Top Ten Aliens in Films

Following the thrill of witnessing the landing of the largest man-made object on the surface of Mars and Curiosity’s subsequent fully colour vistas of the Red Planet, the fifteen year old in me can’t help feeling slightly disappointed that there’s not even one Ewok.

As scientists go week at the knees over the discovery of long dead water courses I thought it seemed fitting to look back over earths past visitors and count down the extra-terrestrials we really want Curiosity to find.

So put memories of Indiana Jones 4’s surprise inter-dimensional space beings to one side as we count down the most alien seeming extra-terrestrial creations in cinema to date.

10. Martians (War of the Worlds)

HG Wells’ 1898 original alien incursion deserves a place of special honour. Not only for being my favourite book but, thanks to Earth’s gravity being that much stronger than Mars, the few times we actually see the terrifying invaders they are fantastically stumbling and falling over like drunk aunts at a wedding.

Ok I know War of the Worlds is a book, which is it’s lucky I can call on two fairly unrelated movies to justify Wells’ inclusion. Although the 1953 Martians had very little to do with the book and were fairly lifeless, Steven Spielberg’s 2005 unstoppable Tripods achieved that same sense of Wells’ indomitable technological terror. Spielberg’s also, over the single time we meet an actual Martian, manages to imbue the critters with more character and endearing curiosity in five minutes than Tom Cruise manages to muster over the whole film.

9.Martians Again (Mars Attacks)

Martians part II, Mars Attacks is Tim Burton’s mad version of the world invasion scenario. With infectiously eager, beaming eyes, the laugh of a backwards duck and, accidentally mistranslating declarations of war as: “We come in peace”, makes Tim Burton’s Martians the guys we probably wouldn’t mind being invaded and murdered by.

8. Na’vi

They’re big, blue buggers and they climb trees a lot, although the Na’vi are admittedly just fairly apologetic analogy for Native Americans or a dull impression of Studio Ghibli’s Princess Monoke. They win a place on the list however thanks entirely to Neytiri and her shapely alien legs. I don’t think there were many in the audiences of Avatar who weren’t a little embarrassed by fancying an alien with a tail.

7. Those Aliens Who Lasered the Whitehouse (Independence Day)

Ok, so the Independence Day aliens are fairly uninteresting, they are basically props for American idealism to bang its head against/ Will Smith to punch in the face. But that one classic scene gets them in the list, blowing up the Whitehouse is an act of mad destruction we can all get behind. Although we never really get to know the aliens inside the flying saucer, whoever pressed that laser button: I like your work.

If they wouldn’t mind hovering over to this country whilst you’re at it I’ve got a few ex-bosses your laser would work wonders on.

6. Thomas Jerome Newton

Not the most exotic name for an alien, but Thomas Jerome Newton is David Bowie’s take on extra-terrestrials in The Man Who Fell to Earth. And of course, because it’s Bowie, Newton is the rock and roll alien who loses track of his home-saving mission to become embroiled in a mad world of sex and alcohol.

The Bowie-terrestrial gives us an entirely different view on aliens might look at our planet, as a crazy, sexy, self-destructive alien Bowie.

5. Yoda

Eccentric, wise, has the voice of Fozzie Bear and a lightsaber, Yoda is the first Muppet to make the list. Replacing the killed off Alec Guinness, George Lucas thought his role of Jedi mentor could be filled just as well with a puppet, which I like to think annoyed Mr Guinness. Yoda was the creation of the Muppet’s Jim Henson and voiced by Frank Oz, next time you watch The Empire Strikes Back, try picturing Fozzie Bear, then replace Luke and R2 D2 with Statler and Waldorf: it’s brilliant.

Yoda’s capricious wisdom has undoubtedly become the carnal of morality for just about every eleven year old boy since 1980. Although rather than trying to use force for good I mostly try using it to flick light switches and bring the TV remote closer, never works.

4. The Thing

One of the few winners of the genuinely scary alien category, the Thing is a shape changing intergalactic parasite. Incredible tension is built on the Thing’s ability to take the shape of those it kills and therefore, whilst stranded on an outpost in Antarctica, The Thing becomes an intense thriller of isolation and distrust. That coupled with some psychotic 1982 animatronics that have enough twisted imagery and frantic murderous hate, blows the claustrophobic thriller into an all out wet your pants horror.

You’ll notice the image is of humans, well that’s because the Thing itself is so nightmarishly gruesome, I was too scared to have them sat in my blog. But basically, at any given moment one of these guys could burst into a frantic, twisted and brutally homicidal Thing.

3. Gonzo the Great

Competing with E.T for the place of ‘lonely alien who’s a bit lost on our planet’, Gonzo wins. Instead of being a whiny, tubby, phone calling ball bag who relies on the help of children to escape government clutches, Gonzo just fires himself out of a canon. And if firing himself out of that canon didn’t work the first time: he’ll just bloody well go do it again.

If E.T had shown a little more enthusiasm, or even driven Elliot’s bicycle through a flaming hoop just once, then he might have earned a place on the list, but no. Gonzo’s indomitably optimistic spirit and lust for stunts, coupled with his unerring capacity to make the best out of a bad situation, places Gonzo the Great firmly at the top of what aliens, and people, should all be more like.

2. Chewbacca

Chewbacca is the biggest, hairiest drinking buddy a guy could ask for. It’s Chewbacca’s no shit attitude that makes him effortlessly cool; he’s a big hairy bastard who’ll pull your arm off if he loses at Monopoly, coupled with utter devotion to his carefully selected friends; Chewbacca is the ultimate wingman we all want by our side.

We also all want to be Han Solo, and you know Han Solo is nothing without Chewbacca backing him up. The secret behind Chewie’s feeling of companionship lies in the fact that he was inspired by George Lucas’ own malamute dog (called Indiana) who would sit next to him in his car. So Chewbacca is more than man’s best friend because he can also drive your spaceship home after you’ve had one pint too many.

.      1. Xenomorphs (Alien)

Designed by bat- shit-insane Swiss painter H.R Giger, the Xenomorph of Ridley Scott’s Alien is to me just about the scariest thing to ever burst out of a man’s stomach and wins the top spot every time.

Taking a complete leap away from the classic Wells inspired Martian of most flying saucer invasion movie, the Xenomorph is uniquely animalistic carnivore intent on little more than eating you. It’s the Alien’s lack of motivation, or more single mindless carnivorous obsession that makes it so scary. Alien was the film that convinced me not to become an astronaut because I’m fairly terrified of having my insides eaten out by an incubating alien foetus.

It’s the Xenomorph’s completely thought out lifecycle and incredible design as the perfect intergalactic hunter that somehow make H.R Giger and Scott’s Xenomorph seem equally more alien and more convincingly realistic than any alien before or since. Out of every alien on the list the Xenomorph feels like the most likely to be lurking out there and, when they do find us, we’re doomed.

The Xenomorph wins because they’re the alien who make me want to stop writing lists, curl up in my bed and hope the face-hugger on my ceiling doesn’t notice me.