Sci-Fi Alien Encounters: Humans Technologically Advanced

Tom

An Old Friend
This is a quest for 'movies' that depict alien encounters with humans that are technologically advanced.
There are stipulations to the quest...

1. The aliens must possess the human genome.
2. No time changes it must happen in present time (as of the movie, no encounters with time travelers, no future scenarios).
3. It must happen on Earth or in low Earth orbit. (no moon bases or space stations that we don't currently have).
4. Any alien technological advancement above our current technology is acceptable.
5. It must be a movie that has already been released to the public.
6. The movie's 'focus' should be on that encounter.
7. No made for TV series special 2 hour episodes or specials.
8. TV movie of the week and mini-series are allowed.
9. The movie must be in English or have good sub-titles.
10. The movie must show examples of advanced alien technology from a human source.

Star Wars shows humans with advanced technology but it all happens in a galaxy far, far away.
I'm looking for the interactions and reactions of humans when encountering other humans with superior advanced technology.
But, it must be human to human interactions and real-time actual portrayal of reactions according to the culture at the time the movie was made.
After Earth shows humans with superior technology but they are not interacting with humans from the current society nor is it happening in a current setting.

Aliens posing as humans don't count.

Please give the year of the film along with the title.
If you can, please explain why you might feel it qualifies for consideration.
 
Starman doesn't qualify because the alien created man from Jeff Bridges DNA at the beginning of the film.
Thus, the alien is not baseline human.
Launched in 1977, the Voyager 2 space probe carried a gold phonographic disk with a message of peace, inviting alien civilizations to visit Earth. The probe is intercepted by an alien ship which then sends a small scout vessel to establish first contact with Earth. However, instead of greeting the alien craft, the U.S. government shoots it down. Crashing in Chequamegon Bay, Wisconsin, the lone alien occupant, looking like a floating ball of glowing energy, finds the home of recently widowed Jenny Hayden (Karen Allen). While there, the alien uses a lock of hair from her deceased husband, Scott, to clone a new body for himself as a terrified Jenny watches.

Man who Fell to Earth
Been a long time since I've watched this one but I think it does qualify if memory serves me.
The alien is baseline human.
The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)
220px-Man_who_fell_to_earth_ver1.jpg
Thomas Jerome Newton is a humanoid alien who comes to Earth from a distant planet on a mission to take water back to his home planet, which is experiencing a catastrophic drought. Throughout the film are brief sequences of his wife and children back on his home planet, suffering, perhaps dying.
Newton uses the advanced technology of his home planet to patent many inventions on Earth, and acquires tremendous wealth as the head of a technology-based conglomerate, World Enterprises Corporation, aided by leading patent attorney Oliver Farnsworth. His wealth is needed to construct a space vehicle with the intention of shipping water back to his home planet.
 
The Man Who Fell to Earth isn't human. He's a disguised alien with demonstrated non-human traits.

I don't understand how an "alien" could be "human". The closest you're going to get is something like The Day the Earth Stood Still where the alien looks human and isn't explicitly revealed how that came to be. I don't see how a SF screenwriter would write a human that evolved on a different planet.
 
The Man Who Fell to Earth isn't human. He's a disguised alien with demonstrated non-human traits
I'm not very familiar with the film. Like I said, its been awhile...
With that in mind, there are humans born on this planet that demonstrate non-human traits.
While methods and understanding define my target as alien, the body needs to be human.
One film that comes to mind is Journey to the Far Side of the Sun (1969) aka Doppelgänger
The spacecraft Phoenix encounters another Earth that is populated with humans but everything is reversed.
The 'aliens' have the human body but act alien to the astronaut.
Over time, Ross realizes that he is not on Earth, but indeed on the unknown planet — a Counter-Earth on which all aspects of life are reversed, making it a mirror image of his Earth. Signs of the reversal include cars being driven on the "wrong" side of the road and Ross's inability to read text unless it is reflected in a mirror.
~ wiki

What I'm looking for are movies with something similar but not a mirror image but a completely higher technology. Preferably, where the alien comes to this planet.

I don't understand how an "alien" could be "human".
The Universe is big, really big.
The Galaxy is big, really big.
We are all made from star stuff.
The human genome is the complete set of nucleic acid sequences for humans, encoded as DNA within the 23 chromosome pairs in cell nuclei and in a small DNA molecule found within individual mitochondria.
~ again from wiki

It is not too big of a stretch of imagination to think those components might combine in other places.
Granted, there would be differences from many factors that make it unlikely we will find matches but what if that match found us?

I don't see how a SF screenwriter would write a human that evolved on a different planet.
They do it all the time. Star Wars is but one example.
What I'm looking for is an exploration of how the alien human might be technologically or morally different than what we can imagine.
Films tend to explore the differences of mutants, aliens, machine intelligence and time travelers but never seems to look at human-human alien present day possible differences.

Ummm, take nanotechnology as an example technology difference.
The visiting human alien has mastered all aspects of nanotechnology.
The have nanites in their bodies and the ability to command them at will.
Compared to us, they would be godlike.
They wouldn't need to eat, go to the bathroom, take showers, wear protective clothing and so on.
They might be able to morph their hand/arm into a blade or a hammer.
They would be in perfect health and able to repair themselves of any damage.
However, their baseline is human.
They could give us that technology and anyone on the planet could use it the same.

People seem to be able to accept that a machine can do it in Terminator or an alien can do it but its not transferable to humans.

I'd like to see the moral and society differences explored as well.
Would their values be all different or might they share certain ones?
How different could they be while still baseline as humans?
Could we really find similarities?

Does this describe any films that come to mind?
 
Human DNA has 3 billion base pairs, so it is reasonable to assume that the possibility those 4 components evolving somewhere else and then happening to end up in one of the human configurations is incredibly unlikely since there are many, many more possible combinations than there are atoms in the universe.


Regardless, you have your answer about a parallel earth movie with Journey To the Far Side of the Sun, but that really isn't a sci fi concept but more of a Twilight Zone kind of fantastic premise, just like a planet where everyone has a pig face - there is no science rationale for that to happen.

Star Wars isn't in our past. Many future SF stories are told from the perspective of even more future people looking back. Dune is also written that way even though it is explicitly stated that the events are 10,000 years in our future. It is a writing style adapted from historical writing, not a promise that the audience is explicitly part of the fictional universe they are viewing.


So in the finite number of SF movies actually made, I doubt you are going to find anything that is both present day AND features "alien humans". Battlestar Galactica has humans coming to present day earth, but they are our relatives, not aliens. So you'll need to look into "weird" or fantastic films to find the kind of thing you're talking about.
 
I agree with you.

Star Wars isn't in our past.
"It opens with the static blue text, 'A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....', followed by the Star Wars logo and the crawl text ."
Not significant but a tidbit of accuracy.

Doppelgänger is a 1969 British science-fiction film, directed by Robert Parrish and starring Roy Thinnes, Ian Hendry, Lynn Loring and Patrick Wymark.
Science Fiction but with Fantasy elements.
Most Science Fiction has Fantasy elements.

10,191 + 11,000 + 201 = 21,392
This gives us the number of years that have passed in-between 10,191 AG and the beginning of deep space exploration. The first interplanetary space probe was Pioneer 5 which was launched in 1960. If start at 1960 A.D. and add 21,392 more years, we have 23,352 A.D.
Thus, the year 10,191 AG corresponds to the year 23,352 A.D. That is, of course, assuming that the Dune chronology actually uses Earth years.
Universal Standard Calendar
So, Dune is in our Future.

I doubt you are going to find anything that is both present day AND features "alien humans". Battlestar Galactica has humans coming to present day earth, but they are our relatives, not aliens.
Technically anything not created on Earth is an Alien.
Battlestar Galactica coming to 2018 Earth without time travel would qualify if it shows interactions with humans in 2018 (or any actual time period). Future time periods don't count because they haven't happened yet.
Additionally, the film would need to address the differences of their technology while focusing on the fact that these aliens are similar to our body. It would explore how their technology changed their morals and values and how we on Earth deal with the differences as well has how they deal with our differences.

Such a movie would be fantasy but also be science fiction.
I'm looking for movies like that.
You might call them distant relatives or you might call them aliens that are like us.

Prometheus type scenario might be one type of human alien.
Just because they share human DNA doesn't mean they look exactly like us.
But, I'll accept either/or on the body style.

If I dismiss the Time Rule, there are a lot of movies that have this intent.
I based my search on those but am looking for examples where time travel is not a factor.
Real-time encounters.
I might even already have a few films that fit but I can't think of them.
You could look at my movie collection and see if any might fit and let me know so I can watch it and see.
My Movie Collection - Always Growing
You might see one that makes you think of one that might fit that I don't have.

Over-all, I'm not really worried about it.
I'm interested and love discussing it but my contentment isn't hinging on it.
 
"It opens with the static blue text, 'A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....', followed by the Star Wars logo and the crawl text ."
Not significant but a tidbit of accuracy.
Correct. Which is most likely to mean "a long time ago our forebears lived in the distant Milky Way". Clearly the 20th Century Earth has no mechanism to learn about a distant galaxy. The audience is watching a history story from the future, as if the audience are future people.

Technically anything not created on Earth is an Alien.
In the original Galactica, Earth is a lost colony, and humans are not native to it. And then Earth people forgot they came from space. Then in 1980 the Galactica fleet found us:

hqdefault.jpg


So we are the aliens, not natives.

Otherwise, any film where the "aliens" are humans with funny ears or eyebrows like Star Trek Vulcans would certainly qualify. It is just hard to find a film that has both very human aliens AND is present day versus a few decades in the future.

You might also consider the no-longer-human characters in Annihilation.
 
You might also consider the no-longer-human characters in Annihilation.
Interesting if it were expanded upon.
Would work if the alien in the light house was of human origin.
But, it isn't.

So we are the aliens, not natives.
If you consider Panspermia, all life on Earth is alien.
If panspermia is common in the Universe, given the likelihood of billions of planets, humans could have evolved on a number of distant worlds.
Just gotta remember we are the result of billions of years of unique evolution.
Unique to the environment of Earth.
 
Sure. But that isn't the plot of Battlestar Galactica. Humans came to Earth as "ancient astronauts".
I already dismissed Galactica 1980, besides it was a TV show, not a movie.

If my quest was easy, I wouldn't have asked for suggestions.
 
Bye, I guess my querry was beyond your ability to grasp.
Perhaps others may not feel the same?
Since it is an open querry, your participation is not required.
WTF?
 
Bye, I guess my querry was beyond your ability to grasp.
Perhaps others may not feel the same?
Since it is an open querry, your participation is not required.
WTF?
You are rude. And your query is stupid - there are only so many SF films ever produced, and it is easy to find lists of them that you could read through in a few minutes. Do you think there is some hidden trove of movies you can't find with a google search, so you feel it necessary to start this silly thread?
 
Easy, guys... disagreements come up in most forum conversations but they should remain civil.

But, back on topic, "Galactica 1980" could be considered as both a TV series and a movie. After the series was cancelled in the US bits & pieces of the episodes were cobbled together and released as a movie outside of the US. Those of us in the US remember Galactica 1980 as a bad series mostly best forgotten while those outside of the US are more likely to remember Galactica 1980 as a bad movie mostly best forgotten.

Star Wars I always considered to be in our present-time past and never really thought of it as a 'future' movie. It's an interesting thought.

What I'm looking for are movies with something similar but not a mirror image but a completely higher technology. Preferably, where the alien comes to this planet.
So something like the Tom Cruise movie Edge of Tomorrow? 🤔
 
I have three movies with parts of what I'm looking for.
Phenomenon (1996) with John Travolta where he had extraordinary mental powers due to a physical change in his brain.
Powder (1995) where Sean Patrick Flannery was born with areas of his mind unlocked that gave him special powers.
Lucy (2014) with Scarlett Johansson accessing 100% of her brain's potential from an accidental experimental drug overdose.
None actually qualify as a hit but the concept of a human becoming more than what we are now happens and each explores how 'normals' deal with the changed person.
What I am looking for is a similar concept but involving a human alien visitor causing the change in that person or a group of people.
 
I have three movies with parts of what I'm looking for.
Phenomenon (1996) with John Travolta where he had extraordinary mental powers due to a physical change in his brain.
Powder (1995) where Sean Patrick Flannery was born with areas of his mind unlocked that gave him special powers.
Lucy (2014) with Scarlett Johansson accessing 100% of her brain's potential from an accidental experimental drug overdose.
None actually qualify as a hit but the concept of a human becoming more than what we are now happens and each explores how 'normals' deal with the changed person.
What I am looking for is a similar concept but involving a human alien visitor causing the change in that person or a group of people.
Those aren't aliens
 
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