In a way, alien invasion movies are educational. If Earth ever winds up under threat from alien intruders for real, those of us who’ve seen a healthy portion of invasion movies will have our shit locked down.
Much like a zombie apocalypse, our first objective is to get out of major population centres. How many times have the aliens come knocking by vaporising entire districts of New York or London? The second thing to do is to identify the nature of the threat. Is it one giant alien? Or an entire army with high tech weapons? Is there some kind of special defence group knocking around who can fight them? Are they even coming from space at all?
If you’re not asking these essential questions early on you’re liable to become just another statistic.
Alien invasion movies are also useful for telling us what to avoid doing if the sky is suddenly full of trigger happy flying saucers. Running and screaming is unlikely to do you much good. Equally, standing on top of a skyscraper and waiting for the giant spaceship over your city to do something is unlikely pan out in the way your horoscope told you it would.
Finally, if alien invasion movies have taught us anything, it’s that no matter what form the aliens take, the way to defeat them is always to turn their own nature or technology against them.
If all of this is gibberish to you, the list below should be required viewing. Who knows when the galactic invaders will decide to park up in front of the moon?
1. Cloverfield
As a movie Cloverfield relies a little too much on its found footage gimmick. For alien invasion survivors it has several important lessons. First, giant building sized aliens will usually be very hard to take down. More often than not the army will resort to bombing or nuking the thing, so we recommend getting the hell out of there while you can. Second, if there are smaller, parasitical, creatures DO NOT get bitten. You’re liable to have your head explode.
Most importantly of all though, if there’s a giant alien about, leave your camcorder on the coffee table.
2. Edge of Tomorrow
If you learn one thing from Edge of Tomorrow, let it be to use your enemy’s strength against them. Either that, or make sure you have Tom Cruise around when shit gets real. He seems like a handy guy to have on your team when aliens attack. If you’re dealing with aliens who have unlimited respawns though, we’d suggest nicking that ability as soon as possible. Otherwise it’s practically cheating. In Edge of Tomorrow Cruise takes the aliens’ respawn power and uses it to kick their candy asses.
3. The Avengers
Having a plan ready for an alien apocalypse will usually help. When you’ve got an entire team of superheroes even better. Demi-gods and Hulks will only make aliens think harder before attacking. To motivate your team it might also be wise to allow the alien leader to kill one of their friends. You may still end up with a terrifying battle in New York that costs millions of lives and billions of dollars though. At least your bunch of misfits got the job done however, and sent a message to any other extraterrestrials thinking of having a go.
4. Pacific Rim
Not all alien invasions come from the sky. If the attackers are sufficiently advanced they may decide to open a wormhole in the Pacific Ocean and send giant monsters through. How do you tackle giant monsters? You build giant robots. It’s a no brainer. This will probably be an international effort, because robots the size of the Empire State Building are not cheap. We also propose you hire Idris Elba to run the whole giant robots division. The guy looks like he knows what he’s doing.
5. Attack the Block
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3tOFejxPH0
Giant robots are all well and good but they take time to build. What if the aliens are getting in your grill right now? What if you’ve done something to piss them off but you can’t figure out what? Attack the Block teaches us that a rundown apartment block is the perfect place to fight the alien menace. Grab your baseball bat, a guitar, or even fireworks. Anything will do. If you’re part of a street gang it’s a way of paying back to the community.
6. Mars Attacks!
Even if the aliens explicitly say ‘we come in peace’ negotiation might not be an option. How do we know if they even have a concept of surrender? In Mars Attacks! the Martians just want to win. Platitudes and cheering crowds don’t stand a chance. Even Jack Nicholson can’t temper their desire for conquest. Fortunately, Mars Attacks! teaches us something else: aliens will always have some Achilles heel. In the case of Martians it just happens to be the yodelling voice of Slim Whitman.
7. Independence Day
If someone wrote a book called How to survive alien invasions 101 it would not be as useful as watching Independence Day with a notepad and pen. Nearly every part of this flick is of some use against space marauders. To win against the aliens you only really need three things: a badass wisecracking military guy, a brilliant scientific maverick who saw it coming, and a president who is also an air force pilot. Trust us, this works every time, no exceptions.
8. Evolution
The biggest lesson from Evolution is that the scientific maverick who saw it coming is always right. Sometimes the only solution is for the military to bomb the offending alien menace, but to do so without first consulting the scientific maverick will lead to disaster. David Duchovny and Julianne Moore fill this role in Evolution. At every turn the military ignore their mavericky wisdom, leading to more and more strange goings on from the film’s evolving alien organism.
Also, shampoo can save the day if a cosmetics company is willing to pay enough for product placement.
9. The World’s End
An alien invasion is not always going to happen when it’s convenient to you. The World’s End teaches us what to do if one starts right in the middle of a pub crawl. The answer, of course, is to carry on with your night out. If the aliens, or some kind of robotic alien intelligence, try attacking you simply use whatever’s handy depending on what bar or public toilet you’re currently in. Make sure you and your friends stick together or some of you might get picked off.
10. Men In Black
The third act of Men In Black demonstrates an important rule for beating aliens: use really big guns. Also, most aliens worth their salt can use human shaped shells to blend in to the local surroundings. Agents K and J have faced various alien invasion attempts and threats over the years. What this teaches us is to never let our guard down. There is always another alien menace or extraterrestrial battle fleet ready to try their luck against earth. Constant vigilance, folks.
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