could they do a show with "realistic" aliens?
- Thread starter JT Perfecthair
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Roddenberry's status as a visionary would go through the roof!!
Real alien life will have almost nothing in common with us, though perhaps some elements of our design may be optimal or practical enough to have evolved in parallel someplace else. Genetically, humans would have more in common with yeast or the common cold virus.
Sorry but all I could think was Sesame Street. I liked most other things about Farscape.
Yet I was OK with the Gorn and Mugatu
Given that nature isn't opposed to similarities and duplications--as well as how vast our Universe is and the likelihood that Earth isn't the only planet of its kind within it, IMO--the odds that there are some alien life-forms that may be virtually indistinguishable from us are actually good, even if they are millions of light-years away in another Galaxy somewhere.
Although, I've often thought that sometimes, instead of using guys with forehead bumps or worse, "aliens" who look exactly human, why didn't they just make the inhabitants of the planet of the week human colonists who had separated from the Federation? You could have done that with some TNG episodes, like The High Ground, or The Vengeance Factor and still have had the exact same episodes. Hell, very little would have changed had they done that with The Hunted, for that matter.
Even in Farscape the aliens were basically upright-walkers with eyes, nose, mouth and similar ways of thinking to humans.
Ender's Game, if it's anywhere near true to the novels, has realistic aliens.
I disagree. If the message of a show is that we can learn to tolerate and accept people's differences it undermines that point for all aliens to act exactly like us. You're not really accepting people's differences, you're saying that we can only really accept people who think and behave exactly like us.
But Star Trek needs human-like aliens for two production reasons. Aliens must be: 1) Cheap, 2) F***able.
Ender's Game, if it's anywhere near true to the novels, has realistic aliens.
I disagree. If the message of a show is that we can learn to tolerate and accept people's differences it undermines that point for all aliens to act exactly like us. You're not really accepting people's differences, you're saying that we can only really accept people who think and behave exactly like us.
But Star Trek needs human-like aliens for two production reasons. Aliens must be: 1) Cheap, 2) F***able.
I was talking about the message of a particular episode, not the series as a whole. "Acceptance of alien lifeforms" is certainly the theme of some Trek episodes, but by no means all of them. If this week's episode is instead about political prisoners or global warming or genetic engineering or some other issue that doesn't require a completely alien lifeform, then making the aliens-of-the-week giant slime molds isn't necessary.
Look at "Mark of Gideon" or "Conscience of the King" or "Chain of Command," for example. Those episodes were about overpopulation and war crimes and torture, respectively, so there was no need to make the aliens particularly alien to deal with those issues.
Would "Half a Life" be as affecting if David Ogden Stiers's character was a telepathic cactus? Probably not, because that story wasn't about that.
Not every morality play has the same moral!
Assuming parallel evolution on other M Class planets and further assuming that no asteroid hit there 65 million years ago, there'd be a big probability we might encounter intelligent velociraptors.
Therefore the Gorn (the depiction in ENT seems more realistic, IMHO) and the bipedal reptiles from "Bem" (TAS) look like realistic aliens.
Bob
Therefore the Gorn (the depiction in ENT seems more realistic, IMHO) and the bipedal reptiles from "Bem" (TAS) look like realistic aliens.
Bob
Who says us evolving into an intelligent species wasn't a fluke?
As far as we know, we are the only intelligent species, after 600 million years of complex life.
We don't have intelligent birds or crocodiles today... the closest cousins of the dinosaurs.
I think intelligent life may be very, very, VERY rare in the universe.
Technological societies will be even more rare. Who says they won't be stuck in the middle-ages forever? On our world science had an uphill battle against certain..... less clear-headed forces.
It's true that it may be the case that intelligent life is incredibly rare, but that's certainly not the case in the Trek universe.
Given the premise that every other planet has intelligent life, it's certainly believable that reptilian-like creatures could become intelligent.
Given the premise that every other planet has intelligent life, it's certainly believable that reptilian-like creatures could become intelligent.
I'm gonna agree about Babylon 5 and Farscape. They did it. Trek could do it.
I don't know... if evolution (on earth) happened the way scientists say it happened, it's hard to see how aliens on a totally different planet could develop 5 fingers, two eyes, and a brain like ours.
If they develop that far at all.
OTOH, as far humanoid appearance, we tend to think we are the prototype, and if there is other humanoid life out there, they are the copies.
What if they see us as the copies and themselves as the prototypes?
And then there's the concept of alien creating or transporting life on this planet thrown into the mix- that would open the possibility that aliens can look like they do on Trek.
If they develop that far at all.
OTOH, as far humanoid appearance, we tend to think we are the prototype, and if there is other humanoid life out there, they are the copies.
What if they see us as the copies and themselves as the prototypes?
And then there's the concept of alien creating or transporting life on this planet thrown into the mix- that would open the possibility that aliens can look like they do on Trek.
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TNG did play their get out of jail free card, by giving humanoid species a common point of origin, which then evolved on their own respective planets. That being said, I would like to see a very alien character make an appearance, though energy/light beings have been done many times before.
That was the explanation in TNG's "The Chase". Nice retcon.
"Humanoid" life is a Star Trek concept. There are no "copies" and "originals". Probably only vaguely similar shapes as a result of convergent evolution, and even then 2 arms + 2 legs may be rare; even on our own planet there are species that look nothing like us.
TOS also did something similar in Return To Tomorrow.
I agree, I tend to think the likelihood of finding human-like aliens with the similar brain structures, five fingers, ect, is because of the unique way different forms of life evolved on earth-(chance, accidents and opportunity).
It's not so much as humans thinking they are the prototypes, but more like thinking we are the centerpiece to which all other life should be compared.
For example, if we did discover that there was intelligent, humanoid looking life on Pluto we might ask them, how did you evolve just like us?!?
Whereas the aliens maybe thinking the exact same thing.
Perhaps aliens on other planets can evolve the same way we did if evolution were some repeating, re-occurring theme when the conditions are right?
Like oceans, volcanoes, canyons, earthquakes etc on other planets.
Not likely, I think, but this view does open the possibilities.
Well...if the results of the experiments with gorilla Koko are any indication...it seems we are NOT the only intelligent species on earth. Koko (and other gorillas who were thought Gorilla Sign Language) does show very clear signs of selfawareness, limited ability of comprehension (comparable to a 5 year old) and transfer ability (the ability to transfer known concepts to different situations)
All primates are practically one big family. So, our kind of intelligence emerged only once. My point was, where are all the intelligent snails, birds and beetles?
1 million years of human intelligence vs 600 million years of non-sentient life. (or even 3000 million if you count single-celled organisms)
What then are the odds of several very human-looking species developing roughly the same level of technology at roughly the same moment in history? It's actually pretty ridiculous when you think about it.
I love Star Trek, but it is Fantasy, not Science Fiction.
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