MovieChat Forums > Color Out of Space (2020) Discussion > What did the aliens want? (Spoilers)

What did the aliens want? (Spoilers)

posted 4 years ago by RichardBlaine (303)
6 replies | jump to latest

It was never really clear. Just to kill an earth family and then go on their way? Kind of like an interstellar drive-by shooting? We never really find out anything at all about the aliens. I suspect they were supposed to be scary, but, to me, they were just too far out there. I couldn't tell whether they were coming or going. Things based on reality are, of course, much scarier, as any good horror filmmaker knows. You get far enough from reality and things just start looking silly.

And what was with the subplot about the water reservoir, with the mayor and all of that?

I began thinking the film was maybe supposed to be some kind of allegory about pollution or something. Dunno. I'm grasping at straws.

Can anyone give me a hand here?

[–] SWLinPHX (245) 4 years ago

Watch "Dark Waters" with Mark Ruffalo. Same theme but more realistic.

[–] Ace_Spade (9334) 4 years ago

It's based off of Lovecraft. I haven't read the particular story, but Lovecraft's whole deal was that there are these things that are beyond our ken and rip our minds apart just experiencing them and the cosmos are cold, and bleak, and filled with existential dread, and our own insignificance, and soul-rending horror. The aliens don't have a clear motivation because everything about them would be, to us, complete, incomprehensible gibberish.

Water was a major theme of the movie and became the haven of the whatever it/they were that piggybacked on the meteor.

Lovecraft often makes his stories about the Cosmic Other and the terror that accompanies gazing into that infinite abyss. So, I'd say that's what it's about. It's about the uncanny and an encounter with it.

If you want to read some environmentalism stuff in there, go for it.

[–] Ace_Spade (9334) 4 years ago

This might help:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OTO7Rqln9Q

[–] ChipDouglas (1602) 2 years ago

Yes! I have watched this a few times and it completely helped my understanding of movies I had seen in the past. Made me go back and re-watch some of them.

The video is a great suggestion Ace

[–] Ace_Spade (9334) 2 years ago

Thanks!

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

The meteorite contained some sort of DNA altering light or substance which affected life around ground zero until it eventually died from maybe being in the wrong atmosphere. Then it left only dust behind. I don't think there was any alien with ill intentions. The black guy wasn't exposed long enough to change dramatically like the others.

*This is my interpretation as someone who hasn't read the short story or know HP Lovecraft.