Hollywood Riot

Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.

- Han Solo, Captain of the Millennium Falcon.

Han’s got a point. While the entire Star Wars saga revolves around the very idea that a hokey religion and an ancient weapon are, in fact, more than a match for a blaster, the Force isn’t very applicable in real life. At least, not in the original sense. Next time you’re pulled over, try waving your hands around in the cop’s face, whispering “You will let me go” like a drunk magician and see what happens. Seriously, do it. You never know, he might find it funny and choose to ignore the dead hooker in your backseat.

Using the Force would be bad ass, but the downside is you have to be a celibate monk in order to master it. With that said, you can stop being jealous of the following alien accomplishments as well:

X-Ray Vision  

Now that Lois had a full mastectomy at age 29, we can definitely argue that Supes’ X-Ray vision causes the cancer. We also know Superman is a giant perv who can’t keep his goddamn radioactive eyes off Ms. Lane’s ample human lady lumps. 

Teleportation

Would you have been the first patient to sign up for a trial run at Lasik eye surgery? How about teleportation? It looks great on Star Trek, but they never talk about the hundreds of lab chimps who were eviscerated while testing early prototypes. No, no, it’s all “Beam me up, Scotty!” and perfect molecular reorganization on TV. Well, imagine what it feels like to have your head beamed down to Venus and your torso beamed up to a Kuiper Belt object. Thanks, but I’m taking the stairs.

A Mother Ship

Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket. While having a mother ship carries few advantages, it’s a giant bulls-eye target we humans find irresistible. Case in point: Independence Day. The invader’s mother ship was a quarter of the mass of the moon, and was used to launch dozens of fifteen mile-wide destroyer crafts to Earth. We’re not sure if it’s a case of underestimating your enemy or simply bad writing, but if that movie taught us anything it’s to always keep your mother ship’s sensitive computer components well-protected behind a hardy firewall. You know, just in case Jeff Goldblum is floating around with a Bluetooth-enabled Mac and a nasty virus. OK, it is simply bad writing. But still, give us shaved apes a little bit of credit and assume we’ve read The Art of War.

Telepathy

Space evolution rocks. Through the magic of telepathy, Mother Nature figured out a way for intelligent beings to communicate without the hassle of hand signals or saliva, but it’s not without costs. The whole mind control possibility alone gives ample food for thought. Why, you wouldn’t be able to trust your own brother, and that sucks. A set of vocal cords would be nice, that’s all I’m saying. I’m not expecting Mr. Martian to enunciate perfectly, but if they want to live in America then they should learn to speak English… at least as well as the aliens currently working at my local Jack in the Box.

Anything the Garbage Pail Kids can do

What, you didn’t know they came to Earth in a spacefaring garbage can? Did you miss the seminal 1987 film or the piles of trading cards or were you too busy collecting real things like stamps and butterflies to notice? Well, the GPK are disgusting alien children with names like Windy Winston and Bony Tony. They actually represent everything that was awesome about the 80s, but unless you’re four years old, the fantasy of an endless supply of fart powder and vomit juice is just not feasible. You’d piss off too many of your co-workers, for one.

Ah, forget your co-workers. We’ll let dirty Superman give the busty gals boob tumors and Scotty can beam the boss’ entrails to Sea World (Shamu loves intestines). The remaining co-workers go under mind control and you can then easily transform the company into a multinational conglomerate worth billions, puking and picking your nose the whole time. Hmm, these are great powers to have if you’re evil….

Just remember to protect your mother ship.

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It’s hard to imagine anything cooler than a real, live intergalactic space alien. Having said that, some aliens are definitely cooler than others. (Just like Hollywood Riot readers are way cooler than people who read TMZ or this website.)

Some aliens you’d want to invite to a BBQ and some you’d rather freeze for research. Here’s a list of the aliens I’d most like to split a bottle of tequila with. And no, you will not find Jar Jar Binks on this list.

10. ALF A.L.F. (Alien Life Form) was a saucy little guy. He resembled a puppet more than a space alien, but that just added to his charm. He was always getting into some kind of hilarious mischief. And he had more one-liners than Rodney Dangerfield.

9. Predator Alien vs Predator? Please. Everyone knows Predator is way cooler. Between the dreadlocks and that beaker of acid, this guy’s got it going on.

8. The Coneheads What could be better than an alien that looked and sounded like Dan Akroyd?

7. ET He may not be cool, per say, but he’s very sweet and he’s got a glowing finger that makes plants grow. Do you have a glowing finger that makes plants grow? I didn’t think so.

6. Thundercats Snarf, in particular, was very cool. Snaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrfffff! These aliens also had a surprisingly catchy theme song. Thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder CATS! It just wreaked of coolness.

5. Ewoks What’s not to love here? You can’t understand what they’re saying, but you don’t need to because you know they know what’s up. They’re cute like E.T but they can kick some major ass, too. Totally awesome.

4. The Electric Grandmother Okay, she was more of an android, but whatever. That bitch was cool. She poured orange juice out of her finger. Orange juice! Out of her finger! Totally rad.

3. Chewbacca Chewy is the man. Tough, but tender, this furry, foreign Bigfoot would be a total blast to hang with. Imagine walking into the bar with Chewbacca. It would have to be done in slow motion it would be so cool.

2. The Apes (Planet of the Apes) Are these guys cool? Hell yes. They’re just not very friendly. But you’ve gotta admit, we kind of deserve the cold shoulder.

1. Yoda Number one he is. I am not anticipating any argument here. Yoda is, and will always be, the absolute coolest alien of all time.

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The U.K. is coming clean about its unidentified flying past. This week, British authorities made public their version of “X-Files.” Any account of UFO sightings and/or abductions on U.K. territory since records of such things were taken seriously enough to write down are here. Some are crazy, others are downright creepy. This week, the Riot is going to examine a few files of interest. Among the most sensational is the Rendlesham Forest case.

According to the recently declassified documents:

“A report from Lt.Col Charles Halt on 13th January 1981 tells how on the night of December 27th security patrolmen spotted odd lights above the forest. They saw the lights plunge down and went to investigate. In the forest they found a triangular shaped object 9ft long by 6ft high hovering above the ground. The object had a pulsing red light on top with blue lights underneath.

According to the patrolmen a white light coming from the UFO illuminated the whole forest. The object suddenly took off and flew away. Other airmen on the base also saw the lights. Investigators studying the site where the craft landed found three depressions in a triangular shape. A radar reading spiked at each depression.”

The Rendlesham Forest incident is one of the best documented, most significant, and most credible military encounters with a UFO. Other strange lights in the sky were witnessed over the course of four days. Rendlesham Forest is a large pine forest near two NATO air bases, RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge. At the time, both bases were being leased to the U.S. Air Force.

Did the British cops run into a stealth bomber prototype, or did they see a real-deal space cruiser?

Draw your own conclusions, but I’ll leave you with this quote from one of the men who witnessed the craft:

Airman (later Sergeant) John Burroughs insisted ‘I do not now whether this was some kind of machine under intelligent control or a fantastic natural phenomenon - some rare kind of energy. What I do know is that it was nothing mundane. There are no words that can adequately describe the wonder of what we saw.”   

More Alien Week Posts:

The Vatican Greenlights Aliens

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All you Catholic UFO spotters out there, rejoice! The Vatican has just blessed us with more infinite wisdom. Oh, joyous day. Hallefreakinlujah. I love when one of those old, out-of-touch men give a speech. Especially when it’s about…

Wait for it… wait for it… aliens! That’s right - the Vatican is encouraging us to believe in, and love, our alien brothers! No, not illegal aliens - space aliens. As in outer space. For reals.

Finally, they’ve said something that makes sense!

Check out this quote (you can’t make this shit up):

In an interview published Tuesday by Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, Funes says that such a notion (space aliens) “doesn’t contradict our faith” because aliens would still be God’s creatures.

The interview was headlined “The extraterrestrial is my brother.” [WTF?] Funes said that ruling out the existence of aliens would be like “putting limits” on God’s creative freedom.

“Like putting limits on God’s creative freedom?” I thought limits were the Vatican’s bag, baby. They do nothing but put limits on, well, everybody’s freedom. No sex, no birth control, no divorce, no lust, no greed, no coveting, no same-sex love… NO FUN.

I’m wondering, though, what would happen if these aliens turn out to be lusty drunks who use birth control, have abortions, eat meat on Friday, and are hopelessly vain? Will the Vatican still be singing their praises? What if our “Extraterrrestrial Brothers?” don’t eat Reeses Pieces or let us dress them up in doll clothes? What if they’d rather incinerate us than phone home? Or worse, what if they’re (gasp!) gay?

Oh right - the old “you’ll burn in hell” trick. Blah, blah, blah… I have a feeling if there are aliens out there, they’re smarter than to fall for that tired gag.

I guess we could just ask Pope Benedict XVI - I’m pretty sure he’s an alien himself. I mean, look at that bulbous head and those bulging eyes. Isn’t he like 145 years old? A human being could never live that long - it’s impossible. Impossible I say!

Let’s put an end to all this wondering, shall we? Let’s open the X Files. What do you think - are aliens good Catholics? Or will they be a disgrace to the Church? Will those kooky Vaticanians rue the day they invited aliens to the table?

I don’t know about you, but all this alien talk has me fired up for some interstellar action. Let’s let our UFO flags fly, people! Join the Riot this week as we explore reports of strange lights in the night, alien encounters, and anal popes probes. Basically, we’re gonna get all extraterrestrial on your ass. And maybe even in it.

Earth to Xenu…

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OK, it’s official- TIME and CNN have done lost their minds. Before Dick Cheney could even begin to imagine a way to take advantage of his evil weather experiment the cyclone in Myanmar, these two wacko news outlets roll with a whopper of a headline:

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Whoa! What the hell? The survivors are lucky the brutal junta controlling their nation is finally starting to let aid workers in. Nobody wants to invade you, Myanmar, trust us. Don’t listen to TIME or CNN. Let those planes in!!

To TIME and CNN: shut the hell up. Who asked you, Dick Cheney? Seriously, cover the news and report it and go home. Your airy suggestion to invade Myanmar is ridiculously infuriating. The U.S. spent $5 million per day as our military helped the tsunami victims a few years back, which really improved the situation. That relatively paltry figure doesn’t even come close to how much we’re spending on gasoline consumption alone in Iraq each day, so invading a country is neither easy nor cheap. Like we did in Bosnia and elsewhere, the U.S. and International Red Cross should just ignore the junta and air drop shipments of food and aid in. Even if half of it is confiscated by the military, it would provide some relief while a better resolution is worked out.

If we send the rest of our Marines storming in, that messed up Myanmar government will prop up their poor civilians with fake guns and we’ll end up shooting the very people we are trying to help. That will lead to some other radical group (The Myanmar Militia or Burmese Roaring Tigers or whatever) to spring up and start attacking the invaders (U.S.). What are we left with? Another un-winnable war in some foreign land.

Of course, this all changes the moment someone discovers oil there. Then, naturally, we invade the shit out of Myanmar. And if that happens, my theories on Dick Cheney’s weather machine will gain some serious traction.

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