Aliens Who Come In Peace

  Sent here down to Earth by his father, Kal-El is the sole survivor of Krypton, a distant planet that was destroyed by a worldwide ecological disaster. Here on our world, the yellow sun of this solar system provides him with the power of a god.
 Under the name Superman, Kal-El has the ability to fly faster than a speeding bullet, be more powerful than a locomotive and to leap over tall buildings with a single bound (his flying ability probably helps him with that). Not to mention x-ray and heat vision, withstand extreme temperatures, hurricane force breath and the ability to wear a wardrobe ensemble consisting of a cape, boots and colorful underwear worn over equally colorful tights.
 And what does Superman do with all this power that would allow him to squash us mere mortals with not so much as a mere thought?
He uses it to protect us from all those who would mean us fair citizens harm through the violation of truth, justice and the American way.
Because even within an alien sentient being, no matter how distant his origins, or how impervious he may be to gunfire, there's always a chance to find a heart of a hero.
 And when it comes to the Man of Steel,
that's just how he rolls.

  After his homies accidentally leave him behind, an extra-terrestrial becomes trapped on our planet and finds a new homie in the form of an Earthling boy who shares it's love for Reese's Pieces. These two boyz "from different worlds" then form an exceptional bond by empathically experiencing other's experiences in a way that can happen between beings of separate galaxies.
  E.T. the Extraterrestrial is an exceptionally moving big budget blockbuster which teaches that we humans are not alone when it comes to a deep longing for love in the form of kindness and friendship. And that all we have to do to get it, even on a universally galactic level, is to just "be.... good".

Or "Close Encounters Of The Under-Water Kind".
Or maybe "The Day The Ocean Stood Still".



  We humans are a species capable of our own destruction. Or of our own salvation.
  And though sometimes, it's can seem like we're going down the road of total annihilation, there's still enough within us to choose otherwise.
  At least, that's the kind of hope the water-breathing life-forms from outer space in this film seem to hold about us.
Personally, I think this is James Cameron's masterpiece. And it's actually two stories in one. The alien storyline that provides the twist for the film, crossed over with the tension building plot involving the conflict between the scientific crew and the naval SEAL team. And both plots, while differently paced, are still very excellently executed. Now, while the edited version that was originally released into theaters is a fine film, for my money, the uncut version is what truly reveals the kind of glorious light that can emit from The Abyss.

  In this Stanley Kubrick 1968 sci-fi classic, extra-terrestrial life comes in the form of heavy monolithic blocks.
  And after escaping a death at the hands of a crafty computer that we created and yet had taken on an evil sentient intelligence of its own,
these aliens will sweep you up and send on you on the most psychodelickest trip of your life.
And all without the use of drugs.

Damn.
Where was I during the year 2001 that I missed the party?

  Yo, the aliens have landed!
 And unlike our worst fears about 'em, they are not here to destroy us with superior technology and weapons.
 No, they're here to extend to us an invitation. Sure, it's a telepathic invitation that will make us go crazy, sculpt shapes into our mash potatoes, and cause our families to leave us, but still, it's an invite for a one-in-a-lifetime meet-up with big-headed E.T's over there on the Devil's Tower. Where we can jam with them on electronic synthesizers and have the humans they kidnapped decades earlier finally returned to us, unscathed. 
 It all reminds of back when I was a kid after I first watched this movie, and I remember thinkin' to myself, "Mannnn....I wish a UFO would come down and fly me away into the limitless potential of space."

 Sans anal-probes, of course.

  An alien being comes down to Earth, morphs into a human form in order to understand our species and then begins a race against time to meet with his star-faring rendezvous party before the government military can get it's hands on him/it. But not before he/it can get a girl pregnant.
Simply put,
this movie is E.T. for adults.
Or at least, it's for those of us whose minds are mature enough to understand that when it comes to traffic lights, red means "stop", green means "go" and yellow means "go very fast".

In K-Pax, Kevin Spacey is "Prot", a "wandering spirit" who is either a mental patient masquerading as an alien from the planet K-PAX
or
he's an alien from the planet K-PAX masquerading as a mental patient.
  The whole point of this movie is for the viewer to try and figure which one is the case here.
  It's kind of like the same thing here on the internet. All throughout all of social media, including on this site, based on what I see being continually posted, I am constantly baffled on whether some of you people out there are trolls, mental patients, socially infirmed, or just straight up aliens. And most of you definitely do not make it easy to figure out which. 
  And yeah, that's right... you who are reading this right now at this moment.... 
I'm talkin' about you.

 What Close Encounters Of The 3rd. Kind did back in the 70's, this film takes to the next evolutionary step, in terms of the actual physics and concepts of a meeting 'tween us mere mortals and any life-forms from beyond the stars.
For my money, Contact contains some of the best discussions of religion and atheism in any film ever made. It's depictions of the manner that things like general fear and politics can get in the way of a true quest for knowledge is both basely intelligent and comprehensibly poignant. This film's plot does a great job treading on the subject of how our society is constantly struggling between the comfort of what we already know & the confrontational truths about our species that can be revealed as result of the discovery of what is new, especially if seen thru the "eyes" of a life-form that's a lot smarter than us.

 The aliens have touched down, and they're not here to conquer us, morph into our bodies, drain us of our energy sources, or steal our sun. They just want to take a few of their "left overs" from their first visit, home.
And if not, at least take some of our senior citizens with 'em.
Which is fine by us.
Cuz in space, no one can hear an old man fart.

 What if the first alien life-forms to make contact with us happen to be the kind that watch too much television? Or even worse, what if they're Trekkies?
Galaxy-Quest starts out as a parody of the Star Trek franchise, but then, with just the right amount of heart, wry humor and even some satirical intelligence, this movie then evolves into a sci-fi adventure film with a premise that is a lot of fun, on point and with a story that ends up standing distinctively on its own.

 Well, the millennium's answer to the 1997 sci-fi thinker Contact, has made its arrival. And just like the Jodie Foster movie, this one deals with a more "realistic" approach to Earth's first contact with extraterrestrials, encompassing the struggle between peaceful approaches of communication and the "better safe than sorry" attitude from the more militarily minded. Also sharing the same theme as Contact is the endeavor to decipher the penmanship of the visitors.
  However, The Arrival still has enough within its concept to give it its own signature and allow the film to stand alone in the "we come in peace" sub-genre of science fiction. A "big" movie with a "small" cast, led by a strong performance by Amy Adams as an expert linguist and mourning mother whose combination of expertise and grief-stricken memories is the only link to a meaningful discussion between the entire planet and its interstellar guests.

  Ever notice how characters who are blue are often so nice? 
  The Smurfs, The Genie from Aladdin, Beast from the X-Men, Huckleberry Hound, Blue from Blue's Clues, Lilo from Lilo and Stitch, Sully from Monsters Inc., Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen (okay, so maybe Doc isn't so much nice as he is indifferent... still, the fact that he's so omnipotent and still decides not to wipe us all out is very nice of him), the Stoner Caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland, the Blue Falcon from Dyno-Mutt, Sonic the Hedge Hog, and of course, the Na'Vi from the Avatar movies. 
  An indigenous lifeform from the planet Pandora, it's their oneness with all the nature that surrounds them that make them such a peaceful people.
  That is, until you fuck with them. Like Earth's humans did here in this movie.  As it is in their human nature to do, they fucked with them.  Thus, leaving them no choice but for them to react the way that they did. Humans fucked with them, and they kicked the human's asses despite Earth's more advanced firepower and war machines.
  Yep. Humans transversed over many distances in outer space, all the way to Pandora, only to fuck around. And then, they found out.

  Paul is one of those typical bug-eyed, big-headed aliens that we've grown accustomed to believing that are hiding in Area 51.
  Although, as we get to know him in this story, we find that he completely disproves the mythical stereotype that he and his kind are subjected to here on our planet, just so’s we can have way to explain in the circles in our crops, the mutilations of our cows, and the probes in our anuses....



   Paul shows us that all he wants to do is to share with us what he knows about the galaxy and to smoke a doobie.
A really good doobie.
The kind of doobie that killed Bob Dylan.

        Not that long ago, in a galaxy wasn't all that far away, there were a buncha of alien robots who were lookin' to live and prosper. 
  So, they came to Earth, starred in a cartoon series that became so poular, that the children who were targeted as the audience, never really truly grew or watching the series. Or buying the merch. And even when a director/producer named Michael Bay came along and had these "Transformers" and their enemies, the Decepticons, star in a cinematic universe, and then show the world what a horrible film maker he was, these immature fans flocked to the theaters in droves.  Makin' one of the worst film franchises in history into one of the most profitable film franchises in history.
  To which I say, "Wake up and smell the Valvoline, ya buncha emotionally stunted nerds! It's time to grow the f#ck up!"

  Just when I thought that my hairy pimp-ass had finally reached a point in life that was so hardcore,
that even the idea that I could get misty over a movie-ending was, for me, so far away of an idea, that it was practically on the other side of da 'hood. Dawg.
Then comes along the Iron Giant and proves me wrong.
And it's not just that it's a movie,
but even worse, it's an animated movie.
A cartoon.



Whenever I watch the scene with the line " .... Superman.",
I always find it quite difficult to refrain from repeatingly dabbing at that "something in my eye" that starts to become annoyingly persistent.
Damn.
This movie makes life hard out here for a pimp.

 I think I vaguely remember the day way back when the Earth stood still.
Wasn't that the day that nothing moved?
Or am I thinking about Labor Day?
My memory gets kinda fuzzy when it comes to the McCarthyism Red scare sci-fi era.



 Anyways,
this is a film where the aliens do come in peace,
but they also come with a warning.
We humans need to behave.
  Or if we don't,
the aliens are likely to give us a spanking. On a galactic level.

A teenage kid discovers that the video game he has mastered is secretly a celestial training simulation program, when he is notified by an alien who reveals to him that he is a gunner/star-soldier in an intergalactic war between good and evil.
So, to all you video gamers out there, don't listen to society when it tries to convince you that all those hours spent on your x-box, gameboy or psp will eventually accumulate into a vast amount of wasted life.
For all anybody knows, you could very well be the last starfighter.
Therefore,
feel free to grab your wii and play with yourself as much as you like.
The future of the galaxy may depend on it.

 Take E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial,
make Elliot more ethnic and change him into a girl,
then take E.T. himself and make him a lot more bad-@ss, but still cute,
and then transform the whole thing into a cartoon,
and there you go.
You've got this movie.

Enemy Mine is a film that starts out as a "bad alien" movie and then evolves into a "good alien" movie by intergalactically pondering the question of "Why can't we all just get along?"
The truth is, no matter what planet one is from, when it comes to reaching racial harmony, even on an interplanetary scale, we all need to follow Jerry Seinfeld's advice and try to take a bite out of both sides of the black & white cookie.
Look to the cookie.
We must all look to the cookie.
Oh, and to all you sci-fi geeks out there,
that's cookie,
not wookie.
So don't start looking towards Chewbacca for any kind of sage words on the subject.

An uneven film that contains separate moments of good stuff. Enough of 'em, that, despite it's unstitched story flow, hits on a few certain plot points that were interesting enough to keep my attention. As a big fan of Stanley Kubrick's work, I can't help but look at this movie with the potential that it held if the original director had lived to make it.
But despite that, Steven Spielberg's effort at keeping A.I. alive is the main reason why this movie makes an appearance on this list.

  An elderly couple who are very sweet and lovable are owners of a small, crumbling tenant building are threatened with eviction. Luckily, they are in a story that takes place during that Spielberg inspired era of science fiction feel goodness known as the 1980's. Therefore, before they can get kicked out on their flabby asses, a calvary of tiny sentient flying saucers come swooping down and save the day.
  A Mini-Me version of Close Encounters of the 3rd. Kind, with a splash of Cocoon, for a "just the way Grandma used to make it" kind of flavor.

For all those women who ask, "Why aren't there any good men around?",
this movie answers that question.
Because they're all on other planets.
And to be honest, these other-planetary men aren't really all that good.
It's just that, well, y'know... Earth girls do tend to be a bit too easy.

 Take my Superman: The Movie entry at the beginning of this list,
replace all the parts referring to the lead character as a man with references to being a female,
make the movie a lot lamer,
and there you go.
You've got this movie.

 After watching this particular "favorite Martian" movie, I realized that the favorite Martian in My Favorite Martian is definitely not my favorite Martian.
Even more, My Favorite Martian is definitely not my favorite Martian movie.
However, it's not my worst favorite Martian movie either....

....this one is.