Top 10 Misunderstood Movie Aliens, Part I
So say a spaceship suddenly starts hovering over your house, looms ominously over the White House, or just lands and these guys with antennae and blue skin start pouring out. How should you react? Should you try to communicate? Ignore them? Just mow them all down with an AK-47?
Whichever approach you take, you'd better not be wrong. You don't want to kill an innocent being, but neither do you want to leave yourself open for being disintegrated, captured and enslaved, or become an intergalactic guinea pig for the rest of your days.
But imagine you were the aliens. Do you want someone blasting at you? Take the "prawns" from the upcoming "District 9." Refugees, and we hoard them into internment camps and treat them like second-class citizens rather than revered guests.
Here are a few of the more misunderstood extraterrestrials from the movies.
10. Little Tiffany, "Men in Black"
Okay, so technically she may not be an alien. Heck, she might not even be a real character. But she's a cautionary tale for MiB agents to always know their surroundings. During a field training simulation, only Will Smith's J recognized that all of the snarling, slimy creatures the other recruits were mercilessly blasting were innocent, while the little girl and her quantum physics books stood there looking all innocent, while she was undoubtedly planning to "start some shit." So what did J do? Put one between her eyes. Was he right? Well, did they ask anyone else to wear the last suit they'll ever wear?
9. Klaatu, "The Day the Earth Stood Still"
He lands on earth with his giant robot of destruction, warning all of humanity that they'll be destroyed if they don't change their ways. Hmm...sounds like a conqueror to me. Plus he exhibits all the signs of megalomania: deulsions of grandeur, belief that he's an alien, owns his own "space ship," and has an excessive fondness for young boys. You sure you want to listen to this guy?
8. Kidnapper aliens, "Fire in the Sky"
These guys are definitely misunderstood, since we really know nothing about them, save that they snatch up random loggers out in the woods and take them to their ship, where they poke, prod and probe them like they're frogs in a 7th grade science class, then dump them back home with sore sphincters and mental scars like you wouldn't believe. Best guess: they're just scientists, collecting specimens and information to take back home, where their alien children will read about them in textbooks and watch unrealistic shows about them on television. They're probably not conquerors, since they didn't kill anyone and didn't vaporize any American landmarks. So basically, we've all been terrified all this time of the extraterrestrial equivalent of Star Trek geeks.
7. Bugs, "Starship Troopers"
So we invade their space and their home planet, kill them indiscriminately, abduct and do horrid, cruel experiments on them, and broadcast anti-bug propaganda over our television, then we get in a snit when they send an asteroid to our planet? Here's a rule to live by: don't blame the lion for eating you if you jump in his cage with pork chops in your pockets.
6. Jar Jar Binks, "Star Wars" prequels
Jar Jar gets a bad rap. The poor guy is cast from his homeland because he's too clumsy and stupid, and we all expect the guy to not be a caricature and become some kind of hero. Instead makes Qui Gon's life more difficult and is ultimately a lynchpin in the Empire taking over the Republic. You can't really expect him to do more than live up to his potential, which he did: he became a Senator.