Alien Invasion Movies

[Mach6]

My Favorite 5 Alien Invasion Movies in no particular order
War of the Worlds (1953)
The Thing (1982)
They Live: “Rowdy” Roddy Piper punching, suplexing, & shooting evil aliens & greedy rich humans for 90+minutes. It combines a great kickass action movie with some satire about the Reagan 80’s. What more could you ask for?
Critters: Gremlins on steroids that has a lot of fun ripping off or “paying homage” to other sci-fi movies. I’m glad Patrick gave it a shout out in the best runner-ups. Hated the sequels.
War of the Worlds (2005)

Worst 5 in no particular order
Dreamcatcher: I never read the Stephen King novel, but which studio exec in their right mind would greenlight a plot about aliens coming out of uh, uh, a certain body part. It also has one of the stupidest tension scenes of all movie history when that dude on the toilet seat is trying to reach for a toothpick. Even Morgan Freeman was horrible.
The Invasion (2007): All the flash forwards, the unnecessary CGI, & action climax due to the reshoots did nothing to help this. (Nicole Kidman's bland performance didn't help either.)
Highlander 2 The Quickening: In the original red shield version, the immortals were from the Planet Zeist. Nuff said.
Transformers 2 Revenge of the Fallen
Men In Black 2

The Independence Day Podcast
JB’s theory about ID4 “foreshadowing” our next two presidents is truly thinking outside the box. That alone made the podcast for me.

I still have a low opinion of Independence Day but I will agree that you can’t say its cynical garbage. It does have a heart. I prefer the miniatures & models of famous landmarks getting destroyed than perfect, soulless CGI rendered models any day. The acting ranges from passable to solid & there isn’t anyone in there as obnoxious as the performances & characters in Transformers. I still love the bombastic, patriotic, & cheesy soundtrack as a guilty pleasure.

On the negative side, the dogfights have aged badly & like Ebert said those city wide spaceships look like burnt out waffles in some shots. If we’re going to criticize Michael Bay for his racial, misogynist & homophobic humor & stereotypes then we have to do the same with Emmerich when he had Harvey Fierstein’s Marty say “There’s no shame in hiding”. Ugh! My main overall problem is ID4 just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever or could never exist in any logical universe. The computer Mac virus is the least of its problems. I just demand that my big dumb blockbusters make sense at least 50% of its time. ID4 falls in the middle of the invasion genre for me.

[mkiker2089]

Personally I didn't care for the remake of WoTW. I'm not sure why but it never grabbed me.

I'd still put Independence Day on that list. It's not art but it's a very entertaining movie that is what it was designed to be. I actually thought Harvey Fierstein did a good job also. Hollywood likes stereotypes even if it was reverse stereotypes to counter earlier ones. Letting him show fear was normal and a little comedic relief. It reminds me of the story where gay people were turned down for the title roles in Will & Grace because straight people were able to "act gay."

I think the best question about ID4 was asked by Jeremy Clarkson when he said "how did you have the right lead?" He pointed out that with human to human technology finding the right cable is a pain. Going to the USB standard just made it worse. Imagine not only talking to an alien space ship but plugging into a smaller alien space ship to do so. However this movie wasn't intended to make sense. Making sense would have killed the spirit of it. Explaining it would have changed the pacing at least. This movie works best in "feel good" mode.