Among those whose stories are told: A rural American sheriff (Sam Neill), a U.S soldier (Shamier Anderson) stationed in the Middle East, and a Japanese aerospace technician (Shioli Kutsuna). As extraterrestrials attempt a global land-grab, the 10-part Apple TV+ drama tracks the fallout for individuals across continents. Others have claimed that the armada of incoming invasion films is an attempt by the world’s governments to mentally prepare us for a mass ‘decloaking’ of extraterrestrials in the real world, following an alleged mass sighting of UFOs over New York on 13 October.“Invasion” has the potential to be a lesson in geography and a travelogue with aliens. Recent years have seen a constant barrage of horror and vampire films, and the industry is now looking for ideas in the science fiction genre, perhaps hastened by the success of Avatar. So, what has brought about this sudden resurgence of interest in a premise that is over a hundred years old? Some have suggested it’s simply a result of the cyclical nature of the Hollywood movie making system. Spearheaded by the Strause Brothers’ Skyline, the next few months will see the release of around a dozen such films, including Monsters, Battle Los Angeles and Cowboys And Aliens, while directors Sam Raimi and Roland Emmerich are both said to be preparing similar projects of their own. It’s odd, therefore, that in 2010, we stand on the cusp of the largest wave of invasion films to hit cinemas in 60 years. The alien invasion subgenre, popularised by Wells, suddenly seized the imagination, and the movies that came as a result mark a unique moment in history. The 50s period of UFOs, Cold War anxiety and remarkable technological progress brought with it an explosion in sci-fi cinema, the likes of which hasn’t been seen since. Others, like Roland Emmerich’s expensive and rather daft Independence Day (1996), were merely diverting exercises in special effects. Some, such as Philip Kaufman’s satirical updating of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978), were brilliant. In the decades that followed, filmmakers returned to the theme of alien invasion only sporadically. Others, such as The Day Mars Invaded Earth or 1969‘s daft Monitors, are mere curiosities. Of the few alien invasion movies to appear in the 60s, only Wolf Rilla’s Village Of The Damned, a well-handled adaptation of John Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos, is genuinely worthy of note. Fifties anxieties of communist invasion were replaced by new fears of nuclear war, which manifested themselves in such films as Fail Safe and Stanley Kubrick’s classic Dr. Wood Jr’s Plan 9 From Outer Space are hugely entertaining, but not, perhaps, for the reasons their creators intended.īy the 60s, the era of the alien invasion movie appeared to be over. Films such as Invasion Of The Saucer-Men (1957) and Edward D. It’s a nightmarish, brilliantly directed film that taps into the era’s preoccupation with a loss of identity, and is inarguably one of the best science fiction movies of the decade.Īs the 50s drew to a close, the alien invasion theme was played out with less conviction, and with sometimes hilarious results. Initially dismissing their claims as mere paranoia, a small town doctor (Kevin McCarthy) realises his patients are gradually being replaced by emotionless Pod People. Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, released the same year, suggests an alien threat that is silent and insidious. Originally written as a cutting indictment of the British Empire’s inhumane foreign policy, The War Of The Worlds became a straight ‘us versus them’ war movie in the hands of Hollywood, and ends on a clanging note of religiosity that would have, no doubt, irritated the original novel’s rationalist author. The epic sweep of Wells’ novel made the cut, but his sly allegory didn’t. Crashing to Earth in what appear to be meteorites, the Martians emerge in vast, eerily-designed war machines, and immediately begin obliterating everything they see. Later that same year, the big screen adaptation of The War Of The Worlds finally arrived courtesy of director Byron Haskin, and its aliens were anything but benevolent or friendly. It later transpires that the aliens are harmless, and merely need time to repair their broken down ship, and after returning the kidnapped inhabitants to their loved ones, the creatures make their dramatic exit. Michael Rennie’s benevolent alien, Klaatu, comes to Earth to issue a dire warning about its inhabitants’ aggressive nature.ġ953’s It Came From Outer Space introduced an initially sinister breed of alien, who kidnap the inhabitants of a small Arizona town and replace them with emotionless duplicates, a sci-fi trope that would appear repeatedly in 50s sci-fi cinema. Robert Wise’s better known The Day The Earth Stood Still, released a few months later, has a similar scenario.
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