The best and worst of Aliens.

[Kyriakos]

At least the Solaris alien was sufficiently alien instead of a humanoid/insectoid/arachnid/sauroid.

Alien ships also are usually of the boring "flying saucer" type. Although there were some videos (likely hoax) of spaceships that looked like massive earthworms.

 

[Socrates99]

...sufficiently alien instead of a humanoid/insectoid/arachnid/sauroid.

Ooh that reminded me of a Star Trek episode with a rock alien called the Horta. It was a pretty solid sci fi concept. The life form was silica based and ate rocks. Can't get much more alien than that.

 

[MaryKB]

Tralfamadorians were pretty "alien", especially with their perception of time.

 

[Kyriakos]

Ooh that reminded me of a Star Trek episode with a rock alien called the Horta. It was a pretty solid sci fi concept. The life form was silica based and ate rocks. Can't get much more alien than that.

Iirc Tesla had argued that rocks are alive in the first place. At any rate they are able to run the program "gravity" ^_^

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Ooh that reminded me of a Star Trek episode with a rock alien called the Horta. It was a pretty solid sci fi concept. The life form was silica based and ate rocks. Can't get much more alien than that.

I'm a doctor Jim, not a bricklayer.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Here's my favorite: Odo, from Deep Space Nine.

Here's why: TV and movie aliens always tend to have more pronounced facial features than humans. So it makes humans the baseline, and every other alien the deviant. Odo's facial features suggest that his race* is the baseline and humans are among the planetary species that have extra pronounced facial features.

*(don't ask me; I'm not that big a fan; don't tell me, I'm not that big a fan; I just have this one observation to make)

 

[Lexicus]

Here's my favorite: Odo, from Deep Space Nine.

Here's why: TV and movie aliens always tend to have more pronounced facial features than humans. So it makes humans the baseline, and every other alien the deviant. Odo's facial features suggest that his race* is the baseline and humans are among the planetary species that have extra pronounced facial features.

*(don't ask me; I'm not that big a fan; don't tell me, I'm not that big a fan; I just have this one observation to make)

Bear in mind humans are evolved over millions of years to be able to tell each other apart from facial characteristics that would likely be lost on another species. I assume that would hold true for other species as well.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I'm just talking about how present-day human audiences (and filmmakers) have a built-in humano-centric bias that generally makes us the baseline and others the deviants, and how gratifying I found it that in one case the filmmakers reversed that tendency. I haven't played out in my thinking the evolution of Odo-species.

 

[Lexicus]

I'm just talking about how present-day human audiences (and filmmakers) have a built-in humano-centric bias that generally makes us the baseline and others the deviants, and how gratifying I found it that in one case the filmmakers reversed that tendency. I haven't played out in my thinking the evolution of Odo-species.

I think it's pretty much inevitable that aliens are just going to be imagined as us, with a twist.

 

[Kyriakos]

Aren't less pronounced facial characteristics usually regarded as more noble? (among humans)
Even among human-type species, eg homo sapiens and neanderthal.

That said, if it gets to the extreme, you get something like the grays, which just look dead and faceless.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I think it's pretty much inevitable that aliens are just going to be imagined as us, with a twist.

Of course. I'm just expressing my appreciation that in one case, the twist was one that made us the spiky-lookin' ones.

 

[Socrates99]

But Odo was a shapeshifter and his normal face was essentially his generic human face. Afaik we never saw Odo's true form, and he may not have had one.

 

[MaryKB]

I thought his true form was a puddle of goo?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

But Odo was a shapeshifter and his normal face was essentially his generic human face. Afaik we never saw Odo's true form, and he may not have had one.

I thought his true form was a puddle of goo?

Mary is right, their default state was a giant puddle with all the other changlings.

Odo couldn't do an exact copy of humanoid facial features because he was raised by humanoids that were not up to the task of teaching him how to mimic as a good as the other changlings.

 

[Broken_Erika]

I thought his true form was a puddle of goo?

I remember some DS9 kids book where Jake Sisko and Nog played a prank on Odo by poking a hole in his sleeping bucket.

 

[Kyriakos]

The elder things, from Lovecraft's At the mountains of madness, look pretty weird:



But essentially they are moth-like.