EPISODE IV

This weekend finds Marines facing off against an alien invasion in Battle: Los Angeles. Why aliens feel the need to land in Los Angeles is beyond anybody that doesn't live there. The film stars the always solid Aaron Eckhart who manages to add credibility to any movie that casts him. He's like a younger version of Gene Hackman but with more hair. With a budget of around $100 million you can expect some cool sequences and effects, but why are we still drawn to movies where extra terrestrials land on earth?

When alien invasion films work they can transport you from your sticky, creaky theater seat to another place of wonderment. In the hands of a talented director, the genre can literally make you believe in (or at least question) space creatures. As Steven Spielberg twists and turns his way through Close Encounters of the Third Kind, he toys with our commitment to his story first by offering just a sneak at the beginning of the film (the flashing light that goes whizzing by) until finally letting us in on the big secret at the end of the movie. He doesn't pour on the effects or saturate us with aliens throughout the whole film, but rather he teases and keeps reeling us into his story. So much so that by the time you leave the theater, you might not believe that an Everyman like Richard Dreyfus will ever board an alien ship, but you might believe that they do exist.

The main reason the alien invasion genre seems to constantly return is because even at its worst it is capable of shocking us, scaring us, or just giving us some cheap thrills.  If made inexpensively, movies like that tend to do well during their opening weekend. Michael Bay's Transformers had more holes in its plot than Butch and Sundance do at the end of their movie, but it sure looked cool with cars turning into robots.

The real first scare in this genre can be attributed to Orson Welles. On October 30, 1938, his radio broadcast of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, caused panic as many listeners took it as a true invasion. That seems silly based on what we know today but back then the news bulletin form of the broadcast had people thinking aliens had landed on earth.

In 1956 Don Siegel directed Invasion of the Body Snatchers which many saw as a metaphor for McCarthyism. The aliens look just like regular people only they’ve changed. It was a very scary premise and one that was heightened even more by what you don’t see. Siegel built on everyday fears to create a science fiction masterpiece.

This is really why the alien invasion genre works so well, because it’s based on a possibility that this could happen. Could there really be a boy wizard named Harry Potter who has to fight an evil wizard named Lord Voldemort? Believing in wizards is a little farfetched but who knows what really lies beyond our solar system? I’m not saying they are cute little guys who are able to stretch their necks like E.T. but there is a sense of possibility which leads to curiosity. We’ve heard the rumors of Area 51 -- and whether true or not -- they can be built upon to create smart, believable movies about life beyond our planet. I can’t imagine an invasion would ever look like what we’ll see in Battle: Los Angeles, but using the alien invasion as a jumping off point sure can lead to an entertaining movie.

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