Planet 51



""General, I know what you're afraid of, and it's not Chuck. It's not monsters or aliens. It's the unknown. I've spent my whole life running from it, and I think maybe you have too, but I'm telling you the unknown isn't something to be afraid of. It can be your best friend. And just when you think that it means the end of everything you know, it's really just the beginning.""

- Lem, to General Grawl

Planet 51, a Spanish/American All CGI Cartoon feature from 2009, is an Affectionate Parody of tropes from both Science Fiction and Sit Coms of The Fifties.

The premise: Human astronaut Captain Charles "Chuck" Baker, accompanied by an exploration robot named Rover, lands on the eponymous planet, which is supposedly uninhabited. However, Planet 51 is populated, by green-skinned humanoids whose world strongly resembles 1950s suburban America. The aliens are also paranoid about being invaded by another planet, so Chuck's appearance causes unintentional havoc, and he's soon being hunted by the military. Chuck befriends an alien teenager named Lem, a worker at a local observatory; Lem protects the astronaut as he struggles to return to his ship, which will automatically take off after a preset time limit whether Chuck is aboard or not.

""If you have to go number one, aim for the newspaper. If you have to go number two, go outside. If you have to go number three, I can't help you.""
 * Affectionate Parody
 * Alien Invasion: Subverted by the "invasion" being an accident.
 * Aliens Speaking English: "Hey, you speak my language!"
 * All Animals Are Dogs: The aliens keep doglike xenomorphs as pets.
 * Rover acts like one too. Complete with wagging his antenna and sniffing with his main lens.
 * All CGI Cartoon
 * All Planets Are Earthlike
 * Artistic License Astronomy: An In-Universe example. According to Lem's observatory lecture at the beginning of the film, "the universe is nearly 500 miles long, and it contains--you're not going to believe this--over 1000 stars!"
 * This is apparently a running thing with the aliens' unit measurements - they seem to just use lower numbers for things in general: at one point the professor postulates that a manned space flight would cost "hundreds of dollars."
 * Another example of Artistic License Astronomy, not to mention Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: at one point Chuck mentions the alien planet is 20 billion miles away from Earth. In Real Life, the nearest star to our solar system is 24.7 trillion miles away.
 * Possibly Fridge Brilliance: he mentions at some point that the only thing he does with the star ship is to push some buttons, like a monkey could do. Chuck isn't exactly the brightest bulb of the set...
 * Barefoot Cartoon Aliens: Apparently, the aliens Do Not Like Shoes.
 * Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: The female aliens have built-in, organic "high heels" on their feet. Word of God (aka character designer Ignacio Güejes, in the book The Art of Planet 51) explains that this is because "we discovered that if the females had that extra heel on their feet, they would move differently than the male aliens, with swaying hips."
 * Half Dressed Cartoon Alien: The male aliens don't wear pants, either.
 * Batman in My Basement: Lem hiding Chuck.
 * Big Damn Heroes: There are several scenes like this as the movie nears its climax.
 * Bizarre Alien Biology: Several examples, all Played for Laughs.
 * According to the official website, the aliens' hearts are located behind the left kneecap, and their blood is green.
 * The aliens can function without, and might even be smarter that way. Which just leads to the question of why they think it's important, but...
 * As Lem and Skiff are trying to keep Chuck hidden, Skiff reveals very strange assumptions about toiletry needs.


 * Also their hair looks like it´s a living part of their bodies, and lots of fanfics call it "feelers". How do they cut it?
 * Bowel-Breaking Bricks: General Grawl intimidates Rover during interrogation, giving the robot a sudden oil leak. Does This Remind You of Anything?
 * A Boy and His X:
 * Brain In a Jar: Professor Kipple has a few in his lab.
 * Call a Smeerp a Rabbit: The aliens call their pet xenomorphs "dogs."
 * Cannot Spit It Out: Lem has a hard time asking Neera out on a date. This is partially due to his own shyness, and partially because Glar is a Moment Killer who bursts into song whenever Lem is about to ask Neera out.
 * City of Adventure: Glipforg, the quiet little suburb where Chuck lands.
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Skiff, a sci-fi Nerd who takes aliens a little too seriously, even before one of them arrives.
 * Developing Doomed Characters: Reversed, most likely for parody.
 * Elaborate Underground Base: Base 9.
 * Expy: The Aliens' pets look like Xenomorphs that are about the size of a toy poodle. They have a sucker mouth on a frog-tongue, instead of a second set of jaws, though.
 * The Fifties: Parodied by the culture of the aliens.
 * More like the SPACE-Fifties!
 * Four-Fingered Hands: The aliens have them. "Gimme four!"
 * Chuck actually has five fingers.
 * Funny Accents: in the European Spanish dub, the aliens speak with Argentinian accents.
 * General Ripper/Inspector Javert/Well-Intentioned Extremist: General Grawl, leader of the soldiers hunting Chuck, is a combination of all of these tropes.
 * Green-Skinned Space Babe: Judging from Chuck's reactions to the alien women in the commercials.
 * Hassle-Free Hotwire: Chuck and Lem both do this. Lem Lampshades it by explaining to Neera that hotwiring is "how they start cars on Earth."
 * Heel Face Turn:
 * Hidden in Plain Sight/Status Quo Is God: How do you hide an alien astronaut? Paint an eyeball on his space suit and enter him in a costume contest promoting the Alien Invasion movie that just happens to be premiering today. Double for Status Quo because even though the "invasion" has the military in a tizzy, the movie premiere isn't even delayed!
 * Hoist by His Own Petard: Professor Kipple extracts the brains of the soldiers that have been tricked by Chuck into believing they have been brainwashed. At the end of the film, the two soldiers practice the same operation on the Professor.
 * Humans Through Alien Eyes: The premise of the film.
 * Inhumanable Alien Rights: Subverted, since Chuck is the one who might be victimized.
 * Innocent Aliens: Both Chuck and the aliens.
 * Keet: Eckle, a little boy who's positively enthusiastic about the prospect of invasion by brain-eating aliens.
 * Love Triangle: Lem and Glar are both interested in Neera.
 * Mad Laugh: Professor Kipple has one.
 * Mad Scientist: Professor Kipple, who wants to remove and study Chuck's brain.
 * Mind Control: The aliens believe that Chuck can do this. After all, isn't he an alien invader?
 * Only One Name: The aliens.
 * Police Brutality: Glar gets beaten up by soldiers as a distraction so that his pals can sneak into Base 9. It's Played for Laughs, and Glar himself seems okay with it.
 * Product Placement: At one point Chuck pulls a Twix bar out to convince Lem to clear the way to his ship. It's not quite clear how he got that into space with him.
 * Protest Song: Glar specializes in them.
 * Race Against the Clock: Chuck's ship is programmed to leave in 74 hours--with or without him.
 * Ridiculously Cute Critter: Rover is one of the cutest robots ever.
 * Robot Buddy/Team Pet: Rover is a little of both.
 * Rule of Funny: How likely is it that an alien civilization that has had little contact with Earth, which hasn't been revealed to the public, would evolve into a near-perfect duplicate of a specific human culture? And how likely is it that such a world would have a popular science fiction franchise called Humaniacs? Who cares?
 * Scenery Porn: The film's backgrounds are just breathtaking.
 * Sequelitis: Parodied In-Universe by Humaniacs III, a movie within the movie that happens to be opening when Chuck lands. The franchise is about alien invaders, of course.
 * Shout-Out:
 * A pet "dog" named Ripley.
 * Chuck's bike ride.
 * Chuck's televised alien roleplaying.
 * Rover's dance.
 * The Tea Party cafe was called |Nikto's.
 * The fact the main alien character's name is the last name of Stanislaw Lem, a known SF writer, probably also counts. It could also be a nod to the Lunar Excursion Module (often called the "LEM").
 * Sounds from WarGames.
 * Chuck as Chuck Yeager.
 * HAL 9000 camera eye.
 * When Humaniaces III's poster goes up, two of the cast make Star Wars noises and reference Star Wars plots while talking about it.
 * "I was supose to plant Old Glory, head back to the Kids Choice Awards...I was supposed to get slimed!"
 * "Listen Kid...you are a kid, right? you're not like a thousand year old Yoda?"
 * The Smurfette Principle: Neera is the only female character with a substantial role.
 * Sitcom Arch Nemesis: Lem seems to see Glar as an antagonistic competitor, only because Neera seems interested in him; in actuality, Glar's been on his side the whole time.
 * Soundtrack Dissonance: The advertisement for the film uses The Killers' "Spaceman." The song is about being abducted by aliens and then being autopsied.
 * Stealth Pun: Chuck's MP3 player has a picture of a pot as its logo, making it, presumably, an iPot.
 * Terror At Make Out Point
 * Toilet Humor: You'd better believe it.