Alien Nation (film)

Alien Nation (1988) is a Buddy Cop movie with a Sitcom twist: the minority partner is a space alien, part of a ship of "Newcomers" who ended up on Earth when the slave ship they were being transported on crash-landed. After Det. Matthew Sykes' partner is killed in a shootout, he is partnered with Sam Francisco (whom he insists on calling "George"), the first Newcomer detective. While investigating the death of Sykes' partner, they uncover a dangerous Newcomer drug.

The film was adapted into the 1989 TV series Alien Nation, which lasted for one season and five TV movies.


 * Adaptive Ability: The Newcomers were a slave race bred to adapt to any environment; Earth is a tough one for them, though...
 * Alien Among Us: The Tenctonese/Newcomers are refugees and slaves. In this case it was over 100,000 aliens, who form their own community in Los Angeles. Therefore the cultural misunderstandings went both ways, as humans learned to deal with odd newcomer traditions.
 * Alien Lunch
 * Applied Phlebotinum
 * Balls of Steel: Sykes groin-kicks an alien, who laughs it off. Later, George tells him that he'll get the result he was looking for by hitting an alien in the side of the torso. Sykes tries this out later, and it proves as effective as a groin shot.
 * Bizarre Alien Biology: Saltwater burns Newcomers, they also require any meats they consume to be raw, can get drunk on sour milk, require a member of their third sex to catalyze pregnancy, and have a nerve cluster under their arm that has the same effect on them as a Groin Attack
 * Black Dude Dies First: See Bulletproof Vest below.
 * Bulletproof Vest: Worn by Sykes' partner during the armed robbery. It doesn't help at all.
 * Cool Guns: One of the first film appearances of the Freedom Arms .454 Casull Magnum, at that time, the world's most powerful handgun.
 * Concealment Equals Cover: Played with: Bullets pierce all the way through a car (and the guy hiding behind it), but are revealed to be special, industrial-strength Dakka.
 * Dead Partner: Bill Tuggle.
 * Drugs Are Bad: The Newcomers' former alien overlords kept them under control by feeding them a blue substance. Sam/George Francisco keeps this a secret from his human buddy-cop partner because he fears what humanity would do to the Newcomers if we ever found out they were a bunch of drug addicts. Near the end of the movie, a rogue Newcomer consumes an entire giant tube full of the concentrated drug and
 * Fantastic Racism
 * Fantastic Slur: Human bigots refer to Newcomers as "slags" or "spongeheads".
 * Foreign Cuss Word: Inverted, in that in the Tenctonese language, "Sykes" roughly translates as "excrement cranium".
 * G-Rated Drug: Newcomers get intoxicated on sour milk. The yeast-fermented stuff that we humans prefer has no effect on them.
 * Hand Cannon: Sykes upgrades from his police-issue sidearm to a Freedom Arms Model 83, a 5-round .454 Casull revolver, in order to combat the Newcomer gang that killed his partner. At the time the film was made, this was the most powerful handgun/cartridge commercially available.
 * Human Outside, Alien Inside: Although they look moderately similar to humans, Tenctonese cannot metabolize cooked protein, so most of their diet consists of raw animals.
 * Humans Are Bastards: A lot of them are racist towards the Newcomers, however the movie has a subversion as the Newcomers aren't presented as being any better than the humans, and have many of the same faults we do, as well as some that are unique to their society.
 * Many of the Tectonese, especially George, believe that Humans Are Special because they welcomed The Newcomers into their world, gave total freedom to a species bred to be perfect slaves, and asked no more of them then they would themselves. Racism aside that's pretty damn impressive.
 * I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin!: The newcomers get drunk on sour milk.
 * Insufficiently Advanced Alien: As a slave race, that wasn't their ship or their tech. Thus, they end up no more advanced than humanity.
 * Invisible President: Averted; the film uses a clip of the "If not us, who? If not now, when?" quote from Ronald Reagan's second inaugural address to reference the legislation that recognized the aliens as refugees (and future citizens).
 * Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: Murder of a cop during a robbery -> re-introducing a devastating alien drug.
 * Nicknaming the Enemy: Bigots refer to the Newcomers as "Slags".
 * No Biochemical Barriers: The Newcomers may eat weird stuff, like raw beaver, but it's all Earth-originated.
 * Ominous Floating Spaceship: The Newcomers' spaceship for its first appearance.
 * Police Procedural: With a twist.
 * Pun-Based Title
 * Punny Name: Most of the Newcomers, including George (whose human name officially was "Sam Francisco"). Explained as the immigration authorities getting burned out assigning names to the Newcomers and resorting to a form of sarcastic humor.
 * Puny Earthlings: The Newcomers have great strength, stamina, durability, ability to survive in environments humans can't, extra hearts, and if they overdose on an extraterrestrial narcotic, they transform into murderous, supercharged berserkers. But they do have a strange weakness or two: Water with high salinity burns them like sulphuric acid burns naked mole rats and they get stinking drunk from sour milk.
 * Rubber Forehead Aliens
 * Starfish Language: Tenctonese.
 * Super Strength: The Newcomers were bred for it.
 * Twenty Minutes Into the Future
 * Weaksauce Weakness: Newcomer flesh dissolves on contact with salt water.