy (explaining how so many of the borg look human even though they came from the Delta Quandrant, and why so many of the “aliens” in Star Trek were altogether human-looking, like the Betazoid. The original Star Trek also gave us a look at what truly alien life may be like. The Horta was an intelligent silicon-based, non-humanoid life form. The Tholians were a space faring race that exists in such extremes as to be incompatible with most other life in the galaxy.

The only catch to the Star Trek method was that with new aliens appearing all the time, they didn’t have the time to create different languages for all of them. The plot device for this was called the Universal Translator, which by the time of Star Trek: the Next Generation was built into the Com Badges and Communications systems. Over time, the Klingons and Vulcans were shown speaking their own languages, and an episode of ST:TNG had the captain and crew dealing with a race who spoke in allegory and metaphor, so that the Translator couldn’t decipher the meaning. With everyone speaking the same language, it made story telling easier, but threw realism out the window.

In the 70’s, George Lucas opened his brain to us and we were treated to the Mos Eisley Cantina scene in Star Wars: A New Hope. After meeting the Jawas a short time earlier, it became clear what while many, if not most of the Star Wars aliens were humanoid, there wasn’t a handy-dandy Universal Translator telling everyone what was being said. Commonly spoken throughout the movie franchises were Huttese (which is the language you hear on Tattooine), Shryiiwook (the language of Chewbacca and other Wookiees) and the beeping and booping droid language. In Attack of the Clones, we even got to hear some of the buzzing and clicking speech of the insect-like Geonosians (who were still frustratingly humanoid, despite there not being a need for them to be). One step forward, one step back. What frustrated me most about Star Wars is that despite the different languages used, there was no language barrier. Even Chewbacca’s growls, howls and barks were perfectly understood by those around him. Garindan (I get extra geek points for knowing the name of the elephant nosed spy in Mos Eisley) spoke in squeeks (SQUEEKS for pity’s sake!) and the Stormtroopers didn’t seem to bat an eye (well… I’m assuming that since you can’t really SEE their eyes). And what about when Princess Leia was disguised as the bounty hunter Boushh? She said something like “yahto, yahto” and 3PO came back with a translation of “because I’m (he’s) holding a thermal detonator!” WHAT?! That’s worse than kung-fu movie dubbing.

Moving on, rounding into the 80’s we were given some spectacular alien fodder in the form of the unnamed alien species in Alien and it’s sequels (yes I know Alien came out in 1979, but let’s face it, 1979 WANTS to be part of the 80’s… because the 70’s kinda sucked) and the also unnamed alien species in Predator and its sequel. So awesome were these silent stalkers that they had them face off two decades later in Aliens vs. Predator. There was no mistaking the alien nature of both these beasts, but still they possessed humanoid features. Yes, even though the Alien had a second tiny mouth inside its normal mouth and bled acid, it still had two arms, two legs, one head and a symmetrical body. The Predator was even MORE humanoid, neon green blood and four sided mouth aside.

Conversely, also in the 80’s we had the shining example of the AGAIN unnamed alien in E.T.: the Extra-Terrestrial. I had E.T. toys coming out my ears. The lovable little guy with the glowing body parts and expandable neck was too cute to ignore. And while E.T. was still humanoid, he was abnormal looking, and there was an obvious language barrier, which there should have been. It took nearly half the movie (and an undisclosed, yet obvious telepathic connection… oh come on, you remember the scene where E.T. gets drunk and Elliot frees the frogs) for him to communicate effectively, and by the end, he could speak in broken sentences, telling Gertie to “Be good” and Elliot that “I’ll be right here” in his raspy broken voice. Another token to the realism of this depiction is the illness E.T. suffers while stranded on Earth, giving an allusion to the danger of our own dreams to travel to distant planets teaming with life. What sort of illnesses might we discover in space?

In the 90’s we were treated to visions of insectoid aliens taking over the universe (Starship Troopers), and the idea that we’ve been living with aliens among us all along (Men in Black). As the technology has improved, we started seeing more unusual aliens, and for the first time, we were presented with NON—humanoid aliens. The Arachnids in Troopers were completely foreign, being more arthropoid than anything else. The bugs were basically mindless, so there was little reason for trying to communicate. Despite the cheesiness of the presentation and the horrifyingly bad sequels, this is probably one of the most accurate renditions of the possibilities of alien life. MiB wasn’t far off, though most of their aliens were still humanoid. The antagonist was a giant roach, though he spent most of the movie in an “Earl suit”.

Recently, we had what I consider to be a somewhat realistic interpretation of what would happen if aliens landed here with no way to leave (District 9 otherwise known as the bastard child of Alien Nation and Red Lobster). I liked the use of an arthropoid species because that’s what the dominant style of life on earth is (sorry arrogant humans, insects alone have us outnumbered a thousand to one). Yet again, though, the species was humanoid, which made me ask (out loud) “why?” With all the technology and evidence to the contrary, why not make them utterly non-human?

Because we can’t relate to anything that doesn’t look like us, that’s why. Why is Jesus depicted as a Western European when we know he was Semitic Middle Eastern? Because Jesus had to look like one of “us”. It’s the same issue. If the “Prawns” had really been more, well, shrimpy looking, we wouldn’t have been so shocked and appalled at their treatment. We cared about them because they were (at least moderately) like us. I don’t think this is negotiable, but I expect Science Fiction to work on this. Common theory currently holds that life on other worlds is likely NOTHING at all like life on earth. In fact, there is a guide about what to do if you are the first human to make contact with aliens. You should read up. I doubt they’ll speak Klingon.