Movie Trends: Aliens in Post-Bush Era

There have been some trends in movies this year, little things that I feel like analyzing- they may not give great insight into mankind, but they may forecast movies to come.

There's been a lot of aliens popping up in the movie landscape lately. Short list from the top of my head:

The Battle for Terra
District 9
Avatar
Aliens in the Attic
Monsters versus Aliens

Now, three of these five movies have some things in common- Aliens in the Attic and Monster vs. Aliens being the outliers.

In District 9 and Avatar, we have:
1. Humans being assholes
2. Aliens playing the part of oppressed minorities whose human rights are violated
3. Messages about War profiteering/environment
4. Evil corporate entities

Something is obviously skipping merrily through the cultural consciousness of America for all this to hit at the same time, and it's pretty obvious the anti-war, pro-environment, cultural tolerance messages (all things I generally support) are a direct product of the Bush era, manifesting roughly a year after his exit.

It's pretty interesting that "Aliens as Foreigners" angle has been hit so hard so quickly. In many ways, we can just skip the plot of these films to get more of the jist, the essential salts for the alchemical creation of these movies.

District 9- Blood Diamond + Bug Monsters
Avatar- Dances with Wolves + Blue Cat People
Battle for Terra... I have not seen, but I get the feeling it's more of the same.

Using this formula, we merely need to find the next film meant to highlight the oppression of a human culture, throw in some lasers and CGI aliens, and we may have a critically acclaimed piece of sci-fi on our hands...

Come to think of it, both Avatar and District 9 have a transformational element in them, of people becoming aliens as well... and Monsters vs. Aliens... huh. Maybe some vibe of how our only real differences are superficial in nature...

I suppose in some ways, this feeds right back into Star Wars characters being bad racial stereotypes, though so far the new wave of aliens have been far more tasteful in their depictions over all. The Navi of avatar seem to be a blend of various tribal peoples of earth in their culture, so they really don't come off as any other race per se, not to mention their image is largely positive. The Prawns of District 9 are so alien, being bug monster, they really don't come off as anything other than poor aliens.

Since I try to bring things back to gaming when I can, I figure there might be a few lessons somewhere in this mess as far as creating alien cultures. I think the best way to go is that if you can't make something new, rip off so many things nobody can tell where it came from anywhere (credited to this guy). While he may not be able to make a decent film himself, the technique is sound for gaming- the Navi of Avatar come off as tribal, but it's hard to pin down what tribe they come from.

The other lesson might be that aliens are great source material as representing something other than the obvious- they take up classic roles readily.

Aliens work well as Gods, Angels, Invaders, Devils, Natural Forces, or any other role you want to throw them in without having to give 1)Supernatural reasoning nor 2) Sensical reasoning. Aliens are different, their ways of approaching the world strange. If an alien wants to hunt you for fun, give you superpowers, or blow up the planet, don't question it- they're alien, and whatever they are doing must obviously be science and makes sense to them. This isn't an open invitation to hand waving aliens doing stupid crap, but it is reason enough to squeak by with some odd behavior and unknown motivations at times.