first contact

First contact: The Faculty (1998)

1998 saw the release of The Faculty, directed by Robert Rodriguez. Recognized as a mix of classic sci-fi films—including Invasion Of The Body Snatchers and The Thing—and in the self-aware style of Scream, The Faculty explores the invasion of a high school by alien beings who first assimilate the teachers, then the student body.

The Faculty touches on a fear of conformity and assimilation into an inauthentic life. The film is set in a high school, perhaps the most appropriate setting for such themes. High school is widely recognized as the time in which adolescents begin exploring different groups in order to define themselves as individuals. Wrapped up in this phase is the fear of conformity, of succumbing to peer pressure and placing the will of the group over the individual. For The Faculty, this fear is symbolically reflected in the threat of assimilation by aliens.

The Faculty (1998) Football team

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Posted on by Dierking

Breaking down the Independence Day: Resurgence trailer

If you recall my post from earlier this year, I am a big fan of the 1996 film Independence Day, or ID4 as it was stylized for its release. So, you can imagine my excitement now that the trailer for the new film is out. The sequel, titled Independence Day: Resurgence, or IDR, is set 20 years after the initial film—allowing for the aging of the original cast members—and focuses on the return of the alien threat.

Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)

Haven’t seen the Independence Day: Resurgence trailer yet? Let’s fix that:

No joke: I got a touch of goosebumps watching that the first time. I blame it on Whitmore’s speech . Really a nice touch to include the most iconic bit of the first film in this trailer.

Okay, now that we’re all on the same page, let’s go through it and see what we can deduce.

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Posted on by Dierking

First contact: Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

Last year saw the release of Edge of Tomorrow, directed by Doug Liman, and subsequently rebranded as Live. Die. Repeat. It is an adaption of the Japenese light novel All You Need is Kill by Sakurazaka Hiroshi.1

Edge of Tomorrow (2014)Edge of Tomorrow follows William Cage (Tom Cruise) as he is forced to fight on the front lines against the alien Mimics. In a disastrous battle, Cage is cornered by a Mimic and he detonates an explosive, killing them both. This would be the end for our brave protagonist in most other films, but instead Cage wakes from death at the beginning of the previous day only to return to the same battle to fight and die again as the film’s tagline suggests. Cage quickly discovers he is trapped in a time loop, the most recognizable example of which is most likely Groundhog Day (1993).

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First contact: Robert L. Forward’s Dragon’s Egg (1980)

How do I even begin to talk about Dragon’s Egg?

Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward

Cover when I first read Dragon’s Egg

This book was a real game changer for me. Dragon’s Egg by Robert L. Forward was probably the first hard science-fiction book I ever read. I came across it when I was 11 or 12, and it hugely expanded my conception of what science-fiction could be. As Forward was a physicist, his novels are filled with credible scientific inferences of what technology would be used for space travel, as well as interesting hypotheses of what life might look like on worlds much different than our own.

Published in 1980, the world that Dragon’s Egg focuses on is not a planet at all, but a neutron star, Dragon’s Egg, in the star constellation Draco. The life that evolves on that star is hyper accelerated in comparison with the pace at which humans move due to exposure to the extremely high gravity. Forward explores the evolution of this life with an attention to the impact of the neutron star on the alien cheela. In addition, he outlines the beliefs and culture of the cheela with the care of an anthropologist. In both ways, he manages to hit the nail on the head and the result is a three-dimensional, believable alien species.

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Posted on by Dierking