![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
capri0mniThis is following on my comments, last night this morning, about the rampant-bodyism between the Daleks and the Thals.
Susan: [of the Daleks] But I don't understand. They said you were "mutations."
Thaladon: There were many mutations, after the [Thaldon?] War; most of them perished. But this form: two eyes, two hands, has always been best for survival.
(voice inside my head: Interesting! So maybe they did not start out as humanoid?)
Susan: But they said you were monsters!
Thaladon: If they call us "monsters," what must they be like?!
Me: [out loud] Different! They must be different!
('Cause, really. That is all that you can conclude from that classification. You can tell a lot more about the Daleks by the fact that the first thing they did was take them prisoner, while the Thals brought medicine.)
I'd love to see a sci-fi feature (or even a Doctor Who episode) where the good guys crawl along the ground, with long purply tentacles, and the villians are the tall, bilaterally symmetrical, bipedal, sparkly ones.
And by "Good Guys," I mean the protectors of civilization, art, philosophy, history, and virtue. Please do not be making the purple crawlers the poor, oppressed slave people who need rescuing by our tall, bilaterally symmetrical, bipedal heroes.
In fact, it would make for some very tense plotting if our bipedal protagonists confuse which side is good, and which is evil, because of prejudice. And then, after they discover their error (to their sorrow), have to convince the purple crawlies that they're good guys too, in spite of their appearance.
...Just to, you know... stir things up a little bit.
'Cause really? Before they start speaking, and ranting about universal domination, what I see when I look at daleks are creatures who have become physically disabled, but used their intelligence to create and build sophisticated tools to help them live full lives and a complete civilization. Oh, and this: they get from place to place using electricity.
Edited to Add (cause I just thought of it): Neil deGrasse Tyson, American Astrophysicist Television Personality, has said several times, that he wished aliens didn't always look so human in science fiction movies, because, probably, humans are the only creatures that look like humans. And most living things, even here on Earth, don't even have faces (hello, trees and jelly fish).
But movie makers' first goal, maybe the only goal, has nothing to do with teaching the audience about the possible variety of life in the galaxy, but to get an immediate emotional response from the very first image on the screen. And the fact is that human audiences are hardwired to respond to humanlike faces. Period.
So, I was thinking, for my Purple Crawlies: they could have skin like cuttlefishes, and when they realize that humans respond to human faces, they create moving facelike patterns on their skin whenever they're talking to humans, and other patterns when speaking with each other. I think that would work.
Susan: [of the Daleks] But I don't understand. They said you were "mutations."
Thaladon: There were many mutations, after the [Thaldon?] War; most of them perished. But this form: two eyes, two hands, has always been best for survival.
(voice inside my head: Interesting! So maybe they did not start out as humanoid?)
Susan: But they said you were monsters!
Thaladon: If they call us "monsters," what must they be like?!
Me: [out loud] Different! They must be different!
('Cause, really. That is all that you can conclude from that classification. You can tell a lot more about the Daleks by the fact that the first thing they did was take them prisoner, while the Thals brought medicine.)
I'd love to see a sci-fi feature (or even a Doctor Who episode) where the good guys crawl along the ground, with long purply tentacles, and the villians are the tall, bilaterally symmetrical, bipedal, sparkly ones.
And by "Good Guys," I mean the protectors of civilization, art, philosophy, history, and virtue. Please do not be making the purple crawlers the poor, oppressed slave people who need rescuing by our tall, bilaterally symmetrical, bipedal heroes.
In fact, it would make for some very tense plotting if our bipedal protagonists confuse which side is good, and which is evil, because of prejudice. And then, after they discover their error (to their sorrow), have to convince the purple crawlies that they're good guys too, in spite of their appearance.
...Just to, you know... stir things up a little bit.
'Cause really? Before they start speaking, and ranting about universal domination, what I see when I look at daleks are creatures who have become physically disabled, but used their intelligence to create and build sophisticated tools to help them live full lives and a complete civilization. Oh, and this: they get from place to place using electricity.
Edited to Add (cause I just thought of it): Neil deGrasse Tyson, American Astrophysicist Television Personality, has said several times, that he wished aliens didn't always look so human in science fiction movies, because, probably, humans are the only creatures that look like humans. And most living things, even here on Earth, don't even have faces (hello, trees and jelly fish).
But movie makers' first goal, maybe the only goal, has nothing to do with teaching the audience about the possible variety of life in the galaxy, but to get an immediate emotional response from the very first image on the screen. And the fact is that human audiences are hardwired to respond to humanlike faces. Period.
So, I was thinking, for my Purple Crawlies: they could have skin like cuttlefishes, and when they realize that humans respond to human faces, they create moving facelike patterns on their skin whenever they're talking to humans, and other patterns when speaking with each other. I think that would work.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-01-11 08:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-11 09:11 pm (UTC)What it all boils down to that I object to is putting people in broad catagorical boxes, and drawing easy conclusions from that, towhit: Like Us = Good. Not Like Us = Bad. Because we could never, ever, be evil, because we're us!
It's an easy out for the audience, so no one has to do any uncomfortable self-examination, or thinking.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-12 12:25 am (UTC)I'd love to see a sci-fi feature (or even a Doctor Who episode) where the good guys crawl along the ground, with long purply tentacles, and the villians are the tall, bilaterally symmetrical, bipedal, sparkly ones.
Ho'but The Leisure Hive? The bug-eyed monster (from the historical enemy race of the visited planet's natives, who are humanoid and golden) whose race's name is an anagram of mafioso turns out to be the representative of Law and Order, and all the Earthman speaking parts turn out to be villains (with one of them the disguised bug-eyed monster criminal that the fed is chasing).
no subject
Date: 2009-01-12 02:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-12 03:47 am (UTC)In fact, it would make for some very tense plotting if our bipedal protagonists confuse which side is good, and which is evil, because of prejudice.
This is a pretty close description of "Galaxy 4", from Doctor Who's original third season. (Unfortunately, it's one of the baleeted stories.)
no subject
Date: 2009-01-12 04:02 am (UTC)