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Probably an unpopular opinion, but I think most Star Wars aliens look stupid

SolVanderlyn

SolVanderlyn

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Oct 28, 2017
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You have the cool ones like Ahsoka's race, or the inoffensive ones like Yoda's race, but then you have this shit:

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I fucking hate all of these. They look like they would be hostile aliens in an alien invasion movie, like monster shoe-ins. Yet here they are just chilling in the Star Wars universe, being creepy and uncool.

Compare them to the aliens of, say, Mass Effect, where you have the Quarians and Krogan and Salarians and they're all very unique and cool and not gross to look at, and still feel distinctly alien, and I feel like Star Wars really suffers from having all of these guys around.

There are some cool ones. And I don't think "creepy" has to mean lame. For example, Tusken Raiders are creepy but they look menacing as fuck. Sebulba looked creepy in Phantom Menace but he was meant to look like an aggressive imp - that was the point. That's cool. But many of them look goofy or just plain weird - just unpleasant to look at, like ugly background material.

I know this is probably an unpopular opinion.
 
HStallion

HStallion

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Oct 25, 2017
62,262
So the OP just wants aliens that look 80 to 90% human with some extra stuff glued to their faces and heads and a fancy color scheme?
 

Deleted member 62221

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The Darth Maul race looks cool, some of the Twi'leks (?) too but yeah I see what you mean, this franchise tends to go for the cartoony aliens type.
 
Moff

Moff

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Oct 26, 2017
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some of them are campy and silly, that's part of the appeal

there are some really cool ones, though. visual design is among star wars' biggest strenghts and the aliens are certainly a part of that, there is a huge variety.
 
Dice

Dice

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Oct 25, 2017
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One of my ongoing issues that's hard to help: The sci-fi universe is full of bipeds.

While Star Trek probably did too little to vary alien designs (usually just fit some sort of weird "alien" "wrinkle") but yeah, Star Wars has aliens that look too goofy.
 
HStallion

HStallion

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Oct 25, 2017
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Dice said:
One of my ongoing issues that's hard to help: The sci-fi universe is full of bipeds.

While Star Trek probably did too little to vary alien designs (usually just fit some sort of weird "alien" "wrinkle") but yeah, Star Wars has aliens that look too goofy.
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Making truly alien aliens is not usually cost efficient. Farscape still had a ton of humanoid aliens with a lot of makeup on but it did use a lot of puppets to add some much more unique looking species to the mix.
 
Lobster Roll

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Star Wars is best when it's an epic story with layers of goofiness. I think the silly designs are a reminder to the fans that this shit isn't too serious and to just enjoy the space samurai epic set in a unique galaxy.
 
OP
OP
SolVanderlyn

SolVanderlyn

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Oct 28, 2017
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HStallion said:
So the OP just wants aliens that look 80 to 90% human with some extra stuff glued to their faces and heads?
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Nah, not really, let me use Mass Effect as an example again:

You have the Hanar, jellyfish beings whose culture is incredibly complex and has insane layers of politeness to it.

256


This is interesting, foreign, and 100% non-humanoid without looking as "cartoony" as any of the Star Wars aliens.

The humanoid aliens also look better in that franchise, like the Turians and the Krogans (do Krogans count?)

425


Krogans look like a warrior race. They're not that humanoid other than being bipedal. They're not sleek and cool, per say, but the fact that they're basically walking tanks is very appealing in its own way.

Star Trek also does better.

I dunno, I guess it's the "goofiness" and the monster-esque designs that don't appeal to me

Again, I do realize this is all opinion so it's very biased commentary
 
UltraGashInferno

UltraGashInferno

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The best part of kotor is talking to a sloberring giant jellyfish squid thing who is just making slurp noises about a municipal kelp clean up. (then the worst part of kotor is doing the actual clean up)
 
Parch

Parch

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Nov 6, 2017
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Star Trek has a very different approach. Their philosophy is that you need to see an actors eyes and mouth for them to properly act. It's very difficult to have a Star Wars alien have a leading role when they have limited acting capabilities.
 
Dyle

Dyle

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They're supposed to look dumb, that's at least one third of the fun of Star Wars
 
jelly

jelly

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Oct 26, 2017
33,841
It's lingering from the OT for obvious reasons, it's what Star Wars looks like, cost and efficiency.

I do agree many are whatever but Star Wars is a particular thing.
 
HStallion

HStallion

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Oct 25, 2017
62,262
SolVanderlyn said:
Nah, not really, let me use Mass Effect as an example again:

You have the Hanar, jellyfish beings whose culture is incredibly complex and has insane layers of politeness to it.

256


This is interesting, foreign, and 100% non-humanoid without looking as "cartoony" as any of the Star Wars aliens.

The humanoid aliens also look better in that franchise, like the Turians and the Krogans (do Krogans count?)

425


Krogans look like a warrior race. They're not that humanoid other than being bipedal. They're not sleek and cool, per say, but the fact that they're basically walking tanks is very appealing in its own way.

Star Trek also does better.

I dunno, I guess it's the "goofiness" and the monster-esque designs that don't appeal to me
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Quarians are basically purple humans in gas masks and the Asari are even more on the nose. That and mentioning characters like Ashoka instantly lead me to think you just want your usual human actor with some extra prosthetics on their craniums. The Hanar are one of the few none bipedal species in ME and are barely in it. Even the Krogan are fairly typical scifi lizard people.
 
The Lord of Cereal

The Lord of Cereal

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Jan 9, 2020
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I mean I agree that most Star Wars aliens look stupid and cartoonish, but at the same time it's all part of the charm in my opinion, and it's cool seeing the aliens that all look different in various ways
 
PeskyToaster

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Oct 27, 2017
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Most of them are ugly background material because like 90% of them were introduced in the Mos Eisley Cantina or Jabba's Palace so they are supposed to be kind of shady and gross. But it's also fun to have weird alien designs. Who can to say how alien life would develop and why would it conform to your human standards for beauty or "coolness"? Not even every human shares those same standards.

Also Mass Effect has some cool designs but the major ones are just blue humans. The non-human looking ones are definitely heavily influenced by Star Wars which I would expect to be the case for any sort of space opera-y sc-fi.
 

Deleted member 35987

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Dec 12, 2017
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People killed Star Wars by treating it like a holy text. It's based on Flash Gordon cmon people.

You should check out some of the Star Trek aliens though
 
jph139

jph139

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The goofy puppet alien aesthetic is one of the best parts of Star Wars, I cannot co-sign this.
 
The Albatross

The Albatross

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to me that's some of the charm of the movies. The aliens have been incredibly varied and are presented "straight" (like not as a joke) and they look like great Jim henson type stuff from the 80s.

I'm glad they didn't go with super serious alien designs.
 
Glimlocker

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Mar 7, 2019
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I think most, not all, alien species in Star Wars are great.

When you think of it, they put a TON of different species in the universe. When you have that many species, some are bound to turn out a bit janky.

But, as others have said, that's part of the fun.

I will agree that the fact that are all bipedal is a bit nonsensical, though.
 
Coolluck

Coolluck

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Oct 27, 2017
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OP is a real specist.

But, seriously, for me there's so many different species that they can't all be winners when do many are intended to be window dressing. I like that there's a wide variety. It makes the world feel larger. There tends to be more effort put into the ones that are recurring characters.
 
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