Why hasn't there been a decent UFO movie in 35 years?

I liked ID4

And They Live but that wasn't really a UFO movie... the little invisible camera probes were UFOs I guess though.

reply to post by Orkojoker


The movies aren't slow.

Rather, you may have ADD.

But don't be offended because you're not alone. 99% of film-goers have ADD. That's why they love the movies with predictable plots and plenty of special effects.

reply to post by smarterthanyou


Think of them as the drones that will be flying over the US one day.

Has anyone ever interviewed John Carpenter on what he knows?

Although not a UFO movie as such, if you are talking about an alien based film where it really is left unexplained, then I would like to nominate K-PAX. That film totally blew my mind, and I still don't fully have an answer to it, despite watching it more than anything else I have ever watched.

reply to post by The Sword


Young generation's impatience, and the widespread ADD are very much a factor in the disappearance of good, patient sci-fi movie. Most of the sci-fi nowadays is shamefully dumb, and just mirrors other populist genres such as fantasy, romance, cheap action etc.

If you think about it, any entities that are millions, if not billions of years ahead of us, they would be masters of biological aspects of life. Life extension would be second nature to their existense. There are entitie that have been in existence for thousands, if not millions of years. By default, their lives, their decisions have to be extremely patient, calm and calibrated. So, any respectable fiction work about advanced aliens will have to be patient, carefully thought out and bereft of trivial drama. These parameters will also ensure its doom in front of the mass human audience. We prefer simple subjects, with lots of quick drama and action, combined with a contrived sense of art and intelligence.

In response to the original question, the past 35 years have been full of UFO/Alien films! Society is being prepared for mass contact and the media is primmed for this program!!! I mean look at kids shows nowdays Ben 10, transformers, Dr who to mention but a few!!! also there have been some amazing adult centric films Close encounters is proberbly in my top 5 films of all time! but Contact was a great movie, as was District 9!!!! I know most people on here have had their eyes opened to what is really going on but with the collapse of religion as a social clamp it is time to prepare the populus and that has been going on for many years now!

Originally posted by damo1583
In response to the original question, the past 35 years have been full of UFO/Alien films! Society is being prepared for mass contact and the media is primmed for this program!!! I mean look at kids shows nowdays Ben 10, transformers, Dr who to mention but a few!!! also there have been some amazing adult centric films Close encounters is proberbly in my top 5 films of all time! but Contact was a great movie, as was District 9!!!! I know most people on here have had their eyes opened to what is really going on but with the collapse of religion as a social clamp it is time to prepare the populus and that has been going on for many years now!

Thanks for chiming in. I'm glad to see people are still kicking around this thread. Just a little clarification though, since I haven't said it for a few days:

The intention of the OP was to discuss the absence of good movies about the UFO phenomenon...the real one, as documented by reputable investigators who have interviewed lots of witnesses and described their reports in the serious UFO literature.

What the thread was not intended to be was a rundown of every movie of the past three decades that deals with aliens, ghosts, vampires, and all those other topics that get lumped together in popular culture.

Alas, the thread was derailed early on, and it never looked back. But I have learned a thing or two as a result of starting this thread. People on ATS, in general, are completely oblivious to the serious work that has been done on this topic. Even more unfortunate, it seems that they have no interest in learning about it.

This has turned into a great thread, in which many people have expressed themselves, but practically nobody here understood the point of the OP. I blame myself for not being more clear.

If you haven't seen it yet, "Altered" is an excellent movie IMO. Available on DVD or Netflix. It isn't wimpy, "We come in Peace" aliens. They are bada**.

I feel the same....it was my all time favorite movie as well. It won quite a few oscar awards that year. I did like "Contact" also, my second favorite.

Originally posted by Orkojoker

The intention of the OP was to discuss the absence of good movies about the UFO phenomenon...the real one, as documented by reputable investigators who have interviewed lots of witnesses and described their reports in the serious UFO literature.

A quote by J. Allen Hynek - who had a cameo in CE3:

Let me define the UFO phenomenon, the existence of which we wish to determine or deny, as that phenomenon described by reports of visual or instrumental observations of lights or objects in the sky (or near, or on the ground) whose presence, trajectories, and general character are not explainable in verifiable physical terms, even after intensive study.

A documentary still in production is titled Encounter in Ruwa: The Ariel School UFO Sighting. Unfortunately, it has run out of funding, and the producer is trying to finish it out of pocket. So release has been greatly delayed.

Some of the 62 kids who witnessed whatever it was are still in contact with the John Mack Institute. Dr. John Mack was hit by a car and died years ago. Half of what’s in the unfinished documentary is in videos on YouTube.

From what I’ve seen debunkers don’t try to claim the kids were lying but prefer to suggest confabulation after having seen a heavy-metal band in an Airstream trailer or some such thing a bunch of kids could mistake for a landed flying saucer and aliens. One debunker saw the unfinished documentary and wrote a review, just complaining about production quality!

The status of it is described here:

johnemackinstitute.org...

Originally posted by Orkojoker

Originally posted by damo1583
In response to the original question, the past 35 years have been full of UFO/Alien films! Society is being prepared for mass contact and the media is primmed for this program!!! I mean look at kids shows nowdays Ben 10, transformers, Dr who to mention but a few!!! also there have been some amazing adult centric films Close encounters is proberbly in my top 5 films of all time! but Contact was a great movie, as was District 9!!!! I know most people on here have had their eyes opened to what is really going on but with the collapse of religion as a social clamp it is time to prepare the populus and that has been going on for many years now!

Thanks for chiming in. I'm glad to see people are still kicking around this thread. Just a little clarification though, since I haven't said it for a few days:

The intention of the OP was to discuss the absence of good movies about the UFO phenomenon...the real one, as documented by reputable investigators who have interviewed lots of witnesses and described their reports in the serious UFO literature.

What the thread was not intended to be was a rundown of every movie of the past three decades that deals with aliens, ghosts, vampires, and all those other topics that get lumped together in popular culture.

Alas, the thread was derailed early on, and it never looked back. But I have learned a thing or two as a result of starting this thread. People on ATS, in general, are completely oblivious to the serious work that has been done on this topic. Even more unfortunate, it seems that they have no interest in learning about it.

This has turned into a great thread, in which many people have expressed themselves, but practically nobody here understood the point of the OP. I blame myself for not being more clear.

edit on 1-5-2012 by Orkojoker because: (no reason given)

OK sorry dude I think I get what you are getting at! if it is what cases would we like to see made into dramatised films? I can think of one (which i will get to in a min). The problem is the cases that are famous have little depth to make into a great movie, I'll give you an example: The Phoenix lights case, literally thousands of witnesses and some of the best footage of any case is available but it was just an event of lights in the sky and little story there to make into a great film! although Close Encounters is loosely based on the holloman Air force base contact, which President Eisenhower is alledge to have made contact wit ET's! now that would make a great movie in its self!!!! but the case i would most want to see made is the Russian scientist whom where mysteriously killled in a terrifying attack on a remote mountain side in the 1950's, it is without doubt the creepiest case I have come across in 20 years of interest in the subject, and without any doubt Alien contact in nature!!!

reply to post by Orkojoker

war of the worlds
battle;los angeles,signs,batteries not included,taken,

and the ones i think have some truth to them are,
fire in the sky(travis walton)
close encounters of the third kind(which i loved)


and thanks for the lists off other people,as there are
quite a few i have not heard of.

reply to post by maryhinge

Yeah, War of the Worlds was surprisingly good. None of the lame "humans are gonna fight back with some really bad actors" stuff. I remember reading somewhere, how War of the Worlds did not get as popular as Spielberg had expected. Supposedly, masses did not like the negative vibes, and the lack of human heroes in it. You gotta be pretty dumb though to enjoy a movie, where few humans can somehow repel Aliens, who have traveled through the inter-stellar space to reach here.

Thanks again to Orkojoker for this thread. It led me to searching out "Taken" which i was going to do once and forgot about...
The entire mini series can be found here...
Taken

Also while I'm at it, might as well provide the link to the entire "Dark Skies" series...
Dark Skies

I don't know about movie, or if anyone has mentioned it already, but there is a mini-series called Taken which is absolutely amazing.

It deals with UFO's, aliens, and many other things that should be watched by more people.

If you haven's already, you should look into it!



EDIT: I didn't look at the post above me...I apologize!