Clark’s short story ‘The Sentinel’ as a pyramid, the geometric shape is a stroke of genius in terms of imagining first contact with an advanced lifeform. What we do know, however, is that the towering column serves as a warning, a teacher facilitating evolutionary leaps, and a mysterious gateway that poses more questions than it answers. It might be a calling-card signalling that they are present. Whether or not the mysterious monolith that suddenly appears is the actual form of the aliens is debatable. One of the most striking and bizarre forms aliens have taken on screen is the enigmatic black block at the heart of Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi classic 2001: A Space Odyssey. Still from '2001: A Space Odyssey' - MGM '2001: A Space Odyssey' (1968): aliens as a monolith Later on, the Alien prequels would follow suit with the harmful liquid at the heart of Prometheus and Covenant, and Venom's symbiote is a direct descendent of The Blob's parasitic goop. Several other depictions of aliens were inspired by the slimy creature, including the black oil substance in The X Files, which revealed itself to be the extraterrestrial life-force in the long running TV show. It’s an effective and terrifying image of an unknown species, which, much like Peele’s bizarre creature in Nope, upends audience expectations and keeps you guessing as to the limits of its physical form and capacities. They also used miniature sets, superimposed slime over photographs, and made the most of time-lapse photography to speed up movements. They made the Blob from silicone and added red vegetable dye when it absorbed its victims. Without much budget to play with and facing technical limitations, the special effects team at Valley Forge Films had to make do. That and restrictions engendering inventivity. The gooey jelly shape of the alien is a strong case for "simple is best". This realisation – interpreted by many was a metaphor for the Cold War and therefore casting the Blob as the embodiment of communism – is met with the words ‘The End’, which then morph into a question mark before the end credits roll. Plans to electrocute it fail and even if our protagonists manage to freeze the creature and cargo-lift it to the Artic, the cold only stops the Blob it doesn’t kill it. The silent carnivorous alien crash lands on Earth in a meteor and latches itself onto living hosts, which it absorbs before oozing on to its next victim. The intergalactic antagonist in Irvin Yeaworth’s original 50s classic The Blob is exactly that: a gelatinous lump that remains terrifying to this day because of its amorphous nature. Still from 'The Blob' - Valley Forge Films 'The Blob' (1958): aliens as amorphous goop and the big brained invaders in Mars Attacks!, we recognise these alien beings through visual shorthand.īut sometimes, what we see on screen destabilizes our notions of alien lifeforms and contributes to evolving the portrayals we’ve been used to within the sci-fi genre. From George Méliès’ first moon dwellers in 1902’s A Trip To The Moon to Spielberg’s E.T. In effect, a lot of our visual cues can be traced back to the influence of cinematic imagination: filmmakers have shaped our perception of the unknown. Our shared image of aliens boils down to a defence mechanism that reassures us, as well as the fact that this anthropomorphised depiction of extraterrestrials has been fed to us over time through films and TV series. It’s common enough to project relatable human features to that which we don’t know or comprehend. In all likelihood, a creature not too dissimilar from the way humans look: arms, legs, a disproportionately huge pear-shaped head with big googly eyes…īut why would beings from another planet or universe look anything like us? If you were asked to sketch an alien, what would you draw? But beyond already impressive box-office numbers, there’s another reason to get excited about Peele's new film after Get Out and Us: the way it portrays aliens. Jordan Peele’s Nope has begun its international rollout in most European territories this month.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |