Analysis of the Extraterrestrial Species in 'Independence Day'

Analysis of the extraterrestrial species in 'Independence Day'

Being one of the most famous Science-Fiction films of all time, 'Independence Day', which was directed by Roland Emmerich, deals with an alien invasion of the earth and mankind's response to it. The film was published in 1996 and enjoyed great popularity within its world-wide audience, making it the current 39th-highest-grossing film of all time (Source: the-numbers.com). This success might be down to the illustration and visualisation of the aliens who invade the earth, and to answer the question of their importance for the film, I am going to analyse the extraterrestrial race in this essay.

First of all, it can be seen that the aliens hide their actual appearance in a bio-mechanical suit, before their body is revealed later on. These suits enclose their real bodies (probably in order to protect them) and have several tentacles attached to the back. While the suits have a sand-like colour, the aliens' real skin colour is more of a brown/green-mixture. In contrast to the suits, their bodies are actually slimy and greasy, which, in addition to their smelliness, lets the humans perceive them as pretty disgusting creatures. The bodies consist of a huge, triangle-shaped head with large eyes and no mouth; as well as a slim torso with skinny limbs and claw-resembling hands and feet.
Since the aliens have no sort of organ of speech/hearing, they communicate with each other through telepathy and they are also able to gain the control over humans and make use of them in order to communicate with creatures of another race, as it can be seen in the scene where an alien controls the doctor who tried to inspect it. Technologically, the aliens are far more advanced than the humans: their attacks are led by a huge mother ship containing thousands of aliens; it possesses the power of sending out several smaller space ships to operate simultaneously. They synchronise their efforts through a signal which is hidden...