Why do sci-fi aliens have fucked up noses and foreheads but are essentially human with human motivations and desires

Convergent evolution. A dolphin looks like various marine reptiles, and both look like fish. Many apes and monkeys look like deformed humans from the right angle. On top of that, most organisms share genes via horizontal gene transfer, and panspermia suggests that life came here with a complete genome.

That is, a human has about 20,000 protein encoding genes. Most other animals have about the same number, and the genes are similar or identical. Life could have arrived with a few thousand, which mutated into the library of genes on Earth.

Regardless, recent evidence proves that our sterilization doesn't work - Voyager is a sperm cell which could fertilize a round planet. If we've done it, why couldn't another race have done it to cause us? No intelligent aliens - just encysted cells.

If it happened twice, it likely happened many more times. Genes thus get spread across space. These genes work the same on any Earthlike planet, it's unlikely that non-Earthlike planets will develop life, and these genes will be prone to mutating the same way everywhere.

We aren't the only humanoids, and the only type organism we know of that makes spacecraft is a humanoid. We should expect what we've already seen, not conjecture ridiculous things like silicon-based life. We know that high-temperature hydrocarbons can make life, because the oldest evidence is biogenic graphite - they first organisms on Earth left inert humus, proving that they used lignin or something like it. RNA can be synthesized by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and DNA can be synthesized from RNA.

So really, life etches itself in pitch, then those etchings fill with the right molecules and remake life. Given this fact, PAH stacks are probably forming all over the universe all the time - and these PAH stacks form in regular ways.

The universe is monotenous, not diverse.

>sci-fi movie
>aliens are bipedal
>have human anatomy
Shit makes me wanna go on a rampage

/thread

>a planet has a fucked up nose and forehead

>aliens don't have consciousness

Although it has obvious real life reason that were already pointed out, star trek has actually in-universe reasons why almost all the alines are humanoid

all races in star trek actually came from the same source.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chase_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation)

>vampires in space book

The planet wasn't sentient. The ocean on it was.

No one wants to work with puppets and CGI gets expensive.

ah yes, the Precursor Race trope.

all intelligent life is basically humanoid,, because the first ancient interstellar empire was humanoid. they went around and seeded their genetics onto all worlds that could bear life. causing humanoids to pop up all over the galaxy, tens to hundreds of millions of years later.

>fucked up noses and foreheads
Or multiple heads, or multiple eyes, or weird ridges. Things that look like they wouldn't be painful. Not noseless, nor with large gashes for mouths. On recurring, sympathetic characters, designers like to avoid facial features that would dip into the range of horror, for the same reason that the lead actors are attractive.

>human motivations and desires
Without human motivations, an alien is not a sympathetic character, just an smart animal. You can have a warlord race because there are human warlords. Or a race that loves to kill because there are human serial killers. But unless the story is specifically about their abilities (e.g. Edge of Tomorrow), aliens with utterly incomparable value systems are forces of nature rather than characters.

>If it happened twice, it likely happened many more times. Genes thus get spread across space. These genes work the same on any Earthlike planet, it's unlikely that non-Earthlike planets will develop life, and these genes will be prone to mutating the same way everywhere.

On Earth, there's a canine STD that causes tumors,though the tumor cells are not related to the host dog and are transmitted with the STD. It evolved from a mutated dog embryo.

Environmental factors shape evolution. Mutations are not deterministic.

Source: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1558-5646.2009.00724.x/abstract;jsessionid=0E546D86E95A515AF84E229C269671D0.f04t03

The aliens in Edge of Tomorrow were a force of nature, not characters.Characters have to communicate in some way.

>6000 years old tumor
>It evolved from a mutated dog embryo.

-Writing not based in hard science or reality
-An indirect way to weave in politics and philosophy of "life" (ie based around the human condition)
-Mechanical limitation of the human brain. We're largely incapable of creating true novelty, especially when it comes to other organisms you want people to be able to understand and relate with. You can anthropomorphize more or less anything, because that's the lens you have to work with. Everything we create resembles something that already exists on earth, simply because that's how your pyramidal cells etc are trained for complex object recognition.
"And in the places you go, you'll see the place where you're from."

>Implying anime is
Be a faggot weeb elsewhere, you autist.

It is cheaper. It makes them "alien" but keeps them relatable for the audience.

>Implying
I wasn't, go be triggered somewhere else.

all the while ayy lmaos study us lmaoing as they go

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>Without human motivations, an alien is not a sympathetic character, just an smart animal. You can have a warlord race because there are human warlords. Or a race that loves to kill because there are human serial killers. But unless the story is specifically about their abilities (e.g. Edge of Tomorrow), aliens with utterly incomparable value systems are forces of nature rather than characters.

Came here to say this.

For a character to be a character, we have to be able to relate. Otherwise, they're a plot device.

>aliens with utterly incomparable value systems are forces of nature rather than characters.

"The Alien Years by Robert Silverberg" has aliens whose goals are totally incomprehensible to humans. Everyone working for them don't actually communicate with them and don't actually know why they are doing what they are doing. As inexplicably as they arrive they leave seemingly having finished nothing of value. Many reviews on it say that people are communicating with them and know stuff, but they obviously didn't read the book.

I didn't read the book, but your description does sound like a "force of nature alien" to me.

Lots of different reasons, many of which have been mentioned ITT. Another reason that has been hinted at but not fully developed is that actors really, really, really want to be visually known in the public eye for whatever portrayals they have done. So if it's cheap for the team to slap pointy ears on Leonard for every shoot and still be able to talk about aliens, then they'll do exactly that. The director wins (he can explore his vision since everyone commits to that character being alien), the producers win (a cheap effect), the actor wins (face recognition with the public), everybody wins, everybody's happy.

Watch a production of Saturday Night Live sometime. You'll notice that every time an actor is on-screen, no matter what makeup they're wearing, you can still tell exactly who is who. That's for actors, and that's on purpose: actors need to own whatever their portrayal is. It's their brand.

Also, there's a social pecking order thing in modern movie culture. Being the guy in the rubber suit is seen as D-list work and caries a low-negative prestige. Do you know what David Prowse looks like without googling? How about Kevin Peter Hall? Kane Hodder?

Is it a problem? Author actually described good vampires.

lorentz forces

All of the english translations of solaris are a convoluted mess. The russian film is way overrated but i dug that george clooney one.

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