Aliens and UFO in movies
Aliens and UFOs have been a popular theme in movies all over the world. Here we will take a look at some of the most famous and the influences behind them.
By Andy Wardle
The Fourth Kind (Olatunde Osunsanmi 2009)
This recent part reenactment part 'real life footage' and based on true events the film tells the story of Dr Abigial Tyler in Alaska which has as the film claims had an extraordinary amount of unexplained disappearances in the last 40 years. Actress Milla Jovovich plays Abigial Tyler as the film begins she believes her husband has been murdered, she returns home to Nome in Alaska and begins video taping her sessions with the towns folk. Many of them claim to have seen a white owl every night but when investigated further under hypnosis it's apparent alien abductions are invovled. The film claims to be using real footage in parts of the movie though the real footage also becomes blurry and fuzzy whenever an alien entity is present in a human unforntunately. Though this film isn't particularly based on any event it prays on peoples imaginations and trust when it claims real footage and though interesting, it provides tense moments though it creates this by lying to its audience
Universal pictures have since admitted the real footage and back story were just part of a marketing campaign. On 12th November 2009 Universal Pictures paid $20,000 in a settlement to the Alaskan Press Club to "settle complaints about fake news archives to promote the movie". They also created fake obituaries and online news feeds to create the image of the film being set on actual events.
Independence Day (Roland Emmerich 1996)
One of the most famous alien films and containing the iconic scene of the destruction of the Whitehouse. The aliens and UFOs in this film are rather generic looking like what would come to mind when people think of aliens. Flying saucers and big headed aliens with slender bodies. Obvious influences here are from the Roswell incident and Area 51 as in the film the audience are taken inside the base.
Alien (Ridley Scott 1979) Aliens (James Cameron 1986)
Both films starring Sigourney Weaver and featuring possible the scariest looking Alien in film history. In the future a mining ship discovers a crashed Alien ship with eggs aboard, one of the parasites inside the eggs attaches itself to one of the crew leading an alien being hatched and bursting out his stomach in a classic movie scene. The second movie features a lot more action with many aliens after Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and co. The designs of the alien and their craft is based on Swiss surrealist H.R Grager's amazing paintings and sculptors, these dark and and some disturbing paintings especially those featuring the vagina dentata created the terrifying parasites and alien creature.
The Alien films also have a third and fourth Alien 3 (David Fincher 1992) and Alien Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet 1997) althought these films were critically panned and didn't obtain the classic status of the first and second films.
Some of H.R Grager's paintings and a picture from the film Alien:
