How do you feel about "too humanoid" aliens in Trek?

Well it certainly makes for easier Halloween costumes.

* Places sticker on forehead *

"All that is ours is yours!"

 

One thing I noticed in Enterprise, and I think it may be present in the other shows, is that whenever the crew beam down to an Alien market place or social gathering there's always that one alien that comes up to them and mentiones that he's never seen there species before even though we all know that there are races out there who do look like us.

Given our similarities to most species, or there's to us, it's a wonder that no alien has ever confused us with a Bajoran or whatever on first viewing.

 

Depends on the story you're trying to tell. Would a "A Taste of Armageddon" or "The Inner Light" have been more involving if the aliens had been methane-breathing crystalline lifeforms? I don't think so.

When you need an exotic lifeform (like the Horta or the Crystalline entity), you use an exotic lifeform. If you're telling a morality play about war or prejudice, you might as well use humanoid aliens.

 

I've always thought hearing the original languages besides just Klingon would be awesome, myself.

As for the aliens not looking alien--it's not that plausible; however, I do think at least with the explanation about the Preservers, it makes a bit more sense.

I wrote an essay of my own here about it...now I'll go read yours!


http://www.adastrafanfic.com/viewstory.php?sid=267

 

I think this is lazy writing and should be chastised as such.

TOS has proven that creative writers can make interesting aliens which are not human-like (ie: Horta).

Modern Trek writers got lazy and stopped even trying to be creative like that, and that is a darn shame.

 

So many humanoids?

Have no fear; Sargon's here.

 

It is a bit annoying when Trek features humans with minor facial differences all the time. But it's mainly a budget issue. The Progenitors story in The Chase is as good an in-universe explanation as any.

I loved it when we saw non human aliens such as the Horta, the Gorn, the Tholians, the Sheliak, the Species 8472, the Xindi Insectoids, and the Xindi Aquatics.

 

I'm not that bothered by the lack of alien aliens, but it does remind me of a line from The Big Bang Theory where one of the characters wonders why the genitalia of the alien women Kirk supposedly slept with are all similar to humans. And why said women wouldn't chastise Kirk for putting his thing in her nose. Yeah, that's a point.

 

Although it was really rather silly, I did enjoy it when Kirk would come across a parallel Earth in just about every other ep. One week it was Roman Planet, the next Gangster Planet. Nazi Planet, etc.

 

Why? Because it's easier to relate? Why not set it in the real world then, or some Fantasy world? If you're going to choose Science-Fiction set in Outer Space, it's only kosher to use Space aliens.

"A Piece of the Action" would have been silly...sillier with Horta-like aliens, but what would have been wrong using Sheliak in the place of some random WASPy aliens-of-the-week/book?

I think a universe more similar to Star Wars' or Farscape's or even Men in Black's, where you have different types and levels of alien all mixed in with each other everywhere would be really interesting to see.

 

If it's between a spending the money on a better script or an expensive alien makeup, I'll take the better script any day.

It all comes down to the almighty buck.

 

Yep. Almost every DVD set has an interview where they talk about doing as many unique aliens as budget allows, and then filling out with forehead-aliens. Also, I'll take a good actor or actress playing an alien with two legs and two arms over somebody's nephew in a full body suit giving us a few moments of stiff dialog while communicating ship to ship on the bridge screen.

 

Crazy aliens are better left to the books so we can flesh them out in our imaginations.

 

Eh, I never take distances as a factor. Just cause we are not traveling faster than light does not mean aliens are not. An alien could look at our advanced stuff and call it prehistoric junk, or looks at our scientists and say that these guys don't know what they are talking about.

Stop being so presimistic. I've got a 40+ year old bottle of scotch here to be opened once the big day happens.


For me, just like Terry Nation, creator of the Daleks, was always disappointed by the aliens and monsters in science fiction because they all looked like people, just dressed up people. A few human like aliens are fine, and possibly expected to be out there (Like the aliens disignated as "The Nordics", who are very tall, arein looking people), but it's pretty silly on Trek to keep seeing aliens who are just humans with some ridges on their faces. The human-like Gorn in those ST09 pictures were disapointing to say the least. There's probably aliens out there that could pretty much be large chunks of crystal with tentacles, slug feet, and proboscus.

One of my favorite aliens in Trek were the Xindi, all the races of them. I think there's more like that out there. Be neat to see an alien race like that, minus the whole carving the world up like a Thanksgiving Turkey bit.

 

Well.....Kes had her thing on her back, it seemed.

 

^So do we, really.

It'd be hilarious if the pertinent apertures were switched around, though. That's plausible with a human body plan, I suppose. I bet it'd lead to some romantic misunderstandings.

 

Well, Star Wars and MIB both have much better budgets than Star Trek does and the differences between movies released every few years as compared to weekly TV plays into it as well.

Farscape, it actually did cost quite a bit to make those aliens which is what led to the S4 cancellation. Luckily they got the mini-series to end their show.

Contrary to belief, TOS wasn't that good with this either. They used humans and human-aliens a LOT, not even altering their faces aside from slightly changed skin tones. And their attempts at alien aliens didn't work out (Gorn, Horta).

The best was early TNG with the Bynars, Anticans, Selay, those Fish-Aliens, etc.

 

Farscape's budget must have been less than the later Trek series, though. Either way, Farscape did a much better job with aliens and even addressed the English-speaking thing immediately in the first episode. There's no reason why these things couldn't have been done more in Trek.

I wish we had seen more races like the Tholians in ENT.

 

Well, Farscape half-did the english thing right. The translator microbes make their languages all sound like English to Crichton, but they never explained why when the Alien talked their lips all moved the way English-speakers would.

Anywho, Trek has the Universal Translator so that explains that. It's not really necessary to explain the english thing unless you want to point out the alien speaking another language like in District 9, because in that context it makes more sense for them NOT to speak english.

And like I said, early TNG DID have great alien makeup (for the time) in the first two seasons. After that, it was an executive order to stop doing that to save money.

So chalk that up to Executive meddling.