Aliens: Just Like People, but with Weird Eyebrows
Source: Blogspot
Most of the Space Marines are dead, and Ripley is pissed. She straps up, locks and loads, and heads down to the Alien Queen’s lair to show her how it’s done. Though we never get a good look at the alien in either film, we have some idea of what we’re dealing with. Seven feet tall and lean, the aliens resemble malevolent beanpoles with penis heads and weaponized tongues. So far, so good.
So good, you guys.
Source: Fan Pop
But, wait a minute, remember what we know about those things? They are silicon-based and have acid for blood. They’re so exotic that they don’t even share the same basic chemistry as terrestrial life. So why do they look like Pope Manute Bol in a catsuit? Take a look at this thing. Never mind how superficially weird it is, the point is that it’s humanoid:
Source: WordPress
Source: Cappatoons
Think about the human body. Two arms, two legs, a bit of business between those legs—the total package. Now, real quick: how many other organisms on Earth have evolved to look just like us and walk the same way we do? Even our closest relatives walk stooped over on their knuckles, and we’re so damn closely related to chimpanzees that there’s some debate over whether we belong in different genera (pro tip: we don’t).
That’s just the start of it. Aliens in movies and books invariably walk upright, communicate verbally and in writing, wear uniforms, use vision as their primary sense, sit in chairs; you name it. While this isn’t impossible, given possible convergent evolution, ask yourself how many times all these things evolved just here on Earth among our close relatives? Almost none of them wear what could be called clothes, and very few use sound to communicate.
None are capable of writing things down, few of them use technology of any kind, and there isn’t one that would naturally sit in a captain’s chair the way Kirk does. But almost every alien ever depicted is more human-like than a lobster.
This one can’t totally be blamed on the audience. After all, latex is uncomfortable and there aren’t many horribly deformed people working as actors who can fill out those suits. Aliens look, talk, move, and think just like us because of a perverse confluence between undemanding audiences, writers’ need to connect to their viewers, and the structural limits of foam-latex-polyester jumpsuits. This is largely a holdover from the old Godzilla days, though. C’mon, Hollywood; you have trillion-dollar CGI budgets now. Give us something really freakin’ alien.
