"General, I know what you're afraid of, and it's not Chuck. It's not monsters or aliens. It's the unknown. I've spent my whole life running from it, and I think maybe you have too, but I'm telling you the unknown isn't something to be afraid of. It can be your best friend. And just when you think that it means the end of everything you know, it's really just the beginning."
— Lem, to General Grawl
The first animated film by TriStar Pictures since The Trumpet of the Swan.
Planet 51 is a Spanish/American All-CGI Cartoon feature from 2009. The premise: Human astronaut Captain Charles "Chuck" Baker (Dwayne Johnson), accompanied by an exploration robot named Rover, lands on the eponymous planet, which is supposedly uninhabited. However, Planet 51 is populated, by green-skinned humanoids whose world strongly resembles 1950s suburban America. The aliens are also paranoid about being invaded by another planet, so Chuck's appearance causes unintentional havoc, and he's soon being hunted by the military. Chuck befriends an alien teenager named Lem (Justin Long), a worker at a local observatory; Lem protects the astronaut as he struggles to return to his ship, which will automatically take off after a preset time limit whether Chuck is aboard or not.
It should be noted that this was Alan D Marriott's last voice acting role based in the UK before he returned back to his home country Canada to do voice acting for Ocean Group Dub.
Tropes:
- The '50s: Parodied by the culture of the aliens.
- More like the SPACE-Fifties!
- Affectionate Parody: Of tropes from both Science Fiction and Sit Coms of The '50s.
- Alien Invasion: Subverted by the "invasion" being an accident. Also Inverted as Humans are the "invaders".
- Aliens Speaking English: "Hey, you speak my language!"
- All Animals Are Dogs: The aliens keep doglike xenomorphs as pets.
- Rover acts like one too. Complete with wagging his antenna and sniffing with his main lens.
- All-CGI Cartoon
- All Planets Are Earthlike: Chuck has no difficulty breathing in the alien atmosphere or anything else for that matter.
- Anal Probe: Skiff gives Lem a cork to put it in a certain place on his body in order to defend against the "alien's favorite form of research, the probe".
- Artistic License – Space:
- An In-Universe example. According to Lem's observatory lecture at the beginning of the film, "the universe is nearly 500 miles long, and it contains—you're not going to believe this—over 1000 stars!"
- This is apparently a running thing with the aliens' unit measurements - they seem to just use lower numbers for things in general: at one point the professor postulates that a manned space flight would cost "hundreds of dollars."
- Actually, it's all probably deliberate considering just how little the aliens actually know about space. They haven't even been able to launch satellites into orbit yet.
- Another example this trope, combined with Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: at one point Chuck mentions the alien planet is 20 billion miles away from Earth. In Real Life, the nearest star to our solar system is 24.7 trillion miles away. Which may be
Fridge Brilliance: he mentions at some point that the only thing he does with the star ship is to push some buttons, like a monkey could do. Chuck isn't exactly the brightest bulb of the set...
- Barefoot Cartoon Animal: In this case, they're Barefoot Cartoon Aliens.
- Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: The female aliens have built-in, organic "high heels" on their feet. In the book The Art of Planet 51, character designer Ignacio Güejes explains that this is because "we discovered that if the females had that extra heel on their feet, they would move differently than the male aliens, with swaying hips."
- Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Or alien. The male aliens don't wear pants, either, in a variation on Pantsless Males, Fully-Dressed Females.
- Batman in My Basement: Lem hiding Chuck.
- Big Damn Heroes: There are several scenes like this as the movie nears its climax.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: Several examples, all Played for Laughs.
- According to the official website, the aliens' hearts are located behind the left kneecap, and their blood is green.
- The aliens can function without a brain, and might even be smarter that way. Which just leads to the question of why they think it's important to have one, but...
- As Lem and Skiff are trying to keep Chuck hidden, Skiff reveals very strange assumptions about toiletry needs."If you have to go number one, aim for the newspaper. If you have to go number two, go outside. If you have to go number three, I can't help you."
- Also their hair looks like it's a living part of their bodies, and lots of fanfics call it "feelers". How do they cut it?
- Bowel-Breaking Bricks: General Grawl intimidates Rover during interrogation, giving the robot a sudden oil leak. Does This Remind You of Anything?
- Brain Food: The Planet 51 natives believe that humans eat brains.
- Brain in a Jar: Professor Kipple has a few in his lab.
- Butt-Monkey: Hippie Glar has his moments. Grawl mistakes him for being the alien invader and almost has him arrested. He's later used as a distraction by the gang, where he ends up being beaten up by the military base guards.
- Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": The aliens call their pet xenomorphs "dogs."
- Cannot Spit It Out: Lem has a hard time asking Neera out on a date. This is partially due to his own shyness, and partially because Glar is a Moment Killer who bursts into song whenever Lem is about to ask Neera out. Technically, Lem never completes his question to Neera, because at the end of the film she says "yes" before he can finish, and gives him a "Shut Up" Kiss.
- City of Adventure: Glipforg, the quiet little suburb where Chuck lands.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Skiff, a sci-fi geek who takes aliens a little too seriously, even before one of them arrives.
- Developing Doomed Characters: Reversed, most likely for parody.
- Elaborate Underground Base: Base 9.
- Exposed Extraterrestrials: Downplayed. The male aliens don't wear anything below the waist, Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal style.
- Failed a Spot Check: Chuck manages to walk several feet without noticing the aliens or their entire town, until he steps on a squeaky toy and turns around.
- Fictional Pinball Game: There are several alien pinball games in the bowling alley.
- Flying Car: All the vehicles on Planet 51 hover about a foot off the ground.
- Four-Fingered Hands: The aliens have them. "Gimme four!" Chuck, the Token Human, actually has five fingers.
- General Ripper/Inspector Javert/Well-Intentioned Extremist: General Grawl, leader of the soldiers hunting Chuck, is a combination of all of these tropes.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: The first attempt to showcase that Chuck isn't a bad guy goes this way. The plan was to get the news crew to interview Chuck and show that he means no harm. Instead, the news crew comes across Chuck and broadcast him doing impersonations of old movie characters and believe him to be revealing his "evil" plans.
- Green-Skinned Space Babe: Judging from Chuck's reactions to the alien women in the commercials.
- Groin Attack: Implied, when the astronaut lands on a globe.
- Hassle-Free Hotwire: Chuck and Lem both do this. Lem lampshades it by explaining to Neera that hotwiring is "how they start cars on Earth."
- Heel–Face Turn: General Grawl does one after Chuck saves his life.
- Hidden in Plain Sight/Status Quo Is God: How do you hide an alien astronaut? Paint an eyeball on his space suit and enter him in a costume contest promoting the Alien Invasion movie that just happens to be premiering today. Double for Status Quo because even though the "invasion" has the military in a tizzy, the movie premiere isn't even delayed!
- Hippie Van: Glar and his fellow hippie aliens get around in a hover-van, complete with a Volkswagen badge on the front.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Professor Kipple extracts the brains of the soldiers that have been tricked by Chuck into believing they have been brainwashed. At the end of the film, the two soldiers practice the same operation on the Professor.
- Humans Through Alien Eyes: The premise of the film.
- Imposter Forgot One Detail: General Grawl is trying to find Chuck amidst a crowd of locals disguised like movie monsters. He immediately points to the US flag on Chuck's astronaut suit.
- Inexplicable Cultural Ties: The aliens live in what is essentially 1950s suburban America, and they even speak English. The only thing that distinguishes them as aliens is their appearance, as they are otherwise exactly like humans.
- Inhumanable Alien Rights: Inverted, since Chuck is the one who might be victimized—but only from a human perspective. It may very well be played straight, since technically Chuck is an "alien" while on the planet.
- Innocent Aliens: Both Chuck and the aliens.
- Keet: Eckle, a little boy who's positively enthusiastic about the prospect of invasion by brain-eating aliens.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Professor Kipple claims to know everything about humans but he believes they have mind control powers and when he finds the wrapper for the Twix, he claims that it is a declaration of war clearly because he cannot read a single word.
- Large and in Charge: General Grawl is almost twice as tall as his subordinates.
- Laughing Mad: Professor Kipple laughs like that.
- Little Green Men: The inhabitants of Planet 51 are all green, and while not especially small, they are a little bit shorter than Chuck.
- Love Triangle: Lem and Glar are both interested in Neera.
- Mad Scientist: Professor Kipple, who wants to remove and study Chuck's brain. And he's refined the procedure through practicing ON HIS OWN KIND.
- Mailman vs. Dog: The postman takes malicious delight in bullying the xenomorph-dog. That is until it breaks its chains and comes after him.
- Mind Control: The aliens believe that Chuck can do this. After all, isn't he an alien invader?
- Misplaced Accent: In the European Spanish dub, the brainless aliens speak with Argentinian accents.
- Mistaken for Superpowered: The inhabitants of Planet 51 think that Chuck (a human astronaut) is every alien monster Science Fiction has ever written and that he was there to invade and enslave them (when really he had no idea that the planet was populated). Whenever something goes wrong for their military (either by their incompetence or just bad luck), they think that Chuck somehow used his alien powers to do it. If there is anyone who protests their methods or their Insane Troll Logic, well obviously he used his powers to brainwash them and the only sane solution is to remove their brains. Considering their culture is very similar to McCarthy-era America, this makes a lot of sense.
- Needle in a Stack of Needles: How Chuck manages to hide while he tries to reach his ship (see Hidden in Plain Sight).
- No Biochemical Barriers:
- Chuck doesn't seem to have a problem breathing on an alien planet.
- However, it is unknown if he can eat food from the planet or eat what he brought on the ship
- Only One Name: The aliens.
- Out of the Inferno: How Chuck saves Grawl as Base 9 is self-destructing.
- Perspective Flip: A human astronaut is seen as an alien invader by most of the locals, with a few realizing that he is actually a peaceful visitor.
- The Place: The title is the planet the story happens.
- Placebo Effect: Two of the alien soldiers start acting like brain-washed zombie after meeting Chuck because they assume that humans have the power to control them.
- Police Brutality: Glar gets beaten up by soldiers as a distraction so that his pals can sneak into Base 9. It's Played for Laughs, and Glar himself seems okay with it.
- Product Placement: At one point Chuck pulls a Twix bar out to convince Lem to clear the way to his ship. note Professor Kipple later finds the discarded wrapping and interprets it as being a death threat in alien language (while the barcode would be the surrender terms).
- There's also a Volkswagen badge on the front of Glar's van.
- Propaganda Piece: Humanity is portrayed as a monstrous group of aliens who want to enslave everything else. It's used as a scare tactic to the public much the same as actual sci-fi movies did back in the 1950s. Special mention that the scare tactics were being used before anyone even knew that life existed beyond their world.
- Protest Song: Glar specializes in them.
- Race Against the Clock: Chuck's ship is programmed to leave in 74 hours — with or without him. He makes it.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: Face it, there is nothing about little Rover that is not adorable. EVER.
- Robot Buddy/Team Pet: Rover is a little of both.
- Robot Dog: Okay, so little Rover's not a literal robot dog, but his behavior is deliberately mimicking that of a dog. Everything he does, whether tracking Chuck, interacting with alien pets, or being caught — and the other characters treat him just like a dog too.
- Rule of Funny: How likely is it that an alien civilization which has had little contact with Earth (and even that hasn't been revealed to the public) would evolve into a near-perfect duplicate of a specific human culture? How likely is it that such a world would have a popular science fiction franchise called Humaniacs? And how likely would it be that they have developed a perfect copy of the English language? Who cares?
- Scenery Porn: The film's backgrounds are just breathtaking.
- Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: Parodied. No one can take seriously anyone who would even remotely suggest that the universe was only 500 miles wide, since the planet they were on has to be much bigger than that in order to have an atmosphere capable of sustaining life, and a typical star is at least three orders of magnitude larger than 500 miles.
- Sequelitis: Parodied In-Universe by Humaniacs III, a movie within the movie that happens to be opening when Chuck lands. The franchise is about human invaders, of course.
- Shout-Out:
- A pet "dog" is named Ripley.
- Chuck's bike ride.
- Chuck's televised alien roleplaying.
- Eckle hums a snippet of "The Imperial March".
- Rover's dance when it rains rocks.
- The Tea Party cafe was called Nikto's.
- The fact the main alien character's name is the last name of a known SF writer probably also counts.
- Either that, or an acronym for Lunar Excursion Module. Or both.
- Sounds from WarGames.
- Chuck Baker as in Chuck Yeager Yeager
. - HAL 9000 camera eye.
- When Humaniacs III's poster goes up, two of the cast make Star Wars noises and reference Star Wars plots while talking about it.
- "I was supposed to plant Old Glory, head back to the Kids Choice Awards...I was supposed to get slimed!"
- "Listen Kid...you are a kid, right? You're not like a thousand year old Yoda?"
- "This is totally Luke Skywalker!"
- The army skip past contingency plans for giant ants, sea monsters and 50-foot women while trying to find one for alien invaders.
- The planet's Area 51 is called "Base 9".
- The Smurfette Principle: Neera is the only female character with a substantial role.
- Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Lem seems to see Glar as an antagonistic competitor, only because Neera seems interested in him; in actuality, Glar's been on his side the whole time.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: The advertisement for the film uses The Killers' "Spaceman." The song is about being abducted by aliens and then being autopsied.
- Space Romans: In this case, Space Suburbanites.
- Stealth Pun: Chuck's MP3 player has a picture of a pot as its logo, making it, presumably, an iPot.
- The Stinger: Professor Gribble is taken away by the two soldiers he removed the brains from to have the same process done to him, while Chuck discovers that the alien dog snuck aboard his ship.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Right after Chuck is captured:General Grawl: Let's take the aliens to Base 9note !(crowd gasps)General Grawl: ...Not that it exists.
- Terror At Makeout Point
- Those Two Guys: The two alien soldiers who believe they've been brainwashed by Chuck.
- Toilet Humor: You'd better believe it.
- Token Human: Chuck is pretty much the only human in the entire film. There is no sight of Earth nor any other humans.
- Trailers Always Lie: From the trailers and posters, you’d think Chuck is the main character. It more focuses on Lem.
- Who Even Needs a Brain?: Once two alien soldiers have their brains removed not only do they still function but actually seem to get smarter, such as speaking in Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Most of Planet 51's inhabitants think that Chuck will behave like the "human" monsters in their films, but actually the poor guy was only exploring.
- Xenomorph Xerox: The aliens' pets look like Xenomorphs that are about the size of a toy poodle. Instead of a second set of jaws, they have a sucker mouth on a frog-tongue. Also, they don't bleed acid, they piss acid.
