Terrible Special Effects In Popular Alien Movies

Aliens have served many different purposes in films throughout the years. Klaatu in The Day the Earth Stood Still helped show what it might take for humans to band together and face an unknown foreign threat. The xenomorphs of Alien show just how frightening and deadly those threats could be. District 9 used its prawns to demonstrate how humans can be just as monstrous as the aliens of the classic film canon. However, these renowned tales aren't just the products of clever writing or outstanding performances.

In order to pull off the genre's themes and otherworldly aesthetics, science fiction has always had to rely on special effects. And when those special effects don't turn out well, it can rob the extraterrestrials on the screen of their celestial mystique. Sometimes a poorly handled special effect is contained to a specific scene or momentary lapse in quality. Other times, these effects are enough to ruin a whole film. In rare cases, bad special effects can be so captivatingly out of place that the film obtains a loyal cult following. Here's a list of terrible special effects from alien movies that will leave even the most avid of science fiction fanatics disappointed.

According to Box Office Mojo, director Ridley Scott's return to the Alien franchise in 2012 with Prometheus was a significant financial success, earning just over $400 million worldwide against a $130 million budget. In the follow-up, Alien: Covenant, the crew of the Covenant lands on an unfamiliar planet to make repairs. Of course, it turns out that the planet is crawling with hostile alien life that is itching to tear the crew apart. The best part about the Alien franchise is the aliens. However, Alien: Covenant's aliens definitely lack the polish that previous entries in the series boasted. These CG rendered beasts are inconsistent in quality. In some instances, the visual effect is passable, but in others, the animation is choppy with low-quality 3D models. 

Throughout the film, it's hard not to reflect on earlier entries in the franchise for comparison, especially during the relatively uninspiring action sequences featuring Covenant's Xenomorph. Again consulting figures from Box Office Mojo, one interesting point of comparison is that Covenant had roughly $33 million less in its budget than Prometheus. That budget discrepancy shows that while sometimes less is more, other times less is just less.

After the success of Iron Man and Iron Man 2, director Jon Favreau decided to take a break from superhero films and simultaneously tackle two seemingly disparate genres at once with 2011's Cowboys & Aliens. The film stars Daniel Craig, Olivia Wilde, Clancy Brown, and Paul Dano as the titular cowboys who have to fight off a ship of invading aliens in the year 1873. But the other stars of the film weren't portrayed by actors so much as they were supplied by Industrial Light & Magic, who handled the film's special effects. 

In an article from FX Guide, the film's visual effects supervisor, Roger Guyett, talked about all of the effect work that went into making the aliens. It's just too bad that the $163 million that IMDb reports went into the film didn't add up to a more engaging creature for audiences to root against. The Globe and Mail described the aliens as "distinctly non-scary things... straight from central casting." The darn things just looked like generic extraterrestrials, and not particularly lifelike ones at that. 

Not all of the movie's problems stem from the rendering of the special effects, though. Sometimes the issue is also how they were incorporated into the film. Slate's review criticized how this affected the suspension of disbelief, saying, "this is still a movie that expects you not to laugh when a horse keeps pace with a flying saucer."

Battlefield Earth is a marvel of filmmaking, but in the absolute worst way conceivable. Putting aside the film's senseless direction and rough storytelling, it's just an unpleasant piece of media to experience all around. The world it takes place in feels dull and devoid of character, and the wonky CG adds a level of further blandness to an already lifeless sci-fi flick.

Regarding the visual effects, one of the more notably bad examples surfaces when characters transport, triggering an odd shimmering effect that looks as if it was ripped out of a Star Trek movie from the '80s. The film's digitally crafted alien atrocities are enough to make any moviegoer question the art of cinema, but perhaps the most egregious example of terrible special effects is seen at the end of the film. In the closing shot, John Travolta's character is trapped in a poorly executed CG cage inside of a digitally rendered Fort Knox, which serves as a sadly unintentional metaphor for how audiences feel while watching Battlefield Earth.

While the first two entries in the Alien franchise are certified classics, subsequent installments have had a rougher go of it with fans and critics — and Alien 3 is a prime example of this principle in action. While this is due to a few different factors, such as a weak narrative and script, many viewers were specifically disappointed by Alien 3's extraterrestrial predators.

Though the alien in Alien 3 is often mistaken for bad CG, this is not precisely the case. The creature was actually crafted using a rod puppet and a man in a suit. The rod puppet was filmed in front of a bluescreen and then later composited into the footage. This technique is where the confusion regarding CG stems from, as the compositing makes the alien appear digitally altered and out of place. 

However, there are also some poor examples of CG scattered throughout the film. This is most noticeable in Alien 3's final act when the alien exits the water, prompting a laughable excuse for CG water to splash around the creature. Another example is when then the alien's head cracks and glows bright orange just before exploding. While the film's deficient visual effects aren't what doomed Alien 3, they certainly didn't do it any favors.

Be it because of the bizarre premise or the uncomfortable practical effects, it's not exactly hard to see why Howard the Duck has earned the unfortunate reputation as one of the worst films of all time. 

In the film, Howard, an alien with the appearance of an anthropomorphic talking duck, finds himself catapulted from his home planet of Duckworld onto planet Earth. While Howard isn't exactly a threat to humanity, he still manages to be one of the most unsettling extraterrestrial characters ever to grace the big screen, arguably even worse than a flesh-hungry xenomorph. Howard's design was brought to life through puppets, costumes, and an elaborate animatronic suit. At best, the result of these efforts is deeply unappealing. At worst, Howard looks like the galaxy's ugliest duckling. 

Putting aside Howard's overall look, the film's visual effects leave little to be desired as well. One of Howard the Duck's more notably ridiculous scenes involves a cheesy, laser-filled stand-off that was painfully outdated even by '80s standards. While the film has gained a cult following over time, the charming strangeness can't save Howard from its lack of compelling visuals and designs.

In 1980, Harry and Michael Medved published The Golden Turkey Awards, famously dubbing Ed Wood's 1957 Plan 9 from Outer Space the worst film of all time and Ed Wood the worst director. While some, like Film School Rejects, disagree with this characterization of the director and the film, it cannot be denied that Plan 9 from Outer Space is not a visual marvel, no matter when it was made.

The film is about aliens who want to keep humans from constructing a weapon that could destroy the entire universe. They decide to use their technology to raise the dead, hoping that reanimated corpses will shock people into listening to the aliens about the dangers of such a weapon — or kill humanity in the process. 

In discussions surrounding Plan 9 over the years, many people tend to focus on the effects, the most infamous being Wood's flying saucers, which some have speculated were made out of paper plates or hubcaps. The truth isn't much more impressive: According to the documentary Flying Saucers Over Hollywood: The 'Plan 9' Companion, Ed Wood achieved UFO liftoff by purchasing a few toy models and hoisting them into the air on strings or bits of wire.