Worst designed scifi creature?

[Tanasinn]

The tongue with jaws on it, why not just a bone spike?

Evolution is not a precise engineering process. The moray eel also has a second set of jaws, somewhat like the Giger alien.

Are they even able to see?

The movies have nothing to say, but however they perceive prey, it obviously works just fine - one notable example is in Aliens, where the Queen "sees" Ripley threatening her eggs and somehow communicates to the nearby drones to stand down.

They mature incredibly fast

Sure, but I don't see how that's a bad thing for them.

[[R_H]]

The tongue with jaws on it, why not just a bone spike?

Evolution is not a precise engineering process. The moray eel also has a second set of jaws, somewhat like the Giger alien.

Assuming that the Xenomorphs even evolved, or weren't extensively altered.

They mature incredibly fast

Sure, but I don't see how that's a bad thing for them.

It made it incredibly difficult for me to suspend disbelief.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

I think of the aliens as a purpose-built genetic terror weapon, maybe an early prototype that didn't work out that well, considering its flaws. Perhaps it is able to consume inorganic or near inorganic material in a pinch, which would explain its growth despite lack of apparent food sources. As for the sight issue, I just always assumed it was some sort of sonar, and communication between them was a strictly ultrasonic thing. Some of the novels come to similar conclusions.

[Lord of the Abyss]

As for the sight issue, I just always assumed it was some sort of sonar, and communication between them was a strictly ultrasonic thing.

I always wondered if they just had eyes behind some spot on their head that was one-way transparent. I also recall hearing of some sea creature that has thousands of tiny eyes all over its surface in a distributed network instead of a few big eyes; perhaps they have something like that. Arrays of pinhead sized eyes would hardly be visible on a movie screen.

[Swindle1984]

In the novelization of the original Alien film, the creature grew by raiding the crew's food supplies. When they discovered this, they grimly noted that it had to be pretty strong to pry open steel cans without the benefit of a can opener. This was, I believe, after the white engineer got taken by the creature, but before Dallas went into the vents to herd it toward the airlock.

They can also apparently regenerate limbs in the novel, as the creature gets its arm pinched off by the airlock door, but grows it back. The only time we see one get maimed in the films and survive for any extended time is in AvP, where an alien gets the tip of its tail cut off. It didn't regenerate.

Unfortunately, we don't get a timeline for how long it took the creature in the original film to mature, either in the film itself or in the novelization. We do know it couldn't have been more than a couple days.

In the second film, the aliens had a whole colony to feed on, and we never saw them go from chest-burster to adult.

In the third film, which I've only seen once, I didn't see the first half hour, and it was years ago, I have no idea how quickly the creature matured or what it fed on in that time, but it seems likely that a prison would have plenty of edible stuff to fuel it while it matured. Food supplies, animals (didn't it come from a dog?), convicts...

In the fourth film, they were fed by the scientists and I don't think we see the maturation process. I kinda tried to block the film from my memory.

AvP, they mature pretty darn fast. Like, within an hour we have them go from chestbursters to adults. Which is ridiculous. And the only thing they have to feed on in there, so far as we know, are the people they burst out of.

AvP:R has the same ridiculously fast maturation. The Predalien reaches adult size almost immediately, on a Predator starship. What was it feeding on? Obviously the Preds have to have food of some sort aboard, but since the ship had just left Earth and then crashlanded on Earth again, it couldn't have taken too long for the Predalien to mature. Unless the Preds were just orbiting for several days for no real reason. And the chestbursters on Earth again seemed to reach adult size in just an hour or two. Granted, this time they had plenty to eat in the woods and sewers, but it's still ridiculous.

So really, the fast maturation for Aliens doesn't stretch suspension of disbelief too badly until you get to the AvP abortions.

[Sinewmire]

This was, I believe, after the white engineer got taken by the creature,

Brett.

AvP, they mature pretty darn fast. Like, within an hour we have them go from chestbursters to adults. Which is ridiculous. And the only thing they have to feed on in there, so far as we know, are the people they burst out of.

AvP:R has the same ridiculously fast maturation. The Predalien reaches adult size almost immediately, on a Predator starship. What was it feeding on? Obviously the Preds have to have food of some sort aboard, but since the ship had just left Earth and then crashlanded on Earth again, it couldn't have taken too long for the Predalien to mature. Unless the Preds were just orbiting for several days for no real reason. And the chestbursters on Earth again seemed to reach adult size in just an hour or two. Granted, this time they had plenty to eat in the woods and sewers, but it's still ridiculous.

AvP and AvP 2 are pants-on-head retarded, as if they played the AvP2 game and didn't realise that time had been compressed for the alien birth missions.

Aren't they specifically said to have been sped up in their biology in AvP for a faster hunt? It's not impossible to imagine that the "temple" hunting ground would have a supply of protein etc. frozen like the Queen for the Aliens' usage. Obviously it's still utterly ridiculous, but I gave up attempting to find any shred of worth in those movies, even from development of the mythos.

I think of the aliens as a purpose-built genetic terror weapon, maybe an early prototype that didn't work out that well, considering its flaws. Perhaps it is able to consume inorganic or near inorganic material in a pinch, which would explain its growth despite lack of apparent food sources. As for the sight issue, I just always assumed it was some sort of sonar, and communication between them was a strictly ultrasonic thing. Some of the novels come to similar conclusions.

I love that nobody has any idea where these things come from. It adds to the scariness, in my opinion - they could never be seen again or they could be all too close. We have no idea how far they've spread or how many there are. I like the mystery about them that the Alien movies respects.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Would Gyver body armour count as a rediculous sci-fi creature, goes from an egg, implants into a host, and then becomes bodyarmour exoskeleton.....

[Majin Gojira]

Would Gyver body armour count as a rediculous sci-fi creature, goes from an egg, implants into a host, and then becomes bodyarmour exoskeleton.....

Considering it's a bio-mechanical engineered life form, I doubt it.

[Swindle1984]

I love that nobody has any idea where these things come from. It adds to the scariness, in my opinion - they could never be seen again or they could be all too close. We have no idea how far they've spread or how many there are. I like the mystery about them that the Alien movies respects.

Yup. In the Aliens series, the only source humanity finds for them is on LV-426, aboard the Space Jockey ship. With the ship transmitting a warning message to stay away. After that, humans have to clone the creatures to get more so they can use them as weapons.

And we find out in Aliens vs Predator that the Predators have been seeding worlds with these creatures so they could hunt them for sport. I think in the comics, we see living Space Jockeys and find out that the ship on LV-426 was sort of a bomber, intended to drop eggs on a target world to unleash the creatures on the populace.

But we never do find out where they came from or whether they're natural/engineered. I like that. Nobody knows just what they are or where they come from, just that they're fucking dangerous.

[Mystikal]

The Aliens probably don't show up on Infrared as seen in Aliens - Dietrich's last intelligible words are "...maybe they don't show up on infrared at all..."

I'd agree on the admissability of AVP and AVP2 as they both, in technical terms, were crap.

Call me overly doubtful, but I hesitate before taking the last words of a panicking soldier in a combat situation as canon. That ranks up there with the 'Laser don't penetrate deflector shields' argument. Basically something keeping cool enough to be invisible on infrared while undergoing strenuous, heat-producing activity flies in the face of physics and logic. So far an alternate explanation is available: The only time infrared is used is inside the hive. The hive is built around a giant reactor, which is likely very hot, likely the reason for the establishment of the hive there in the first place. Therefore very hot creatures are likely to blend in with an infrared scan of a very hot environment.

As for *why* they're acting surprised that warm creatures don't show up on an infrared scan of warm ambient temperatures is beyond me.

Edit: Add to that the fact that they take the infrared scans only at the very beginning of the attack, when the aliens were likely still dormant and not exerting themselves a lot, and there's plenty of reasons for them to not show up. Maybe they're just cold blooded and in a dormant state, matching the ambient temperature until movement raises their internal body temperature.

Maybe something or strange property about its carapace/skin/armor keeps the heat inside and from beeing detected outside preventing radiation that would leave it detectable. This would also help in preserving energy if it somehow converted waste heat back into metanolic IE useful energy. The carapace would then show and reflect the heat of its enviroment.


Maybe?

[The Yosemite Bear]

nah, that would result in cooking the bug in it's own acidic juicies. Which reminds me of the long-ish arguement where I basically showed from scenes in the second third, and furth movie that showed that water could neutralize the bug's acid.

[Molyneux]

In the novelization of the original Alien film, the creature grew by raiding the crew's food supplies. When they discovered this, they grimly noted that it had to be pretty strong to pry open steel cans without the benefit of a can opener. This was, I believe, after the white engineer got taken by the creature, but before Dallas went into the vents to herd it toward the airlock.

They can also apparently regenerate limbs in the novel, as the creature gets its arm pinched off by the airlock door, but grows it back. The only time we see one get maimed in the films and survive for any extended time is in AvP, where an alien gets the tip of its tail cut off. It didn't regenerate.

Unfortunately, we don't get a timeline for how long it took the creature in the original film to mature, either in the film itself or in the novelization. We do know it couldn't have been more than a couple days.

In the second film, the aliens had a whole colony to feed on, and we never saw them go from chest-burster to adult.

In the third film, which I've only seen once, I didn't see the first half hour, and it was years ago, I have no idea how quickly the creature matured or what it fed on in that time, but it seems likely that a prison would have plenty of edible stuff to fuel it while it matured. Food supplies, animals (didn't it come from a dog?), convicts...

In the fourth film, they were fed by the scientists and I don't think we see the maturation process. I kinda tried to block the film from my memory.

AvP, they mature pretty darn fast. Like, within an hour we have them go from chestbursters to adults. Which is ridiculous. And the only thing they have to feed on in there, so far as we know, are the people they burst out of.

AvP:R has the same ridiculously fast maturation. The Predalien reaches adult size almost immediately, on a Predator starship. What was it feeding on? Obviously the Preds have to have food of some sort aboard, but since the ship had just left Earth and then crashlanded on Earth again, it couldn't have taken too long for the Predalien to mature. Unless the Preds were just orbiting for several days for no real reason. And the chestbursters on Earth again seemed to reach adult size in just an hour or two. Granted, this time they had plenty to eat in the woods and sewers, but it's still ridiculous.

So really, the fast maturation for Aliens doesn't stretch suspension of disbelief too badly until you get to the AvP abortions.

I don't know what you're talking about; everyone knows that there were only two Alien movies. Same goes for Predator.

[Coyote]

The worst aliens, and most poorly-designed ones, are the endless hordes of "Forehead Aliens" that can all interbreed successfully in Star Trek.

Even with that dumb explanation about an ancient race that genetically seeded the Galaxy.

[Lord of the Abyss]

The worst aliens, and most poorly-designed ones, are the endless hordes of "Forehead Aliens" that can all interbreed successfully in Star Trek.

Implausible, I'll grant you; but badly designed? As near-copies of us, they generally aren't any worse designed than we are, pretty much by definition. The exception would be the Ocampa, as mentioned in the second post of the thread.

[Mystikal]

Daleks. The only reason I would ever be afraid of them out of univerese hwile watching the show is if they started saying EXSPERMINATE instead of there usually battle-cry.

[Sinewmire]

Daleks. The only reason I would ever be afraid of them out of univerese hwile watching the show is if they started saying EXSPERMINATE instead of there usually battle-cry.

What about 'em, exactly? The race themselves are your basic tentacle blob, but they're basically a multipurpose soldier in powered armor with effective weapons and shielding. I can't help but wonder how they eat and / or poop, as well as *power* that very powerful pepperpot armour, but that question's probably been answered in the show.

[Zor]

Daleks. The only reason I would ever be afraid of them out of univerese hwile watching the show is if they started saying EXSPERMINATE instead of there usually battle-cry.

Care to elaborate?

Zor

[Molyneux]

Daleks. The only reason I would ever be afraid of them out of univerese hwile watching the show is if they started saying EXSPERMINATE instead of there usually battle-cry.

They look goofy as hell, but they scare the shit out of me.
Don't forget the math of Doctor Who:
Four million Cybermen < Four Daleks < 1 Doctor.

[Sinewmire]

THIS IS NOT A WAR! THIS IS PEST CONTROL!

AAAAAAAAAK!

[Night_stalker]

Daleks out of armor are to be mocked.

Daleks IN armor are to be respected.

The wrost species ever made would have to be the Tralfamadorians from Slaughterhouse-5.

My god, 5 genders, the ability to see all of time, and they look like"they were two feet high, and green, and shaped like plumber's friends. Their suction cups were on the ground, and their shafts, which were extremely flexible, usually pointed to the sky. At the top of each shaft was a little hand with a green eye in its palm."