After reading a play-by-play review of Battlefield Earth this morning (my brain cells are still dying), I have come up with an idea for a funny send-up of bad galactic conquerer movies.
Attack of the B-Movie Aliens!
The film starts off with the end of a cheesey 50’s horror movie (let’s call it The Horror From Planet X for now). The humans have defeated their evil alien would-be conquerers, the ET’s have fled in disgrace, and everybody is celebrating. The aliens, watching the parties from behind the end credits, are feeling rather disgruntled. They figure that since movie heroes are human, the odds are always going to be against the space invaders. But in the real world, where Narrative Causualty doesn’t hold sway… maybe they can actually win.
Things do not go as planned, mostly because these are B-movie aliens. That is to say, they’re dumb as bricks, they can never manage to hit anything with their ray guns, they talk funny, and they think going up to random people and saying, “Take me to your leader” will get them there. They also look like low-budget aliens- like people in skin paint and rubber masks. Their saucer is clearly made of tinfoil.
Nobody with an IQ above room temperature takes them seriously, so they spend the movie trying to be threatning, getting made fun of, and wondering why conquering Earth in’t as easy as it is in Hollywood. Eventually they manage to scare a few Important Goverment Officials into calling in the army. The Planet X-ers have not thought this one out very well, because it becomes apparent to them the the army is a lot better armed than they are. Like, they’ve got sharpshooters who can actually hit the broad side of a barn.
The aliens end up running from the army like a bunch of frightened chickens. Eventually, they give up the invasion for a lost cause, throw up their hands, and say, “We come in peace! Honest!”
What do you think? Good plot for a screwball comedy?