There have been some pretty good FX for alien species on sci-fi TV shows, and many alien races in movies and books

So what do you think was the best one ?

The Centauri in B5, Asgard from SG-1, the Narn, Queen and face-huggers in Aliens, Leviathans (Farscape), Ewoks, Vulcans, Martians from MarsAttacks, Kree, Babel fish, Kryptonians, Sandworms of Dune.....
there are too many in books/film
so this may jolt your memory
http://www.free-definition.com/List-...n-fiction.html
http://www.4reference.net/encycloped...n_fiction.html
http://www.infovoyager.com/info/al/A...n_fiction.html

I think Babylon-5 had the best aliens, not because of the special FX or props but more because of the storyline, the acting ability of cast members and the very good sub-plots on each race

For drama and scare tactics I liked those RidleyScott / JamesCameron Alien(s) and those terror like creatures that we saw in the movies


My favourite non-human alien is perhaps those giant worms from Dune 8)

The Jart from Greg Bear's Eon series. You can't get weirder than that...

The Jart was basically the 1960's reconstruction of Hallucigenia, scaled up.
Excellent, thoroughly alien civilisation, though.

Most of Bear's aliens are good. The living ecosystems of Lamarkia are very inventive too, as are the Brothers from Anvil of Stars.

Personally I can't quite see how Herbert's sandworms could move rapidly though sand, or be poisoned by water despite sequestering it in their larval form. Arrakis as Dune doesn't seem to work as a real ecosystem should.

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Wan-To from World at the End of Time by Frederick Pohl. Both weirdest and most terrifyingly powerful life-form you can imagine yet remain "hard SF". (Also non-carbon, and in fact non-chemistry, based.)

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I kind of liked the moties in The Mote in God's Eye. They seemed to be well thought out.

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J Pax

I would say Klingons.

And you can't say they're not well thought-out.

Yes they are. They are awful. Typical Roddenbery rubbish.

Take a facet of mankind, and then make an entire race out of it. Not believable. How could a race of warlike barbarians achieve space travel, and a technology on par with The Federation Romulans and Cardassians.

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I like the Thing.

The only alien to give me real nightmares.

The ultimate biological weapon. Drop one of these on your enemy, and kiss goodbye to the planet.

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Not being a biologist I can't say how realistic or likely such a creature would be, but probably my favorite from literature would be the Grendels from Niven and Pournelle's "Legacy of Hereot" and "Children of Beowulf" books. In fact, the whole ecosystem, much more thoroughly described in the second book, was well done.

From TV and movies, I love the Predator. Probably not realistic, but I just love the design.

...John...

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Not 'alien' so to speak but the creatures in 'Deep Rising' and 'The Relic' were very cool!

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I've got a real soft spot for Stanley Weinbaum's Tweel in "A Martian Odyssey" and "Valley of Dreams." And the walking grass. And the Dream Beast. And the pyramid creature. And the shopping cart hive creatures. But Tweel most of all.

Cheers, Jon

Why not just link to the source those places get their material from? More up-to-date, and credit where credit is due.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aliens_in_fiction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliens_in_fiction

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I like the Predator.

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I find myself caught between two - the monster of the id from "Forbidden Planet" and Rush Limbaugh. Both invoke a sence of faceless terror that cannot be reasoned with, only avoided and buried deep within one's subconcious where it should never be thought of again.

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ha-ha

fun-ny

bounced check. Very fun-ny

Riotous

Can I just put a vote in for the bar scene in Star Wars and leave it at that? :wink:

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Hmm... Interesting... When I first read the description of the preserved Jart, I thought, "Sounds like Hallucigenia."

(Can't believe I forgot about the ecoi... And I just finished reading Legacy. D'oh!)

The Moties were also pretty good. In fact, I think they're the only asymmetrical aliens I've ever read of.

Lovecraft's Yithians, IMO, were one of his few successes. Wait, what am I saying? They were probably his only real success. Interesting critters, at any rate.

Oh yes... Who forgot to mention Niven's Puppeteers?

The Aliens in 2001. The only thing that appears in the movie is an example of their machinery - the monolith. The only thing we know with certainty about them is that they are interested in helping mankind to the next stage of its development.
If something truly alien by definition cannot be imagined by a human being, then this is probably as close as we get in a movie to something "unimaginable".

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If you want to go for "unimaginable", how about the Overmind?

Starcraft?

You will be eaten last When The Stars Are Right.

And besides, you gotta like the Old Ones, and their creations, the Shoggoths. Pretty creative there.

The Blob!!!

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I also liked the Martians in Red Planet and Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein. They appear to be the same description in both books. They do have 3 legs but I am not sure if they are asymmetrical or not.

Louis Gossett Jr's reptilian character in Enemy Mine was well constructed, if anthropomorphic. I also think that the Ko'dan from The Last Starfighter had potential, but it was not expanded upon in the movie and I never read the book. Heinlein's arachnids in Starship Troopers (the book) were also interesting.

But my favorite alien is currently a stellar avatar called Trance Gemini (sigh). 8-[

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J Pax

I'm not a fan of them Klingon in Star Trek, but I think there's a level of realism in it. I don't want to go to much into politics but take the Japanese around WW2, they killed many Dutch, murdered many Chinese, Koreans and killed many Americans. Dutch were not worried about Japan and the USA had written of the Japanese as a minor threat because they went around with swords, had a hierachy and fuedal way...and the USA was more worried about Hitler's power and getting dragged into a war against the German V2 rockets and the Hitler Germany U-boats around Europe. Japan was fuedal and never invented things but the Japanese made a good mimic of Western guns, and they had a German relationship & went to copy foreign aircraft designs....
..then bang ! A sneak attack on the Harbor and the American fleet almost totally destroyed, and after the Kamikaze....this is why there might be realism in Klingon if you look at the way things have moved on Earth sometimes



Thanks for the real link
So what's your favourite alien ?

It seems a lot of people liked the horrific aliens in RidleyScott / JamesCameron Alien(s)

Actually most of the civilizations from TNG were NOT single faceted, but adapted governments from Earth.

The Klingons were adapted from Japanese dynastic warrior cultures.

The Cardassians were modern Chinese.

The Bajorans were Hindu, right down to the title Vedek.

The Romulans evolved into very good Soviet counterparts.

The Ferengi were pretty original, but they were Capitalists gone awry.

Federation aliens had the "single facet" flaw, but the "enemy" aliens were actually well developed adaptations. The strength of those adaptations of Earth governments into alien forms were what formed the foundation of Deep Space 9's excellent development in the last half of its run.

Lets just understand something here, I may despise B&B for what they did to Star Trek in the last two iterations of it, but the fact is, they used to be very good at this stuff. Gene hated the idea of DS9, but after he died, Berman pushed forward with it and put forward what I think is the best Trek to date. The problem with TNG, TOS, and Voyager aliens was the lack of connection to them. You see them for an episode, and then poof, they're gone, unless they're a recurring villain. There's no sense of progression. DS9 stabilized the environment, then was forced to put forward some alien development, and it worked great once they got the hang of it.

If they really want to save the series, I think the next iteration needs to draw on the strength they found in DS9. For once, we need to get to know the Federation as something other than a picture on a viewscreen.

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Thank you Doodler, I loved DS9, and I really miss watching it (no cable). A lot of people just didn't care for it though, I still don't fully understand why. Oh well. I loved the deeper insights into alien cultures that staying in one place affords. To the list of wonderful aliens DS9 has given us I would add the Dominion. Very cool.

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Rowley's the Vang no doubt has to be one of the most horrific aliens to confront. When I first read The Military Form it gave me the chills just to visualize how humans were converted and transformed into whatever the Vang needed.

Where on Earth (OK, maybe not on Earth) did you get the name?
I thought he referred to them only as The Great Race.

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"...because the logic of the lines traced from reality is as poor of aesthetic value as it is strict in consistency. " - Paolo Bozzi (Naive Physics - free translation)

DS9 was by far my favorite too, ended up buying the DVDs.

I also liked Roy from The Head.

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