Rubber Forehead Aliens: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* The [[Crest of the Stars|Abh]] were distinguished by their blue hair though some of them also had pointy ears.

* The [[Outlaw Star|Ctarl Ctarl]] essentially [[Catgirl|Cat Girls]] from space.

* ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' does this with many inhabitants of the magic world; they look like normal people, but with horns or weird shaped ears or something. The rest are [[Petting Zoo People]].

== Comicbooks ==

* Elves in ''[[Elf Quest]]'' are basically humans with pointy ears and four fingers. This is because their shapeshifting alien ancestors deliberately took on a human-resembling form before landing (they even reshaped their spaceship to look like a palace). But even before that (flashbacks), said ancestors already looked fairly human in shape, and would have qualified as [[Humanoid Aliens]] at least.

* Lampshaded in some Space Agent [[Valerian]] book. There are quite a few non-human aliens but also a multitude of practically humans, to the point where it's mentioned that "one head, two hands, two feet, two eyes, could be anyone".

 

* The movie ''[[This Island Earth]]'''s aliens were similar to humans except for huge foreheads and white hair. The actors literally wore rubber foreheads.

** [[Suspiciously Specific Denial|...but I'm not an alien!]]

** The Thermians themselves are a subversion of this: on first appearance, they look like short-ish humans who have Vulcans for hair stylists. However, it turns out it's just an illusion. They're really [[Starfish Aliens]].

* The movie ''Trail of the Screaming Forehead'' takes this to the logical extreme. The aliens ''are'' foreheads that attach themselves to humans. The movie is pure, high quality B grade.

 

 

*** Of course, there is [[Justified Trope|a reason for this]], as noted above: the Bajoran makeup was designed the way it is specifically to make sure that the (numerous) Bajoran females who would appear in the franchise [[Rule of Sexy|would all still be good-looking]].

*** The Bajorans were also planned from the outset [[Planet of Hats|to be refugees]]. The minimal makeup was convenient for costuming large crowds and child actors.

** There's another [[Lampshade Hanging]] when the Bajoran Ro Laren, who has something of a chip on her shoulder, refers to herself as "the token bumpy-forehead".

** Parodied [http://www.theonion.com/content/node/32439 in this article] from [[The Onion]].

** Of course, Klingons only gained their rubber foreheads when the movies' increased budget permitted it. Prior to the [[Retcon]], they were Entire Bottle of Bronzer and Upswept Eyebrows Aliens. In fact, until attention was called to it in [[Deep Space Nine]], the [[Literary Agent Hypothesis]] was the official explanation: in-universe, they weren't considered to look exactly like humans. There just wasn't the budget to portray them as they actually looked. (There's actually an onscreen reference, sort of: a Klingon posing as a human was said to have been ''surgically altered'' to appear human (if we take what's onscreen at face value, it wouldn't take surgery, just a haircut).

*** The Klingon's appearance in a deleted scene of the movie is actually something of a [[Lampshade Hanging]] of this issue, as the Klingon's we see have ridged... [[Faceless Goons|masks]] (as in what the ''characters'' are wearing). We don't actually see their faces.

**** Even more curiously, photos of Victor Garber with his Klingon helmet off show that he had been given a ridged nose... even though it would have not been visible onscreen.

** The ''Star Trek'' franchise has racked up several nominations (and wins) for awards in makeup because of how often they have had to pull some crazy stunts with the rubber. One nomination, for instance, was for a Ferengi who {{spoiler|put bigger earlobes over her own to look male}}. That's right, prosthetics ''on top of other prosthetics''.

* The early 1970s Roddenberry production ''Genesis II'' had post-humans with ''two navels'' as their "distinguishing characteristic". That was mostly a "screw you" towards the censors. For some reason, up until then navels were considered taboo.

** The Centauri are closer to being [[Human Aliens]] thanks to the only real (visible and exterior) difference being the pointed teeth, ridiculous haircuts aside. The Narn are closer to [[Humanoid Aliens]] thanks to a more clearly alien look to them, despite a similar biological configuration (curiously, the Narn are one of the few species with eyes that aren't exactly the same as human eyes). A majority of ''B5'' aliens, however, do fit this trope.

*** Straczynski had a lot of fun with this concerning the Centauri: when they made first contact with Earth, they actually claimed that Earth was a long-lost colony, due to the external similarities between the two species! Once the humans gave the Centauri a physical, however...

* Parodied by Bill Bailey in ''[[Space Cadets]]''. Interlock fingers of both hands. Place palms on foreheads. Voila! Instant Klingon.

* ''[[Space Precinct]]'' loves it some actors with rubber heads on. The sheer contrast between big rubber head and undisguised human body gives the whole thing a farcical charm.

* Used in [[Power Rangers]] on those rare occasions when aliens aren't either people in full-body rubber suits or [[Human Aliens|regular actors using a silly name]]. [[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers|Aquitians]], for example, have a purple... thing on their head (external braincase?), and [[Power Rangers Time Force|Xybrians]] have [[You Gotta Have Blue Hair|green hair]] and a gem embedded in their forehead.

** [[Super Sentai]] is known for being far less elaborate with theirs - ''[[Bakuryu Sentai Abaranger]]'' has the Ryujin, who merely have four tiny claws over their cheekbones. ''[[Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger]]'' in particular spammed the use of full-head rubber masks (over very mundane clothing too), unlike ''[[Power Rangers SPD]]'' which relied a lot on prosthetics.

** Nebari look basically human except for their monotone grey skin and the fact that their hair colour depends entirely on their gender.

** Delvians look like hairless, blue, scaly humans.

 

== Videogames ==

* The dominant race in the ''[[Jak and Daxter]]'' series are basically humans with excessively long pointy ears.

* Subverted in ''[[Phantasy Star]]'' with Newmans/Numans, and later Beasts in Phantasy Star Universe. Sure, they look human enough, save for their ears and (in the case of Beasts) their harelips and eyes ... but they aren't actually aliens at all. They're actually genetically engineered ''humans.''

 

== Webcomics ==

* The [[All Trolls Are Different|trolls]] in ''[[Homestuck]]'' make reference to a ''lot'' of [[Bizarre Alien Biology]] endemic to their species, like "chitinous windholes", "auricular sponge clots", "porous cranial plates", and various colors of blood, but outwardly just look like grey-skinned humans with [[Eyes of Gold|yellow-orange eyes]], horns, and fangs.

 

* Warhok and Warmonga, the [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|Proud Warrior Race]] aliens who appear in season four of ''[[Kim Possible]]'' are an animated version of this. They're nine feet tall and have green skin.

* In another animated example, the cast of ''[[Futurama]]'' is virtually all two-arms two-legs one-head humanoid (for most of the time). This is probably more [[Rule of Funny|to make it easier to animate jokes for them]] than anything else, as the show has otherwise shown a fair amount of ingenuity in depicting odd aliens (sentient nebulae, swarms of flies, etc). Subverted with Leela, who is revealed in an early season to be a human mutant who was raised to think she was a [[Last of Her Kind]] alien.

 

{{reflist}}