Movies in which hordes of aliens attempt to take over or even wipe out the world are a recent phenomenon, starting during the fifties. They’ve maintained their appeal well into the twenty first century, where big budgets and a certain improvement in writing, acting, and direction have led to a rise in quality.

A school of film criticism would have us ask: Who are these aliens, really? In the fifties, they were obviously the Godless commies. Now, with the fall of the Soviet Empire, they might be the terrorists. One writer of a recent alien invasion film actually claimed that the aliens stood for American imperialists. But, it seems to this writer, that the aliens ought to be taken on their own terms. They are not Soviets or Islamofascists or even American Marines dressed up in latex masks and carrying blasters. They’re evil aliens and they will kill us all unless the handsome scientist, his cute assistant, and the US military can stop them in time.

George Pal’s War of the Worlds

When George Pal, creator of such classics as Destination Moon, the Conquest of Space, and When Worlds Collide, brought the H.G. Wells classic to the screen, he brought the time period up from turn of the century England to contemporary (early 1950s) America. The action starts when a mysterious meteor crashes near a small, rural town in California. The Pacific Tech Institute sends Dr. Clayton Forrester, played by Gene Barry, to investigate. There he meets Sylvia Van Buren, played by Ann Robinson, the daughter of the local minister.

It soon becomes apparent that this is no ordinary meteor. Something emerges from the meteor and obliterates the three men who are watching over the crash site. At the same time, power goes out in the town and watches are magnetized. The army surrounds the crash site and fights a ferocious but futile battle as the Martian fighting machines, hovering craft armed with death rays and protected by force shields, emerge and begin to advance.

Forrester and Van Buren flee the area, taking his private plane. They witness the doomed effort by the Air Force to stop the invasion. They crash land and take refuge in a farm house. Soon after, another Martian meteor crashes into the farm house. And the two confront the actual Martians for the first time. Ann Robinson’s scream as one of them touches her shoulder is a classic. The two manage to escape with a sample of Martian blood and technology.

The Martian meteors are falling all over the world and the fighting machines are advancing across the land, spreading death and destruction. Cedric Hardwicke, as the narrator, relates the litany of battles lost, of cities wrecked, and of entire nations made refugees in blind panic. Even the use of a nuclear bomb fails to stop the Martians. As the invaders advance on Los Angeles, civil order breaks down and Forrester and Van Buren are separated.

But then, as the two meet in a church, filled with people praying for a miracle, the miracle occurs. God, so the narrator says, in his wisdom had already put on this Earth the means for its defense. Cities are smashed—we see the ruins of Paris and Dehli—and millions are dead, but human civilization survives.

Earth vs the Flying Saucers

This is one of the best 1950s alien invasion of Earth movies. Scientist Dr. Russell Marvin, played by Hugh Marlow, and his wife Carol, played by Joan Taylor, are buzzed by a flying saucer on their way to the Operation Skyhook facility, where Marvin is in charge of launching the first artificial satellite. Later, another launch of a satellite is destroyed by the mysterious aliens and a flying saucer lands at the Skyhook facility. The army garrison attacks the saucer and the aliens obliterate the facility. While waiting for a rescue in an underground bunker, the Marvins discover a message from the aliens beamed down to a tape recorder. The message is friendly, at first, but then the Marvins discover that the aliens mean to possess our planet and that we humans must surrender or die.

Working feverishly, the Marvins come up with a device that can bring the saucers down. Then, the aliens attack Washington and battle Marvin and his device and the US military. The sequence, loving constructed by special effects master Ray Harryhausen, manages to show the complete destruction of just about every monument in the nation’s capital. But the aliens, for all their technology, are no super men and are eventually vanquished. At least for the time being.

This film is a standout from others of the era in the seriousness, and even maturity with which it handled its subject. There was not a lot of cuteness or bravado. For the time, the special effects were first rate.

Independence Day

Independence Day was the alien invasion movies to end them all. It starts when a space craft a quarter of the size of the Moon shows up and spews out smaller craft the size of cities. Communications around the globe are disrupted.

We are introduced to the cast one by one. They include President Thomas Whitmore, played by Bill Pullman, with an eerie resemblance to the future President George W. Bush, right down to the contempt with which he is treated by the media. Others include Marine Captain and aspiring astronaut Steve Hiller, played by Will Smith, MIT grad and underachiever David Levinson, played by Jeff Goldblum, and a somewhat demented crop duster pilot Russell Casse, played by Randy Quaid, who claims to have been abducted by aliens at one time. Stand out supporting performances include Judd Hirsch, as Levinson’s very Jewish father, Vivica Fox as Hiller’s girlfriend, and Margaret Colin as Levinson’s ex wife and Whitmore’s chief aid.

Levinson, who is oddly working for a cable network, finds out the truth about the aliens’ intentions. He and his father desperately drive to Washington to warn Levinson’s ex wife and the President, which allows time for most of the cast to escape Washington before the aliens strike.

The total destruction of New York, Washington, and Los Angeles is presented in loving detail, with an expanding fireball from the alien primary weapon consuming buildings, automobiles, and people with equal efficiency. A counter attack, led by Captain Hiller, results in the obliteration of a Marine F 18 wing due to those pesky force fields the aliens seem to have. Air Force One, containing the President, some of his aids, Levinson, and his father make it to Area 51, the existence of which the President was previously unaware. Hiller, the last survivor of his squadron, makes it to the base with a captured alien and a horde of refugees. An attempt to take out the alien ship over Houston with a nuclear weapon fails. All seems to be lost.

Then, of course, Levinson, being the scientist character, finds a way to get through the alien force fields. It involves a 1996 Apple Powerbook that has a red eye on the screen and calls him “Dave.” Levinson and Hiller fly a desperate mission to the alien mother ship while the President, a former fighter pilot, leads the last remains of the nation’s air power against the aliens. Russell Case, himself a former Vietnam era pilot, managed to give the last full measure and, as usual, humanity is triumphant. We see shots of alien ships brought down in Africa, at the Great Pyramids of Giza, and at Sydney, Australia.

The movie stole shamelessly from just about every other SF movie ever made. It even stole—and very well—from Shakespeare’s Henry V. Pullman’s Independence Day speech is equal to anything spoke on St. Crispin’s Day. And there’s the inspiring idea of pilots of all nations, Arabs and Israelis, Russians and Chinese, led of course by America, fighting an Agincourt in the sky in one last battle against the alien fleet.

Mars Attacks!

Mars Attacks is a send up of alien invasion movies directed by Tim Burton and based on a series of trading cards from the early 60s. Short, green, big brained aliens land on Earth and start wrecking havoc. They seem to do this because they love killing people and breaking things, like entire cities. They have a cruel sense of humor. There’s one scene of the alien ships blowing bowls with the statues of Easter Island. They also love to take group photos of themselves in front of monuments that they are in the process of blowing up. They are finally defeated by a device that is even more bizarre than anything that ever defeated an alien horde before.

Jack Nicholson leads an all star cast as both the clueless President of the United States and a smarmy wheeler and dealer in Los Vegas. Glenn Close plays his Hillary-clone first lady and Natalie Portman plays his Chelsea-clone daughter. Pierce Brosnan is the scientist character. There’s a kindly General Powell clone and a demented General Jack D. Ripper clone with different approaches to dealing with the aliens. Jim Brown, Annette Bening, Michael J. Fox, Danny DeVito, Sarah Jessica Parker, Martin Short, Pam Grier, and Tom Jones round out the cast. The reactions, including the grisly deaths, of the humans are as priceless as the demented fun the aliens are having.

Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds

Steven Spielberg took a crack at War of the Worlds and does a good job with some fairly poor material. The film is a kind of victim’s view of the alien invasion with a forty year old teenager, played by Tom Cruise, and his two children played by Justin Chatwin and Dakota Fanning, flee the alien fighting machines, now tripods right out of the original book. We see very little of the actual fighting. A peek at some soldiers desperately trying to hold a ridge line, an over flight of stealth fighters, and the horizon glowing from some distance horror. There are wonderful, frightening set pieces, including the appearance of tripod fighting machines, sounding something that sounds like the trump of doom, as they advance on a horde of refugees fleeting onto a ferry to try to get away. Tim Robbins does a good turn as a demented survivalist. Gene Barry and Ann Robinson have cameos toward the end.

The movie falls down a little bit when one examines the strategy of the aliens. Apparently they buried the fighting machines underground millions of years ago. Then, the machines having gone undetected by the technological civilization that had grown up, their crews are beamed down by lighting bolts and then the machines emerge from the ground to kill and destroy. It is scheme worthy of another Spielberg project, Pinky and the Brain.

Still, Spielberg’s take has its moments. Most fascinating is how Tom Cruise’s character gains twenty years of maturity in about two days as he seeks to preserve his life and those of his children, not only from the aliens, but from demented humans, like Robbins’ survivalist character.

The movie ends, as did the book and the previous movie, but with the added bang of a soldier bringing down a fighting machine, now bereft of its force shield, with a hand held anti tank weapon. Of course, despite the almost end of the world, nobody is in church or is praying to God, as it was in the first movie. Evolution caused the death of the aliens.