I finally saw War of the Worlds this weekend. Good flick for a summer blockbuster. But I couldn’t help wondering why anyone didn’t just pull Wonder Woman’s trick from the original Justice League cartoon - simply lasso up the tripods unsteady three legs and pull!
Anyway, who are (in the Teeming Millions’ inestimble group opinion) the best otherworldly conquerors of Earth? Some contenders are -
walking Tripods (“War of the Worlds” - 2005)
flying Tripods (“War of the Worlds” - 1953)
the Visitors (“V”)
the Daleks (Countless “Doctor Who” aliens tried to overthrow Earth, only the ol’ pepperpots succeeded!)
li’l green dudes from Mars (“Mars Attacks!” - personally I favor them the most, sheerly on the basis of their punky attitude.)
the Living Dead (the original “Night of…” specifies that the dead were reanimated from extra-terrestrial radiation, so they are technically eligible contenders)
the Body-Snatchers
the triffids
the Old Ones (Cthulhu & his ilk, from the world of H.P. Lovecraft)
the “to Serve Man” bigheads from “the Twilight Zone.”
That’s just off the top of my head. I’m sure I’m missing a bunch more. Who’d I leave out, and who’s YOUR favorite?
Whoever it was moved in in John Varley’s series of novels (Picnic on Nearside, Steel Beach, a bunch of others)… nobody’s ever seen them, they just came in and took over the Earth, and the only humans left are the ones who are the descendants of those who were in moon-based (or farther…) colonies. Nothing shows up on telescopes–no buildings, no civilization, nothing. As far as they can tell, it’s as if the human race never existed on Earth any more.
While I’ve never seen any of the War of the Worlds movies, the aliens from the book are among the most terrifying of fiction in my opinion. They so overpower the humans that it’s not even a war: it’s just aliens killing humans. The humans only end up surviving because they get lucky. This is unlike the aliens from the movie Independence Day who, while equally overpowering, were defeated by human ingenuity.
Well, I personally like the idea of humans managing to repel the invaders rather than Welles’ idea of the aliens being humbled by native ‘Earthian’ bacteria. That said though, the defeat of the “Independence Day” was mind-boggling stupid and strained the concept of “suspension of disbelief” beyond the breaking point. (Rehashed so many times in Cafe Society that I won’t bother to do it again.)
When I first saw it, I loved the creature so much I was rooting for it to win. There’s just something cool about a giant, sentient glop of strawberry jelly that eats people.
I have a radio “interview” (very obviously scripted, but fun) with Orson Welles and H.G. Wells in the studio together, talking to each other about War of the Worlds. The old master commented on the “superfluous ‘e’” in his namesake’s name. I’m sure he’d be very annoyed with you.
For myself, I’ll take Heinlein’s paranoiac “Puppet Masters.”
The Chtorr- actually, the whole damn ecosystem- from Gerrold’s War Against the Chtorr series.
I’d really like to see him finish the series sometime in my life. A movie’d be really neat, too- but I can’t even imagine how they’d present a story of that scope.
Rumor has it that the 5th book in the Chtorr series is over 160,000 words so far, but is less than half done. I just started re-reading these and did some looking on the intraweb for info…
Sure wish he’da picked a better word than “Chtorr” tho… at least something we could all pronounce, even if just in our heads. (I say “tor” btw, and completely ignore the “ch”. Hey, if it can be Brett “Farv” and not “Fav-reh” then it can be “tor”.
I don’t think the ending of Independence Day is any harder to believe than the ending of The War of the Worlds. It’s just as unlikely that Aliens would be susceptible to Earth bacteria as it is that their computers would be susceptible to a Macintosh computer virus. I mean, humans and apes aren’t even susceptible to the same diseases in most cases. What are the odds that humans and Martians would be? Admittedly, this is something you might be able to blame on the medical knowledge of the time, but even then they knew that diseases passed from one species to another in rare cases.
But, that’s probably an argument for another thread.
Invaders from Mars
I Married a Martian from Outer Space
The Mysterians
Aliens from various Godzilla movies
I liked the aliens in It Came From Outer Space. In the end, we learn that They’re not trying to invade. They’re just trying to repair their ship and get out of here.
