STACK #148 Feb 2017

DVD&BD FEATURE

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BEGINNER’S GUIDE

Although we're yet to make first contact with our celestial neighbours, extraterrestrials have been visiting Earth for decades on the screen – bonding with children, abducting us, phoning home, and launching devastating attacks on our planet. Words Scott Hocking

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#11 - ALIEN VISITORS They can be friend or foe, humanoid or monstrous, lost and alone, or hellbent on conquering our world. Alien visitors are a popular staple of the sci-fi genre, justifying the belief that we are not alone in the universe.

human issues like conformity and loss of identity ( Invasion of the Body Snatchers ), racism ( Alien Nation ), Apartheid ( District 9 ) and Cold War paranoia ( The War of the Worlds ). WHERE TO START Invasions of Earth tend to outnumber peaceful visits, so you're probably already familiar with the destructive capabilities of an alien race. Best to begin with benign visitors of the Spielberg kind. If you grew up during the 1970s, Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) will be as fondly remembered as Star Wars . But if you've never seen it, prepare to be awed by the sense of magic and wonder that Spielberg built his career on – and astonished that practical effects and models can look better than CGI. For the record, an encounter of the first kind is the sighting of a UFO; the second is physical evidence; the third being contact. Following an encounter of the first kind, strange visions compel suburban dad Richard Dreyfuss to build a mountain out of garbage in his living room and abscond to a Wyoming landing site for the third variety. The climactic appearance of the alien mothership over the Devil's Tower National Monument is an iconic moment in cinema that will take your breath away, and the haunting five-note melody used by the visitors to communicate will be stuck in your head forever. The affable aliens of Close Encounters could well be a cousin to Spielberg's other beloved creation, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), who established that friendship is universal. If you've yet to make the acquaintance of this diminutive alien botanist who finds himself stranded and needs to "phone home", you've obviously been living on another planet. (Note: The arrival of E.T. in 1982 was quickly followed by the chameleonic creature of John Carpenter's unmissable classic The Thing and

The benevolent kind tend to make contact with a child or adult (usually a scientist) whose mind is more open to the possibility of an extraterrestrial encounter, and who are willing to offer assistance

WHAT TO EXPECT Aliens usually have a reason for paying us a visit, whether it's simply to say "hello", offer advanced technology in exchange for something they need, or destroy us. Whatever the purpose, their arrival always creates huge headaches for governments and the military, with the latter more likely to shoot first and ask questions later. Moreover, federal agents – in black suits of course – will doggedly pursue the visitors, especially those attempting to return to their ship with human help. Officials will also be desperate to cover up any evidence of alien visitations – you'll quickly discover what supposedly happened in Roswell, New Mexico, in mid-1947 – and a bogus disease outbreak or toxic gas leak is useful to quarantine a landing site. This doesn't work, however, when the visitors announce their presence by parking giant saucer-like ships over cities, landing in the middle of Washington D.C., or being of gargantuan proportions. Some will infiltrate by stealth, hiding inside us ( The Hidden ), creating duplicates ( Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Thing ), or taking on human form ( V ). A seemingly innocuous meteor falling to Earth is another common mode of arrival ( The Blob , The War of the Worlds ). Aliens will also abduct humans to learn more about us via medical experiments ( Fire in the Sky , Communion ), which frequently involve the administration of an anal probe and subsequent amnesia.

in returning home or initiating peaceful contact. The more malevolent variety are intent on reducing our civilisation to ashes, colonising our world, or plundering its natural resources. And when it comes to alien invasions, our red neighbour is frequently the planet of origin ( Invaders from Mars , Mars Attacks , War of the Worlds ). Sometimes extraterrestrials will arrive by accident and find themselves, well, alienated and

marginalised – banished to refugee camps ( District 9 ) or forced into fractious coexistence with the human race ( Alien Nation ). The diversity of these alien visitors is vast – humanoid, octopoid, insectoid, reptilian, viral, crustacean, robotic, and the archetypal grey being with almond-shaped eyes – and understanding them can be difficult (see First Contact, far right). Some communicate via musical tones ( Close Encounters of the Third Kind ) while others squirt inky stains from their tentacles ( Arrival ). Things can get lost in translation, leading to interplanetary conflict. Others are quick learners, or will possess a human mind to make their intentions known. Alien visitors can also serve as a metaphor for

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