The Franco-Prussian war was a conflict between the second French empire and the Northern
German confederation led by the kingdom of Prussia, which owing to the Germans' superior
strength and numbers, quickly led to the capitulation of the French Empire and the capture of the
Emperor, Napoleon III.
The conflict culminated with the Seige of Paris in the winter of 1871 with the German
troops invading the french capital.
Months later the German states unified into a German Empire, annexing the French regions
of Alsace and Lorraine and shifting the balance of power in Europe towards a now unified,
powerful Germany.
Britain, who mostly stayed out of it, of course kept a close eye on the conflict, and all
the major newspapers, journals, and magazines reported at length on the course of the War
of 1870 and on the prospects for the British in the changed Europe of 1871.
Out of this national obsession with the conflict in Europe emerged a short story written by
ex-soldier George Tomkyns Chesney - "Battle of Dorking"—in 1871.
The Battle of Dorking recounts the final days before and during a fictionalized devastating
invasion of Britain by a German-speaking enemy, retold 50 years after the fact by a nameless
narrator to his grandchildren, who have grown up in a contested Britain that is now a heavily-taxed
annex of The Enemy.
The German-speaking invaders are never named, and are instead referred to obliquely as The
Other Power, or The Enemy.
"Battle of Dorking" was not only an overnight national sensation and controversy - Most
readers saw the idea that the greatest imperial power in the world could be invaded, let alone
could cease to exist was ludicrous - but for many it was an indictment for nationalistic
hubris; for even more it was an outrageous, unmerited judgment and a betrayal of Great
Britain.
But "Battle of Dorking" would set off a trend of its own - one that literary historians
would eventually call "invasion literature" - fiction that spoke to the taboo and the
thrill of the obviously ludicrous idea that the sovereign empire of britain could ever
fall to a foreign power ahahaha - but what if?
Between 1871 and 1914, over 60 works of fiction for adult readers describing hypothetical
invasions of Great Britain were published.
During that time, British writer HG Wells combined the popularity of invasion literature
with the widespread interest in the idea of life on mars to create a whole new genre,
one that has endured in popularity in some form ever since - the alien invasion.
A supposition:
Aliens in fiction are never just aliens
Just as monsters in fiction are never just monsters
So while I think it's not very interesting to reduce a text to a one to one allegory,
it is important to be open to textual metaphor, especially where aliens come in, be they sympathetic,
threatening, beyond comprehension, or total gibberish.
Aliens as a narrative device can reflect a historically colonized people, they can be
the innocence of childhood, they can be some sort of spiritual revelation, they can be
a class oppressed by poverty, or the ravages of poverty itself, or they can DUMB AS ROCKS
There is the literal function within the narrative, of course, but then there is that layer of
metaphor, of significance to the culture that the work is being presented to, a significance
that may not even be obvious to either the author or the audience until some time later.
With that in mind, let's go back to the OG, a Mr. HG Wells and his invading martians.
Author and professor of English Frank McConnell describes Wells' Martians as "what you fear
most , what your culture and environment have taught you is the worst thing that could happen
to you, the situation over which you would have the least degree of control (135)"
Wells was writing for an audience of Victorian Britons, whom he describes in the opening
of the novel, "secure in their Empire over this Earth."
Wells was writing for an audience for whom the very idea that intelligent beings from
another planet could be capable of launching an attack on the most powerful nation on Earth
was a most bizarre and outlandish notion.
But the invasion narrative is a manifest of different cultural anxieties in different
eras - Invasion of the Body Snatchers came at the height of the McCarthy era - and is
just one of a ton of invasion narratives that came out during the beginning of the Cold
War.
HOWEVER when I say an alien is never just an alien, I don't mean that an alien is
a one to one metaphor for something else - and that is a trap a lot of people fall into.
Interpreting Animal Farm as a metaphor for totalitarian communism is great for your 8th
grade English class, but we can apply a little more nuance than that, right?
I'm less interested in what invasion narratives MEAN so much as how invasion narratives capture
the ecosystem of the culture in which they were made.
And to do that we're going to compare the seminal alien invasion movie of the 90's,
and the seminal alien invasion movie of the 2000's
Title one
Independence Day is 1996 film directed by Roland Emmerich, starring Will Smith, Jeff
Goldblum and Bill Pullman, each playing characters experiencing different perspectives during
an alien invasion: that of a soldier, a scientist, and the president of the united states, respectively.
Over the course of the film, the invading alien horde wipes out most major cities on
the planet, and all hope seems lost until the scientist devises a computer virus, which,
with the help of the soldier, he is able to upload into the mothership, disabling all
subordinate ships.
This enables the American military not only to destroy the local ship threatening them,
but also to instruct the rest of the world on how to do the same.
The invasion is thwarted, and the remnants of humanity celebrate.
It is dumb as a bag of rocks and it is one of my favorite movies.
I love it.
War of the Worlds is a 2005 film directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Tom Cruise.
The film follows dock worker and inadequate father Ray Ferrier on the rare weekend when
he has custody of his two children as he tries to protect them during an alien invasion.
As their circumstances become increasingly desperate, they narrowly escaped certain death
several times until Ray is eventually separated from his oldest child.
The film concludes when all family members are reunited, and the aliens die from their
lack of immunity to the planet's pathogens.
It is a stone cold bummer and I also kind of love it.
So at the outset I would like to suggest: War of the Worlds '05 is better than you
remember it.
Or at least, the first half
Despite taking place over a century after the novel takes place, the bones of Wells'
story remain in tact - the invasion is seen the perspective of one character, Tom Cruise's
Ray, it is more an episodic survival narrative than anything else, the tripods are fairly
faithful, the narrator is tested by another character driven to madness whom he must kill
in order to survive, and the invasion is stopped not by human ingenuity but by a lack
of immunity.
But War of the Worlds isn't like Les Miserables, where it's the same characters and basically
the same story each time.
War of the Worlds is not a classic STORY, per se--it's more of a classic premise,
and the characters themselves are totally different in each iteration.
Spielberg himself has pointed out that adaptations of War of the Worlds tend to come about in
times of cultural stress - with the two most well-known adaptations besides the '05 version
being Orson Welles' radio drama from 1938 and the film adaptation from 1953.
And of course there was the original - a twist on a trend in invasion literature, released
during a period of growing international tension in Europe where everyone kind of sensed that
a Great War was on the horizon.
So while the 1890's was technically a time of peace in the UK, it was peace squished
between recent violence and the massive sense of tension growing throughout Europe.
But War of the Worlds is also read as a biting critique of British imperialism, encouraging
the reader consider the world from the perspective of a people being invaded by colonizers.
Wells states this explicitly in the first chapter of the novel:
And before we judge them [the Martians] too harshly, we must remember what ruthless and
utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon animals, ... but upon its own
inferior races.
The Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness, were entirely swept out of existence in a
war of extermination waged by European immigrants, in the space of fifty years.
Are we such apostles of mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit?
I bring this up because the context in which War of the Worlds the novel became a success,
and the context in which Independence Day became a success, are perhaps more analogous
than the 2005 adaptation.
Both Independence Day and Well's novel came about during times of relative peace and prosperity,
for and by people living in a dominating world power of the day.
And both preceded violent upheavals that would completely change those cultures forever.
Of course the huge difference between Independence Day and Wells' original novel is that Wells
encourages the reader to reflect on their own position as citizens of an imperial power
built on the exploitation of other people--Independence Day, not so much.
Dumb.
As.
Rocks.
In an invasion scenario, they represent an Other, just as in Chesney's Dorking the
invaders are literally called "The Other Power," and The Other must threaten something
the audience values.
In America's case, that thing tends to be… landmarks
In Independence Day - the aliens less reflect a broad cultural anxiety so much as arrogance
- yes, this incomprehensible technological force is impressive, but it cannot withstand
the might of american ingenuity and hegemony - a bizarre and outlandish notion
So what do the war of the worlds aliens reflect?
"is it the terrorists?"
well….
kyind of?
2.
1996 > 2005
The America of 1996 and the America of 2005 may as well exist in different dimensions.
Here is 90's batman
vs. 2000's batman
The 90's had a very different, shall we say, mouthfeel.
The white middle class filmgoing public of 1996 didn't have much to worry about!
Cold War's over, economy's booming, every middle school dance is getting jiggy with
a charming little ditty called the Macarena, and hollywood is spending a lot of time in
thought exercises of "what if x disaster?"
We got tornadoes, we got volcanoes, we got sharks, we got asteroids, we got more asteroids
- just destroy everything, it's fun!
Here was an ecosystem in which both a movie like Mars Attacks, released the same year
as Independence Day, can just blow up congress willy nilly and hey it's funny!
Americans were bored and disconnected from any kind of real social anxieties, and disaster
movies were an effective outlet to get some quick, easy thrills and enjoy some blameless
conflict.
It's a FUN-pocalypse!
So compare this to the genuine, visceral terror we see in War of the Worlds.
There isn't really any horror in seeing these symbols of American hegemony destroyed
in the most complete and terrible way.
Even now it's not framed to be an uncomfortable thing to watch.
Look at the marketing.
In fact it's… kind of awesome.
Here was a film where little children stare upon the smouldering ruins of the only home
they've ever known and say things like "What happened, Mommy?"
Here is a film in which tens of MILLIONS of people have died, and this man whose family
is missing, presumed dead responds with: "just want to whoop ET's ass"
Aliens show up
ominously and our dingbat president doesn't evacuate the cities, but it's okay because
he heroically plays a saxopho--I MEAN flies a plane and shoots the aliens and America
saves
the day.
So playing on this idea of movie monsters, and invading aliens in particular, embodying
cultural anxieties, why is the tone of the invasion narrative so different in 2005…
as it is from 1996?
This is yet another entry into my ongoing series called:
9/11 ruins everything!
Ignoring the seriousness of the massive loss of life and scar to the national psyche, Another
pop culture casualty of the most destructive act of terrorism in history, at least for
a time - the disaster movie.
Gone were the days of goofy action movies like Independence Day and Godzilla and Wild
Wild West.
No more disaster movies for these jaded masses--The few stragglers that were in production before
9/11 and crept in afterward were released, ignored and forgotten just as quickly.
According the Los Angeles Times in 2002, "the public appetite for plots involving disasters
and terrorism has vanished."
Obviously this did not stick, but for a while, filmmakers did not know how to approach mass
destruction in film so they just… didn't.
When Big, Destructive action movies DID eventually begin to edge their way back into the theaters…
things were different.
A movie like Independence Day no longer makes sense in a post-9/11 world in which audiences
have actually lived through watching the destruction of familiar landmarks and mass casualties
on live television.
So Spielberg wanted to create an invasion narrative that worked in a post 9/11 world.
But there's a problem - see, Independence Day is a harder act to follow than you might
think.
1.
War of the Worlds had a really hard act to follow … called Independence Day
War of the Worlds is, in many ways, a response to, if not refutation of, Independence Day.
This (lets light the fires big daddy) evolves into this (we gotta get back at them)
This (what happened mommy?) evolves into this (AAAHHHH)
This (need a lift) evolves into this (scene with car)
And this, my favorite subtle dig - (it's like the fourth of july)
Here's what MY aliens do to independence day!
One of the biggest differences is the focus on what is being destroyed, in independence
day, it's landmarks, buildings, cities.
In war of the worlds, there is much more focus on the loss of human life - the closest thing
we get to a landmark is the bayonne bridge -
the horror comes not from mass destruction, but from individuals - we see their faces
as they are zapped out of existence.
We see crowds as they are vaporized en masse.
Roland's extermination is one of symbols - spielbergs, of human life.
The most obvious refutation is the tone, which turns big optimistic 90's bombast into a
low-saturation death march.
Where, as with all of Roland's movies, the fall of civilization brings people together,
in War of the World's the fall of civilization turns people into self-serving animals.
Which becomes a problem with the film in and of itself - we'll get to that.
But at the same time, Independence Day established a lot of generic staples and shorthand, which
War of the Worlds certainly borrows
For instance there's this - shield Long scene introducing the alien crafts - sets
up a tone of awe, very inspired by ID4 Followed by the powering up sounds of the
primary weapon (revving up sound effect) The initial attack scene has no score
The military destroy the tripod in a way reminiscent of independence day - well now we know how
to destroy them, let's ue morse code to tell everyone else
And of course, there is the design of the invaders.
(design of the aliens being near identical to ones in ID)
Sigh.
This is not to imply that the independence day aliens are the most original desing ever.
Again, they're basically just Roswell aliens only a little slimey - in part because it's
implied in Independence Day that the Roswell aliens inspired our pop cultural ideas of
what aliens look like.
But in War of the Worlds, there's no in-universe reason for them to look the way they do.
Only the real world context of coming out after Independence Day, and of Independence
Day setting a standard.
So they look pretty identical, only these guys have mouths.
So they can go blaah
The aliens themselves also show up a little too late in the film to be anything really
unfamiliar-looking.
This is a balancing act in any visual medium when you have a non-human creature--the more
alien they look, the more time the audience has to spend getting used to them, for them
to feel tangible, believable.
District 9 is a good example of this done well - the design of these aliens are relatively
unfamiliar, but the audience is INUNDATED with images of them, so by the time we introduce
Christopher Johnson, the audience has already accepted the idea that these can be characters
we are meant to empathize with.
In War of the Worlds they don't show up until act 3, so they pretty much have to look
like our preconceived idea of alien, but after an hour of the sheer unadulterated awesome
that are the tripods (fucking love those guys(=), they were bound to be disappointing no matter
what they looked like.
I'd personally rather not have seen them, maybe a hand in
the end and that's it.
But we saw em in Independence Day so… guess we better do it here too.
So War of the Worlds already has the problem of existing in the shadow of Independence
Day - now it has to walk the tightrope of that… and also existing in a post-9/11 hellscape.
CAN HE DO IT?
THE ANSWER IS YES!
…. For the first half.
Updated ID4 for a post-9/11 world
In a time as complicated and confusing as the mid-Bush administration years, it's
not as simple as saying the War of the Worlds aliens are really embodiments of terrorism.
Spielberg's intent here is less to say that terrorists are literally invading aliens than
to tap into that sense of helplessness and impotent desire for retaliation americans
felt after 9/11.
"we get back of them!"
There's the misguided impulse to get back at any enemy you don't understand or even
know how to fight.
The rage and terror that something could threaten all the power and security that you never
really had to begin with.
And in terms of sheer imagery there is a LOT in here.
Even the very first shot of the film, we swoop in on the backdrop of the place where the
World Trade Center isn't any more.
Taking it a step further….
Well, this image of Cruise covered in gray dust … is um… loaded.
And this one.
It's Spielberg's ultimate statement on living in an America that no longer feels
secure.
We can't mindlessly enjoy the destruction of a major city or landmark as large movie
crowds gape up in wordless horror, because we had just gone through the same thing in
real life.
But none of these things are the deal breaker.
Obviously mass destruction of cities made their way back into movies eventually, and
a dark tone in a monster movie is a totally valid creative decision.
With War of the Worlds, I think most people agree that it sours in the second half.
People like to complain about the illogic of aliens burying tripods underground or wouldn't
they have known about the common cold, that sort of thing, but if a movie with so much
good in it I can forgive that in the same way I can forgive it in a movie like, well,
Independence day.
No, where War of the Worlds goes wrong is honestly a little simpler than that.
What went wrong
One clear example of the problem with the structure of the story is the inconsistent
theming - in direct contrast to Roland's optimism of disaster bringing humanity together,
here disaster turns humans into animals.
Throughout the film we keep seeing increasing intensity of this thing - Ray must protect
his children from other humans as much as he does the aliens.
Before the end, he must kill another man to protect his daughter.
But the more
Buhhhhht then we work together when the plot needs us to.
Suddenly at the end of the movie, with no change in circumstance, humans aren't barbarous
animals.
Suddenly it's teamwork!
So are humans monsters or aren't they?
So unlike Roland's trademark cast of thousands, War of the Worlds features a cast of… four.
Well, I take that back.
You had two A-listers, one … this kid, and Tim Robbins, whose introduction brings the
film's momentum to a screeching halt to which it never recovers.
So War of the Worlds is about this one guy's relationship to his children and how that
is tested by… apocalyptic alien invasion.
This is relevant because the aliens are, at the emotional core of the film, what tests
the strength of the family unit.
Ray, the inadequate father, is forced for the first time in his life to take responsibility
for his family.
Can he do it?
It's a solid conceit, and for the first half of the film, it executes this question
fairly well… but unfortunately, the screenplay didn't have an answer.
Look at that ending.
And no, I don't mean how the aliens went down.
Although I'm not a stickler for faithful adaptations, that's not the problem - the
resolution for the characters is the problem.
We didn't need humanity to save the day, we just needed a satisfactory arc for these
three characters we spend the entire movie with - and that, and not how the aliens are
defeated, is the core of the narrative.
And… it's kind of a hot mess.
For instance, with Rachel - mom clearly thinks she's incapable, dad says she can get it-
almost like we're setting up a character arc here.
Like Rachel's gonna realize that she could, indeed, get it even though mom and therapists
coddle her to the point of being a complete deer in the he-- nope.
Rachel can't get the bag.
A realistic kid and well rounded character in the first half, she's relegated to little
more than macguffin in act 2 and basically a doe-eye trauma figurine in what resembles
Act 3.
Kind of a problem for the second majorest character in your movie.
And here is the one spot where Independence Day is the superior film - despite having
the trademark roland cast of thousands, all of the character arcs are complete and…
work!
They're silly, don't get me wrong, but they are complete.
Unlike Roland's other movies, which always have one clear protagonist, Independence Day
has three.
Roland managed to give all of them a starting point and a culminating moment.
President Clintmore is faced with a country beginning to doubt his adequacy (i.e, "elected
a warrior and got a wimp") and through a series of trial and error, including the use
of nuclear weapons, whoopsie daisy, he literally gets to become the warrior the country needs.
Captain Hiller aspires to fly the space shuttle, despite political crap, and after a series
of conflicts arguably becomes the most qualified person on the planet to fly the alien shuttle.
And Jeff Goldblum starts with his father and his ex wife berating him for being a lazy
genius, but in the end not only does he rise above his inadequacy, but his genius saves
the world.
There are three separate and distinguishable arcs here, and they are all set up flawlessly
so the audience is very clear about who's accomplishing what based on whose skill set
by the time act 3 rolls around.
Hell, even the randy quaid subplot, which seems genuinely pointless for most of the
film, ends up being one of the most important elements in the movie.
His motivation by way of his kids, why he's drunk all the time, his skill as a pilot,
all of it--we see all of it for a reason, so when it culminates, we're like… oh,
yeah.
Wheeeeeeeeeee!!!
Sure.
War of the Worlds, for all its masterful tension-building, beautiful cinematography, genius sound design
and pretty good first half of a screenplay, does not have the same level of buildup and
payoff as independence day.
So compared to these plots, each cheesy but complete in its own little world, what is
Ray's culminating moment?
He is set up as an inadequate father, a blue collar kinda guy who doesn't know how to
take care of his children and only endures his custody weekends out of obligation.
And when the aliens invade, he is forced into a situation where he MUST care for his children,
all the while said children--a teenage boy on the verge of manhood and a confused neurotic
pre-teen---are actually acting their age.
Ray does not know how to take responsibility for them, but through this situation he is
forced to.
Annnd…. the screenwriters didn't seem to know where to go with that.
And this is where the movie falls apart.
Robbie is constantly wanting to get out and break free and … be a man, but break free
from what?
Ray's not an overbearing father--he doesn't even give Robbie a slap on the wrist when
he steals his car.
"I'll slap my hand at you"
Nor is Robbie is given any motivation to find some kind of greater calling in Act 1.
He doesn't lose anyone or see the initial carnage Ray saw--so this? "we get back at
them" is the idiotic macho blathering of a teenage boy who has no idea what he's
talking about.
Shortly thereafter, Ray lets him drive--which ends up being a mistake as Robbie driving
ultimately loses them the car.
So by the time the movie starts to fall apart, Robbie has shown no maturation.
Then this happens.
Robbie no, Robbie come back, Robbie you're going to ruin the movie.
What do you think you're going to do?
What are you going to be the randy quaid of this movie?
This isn't 1996 anymore, Robbie!
Don't be a hero, Robbie!
So then Robbie is basically out of the movie, and despite idiotically running into a fireball,
don't worry, everyone makes it to grandma's house.
Robbie's fine.
It's not even that Robbie needed to die after leaving his father and sister--it's
that he needed a different story arc altogether.
If they wanted it to be "Ray realizes Robbie's a man", they should have built to that - because
Robbie as writ IS A COMPLETE DIPSHIT.
Every action he takes is immature, spiteful and wrong-headed.
The movie begins with him stealing Ray's car, and he does not mature past that.
He never once earns the trust that Ray deigns to give him, there's never a moment where
Robbie and Ray learn to respect each other as men.
So this? "let me go" it's like… [freeze frame]
….where the hell did this come from?
Let go?
Did Ray need to let go all along?
Is that what Ray needed to do?
Is that what Robbie needed?
Let's draw a comparison to cinema's most famous "you need to let go" moment
When marlin and dory are trapped in a whale and marlin has to make a metaphorical leap
of faith.
"you have to let go"
This is a culminating moment for marlin's character.
Marlin is an overprotective father.
He's overbearing, he's overcompensating, he's neurotic, he's already endured the
horrible loss of his wife, which makes the loss of Nemo his greatest fear, and literally
the worst thing that could happen to him.
So Marlin letting go in the face of uncertainty is a signifier of character growth
Ray on the other hand is the polar opposite of that.
He's a bad father, he makes no room in his life for his children, he is a poor caretaker,
does not care for their health and wellness, and takes no interest in their lives.
So what sense does this make for it to be any kind of culminating moment? it's this
kid trying to break free from a dad who… never really was there for him in the first
place.
And eventually Ray's like… okay.
And more or less gives into his own inadequacy.
You can see the movie trying to push that it's Building Up that this is … robbie
crossing into manhood and ray learning to respect him as a man, but this doesn't work
given how obviously wrong headed his moves to be a man are.
NOPE
So here we trade in Robbie for Tim Robbins and spend the next forty minutes in a basement.
He slides into the role of Robbie in the narrative as the party who wants to fight back, against
the wishes of ray who is just trying to not die, and it is the worst thing.
Only we have no emotional attachment to this guy.
He is crazy and … just showed up.
His character reveals "cruel barbarous truths" about humanity in desperation, I guess, but
this theme gets totally undercut one scene later.
So rather than making it a story about how Robbie and Ray reconcile these two approaches
to, you know, alien invasion, all the while trying to keep the helpless girlchild safe
from the barbarousness of humanity, we got tim robbins
So pretty much no matter what happens after this, it's not going to be satisfying to
the audience as a story, even if it is tense, because the payoff does not work, either logically,
thematically or emotionally, with what was built up.
So this isn't the real problem - it's this.
I'm not saying it would have been better if Robbie never came back- well it would have,
shown Ray that his inadequacy actually has a consequence - but rather that Ray steps
up and is the goddamn dad,
like no, I've always been shitty and inadequate but not this time, you know, in order to survive
we have to stay together, and then maybe later when this happens Robbie plays some integral
role and helps Ray out, and then they all three realize that yeah, they did need each
other something something and father and son develop a sense of something something mutual
respect, you know, SOMETHING that pays off the setup.
And it's not a bad setup.
But it needs to find some sense of organic resolution or your audience is gonna be pissed
that they spent the last two hours with these people.
Which is more or less what happened.
The problem of invasion narratives in general - they're really difficult to resolve in
ways that aren't just transparently… unrealistic.
Especially when a movie like War of the Worlds does such a great job of creating such an
unfathomable horror of an invader like it does in the first act… in the end it creates
an undefeatable enemy.
An enemy we neither can nor want to understand.
And in 2005, that's not what we were here for.
But moreover, especially for American-made films, "revenge" is often a key element,
and helplessness is never good - we want revenge against the invaders, and War of the Worlds
'05 doesn't deliver, it just kind of peters out, as does the narrative about Ray and his
family.
Both the invasion narrative and the character narrative just kind of slops out at the end
like this alien out of a tripod.
But moreover, especially for American-made films, "revenge" is often a key element
- we want revenge against the invaders, and War of the Worlds '05 doesn't deliver,
it just kind of peters out, as does the narrative about Ray and his family.
Both the invasion narrative and the character narrative just kind of slops out at the end
like a dying alien out of a tripod.
American audiences in 2005, jacked up on war on terror propaganda and seeking narratives
that provide a sense of "revenge", were left cold by this film upon release.
In the fourteen years since, feelings have softened on it to the point of a sort of cultural
amnesia of how much people hated it at the time - but a more positive reevaluation is
deserved in my opinion - except, of course, the resolution.
Nowadays, invasion narratives tend to be secondary to the main conflicts, like Avengers, Transformers
or even Man of Steel - the "invasion" only happens in the third act, and ALL of
these involve superpowered beings or giant anthropomorphic robots protecting earth.
Moreover, the villains in these films are not like "locusts", they are not intellects
vast and cool and unsympathetic, they are, in effect, human - their motivations are clear
and completely understandable to the audience.
The more straightforward alien invasion, as seen in Edge of Tomorrow, tend to be commercial
failures - Edge of tomorrow flopped so hard its blu ray release saw a retitle into its
tagline.
It's not that the alien invasion motif is gone - but it's nothing like war of the
worlds or independence day.
Now audiences want a twist, and the ones you do see tend to be low budget suspense thrillers
that have more in common with the horror genre and character studies than action scifi, like
A Quiet Place and 10 Cloverfield Lane.
We are not interested in villains we can't understand anymore - we have culturally stared
down an event that we were unprepared and incapable of adequately resolving, in part
because comprehending it would mean facing our own societal evil.
So an incomprehensible villain - mass audiences just don't want it.
I can think of a number of reasons why that might be
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