Just keep them in the suit so we have to image what they look like.

Yup

Independence Day and Men in Black had the better alien designs, Paul was stereotypical design.
Why haven't we seen aliens with one major eye like a Cyclops anywhere? What about reptilian/humanoid aliens like what we see around on the web and historical carvings/paintings?

Insectoid aliens aren't the ONLY designs to go for, we have so many kinds out there to choose from that's already documented (whether it's fictional or ancient depictions), they can at LEAST make them look intelligent.

Yep, I agree. I thought the insectoid aliens worked well in Starship Troopers but nothing since then.

I hope to see a more realistic expectation of what an alien would actually look like.

If aliens ever come and publicly let themselves be known to all of mankind, then I can only assume that they are somewhat humanoid in appearance.

I feel this because I could only assume that this alien is in someway related to the creation of us (even if only remotely).

The space jockey in the Prometheus trailer looks like a super-tall, humanoid resembling...... alien. I like Ridley Scott's interpretation of an alien......

I am hoping that this interpretation of an realistic alien, will be an alien creature design that does not suck so much.......lately.

The first problem is practicality: I would guess that most are designed to "look cool" as opposed to being designed to serve a realistic purpose. I would say this usually applies to the human characters as well - if the alien is poorly designed, odds are the human characters are too.

HR Giger - has he designed anything beyond Alien? His work is so stylized that I would think you would run into the same problem (creatures being too similar).

For original creatures I think you have to consult scientists for practicality and then find new talent in the design field.

HR Giger - has he designed anything beyond Alien? His work is so stylized that I would think you would run into the same problem (creatures being too similar).

Have you seen "Species"? That's Giger's creature creation.

And it sucked. I loved his design of the xenomorph but the creature in Species looked like an early conceptualization of the creature from Alien.

Hate to break this to you, but your "historical" aliens and your "fictional" aliens should all fall under "fictional" aliens.

Yeah, but the Alien xenomorph didn't turn into a hot-ass naked woman all the time.

Also, I like the aliens (what you see of them) in Monsters a lot.

I preferred the naked Henstridge concept over the alien.

Just saw Cowboys and Aliens and I figured I'd gripe about something that always bugs me. I didn't mind the alien design, and usually don't, but what gets me are the basics. These are advanced species, far beyond us, and they never seem to wear clothes. Hey maybe aliens don't have our hang-ups about nudity but from a practical side of things if you are going to invade a world that possesses guns and bows and the like you might put on some ballistic armor. Why were 99% of those alien attacks done by naked aliens with their hands? They obviously possess the technology to wipe out that attack at the end. That would be like an exterminator deciding to wipe out a stinging red ant colony by individually squashing them with his bare fingers. Sure they most likely won't kill him but it is slow, inefficient, and will hurt like hell.

This conversation reminds me of a point I made with a friend about Signs. Let's say someone proposes the following "trip" for you: You are going to visit a planet that has more than 70% of its surface covered by sulfuric acid. Sulfuric acid regularly falls from the sky. Every morning every plant and surface (especially corn fields) is coated with a sulfuric acid "dew". And you're going to make this trip NAKED.

I guess my main gripe with the predators, is that they don’t look like they are an extremely smart species.

Yes they look scary as shit

Yes they look much stronger and more agile than us

Yes we are definitely PREY, in association towards them

BUT NO GOD DAMMIT, they do not look like the type of species that is capable of understanding the concept of the Pythagorean theorem.

That thing would be too busy at kicking ass in its own wild habitat, and enjoying awesome fresh food, that it would never want to slow down, to think about science related shit. They are like great white sharks, that are on land, and have arms and legs instead of fins, and chase humans around effortlessly……….basically we would be fucked.

The great whites of the ocean are quite bad-ass in their water habitat, in terms of being a predator, but I do not see their brains ever reaching the level to be capable of understanding the concepts of gravity.

Besides, leaning about science is much more productive on land, as opposed to sea. Lighting a Bunsen burner in 7th grade science class for a great white shark is a very difficult task. This is why the dropout rate for great whites in school is so high. Most great white students are quoted as saying:

“Fuck it, I can’t light this fucking Bunsen burner thing underwater…… I am just going to do a shark dive straight out of the water, and then catch a seal in the process, before I land back in the ocean.

And I can do that for the rest of my life, WITHOUT the need of passing science class……”

The great white dropouts do have a good point…….And when the dropouts come home, to tell their parents that they have indeed dropped out, the parents think back to when they dropped out as well when they were younger, so the great white parents do not have much to go on, in regards to trying to change their child’s decision about dropping out.

The Predators would have this same mentality, they would give up on learning science, since it is such a waste of time, when they could be better spending their time, doing equally bad-ass things as doing a shark dive out of the ocean, in order to catch and eat their prey.

^^ Good analysis on Predators. I totally agree.

It seems like directors want to have their cake and eat it too, in the sense that they want to make monster, beast-like aliens but also have them smart enough for interstellar travel.

Cowboys and Aliens was probably one of the worst offenders. Those things looked dumber than the horses the cowboys were riding but they somehow figured out how to navigate flying space ships.

Thanks man......

I guess a rule of thumb should be if we are space traveling AND find them in their own habitat, they can look any which way fucking imaginable.

But if they are finding us in our habitat, they should at least look capable of being able to find us.......

uhm...but they did technological advances. They're a hunting race to the core..but...they had to develop all that stuff to be where they're at in terms of tech. That's what we're led to assume based on generality.

Huh, I never thought about how tough Great Whites have it

Actually, we got this guy.

I thought Avatar did a great job.

True. But we can hardly credit Giger with that positive aspect.

Ditto. Henstridge herself is my favourite alien design.

Except that Olivia Wilde points out the aliens we see aren't even the main group. Just some scouts. It left me assuming that they were like the chimps we used to send out into space. They were taught a few basics as to how to operate the machinery (which looked mostly automated) but were too dumb to build it themselves.

Yeah, but Signs was fundamentally a "religious" movie... with everything that implies

Not in the classic sense like The Ten Commandments or Ben Hur (movies I have seen many times and enjoy), but in the contemporary, born-again, fundamentalist wackjob, end-times religious sense... which means you can pretty much throw logic and reason out the window.

It is the only movie I have seen that I can say I was lied to about by the filmmakers. It was misrepresented by everything used to promote it to the public. The title was not clever, it was deceitful.

A friend of mine told me something similar about The Exorcism of Emily Rose. All the trailers made it seem like a lame wannabe The Exorcist but in fact it was a courtroom drama about a priest acused of negligent homicide during what he claimed was an exorcism.

Of course the major difference is that Signs pulled it's bait and switch during the climax of the film itself.

I don't mind religious allegory in stories but, even on it's own terms, it's insulting to watch a story unfold where God allows millions worldwide to die just to renew the faith of one man.

Well, yes and no. The Predators are only a little more badass than us. About the same ratio as between us and ET the Extraterrestrial. (Even I could kick his ass.)

But after a guy comes home from the war in Afghanistan, field-dresses a deer on the weekend, and watches Monday night Football, he is still capable of doing his job of bottling penicillin. Humans have a capacity for both enjoying violence and enjoying making things. Why not Predators?

Maybe those Predator guys are just on a big-game safari, and have to be back at work by the end of the month.

That's not how I interpreted it but I suppose I could see that viewpoint.