If an alien civilization were to visit Earth, what movie would you pick to show them in order to give them a summary of what mankind is all about?

jonathanvmv8f@lemm.ee to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 177 points –
175

History of the world: part 1

I'm so disappointed there was never a part 2 made. That's one of my all-time favorite movies.

Guess what...

Wait...fuck my life...how did I now know about that?!

Ahhhhh fucking on Hulu goddamnit

There are... other sources. sea shanty starts playing faintly in the background

Stares wistfully into the distance.

It has been many years since I last took to the seas...

Aye, but ye cannae stay away for ever. The sea calls you home.

Schindler's List. Humans can be nasty, horrible, utterly evil. It's all too common. But some of us will work to do good. Some of us will push back and do what's right. There is evil in this world, but there is also goodness.

"Contact" for a similar reason. It's a mix of all motivations, along with people's general mistrust of each other.

Samsara for the same reason. It shows beauty mixed with terrifying images of human impact.

Koyaanisqatsi or Baraka, since I'm guessing they won't understand English nor indeed any human language.

I made the mistake of watching Baraka on 3gs of mushrooms.

I am a changed man.

300

Let them think humanity is 99% buff oily badasses in speedos who will gladly fuck you up until their dying breath.

The man from earth. That should confuse them.

Hey, Neptune! I'm the only other human to have seen that movie!

I wish there were more. I love it so much.

There is a sequel but it failed to capture the spirit of the first one. I think it used to be free on their website.

Also, when I watched it a few years back, they were working on a TV series but I am not sure if it ever got off the ground.

Somehow. They did make a sequel. That's what Wikipedia says.

I should re-watch it. It's been years.

Nonsense, I've seen it multiple times. It's a favorite of mine. A sequel on the other hand was, 'meh' at best.

By Jerome Bixby? It's my favorite movie. I have to watch that again soon

My autistic ass would have them watch all three Lord of the Rings movies. Y'all need to find a better diplomat than me.

Mean girls

On a Wednesday and make everyone wear pink, so the aliens feel ashamed for not wearing pink.

Avatar. We will destroy habitats to get what we want.

"Us too! Anyway, we're building this hyperspace bypass..."

"Its a bypass. You gotta build bypasses!"

The plans were filed with the local council ages ago, not our fault if you didn’t see them

Idiocracy.

Real answer though, 2001 a space odyssey.

Idiocracy was honestly my first thought, but they wouldn't have all the cultural nuance required to understand it. Someone else said Don't Look Up, which I think would get through the irrationality a bit better.

Haha 2001 was my first thought, and Idiocracy was my second.

Independence Day.

I'll tell them it was a documentary. Or at least based on a true story.

"Interesting! Tell us, where are these aliens with terrible cybersecurity? We were thinking of conquering you, but now it's pretty clear that there's an easier and wealthier target."

Just the entire Cunk on Earth series.

100% factual information about human history.

Shocked nobody's mentioned 'Mars Attacks.'

Orgasmo. The '97 one, not the '69 one. ... fuck it, also the '69 one. Make it a double-feature.

Don't Look Up

The depressing thing about that movie is that in some ways it was exaggerated like satire usually is, but in others they actually toned down the stupidity.

The premise is exaggerated, but the actions are clearly better than were handling things in real life.

The premise is exaggerated, and I'm not sure I buy that silicon valley is that influential, prepared or even reckless. However, the president in it is not nearly as out there as the real one she's based on, and the scene near near the end where someone looks up and the mob turns on her was damn near immersion-breaking.

In real life, they would have at best dissipated and tried to pretend they were never there, or at worst beat up the guy that saw it because it's a trick and he must be in on it. Mobs are not capable of humility of any kind, and cease to exist the moment it's forced on them; that's like mob psychology 101.

You should show them my latest movie that I can't promote right now.

They would be so confused, it would be hilarious.

Life in a Day

Not a movie exactly, creators asked some basic questions and invited people to submit footage from a single day in July 2010. Exciting or mundane, anything.

It’s really well put together and always gives me a refreshed perspective on my place in the world.

They did it again in 2020, during the pandemic.

Baraka... but they'd be 30 years out of sync with today :-)

I feel like it stood the test of time. Was my top pick with Idiocracy being a close second.

Obviously the complete Stargate franchise. Humans don't put up with aliens tryin' to pull any shit.

Doctor Zhivago. And when they inevitably fall asleep. I’m jacking that Ufo.

Obviously the greatest documentary ever committed to film: The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension.

I just came here to upvote every "Idiocracy" comment

Napoleon dynamite pretty much sums it up. I intensely dislike the film but it's pretty indicative of the human condition.

Letting them know what mankind is all about seems like a terrible idea. We're jerks.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) - Literally telling aliens that we will fuck shit up.

Stalker (1979) - You can leave your garbage and we'll think it's treasure.

Dude, Where's My Car? (2000) - Humanity is really just a bunch of idiots, stumbling through everything.

Double Feature: Ender's Game (2013) and Starship Troopers (1997) - then we serve them a sumptuous shellfish tower to discuss their surrender over dinner.

Ender's Game was such a pile of shit (FYI, I love the book) even the anti-grav tag sequence couldn't absolve it. Swap it for District 9 and you're closer to the target - especially with the fookin' prawn dish.

I thought the movie did a decent job of telling the story considering the limitations of the medium.

According to the author many studios have approached him over the years with unacceptable alterations and that one was the first one to come along with anything good enough.

He said it had to be literally children, first of all, and they always wanted to change that.

Whatever was "good enough" to get him to sign for that check clearly didn't make it to the screen.

Yeah, let them read the book and tell them that sadly no movie has ever been made.

Fun fact: I have watched none of the movies listed here in the comments

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

“The Final Member”

It’s a documentary about the worlds first penis museum in Iceland trying to finally secure a human specimen

https://youtu.be/sZMaheZ_Iy0?si=SCIxh2weymwp3AOk

According to Salman Rushdie, he and Carrie Fisher tried to buy Napoleon's penis from the estate of a dentist from New Jersey who'd recently died with it in his collection.

Nobody has mentioned porn. We try and say things in our great works of art but maybe they'd learn more from what we make when we're trying to say nothing at all.

Cloud Atlas

Oooh! I think that's my favourite so far. It would introduce several eras including the ones we only envision in our future, and would introduce a number of concepts about myths, stories and social structures.

Fellowship, two towers, return of the king. Tell them it's one movie showing how the littlest person can make the biggest difference.

Really?

I mean, a person can make another person's day, sure!

But on real big societal issues? Gooooood luck. I'm waiting on Frodo to level the rich poor divide, to stop wars, and to stop and reverse climate change, but he's crying in a pillow

Someone just needs to throw Elon Musk's hyperloop in to the fires of a volcano.

Throw musk after it while you're at it (no, not suggesting or advocating violence against him). Still though, it would solve just one amongst so so so many issues that it would be a drop in a bucket.

Rocco's Animal Trainer #3.

Schindler's list. Yeah aliens. It's like that. Go ahead and end us thx.

I mean best is USSR's 1965 Triumph Over Violence, directed by Romm

Charlie Chaplin Modern Times

An interesting choice, but they'd be pretty mislead about how our economy works 90 years on.

L'Arroseur Arrosé. That will show them not to block the sunlight with their ship.

(It would also show them our love for beauty, aour dependency on water, sense of humour and sense for justice.)

Teaching them our sense for justice worries me. Either they understand we can police ourselves or they start holding us accountable for wrongdoings under their legal system with no warning, assuming we'll understand.

Brazil.

Great photography. Great actors good sets. Relatable charachters. And it perfectly encapsulates the curent trends of the world.

Scary Movie 3

If you know what i mean 😉

Something meaningful from Robin Williams. The Fisher King comes to mind.

Mishima: A Life in Four Parts Playtime Aguirre, the Wrath of God Koyaanisqatsi Enter The Void Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? Once Upon a Time in the West

And just for shits

Visitor Q

Aliens or Predator both have our beautiful military boys and girls getting got by our alien overlords.