Assignment #1

Many popular science fictions are inspired by the idea of extraterrestrial life, a life outside of the earth. The idea that there is creatures exist under alien conditions is advanced from Dawin’s theory of evolution.

“E.T.” directed by Steven Spielberg is one of the most well known films for extraterrestrial life. The movie is about a warm friendship between a lonely boy and a lost alien named E.T. The friendly appearance and personality of E.T. may not depict the truth of extraterrestrial life, but the humanized alien achieved to provoke audiences’ excitement and positive feeling about extraterrestrial life throughout the film. The alien life is simplified in the movie and following what most people typically think when they imagine it. E.T. came to the earth by UFO, and it communicates by using some sort of telepathy. E.T. can also use telekinesis to fly. These symbolic settings allow any audience, including me, to be drawn in the plot easily.

Although the film left me very warm feeling, I still feel threaten to think that there is other life exists outside of the earth. The scale of the idea is so huge that I feel overwhelmed. In fact, when I was a child, I used to be terrified to watch the NASA’s discoveries of extraterrestrials on a discovery channel. The provided monotone video was so real. An alien, which looked like a small human, was laid on the laboratory and surrounded by many recorders and equipment.

As technology has been advanced, science fictions became more descriptive and sophisticated. As “Avatar” attracted so many people, it’s obvious that Americans are even more fascinated by the concept of extraterrestrial life today. Science fictions should have a lot of humanities and should be entirely fiction in order to successfully entertain people. “E.T.” and “Avatar” contains human’s common emotions, such as love, friendship and grudge, so the audiences are able to feel connections although the characters look very alien to us. Even more importantly, the story should make people think that it would be impossible to happen, so that they don’t need to conflict their personal or religious beliefs.

Unlike science fictions, serious science may be difficult to capture many people.  Science terminology is difficult, and some concepts require some scientific backgrounds to understand. Besides, not every one is ready to know the fact. Knowing and understanding facts take so much energy because people may have to accept their unknowing or ignorance about life. This is especially difficult, as people became adults. Compared to children, adults are less motivated to learn about facts of life that don’t directly change their everyday lives.