Hollywood's Aliens After Disclosure

By Robbie Graham Silver Screen Saucers

Jonah Hill, Ben Stiller, Richard Ayoade, and Vince Vaughn in The Watch.

A new trailer for alien invasion comedy The Watch features Ben Stiller and fellow Frat Packer Vince Vaughn repeatedly shooting the seemingly lifeless body of an extraterrestrial before taking it home and using it as the centerpiece of an alcohol-fuelled party... 

This got me thinking... in an After Disclosure world (assuming an AD world could one day exist - and a hat tip here to Richard Dolan and Bryce Zabel), how might cinema audiences respond to The Watch and other movies of its ilk? If, at some point - perhaps in our near future - we have an affirmative and universally accepted answer to the age old question: "Are we alone?", might Hollywood think twice about depicting extraterrestrials as soulless things that exist only to be shot and tortured for shits and giggles?

In an AD world - regardless of the true nature and intent of the UFO occupants themselves - much of Hollywood's back-catalogue of UFO/alien movies will, I suspect, make for deeply uncomfortable and shameful viewing.

As Ben Stiller and his comedy cohorts delight in posing for photographs with an almost-dead, captive alien in this latest trailer, I couldn't help but think - dare I say it - of Abu Ghraib and similar wartime atrocities around the world inflicted by Western troops. Obviously, Stiller and Co. are all for pushing the boundaries of taste, and I have no problem with that... up to a point. Would audiences be laughing quite so hard at The Watch's 'photoshoot' scene if an almost-dead human being were sat in that chair? Just sayin'.

NOTE: If the trailer embedded above should be removed from YouTube, you can view it here instead.