5 Surprisingly Realistic Depictions Of Aliens In Movies
Forget Star Wars and Men in Black - here's what alien life might actually look like.
Humanity has been envisioning what life in space might look like pretty much ever since we discovered there was such a thing as, well, space.
Of course, we won’t actually know which (if any) of our countless attempts were correct until we finally make contact.
Even so, it’s most likely wishful thinking to suppose that aliens will be cute (like in ET), or monstrous (like in Alien), or capable of pop culture references (like in Paul).
Rather, given the unfathomable size and scope of the universe, it’s a lot more probable that extraterrestrials will be nothing like anyone ever imagined.
At least, not until these filmmakers did.
5. The Ocean - Solaris
The Ocean, as it appears in Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1972 film, is the name given to the sole inhabitant of the mysterious planet Solaris.
A giant mass of plasma covering an entire world, The Ocean is not so much an entity as it is an ecosystem. Whether it also possesses a consciousness, though, no one can tell.
When all attempts to communicate with it fail, a group of scientists aboard a space station orbiting the planet decide to bombard it with radiation beams in order to elicit a response.
And a response they get. Not only does The Ocean stealthily hijack their subconscious, it also uses the memories buried there to materialize their worst regret and greatest shame which, in the case of protagonist Kris Kelvin, take the form of his late wife, Hari, whom he had once driven to kill herself.