Could you love a lizard? Could you even like one? I originally discussed this unseeming subject last year at www.blameitonthemuse.com, and thought I’d repost this on my new website.  I got some flack for responding to a fellow blogger’s subject of writing to your core. All I said was: What’s with the current trend in movies/television for technologically advanced aliens who look like mutant lizards, don’t wear clothing, grunt/squeal/roar like a cross between a stuck pig and a Tyrannosaurus Rex, and reproduce with the emotion of a fish?

Let’s review. Television series “V”, which died a quick death, had lizards in human skin plotting to steal earth’s resources while reproducing like frogs. Spielberg’s “Super 8” had a captured lizard with the strength of an uber back hoe, a spine tingling roar, and snacked on people legs. Humanoid lizards with four legs on TNT’s Fallen Sky has the vocabulary of dyslectic hog. “Alien’s and Cowboys” had lizards torturing humans to learn our weaknesses (it was a cool movie actually, and Olivia Wilde did look hot in human skin). At least in V, some traitorous lizards fall prey to human emotion and that learned love aint such a bad thing.

So what’s my problem? Key phrase, technologically advanced. It’s a multipurpose concept. How do we take our concept of a species noted for cold bloodedness and the occasional hermophroditic tendency (think self love, opposite sex not required), enlighten them with the gift of knowledge to build starships, heal disease, and still make them behave like … lizards? Oh, the SciFi crowd will argue incessant on the behavior diversity of aliens, but I like to think enlightenment came with a higher understanding of self, why we exist … our relationship with others. There will always be a bad guy, girl, hermophrodite, but not all of them. Speech should be more complex, not a potpourri of whistles, clicks and grunts. Doesn’t have to be the amorphic shape of ET, but they should think … and exude emotion like ET.

I miss Star Trek. Even Klingon’s got the hots for their love interest (okay, maybe they were a bit violent in their emotional outbursts). One movie in my memory captured the best of reptilian emotion, “Enemy Mine”. Autogamic reproduction aside, the alien convinced his fellow human Robinson Crusoe with his dying breath to care for his (her?) offspring. Babylon 5 gave their reptilian alien G’Kar a brain and a heart.

What’s next?  A male alien lizard, decked in his finest soldier vest, waiting for his orders to defend the homeland, stands before his soul mate. What could he say to have her wait for him, so he can be the father of her … um … eggs.

Please. Enough with the dinosauric roaring and emotional equivalent of a crocodile. And for God’s sake, give them a pair of pants.