As a big fan of Science Fiction Horror movies, I like the types of aliens that are strong looking, love to exterminate anything, and take over the land to spread out their horrendous empire. To me aliens are pretty cool creatures to explore and learn about. Aliens have been known as strangers or outsiders who are not in the same category as human. Therefore, we believe if they really exist and the way they came on earth is because they want to suck the potential source that we have and start their invasion.
When I was in Vietnam, television became a very precious thing to me. There was no internet or Facebook. I really enjoyed myself watching different movies on TV when I had free time. Since I’ve been a fan of Science fiction horror movies, there are some creatures that really liked in my childhood. For instance, in the past, Hollywood has made the installments of Aliens with angry Xenomorphs, Predator with intelligent predators, and alien gigantic bugs in Starship Troopers. Now, Hollywood has returned with more alien movies. The aliens are coming from experiments of science, such as Splice in 2009 with Dren and the new remake of The Thing in 2011.
The first thing that makes me work on the research with Aliens and the related topic of representing a fear of war is that I love these creatures and stories. I feel comfortable talking about them in person and on my paper, also, aliens are mysterious monsters created by humans and born from their imaginations. That’s why some creatures have the shapes of humans, or have their concept of hunting, killing and searching for the advantageous spots on our land to build their nest and expand their kind. This makes them more diverse.
Aliens are visitors from elsewhere in the galaxy; they are thirsty for something better than where are they come from. Carolina states the meaning of the word “Alien” and showing the strong association between alien and extra- terrestrial. The article mentioned “Alien” in academic language to refer non-native and harmful species of plants or animals. Then, “Invasion” is often used with “alien” in the phrase “alien invasion” to express something harmful and non-welcome to the normal life (1517).
There are some details to define alien; they come from what people believe that alien will look like and feel like. If they are hunters, they will definitely look for the place that has rich resources and prey, like the Predators. They could come from the mistakes of humans or the unfortunate result after a horrible math or science experiment, the Xenomorphs. They don’t know where they belong, and some of them become parasitic, finding a host to reproduce.
Aliens are also a step ahead in technology, so they use their advanced spaceships or machines to visit the earth and start occupying the natural resources, just like the lizard aliens in Battleship. They’ve researched and came up with an idea of isolating a Hawaii’s island and started the invasion. As I mentioned, aliens can come from out of space, however, there are some aliens actually come from the oceans, for example, Kaiju in the Pacific Rim movie, they are gigantic monsters born from experiment of aliens and they live in a interstice of the Pacific Ocean. This somewhat give us another thought about where aliens come from; they can come the stars and also from the sea.
When we don’t know how to deal with a new problem in our daily life, we will think that as a new phobia for ourselves. Just like AIDS or Ebola, aliens can be the same; they are strangers and somehow they will spread out their disease and become a global issue in just a second.
According to Atleski, the most powerful and indeed the most common psychological fear in humans is that of the unknown. This is a fear of things that the human mind cannot understand and comprehend. The fear of the unknown exhibited by humans has a purpose. This purpose is for survival and also as a motivation for understanding (Atleski 12). Psychological fear is normally different from normal fear. Normal fear occurs at the moment; that is, it exhibits itself, for example, when one comes across a threatening or a dangerous scenario. However, when the threatening scenario is over (unless the scenario is constantly repeated), the human will usually resume what he was doing as if nothing had taken place. Psychological fear is however quite different to normal fear. Psychological fear goes beyond the scenario or incidence that is life threatening and actually lives on in the human mind long after an incidence has already occurred.
According to Atelski, the purpose for psychological fear and the fear of the unknown is for ambition, preparation as well as the prevention of future catastrophes and convicts. This is exactly the situation with Aliens (12). The reason why Aliens are represented the way they are is because of the lack of understanding of what would happen beyond their mere appearance. Alien films do not simply depict the landing of Aliens. They try to explore the things that happen after the Aliens have already landed. This is the same case with psychological fear. In psychological fear, an encounter with a dangerous scenario causes to start wondering about what will happen long after this encounter.
As mentioned earlier, normal fear does not become personalized. Normal fear does not involve thinking about or fearing a future or an unknown scenario. This is the opposite of psychological fear. Humans have not yet interacted with aliens and, therefore, they do not know how they will react. They do not know how their future will pan out after an encounter with aliens. This is the primary reason why they always think of the worst. The worst is usually exhibited in terms of actions such as aliens such as preying on both humans and earth’s resources, going on a human killing spree and so on (Sontag 38).
The fear of the unknown as it is exhibited in Alien films has a source. This means that it is possible to trace this fear of the unknown to something. Most likely, if the psychological fear of the unknown is traced back, it would point to various phobias, superstition, anxieties or even some evolved mental disorders that have plagued the world (Bailie 475). Obviously with the mention of this the Cold War comes to mind.
Perhaps it would be wise to explore what exactly comprises the fear of the unknown. Simply put, fear of the unknown is simply the fear of something that once cannot understand or the fear that one cannot successfully put a label on (Atelski 13). This includes the fear of a future that one has not yet encountered. We as humans tend to have fear for these things when we even think about them because mentally, we have not yet been able to label them or identify them (Bailie 475).
When the human mind does not understand something, it tends to register this thing or this aspect that it does understand as a potential threat because it cannot understand its nature and behavior (Bailie 475). This is the case with Aliens and is also the am fear that humans usually exhibit when they are about to meet some they have not met before.
One is normally hesitant to meet new people because they have not stored any previous information about them. In the human mind, something that is uncategorized or something that is unknown exhibits danger.
It is this psychological fear the essentially leads human is price that if aliens were to invade earth, they would be coming to use up the earth’s resources and potentially go on a killing sprees of humans (Blizek 45). The fact that humans have never interacted with Aliens means that humans naturally perceive Aliens to be representative of danger or even war.
The theme of alien occupation presents itself in many films. As mentioned earlier many alien films involve the aliens attempting to fleece the earth of its resources or attempting to transform the earth so that it can be suitable for their own life. In many science fiction films, aliens are often successfully or partly successful in doing this. They manage to fleece out the earths resource or partly convert them to a form that that they desire. In the process, many humans are usually annihilated (Nunn 398). This goes on until some form of human resistance occurs. This human resistance is usually made up of some group of humans who have been able to survive the atrocity of the aliens.
The fear of the unknown is exhibited once again in that in many films involving aliens, the aliens have no reserving about destroying humans who stand in their way in their quest to conquer the earth (Sardar Cubitt 32). Normally, only a small group or a handful of humans survive and it is this group that stages a resistance that’s starts quite small and then gains power and strength as time goes on (Blizek 67).
This concept is clearly brought out in films such as “Oblivion” and in the television series, “Fallen Skies”. Oblivion describes a post-apocalyptic earth which has been invaded and conquered by Aliens. The Aliens have destroyed all of humanity save for a little group that is staging a resistance against the aliens. Another concept of human fear that is exhibited in many films is that the aliens usually take over the body of humans and even convert some of the humans to suit their cause. In “Oblivion”, the main character Jack, does not ultimately realize that he is a creation of the Aliens, who have transformed him to become their fighting machine.
This concept is very synonymous to the human being fear of the unknown. Normally, humans contend that once of the things that can work against them is when the enemy has already infiltrated them. Once again, this concept brings into mind the Cold War and the Communism era. At this time, the Americans and the Russians were embroiled in a cold war regarding Communism which Russia was vehemently supporting and America was rejecting (Gaddis 13).
Many people in American were fearful of the effect of communism, and there were even fears that communist spies were present in America and were living among them. The spies were supposedly collecting information that they would later to use in the ultimate destruction of America (Gaddis 101). This concept is explored in Alien films where for instance, in the beginning, aliens integrate themselves into the human society in disguise to collect information that they will ultimately use later as they attempt to destroy the human race.
As mentioned earlier, a lot of Alien films depict the aliens coming up and taking the earth’s resources. The aliens are shown as not having any interest in humans, and this is why they have reservations about destroying humans. This once again represents an ultimate fear of war by humans. War is usually, associated with loss of human life. When a country wants to invade and take over another, the citizens of the home country usually have the notion that the invaders have absolutely no regard for human life. This once again depicts the human psychological fear of the unknown. After the invasion and war, what is next? This is the persistent question that humans ask themselves especially when they have never experienced war before.
This aspect is then translated into science fiction action film and stories. Since humans do not know the nature of the aliens, they simply assume the worst that the aliens have no interest or regard for human life; that they just want to access and use the earth’s resources. This is why they have absolutely no qualms about annihilating an entire race to achieve their goals. Humans are seen as inconsequential and without a purpose (Sardar and Cubitt 38). They are simply there to be eliminated. This is once again a concept or way of thinking that is adopted by humans in times of wars.
The view that humans are essentially inconsequential is a depiction of the human natural fear of being pointless, whereby one leave the earth without having necessarily made any sort of impact (Nunn 397). It also speaks of the human fear for mortality (Nunn 397). If it is possible for human existence to be snuffed out this easily, what is next?
This aspect also speaks volumes about human fear and sense of vulnerability. It depicts the sense of vulnerability that hams feel about their existence in their current species (Sardar and Cubitt 40).
In other instances, human fear can also be derived from personal guilt. The concept of guilt as a source of human fear is also explored in many alien films. This is the guilt of the misuse of the earth. There are some alien films and stories that depict alien invasions as a means to save the human race from itself. There are those films that exhibit aliens coming to “punish” the human race for its destructive tendencies that have supposedly reverberated in the aliens own universe and as result, they have come to stop the human race from destroying the rest of the universe (Melzer 87).
Here, the human race comes across as a race that does not essentially know what is good for itself. It is also a depiction of fear of loss of control as well as the arrogance that the humans have regarding their power and role in the universe. All these aspects bring about guilt and when guilt develops in humans; they feel that they deserve to be punished by something unknown (Melzer 90).
This concept is applicable to a criminal who have committed a crime but who fears that someone might have spotted them. In the days, the follow the crime, the criminal is laden with a lot of guilt and he is very fearful of the unknown. He is fearful of what will happen if someone indeed spotted them and whether they will be reported. It is the criminal’s guilt that brings about this enormous fear of the unknown. Similarly, in science fiction films involving aliens, the concept of guilt is seen as a source of fear of the unknown. Humans realize that their actions are hugely responsible for destroying a huge section of society, and they are, therefore, fearful of the consequences that they might have to face later as a result of their actions.
Conclusion
Science fiction films gained a lot of prominence throughout the 20th Century, and this trend has continued even into the 20th Century. In fact, some science fiction films have attained what can only be considered as a cult following. Many of these science fiction films involve alien. Aliens are viewed as strangers or outsider, mostly who come from other planets and make their way to earth to cause destruction as fleece the earth of its resources. As this essay has shown, the concept of aliens and the ultimate atrocity that they render on earth is a depiction of human fear of unknown or human fear of confrontation and war. This essay has shown that the humans have a psychological fear of things that they are not familiar with or that they cannot put a correct label on. In many occasion, anything unknown to humans is treated as a potential source of danger, and this is what comprises the human fear of the unknown. Therefore, the film construction of aliens is nothing more than an exhibition of human fear for war and fear of the unknown.
Works Cited
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