Aliens (life forms from other planets) who visit Earth have frequently taken on humanoid appearance. They tend to look like humans, irrespective of whether their intentions are aggressive or benign. Friendly aliens have proved popular at the box office and featured, for example, in Steven Spielberg's E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). However, the majority of alien visitors to Earth in the movies have traditionally presented some sort of threat to humanity. The most threatening aliens often assume human appearance or become part-human, as in The Invasion of the Bodysnatchers (1956). (1) In films of this type the aliens become soulless clones of the humans they replace. It is the threatening aliens who now seem most intent on splicing their genes into our DNA. Cloning and genetic engineering open up fresh new possibilities for the alien invasion movie, as extra-terrestrials compromise our very genetic make-up.
He's Got DNA!
It has become normal for aliens in the movies to have DNA. The DNA molecule is common to all living creatures on Earth, where it provides the underlying blueprint for life. The possession of DNA by aliens extends the universality of this molecule, from all creatures living on Earth to all creatures living on any planet in the universe. There is some scientific basis to suggest that aliens might have DNA or a replicator molecule similar to it. The mechanisms underlying evolution, for example, are likely to be universal. Richard Dawkins set out the case for Universal Darwinism in 1982. He predicted that life anywhere in the universe must be governed by Darwinian natural selection. (2) There is nothing currently in mainstream science to suggest that the fundamental processes of replication, selection and adaptation would not be applicable anywhere in the universe. Scientific opinion has recently shifted, however, from viewing life as a chance event of low probability (an improbable accident) to an almost inevitable consequence of natural processes under favourable conditions. The biophysicist Stuart Kauffman has suggested that simple molecules can self-organise under the right conditions to spontaneously produce complex molecules, such as nucleic acids. Nevertheless, this "order for free" acts in addition to natural selection, rather than in its place, by helping to provide the basic building blocks upon which selection acts. The principles of self-organisation, like Darwinian natural selection, are likely to operate in the same way throughout the universe. (3)
Extra-terrestrial life therefore, assuming it exists, is likely to have evolved through the same mechanisms as life on Earth. Carbon may be superior to any other universal material as the basis for a replicator molecule, and for building complex body structures. Silicon is the next most likely candidate from our experience, being the only other element whose atomic structure allows for the formation of long-chain compounds (polymers). Silicon is naturally found in sand (as silicon dioxide) and minerals such as quartz, and in man-made computers. Silicon-based life forms have featured in the Star Trek universe, for example, in the form of the massive rock-like Horta of Janus VI (The Devil in the Data; original series). As silicon has a very slow reaction time, compared to carbon, the screenwriters gave the Horta a 50,000-year life-cycle. The crew of the Enterprise-D later encountered another silicon-based life form they called "microbrains", a sort of self-evolving alien computer (Home Soil; Star Trek: The Next Generation). (4) However, carbon-based molecules appear more likely to represent the optimal replicator molecule in the known universe. It might therefore be surprising if aliens generally did not have DNA or a similar molecule, although this line of reasoning cannot explain why they look like humans rather than any other life form on Earth.
The representation of aliens with DNA has greater significance than just implying that they inhabit the same universe as we do. The possession of DNA brings them into the same order of being as humans, and can be seen as an extension of the fact that aliens have frequently been represented as having an humanoid appearance in the movies. In the low-budget friendly-alien film Invasion (1966), directed by Alan Bridges, for instance, a doctor turns around after examining an humanoid alien to state,
"He's not only a creature from outer space but a man - a human being".
They are foreign, different, outsiders, but not so different that they cannot be considered as reflecting some aspect of ourselves. Our genes are in a sense what make us human, so an alien with a genetic code can be metaphorically human.
One of the first aliens to be specifically tested for DNA was the friendly alien in E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. When E.T. becomes ill, the scientists isolate him and subject him to an extensive medical examination. One of the doctors comes into the equipment-packed room exclaiming,
"He's got DNA. It's positive. He's got DNA!".
E.T. can be read as representing the alter ego of EllioT, the young boy who befriends him. When E.T. is under observation, having his blood and DNA examined, Elliot is lying next to him undergoing similar tests. When E.T. gets drunk at home, Elliot acts drunk at school. His double gives him the confidence to act without inhibition, setting free the frogs in a vivisection class and kissing the girl he has previously been too shy to talk too. If Elliot is identified with Spielberg in an autobiographical reading, then E.T. is the magical friend who gives the boy the ability to tell stories. Per Schelde identifies another three levels of reading in the film, 1) the story of a boy whose father has left him, 2) a story about aliens and UFO's, and 3) a religious parable. (5) The possession of DNA can be seen in a different light in each case. DNA makes the alien metaphorically human (a father figure); gives aliens a rightful place in the universe, like all creatures who have DNA, including frogs (an alien/animal rights reading); and a parable of how God, who made us in his image, sent his only son to earth, as a man (with DNA), to enlighten us before returning to the heavens. In the movies, DNA has become an iconic entity, rather than merely being a molecule with particular biochemical properties favourable for evolution. (6)
In many cases, the humanoid forms of aliens may have more to do with the special effects budget than any deeply symbolic meaning. However, representing aliens as having DNA does not involve any such visual constraints. In the various Star Trek series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager, not only do alien races have DNA, the analysis of which is conducted in numerous episodes, but these alien races can also inter-breed. Starfleet has had many senior personnel who have been born as a result of congress between different alien races. Dr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy), of the original crew, had a Vulcan father and a human mother; Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), the counsellor in The Next Generation, had a human father and a Betazoid mother; while B'Elanna Torres (Roxann Biggs-Dawson), the Chief Officer in Star Trek: Voyager had a human father and a Klingon mother. (7) Geographic separation and cultural factors, such as elaborate race-specific courtship rituals, serve as barriers to reduce the chance of inter-breeding; but these barriers are lowered on the cosmopolitan Starfleet spaceships and spacestations. The children of mixed marriages here reflect the desire for harmonic living between all races in the model Earth communities of the Starfleet spacecraft. The alien races within the community are here metaphors for diverse human races, whilst remaining generic and not representing any specific race.
The Star Trek backstory suggests that humans and the numerous alien races all share a common ancestor, an ancient star-travelling people called the Preservers, who seeded all the planets likely to support life. Therefore, all the races in the Star Trek universe share DNA of a common origin, just like species on Earth. This idea owes something to the theories of Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, who have suggested that life came to Earth on particles originating in interstellar space. They reasoned that conditions in space might have been ideal for the initial evolution of simple carbon-based organisms, which subsequently infected the Earth. Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel have gone even further and proposed the idea of directed panspermia, in which the Earth was deliberately seeded with the molecules that form the building blocks of life. (8)
Scientific speculation about microscopic alien life colonising the Earth influenced The Andromeda Strain (1970), a film directed by Robert Wise from a Michael Crichton novel. In his book, Crichton raises the question of whether returning spacecraft or space debris could be contaminated with extra-terrestrial organisms, which because they are not adapted to life on Earth might have adverse effects on human life. (9) The film presents a rare case of an alien life form with an alternative mode of replication to that involving DNA or RNA. This alien represents "life without proteins", as without DNA it cannot manufacture amino acids or proteins, including enzymes. Therefore, it escapes initial detection as a life form, just like the silicon-based life in the Star Trek universe. Scientific investigation drives the story in The Andromeda Strain, as a multi-disciplinary team, including a pathologist, an epidemiologist, a molecular biologist, and a geneticist, struggle to understand the alien creature and its alien molecules. The realistic laboratory settings were innovative for the early 1970s and a sign of things to come. In addition to scientific advisors, nine companies are credited with loaning scientific equipment, such as electron microscopes and chemical analysis equipment, including Du Pont Instrument Products Division, the Honeywell Corporation and the Parkin-Elmer Corporation. The alien "virus" is initially deadly, but it continually mutates and eventually evolves into something harmless. The film suggests that the sample might have been bought to Earth as part of a top secret bioweapons programme. However, the "virus" itself has no evil (or friendly) intent, unlike humanoid alien forms on which we anthropomorphically project human motives.
In reality, human activity has already resulted in extra-terrestrial habitats being inadvertently colonised by Earth organisms. In 1970, Apollo 12 astronauts retrieved a camera from the moon, which had been left there by the unmanned 1967 Surveyor probe. It was found to contain a colony of the bacterium Streptococcus mitis, commonly found living in the nose and throat of humans, which had originally been deposited there by a sneezing technician back on Earth. The bacteria had survived the probe's launch, boiling heat, the burning radiation of space, crushing pressures, and nearly three years of vacuum, accompanied by freezing temperatures a little above absolute zero. The extraordinary survival ability of many bacteria is due to their period of evolution in the harsh early years of life on Earth. One of the Apollo 12 astronauts, Pete Conrad, has said that finding the bacteria, which was subsequently cultured at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, was
"the most significant thing we found on the moon".
DNA-based life had been shown to survive unprotected in space. (10)
In The Andromeda Strain, the scientists come up with several theories to explain the presence of extra-terrestrial microbes. The most likely being that microbes in space originated on Earth, either from ancient or recent times, possibly acquiring mutations over time that favour an extra-terrestrial existence. Alternatively, novel genetically modified microbes, for example from secret bioweapons programmes, may seemingly arrive from nowhere when they escape containment, as if landing like a plague from space. The other possibility is that the microbes are genuinely extra-terrestrial. NASA scientists claimed to have found fossil microbes in rocks originating from Mars in recent years, although the findings have remained inconclusive. The distinct nanobacteria (nanobes) in the rocks have since been found on Earth. (11) Meanwhile, methanogenic bacteria, that live deep in volcanic ash where they utilise carbon dioxide and hydrogen to produce energy and methane, have been found to survive under laboratory conditions that mimic the Martian atmosphere. (12) It may turn out that nearby planets commonly exchange microbial life, for example, on rocks thrown into space by meteor impacts. Therefore, if life exists on one planet, traces of it might be expected to occur on neighbouring planets.
The DNA of life forms on Earth has evolved to have massive in-built redundancy. There is far more of it than is necessary for coding the operations that build bodies and maintain life. Much of the human genome, for example, is comprised of so-called "junk DNA" having no known function. A number of theories have been proposed to account for why this redundancy is needed. One of the most persuasive is that the random mutation rate becomes less critical when the genome is packed with "junk DNA". Without the padding any mutation could be fatal, but with the padding a random mutation is more likely to be harmless. All this DNA is packed into a small area. In humans, the long DNA strands are tightly wound into structures called chromosomes. The total length of the human chromosomes is around 0.3 millimetres, yet the DNA they contain, if stretched out, would be over two metres long. Nevertheless, despite a very efficient coding system, massive spare coding capacity, and DNA that is compacted by a factor of around ten thousand, aliens in the movies invariably have to show their superiority by coming up with better forms of DNA. In fact, differences in DNA have become a common method of identifying aliens in the movies. If alien DNA were found to be different from human DNA it would suggest an independent evolution. For example, all life on Earth has DNA that is wound into a double helix in a right-handed sense. Therefore, any left-handed winding would suggest a molecule of independent origin. Alternatively, aliens might have genetically engineered their DNA to be different, to gain an advantage over mere earthlings with their unengineered DNA.
The model of DNA presented by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953 has a double helix structure, comprising of a backbone of sugar phosphate (deoxyribose) units, each with a sub-unit called a base. The bases link together in pairs, like steps on a ladder, between the two DNA strands of the double helix. (13) Four forms of base occur: Thymine (T) always links to guanine (G), while adenine (A) always links to cytosine (C). Ten base pairs occur in each complete spiral of the double helix. When DNA replicates, the two strands separate and each acts as a template for the formation of a new strand, thus doubling the amount of DNA at each replication cycle. The bases act as the genetic code, specifying which proteins are produced by the cell's protein synthesis machinery.
An alternative model for arranging the elements of DNA has been proposed by the British artist Mark Curtis, based on "geometric principles". In Curtis' model the four bases are arranged so that their edges face outwards rather than inwards, so that the bases form the backbone of the molecule rather than the sugar phosphates. The bases arrange themselves on top of each other in a semi-overlapping manner, like ten pentagons arranged in a decagon to form one spiral of the helix. (14) Although X-ray photographs show this is not the structure of DNA in Earth-bound organisms, it illustrates how a replicator molecule need not have the same structure as our DNA.
Several alien races represented in the movies have evolved or engineered their DNA in alternative ways to human DNA, usually to gain greater genetic storage capacity. The DNA of the (good) alien race in The Fifth Element (1997), for example, is constructed of two double helixes superimposed on one another. This would give twice the genetic material per chromosome, although it is biochemically improbable. Nevertheless, scientists have recently discovered that if DNA is stretched, and then twisted using magnets, the structure becomes more tightly coiled than ordinary DNA, forcing the bases to flip to the outside of the helix as in Curtis' model. It is suspected that this form may occur momentarily when DNA undergoes replication. (15)
In The Fifth Element, the super-dense DNA is retrieved from the severed limb of an armour-plated dog-like alien, which was ripped off in battle. "At least a few cells are still alive", explains the geneticist, "we tried to identify it [the DNA] but the computer went off the chart. Normal humans have 40 memo groups, which is more than enough for any species to perpetuate itself, but this has 20,000 memo groups!". After counting the fictitious "memo groups" and viewing computer graphics of the alien DNA molecule ("with the same compositional elements, just more tightly packed with infinite genetic knowledge, almost like this being was engineered"), the scientists clone the alien from the DNA. This is done in a device evolved from the one in Metropolis (1926), in which the body is built up section-by-section and then galvanised into life. All that extra DNA is put to good use because instead of recreating the dog-warrior the scientists get a naked female model (Milla Jovovich), who calls herself Leeloo. Oddly, aliens when cloned in the movies usually change form to become young attractive female models. Typically, she has superhuman strength and breaks through walls to escape the scientists, although she is a good alien on a mission to save the Earth from evil aliens.
Alien DNA combines with terrestrial DNA in The X-Files to give alternative molecular structures that are not known in nature. In The Erlenmeyer Flask (1994) cloned bacteria are found to contain a virus that possesses a fifth and sixth nucleotide (or two extra bases in addition to A, C, G and T). Subsequently, a blood sample taken from Agent Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), soon after her abduction experience, in the episode One Breath (1994), contains DNA with a novel branched structure. Again, additions to the normal DNA structure imply additional genetic material, which is exerting some control over normal human DNA functioning. Infestation with alien DNA in this case causes modifications to human physiology, such as the appearance of green toxic blood. (16)
The importance of alien DNA in recent science fiction films is often that it enables aliens to hybridise with humans. Congress can be intimate and fruitful. Aliens can become more human, and humans more alien. Having our genes, however, is rarely enough to make aliens truly human - there is invariably something missing. This is most commonly signalled by blank staring eyes, a sure sign that the soul is not at home. The degree to which human-alien genetic hybrids, bought to life through cloning technology, retain human or alien characteristics give these films added interest. The human and alien genes can engage in battle within the genome. Alien genes can sometimes be read metaphorically for invasion of the body by viruses and disease. The treatment of human-alien hybrids can be problematic, however, if not thought through with sufficient care, due to unwanted connotations with miscegenation. Nevertheless, alien scenarios have been used successfully in the past to explore issues of racism and xenophobia, along with Cold War paranoia, the threat of incurable diseases and other themes, while keeping the main narrative foregrounded. The modification of human DNA represents an interesting development for the alien invasion film.
Alien invasion: Alien Resurrection
The parameters of the alien invasion movie were first set out in The Thing from Another World (1951), although they were known from science fiction writing well before this time. This film was following during the 1950s by a number of others centring on the struggle between humans and their otherworldly adversaries for basic resources and survival. Often couched in terms of good-verses-evil, these films were often loaded with cold war paranoia. The aliens were often indifferent to man's existence, but were eventually thwarted by individuals with courage and ingenuity, thus re-instating the status quo of human superiority (or ideological superiority in a Cold War context). The theme of parasites controlling the human body from within, prefiguring Alien (1979) and films with genetic human-alien hybrids, surfaced in The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) and Night of the Blood Beast (1958). (17)
Village of the Damned (1960), based on John Wyndham's novel The Midwich Cuckoos, was an alien invasion movie that implied the splicing of alien and human genes. The film opens in a small English town, which has just been cut off by a mysterious energy field. Shortly after this blackout a number of women discover they are pregnant. Twelve children are subsequently born, six boys and six girls, who all look identical. The clone-like children are intelligent and have hypnotic eyes - signalling a lack of human emotions. They communicate telepathically and exert mind control for aggressive purposes, to prevent them being killed or harmed. A scientist, whose son is one of the affected children, teaches them in an isolated school. He takes a concealed bomb into the classroom and, by concentrating hard on a mental image of a brick wall so the children cannot read his thoughts, manages to blow the building up. Similar groups of children are, meanwhile, exterminated around the world, ending the alien threat. The aliens had somehow beamed their DNA into the village women's eggs, to make them pregnant. The offspring of these virgin births were human-alien hybrids, with human bodies and alien minds. (18) This invasion at the molecular level would resurface with a vengeance in the 1990s - complete with the latest genetic terminology and technology.
In John Carpenter's pointless remake, Village of the Damned (1995), in which the action is transplanted to the USA, DNA testing, during a post-mortem on a still-born alien baby, reveals the genetic similarity of the children. That their eyes are the windows to their alien souls is spelt out in a heavy-handed fashion, otherwise the film stays close to the plot of the original. One of the children, however, who was to have paired with the still-born child, develops a degree of empathy, and is spared from death (probably unwisely). An alternative origin of the children's foreign DNA is raised in this film, with the suggestion that it may have escaped from containment in a CIA laboratory doing research into mind-altering drugs.
Alien (1979) took the ingredients of the alien invasion movie and acted them out within the claustrophobic confines of a small spaceship. This scenario had been done previously in It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958), but Alien was gothic horror in tone and featured an alien with a complex parasitic life cycle. Themes introduced in Alien recur throughout the other three films of the cycle; most notably motifs of bodily intrusion, which encompass rape, unwanted pregnancy, abortion and genetic contamination. (19) The crewman Kane (John Hurt) is the first to be violated by an alien, which subsequently births through his abdominal cavity, killing him in the process. Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) wants to void the alien into space, but the science officer Ash (Ian Holm) wants to study and preserve it for the benefit of the Company. Ash is revealed as an android, a man-made "alien", who attacks Ripley in a scene which strongly suggests rape, as he forces a pornographic magazine down her throat. Ash is killed when crew-members arrive to aid Ripley. However, only Ripley and the ship's cat survive the alien attack. The alien is aborting into space and they enter hypersleep. In Aliens (1986), the second film in the sequence, Ripley wakes from hypersleep after 57 years to learn that the Company has allowed the alien planet to be colonised. The aliens revive at the same time as Ripley - they are clearly attuned to her - and start living inside the human food supplied by the Company. She joins a Marine unit to combat the aliens. Ripley later becomes a surrogate mother to a child survivor. A Company android Bishop (Lance Henriksen), who at the last becomes her ally, also survives with her in a mutilated state. However, a stowaway alien impregnates Ripley during this cycle of hypersleep.
The overall premise of the films is that the Weyland-Yutani Company wants an alien brought to Earth so that it can be exploited in a bioweapons research programme. The human crews en route are viewed as expendable, while a representative of the Company is present to prevent the alien from coming to harm. Leading the defence against the alien is Ellen Ripley, whose interaction with the aliens becomes evermore intimate with each reawakening, until she becomes part-alien herself.
The theme of genetic engineering was introduced into early drafts of the script for the third film in the sequence, although it was not present in the film. Alien3 (1992) went through numerous production problems before reaching the screen, by which time its story had mutated many times. In the first script by William Gibson, the head of the Company's bioweapon research program, under the pretext of cancer research, sets up experiments to fuse human DNA with alien tissue samples in order to create the ultimate killing organism. The Company plans to clone an entire army of alien-human warriors. This script was rejected, although the genetics theme would surface in the fourth film. A second script by Eric Red introduced the Dr. Moreau-like idea of the Company experimenting with isolated alien DNA and livestock, to create hybrids down on the farm: pig-aliens, cattle-aliens, chicken-aliens, dog-aliens and so forth. The alien would take on the physical attributes of the organism from which it emerged. (20) The hybrids escape and combine with regular aliens in attacking humans. This script was rejected, although in Alien3 a dog is the first victim to be parasitised by an alien. David Twohy wrote a third script, and then a fourth script was written by Vincent Ward, the latest director on board the project. Ward dispensed with all the genetics and introduced a medieval monastery on a wooden planetoid. This basic story was filmed, stripped of Ward's medieval pretensions, via several re-writes of the script by Walter Hill and David Giler, with contributions from Larry Ferguson. David Fincher finally directed the film, which opens as Ripley, carrying an embryonic alien queen inside her, wakes from hypersleep after crashing on the planet Florina Fury 161, a maximum security prison planet. She learns of the "foreign tissue" inside her on a medical scanner. The aliens who hitch-hiked on the spaceship kill the prisoners and staff, but spare Ripley, sensing she harbours one of their own. At the climax of Alien3 Ripley dives into a furnace of molten lead, sacrificing herself to kill the alien queen, which emerges from her body just prior to impact. This would have provided a satisfactory conclusion to a trilogy, but the Company ensured that she was not allowed to rest in peace. (21)
Cloning is the plot device used to bring Ripley back to life in Alien Resurrection (1997), the fourth film in the Aliens series, directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. As the film opens on the Auriga, a medical research vessel, we learn that Ripley, and the alien within her, have been cloned by the Company from a blood sample found in the medical centre on Florina, where she died two hundred years previously. (22) Ripley on awakening recognises that she is different. She is endowed with hybrid vigour due to the alien DNA that has insinuated itself into her genetic make-up, making her physically stronger, with movements like an aliens, and giving her corrosive blood. Sigourney Weaver was lit differently from the other actors on the set, by cinematographer Darius Khondji, to emphasis the otherness of Ripley. (23)
The Company recovers the alien from the cloned Ripley's body and grows its young inside cryogenically-frozen mine workers, who have been kidnapped by the crew of an outlaw ship. They regard her as "a meat by-product", referring to her as "it" or "No. 8". The Company surprisingly allows the Ripley clone to live, at least until they realise what she has become. This enables her to meet the crew of the outlaw ship, including a revolutionary called Call (Winona Ryder) who was sent to kill Ripley's clone before the alien could be recovered. Call turns out to be an android, but working against the Company, suggesting this technology has now escaped from tight corporate control. The androids, who pass for human, blur the boundary between the human and the non-human, anticipating the further erosion of humanity from internal parasitisation and the hybridisation of human and alien genes. The young adult aliens are held within a sealed room, which is guarded by the sadistic scientific assistant Gediman (Brad Dourif). However, they escape after being provoked, helped somewhat by having blood that corrodes through reinforced metal floors. Ripley, the outlaw ship's crew, and a geneticist, who is their hostage, have to survive the subsequent alien attack. (24)
The most disturbing scene in the film is probably not one featuring the aliens (we are already familiar with them), but the scene when Ripley enters the clone storage facility, through the door labelled "1-7", to confront her fellow clones. Ripley looks again at the "8" tattooed on her arm (a popular movie method for differentiating clones), and understands its significance. By confronting her clones, Ripley understands her true nature. The seven clones are in various stages of development, with a range of abnormalities. They are filmed in a pale yellow light by a slowly panning camera, which takes the point of view of Ripley (the eighth clone). The foetal clones are floating in circular tanks full of murky amniotic fluid. Their sickness stands in opposition to the perfect nude body of a young developing Ripley (Nicole Fellows), which was seen in a tank in an opening shot, being closely examined by the male scientists. As Ripley moves into the room she meets one grossly deformed and bloated (pregnant?) clone, whose face is recognisably hers. Ripley torches this doppelgänger with a flame-thrower, at its request, and then destroys the entire room. The amniotic waters of the tanks break and the scientific equipment burns.
The clone room as chamber of horrors carries a number of connotations. The critic Michael Eaton described it as "Ripley's Believe It or Not", a room comparable to old freak shows that displayed deformed human foetuses. He also pointed out the resemblance between the deformed embryos and the black wide-eyed "Grey", linking the Alien series to the modern myth of alien abduction. (25) The theory of ontology is also recalled, via foetuses with tails, whereby humans pass through the various stages of evolution while in the womb, suggesting deeper biological, as well as metaphorical, links between humans and aliens. The negative image of cloning is inescapable. The unethical, corporate and masculine violation of the female hero is one of the most powerful images of cloning in the movies. The audience is partly implicated, as by wishing the hero Ripley to be resurrected it has condoned cloning. At the time, the scriptwriter Joss Whedon did not know about the soon-to-be-published results of Dolly's cloning. Like Ripley's clone, Dolly the sheep was also a time-delayed identical twin produced using adult cell cloning. On hearing the news he claimed to be completely shocked,
"It's an odd coincidence. It's not as if I knew enough about cloning to be able to predict it would happen.
Personally I find it creepy and it's played in a horrific way in the movie.
As a science fiction concept it's great fun, but in reality, it bothers me." (26)
However, the scene in Alien Resurrection is not that far removed from data obtained in animal cloning experiments. In common with them, the cloning of Ripley appears to have had a low success rate, while resulting in a number of unsuccessful and deformed embryos being produced. In the experiment that resulted in Dolly, 277 udder cells were taken from a ewe and transferred to de-nucleated sheep eggs. From these eggs, 29 embryos were produced. The majority of these embryos died at various stages of development, and only one normal sheep was born. Low success rates and the presence of deformed embryos have been a common feature of cloning experiments. In Alien Resurrection Ripley is the perfect birth, one badly deformed clone is born, and six stunted embryos are seen. Presumably, a perfect Ripley equates to a perfect alien inside her. In the movie, Doctor Wren (J.E. Freeman) recognises the commercial potential of cloning, stating at one point that the benefits go way beyond urban pacification, the main objective of the Company, and mentions new vaccines and other medical applications. In reality, cloning technology will soon become big business. (27)
It is not made explicit how the alien is cloned from cells in Ripley's blood sample. Presumably mobile alien DNA elements hybridised with human DNA in her white blood cells. To obtain foreign genes in all the cells of a transgenic animal, manipulations must be done at the early embryo stage. Each somatic (non-sex) cell of the adult Ripley would theoretically have to be modified separately with foreign DNA. The script, in this and other human-alien hybrid movies, could draw more upon known science by way of explanation. Aliens might have developed a type of enzyme, for example, to incorporate their genetic material into human DNA. A group of viruses, called retroviruses, are now known to use an enzyme called reverse transcriptase to insert their genetic code into their host's DNA. Genetic engineers utilise certain retrovirus enzymes to manufacture DNA from RNA templates. (28) It is thought that the HIV virus uses a reverse transcriptase enzyme to insinuate itself into the human genome, where it acts on cells in the immune system, causing AIDS. The infected individual's immune system cannot recognise self from non-self, so alien infection passes undetected, while the self may itself be attacked in auto-immune reactions. Hostile aliens in the movies also now exploit such frailty in the human genome.
Ripley passed some of her genes to the alien growing within her, and the resulting adult queen inherits human birthing patterns, when previously it laid eggs. The last surviving scientist, Doctor Wren explains this to Ripley in the birthing pit, just before his head is removed by the newborn human-alien hybrid. Described as Ripley's gift to the aliens, human birth looks more like a curse on the species, lowering the rate of reproduction compared to egg-laying and resulting in immature and neurotic offspring. The youngster, with its alien body and bathetic human eyes, kills its alien mother and turns its affection on Ripley, as if she were its real mother. The audience is familiar with Ripley's maternal instincts from Aliens. Ripley resists the alien part of her nature, however, and plots the creature's downfall. Just as it displays its most human side and seeks acceptance, it is rejected, like many a monster before it. The human-alien hybrid is aborted from the womb of Ripley's spacecraft. At the end of Alien Resurrection, the survivors, numbering the Ripley clone (with her alien genes), and about half of the outlaw ship's crew, face an uncertain future as they prepare to land on Earth. (29)
The problematic aspect of memory is dealt with early in Alien Resurrection. Although cloning results in embryos without memories, the film presents an exchange, rich in pseudo-science, between the Commander and the geneticists to get around this. We learn that the Ripley clone, recently "born" as an adult from a vat, is surprisingly, "operating at a completely adult capacity". Some childish behaviour is explained by, "connective difficulties, caused by biochemical imbalance". She is given a series of tests, after which the Commander booms,
"Why does it have memories?"
To which the geneticist suggests,
"...Inherited memories passed down generationally at a genetic level by the aliens. Like its strength.
Plus, an highly evolved form of instinct... A highly unexpected benefit from the genetic crossing".
Basically, the presence of alien DNA nullifies the known laws of genetics. When asked later by a member of the outlaw crew about what happened when she previously met the aliens, she laconically replies:
"I died".
Ripley's clone is partly alien due to genetic exchange. Her physiology and blood, along with her seeming affection and respect for the aliens reveal this. However, as the film proceeds, the audience is encouraged to increasingly regard the character as the "Ripley" from the earlier films. Disappointingly, Alien Resurrection is ultimately uninterested in the issues of cloning and identity it raises. As with many of the films discussed in this book, the genetic theme is not developed to its full potential.
Human-alien hybrids
The remakes of two classic alien invasion movies have introduced the notion of contamination at the genetic level. In Philip Kaufman's Invasion of the Bodysnatchers (1978), a remake of the 1956 original, fully-formed adult duplicates are born from vegetable pods, next to the sleeping human originals. The ever-decreasing group of authentic and paranoid humans must stay awake, or else be turned into emotionless doubles. "They could get into our systems and screw up our genes", says the character played by Veronica Cartwright (who played one of the first victims in Alien, but is the last surviving human here). Meanwhile, when John Carpenter remade the classic 1951 movie The Thing from Another World as The Thing in 1982, he incorporated influences from Alien and some topical genetic terminology. The alien in Carpenter's movie threatens a small community in Antarctica, entering its victim's as a spray and absorbing human DNA for its own use. The alien has become like a virus, contaminating the blood and genetically engineering its human hosts. The humans are again copies, but unsure of their true identity. "I know I'm human", insists one character uncertainly, as the doubling motif of the clone movie again challenges notions of the self. The alien is alive in all its host's cells, allowing its presence to be tested for by plunging a hot-wire into a blood sample. The hybrid blood squirms, as each cell responds to the shock. A blood test again differentiates the human from the inhumane doppelgänger, providing a dramatic type of DNA test (itself a test for the presence of a soul). (30)
Scientists in recent movies often expose mankind to invasion by aliens, through meddling with foreign genes and DNA technology. The equating of foreign genes or transgenes, transferred in genetic engineering operations, with alien genes obviously appeals to scriptwriters. The premise of Species (1995) is that data on the structure of human DNA, sent into space by scientists working for the SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) project, is intercepted by an alien race. In reality, information concerning the chemical formulas of the sugars and bases of human DNA, together with the number of nucleotides and the structure of the double helix, was sent out from SETI's Arecibo radio antennae, in Puerto Rico, in 1974. (31) In Species, the aliens send back data concerning a superior catalyst for methane, that will solve all of Earth's energy problems, and a novel DNA sequence, along with instructions on how to incorporate it into human egg cells. The aliens are assumed to be intelligent and friendly on the basis of this evidence.
A top-secret US government team, headed by Xavier Fitch (Ben Kingsley), a distant relative of the mad scientist Xavier in Doctor X (1932), unwisely make the novel DNA sequence. This is visualised on a computer monitor as a scrolling screen full of A,C,T and G's. They inject cloned versions of this fragment into 100 eggs (a shot down a microscope shows a micropipette going into a de-nucleated egg). From these 100 eggs, seven start to develop, two reach the embryo stage, and one is born (presumably using a surrogate mother). The scientists apparently have control of the gender, and give the embryos two X-chromosomes in the questionable belief that a female alien will be easier to control; both an audience wind-up and a knowing nod toward Alien. After one month the female has the appearance of a two-year-old-girl and after three months she enters her teens. This rapid growth is typical of human-alien hybrids, and is coincidentally useful for swiftly moving the story on to the next plot point. She begins to show strange behavioural patterns during her sleep, and the scientists attempt to kill her with cyanide gas. However, she uses super-human strength to escape from the high-security research establishment, smashes through a wall and jumps onto a passing train.
We learn this information at the same time as a newly assembled team of specialists assembled by Fitch. They are a multi-disciplinary group, typical of the 1990s science fiction action movie: a molecular biologist, Laura Baker (Marg Helgenberger); an anthropologist, Stephen Arden (Alfred Molina); a psychic, Dan Smithson (Forest Whitaker); and an ex-marine/action hero, Preston Lennox (Michael Madsen). (32) This strange combination of talents goes in search of the girl. On the train, meanwhile, she has metamorphosed into an adult human form (Natasha Henstridge), called Sil by the scientists. Sil starts looking for a mate so she can spread alien genes into the human population - not a difficult task, as in typical alien fashion she takes on the form of a female supermodel.
On a couple of occasions Sil is connected to murders, because her unique DNA profile has been found in blood samples at crime scenes. The very uniqueness of her DNA fingerprint presumably makes her samples particularly easy for the forensics laboratory to identify. She also appears to be discriminating in her choice of men, for example, rejecting one who is a carrier of a gene for hereditary diabetes. She eventually mates with one of the team, the anthropologist, who presumably has good genes, and then kills him. The remaining members give chase through Los Angeles' sewers. Sil turns completely alien in appearance and gives birth to a boy who rapidly develops through childhood. Both Sil and the boy are destroyed using a flame-thrower, the weapon of choice for this purpose. However, a rat has eaten part of the alien's tentacles and is seen with pulsating skin as the film finishes. The alien genes are still at large on the Earth, as genetic pollution is in general difficult to rectify (and there is a sequel to be made).
The irresponsible use of genetic engineering has again caused a threat in the movies. The motive in Species is scientific curiosity about extra-terrestrial life, which overrides all caution. In an experiment carried out midway through the film, the alien DNA sequence is again manufactured, but this time not combined with human DNA, to see what the alien DNA alone produces. This appears not to have been thought of previously as an experimental treatment (and to think that US taxpayers are funding these incompetent researchers!). The alien DNA alone swiftly produces a slimy monster, which is burnt up through a fail-safe device in a containment laboratory. The scientists, true to form, illegally breach safety protocol by pulling two workers out of the containment laboratory before torching it.
Roger Donaldson directed Species from a screenplay by Dennis Feldman, and used alien designs by H.R. Giger. Peter Medak directed the sequel, Species II (1998), from a screenplay by Chris Brancato. (33) In Species II, the deceased Sil has been cloned from a womb cell (presumably from a tissue sample in the laboratory freezer), to rapidly produce a new woman called Eve (Natasha Henstridge again). Eve's recombinant DNA has been engineered in some way, too complicated to explain to the audience, so that the alien genes are suppressed and her human genes are expressed. She lives in a secure glass-walled room in the centre of a high-security research complex. She is a woman, according to the biologists, but subjected to unethical human experiments on the orders of military man Colonel Carter Burgess Jr. (George Dzundza). Burgess takes the place of the Fitch character in the first film, and is more evil than deluded - a variation on Dr. Josef Mengele experimenting on his camp inmates. (34) A male human-alien hybrid is introduced, although the scriptwriter refrains from calling him Adam.
During an expedition to Mars, mounted in response to NASA finding evidence for life there, long dormant alien-slime is revived and enters the bodies of two astronauts. A third astronaut on board is a carrier of sickle-cell anaemia and the alien DNA cannot hybridise with his DNA. The alien DNA somehow gets into the reproductive cells of the male and female astronauts by the time they return to Earth. The alien genes appear to reprogram the human DNA, increasing the sex drive better to spread alien genes into the human population. The female astronaut dies soon after sex, when alien offspring bursts out of her body a lá Alien. The all-American male astronaut hero Patrick Ross (Justin Lazard), however, can spread alien genes around enthusiastically, while women die giving birth. Dr. Laura Baker and Press Lennox are again on the case. They reactivate Eve's alien genes, which improbably gives her telepathic contact with the half-alien Ross. Eve escapes from the laboratory and locates Ross in order to mate with him, which would produce offspring having a majority of alien genes - a new race. Eve's human half emerges briefly during the alien sex, however, and aids Baker and Lennox in destroying Ross.
Little in Species II corresponds to feasible DNA recombinant technology. DNA hybridisation taking place within an adult, the instant rebuilding of body parts from a genetic plan, the ability to switch on and off sets of genes and much else is complete fantasy, of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde variety. The human-alien hybrids are typically fertile, with rapid development. One morning Ross wakes up, beside the disembowelled body of the woman he has slept with, to find his offspring conveniently grown to the late toddler stage. After a couple of days, he assembles a crowd of nine year-olds in a barn. They ascend to the rafters on sticky threads and form insect-like chrysalides, in which they metamorphose into adults. The rapid growth into adults, via a cocoon-like stage, positions this film firmly in a line of descent from The Invasion of the Bodysnatchers (1956), via the more immediate influence of Alien. The motif of infected blood is a modern concern, with reference to AIDS and viral disease.
"They've infected our blood, now its about time we infected them,"
Baker reasons before using the sickle-cell astronaut's blood to improbably bring Ross down. The eugenically-inclined aliens, who select the humans they hybridise with by sensing whether they have "good genes", are thwarted by a "bad gene" (sickle cell) that is in fact selected for in some races as a "good gene" because it has beneficial effects (confers resistance to malaria). The attempt to subvert an alien genetically with human genes is a potentially interesting development, particularly if the alien is equated with an eugenicist, although it is clumsily handled here.
Human-alien hybrids are also a key feature of The X-Files. The series draws upon existing ufology and alien abduction accounts, which can themselves be seen as reflecting general anxieties about scientific progress and the human body. In these post-sexual revolution times, such lore is obsessed with human reproduction, with frequent reports of "alien" implantation, probing, fetal tissue sampling and egg extraction. These general technological anxieties may be substitutions for very real repressed memories. (35) Taking its lead from such accounts, various methods of creating human-alien hybrids have been revealed in The X-Files. (36) In the episode The Erlenmeyer Flask (1994), gene therapy was used to introduce alien DNA into human cells, with the aid of virus-infected bacteria, whilst alien DNA injections were administered to children in Red Museum (1994). The favoured way, however, is via fertilising ova, techniques that were first revealed in The Blessing Way (1995). Ova taken from women, abducted by a shadowy government organisation, are fertilised with alien sperm and the resulting children sent out for adoption, just like the clones in The Boys from Brazil. In Eve (1993), a group of girl clones called Eve (the obvious name of choice) are genetically programmed to kill their fathers, a job Mengele has to do himself in The Boys from Brazil. The film The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998) interweaves many of the threads from the TV series, and the film and series are discussed further in the following chapter.
Alien gene-splicing movies have become the vampire films of the 1990s. Bram Stoker's novel Dracula (1897) reflected Victorian anxieties about the body, while today's human-alien hydrid movies reflect similar concerns about bodily contamination. Blood exchange is an early form of genetic exchange. Blood and DNA are contaminated by foreign material, with bizarre effects on physiology and behaviour. Humans are transformed into soulless beings, doubles or doppelgängers, by both vampires and alien genes. The original models for vampires may in fact have been rabies victims, behaviourally re-programmed by viral DNA. (37) Like viruses, aliens in the movies take control of our DNA or use their DNA to affect our blood. In The Thing (1982), the blood of human-alien hybrids takes on a life of its own, the blood of the hybrid Ripley in Alien Resurrection turns green and corrosive, while human-alien hybrids in The X-Files also have green toxic blood. DNA testing in the movies is often done using blood samples (e.g. The Island of Dr. Moreau, Species), while human-alien hybrids are always detectable through their unique DNA, even if they look perfectly human (The X-Files, Species, Alien Resurrection).
Human-alien hybrids in the movies are universally rapid in growth, but also perfect in body, having presumably switched off those human genes that would have it otherwise. They are generally physically superior to humans, for example, bursting through walls when the whim takes them (Species, The Fifth Element, Alien Resurrection), and also have other abilities humans do not, including telepathy (Village of the Damned, Species II). The relative contribution of human and alien genes in determining personality is alluded to in Alien Resurrection and Species. By virtue of our familiarity with the character of Ripley, an audience can notice changes in behaviour that can be assumed to be due to the influence of alien genes. In Species, the biologist wonders after the alien's head has been blown off, that if the creature was half us and half something else, which half was the predatory half. An earlier scene, however, with an evil slimy thing that emerges from the pure alien DNA undercuts this remark. It is usual for human DNA to be tainted by alien DNA, but alien DNA could also be corrupted by hybridisation with human DNA. Human and alien genes could interact in numerous interesting ways. This points to fertile new areas for the human-alien hybrid movie to explore.
Cut and spliced: D.N.A.
In the straight-to-video D.N.A. (1996) elements of Alien, Predator (1987), Jurassic Park and other successful movies are spliced together, revealing how thoroughly DNA has become incorporated into such narratives. The film opens in a village, surrounded by the jungles of Northern Borneo, where a doctor, Ash Mattley, is working in an underfunded local hospital. A scientist from a multinational company, Dr. Carl Wessinger (Jurgen Prochnow), visits and reminds Ash of the research he once did on an enzyme isolated from a rainforest beetle. This enzyme strengthened the human immune system, allowing it to repel a range of fatal diseases, but Ash could not stabilise a synthetic version of the molecule. Wessinger assures him that the company has now succeeded in doing this and wants Ash to come and work on the project again. Ash, who was raised by local tribes, is torn between his duties at the hospital and returning to his research life. Wessinger is the mad scientist of the piece, intent on commercial gain and willing to exploit Third World resources for unethical militaristic reasons. Deliberately Germanic, he is another Mengele at large in the jungle.
Wessinger covers a blackboard with sketches and diagrams of fictional nucleic acids to explain how the company "produced a stable environment" for Ash's beetle enzyme. The terms DNA, RNA, enzyme and protein are typically interchangeable here. The audience should be blinded by science, not be able to understand it. Brian Aldiss once remarked of science fiction that, "The more you explain, the less convincing it gets". (38) This certainly holds true for many movies that insert dollops of pseudo-genetic exposition. Nevertheless, Ash is convinced by Wessinger's outlandish explanation that they are "standing on the edge - the abyss of life itself", and could be on the verge of the greatest triumph of twentieth century medicine (they better get a move on).
They find more beetles in a cave, behind a rock bearing inscriptions of grave symbolic significance. Wessinger dismisses the warnings as superstition, and enters regardless of the consequences, for the sake of furthering scientific knowledge. He exits alone, having captured more of the valuable beetles, leaving everyone else for dead. Meanwhile, archaeologists have uncovered a strange ancient skeleton nearby and extracted DNA from its bones. The locals suspect that it is Baiacau, a monster out of their ancient mythology. Wessinger suspects otherwise, and in genetic engineering experiments fuses this ancient DNA with that of the beetle to create the ultimate killing machine, which he plans to sell to the highest bidder.
Two years later, Ash hears tales of brutal killings and travels to investigate. He begins to suspect something, when the love interest arrives in the form of Dr. Clare Summers (Robin McKee) of the CIA. Together they locate the research station and find data relating to the creature's genetic make-up. They realise that Wessinger has re-animated an alien and genetically modified it with the beetle DNA. The escaped beast stalks them, while Wessinger rants to Ash about elevating his miserable research "to a level of purity and perfection". The use of genetics for peace (treating disease) has been turned into one of war (creating bioweapons). Ash and Dr. Summers somehow escape, just before the research station blows up. The creature is eventually killed, not with a flame-thrower, but with locally produced and ecologically-sound beetle poison on a blow-dart.
D.N.A. is indicative of the way elements relating to genetic engineering, cloning, ancient DNA, mythology, alien abduction and invasion, bioweapons, the commercial exploitation of genes, scientific ethics and mad scientist scenarios can be cut, spliced and rearranged in myriad ways within a film script. Alien DNA has increasingly come to stand metaphorically for the foreign DNA used in genetic manipulation, in addition to its equation with viral disease, while 1990s Hollywood has reflected a growing scepticism among Americans about the activities of both government and multinational corporations. There is plenty of potential yet for novel combinations of the above elements, reflecting general concerns about biotechnological progress, while relating age-old stories about ourselves and the aliens.
Notes
Chapter 5: Danger: Genetically Modified Organisms.
References:Complete bibliography of book, including all names on multi-author publications and details of edited books.
Chapter 1: It came from the laboratory.
Chapter 2: Dinosaur Resurrection.
Chapter 3: Confronting the Clone.
Chapter 4: Cloning the Alien.
Chapter 5: Danger: Genetically Modified Organisms.
Chapter 6: Designer Babies.
Chapter 7: All in the Genes?
Chapter 8: Real-life Science.