Selected Resources
1950s Science Fiction Films and 9/11: Hostile Aliens, Hollywood, and Today's News by ISBN: 9780875864976Date: 2006-12-01The author draws parallels between the Cold War fears of the 1950s and 60s and the constant terrorism alerts of the September 11th era, exploring how the politics and the psychological climate of the times influences and is reflected in this vehicle of popular culture.
Alien Abduction in the Cinema by ISBN: 9781476688275Date: 2024-03-31The alien abduction phenomenon is one of the enduring enigmas of our time. While the reality of alien abductions is a hotly debated topic among UFO researchers, scientists, skeptics and true believers alike, the phenomenon indisputably exists as an artifact of popular culture. This book analyzes more than 75 films that draw their inspiration from allegedly fact-based accounts of alien contact, from 1951's The Man from Planet X to Contactee in 2021. These films are examined in terms of both their cinematic qualities and their exploration of thematic elements derived from abduction reports.
Alien Identities: Exploring Differences in Film and Fiction by ISBN: 9780745314006Date: 1999-05-20This is a lively and stimulating look at representations, mutations and adaptations of 'the alien' in literature, film and television. Moving beyond the conventional genre boundaries of the alien, particular essays look, too, at 'race' as an alien condition, and at the use of illness and disease as a metaphor for alienation in modern film and fiction.
Alien Invasion Films: Imperialism, Race and Gender in the American Security State, 1950-2020 by 
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ISBN: 9783031117947Date: 2022-11-17This book studies American science fiction films depicting invasions of the USA and Earth by extra- terrestrials within the context of imperialism from 1950-2020. It shows how such films imagine America and its allies as objects of colonial control. This trope enables filmmakers to explore the ethics of American interventionism abroad either by defending the status quo or by questioning interventionism. The study shows how these films comment on American domestic hegemonic practices regarding racial or gender hierarchies, as well as hegemonic practices abroad. Beginning with the Cold War consensus in the 1950s, the study shows how hegemony at home and abroad promotes division in the culture.
Alien Legacies: The Evolution of the Franchise by ISBN: 9780197556023Date: 2023-03-24The 1979 film Alien has left an indelible mark on popular culture. This book brings together scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds to explore Alien through a contemporary lens. Chapters touch on female agency and motherhood, the influence of H.R. Giger, the viscerality of Alien's body horror, the narrative tradition of the Female Gothic, the patriarchal gaze in the Alien video games, and the rise of in-universe online marketing campaigns. In so doing, the volume aims to debate Alien's legacy, consider its current position within visual culture, and establish what the series means--and why it still matters--forty years since its birth.
The Aliens Are Here: Extraterrestrial Visitors in American Cinema and Television by - This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 9781476685045Date: 2022-10-20Aliens: They have taken the form of immigrants, invaders, lovers, heroes, cute creatures that want our candy or monsters that want our flesh. For more than a century, movies and television shows have speculated about the form and motives of alien life forms. This book examines various types of the on-screen alien visitor story, featuring a liberal array of alien types, designs and motives. Each chapter spotlights a specific film or TV series, offering comparative analyses and detailing the tropes, themes and cliches and how they have evolved over time. Highlighted subjects include Eternals, War of the Worlds, The X-Files, John Carpenter's The Thing and Attack of the 50-Foot Woman.
From Alien to the Matrix: Reading Science Fiction Film by ISBN: 9781850438052Date: 2005-01-28Roz Kaveney looks at the movies of alien invasion and movie franchises, as well as offering deep readings of the 'Alien' quartet, of 'Dark City' and 'Strange Days'; extended consideration of the 'Star Wars' series, and Terminator films; and a celebration of Galaxy Quest and many other films.
Gendering Science Fiction Films by ISBN: 9781137321589Date: 2013-11-18In the 1950s, science fiction invasion films played a complicated part in supporting and criticizing Cold War ideologies. By reading these invasion narratives as performances of middle-class, white Americans' excitement and anxiety about social and political issues, George shows how they often played out as another round in the battle of the sexes.
Invasions USA: The Essential Science Fiction Films of the 1950s by ISBN: 9781442236516Date: 2014-07-30In Invasions USA: The Essential Science Fiction Films of the 1950s, Michael Bliss examines movies that stripped away the veneer of normality during a decade often portrayed as the last innocent period in American history. By exploring depictions of insecurities--whether personal or political--Bliss shows how science fiction films spoke to American audiences deeply troubled by their circumstances. Invasions USA will appeal to science fiction buffs and film aficionados interested in this significant phenomenon in movie and cultural history.
Science Fiction Cinema: Between Fantasy and Reality by - This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 9780748624652Date: 2007-06-06This major new study offers a broad historical and theoretical reassessment of the science fiction film genre. The book explores the development of science fiction in cinema from its beginnings in early film through to recent examples of the genre. Each chapter sets analyses of chosen films within a wider historical/cultural context, while concentrating on a specific thematic issue. Includes relevant book chapter titled " Alien others: race and the science fiction film."
Science Fiction Cinema and 1950s Britain: Recontextualizing Cultural Anxiety by - This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 1501322540Date: 2017-11-30Drawing on extensive archival research, Matthew Jones makes an exciting and important intervention by locating American science fiction films alongside their domestic counterparts in their British contexts of release and reception. He offers a radical reassessment of the genre, demonstrating for the first time that in Britain, which was a significant market for and producer of science fiction, these films gave voice to different fears than they did in America.
Them or Us: archetypal interpretations of fifties alien invasion films by ISBN: 9780253358714Date: 1988-02-01Fans of the old Spook Shows of the 1940's will be amazed by this book. It's packed with vintage posters and lobby cards you can't find anywhere else as well as a great history.
Visions of Invasion: Alien Affects, Cinema, and Citizenship in Settler Colonies by - This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 9781496844064Date: 2023-03-02This book explores how the US government mobilizes media and surveillance technologies to operate a highly networked, multidimensional system for controlling migrants. Author Michael Lechuga focuses on three arenas where a citizenship control assemblage manufactures alienhood: Hollywood extraterrestrial invasion film, federal antimigration and border security legislation, and various immigration enforcement protocols implemented along the Mexico-United States border.
The War of the Worlds by ISBN: 9781474229883Date: 2016-08-25First published in 1897, H.G. Wells's alien invasion narrative The War of the Worlds was a landmark work of science fiction and one that continues to be adapted and referenced in the 21st century. Chronicling the novel's contexts, its origins and its many multi-media adaptations, this book is a complete biography of the life - and the afterlives - of The War of the Worlds. E
- "Lovelier the Second Time Around": Divorce, Desire, and Gothic Domesticity in Invasion of the Body Snatchers
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- 'The Great Disillusionment': H.G. Wells, Mankind, and Aliens in American Invasion Horror Films of the 1950s
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- Alien Invasions
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- Alien invasions and identity crisis: Steven Spielberg's The War of the Worlds (2005)
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- Alien on the inside: the adaptation of Stephen King’s alien possession tales
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- Bush's America and the Return of Cold War Science Fiction: Alien Invasion in Invasion, Threshold, and Surface
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- A Dialogic Approach to Alien Movies
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- E.T. Go Home: Indigeneity, Multiculturalism and 'Homeland' in Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema
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- Human-Alien Encounters in Science Fiction: A Postcolonial Perspective
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- Humanities Fiction: Translation and ‘Transplanetarity’ in Ted Chiang’s “The Story of Your Life” and Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival
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- Luftkrieg and alien invasion: Unacknowledged themes of German wartime suffering in the Hollywood blockbuster Independence Day
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- Suits vs. Skins: Immigration and Race in Men in Black
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- WeCome in Peace: Immigration in Post-Cold War Science Fiction Film
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- ‘More Human than Human’: Colonial Logics and the Modern Subject in Science Fiction Films
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- Alien Invasions, Vulnerable Bodies: Science Fiction and the Biopolitics of Embodiment from H. G. Wells to Octavia Butler
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- The American Alien: Immigrants, Expatriates and Extraterrestrials in Twentieth-Century U.S. Fiction
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- The American science fiction film and fifties culture
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- "Independence Day" and the new alien invasion
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- Invasion, surveillance, biopolitics, and governmentality: Representations from tactical media to screen
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- "Who goes there?": Negotiating culture, identity, and anxiety in 1950s science fiction invasion films
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- Under the Skin (dir. Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
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- The Quatermass Experiment (1953)Franchise that began as a television serial, and had many subsequent film and television installments.
Selected Films on Kanopy
Dark Star (dir. John Carpenter, 1974)
"Low-budget story of four astronauts in deep space, whose mission is to destroy unstable planets in star systems which are to be colonised. The late Commander Powell is stored in deep freeze, where he is still able to offer advice. As their mission nears completion, they must cope with a runaway alien which resembles a beach-ball, faulty computer systems, and a "smart bomb" who thinks it is God."
UCLA students, staff, and faculty access through Kanopy. Log into the campus VPN or proxy server to view video.
The Man Who Fell to Earth (dir. Nicolas Roeg, 1976)
"Thomas Jerome Newton, a mysterious and complex personality, appears in New York. Despite his curiously frail physical presence, the strength of his intellect and scientific knowledge appear to transcend contemporary human experience. His inventions are of such originality that they will revolutionize the nation's systems of communication and lead, in approximately three years, to the creating of the largest corporate empire in the United States…"
UCLA students, staff, and faculty access through Kanopy. Log into the campus VPN or proxy server to view video.
Delta Space Mission (dir. Calin Cazan & Mircea Toia, 1984)
"In the year 3084, a Modigliani-esque alien journalist with blue-green skin, Alma, boards a state-of-the-art spacecraft named Delta – whose highly advanced computer brain develops a mad teenage crush on her with disastrous results. An incredibly strange and strangely beautiful work of galactic eye candy, DELTA SPACE MISSION defies all rules of perspective and logic, like M.C. Escher and Moebius teaming up on a Romanian Saturday morning cartoon. Fueled by an addictive Perry-Kingsley like electronic synth score by Calin Ioachimescu, DELTA SPACE MISSION grooves along folding space and time, an early Eighties Euro disco perched on the edge of a Black Hole."
UCLA students, staff, and faculty access through Kanopy. Log into the campus VPN or proxy server to view video.
Save the Green Planet! (dir. Jang Joon-hwan, 2003)
"Lee Byeong-Gu is a sensitive, blue collar sad sack hopped up on conspiracy theories and sci-fi films whose life has been derailed by one bad break after another. Yet he knows there's no such thing as bad luck. The only thing that could have made such a mess of his life are…aliens. Specifically, Andromedans. Nasty, disgusting Andromedan aliens who have infiltrated human society.
Sly Andromedans who are planning to destroy our planet at the next lunar eclipse. The one alien possessing the Royal Genetic Code needed to contact Andromeda's Crown Prince and stop the destruction just happens to be his old boss, CEO of Yuje Chemicals, Kang Man-Shik. So, with the help of his circus-performer girlfriend, he sets out to kidnap Kang and torture him until he confesses to his alien identity and stops the invasion. Of course, it's hard to confess to something that's just a delusion in a sick man's mind."
UCLA students, staff, and faculty access through Kanopy. Log into the campus VPN or proxy server to view video.
Color Out of Space (dir. Richard Stanley, 2019)
"After a meteorite lands in the front yard of their farm, Nathan Gardner (Nicolas Cage) and his family find themselves battling a mutant extraterrestrial organism as it infects their minds and bodies, transforming their quiet rural life into a living nightmare."
UCLA students, staff, and faculty access through Kanopy. Log into the campus VPN or proxy server to view video.