I'd say hubris, and lack of imagination and laziness. It's kind of easier, if they are supposed to be at all human-like, to default to human features for all but a select set of smaller features you come up with. Allows familiar assumption otherwise fill in the blanks. Same reason why many fantasy worlds which are supposed to be wondrous and imaginative have such a close resemblance to real world medieval and early history (particularly high-to-late medieval Europe). And of course, that's understandable to a point. You can be so creative and come up with so much stuff. It's hard work sometimes. But sometimes I think creators get a little lazy when they do rubber forehead aliens.
I think it's also empathy. Relating to them as characters. Heck, people can't even be empathetic o animals on this planet, so aliens I guess need to look and act like people. In my opinion, true alien species are something beyond our imagination.
Well, I guess that it all depends upon your definition of humanoid. I've already given my premise for why sentience in the Milky Way will look humanoid. It's not hubris, it's a premise. That's the story I want to tell. If your Beetle evolved in "my" universe and evolved in the Milky Way (they never would) they would have "stood up." Okay, maybe four supporting limbs instead of two and four dexterous limbs with digits of some kind. The shell shrinks and the head gets larger to make room for the bigger brain. It would be recognized as somewhat humanoid in appearance if not function. It stands upright, has limbs in pairs, it has a recognizable body surmounted by a container for the brain, and things that can be recognized as sensory appendages on the front of the brain container - visuals, respiration, etc. So it's recognizably humanoid/sentient. This is the law of evolution in the Milky Way. However, I have no idea how sentience will evolve in one of the other galaxies, which each have their own laws of evolution. (Haven't written that one, yet.) But that is my universe. In the real universe I don't have a clue what might have evolved out there, and neither does anyone else. Homo Sapiens is the only sentient species that we know of. All we know is terrestrial biology and evolution (and not enough of that). So it is inevitable that lots of folks will go with the humanoid alien motif. Is that being lazy or writing what we know? I wonder what some of the probes planned for various moons in our solar system will reveal. It will be interesting to see if there is any life out there. Even if it's microbial, how similar or different will it be from what we now know?
Most complex animals are sentient, such as dogs, cats, chimps, crows etc. They're just not as good at communicating it. or do you mean consciousness (which is more debatable) I just find it simplistic choosing to make the shape of intelligence humanoid simply because humans are intelligent.
Mindless violence seems to occur in some sci-fi the same way song and dance scenes occur in musicals: we will now pause our plot for gratuitous music and blood.
An obscene amount of computer generated crap trying to cover for weak (or lack of) plot, dialogues and characters. Resurrecting franchises to avoid taking risks.
There are three instances where I've seen this done well Not so much the resurrections but the other thing. Star Wars (Their combination of traditional and computer generated props is top tier) Doctor Strange (Mirror dimension is awesome) Avatar (You can't deny it looks awesome)
I'll admit that knowing it's a buncha dolly's on a green screen is kinda lame. But as a concept Mirror dimension is pretty epic. I think it's one of the CGI scenes I've seen with like, the MOST moving parts ever. Not before or since have I seen that much nonsense happening at once lol It's impressive on a technical level at least, I can't imagine the amount of processing and individual lighting tricks they had to do to make it look right. I'm not talking about the technology itself, but rather the concept. Most of the time I see stuff it just looks fake. But when I look at a star wars set, or an Avatar (NOT the last airbender) set, or Mirror Dimension, they kinda look like you could go there and it would be like that. I'm not sure how to word it, but if those places DID exist I get the feeling that's how they'd look.
yeah, in terms of visual composition it's incredible. That was mostly what I was thinking of--the compositional aspect of it (and I just saw the new Spiderman movie last night so it's fresh in my mind). Just the geometry and the kaleidoscopic dazzle of it all. I couldn't care less about how they made it except as a matter of interest.
Immersive? I get now what you mean. We take a different approach here. You enjoy the visuals, which is fine. I enjoy good visuals too, and who doesn't. I loved the visuals on the series 'Foundation'. In fact I enjoyed watching the series more than I enjoyed the books. The problem is when they adapt a comic or manga, and I have read the original. I am not overjoyed when they change the original to sell more tickets, or to avoid upsetting audiences with controversial opinions. I enjoyed Ghost In The Shell as a visual feast (Scarlett Johansson included). Was it a 'good film'? Not at all. Why? In spite of being a pleasure to watch, and with a 'watchable' end result, in spite of me liking the film, I can't say it was 'good'. A good film takes the original one step beyond. I'd rather read the manga than watch the film. I just like it more. Or see something new and exciting, something I haven't heard of before. Still... I'd watch Ghost In The Shell again. And I still listen to its soundtrack. You just won't hear from me it is 'good'. That's fine. Ex Machina for instance was a good film. Very good film, for a lovingly executed idea. That's my kind of good Sci-Fi, has little to do with visuals. I don't care you pack the whole thing on a building, as long as the idea is solid. It's a different approach. Not to be dismissive of the huge team involved on films that rely heavily on visuals, and the finesse of their techniques. When the concept is memorable, then by all means bring them on.
Yup I guess immersive works, it's super weird too, sometimes I get really immersed and it looks amazing, but other times I'm like 'yeah that's just a green screen' (Percy jackson films were great, but yeah...could totally see the green screen on those) Can't figure out what it is, but there must be some secret trick they use that some studios don't know about. Mirror dimension in particular, like they make damn sure every corner of the screen there's something new to look at. I'm the same way with Voice actors. Some VA's really nail it, even when the voice itself is bad, others just feel phoned in sometimes. It's not something you can tell just by watching, it's something you kinda get a feel for eventually. Easier to do with live action actors, you can see 'just another paycheck' in their eyes. But some guys (Dwayne Jonson is a good one to reference for this) you can really tell when they're having fun. I wish I knew the file size for those scenes in particular lol and how long it actually took to process it, must've taken days at least heh. Back on to the topic, one thing that definately needs to stop is 'A long time ago but somehow everything is futuristic and amazing' Star Wars did it right by making it take place in an entire other galaxy. But this trope is kinda weird. The sole exception to this is steam punk, but that's because steam punk always looks cool no matter who designs it.
Nope, not offhand, just something I recall thinking during more than one movie movie. If a specific title comes to me, I'll let you know.
