Sci-fi, Aversion to Alien invasion stories?

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I'm curious. I spent a lot of time in my teens and twenties reading sci-fi. I read a lot of Ray Bradbury, Arther C. Clarke, Heinlein, Silverberg, Larry Niven, Asimov, and H.G. Wells, among many others. One thing in common about most of the books I read is that they were all what I considered pure science fiction. Fiction based on plausible theories. I never really got into the fantasy side.

I read so much of that stuff I couldn't wait for a lot of it to be made into movies. At the time, the only really good one was 2001, and though it was good, the ending was totally screwed up. Ruined it for me. I kept hoping more of the stories I read would become movies, but for the most part it never happened. Then, the video age came along and suddenly there were sci-fi sections in the rental stores. But it seemed that almost all of them were either based only on action stories, or alien invasions.

This is the part I don't get. I read a TON of books with alien encounters that were extremely intellectual. Why is it that Hollywood seems to always portray aliens as bent on destroying the human race? I don't get it. Why is it there are so many books about fascinating alien encounters with virtually no violence between races, yet Hollywood seems only to produce sci-fi mainly as adventure and war films?

It the percentage difference that baffles me. Why so many written works that aren't like that, but so many movies that ARE?

I've never been able to figure that out. Am I just overly cerebral?

Movies without violence tend not to sell as well.

True, our culture is obsessed with sex and death.

There are lots of books that I would really like to see on the big screen. Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy would be my first preference.

The trouble with the movie industry is that the entire process is driven by profit, not by artistry. While there are some quite beautiful artsy or intellectual films out there, they're few and far between because the larger companies just will not take a chance with them. The answer is 'yes', you are overly cerebral from a marketing perspective. Audiences tend to prefer sub-two-hour effects showcases with scene after scene of adrenaline-filled mayhem to movies that make them think.

But on the other hand, how many conversions of novels make for a genuinely good cinematic experience? Very few directors can do justice to the original story; LOTR is, of course, a perfect example of an exception to this rule. One of my favourite series of books as a young teenager was The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper. The recent screenplay based on the second book in the series was almost criminally terrible. They took a beautifully crafted tale of good vs evil set in mid 20th century britain and relocated it in america, re-writing the protagonist as an emotionally underdeveloped whiny brat.

If seeing my favourite books portrayed on the big screen means advocating this level of artistic rape, I'd rather Hollywood stuck to the unchallenging, brain dead trash that it seems to excel at.

Even when they take military SF as an inspiration, they screw it up (cf Starship Troopers). It may just have to do with Hollywood's taste for crap.

However, having seen Avatar (the Cameron movie, not The Last Airbender), I see that CGI has finally advanced, and hold out hope that maybe now we can see Ringworld or The Mote In God's Eye brought to the screen. (Interestingly, in an old edition of Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, there was a page about movies that were never made. Heading the list was one first pitched in 1999 - a flick called Avatar, proposed by a fellow named James Cameron...)

Ringworld was recently adapted as a straight-to-DVD movie. Oh, crap, sorry, that was Riverworld. I get those two mixed up.

Avatar was written back in the 90s, it's true.

Now, about benign alien invasions, well, it's hard to get dramatic conflict out of a benign alien invasion, or a semi-benign one. But they have done it. Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Taken, and so on. And there are plenty of examples in Doctor Who where, while not completely benign, the invasions are not what they seem, or the invaders have sympathetic motives. So, I'll list them here in abbreviated form:

The Faceless Ones by Malcolm Hulke and Michael Ellis: An alien race uses a cheap tourist airline as a front to kidnap people. It is revealed that their race is dying, and require a form of life-force and identity to survive, and their goals are treated with sympathy, even if their means are not.

Doctor Who and the Silurians, and The Sea Devils, both by Malcolm Hulke, and The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood, by Chris Chibnall: Intelligent reptilian beings from before humans evolved come out of hibernation, and understandably are upset to find upstart apes running around. Very well written, and has sympathetic and villainous viewpoints on both sides.

Time-Flight by Peter Grimwade: A group of aliens fleeing a war settle in Jurassic England, but have to change into a composite being in order to avoid radiation sickness. Unfortunately, there are those who are more than willing to join up with the Master when he offers them power, but others don't wish to do so.

Ghost Light by Marc Platt: The so-called alien invaders are part of a biological survey that has gone wrong. Unfortunately, their leader, who detests evolution, wishes to destroy all life on Earth in order to keep his catalogue up to date.

The Unquiet Dead by Mark Gatiss: Strange ghost like beings appear in Victorian Cardiff, and inhabit dead bodies, creating zombies. The Doctor finds out that they lost their bodies as a result of the Time War, and wish only to use cadavers to give themselves physical form again. Although the Doctor agrees, the aliens actually are less than benign, and intend to murder humanity in order to provide themselves with bodies to live in.

School Reunion by Toby Whithouse: The aliens are not overtly intending to invade, but are using schoolchildren to try and solve a universal code that might give them god-like power, and are more than willing to share it with the Doctor, in exchange for his help. But they are also willing to murder, and self-interested.

Fear Her by Matthew Graham: An alien who detests being lonely inhabits the body of a lonely young girl, giving her the power to trap people in pictures she draws. Because of her loneliness, she intends to trap the entire world in a drawing.

Smith and Jones by Russell T Davies: A group of intergalactic police 'abduct' an entire hospital in order to track down a murderous alien. While not actually evil per se, the police aliens are heavy-handed, stupid, and will kill anyone who attacks them.

Partners in Crime by Russell T Davies: An alien race on the verge of extinction hires a foster mother, of sorts, to help them get more babies, which she does by creating a drug that can create the babies from human fat. Not only is this illegal, but the foster mother will murder anyone in her way. However, the babies are not to blame, and their to-be parents are not impressed with the foster mother's methods either.

look at what hollywood did to dean koontz's 'watchers'. a terrific novel that certainly could have been made into a fantastic movie and hollywood created an absolute piece of trash. it was just terrible.

as has been written here, the producers only see $ signs, not excellence.

recently: the remake of 'day the earth stood still'. thought i would cry.

contracts have been signed to bring dan simmon's hyperion/fall of hyperion to the screen. we can only hope for something resembling the novels.

you have to wonder about the intelligence level of your average movie goer. not many mensa candidates, i bet.

Holy crap! Are you kidding me?! How the heck did that one slip by me???! !! !

That is one of my all time favorite novels! I have the trilogy, plus the fourth book now, but never finished the second. Plan to eventually, but I've always wanted to see it done as a film?

Have you seen it? Is it any good? I'm sure they had to adapt the hell out of it, but that's okay with me. At least I understand why it has to be done. That book, if it were done with 100% integrity to the novel, would probably have to be a really long mine series at least.

Awe man! I missed the "Oh crap" part.

Looks like plans were attempted back in the early 2000's and nothing ever came of it. Wiki Answers has this:



One of the many reasons Wiki Answers is one of the all time worst web sites. Whoever answered that obviously forgot a lot of what happens in the book. Either that, or they didn't read it at all. That story is full of action scenes. There's a ton in between that's pretty cerebral, but most of that wouldn't be used in a movie anyway, There's plenty there for a good film.

Last edited by MrXxx on 25 Aug 2010, 9:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

What has specifically bothered me about movies featuring alien races is that they are almost all about the alien race being evil and bent on destruction.

One really great example of what I crave to see much more of are films like Contact.

What I really wonder isn't about the violence factor. That's obvious. What I don't get is why the public isn't by now sick of the scenario of aliens always being evil and destructive. I mean the "Hey cool! We've finally made contact, let's go... Uh! Oh! They want to [kill] [eat] [control] us" mentality has been done to death for gosh sakes! Why do we need any more of that crap? I reached the point a long time ago of seeing previews for movies like that, and it's enough for me to say, "Yeah. Okay. Seen it. Not interested anymore."

What is it about people that they don't seem to have any interest anymore in intelligent stories that make you THINK?

The money factor isn't the mystery for me. It's why the public eats that garbage up.

Riverworld was actually adapted first as a miniseries by SyFy, then released on DVD. I haven't seen it, but then I also never got around to reading the book - not much of a Farmer fanboy, I guess.

Ringworld, OTOH, had to wait until CGI came up to the point that a computer-generated character could share screentime with a human without looking out of place - after all, it does involve Louis Wu, Teela Brown, kzin diplomat Speaker-To-Animals, and insane Pierson's puppeteer Nessus. From the look of Avatar, though, we're just about there...

Yeah, I just realized I missed that, and edited the response.

Dammit!

If they only made one movie in time for me to watch it before I die:

Foundation Trilogy.

That could be done with little to no CG at all. That one's all about human interaction and politics. It could be done, but would have to be immensely long.

out of three trillion foundation books, my favorite was foundation and earth. all those wonderful planets and such an ending. movie would be way expensive. worth every dollar.

Yes, I would have to rate that ending at the top of all endings. It not only surprised, but creeped me out, yet left me thinking, hmm....

for a very long time. No book or movie ending has ever had as dramatic an impact on me as that one did.

Yes, I would have to rate that ending at the top of all endings. It not only surprised, but creeped me out, yet left me thinking, hmm....

for a very long time. No book or movie ending has ever had as dramatic an impact on me as that one did. Think about that from an Aspie perspective. Where would we be in a galaxy ruled by a race that communicates that way?

Solaria, of course.

I don't think the Foundation series is very good - especially given it's a bastardised version of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, right down to some of the characters, which really takes the shine off it - except for the Mule, who was interesting and except for Foundation and Earth and for the Far Star's computer, which is ubercool with the holding hands and the star map thing.

Night's Dawn is an atrociously bad set of books, though it wouldn't make a worse set of films than most Hollywood skiffy crap.

Riverworld is an atrociously bad ditto ditto ditto etc., and even shares the recycle-historical-characters-in-a-lame-way conceit with ND. And the author is a disturbing creep.

Ringworld would make a great film. Good set of characters, good setting.

40,000 in Gehenna (Cherryh) would make a good contact-with-aliens film, though they'd probably need to muck about with the timescale a bit.

The Player of Games (Banks) would make a good film, maybe a bit nasty though no warfare. Grass (Sherri Tepper) would.