# Is it possible for a non-humanoid ET to be a movie/TV character? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 18, 2005, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-for-a-non-humanoid-et-to-be-a-movie-tv-character/336207 "2005-12-18T21:36:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2005, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-for-a-non-humanoid-et-to-be-a-movie-tv-character/336207/21 "2005-12-19T00:23:20Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I remember that – and I think it’s significant they dropped that character after the first season. …what was the significance of the dropping of the character? ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2005, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-for-a-non-humanoid-et-to-be-a-movie-tv-character/336207/22 "2005-12-19T00:25:32Z")
Dax (the worm, not the host) ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2005, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-for-a-non-humanoid-et-to-be-a-movie-tv-character/336207/23 "2005-12-19T00:36:15Z")
How 'bout ALF? He had a whole show all to himself. 😛 Also, hortas appear as Starfleet crewmembers in Star Trek novels, if not on the shows. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2005, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-for-a-non-humanoid-et-to-be-a-movie-tv-character/336207/24 "2005-12-19T02:18:06Z")
Thread makes Darwin sad! Okay, not actually an extra-terrestrial. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2005, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-for-a-non-humanoid-et-to-be-a-movie-tv-character/336207/25 "2005-12-19T03:34:00Z")
> [@dangermom](#): > > Also, hortas appear as Starfleet crewmembers in Star Trek novels, if not on the shows. Like I said in the OP – it’s easier to sell a nonhumanoid as a character in a book than in a movie or TV show. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2005, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-for-a-non-humanoid-et-to-be-a-movie-tv-character/336207/26 "2005-12-19T10:03:27Z")
Speaking of Babylon 5, does Kosh count for the purposes of this thread? Neither his encounter suit nor his “true” form are outwardly humanoid. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2005, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-for-a-non-humanoid-et-to-be-a-movie-tv-character/336207/27 "2005-12-19T11:09:03Z")
The big problem is that I think that most actors, directors, and others are convinced that you need a humanoid face and especially human-like eyes in order to convey character, expression, and individuality. That’s why all the Star Trek emphasis on aliens with weird facial bumps and head extravagances, but generally uncovered eyes and mouth and at least suggestion of a nose. Even with puppets or CGI characters who _could_ have entirekly different structures, you get this sorta basic minimum. _Really_ non-human characters, like the mantis on Babylon 5 (I remember that, too), or the aliens in the old Star Trek episode “Catspaw” or “Devil in the Dark”, are short-lived, or only intended for a single appearance. It’ll be a long time before you get Mesklinites or other Hal Clementish characters (otr Alan Dean Foster’s Bugs) as major, continuing characters. That eye contact just plays too heavily into our sense of empathy. E.T. (Big, friendly blue eyes) – good Alien (no eyes – and don’t give me that guff about a “head shell” ) – bad … ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2005, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-for-a-non-humanoid-et-to-be-a-movie-tv-character/336207/28 "2005-12-19T12:02:21Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Does anyone else remember the short movie of the desk lamps? I think it was by Pixar before they became a real studio. Basically, two lamps playing with a ball. One was maternal and the other childlike. No faces, no googly eyes, no nothin’ even sentient or animal looking about them. I cried at the end of it, though. \*Little Luxo … and the only reason it worked is that the lamps in it _used human mannerisms and gestures_; a shake of the head, a leaping-backward double-take, a disconsolate shuffle, a leap for joy etc. And that’s the problem; in order for the audience to understand what’s going on, there needs to be some mode of connection; Human(oid) characters with non-human attributes/behaviours can, for example, just come across as stupid, arrogant bastards(Battlefield Earth). Not-so-humanoid characters with human behaviours might just seem like possessed toys(luxo) or muppets (Yoda). And non-humanoid characters with non-human behaviours - well, how would we know we were not just watching some bizarre wildlife documentary? Couple of other things, only tangentially relevant, if at all - -Consider the aliens in the Star trek universe; OK, they’re generally humanoid in body shape, and I can forgive them that, but in terms of behaviour, they’re not alien at all; they’re just obsessed monomaniac humans; Ferengi are just extreme-capitalists, Cardassians are just hyper-nazis, Klingons are just ultra-mongols, vulcans are just exaggerated buddhists, and so on. There’s very little about them that’s _otherworldly_. -For the purposes of this thread, I think ‘humanoid’ needs to be a broad term; a humanoid face is one that has two eyes, something resembling a nose below it, then a mouth - in fact you can get away with multiple eyes, or two noses etc. A humanois body is just one that has a broadly upright stance, something resembling arms, and a head at the top. I started a thread a while back discussing how we should really expect aliens to look; there probably are certain forms/features that _just work_ - and these we should not be surprised to find elsewhere, for example: -Jointed limbs - there’s no doubt about it, these work - they’ve been independently invented at least twice on this planet (arthropods and vertebrates) -Eyes - again, independetly developed several times on this planet; mutliple eyes are required for depth perception and if you’re living on a surface that is broadly horizontal, then having them horizontally arranged is better than stacked up vertically. -A mouth - if you need to ingest nutrients, you might need one of these and it’s an advantage in many ways to have this facing in your primary direction of motion; if your food tends to be on the ground, then you’ll probably want your mouth below your eyes (but not too far away from them if you need to locate your food by sight). If you have a digestive system that ancestrally developed from just a long straight tube, then it’s probably a good idea to leave your arse at the opposite end from your mouth, and trailing behind you as you move. Of course there are exceptions to all of these and different conditions might make different things optimal on other planets, however, on earth-like planets, I don’t think we should be too surprised to find animals with jointed limbs and a ‘face’ of some kind, at least a face that a cartoonist could render as humanoid. We should expect to find a lot of weird stuff too - that goes without saying, because there’s enough of that right here on Earth. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2005, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-for-a-non-humanoid-et-to-be-a-movie-tv-character/336207/29 "2005-12-19T12:12:38Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Speaking of Babylon 5, does Kosh count for the purposes of this thread? Neither his encounter suit nor his “true” form are outwardly humanoid. His true form is unknown, so I suppose it’s at least possible that he looks exactly like Rick Moranis (i.e. vaguely human), but even the encounter suit has a recognisable ‘head’ with a (sort of)‘face’ - I’m prepared to concede that this might just be in the eye of the beholder though. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2005, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-for-a-non-humanoid-et-to-be-a-movie-tv-character/336207/30 "2005-12-19T14:29:04Z")
Feels like there a lot of “no true Scotsman” going on here. Now a rough face shape or a shake of a head = humanoid? My understanding of the word was bipedal with two arms and a flat face. I wonder if the OP was looking for a hyper-intelligent shade of blue to carry his own series for 10 years. Thought of one more: Serenity, from \*Firefly \*and _Serenity_. While I know Moya was supposed to be “a character”, to me, honestly, she never was. I also felt Pilot to be the character (and he wasn’t all that humanoid, actually), but Moya never made that leap for me. Serenity, on the other hand, did. I’m not sure when it happened or how it happened, but Mal’s love for her was beautifully transferred to me, even before “Objects in Space.” By the time the movie came along, when Mal and the crew caused intentional damage to the hull of Serenity in order to make her look like a reaver ship I was heartbroken. They might as well have done it to Kaylee - it was that brutal. I felt the same nausea I feel when I see a realistic rape scene. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2005, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-for-a-non-humanoid-et-to-be-a-movie-tv-character/336207/31 "2005-12-19T15:08:11Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Feels like there a lot of “no true Scotsman” going on here. Now a rough face shape or a shake of a head = humanoid? No, but I think that a character with utterly alien form and behaviour may be difficult or impossible for an audience to understand; we relate to the character by means of those aspects of it that are common with ourselves; the ‘human(oid)’ attributes. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2005, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-for-a-non-humanoid-et-to-be-a-movie-tv-character/336207/32 "2005-12-19T17:08:07Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > It’ll be a long time before you get Mesklinites or other Hal Clementish characters (otr **Alan Dean Foster’s Bugs** ) as major, continuing characters. That eye contact just plays too heavily into our sense of empathy. Nitpick : I think you mean “Thranx”. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2005, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-for-a-non-humanoid-et-to-be-a-movie-tv-character/336207/33 "2005-12-20T17:58:02Z")
> [@Banquet Bear](#): > > …what was the significance of the dropping of the character? Consider the characters who were kept around for the whole five-season story arc of _Babylon 5._ E.g., Vir Kotto – starts out as Londo’s overworked flunky, eventually gets a chance to show some moral heroism and evolves as a character. Or G’Kar, who starts out as an obsessed Centauri-hating racist and gradually develops spiritual depths. These character developments, to be presented effectively, depended largely on the actors’ ability to, well, act. Emote. With words, but also with gestures, body language and facial expressions. Now imagine trying to pull off a similar process of character development with that giant praying mantis thing. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2005, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-for-a-non-humanoid-et-to-be-a-movie-tv-character/336207/34 "2005-12-20T18:05:44Z")
How about snakes? “Trussssst in meee… jusssst in meee…” – Kaa, from The Jungle Book ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2005, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-for-a-non-humanoid-et-to-be-a-movie-tv-character/336207/35 "2005-12-20T18:23:05Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > And that’s the problem; in order for the audience to understand what’s going on, there needs to be some mode of connection … And non-humanoid characters with non-human behaviours - well, how would we know we were not just watching some bizarre wildlife documentary? This makes me think of the Soft Ones (Odeen, Dua, and Tritt) in Asimov’s _The Gods Themselves_. They are distinctly non-humanoid (more or less amorphous, IIRC), but seem to have some level of emotion with which humans can relate. In the book, Asimov just converts the interchanges between these creatures into English sentences … but I wonder how that could play out in a movie? Could an audience be expected to catch on to subtle things like, say, a slight shrinking of form indicating fear\*, or a certain change of color to mean elation? \*\* made-up examples, because I forgot that level of detail about the book.\* ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2005, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-for-a-non-humanoid-et-to-be-a-movie-tv-character/336207/36 "2005-12-20T18:43:30Z")
For some reason, people (or filmmakers) seem willing to accept robots without recognizable faces – **Robby** from **Forbidden Planet** (And **The Invisible Boy** , and countless “guest appearances”), **R2-D2** from the **Star Wars** films, **Hal-9000** from **2001** and **2010**. But they’re still in the minority by far. Most robots have faces. The original production sketches for **The Black Hole** showed **V.I.N.C.E.N.T.** as a believable, faceless robot, but they succumbed to creeping cuteness and gave him (and **Old Bob** – _shudder_) Goofy eyes. **Kaa** makes my point about non-human characters – not human, maybe, but _extremelt_ expressive eyes, and more human face than a snake generally has. ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2005, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-for-a-non-humanoid-et-to-be-a-movie-tv-character/336207/37 "2005-12-20T18:46:44Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > In the book, Asimov just converts the interchanges between these creatures into English sentences … but I wonder how that could play out in a movie? Could an audience be expected to catch on to subtle things like, say, a slight shrinking of form indicating fear\*, or a certain change of color to mean elation? Hmmmm… Get the camera closer when such things happen, and put subtitles at the bottom of the screen, perhaps? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2005, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-for-a-non-humanoid-et-to-be-a-movie-tv-character/336207/38 "2005-12-20T18:59:57Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > This makes me think of the Soft Ones (Odeen, Dua, and Tritt) in Asimov’s _The Gods Themselves_. They are distinctly non-humanoid (more or less amorphous, IIRC), but seem to have some level of emotion with which humans can relate. > > In the book, Asimov just converts the interchanges between these creatures into English sentences … but I wonder how that could play out in a movie? Could an audience be expected to catch on to subtle things like, say, a slight shrinking of form indicating fear\*, or a certain change of color to mean elation? > \*\* made-up examples, because I forgot that level of detail about the book.\* Not without subtitles – which would convey the information on a purely verbal, that is to say nonemotional, level. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2005, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-for-a-non-humanoid-et-to-be-a-movie-tv-character/336207/39 "2005-12-20T19:05:31Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > For some reason, people (or filmmakers) seem willing to accept robots without recognizable faces – **Robby** from **Forbidden Planet** (And **The Invisible Boy** , and countless “guest appearances”), **R2-D2** from the **Star Wars** films, **Hal-9000** from **2001** and **2010**. But they’re still in the minority by far. Most robots have faces. The original production sketches for **The Black Hole** showed **V.I.N.C.E.N.T.** as a believable, faceless robot, but they succumbed to creeping cuteness and gave him (and **Old Bob** – _shudder_) Goofy eyes. Why is a faceless robot more “believable”? Robots, if and when we get them in SF form (strong AI with legs), will have expressive faces if their designers choose to provide them; and there are any number of reasons why designers would. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2005, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-for-a-non-humanoid-et-to-be-a-movie-tv-character/336207/40 "2005-12-20T19:15:45Z")
**Brain Glutton** – I don’t understand your post at all. I never said faceless robots were more believable – I said that filmmmakers were more willing to accept faceless robots than, say, non-human-faced aliens. The rest of your post is irrelevant. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-for-a-non-humanoid-et-to-be-a-movie-tv-character/336207.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-for-a-non-humanoid-et-to-be-a-movie-tv-character/336207.md?page=3)