Movies spend entirely too much time on alien fish-out-of-water stories, and not enough time on how the extraterrestrial visitors got here. NO MORE. Today we pay tribute to the coolest shots of alien landings, both the amazingly good and the "so good it's bad."
Here is our list of some of the best shots of alien ships landing on Earth from the movies.
Man Who Fell To Earth (1976)
David Bowie plumets to Earth, looking for water in all the wrong places.
The Last Starfighter (1984)
The ultimate landing showoff. Alex Rogan, teen gamer and intergalactic ass kicker lands his giant Gunstar in the middle of his trailer park. Double wide? More like DOUBLE SPACESHIP, BITCH.
The Thing (1982)
Everyone forgets the flailing space ship in the beginning of John Carpenter's Thing. But it's the out-of-control mannerism of this disc that lends itself to the myth of the alien. We will never know what the creature looks like, because this bastard killed all of the people aboard.
Earth Girls Are Easy (1988)
The softest of landings, next to the loveliest of ladies. If only the skies would continue to rain horny alien men.
Garbage Pail Kids The Movie (1987)
We included this because it's the absolute worst. The Garbage Pail Kids travel the stars in a human shaped garbage bin with boosters on the bottom. OOOook.
Slither (2006)
James Gunn's film follows an asteroid (not technically a ship, but still) that appears ready to just rocket the crust of our planet. Only to have it avoid detection completely from a couple of country cops (including Nathan Fillion).
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Absolutely stunning. To this day, no landing has been able to challenge it.
Independence Day (1996)
Sure they were just hovering in the atmosphere, but for every silly thing Roland Emmerich has put in his movies, the rolling cloud cover spaceship reveal in Independence Day is still glorious.
Starman (1984)
The wackiest of all spaceship pick-ups, ever.
The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951)
An alien lands in the President's yard slowly, deliberately, and then reveals an ultimatum. To this day this scene still gives us goosebumps.
The Day The Earth Stood Still (2008)
Same landing, with twice the cool — but half the suspense and intrigue. And none of the intellect.
District 9 (2009)
The a dirty twist on the tradition, the "prawns" unintentionally force the humans to fly up and help them. It's the first time someone took the majestic alien landing and covered it with fecal matter. And yet, it's still so ridiculously gorgeous.
Green Lantern (2011)
Abin Sur crash lands his beautiful ship into the side of a hill. With his ship went our dreams for this movie. Still, the landing and subsequent death were both pretty great.
Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
Classic.
Mars Attacks! (1996)
A cartoony approach to the classic. Tim Burton made the comic book renderings of a Martian attack reality, right down to the orange and green t-shirted masses that lined the claw-like feet of the spaceship.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
These little aliens can build one hell of a beautiful ship.
Battle LA
The throw-you-in-the-middle-of-it landing. We didn't really get to see the water stealing aliens descend slowly, instead they plummeted in, and just started shooting us all to hell.
What did we miss? I know we missed something, please please load images or videos in the comments. We want this to be massive in the end!