COWBOYS & ALIENS: Still of Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig in "Cowboys & Aliens."
Image: Photo by Zade Rosenthal/Universal Studios and DreamWorks II – © Universal Studios and DreamWorks II Distribution Co. LLC
Hollywood seems to have caught alien fever.
In the past few months, a slew of big-budget alien movies has hit theaters, from kiddie flicks ("Mars Needs Moms") to comedies ("Paul") to high-octane action films ("Battle: Los Angeles," "Green Lantern" and the just-released "Cowboys & Aliens," among others). And many more such movies are on the way, both this year and next.
This glut of alien sci-fi films comes at a time when scientific discoveries are making the existence of life beyond Earth seem more and more plausible. And that might not be a coincidence, some experts say.
"It's a long-term interest, but the science now is making it that much more realistic," said Emory University physics professor Sidney Perkowitz, author of "Hollywood Science: Movies, Science, and the End of the World" (Columbia University Press, 2007). "I think Hollywood and science will feed into each other on this." [10 Alien Encounters Debunked]
Art imitating (alien) life?
Just 20 years ago, scientists had yet to find a single planet beyond our own solar system. Now the count of confirmed extrasolar planets tops 550, with many more about to be added to the list.
In February, for example, scientists announced that NASA's Kepler space telescope had detected 1,235 candidate alien worlds in its first four months of operation. Of those, 54 likely orbit in their host stars' habitable zone — the range of distances that could support liquid water.
These candidate planets need to be confirmed by follow-up observations, but NASA researchers have estimated that at least 80 percent will end up being the real deal.
And last year, astronomers reported strong evidence that the Saturn moon Enceladus likely harbors a huge and salty ocean beneath its icy crust. Subsurface oceans are also suspected to occur on other moons, such as Saturn's Titan and Europa, a satellite of Jupiter.
In short, the prospect that life exists beyond Earth — and perhaps even beyond our solar system — is becoming more and more likely. This is big news that affects the way many people view our species and its place in the universe.
And now more than ever, Hollywood may be tapping into that growing well of interest.
"My suspicion is, even if Hollywood weren't pushing it, people would be interested," Perkowitz told SPACE.com. "I think the straight science turns them on, but there's no doubt that Hollywood knows how to enhance it, and how to use it in really effective ways."
Hollywood has always loved aliens
Of course, it's not as if Hollywood has just discovered that aliens can be box-office gold. Alien films have been around — and have been raking in big bucks — for decades.
"There's money in aliens," said Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute in Mountain View, Calif. "That's been true for a very long time. When I was a kid, there was money in aliens." [TV's Best Science Fiction Shows Ever]
So Shostak — who has advised Hollywood on a number of feature films, including 1997's "Contact" — thinks this year's surge may just be part of Hollywood's regular cycle, which tends to feature waves of alien movies from time to time.
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10 Comments
Add CommentI don't see how the prospect of life beyond earth has actually increased in any way. Perhaps people's expectations that life might exist elsewhere has increased but the likelihood hasn't really changed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince we're not certain how life actually started on earth we're even less certain how it may possibly occur elsewhere. Except that, perhaps, it might be similar to how it started here. Our sample size being n = one (i.e. earth) it's difficult to ascertain much about life elsewhere.
Aliens and bugs are safe. No special interest groups cry prejudice. Except for District 9 ...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with RH, the prospect of life hasn't increased. Unless via panspermia- I find it very unlikely that the conditions for life are universal across all lifeforms.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI understand it is easier to look for life like ours rather than in theoretical gas-beings in gas giants or the plasma in stars because we know what to look for in a water-world. Nonetheless, if life exists beyond our planet (and orbit) that did not originate from us, I suspect Earth may very well turn out not to be the norm.
In fact, I suspect there won't be a norm.
Sci-fi shows that talk about alien DNA always made me chuckle- especially ones where the alien DNA gets into the human genome somehow.
We shouldn't expect anyone "out there" to be "just like us".
Well, intelligent life has to be able to become complex by surviving in evolving forms for a few billion years and become masters at manipulating energy. Hands, bipedalism, 2 sexes for faster evolution and sensitive brains with eyes, ears and smell along with social unification traits like language and empathy have greatly aided mankind. Star Trek obviously thought along these lines...it will be cool and highly beneficial to earth if they make it to earth first as we will turn our energies to these new creatures instead of beating on each other. On the other hand, as we find new energy sources and evolve, in a few hundred years maybe we will be unified enough to visit them! Either way, it’s a good thing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI like to bieve that life is ubiquitous, certainly microbial life. However, as was pointed out, using us as the only template we have for intelligent life, there were so many factors involved for life to evolve to the state if self-awareness. It has been postulated that we only got this far because we are fortunate enough to have the gas giants on the same plane as earth, deflecting and sweeping up potentially extinction causing comets and asteroids, notwithstanding the few that have gotten through. Then again, some theorise that past cataclysms actually sped up evolution. Regardless, this list of conditions for intelligent life to form seems to indicate that extra-terrestrial intelligent life may be far rarer than we suppose. Given the known size of the universe, it does not bode well for intelligent aliens close by. And that might even be a good thing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have long been impressed by Carl Sagan's speculation that intelligent aliens are unlikely to look like us. Nonetheless, I think that one can make some reasonable predictions. Such creatures should have manual capabilities and thus can manufacture tools. Also, they are likely mobile creatures with a need to run fast, and as a result, they should have the majority of their nerve cells concentrated in one area, close to the part of their body that moves forward. They are more likely to be bilaterally symmetric rather than radial like a starfish. They should have sense organs to interpret their surroundings, whether in the visible light spectrum or radio waves, or heat energy, or acoustic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe commonly regard whales and dogs as intelligent, yet they lack the manual dexterity for tool manufacture, and so they are not disposed toward constituting life forms that are technological. The ability to physically manipulate the environment with digits (fingers) I think is a precondition for a technologically advanced civilization that ultimately could conduct interplanetary travel.
Such creatures also should have lifespans sufficiently long for learning and teaching a very extensive amount of information to their fellow citizens, to be fundamental to a technological society. Long lifespans tend to occur in sizeable creatures, at least the size of a tortoise.
I'm ready to accept other life forms. I also like humans as a life form, however human life is invasive and commercially encroaching. Do we really want our lifestyle pattern to populate another location in the universe? Would aliens want us in their neighborhood if they saw how humans sprawl. WRT District 9, what if the we were on the other side of that encampment?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe answer to your question is simple. On Earth, life is found everywhere that liquid water is found. As we increase the number of exoplanets discovered in their habitable zones, we also increase the likelihood that one of the discovered exoplanets will host life.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe problem is upside down. Not whether life exists elsewhere, the question is why are humans so large that we believe that we constitute the population of the universe? Life, bacterial, viral, microbial, plant, animal, semi-self-aware, self-conscious, fully conscious, exists, has existed, and will exist, and we on Earth, in all our forms, are the proof of that abundance. Humanity has been pilloried on rusty religions that overlook the essence of their various founders’ teachings to war over man created differences of, and in, dogma. Screw them; anything smart enough to be a God wouldn’t put all its eggs in one basket, even I know that. We invented a wonderful position for ourselves at the top of the food chain, and in fact, we are the carnivores of nature, thus the next level of being up from us feed on us, not our physical bodies, as we consume our prey, but our spiritual bodies, our psychic energy, the ethereal part of us, the one not effected by gravity. So why can’t we see our herders and farmers? As three dimensional beings, we are only shadows on a two dimensional world, and those beings above us are four dimensional, appearing to us as whispers, if we note them at all. I think we should all take a deep breath and learn a dose of humility, my alien, myself.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Earth is approximately four to five billion years old, give or take a few hours. Don't you think if there was intelligent life anywhere in our neighborhood, they would have been here by now? Don't you think that while digging for T.rex bones, someone might have accidentally stumbled onto the remains of an ancient picnic lunch that the aliens forget to clean up, or maybe an ancient cigarette lighter that one of them accidentally dropped, or perhaps even a DVD with the alien version of Gilligan's Island and that the DVD has some really big video rental store late return fees by now?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is undoubtably intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. After all, we all know that Krypton had intelligent life. But it may be very rare, like only one or two on average per galaxy, and the travel distances are kind of astronomical.