History WMG / Signs

* After the humans win, they erect a statue to commemorate the victory. The statue depicts a lone firefighter wearing a gas-mask, [[AnAxeToGrind fire axe in one hand]] , [[DecapitationPresentation severed alien head in the other]].

[[WMG: The aliens aren't carbon-based]]

A commonly ridiculed aspect of the aliens, as mentioned above, is the fact that they have an inexplicable weakness to water, something improbable for any carbon-based life form. But what's less widely known is that there are several theoretical alternative biochemistries-- silicon is the best-known-- that would not require water at all. Indeed, a silicon-based life-form would find water toxic, and instead use ammonia as its solvent. If the aliens find water in any quantity to be lethal, then their biochemistry must be based on an element other than carbon.

[[WMG: The Tet in ''{{Film/Oblivion}}'' was the Aliens' second try at invasion]]

* This theory might hold more weight upon further inspection. No mechanical technology is shown to be used by the aliens, and organic alien suits have precedence in Independence Day, so it would be too far fetched in an alien movie. I know one movie is not the other, but let's suppose it for this theory. They could be using these organic biosuits for camouflage, nerve gas delivery, and general body protection including respiration as noted by the troper above. We see no rayguns or other mechanical technology to hint that their technology is anything other than organic. Their ship may even be organic for all we know. If this were true, maybe the aliens were harvesting humans to assimilate human biochemistry into their organic technology, eventually allowing them to live in a water rich environment.

At the end of the film, the young boy has an asthma attack and loses consciousness. The family then sees on the news that the aliens are leaving Earth ''en masse'' because water is poisonous to them. Next, a lone alien breaks into the house and the family sees it has the unconscious boy cradled in its arms. A closer look reveals that the alien is missing a finger. It is the one from the pantry, left behind by its own people on a strange world. And yet, when faced with the one who cut of its finger, it still has the kindness of heart to heal the boy by spraying a mist in his face. Gibson then tells his older son to brutally beat the alien with a baseball bat, which he gladly does. The unarmed alien offers no resistance. Shortly after, the young boy awakes, thanks to the alien's antidote. Gibson and the family show absolutely no remorse for the brutal murder of the one who saved the boy. In their ignorance, they interpreted the alien's act of kindness and forgiveness as an act of aggression, and they killed him simply because he wasn't human.

Everyone always assumes that just because a species is capable of interstellar travel, that means they must have unimaginably superior intellects. But this is a ''drastic'' case of YouFailLogicForever. Human beings have been improving our inventions for eons and throughout all the thousands and thousands of years of constant technological advancements our brains have not evolved in intelligence to a very significant degree. In the amount of time it would probably take us to make it all the way to the point where we can travel to another galaxy--say, another few hundred years--we certainly still won't have reached that point. Probably not even in another few thousand. ''Especially'' not now that we're evolving ''less'' than before. An alien species analogous to our own in advancement would presumably be the same. That's how evolution works. When you get to a certain point, your brain doesn't ''need'' to evolve much more. Evolution is about survival in the wild, not technological convenience. You can't just automatically equate technological prowess with intelligence like it's an automatic given. ''Think'', people. THINK. Don't assume. Think. These creatures are, if anything, ''less'' bright than humans--or at least than some of the smarter humans. The way they're hard wired, they seem to be better at long term planning than short term problem solving. They can set up tricks and traps and invasions well enough, but when confronted with something they didn't expect they always seem to miss the frickin' obvious and they don't know how to deal with it. If they were as brilliant as everyone thinks being capable of interstellar travel magically automatically qualifies you as being then they wouldn't act in such a way. This isn't an inconsistency: rather, it is a more or less ''realistic'' depiction of how such a species may be on a strange new planet.

* YouFailBiologyForever.

-->'''Alien:''' We have experimented with all the beings of Earth, and we have learned that you are the most intelligent and wise.
-->'''Cow:''' Why did you turn some of us inside out?
-->'''Alien:''' Oh, that was Carl's fault. He's new.
-->'''Alien (Carl):''' Yeah, sorry about that, my bad!

--> '''Bob''': "Hey George, let's go down there and run around naked so we can scare the natives who've never encountered life from other planets."
--> '''George''' (the more cautious of the two, pauses): "I don't know. That planet is covered in acid."
--> '''Bob''': "Don't be a pussy."
--> '''George''' (beginning to be quite annoyed at Bob's remarks, agrees): "Hey, I learned this trick from Steve that drawing circles in their food supplies really freaks them out."

First of all, if these aliens were smart enough to have cloakable transport, have tested lifeforms (since animals share quite a few spots of our human genome map), and know well enough to avoid water, who's to say they don't know our biology? The alien was surrounded and weak anyway, so holding a hostage would be a dumb move. Instead, he tried to appease by trying to resuscitate Morgan, and use [[{{Irony}} sign language]] to communicate his speci's true intent. [[HumansAreWarriors Of course,]] [[ActorAllusion dealing with]] MadMax here was a VERY bad idea. Way to go, Creator/MelGibson.

* Yeah, it's the "best" way... just like how the U.S., Russia, China, France, etc. all put aside our differences to battle our common enemies in WorldWarII. And afterward we all stayed friends and held hands and sang ''Kumbaya''. Oh, wait...

Morgan mentions when reading his book that space-travelling aliens would be physically small, with large heads, because their intelligence would overrule the evolutionary need for physical strength. However, the aliens that invade are physically large, with proportionally average heads. It's probable that these aliens were genetically-engineered slaves created by the smaller, more intelligent aliens (presumably TheGreys) that Morgan's book refers to. This would explain everything. The aliens don't seem particularly intelligent, despite having spaceships, because they didn't build the spaceships, they just stole them. They are naked and unarmed because they never had clothes and weapons to begin with, having escaped their planet in a hurry. The guy on the radio at the end says, in exact words, : "people say they came here to take over the planet. That's bull. They poisoned his family and dragged them away. This was a raid. They came here for us; to harvest us. We're lucky as hell they're leaving." It could not possibly be made more clear to us that the aliens weren't trying to take over the planet; they came here to perform a mass abduction, presumably as food for the rest of their journey or for the use of slave labour to build a colony wherever they chose to settle. It was just a stopover while they continued on the run from their Masters. Being unarmed, their method of attack relied on stealth and the element of surprise. Though it was physically possible for them to break down doors, being unarmed, they knew that was a bad idea, because the humans would easily be able to defend themselves. That is why they were snooping around Graham's house the nights before the invasion. They were looking for alternate entry points to the house that they could use to ambush the family on the night of the invasion. As Graham realizes when they are in the basement, the aliens aren't actually trying to break through the door, they are just banging on it to make noise as a distraction, while the other aliens sneak in through the alternate entrances (the attic door and the coal chute) which they had scouted out previously. Once the family blocked both entrances to the basement, the aliens gave up because the element of surprise was now gone, and they didn't want to risk just barging through the door, because they knew the humans were probably prepared to defend themselves. In this sense, the aliens did not actually lose the invasion; they collected the number of humans they deemed necessary and left. The improbable water weakness was probably a trait genetically engineered into them by their Masters to make them easy to defeat in case they tried to rebel. The aliens did take whatever precautions were possible to avoid it (Ray mentions there are no crop circles near large bodies of water).

[[WMG: The aliens were genetically-engineered bioweapons on the run from their Masters, and were only making a provisioning stop on Earth]]

Morgan mentions when reading his book that space-travelling aliens would be physically small, with large heads, because their intelligence would overrule the evolutionary need for physical strength. However, the aliens that invade are physically large, with proportionally average heads. It's probable that these aliens were genetically-engineered bioweapons created by the smaller, more intelligent aliens (presumably TheGreys) that Morgan's book refers to. This would explain everything. The aliens don't seem particularly intelligent, despite having spaceships, because they didn't build the spaceships, they just stole them. They are naked and unarmed because they never had clothes and weapons to begin with, having escaped their planet in a hurry. The guy on the radio at the end says, in exact words, : "people say they came here to take over the planet. That's bull. They poisoned his family and dragged them away. This was a raid. They came here for us; to harvest us. We're lucky as hell they're leaving." It could not possibly be made more clear to us that the aliens weren't trying to take over the planet; they came here to perform a mass abduction, presumably as food for the rest of their journey or for the use of slave labour to build a colony wherever they chose to settle. It was just a stopover while they continued on the run from their Masters. Being unarmed, their method of attack relied on stealth and the element of surprise. Though it was physically possible for them to break down doors, being unarmed, they knew that was a bad idea, because the humans would easily be able to defend themselves. That is why they were snooping around Graham's house the nights before the invasion. They were looking for alternate entry points to the house that they could use to ambush the family on the night of the invasion. As Graham realizes when they are in the basement, the aliens aren't actually trying to break through the door, they are just banging on it to make noise as a distraction, while the other aliens sneak in through the alternate entrances (the attic door and the coal chute) which they had scouted out previously. Once the family blocked both entrances to the basement, the aliens gave up because the element of surprise was now gone, and they didn't want to risk just barging through the door, because they knew the humans were probably prepared to defend themselves. In this sense, the aliens did not actually lose the invasion; they collected the number of humans they deemed necessary and left. The improbable water weakness was probably a trait genetically engineered into them by their Masters to make them easy to defeat in case they tried to rebel. The aliens did take whatever precautions were possible to avoid it (Ray mentions there are no crop circles near large bodies of water).

[[WMG: The aliens are [[EndersGame The Buggers.]]]]
Signs is a prequel to EndersGame