"Arrival" plays with a lot of new and interesting ideas as it pertains to the way aliens are presented on film.
Particularly with regard to language.
But it reminded me of something I've been wanting to delve into for a long time,
and that is how alien creature design plays a role in shaping the narrative, by how we define the other.
[Screaming]
So what do we mean by 'the other'?
Humans have a natural ingroup/outgroup mentality, and we see this come out, and how we structure narrative.
'Other' is an important concept in Communications Theory because the human brain is wired
to identify things as either in my group or other by default.
There is the familiar, the self, and then there is the other.
In terms of Film Theory, 'othering' refers to how the presumed outgroup is portrayed to the perceived ingroup.
'Othering' can have very wide applications, and most often refers to how dominant cultural groups portray other non-dominant groups.
But today, I'm going to take 'othering' to its extreme extreme: aliens.
We have humanoid aliens, such as the original klingons from the original Star Trek series,
and this also constitutes a form of 'othering' since the klingons were based on a sort of fu-manchu aesthetic
that differentiates itself from the presumed American audience.
But I'm more interested in non-humanoid aliens, and more specifically how they are designed,
and what message is communicated by that design.
In the case of "Arrival", the extremely alien nature of the 'heptapods' isn't just meant to create a mood,
but it's also the basis for the plot.
Their physical and comprehensibility mirrors their linguistic strangeness,
as well as the intense difficulty of the human characters to understand their new guests.
So for the purposes of cinema, which is a visual medium, filmmakers and designers must use visual shorthand
to get across the idea of alien, clearly and concisely across to its audience.
A concept that nobody knows what it could possibly entail-
except for the lizard people of course
-design sends a message just like any other part of film language.
Design helps impart the way the aliens 'otherness' is meant to be taken by the audience,
whether the alien is meant to be relatable, or to be feared, or to be mysterious.
This can be tricky as film as a visual medium, and the more alien something looks,
the more difficult it is for the audience to humanize and therefore relate to the character.
But especially in this day and age, unless it's a body snatcher or something, your design can't look too human.
Hence the use of visual shorthand either to humanize the other or alienize it, such as it were.
The human brain is designed to empathize with human faces.
That's why a good actor can impart a great deal to their audience in very little time at all.
Your brain is more likely to feel sympathetic to your own species than your own class, your own phylum, your own kingdom, etcetera...
This is why alien designs draw so much from animals:
the further the inspiration is from us on the evolutionary family tree, the more alien the creature seems.
This is why insects and reptiles are popular basis for alien creature designs
when the filmmaker wants the alien to feel especially monstrous or foreign.
Basically the more human an alien looks, the less screen time needs to be spent making the characters sympathetic to the audience.
The more alien, the more screen time.
That's why, say, we spend a very great deal of time with Christopher Johnson in "District 9",
but we can take our sweet time getting to E.T. and Bumblebee.
So I'm going to look at the design of several alien characters, examine their 'otherness'
and talk about to what their design is meant to communicate to the audience in terms of the story.
Let's start with one of the most famous examples, H.R. Giger xenomorph from 1979s "Alien".
One of the brilliant things about this film is the way the reveal of the creature is paced.
"Alien" takes some cues from "Jaws" with the slow reveal of this monster,
heightening the tension for when we actually do see snippets of the thing,
and up to that point the rare glimpses of the nonster add to its mystery and horror.
The reveal of the design is as important to the mood of the film as the design itself.
We don't really see the entirety of the creature until up late in the film.
And what is the most striking thing about this guy's design, point to first, he has no eyes.
The human brain is wired to be firstly drawn to look at eyes,
be they the eyes of a fellow human or a kitten or puppy,
so the lack of eyes in and on itself is unnerving.
Secondly, the design of the body is a sort of hybrid between reptilian features, insectoid features and a human skeleton.
The first to signify for in this more to the human brain than say, a mammal would.
So for an iconic design meant to instill terror and never be forgotten, this guy's about as effective as it's going to get.
-Welcome to Earth!
Roland Emmerich was handed two designs for his alien species in "Independence Day",
and he liked them both so much he said 'hey, let's use them both'. Alright.
The inner alien is obviously more familiar. Inspired by the more popular Americana gray aliens,
which was first utilized in a big mainstream movie in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".
But what inspired that design? Well, abduction testimonials and faked images...
But let's assume that, you know, that's not real.
Well, the generally agreed upon design for the Americana inspired Alien sends a message unto itself, despite its familiarity.
We got the big bald head which denotes intelligence,
but we also got the big pupil free eyes which denotes not only mystery, but possibly a hive mind.
You know, because they look like bee eyes.
Thing is, also about the gray aliens, especially in "Close Encounters", is they kind of have this space children thing going on.
They are usually child height and kind of have a weird split between baby and lizard features.
That design is intentional; familiar enough to be understandable, alien enough to be slightly unnerving.
These guys are in effect our new folklore.
Roland opts to omit both of these aspects, save the vaguely reptilian skin, and kind of pulls a Giger.
We need the eyes to denote intelligence so Roland has his aliens have no mouth,
and they also have sunken-in-skin-against-skull like features.
The "Independence Day" aliens are a Giger inspired horror version of the "Close Encounters" aliens.
Like Giger's alien, skeletal but monstrous because it's intelligent and able to communicate, not because it's going to eat you.
But more recently, audiences are more receptive to more non-conventional alien designs,
as those based on the gray aliens kind of died out after "War of the Worlds".
-You see, there's your name at the top, Christopher Johnson?
Christopher Johnson is one of the most fascinating examples of a really, really alien-looking alien.
Because he's also a main character in the movie.
The "District 9" aliens do weird alien shit that makes the audience uncomfortable,
they are treated as subhuman by their handlers in the film,
-The little guys want to do a nice little sweep now!
They also do not look human at all aside from being bipedal, with one notable exception: those big baby eyes.
This is an important element when you have alien characters that are meant to be relatable.
They need to have bright, prominent eyes with distinguishable pupils.
General rule of thumb: no pupils equals mysterious and probably evil, pupils equals relatable.
Christopher Johnson's body language is also readably human, too.
While the other 'prawns' act a lot more alien, Christopher Johnson acts really very human
and exhibits traits that we as humans all intrinsically value.
He has clear and sympathetic motivations, he reasons like a human,
and he's way more honorable than the protagonist Wikus.
And also he has a baby. And not just any baby. A cute baby.
A helpful baby.
When I first saw this, I genuinely wondered how they were going to humanize any of the alien characters
enough to make a mainstream audience sympathize quickly and efficiently,
and in hindsight it was all too obvious: give him a baby.
But while the other 'prawns' behave in a way that is distinctly alien,
Christopher Johnson does not; he reasons like a human, understands the system, and plays by the rules that are set by the humans.
And most importantly, he gets a lot of screen time. More than E.T., more than any of the Transformers, and almost as much as a Wikus.
Speaking of E.T.
-eeee teee
Know that there's a kind of balancing act here, to keep your aliens alien yet sympathetic to the audience.
Unlike Christopher Johnson, who has full language facilities throughout the narrative,
E.T.'s language never really is fully developed. But E.T. is also a very emotional creature.
And no joke, this movie is genius in the way it uses film language to get the story across without a lot of dialogue.
The audience also has to compensate E.T.'s alien, squishy, weird design by spending some time with him.
But at the end of the day, his proportions are still pretty human looking. His nose, mouth, teeth,
and most importantly, those big baby eyes.
E.T. feels familiar because there are familiar basis for design.
Special effects artist Carlo Rambaldi studied photos of elderly people who lived during the Great Depression,
and also collated the facial design with photos of the likes of Albert Einstein and Ernest Hemingway.
At first he's framed like an animal. We often see him framed in a similar lens to the dog.
But by the end of the movie, E.T. goes from practically an animal to Eliot's bro, to... Jesus.
Again with the framing. I see what you did there, Spielberg.
Given the intentionally human and empathetic elements of the design,
it doesn't take the audience long to accept E.T. as a fully realized and sympathetic character.
E.T. has a very human looking face so his emotions are easy to read.
The film also takes its sweet time in revealing E.T.
Once again taking its cues from "Jaws", which creates a sense of uncertainty that lasts throughout the film.
Compare this to "District 9" where, in order for the audience to accept such an extremely alien-looking character like Christopher Johnson,
he needs to have a lot more screen time and be introduced much earlier.
On the more clusterfucky end, we have the likes of Bumblebee and Optimus Prime from the live-action "Transformers" movies.
I say clusterfucky for perhaps obvious reasons.
As all of the Transformers have very busy designs that is difficult for the human eye to follow.
And yet despite being alien, the characters are remarkably human, especially Optimus.
-Megatron!
This is important because neither of these characters get much screen time relative to our human characters,
who by the way kid way, way too much.
-Sorry. It's just been a weird night. I've had a little bit to drink.
But I'm talking just about screen time for their designed alien forms,
and it's important to note that we spend a lot of time getting to know Bumblebee as a car.
Bumblebee has a somewhat alien face, but it is still proportioned more like a baby's than an adult.
He even kind of looks like he's got a... binky in his mouth.
But when he needs to go into battle mode, he just puts that badass mask on and goes to town.
And what is that bumblebee? Is that big baby eyes?
Despite the way too busy design of all of the Transformers, the Autobots are much more readable human,
and therefore don't need a lot of screen time to make them sympathetic and understandable to the audience.
And I'm gonna ignore the nostalgia factor.
The Autobots have they're already very human proportions, manner of speaking and body language.
Combine this with the fact that they transform into cars, which is something familiar and even friendly looking to the audience.
But in the way the Autobots act, are they alien at all?
-We cannot let the humans pay for our mistakes.
Not really, besides the fact that Bumblebee can't talk. They just seem like American good ol' boys.
The Decepticons are demonstrably more alien in contrast to the good ol' boy Autobots.
They also tend towards more steely, military vehicles, as opposed to the more familiar
blue-collar GM models the Autobots port. And the one Peterbilt.
In the first movie the Decepticons are also 'otherized' by their language; that they speak an alien language instead of the Autobots,
who even in private, in the most visible spot in LA, always speak English.
The Decepticon's faces are also less human looking.
No big baby eyes here.
So Transformers is an interesting example because we have two alien factions of the same species,
and the film needs to demonstrate which is the good faction not just by their actions,
but by contrasting them with the 'otherness' of the bad faction.
So just as a talented actor can impart a lot of information by a second of expression,
a lot of information can be conveyed to the audience simply through character design.
Logically your alien could look like anything but it wouldn't have worked narratively if E.T. had resembled a xenomorph.
And likewise, if the xenomorph happened to resemble E.T.
It would have been pretty rough for the audience to swallow if E.T. had been a twenty-foot, antennaed slug,
or if Christopher Johnson had looked like, I don't know, Thor.
We talk a lot about framing, dialogue, and other types of film language,
but production design, particularly character design, is also a very important means to effectively impart information to the audience.
[Laughing]
I rest my case.