It’s been a while since Hollywood last coughed up a good science-fiction dramatization. Throughout the history of Sci-Fi, screenwriters have come up with some crazy ideas about extraterrestrials, some more plausible than others. We’re here to talk about the latter.

Since this is a weekend narrative, let’s all relax our beat-up neurons and let imagination hop in the driver’s seat for a minute. To help with that, I’ve prepared a list of 8 mindless alien concepts that the Sci-Fi film industry has been littered with over the years. Hopefully now that we’ve seen there are no green men on Pluto, maybe we can finally lay to rest some of these crippled ideas:

1. Aliens that look almost exactly like us

That’s just not imaginative! Granted, we can’t be 100% sure there isn’t a distant planet out there that emerged under the exact same conditions as Earth did. But the chances are so slim it’s next to impossible. If there’s one aspect where we want the producers to let their imagination run loose, it’s this one. As long as the character shows a plausible evolutionary design, we’ll take it. Which brings us to our second next point.

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(Skyline, 2010)

2. Aliens that look like crustaceans

This is the definition of overdoing it. As if the thought of a giant cockroach isn’t absurd enough, seeing one operate delicate buttons and heavy weaponry is downright ludicrous. An organism advanced enough to travel distances measured in light-years will have lost its shell a long time ago.

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(District 9, 2009)

3. Violent, instinct-driven aliens

For the sake of making a movie exciting, almost every ET thought up in Hollywood is a nasty brute that want something with us. Even if aliens do exist and make the trip here to reap the benefits of our planet, they’ll probably do it more elegantly than punching, kicking. Again, it all comes down to brain power. A civilization smart enough to have mastered inter-galactic travel probably has more efficient ways of annihilation than roaring and throwing fists around (think viruses or nanotechnology).

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(Aliens, 1986)

4. Aliens that have no problem with Earth’s gravity

There may be millions of Earth-like planets out there harboring life, but planets vary in size a lot, and this variable determines the pull it exerts on objects on the surface. Sir Isaac Newton discovered it and it’s called “gravity.” Try running in a straight line on the Moon. Chances are you won’t be able to do it for very long, because the Moon’s gravity is much weaker then the Earth’s, and it will affect your balance. In the same way, a being that has evolved to adapt to a different gravity will have trouble moving naturally here on Earth.

5. Aliens that speak English on first encounter

Seriously?

6. Green aliens

It’s not completely impossible, but an organism’s color is mostly determined by its chemistry and its habitat. Plants are green because they contain chlorophyl, so unless the aliens photosynthesize, there’s little reason for them to sport this chromatic. Now, you’ll say ‘lizards and other crawlers are green too.’ Yes, to blend with their environment. Advanced beings needn’t worry about that. They build houses to keep predators at bay.

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(Graphic designer Marco Ferretti’s depiction of a green humanoid from another world)

7. Aliens on a planet in our solar system

Admittedly, this idea has been in the trash for a while, but I can still recall at least one recent motion picture that put unearthly life on Jupiter. There are so many problems with this notion that I don’t even know where to begin. The thing is, neither of the 8 remaining planets exhibits nearly enough of Earth’s attributes to sustain life, let alone give birth to it (maybe one of Jupiter’s moons, but even that’s a stretch).

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(A representation of the solar system)

8. Alien ship accelerates from nod to light-speed in seconds

That’s just insane! Even with a hard crustacean shell 😛 , every living breathing thing in that ship would be flattened to death by the sheer G forces. Technology evolves but the laws of physics stay the same. Unless you open a wormhole or bend space-time, there’s no way you can accelerate that fast without killing yourself.

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(An artist’s depiction of a flying saucer escaping Earth’s gravity in a blink of an eye)

… and the list could go on. But I’ll admit I’m still drawn to laser guns that make sounds, android crew members and warp drive, so sign me up for any Sci-Fi movie no matter how silly or fundamentally broken its notions are. What are your dislikes with Sci-Fi movies? Sound off in the comments.