What Measure Is a Non-Human?/Film: Difference between revisions

* In the movie adaptation of ''[[Lost in Space]]'', treacherous backstabber Dr. Smith is kept alive, despite having sold them out and tried to have everyone killed, is allowed to live because he's human (though he likes to brag that he saved their daughter's life, the fact that he endangered it in the first place is ignored by everyone). When he becomes a mutant half-human hybrid, the family have far less qualms killing him, or {{spoiler|injuring him so his mutant alien spider spawn will eat him}}. They admit the only reason they wouldn't kill him was because he's human.

** In defense, the first time he had already been contained; killing a prisoner is always kind of iffy. Once he mutated into the big monster thingie, he was a real threat to everyone, and carrying a [[Weapon of Mass Destruction]] in his gut.

* Explored ''hardcore'' in ''[[District 9]]''. In theory, the aliens are legal residents of South Africa, with all the standard rights to life, liberty and property that that entails. In ''practice'', they're confined to an uninhabitable trash-heap, exploited as sub-minimum wage labor, forced to subsist off of offal and cat food, left to fend for themselves against crime syndicates that the police have no interest in dealing with, and are generally treated little better than animals. When an "unlicensed" nest of alien eggs is discovered by the military, they proceed to "abort" the unborn aliens. ''With a flamethrower.''

** Christopher is easily the most compassionate, humane and kind character in the film, to both humans ''and'' aliens. Christopher is ''one of the aliens.''

* Seemingly subverted in George Miller's ''[[Happy Feet]]'', though Your Mileage May Vary, depending on your interpretation.

* [[Arthur C. Clarke]]'s novels and their film adaptations ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey]]'' and ''[[2010: The Year We Make Contact]]'' explore this subject with H.A.L. 9000, the [[AI Is a Crapshoot|AI]] [[Master Computer]] of the USS ''Discovery''. In ''2001'', HAL goes insane and murders the crew, before being disconnected by the final surviving astronaut, Dave Bowman. The reason for this is not fully revealed until ''2010'' -- he was given [[Logic Bomb|irreconcilably conflicting orders]]. After he's restored to full functioning, however, it suddenly becomes necessary for the astronauts to leave Jupiter immediately or be killed. The climactic conflict arises over whether it's acceptable to ask HAL to risk his own destruction to save the humans aboard the ''Leonov''. The majority of the crew is for lying to him and disconnecting him if he fails to comply, but Dr. Chandra, HAL's creator, feels that he will make the proper decision if told the whole truth. {{spoiler|Chandra turns out to be correct.}} Their final farewell is a [[Tear Jerker]].

* Uncomfortably invoked by the "boarding the Arks" scene in ''[[2012|Two Thousand Twelve]]''. Let's see, based on the onscreen action, they've saved about 1,000 humans... and two giraffes. And ''no'' [[That Poor Plant|plants]]. Good [[Homestar Runner|jarb]]. (Yeah, yeah, we know it's an obvious Noah's Ark parallel, but...)

* [[Godzilla]] himself invokes this trope quite often. On the one hand, there are those who wish to destroy him simply because he's a giant monster (also, there is that tiny problem of him smashing major cities.). On the other, there are those who wish to keep him alive so they can study him. And that's not even including all the times he's saved Japan from even ''worse'' monsters.