Some aliens in pop culture are friendly, like E.T. or ALF. Other times, aliens prove to be the enemy. Or, on occasion, both enemy and friend. Action films, horror films, and even stories from other genres will showcase a fight featuring aliens. Who doesn’t like a good fight scene? Add extraterrestrials into the mix, and things are kicked up a notch. These are our favorite alien fight scenes. Also, given a chance, we would have fought ALF.
Alien is a gripping horror movie, but the sequel Aliens from Jim Cameron is much more action-heavy. The epic fight between Ellen Ripley highlights this, played memorably by Sigourney Weaver, making use of a cargo loader exosuit to square off with the Xenomorph Queen.
In a way, every fight in the Star Wars franchise involves aliens, as even the “human” characters are not from Earth. However, we figured we would look to the Battle of Endor in Return of the Jedi. It involves the Ewoks, and those furry little dudes are more alien than, say, Luke Skywalker.
Not every alien in Men in Black wants a fight. The Bug definitely does, though. Eventually, Kay and Jay track him down, and Kay has to undertake quite the gamble to take the Bug down. Kay allows himself to be swallowed whole by the giant space cockroach to swim through his innards, find his gun, and blow a hole through the Bug to escape.
Will Smith was quite busy fighting aliens for a couple of years there. Much of the fighting in Independence Day is of the dogfight variety, but of course, this is also the iconic moment when Smith punches an alien in the face and says, “Welcome to Earth!”
In Shaun of the Dead , Edgar Wright did his twist on a zombie film. He completed his trilogy ( Hot Fuzz being in the middle) with a horror comedy of the alien invasion variety. While the heroes of The World’s End aren’t necessarily the most adept fighters, they manage to hold their own in a pub brawl with a bunch of the “Blanks."
Well, to call it a “fight” in Mars Attacks! is maybe a stretch. At one point, the military tries its hand at squaring off with the invading Martians, but to no avail. What ends up working is yodeling, which blasted through speakers causes the Martians' big, brainy heads to explode. It’s all of a piece with Tim Burton’s caustic, irreverent comedy.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is teeming with aliens. Avengers: Endgame involves the biggest fight scene in the history of the MCU. That includes a variety of aliens, of course, from Thor to Thanos to assorted members of the Guardians of the Galaxy.
Superman is pretty powerful, obviously. Giving him a fair fight can be tricky and usually involves the inconvenient arrival of Kryptonite in Superman’s life. In Superman II, though, the Man of Steel is fighting some fellow Kryptonians, including General Zod.
Cameron is up to it again, this time with his film that became the highest-grossing movie in history. Avatar features humans invading Pandora, leaving the Na’vi — plus Jake Sully, who has taken to the Na’vi — to fight them for the planet's future.
The Chiodo Brothers were primarily special effects artists, but they once wrote and directed a film. That was Killer Klowns from Outer Space. This sci-fi horror comedy is knowingly goofy, and it delivers what the title promises. People are fighting with Killer Klowns from Outer Space at different times, and each time it is memorable.
Audrey II says it himself: He’s a mean, green mother from outer space. The blood-craving plant eventually gets pushback from Seymour, who is able to best the plantlike alien at the end of the film. This is different from the stage version of the musical, where Audrey II wins.
Prey, the recent Predator prequel, got a lot of love, but we will go back to the original for fight scenes. After all, it’s a classic ‘80s action flick featuring the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jesse Ventura, and Carl Weathers.
Whoever wins, we lose. Is Alien vs. Predator a good film? No, not really, but it is a truly epic matchup. Other than when Freddy faced off with Jason, no film has set two villainous characters against one another quite like Alien vs. Predator. At the very least, we were interested in seeing them battle.
Through the films and TV series, the world of Star Trek is filled with fights with aliens. We will go back to the show's original version from the ‘60s for this list to honor where it all started. Let’s go with when Captain Kirk fought the reptilian Gorn.
A cult favorite of the 1990s, Babylon 5 has an assortment of humans and alien races working together and fighting against each other. This led to some classic battles in this serialized “space opera,” naturally. One of the most memorable fight scenes is when the ship The White Star and a ship for the mysterious group known as the Shadows have a dogfight within the gas planet Jupiter.
In the spinoff of James Gunn’s Suıcide Squad film, we find out a butterfly-like race of aliens has been overtaking human bodies. The show is gory and violent from the get-go, and there are many examples of fight scenes from Peacemaker. When Peacemaker and the crew show up at the aliens’ hideout to try and put an end to them is particularly good and, of course, quite bloody.
The Nickelodeon cartoon Invader Zim was interesting because the titular character was an antihero — an alien on a mission to conquer Earth. Zim repeatedly fails, of course. An assortment of fights ensue. Some involve throwing rubber pig toys through a time warp.
Teen Titans Go! is rife with absurd cartoon violence, though all the group members are not aliens. Starfire is an alien, and she gets in on the fighting, including at times fighting Beetlejuice or a legally-distinct version of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Or, on occasion, Starfire shoots laser blasts at her Teen Titan compatriots like Robin and Raven.
By and large, the aliens who masquerade as the Solomon family don’t fight. Then, there’s the big Super Bowl blowout episode. Venusians, in the guise of models such as Cindy Crawford and Angie Everhart, have come to Earth to overtake the planet. Eventually, this culminates in a fight between the Solomons and the Venusians, all surrounding the Super Bowl.
We can’t necessarily point toward a specific fight on Space Ghost Coast to Coast. However, time and time again, Space Ghost would blast his nemesis/bandleader Zorak. There is also always the threat of being spanked smartly with his spank ray. Basically, in every episode, Space Ghost fights somebody, for better or worse.
Chris Morgan is a sports and pop culture writer and the author of the books The Comic Galaxy of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and The Ash Heap of History. You can follow him on Twitter @ChrisXMorgan.
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