Top 10 Misunderstood Movie Aliens, Part II
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.
5. Beldar and Prymatt Conehead, "Coneheads"
When Beldar and Prymatt are left stranded on Earth, they try to make the best of it by blending into society, not easy when you have a head shaped like a rocket ship. Still, they manage to pull the wool over everyone's eyes just long enough to realize they really like it here better than their home planet Remulak, which stunk for them, since their people decided they have to come home, leaving them misunderstood on two planets.
4. Prot, "K-Pax"
He could be an alien...or he might just be some wacko mental patient. Just another looney among millions, right? Well, here's the thing: he's so misunderstood, even Starman (Jeff Bridges) himself can't figure out whether he's legit, and as they say, it takes one to know one.
3. Jeriba Shigan, "Enemy Mine"
So you're a hardscrabble space marine fighting a war against the dirty Dracs, and you crash land on a planet where the only other survivor...is a Drac. You have a choice: kill the bastard or try to get along with him so you can both live. Well, as Willis Davidge learns, the enemy isn't always as bad as you might think, and might even be someone worth knowing, and might even, given the chance, save your life.
2. Starman, "Starman"
So, a guy shows up one day looking a lot like your dead husband. What do you do? Well, chances are he's either a zombie or an alien, so how much can you trust this guy? If you're Karen Allen, you trust him with your life, running from the government to get him to his ship to escape. But really, how much do we know about him? And what was he doing near Earth anyway? Don't be fooled just because he's nice to you. It all sounds fishy to me.
1. Sil, "Species"
Just because you're misunderstood doesn't mean you're not a malevolent being. Here's the quintessential example of why it's fatal to be wrong. Sil might look like an uncontrollably randy Natasha Henstridge circa 1995, but inside she's a humanoid preying mantis. Sure, she'll show you a good time, but when she's done she'll kill you in m0st gruesome fashion. So knowing what we know, if you see her on the street, would you still go for it? Well, let's just say it would be a tough decision.