Joe Queenan's guide to sci-fi cliches

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Joe Queenan's guide to sci-fi cliches
October 21, 2010
Joe Queenan
The Guardian

There is always something out there in the classic science fiction film. No one knows what is out there, or where it comes from, or what it wants, but it is out there. As a rule, it will continue to stay out there for a long time, because the film-makers understand that letting the audience think about what may be out there is a lot scarier than actually seeing what is out there. What is out there is a generic, off-the-rack alien. It may look like a new, improved version of Godzilla or like the stylish, designer ­monsters in Aliens, or the arachnid-like ­creatures in Cloverfield, or it may appear as the gigantic mutant ­serpent-fish in Korean horror movies, or like the ­Terminator, or the ­extraterrestrial ­steroid kings in Predators, or like the enormous metallic insects in Starship Troopers, but it will not be scary – not really scary – in the way that a 25-ft shark or a basement full of famished rats or Freddy Krueger or Michael Corleone is scary.

That has always been the problem with sci-fi films: when the terrifying aliens finally turn up, they look like bean stalks or fetuses or Keanu Reeves or jumbo-sized scorpions or ET; with few exceptions, aliens are just not scary.
Increasingly, the aliens in sci-fi movies have so many components that you can't take them in at a glance. They suffer from computer-graphic overkill. They have too many appendages, too many detachable parts. There's just too much going on. The reason dinosaurs ruled the earth for millions of years was this: they kept it simple. They were big, stupid and nasty. Aliens in films, by contrast, always crash and burn because they are anatomically incoherent. They come with way too many options.

It is isn't entirely clear what the aliens want in films such as War of the Worlds, Cloverfield, Signs, Alien, Armageddon, or The Day the World Stood Still, and that makes it hard to fight them. Are they motivated by rage, greed, or a desire for vengeance because someone visiting Caligrithon Re Amelan Toubu 6 accidentally blew up the outer rings of Saturn, precipitating an asteroid storm that destroyed their planet where the alien's mother Reptuka had taken early retirement? Or are they simply out on a lark? At least with Star Trek, we know why Eric Bana and the boys want to destroy the Earth, just as we know that the aliens in District 9 simply want to get the hell out of South Africa and go home. But in most sci-fi movies, the aliens are an enigma. You can't get a fix on them. If Dracula and King Kong were as hard to figure out as most aliens, they wouldn't be the legends they are today.

When the alien death ship makes its first appearance it will be hundreds of times larger than the vessel sent to defeat it. This will make no difference in the long run, as the aliens' ship will have a weakness that will result in its destruction in the film's final scenes. The defeat of the aliens results from humanity discovering a fairly obvious fatal design flaw any idiot could have detected back in the shop. The aliens are usually not very smart, or at least they are not very thorough.

Women play an important role in sci-fi movies. Feisty, resourceful, indomitable women have pivotal roles in all the Star Wars films, the Aliens franchise and the Terminator movies. Since women are far less visible in conventional action films, this suggests that armed women get more dangerous as they gravitate away from our galaxy.

In a good number of sci-fi movies, there is an abandoned spacecraft floating somewhere in space. It may be a craft that vanished on a long-forgotten mission, or a vessel from another solar system or galaxy, or another century. All of its occupants are dead or missing. No one knows how they died, but it wasn't pleasant. Something evil lurks in the bowels of the spacecraft, and is trying to sneak into our solar system. As soon as the aliens start killing humans, the heroes seal off parts of the spacecraft, but that never works. Somebody always gets left behind. A similar problem arises when a member of the crew, against the wishes of his colleagues, ventures outside to make repairs to the spacecraft. Always a bad idea.

Callow youths play a major role in sci-fi films. They will question authority. They will lock horns with their superiors. They will carp endlessly with the heroine. But, in the end, they are the ones who will destroy the Death Star, or send Bana back to Romulus. In the classic sci-fi movie, the torch must be passed on to a new generation, often in a full-dress awards ceremony that evokes Leni Riefenstahl's classic Nazi-glorifying film Triumph of the Will.

At some point, usually while the ship is being fired upon by powerful weapons that somehow never manage to do serious damage, the captain will announce that the spacecraft must go into overdrive or enter hyperspace to escape destruction. The technical staff will angrily warn him that such a rash action risks destroying the spacecraft because it will cause friction between the ampythitrionic argon shields and the nacrovulcular dystopean defibrillators. To which he will retort: "I am the captain of this ship. And I am giving the order. Now, do it!"

The aliens always enjoy a preposterous technological advantage over the harried earthlings, which will make humanity's ultimate triumph all the more inspiring. The person who first announces the aliens' intentions will not be believed. Bureaucrats will stymie the hero of the film at every turn. Often they will be clad in capes. At some point in the film, the alien must stick its face directly into the mug of one of the stars, as if it were having trouble focusing. Aliens always seem to have trouble seeing things up-close. Aliens should probably wear bifocals.
The classic cliched sci-fi movie: Starship Troopers

Starship Troopers is one of the most exquisitely cliche-packed sci-fi movies of all time. It features a society menaced by ruin from afar. The society is mildly totalitarian, but in the good-natured way so many future societies are. Aliens dispatch wave after wave of seemingly indestructible gigantic insects to attack this society, which are surprisingly easy to destroy. Like all aliens, the bugs in Starship Troopers are both intelligent and stupid. And they are tight-lipped about their motivation. Though somewhat tongue-in-cheek, Starship Troopers does adhere to most of the genre's most venerable cliched traditions.

It has two characters competing for the affections of the same girl. The girl is a female soldier who is hot and a jock, the usual combination in outer space. Naturally, there is tension between the old guard and the young honchos. Naturally, there is a hard-assed old squad leader. Naturally, there are untested youths who will be men by the end. But there is more. There are ridiculous helmets. There is a dangerous mission to a lost colony. There is defeat – and redemption. Most importantly, Starship Troopers is the kind of film that leaves the viewer hanging at the end, with the door wide open for a sequel. The ambiguous, inconclusive ending may be the biggest cliche of all.