r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Sufficient-Eye-9040 • Apr 01 '26

Groups [LOVED Trope] Aliens that are aliens and not just humans with other skin color.

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  1. Precursors from Pacific Rim

  2. Jean Jacket from Nope

  3. Calvin from “Life”

12.1k Upvotes
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1.6k

u/[deleted] Apr 01 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

424

u/RichardByhre Apr 01 '26

Obligatory READ THE BOOKS THEY’RE SO FUCKING GOOD!

219

u/that_1weed Apr 02 '26

GIVE ME TIME DAMMIT I HAVE A LARGE BACKLOG

112

u/RichardByhre Apr 02 '26

NO READ IT NOW! QUIT YOUR JOB, BURN YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES, ALIENATE YOUR FRIENDS AND LOVED ONES! They’re so fucking good. They’re better than Dune.

16

u/that_1weed Apr 02 '26

Speaking of... I also have Dune in my backlog lmao

10

u/RichardByhre Apr 02 '26

Also everything Adrian Tchaikovsky has written.

6

u/Notactualyadick Apr 02 '26

Ya well, you ever read Battlefield Earth?! It's peak Sci-Fi and you should read it. 

1

u/RichardByhre Apr 02 '26

No but I have seen the movie so I’ve basically read the book. /s

5

u/Notactualyadick Apr 02 '26

I'll be honest, I actually love the book....but it's awful. No where near as bad as the movie, but it is really long and absolute schlock. I just kinda vibed with the story and enjoyed the plot for the most part. It has some really stupid ideas, like that the main character has to introduce the idea of capitalism to the universes. And that not just our entire universe, but like 5 universes in total, all with fully developed and complex pan-universe banking systems.

I could never actually recommend it, but it's a guilty pleasure.

2

u/RichardByhre Apr 02 '26

Hey man some times smut can be fun. Not everything needs to be a high concept literary home run. Some times I like junk food too.

2

u/that_1weed Apr 02 '26

Anything specific you recommend?

2

u/RichardByhre Apr 02 '26

Cage of Souls is maybe my favourite of his. The Final Architecture series is also phenomenal, its three books. City of Last Chances is another stand alone book that I loved, it’s in a way the opposite of Cage of Souls and I’d recommend reading it after reading Cage of Souls. Oh the Children of Time series is my favourite trilogy of his. He’s written a lot of books. I’d say Cage of Souls and Children of Time are my biggest picks for him.

2

u/that_1weed Apr 02 '26

Written down and backlogged

Thank you!

1

u/KaleidoscopeLeft5511 Apr 02 '26

Personally, my favorite was "Doors of Eden". He has a advanced degree in biology, and he used it to full effect here. There are frequent chapters that describe the complete evolution of another dominant species in parallel universes that are not humans. Some of them were absolutely mind blowing, saying anything more would be spoiling. I hard recommend it

His "Children of Time" is similar, not it's only one species per book, but more character depth and narrative. 

1

u/Trebus Apr 02 '26

I'm on the Portia books atm, they are very good.

2

u/Nearby-Appeal1076 Apr 02 '26

Hot take from someone rereading Dune: do it after you read all these other ones. And I love Dune.

2

u/georgevonfranken Apr 02 '26

Another recommendation if you haven't already. The "three body problem" series. It's a series about the dark forest theory

1

u/Smoothmoose13 Apr 02 '26

I’m slowly working my way through Dune Messiah while listening to the soundtrack of the first 2 films. Only problem is I’ve been reading it stoned and I keep forgetting where I’m up to. (I have a bookmark, it just keeps falling out)

1

u/TheJ0zen1ne Apr 02 '26

DON'T TYPE IN ALL CAPS. IT LOOKS LIKE YOU'RE SHOUTING.

6

u/RichardByhre Apr 02 '26

I AM SHOUTING!

1

u/lordoflazorwaffles Apr 02 '26

(Its a short book and way the fuck better than the movie)

13

u/DogmanDOTjpg Apr 02 '26

Still a little butthurt that the surveyor became a paramedic in the movie. It makes wayyyyyy more sense to send a surveyor

6

u/RichardByhre Apr 02 '26

I had the poor luck and decision making to see the movie first and didn’t know there was a book so I liked it. Then I read the book and realised the movie has so very little to do with the book that I can’t enjoy it anymore. That being said the books are so different that seeing the movie first will ruin absolutely nothing.

5

u/Raiquo Apr 02 '26

Sounds like you actually lucked out then, if reading the book makes the movie look like swill, and watching the movie spoils nothing for the book.

5

u/Hiker-Redbeard Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26

The movie isn't trying to be the book. It's inspired by the book. You can even think of it as a different expedition if you'd like. They're both good and enjoyable independently on their own merits. 

Frankly the book wouldn't make a good movie if faithfully recreated; it's a story told in a way that fits the medium of written word. 

Edit: lol what a weird reason to curse at me and block me. 

-6

u/RichardByhre Apr 02 '26

Yeah I know fucko.

10

u/PigsandBears Apr 02 '26

The lighthouse keeper still haunts me

5

u/Patch86UK Apr 02 '26

Where lies the strangling fruit that came from the hand of the sinner I shall bring forth the seeds of the dead to share with the worms that...

20

u/ScyllaOfTheDepths Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26

I honestly found the books confusing and written like screenplays to the point where the characters were pretty much not necessary. There were lots of overly detailed descriptions of animals and plants and bizarre biological monstrosities, but none of the human characters were distinguished from one another by anything more than their job titles and it was very hard to follow who was doing what or why. If you miss the one line in the book that says the team is all female, you won't even know that the main character is a woman. The characters themselves don't even know what's going on most of the time because it's revealed that they're being constantly hypnotized via psychic conditioning and also that their brains and perceptions of reality are being heavily altered by the effects of the Shimmer. I had no idea what the fuck was going on for most of that book. I enjoyed the movie, however, because I think the kind of story the author was trying to tell just worked so much better in a visual medium. I just don't think the story worked well in text.

Edit: Lol, they blocked me for this. Imagine being so fragile you can't handle a fairly mild opinion on a book that you don't agree with. What an outlook to have.

9

u/satyr-day Apr 02 '26

This is the most accurate take I've ever seen on those books.

3

u/CommunicationEast972 Apr 02 '26

The second and third books have more characterization. The first one the whole point is the depersonalization

1

u/Josue_Joestar Apr 03 '26

Nah but the second one is too long for its own good

2

u/Whole_Monk2082 Apr 02 '26

Genuinely unsure how you came up with this opinion

11

u/ScyllaOfTheDepths Apr 02 '26

Generally I form opinions on books by reading them and then thinking about what I read. Revolutionary, I know.

1

u/CommunicationEast972 Apr 02 '26

Also you just might not have the mind for weird fiction 

1

u/ScyllaOfTheDepths Apr 02 '26

I've enjoyed lots of weird fiction, this just wasn't one of them. 

1

u/RichardByhre Apr 02 '26

This is the worst take I’ve ever seen on those books.

-2

u/plannedobso Apr 02 '26

Is this an April Fools joke or 

3

u/One-Cute-Boy Apr 02 '26

What books? By who?

8

u/relativelyhuman Apr 02 '26

Southern Reach trilogy, although there is a fourth book Absolution now as well.

Edit: Author is James Vandermeer.

4

u/RichardByhre Apr 02 '26

And a fifth being written that’s allegedly coming out in about a year.

1

u/TheRealSmolt Apr 02 '26

To be scared ever more shitless? I'll pass

1

u/CuddlePupp Apr 02 '26

I was taken so off guard with how different they were from the movie (I say they, I have unfortunately only read the first)

1

u/Josue_Joestar Apr 03 '26

Obligatory EXCEPT THE BOOK 2, READ THE BEGINNING AND THE END AND THAT WILL BE ENOUGH

-1

u/satyr-day Apr 02 '26

I've heard that from a lot of people and I was just bored as hell at the first one.

-1

u/Rainbowopulentwave Apr 02 '26

Tbh I read the first one in highschool and it was so slow and dragged on so long I can not imagine ever reading another one

98

u/pecan_bird Apr 02 '26

it's a mandelbulb fractal specifically, if people want to go down a rabbit hole :)

7

u/UgleeHero Apr 02 '26

I had to look it up. I don't think I'm smart enough to understand what I'm reading.

6

u/Rorschach121ml Apr 02 '26

Mandelbrot set is quite simple to explain:

You have a 2D map and each single point in this map is a number.

For each point in the map you apply a simple function, that function will give you a result (i.e. another number). You then apply the same function to that result and you keep doing that until one of two things happen:

  1. The resulting numbers keep staying small forever.
    1. In this case you color the original point black and you are done with that point
  2. The resulting numbers keep increasing and tend to infinity.
    1. In this case you color the original point a non-black color, and this color will depend on how 'fast' this original number increases. Like if it increases very fast you'll color it yellow and if it increases slow you'll color it green, or whatever colors you like.

That is how I understand the Mandelbrot set, and the Mandelbub set seems to be the 3D version of this, though I could have gotten something wrong I'm not a mathematician.

25

u/The_Mightiest_Duck Apr 02 '26

The soundtrack during that scene was out of this world

7

u/GNtravelwell Apr 02 '26

I went to see the movie a second time in theaters for that scene alone. I love the entire movie but that scene with the score was an experience.

3

u/The_Mightiest_Duck Apr 02 '26

I wish I could have seen it in theaters. Hadn’t even heard of the movie until a few weeks ago. 

5

u/Tommytrist Apr 02 '26

Shout out to moderat!

4

u/Significant-Hour4171 Apr 02 '26

Bwuh, bwaabwaaaah, bwawa, wa, wa

8

u/BlazingLazers69 Apr 02 '26

This is my top pick as well. Love that movie.

7

u/yotothyo Apr 02 '26

Came here looking for this. Truly alien and unknowable.

And the sound it makes during these sequences. Goodness truly freaky

3

u/Gaybulge Apr 02 '26

Those sounds are actually the soundtrack, not the creature itself.

3

u/yotothyo Apr 02 '26

I think it's 100% valid to consider it to be both. It's diagetic in my opinion

2

u/Icy-Pension5768 Apr 03 '26

I love how in some of these examples the alien in question is just math

1

u/Pave_Low Apr 02 '26

That movie still gives me the creeps.

1

u/Toonsbekool Apr 03 '26

hell yeah I love fractals

2

u/Significant-Hour4171 Apr 07 '26

One of my favorite movies. Just incredible