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1[[quoteright:215:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/species1_4_largePack_8871.jpg]]
2[[caption-width-right:215:[[DistractedByTheSexy Remind us again why]] [[AlienInvasion this is bad.]]]]
3
4''Species'' is a 1995 SciFiHorror film directed by Creator/RogerDonaldson, and starring Creator/NatashaHenstridge, Creator/BenKingsley, Creator/MichaelMadsen, Creator/ForestWhitaker, Creator/AlfredMolina and Creator/MargHelgenberger.
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6For thirty years, SETI has been scanning outer space, looking for signs of alien intelligence. In 1974, scientists sent out a message containing human DNA and the location of our planet. In return, they received two messages: one contains a catalyst for methane that allows the creation of cheap and efficient fuel, and the other contains a sample of alien DNA and instructions for how to combine it with human DNA. It is not long at all before scientists follow the instructions, creating the female human/alien hybrid Sil. She matures quickly, resembling an 11-year-old-girl after only a few weeks. She is intelligent, strong and agile - but the head of the research team thinks she might be dangerous to humanity and tries to terminate the experiment. Big mistake. Sil breaks out of her little habitat and escapes into Los Angeles, where she matures fully with two things in mind: survival at any cost, and reproduction with a human male.
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8It was followed by three sequels: ''Film/SpeciesII'' (1998), the only one theatrically released, bringing back Henstridge, Madsen and Helgenberger; ''Species III'' (2004), released direct-to-DVD and featuring a cameo by Henstridge; and ''Species - The Awakening'' (2007), which actually debuted on the [[Creator/SyFy Sci-Fi Channel]] one month before its home video release.
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10----
11!!This film series provides examples of the following tropes:
12%%
13%% Zero Context Examples have been commented out. Please write up a full example before uncommenting.
14%%
15[[foldercontrol]]
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17[[folder:Series-wide]]
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19* AlienHair: In her full-alien form, Sil's hair resembles Franchise/{{Predator}} dreadlocks.
20* AlienInvasion: Via reproduction with humans. The method of gestation in the second movie is particularly violent.
21* AntagonistTitle: The titular extraterrestrials in the film series.
22* ArtisticLicenseBiology: The hybrids are a major example, particularly in the sequels (also see the below entry). The first film could handwave it as ignorance of the aliens' nature.
23* BaffledByOwnBiology: Played for horror. Sil is a hybrid created by mixing human genes with alien DNA sent to Earth via radio transmission. She's biologically about 11 years old, chronologically three months, when she escapes from the lab that created her. Aboard a train, she steals huge amounts of food and eats ravenously. Late that night, she sees something moving under her skin before tentacles burst out, enveloping her. She's entering a cocoon to rapidly age to approximately twenty biological human years old, but with no understanding of what she is or how her hybrid body is meant to function, the experience is painful and terrifying for her.
24* BizarreAlienBiology:
25** When their true nature is not manifesting, the alien beings still display such traits as the ability to regenerate body parts (including heads) within seconds. Losing and regrowing a head does not affect their memory.
26** Despite apparently conceiving their children in their pubic region (Sil gets [[spoiler: Arden]] to ''feel'' their child growing, in her belly, [[spoiler: just before she kills him]]), the aliens birth their children through a concealed orifice on their chest cavity. No doubt a callback to Creator/HRGiger's previous [[Franchise/{{Alien}} iconic creation]].
27*** It turns out that showing a vaginal birth would have been an immediate X-rating for the movie, and they had to change it to a chest orifice against Creator/HRGiger's protests (he, quite rightly, thought that was just ripping off ''Alien'').
28** Breasts seem to be solely for [[{{Fanservice}} our enjoyment]] ([[AllMenArePerverts thank you, oh mighty alien overlord Xenu!]]), or more specifically, to make the aliens more attractive to human mates, as their offspring move immediately on to a solid-food diet (not requiring breastmilk), and in alien-form the nipples are tentacle weapons, not glands. Though, given the length of the tentacles, the breasts could just be there to hold the spooled tentacles when they're not in use.
29** Once the professor "harvests" Sara's egg cells, she is rendered infertile. This means that just like human women, her stockpile of reproductive cells is created exclusively in gestation (as opposed to men, who generate new supplies of sperm every time they get lucky). This is unusual, considering the aliens can "grow back" most other body parts as needed (like fingers), which we can't. [[note]]Which was the widely held belief at the time; we now know that human women can regenerate egg cells, albeit at a very slow rate that peters out over time.[[/note]]
30* BodyHorror: Bodily transformation sequences are depicted very graphically, like when Young Sil starts to transform into an alien monster in the first film.
31* CombatTentacles: Which seem to be prehensible, to boot. The female aliens have two of those in their nipples, and their tongues serve as another.
32* ConceiveAndKill: Naturally, this is the standard MO of the aliens.
33* CreepyChild: [[spoiler: Sil's son in the original movie]] and the infected astronaut's numerous offspring in ''Species II''.
34* CuteMonsterGirl: While the human forms of the hybrids are overall pretty hot, but even their alien forms are fairly appealing, with recognizable secondary sexual characteristics that are designed to appeal to potential human mates. The designers specifically wanted Sil to be beautiful even as an alien. Doubtless why the director of the first film brought HR Giger on board to design Sil; he specializes in creations that are equal parts disturbing and captivating.
35* {{Determinator}}: Do not get between the hybrids and their desired booty. They will kill you.
36* ExpandedUniverse:
37** Creator/DarkHorseComics had a four-issue comic miniseries entitled ''Species: Human Race'' while Creator/AvatarPress had the one-shot ''Species Special''.
38** The {{novelization}}s also give a lot of backstory.
39** There's a ''Species'' sourcebook for West End Games's Masterbook system. It takes numerous liberties with the original film, including giving hybrids "animal forms" to morph into and an array of abilities, fleshing out some possibilities for the ones who sent the message, as well as expanding the scope of psychic powers available to non-hybrid player characters.
40* ExpressDelivery: It is natural for alien hybrids to mature inhumanly fast. In the second film, they do it so quickly, they quite literally go out with a bang.
41* FaceFullOfAlienWingWong: The infected astronaut in the second film plays it straight, but the original is actually an ''inverted'' example, as the alien wants a face full of ''human'' wing-wong. The second film double-subverts it, with an alien who wants it from the other alien.
42* FanDisservice: Okay, imagine you're in bed with a hot specimen of your preferred gender. Now imagine that it senses danger and starts turning into a green, armored, clawed scaly thing...
43* {{Fanservice}}: The series is fueled on sex...
44* {{Gorn}}: ...and blood.
45* HalfHumanHybrid: The various alien menaces.
46* HealingFactor: Perhaps related to their astonishing growth rate, the hybrids all possess extreme regenerative abilities. In the first film, Sil is able to regrow a severed thumb in seconds, and in the sequel, Patrick regrows the entire top three-quarters of his head. Though it should be noted H.R. Giger felt that "nothing can live without a head" and suggested Sil's death by grenade to the face for the first film, instead of flamethrowers (which were also used over his objections).
47* HybridsAreACrapshoot: Sil is the product of genetic combination of human and alien DNA. She is a HalfHumanHybrid Shapeshifter, and the transition between the parts is full of BodyHorror. She is compelled to mate with human males (and then kill them) in order to reproduce.
48* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: The aliens have plenty of prehensile parts to impale their victims.
49* MaleToFemaleUniversalAdaptor: The alien beings are HalfHumanHybrid shapeshifters. We don't know what their "equipment" [[OneWingedAngel really]] looks like, although they do seem to have a prominent tentacle motif going...
50* MoreDeadlyThanTheMale: Played straight throughout most of the series in that the alien-human hybrids are female, but averted in ''Species II'' with the Patrick Ross alien being bigger([[SuperMode Second alien form]]), meaner, more capable of quickly creating a large number of alien offspring, [[spoiler: and fatally [[CurbStompBattle curb-stomping Eve]] at the climax]].
51* NoOntologicalInertia: The aliens tend to turn back to human from their [[OneWingedAngel true form]] when they die. Doesn't happen in the first film, but does in the sequels.
52* OverlyLongTongue: The hybrids have one of these, culminating in a gory example of InOneEarOutTheOther in ''The Awakening''.
53* RecycledInSpace: If the succubus and incubus were aliens instead of demons.
54* StatuesqueStunner: Part of why Natasha Henstridge was cast involved her 5' 9½" (1,77 m) frame making her more alien-esque. Sunny Mabrey and Creator/HelenaMattsson, both 5' 8" (1,73 m), also fit.
55* SuccubiAndIncubi: The mating alien antagonists are basically the [[RecycledInSpace science fiction alien take on the succubus and incubus legends]].
56* UnevenHybrid: Sil and her ilk are the result of mixing the DNA of a non-terrestrial lifeform with humans, making them {{Half Human Hybrid}}s. They are driven to procreate with humans in an attempt to outbreed them, but this actually creates quarter-alien offspring who are sterile.
57* VillainousCrush: Due to Sil and Eve's natural instinct to mate, they seem to develop a minor attraction to Preston. However Preston sees them both as monsters that have to be destroyed.
58* VoluntaryShapeshifting: Possibly, it's hard to tell if switching from human-form to xeno-form is anything more than an instinctive reaction to threats.
59* XenoNucleicAcid: Since the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message Arecibo message]] contained info on DNA, the aliens respond with their genetic basis and how it could be combined with the human one. The results are those sexy yet lethal hybrids.
60[[/folder]]
61
62[[folder:''Species'']]
63* AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: Inexplicably linked are a ritzy hotel, an elaborate scaffolded sewer network, and some kind of... oil well catacomb.
64* AmbiguouslyEvil: It's left unclear if Sil's killing ways are a consequence of being brought up in a laboratory without knowledge of morals or a built-in trait of her genome. The alien civilization that enabled her creation in Earth also counts as ambiguous in their intentions (see Neglectful Precursors below).
65* AnkleDrag: Perhaps as an homage to ''Film/{{Aliens}}'', Sil grabs Dan's ankle at the end before being tossed back into the fire pit.
66* AntiVillain: Sil is a surprisingly sympathetic antagonist. She clearly has human-like emotions, including to some extent a desire to be loved ("she liked him"), and if you look at things from her perspective she's basically a young child completely alone on a world full of hostile StarfishAliens. She's a genetic freak tormented by dreams of a world and people she doesn't know, and over the course of the film seems to realise that she will never fit in anywhere. Yes, she's a killer, but she seems to be acting more out of instinct than conscious malice, from her point of view she's just defending herself or preserving her {{Masquerade}} which she absolutely has to maintain among [[HumansAreCthulhu the hostile]] StarfishAliens [[HumansAreCthulhu that surround her]]. She experiences something of an existential crisis; being the only one of her kind on the planet, she has no guide for what she is, why she's here, what she's supposed to be and do, what her purpose is. And her goals of having children and propagating her own species are hardly in and of themselves evil. Plus, if she had anything like the feelings toward her offspring that a human mother would, you can't help cringing a little imagining her [[spoiler: witnessing the heroes incinerating her infant son with a flamethrower]] at the end. You can see how she's a threat to people that needs to be contained or neutralized, but at the same time, you can sympathize with her.
67* AssholeVictim: Sil kills a man who tried to have his way with her when she rejected him, due to Sil sensing he was "unclean".
68* BarrierBustingBlow: Sil punches through a bathroom stall to rip out a woman's spine. She also manages to break through [[spoiler: an entire fire door when Preston and Laura attempt to track her below the hotel.]]
69* BlankSlate: Sil was raised in a lab, so she starts with little concept of money and no moral compunction against killing. However, she is intelligent and cunning, so she's able to adapt pretty quickly. The killing thing stays, though.
70* BigEater: As a child, Sil devours a lot of whatever food she could find on the train ride. Could be that her big appetite is a result of her body storing a bunch of calories in its preparation for her metamorphosis transformation via cocoon later that night.
71* BoundAndGagged: The woman Sil kidnaps is shown in this predicament twice.
72* BriefAccentImitation: Laura asks Press to dance. He replies, in typical Michael Madsen tough-guy accent, "Who, me?" Laura does a pretty good impression of him as she answers "Yeah, you."
73* CampingACrapper: Sil kills the woman in the club by busting through the back wall of the toilet stall and ripping out her spine.
74* CaptainObvious: Dan's psychic sensitivity rarely outstrips basic common sense and observation skills:
75** Dan to Fitch at the boardroom: "She didn't like being locked up like that. She didn't like being alone like that."
76** When they find the dead train conductor by the alien cocoon: "Something bad happened here." Preston actually lampshades the uselessness of this observation with a "No shit."
77** They find Sil's car in the middle of the road without gas: "She walked... she walked." He does point out the ''direction'' she walked, but given it's the same direction the car was pointing, his insight is as effective as a good guess in this case.
78** While Laura and Press flirt at the bar: "They like each other."
79* CardboardPrison: The containment facility holding Sil has a security level that barely beats a pinfold, as it seems that everything she has to do in order to escape is running her way through a fragile glass pod, a guardless building, some unwary soldiers, and a fence.
80* CatScare: A squirrel jumps on Laura's shoulder for a false scare. Also the two bums behind the dumpster who give Dan a good scare.
81* ChekhovsBoomerang: The hair dye commercial that gives Sil the idea to change her hair colour after [[spoiler: faking her death comes on TV again when Dan is watching and helps him realise she is still alive]].
82* ChildrenAreInnocent: Why the train conductor cuts Sil a break. She doesn't even ask her name or where she's going to. Doubles as TheGuardsMustBeCrazy.
83* ComingAndGoing: As Laura and Press strip down and have sex, the scenes intercut show that [[spoiler: Dr. Arden is doomed as he is seduced and then killed by Sil]].
84* ConvectionSchmonvection: In the finale when the tar-filled pit catches fire, the temperature in the cavern should have been unbearable. However, the characters don't respond to this fact.
85* CruelAndUnusualDeath: Sil kills a train operator with a strangling arm out of her cocoon, a woman in a club by ripping her spine, and her first prospect by making her prehensile tongue go through his head (though the latter only happens when she changes her mind about him but he won't take no for an answer). And then there's the fate of the poor woman Sil kidnaps and uses as a death decoy....
86* CuriosityKilledTheCast: The female train conductor who approaches the odd-looking alien life-forms with not a trace of fear on her face.
87* DamselInDistress: During the finale, Laura falls into the tar pitch and has to be rescued by the other characters.
88* DecoyProtagonist: Fitch was mostly a MadScientist DrJerk VillainProtagonist played by the highly regarded Creator/BenKingsley who strings along the audience as he pursues his rogue creation, [[spoiler:then he gets offed while separated in sewers before Press, who is the true protagonist, manages to kill the creature]].
89* DidntSeeThatComing: The first attempt to catch Sil fails because they didn't expect her to jump from pre-teen to adult in the span of a single night, allowing her to walk right by the agents who are still looking for a child.
90* DistractedByTheSexy:
91** An near-fatal example [[spoiler: in which a male bicyclist sees Sil walking down the street and whistles at her, not seeing in his direction that a car is coming right at him and is nearly hit. Sil, however, gets struck by the hit-and-run driver and then rushed to the hospital by the horrified pedestrians watching.]]
92** What leads to [[spoiler: Dr. Arden's death.]]
93* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The 12-year-old Sil devouring a lot of food and store a lot of calories just before her painful metamorphosis into a 20-something woman is very similar to a young girl experiencing the difficulties of puberty and getting her first period.
94* DrJerk: Fitch. Particularly halfway through the [[ObstructiveBureaucrat lab scene citing quarantine protocol]] (like [[Franchise/{{Alien}} Ripley]], but unsuccessful) and the [[spoiler: sewer confrontation towards Dan.]]
95* DyeOrDie: Sil colors her hair black and cuts it short late in the movie [[spoiler: after faking her death]] to hide from the researchers hunting her. Only Dan had some idea to see through that, [[spoiler: after he somehow watched the same hair dye commercial on the TV that Sil watched.]]
96* TheEmpath: Dan Smithson is an empath, although he's played up as more of a CaptainObvious.
97* EnhanceButton: They get a blurry still from a video camera and manage to enhance the image, if only slightly.
98* EscapedFromTheLab: Sil escapes from a government laboratory after the scientists who created her try to kill her.
99* EveryCarIsAPinto: Invoked by Sil when she fills a car with several containers of gasoline and drives it into an electrical junction box to make sure it goes up in a nice fireball.
100* FakingTheDead: Sil pulls off a complex one. With a [[spoiler: car, lots of gasoline, and a live victim.]]
101* FanDisservice:
102** A young pre-teen Sil painfully morphing into a woman, with worm-like appendages crawling out of her face and hands.
103** A grown-up Sil falling out of her cocoon naked and all bloodied after a murder.
104** Sil impaling a man through the back of the head with her tongue after being threatened with rape.
105** A naked Sil washing the blood off her body in a shower.
106** Sil morphing into her alien form and violently drowning a man in his own pool.
107** Sil starting to morph into alien form and [[spoiler: killing Dr. Arden not long after sex]].
108** Sil in alien form [[spoiler: screaming through a painful and disgusting childbirth]].
109* {{Fanservice}}:
110** Laura and Press's sex scenes.
111** [[spoiler: Sil seducing Dr. Arden into sex]].
112** Sil stripping in the club before meeting her next potential male suitor.
113** Sil seducing a man into a two-person pool party.
114* {{Fingore}}: The scene where Sil cuts her own thumb off (it regenerates) [[GoryDiscretionShot before moving onto to her female captive's hand]].
115* FlexibilityEqualsSexAbility: Fervently wanting to conceive a child, Sil manages to seduce Doctor Arden while the team hunting her are meeting in a hotel. She gets him undressed and erect in a flash, then pumps the spunk out of him in about a minute. Ten seconds later, she can feel her baby quickening due to her BizarreAlienBiology. Sil then kills Arden because [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness he has outlived his usefulness]] to her.
116* {{Foreshadowing}}: The motel manager mentions to Sil that she doesn't want her credit card (which she took, along with the clothes, from the train conductor) to fall into wrong hands. The next scene has Fitch telling on the phone that they found her via tracing her credit card.
117* GlassyPrison: The young Sil is held inside a confinement area with glass walls. When the project director decides to kill her with poison gas, she [[SoftGlass breaks through the glass]] and [[EscapedFromTheLab escapes the laboratory]].
118* HeKnowsTooMuch: Why Sill murders most of her victims. [[spoiler: After failing to successfully mate with a man who was nice to her, Sil kills him and runs away before the police show up. After faking being a victim of rape and showing the kidnapped woman her extraterrestrial powers, Sil kills her to keep her from talking to the police. After having sex with Dr. Stephen Arden and he discovers too late who she really is, Sil kills him and escapes the hotel]].
119* HealingFactor: At the hospital Sil's back injuries from the car accident heal in seconds, leaving the onlooking doctor speechless.
120* HumanoidAbomination: Sil's son. Despite being theoretically only 1/4 alien, his alien form is significantly more monstrous than Sil's, featuring hinged legs, a crown-like head, an exposed abdomen, an asymmetric pair of arms, and a noticeably malformed mouth.
121* InescapableHorror: At the very end, after Sil is destroyed we see a rat chewing on a piece of her body. The rat mutates, indicating that it will become another Sil. Interestingly, also a case of a SequelHook that went entirely unused ([[WhatHappenedToTheMouse this particular rat is never mentioned in any of the following films]]).
122* InformedAbility:
123** Everyone on the team is supposedly intelligent, yet most of their lines are shouting out the obvious. Dan's line "something bad happened here" and Preston's line "she must have come through here" [[CaptainObvious were both said after finding a dead body]].
124** Stephen Arden is supposedly an uber-smart person, yet after a horny, attractive female alien in human form [[spoiler: 'dies' in questionable circumstances, he doesn't think twice about sleeping with a horny attractive woman that suddenly appears before him. To be fair, he probably didn't know she had the ability to regrow her thumb, and [[SomethingElseAlsoRises perhaps some blood left his head and went elsewhere]].]]
125** Preston Lennox is supposedly a talented and sought-after mercenary, yet for most of the film, he just stands around looking tough or wielding a gun.
126** Dan's empathic powers are limited by the needs of the script. At one point his sensing of Sil is foiled by a wooden fence behind which Sil hides. Also, he fails to sense those two bums behind the dumpster who give him a CatScare.
127** Xavier Fitch is the top dog, yet his only skill seems to be being a {{Jerkass}}, a fact Preston lampshades when questioning his contributions at one point.
128* InstantSeduction: [[spoiler: After stealing some keys and hiding in what turned out to be Dr. Arden's hotel room, Sil manages to seduce him easily in under a minute with a few words and some stripping]].
129* JerkassHasAPoint: In the sewer chase, although he was being a complete {{Jerkass}} about it, Fitch ''was'' correct that Dan was just guessing due to pressure and therefore leading everyone in the wrong direction.
130* KarmaHoudini: The driver that hits Sil and nearly does the same to the distracted skateboarder drives away before anyone notices and is never seen again.
131* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler: Fitch]], given how he had instigated the events to start with.
132* KickTheDog: Sil cutting off the thumb of her captive and using her as an appropriately fresh burned corpse in her attempt to fake her death. The woman hadn't done anything to Sil, and Sil even got close to her by preying on the woman's pity, but Sil still tied her up and held her captive, cut off her thumb to ensure the correct amount would be found in the wreck, then took her on a dangerous car chase with gasoline splashing all over before finally arranging for the car to crash and burst into flames, burning the poor woman alive.
133** Sil killing a man who showed her kindness by paying for her medical bill and spending time with her. He freaked out over her blunt request to get pregnant and someone (the agents) was at the door, but she killed him pretty much for convenience.
134* KillItWithFire: [[spoiler: How Sil's son dies. Sil [[NotQuiteDead almost]] goes the same.]]
135* KindheartedCatLover: Preston is introduced thanking a next-door neighbour for minding his cat while he's out of town.
136* KissOfDeath: Sil kills someone while kissing him by sticking her tongue out through the back of his head.
137* LectureAsExposition: Fitch gives a lengthy exposition of the SETI project and the failed DNA experiment to the summoned group in his boardroom.
138* LetsSplitUpGang: Fitch orders the group to split up when they are down at the AbsurdlySpaciousSewer.
139* MamaBear: Sil's reaction to [[spoiler: the scientists setting her newborn son on fire]].
140* MadScientist: Fitch, considering he was the one who created a deadly living alien weapon and then act like some sort of DrJerk throughout most of the movie.
141* MistakenFromBehind: Preston believes he spotted Sil at a bar, but when he approaches the blonde girl and [[https://youtu.be/y6Om0b0pttM she turns around, it is somebody else completely.]]
142* ModestOrgasm: [[spoiler: Things are rather quiet when Sil and Dr. Arden finish having sex]].
143* MuggingTheMonster: Sil goes home with a man, then detects he has a medical condition (it's later said to be diabetes) and she changes her mind about having sex. He gets angry, trying to force her into this. She acts like she'll accede, then easily kills him with a tentacle into his brain.
144* MurderTheHypotenuse: Sil does this to any female competitor whom she sees as sexual competition to any male suitors she desires to reproduce with. It's particularly notable because she kills a woman for getting in her way, only to leave with an entirely different man.
145* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: [[spoiler: Stephen Arden's look on his face and what he's thinking when he realized he has just been used as an UnwittingPawn for Sil to get her impregnated.]]
146* NeglectfulPrecursors: It's not clear what the aliens wanted humans to do with their DNA, but either way giving it (and instructions on how to combine it with ours) was at best poorly thought out, if not downright malicious. The film seems to indicate that it was actually [[AbusivePrecursors a malicious plan]] (one of the characters speculates that Sil is an ideal biological weapon if some alien race decided that humanity was a weed in need of plucking), while the role-playing game supplement suggests the aliens thought it was [[ForScience really interesting]] (and more than [[ItAmusedMe a little amusing]]) watching humans blunder around with biotech beyond their understanding and seeing how we responded to it.
147* NightmareSequence: Young Sil has at least two, involving fully grown versions of herself and a male equivalent, and herself pursued by a [[http://www.hrgiger.com/ghost.htm "ghost train"]].
148* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: The guy who helped Sil after the car accident and covered the hospital bill ends up being killed by her.
149* {{Novelization}}: Yvonne Navarro co-wrote a novelization based on the original screenplay with Dennis Feldman. The book gives several in-depth details about the characters not seen in the film, such as Sil's ability to visualize odors and determine harmful substances from edible items by color. Gas appears black, food appears pink, and an unhealthy potential mate appears to give off green fumes. Other character details include Preston's background in tracking down AWOL soldiers as well as the process of decoding the alien signal. Although no clues are given as to its origin, it is mentioned that the message was somehow routed through several black holes to mask its point of origin.
150* OhCrap: [[spoiler: Stephen Arden]] says something along the lines of this when [[spoiler: he found out he was having sex with Sil. Right before she claws him to death.]]
151* OneSizeFitsAll: Sil steals clothes from a female train conductor to blend in, yet somehow the overweight, middle-aged woman's clothes fit perfectly on Natasha Henstridge's model body.
152* PlotDrivenBreakdown: When they try to breed the second embryo, the camera at the lab breaks down precisely when the needle pierces it. The repair leads to an action scene.
153* PreMortemOneLiner: Preston at the end: "Let go, you motherfucker." Cue an [[spoiler: [[BoomHeadshot M203-launched grenade into Sil's face.]]]]
154* ProperlyParanoid: Preston finds Sil showing up at the club and then dying in a car crash too convenient, and Dan likewise senses something is amiss. Sil's ruse still works, though.
155* PupatingPeril: Sil's pupal stage and emergence from her cocoon marks the point where she becomes seriously dangerous.
156* RaceAgainstTheClock: Fitch sets a 2 min countdown for the decontamination of the lab when the experiment on the second embryo gets out of hand with Preston and Laura TrappedInContainment.
157* RaisedInALab: Sil was raised in a lab until she was biologically about twelve years old (chronologically, much shorter) and escapes when the scientists try and euthanize her because she's perceived as too dangerous. Once out in the world, she becomes a bona fide psychopath, with no morals or inhibitions against doing whatever she has to do to survive and fulfill her goals.
158-->'''Laura''': Well, she wasn't exactly smothered with a mother's love or taught good manners.
159* ReadingLips: In the scene where Fitch says "Tomorrow night, we'll go back to the club", Sil is in a car down the street lip-reading him. She'd [[ChekhovsSkill learned to do that]] in her GlassyPrison at his lab.
160* RightThroughHisPants: Defied. When the group discovers Sil's first male victim as an adult, Fitch has an OhCrap moment as he believes she's successfully mated. Preston is quick to point out "Doesn't look like a successful mating to me. He's still got his pants on."
161* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: A young Sil bursts through her glass cage and escapes after learning that she is to be terminated with cyanide.
162* ScreamingBirth: At the end, Sil screams giving birth to her son (it's almost a ChestBurster, though coming out of the stomach). Apparently, even alien anatomy is not suited for painless childbirth.
163* SequelHook: The first movie ends with a rat eating Sil's remains, and using a tongue similar to hers. The following one somehow ignored it.
164* SexSignalsDeath: [[spoiler: Stephen Arden gets killed after having sexual intercourse with Sil.]]
165* ShapeShifter: Sil can choose between Natasha Henstridge's blond gorgeousness and her alien heritage's tentacled, scaled succubus.
166* ShoutOut: Sil evading capture at L.A. train station by disguising as a train conductor is lifted from a scene in ''Film/NorthByNorthwest''. See comparison [[https://vimeo.com/152750722#t=6m51s here]].
167* SingleTear: Fitch sheds a single tear in the beginning while overlooking the gassing of Sil.
168* SoftGlass: Young Sil breaks the thick glass wall of her GlassyPrison at the lab with her bare fist.
169* SpeciesTitle: The series is about HalfHumanHybrids with aliens.
170* SternChase: After having escaped from the lab, Sil remains in constant pursuit by Fitch and his group.
171* SuperStrongChild: Young Sil displays her super-human strength when breaking the glass of her lab prison and later when she breaks the drawer at the train's dining car with ease.
172* SwissCheeseSecurity: For a top-secret genetic hybrid, the containment procedures for Sil are shockingly lax. After breaking free of her cell, she escapes the building through two unlocked doors and scales a barbed wire fence to freedom, reaching the train tracks in no time.
173* ThreeMonthOldNewborn: Justified. Just seconds after [[spoiler: having sex with Dr. Arden, Sil is pregnant and gives birth by the time she escapes to the caves]]. Due to his sped-up growth rate, Sil's son is already past baby age shortly after emerging from her womb.
174* TragicMonster: Sil. For the most part, she doesn't seem to be acting out of deliberate malice, rather self-preservation and natural instinct. That said, her natural instincts lead her to brutally murder a "rival" female.
175* TrainEscape: Young Sil escapes her pursuers by jumping on a passing train.
176* TrappedInContainment: They're tooling around with the alien DNA when a camera breaks down in the sealed experiment chamber. Dr. Laura Baker and Preston volunteer to go in and try to replace the camera. Of course, an accident happens and they are on their own to fight off the fast-growing alien while the other team members are forced to watch from behind safety glass.
177* TwoPersonPoolParty: Sil ends up in a hot tub with the guy who she was falling for. Unfortunately, the strike force arrives before anything can happen and Sil is reluctantly forced to kill the guy.
178* VillainProtagonist: Everything that occurs is because of Fitch's messing around with alien DNA, to say nothing of his incredible jerkass attitude, which [[spoiler: almost gets Preston and Laura killed.]]
179* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: A more literal example than usual, the infected rat from TheStinger is an unused SequelHook.
180* WoundedGazelleGambit: Sil is able to avoid capture [[spoiler: and ultimately fake her own death]] by approaching a woman fully nude and pretending to be a rape victim.
181* WouldHurtAChild: In the first film. When child Sil is ordered to be terminated via deadly gas fumes filling her containment cell, though the doctor administering the termination can't help but shed a single tear and mouth to Sil that he's sorry as he watches her die. Then she escapes.
182* YouCanLeaveYourHatOn: Shortly after [[spoiler: killing a drunken female competitor]], Sil strips off her pink sweater and tosses it to the former male suitor to keep before moving on to the next potential suitor.
183* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: [[spoiler: After Arden has sex with Sil to accomplish her goal of getting impregnated, Sil offs him when he starts to realize who she really is and what he has done.]]
184[[/folder]]
185
186[[folder:''Species III'']]
187* AllMenArePerverts: Abbott believes the trope is in full effect with Dean towards Sara, but he's shown to care for her in a non-sexual manner.
188* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: The world is finally free from the hybrid menace and Sara has a partner to live with in the wild. As he's sterile, they will be the last of their species. However, Dean states they will eventually find out, implying they might return to kill him in revenge.]] Not to mention that, [[spoiler: in keeping with the species' habit of exceeding their creators' expectations, it is not unlikely that Sara will somehow be able to naturally heal her own sterility.]]
189* CainAndAbel: The malevolent half-breeds are all Sara's half-siblings.
190* ClotheslineStealing: How Sara finds her first outfit. It doesn't explain how she gets her shoes, though.
191* ContinuitySnarl: Abbott explains the infected astronaut's half-human children had defective immune systems due to being hybrids, and they are also implied to be sterile (the female one certainly seemed to be). This means the premise of the original movie, that Sil's offspring would end up replacing humanity, was never possible in the first place. Although, then again, the way the scientists in the lab produced their embryos and the natural conception by Ross may be the devil in the details here. It may also be relevant that Sil provided the egg in her breeding, whereas the half-breeds in Species II & III all came from alien sperm. In crossbreeding species, eggs tend to have a greater influence over which traits the offspring will inherit, meaning Sil's half-breed children would've been naturally more inclined to possess the aliens' strength than Patrick's half-breeds. Patrick was also far less 'picky' than Sil, who explicitly required a suitable mate and rejected someone she deemed genetically deficient.
192* CrazyPrepared: Abbott has a lab equipped with hydrochloric gas, just in case he has to trap and kill a dangerous alien.
193* CreepyChild: Little Sara rejects coldly Abbott's attempts to educate her in human customs, though we get a look of her softer side when she goes to bed and asks him uncertainly if she's really an unique being.
194* DefrostingIceQueen: Sara through the film, though very subtly, and ultimately by [[spoiler: saving Dean from Amelia.]]
195* DirtyOldMan: Abbott's superior Dr. Turner is initially polite enough not to stare at a naked Sara, but after becoming delighted by her reproductive advances on him, he tries to rape her when she changes her mind at sensing he hasn't the right DNA.
196* FullFrontalAssault: Sara ends up fighting Amelia with no more covering than her alien form scales.
197* InnocentFanserviceGirl: Sara is initially ignorant about the human considerations towards nudity, which leads her to show herself naked in front of Dr. Turner, which in turn leads to the old bastard's death.
198* MeaningfulName: The previously unnamed military project that created Sil is now named Project Athena. Just like Athena, Sara is adept at both learning and fighting.
199* ParentalSubstitute: Abbot is fond of Sara as a surrogate daughter, or so he tells her in her child stage, although he also has the interest to use her cells to win a Nobel Prize.
200* PsychicPowers: Both Sara and Amelia, something that had only been hinted at in previous installments.
201* {{Psychometry}}: Sara learns all the contents of a chess manual by merely touching it.
202* TheQuietOne: Both as a child and as a young woman, Sara talks little and only when needed.
203* TheStoic: Sara barely emotes through the film, causing some humor when an older, female UFO expert believes she's a college student with a nasty recent breakup.
204* TokenGoodTeammate: Sara is a 'purer' hybrid than the previous hybrids and thus her reproductive drive simply doesn't view pure humans, or even her 'flawed' hybrid siblings, as worth being interested in. As such, she is generally harmless as not only does she have no desire to mate with humans, but she lacks her predecessors' habit of violently killing 'unworthy' potential mates. She's also the only benevolent hybrid in the film. [[spoiler: She even comes to genuinely like Dean and saves him.]]
205[[/folder]]
206
207[[folder:''Species: The Awakening'']]
208* CameBackWrong: With Miranda dying, her creator Tom tries to save her and seemingly succeeds in rejuvenating her, though at the cost of another human life. It soon becomes apparent that the once sweet Miranda is now almost completely gone, her once dormant and contained [[SuperpoweredEvilSide alien side]] having [[SplitPersonalityTakeover taken over]].
209* DroolHello: Because the franchise hadn't borrowed enough from ''Alien'', one of the hybrids announces her presence in this way.
210* EyeScream: A doctor gets Miranda's tongue through the back of her head and out the eye.
211* SouthOfTheBorder: For most of the film.
212* TamerAndChaster: The film was obviously shot with the intention of airing on the Sci-Fi channel first. There is nudity in the film, but it's sparse, shot in quick cuts, awkward angles, or deep shadows that make the film very easy to edit for content.
213[[/folder]]

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