*Before your geek instincts start wondering where the xenomorphs are, keep in mind the following list is limited only to invaders of Earth.

10) Independence Day (1996)

Like 99% of Roland Emmerich/Dean Devlin films, ID4 (as it was called then) was a huge piece of shit, but as alien invasion films go, it cannot be overlooked. In terms of computer-generated effects, it was one of the most ambitious films to date. The trailer featured the freaking White House being blown up by a mothership! And Will Smith punches an alien in its face. “Welcome to Earth!” For box-office grosses, you can’t go wrong with testosterone like that. In terms of cinematic quality, though, Independence Day brought nothing to the table. Still, those of us who were about 12-years old at the time sure got a kick out of it anyway.

9) Mars Attacks! (1996)

This quirky Tim Burton flick, based on the mean-spirited Topps trading cards from the 1960s, was a counterpoint to Emmerich’s big-budget alien actioner. The comedy was not without its flaws, but it was still an amusing tribute to 1950s sci-fi invasion movies. The film is completely absurd but unlike ID4, Mars Attacks is aware of how stupid it is and runs with that. In addition to a cast packed with great actors and playful cameos, the aliens are creepy and funny. They are one-quarter the size of the extra-terrestrials in ID4 and yet they are creepier and dispose of humans with a wicked sense of humor.

8 ) Fire in the Sky (1993)

Based on Travis Walton’s 1978 book “The Walton Experience”, this film details the alleged UFO abduction of an Arizona logger. His co-workers watch terrified as Travis is pulled into an alien spacecraft. He disappears for five days, during which time his friends are accused of murder. When Travis re-appears, his memories show the aliens performing medical experiments on him. The movie is rated PG-13 but I vividly remember it scaring the hell out of me as a kid. The thought of being experimented on was terrifying, even though human beings would not hesitate to do the same to an alien if we got our hands on one.

7) Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)

While most kids my age were growing up on nice aliens like E.T., I loved watching this wacky cult classic. The film is completely absurd, funny, and represented an era when horror-comedies could be safe enough for kids without being dull for adults (see also, Monster Squad). The filmmakers really ran with the clown jokes, including a circus-tent spaceship, acid pies, and killer shadow puppets. The alien clowns harvest humans for sustenance by melting them inside cotton candy cocoons and drinking them via a crazy straw. Just when we thought clowns could not get any scarier, along came Killer Klowns.

6) Night of the Creeps (1986)

Aliens don’t just come in the form of little gray men or eight-foot-tall monsters. In Creeps, they are slug-shaped parasites that climb into your mouth and make you into a walking incubator. These little guys contributed to a new breed of zombie – one created by alien infestation as opposed to a virus, a comet, Trioxin gas, etc. As if aliens and zombies were not awesome enough, Creeps gives us Tom Atkins and a slew of memorable one-liners. This 1980s classic is a fantastic spoof of 1950s sci-fi movies, as well as slashers and zombie films.

5) They Live (1988)

In most cases of alien invasion, the presence of extra-terrestrials becomes known to the general public pretty fast. After all, hiding a spacecraft or a green bug face is not easy. The aliens in this John Carpenter film cleverly disguise themselves as normal human beings so they can live amongst the Earthlings. Their downfall is a special type of sunglasses, which allow Roddy Piper to see the aliens’ true form and the subliminal messaging they use to control mankind. They Live has a lot to say about corrupt government and commercialization of the media. Carpenter intended the humanoid look of the aliens because they were supposed to be a twisted reflection of human beings.

4) Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Here is the original aliens-amongst-us film. When the residents of a small California town complain their loved ones are acting like impostors, Kevin McCarthy discovers that the townspeople are slowly being replaced by emotionless duplicates that have been grown out of alien pods. Naturally, nobody believes him and the Pod People grow in numbers. Like in Night of the Creeps, the alien menace uses human beings to hide and procreate. In doing so, the aliens are able to gain human trust without revealing themselves. Needless to say, Body Snatchers has inspired countless science fiction films since its 1956 release.

3) Predator (1987)

Unlike most alien invaders, the Predator came to Earth alone in John McTiernan’s 1987 film. But when you stand over 7-feet tall and have an array of plasma weapons, camouflage abilities, built-in bombs, and thermal imagining, you don’t need back-up. The Predator is an intergalactic trophy hunter. It kills for sport and keeps the spinal cords and skulls for show. In this sense, the Predator is more like human beings than most other alien invaders. It does not seem interested in world domination, nor does it simply want to survive like an animal. The Predator is only interesting in sport and bragging rights – a very human-like trait.

2) War of the Worlds (1953)

While Steven Spielberg’s modern update was enjoyable (and more loyal to the source material), this 1953 black-and-white film is a classic of science fiction cinema. Based on H.G. Wells’ novel of the same name, War of the Worlds tells of a swift, brutal alien invasion. The human beings attempt to peacefully communicate with the visitors but the alien machines kill without warning. The Martians’ goal is to take over the Earth, as their own planet is dying. The spacecrafts produce EMPs, deadly heat rays, and are protected by an impenetrable force field.  The film is steeped in Cold War-era themes, but it is still relevant today (immigration, social inequality, etc).

1) The Thing (1982)

John Carpenter’s legendary sci-fi/horror film is the ultimate representation of terror and paranoia provoked by an alien menace. After crash landing on Earth, this alien was buried under the Antarctica ice for thousands of years. It is unearthed by Norwegian scientists, after which is wreaks havoc on the American researchers of Outpost 31.  The creature can assimilate any person or animal, often without drawing any attention to itself. It does not seem to have any intentions for human domination, rather it just wants to hide and survive. Once the men of Outpost 31 discover the “thing” is amongst them, paranoia runs wild, creating one of the most suspenseful, terrifying films ever made. And the creature effects, courtesy of FX master Rob Bottin, are simply unparalleled.

Thoughts?

Truthfully, it’s as simple as that. It’s left turns all day. Regardless, just like when we look up at ESPN’s clips of the violent left turns that give us the spectacle of some car crashes, amidst all of the war movie cliches, this Black Hawk Down-meets-ID4 just might be the be-all, end-all of CGI destruction. Running about two hours, we get about 90 minutes of pure destruction and it’s glorious. Liebesman certainly benefits from the high budget and years of CG perfection, as you get the feeling he’s made Michael Bay look like a kid blowing up toy soldiers in his sandbox. It’s empty calorie mindless fun.

There’s a scene where Michelle Rodriguez and Aaron Eckhart capture one of the aliens and try to figure out its biology so they know how to kill it. They keep digging and digging for something that resembles a heart. Ah, much like this film. Outside of some subtitles that tell us who’s who, we really don’t get much more than that for the Marines. Sure, we get some early scenes of one soldier planning his wedding, one soldier questioning himself for battle, one soldier readying to retire, but it’s all for caricature, which does little for us to get behind the thick layer of patriotism that is on display. While we as a culture in America has taken on that badge of honor ever since 9/11, it does not make for depth.

Battle: Los Angeles is what we call a critic-proof movie. You’ll see all of the bad reviews, but it’s a mindless film of non-stop warring. If it had a little more to the story and its characters, we just might have something special here. And for that, it could be easily topped, but it is the bukkake of CGI collateral damage.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Emmerich will be returning to Sci Fi, but in an all-new take on Issac Asimov’s Foundation that’s looking to be a more likely project after Anonymous opens on September 30.

IESB has received a tip that Will Smith is now locked for not only Independence Day 2, but also a third installment. The plan would be to shoot both films back-to-back. Whether the studio opts to go the Matrix route and release the two films six months apart or do like the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels and split them by a year remains to be seen. According to our sources, if all goes according to plan, the sequel(s) could shoot as early as 2011.

Emmerich is currently ready to roll with Anonymous, a film about the great William Shakespeare. Consider this one of those Hollywood rumors, but what do you all think?

Roland Emmerich, the man behind such disaster porn films as “Independence Day”, “The Day After Tomorrow”, “Godzilla” and the upcoming “2012″ recently spoke with the folks over at The Guardian. He stated that, aside from the famous religious icons seen destroyed in the films trailer, his plans were to also destroy the Kabba. It is a Muslim object of faith where Muslims all over the world turn to in prayer.

In an attempt to keep the peace, the director decided not the destroy the iconic cube shaped structure in the grand mosque stating:

“I wanted to do that, I have to admit,” Emmerich said. “You can actually let Christian symbols fall apart, but if you would do this with [an] Arab symbol, you would have … a fatwa, and that sounds a little bit like what the state of this world is. So it’s just something which I kind of didn’t [think] was [an] important element, anyway, in the film, so I kind of left it out.”

So whether it was in fear of the so called death sentence (fatwa) or just trying to be politically correct, Emmerich feels only Christian and Buddhist objects of faith were in good taste to completely destroy.

Source: The Guardian

“Dean Devlin and I are still set to make a sequel likely because we’ve found some sort of idea and we approached FOX and FOX has not quite figured out how to incorporate Dean’s and my deal, and Will’s (Smith) deal. Will wants to do it in some sort of a package they can live with. So it’s just been in [negotiations] now since forever, and naturally FOX says ‘Why don’t you do it without Will Smith?’ I said Will is essential for us, for this movie and actually for the audience too. And, so, it’s in limbo and lately the studios are fighting. Like gross players, and Will is a gross player and is probably the only gross player right now who’s worth his gross. So we’ll see what happens. I would love to do it.”

At the moment Roland Emmerich is knee deep in post-production on his newest disaster film 2012. He is also attached to two projects, one of them being the comic book based science fiction film “The Foundation”. The other that is in some what on back burner limbo is “Isobar”, a high priced science fiction film that Emmerich got his hands on a couple of years back and has sunk into the deep recesses of development.

With this film upping the ante considerably now destroying the entire world as opposed to a single location, the visual effects have been justifiably scaled up to include mammoth tidal waves that destroy everything in its path, as seen in the film trailer. Now the folks over at Yahoo! have a new behind the scenes featurette letting you in on how the FX was done.