Summary
- Disney excels at portraying aliens as cute rather than menacing.
- Movies like Lifted and John Carter showcase different alien encounters.
- Lilo & Stitch stands out as a heartwarming and humorous alien film from Disney.
If there’s one thing Disney has mastered, it is taming aliens to be cute and cuddly in pop culture instead of menacing. The hope for humanity is that aliens will come down to Earth and help society instead of destroying it, like in Independence Day or Mars Attacks.
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Lilo & Stitch is a fine Disney example, as the remake is now out in theaters. Is it, or the animated original, considered to be one of Disney’s best alien movies, though? And has Disney made some threatening alien films, too? Let’s dive into their back catalog and rank these movies based on their overall quality without the need to spoil anything.
8 Lifted
A Short Pixar Classic
- Director: Gary Rydstrom
- Producer: Katherine Sarafian
- Studio: Pixar Animation Studios
- Released: October 12, 2006
Lifted was one of Pixar’s earlier shorts, and the concept is derived from classic alien lore. A farmer is asleep, and aliens come to beam him up for experiments, but the twist is that the operator is a trainee.
He cannot get control of the situation, so the farmer keeps getting slapped against walls, which makes for some fun comedy as the trainee’s supervisor is having none of it. As a short, there’s not a lot of depth to the story, but it still remains a highlight in Pixar’s and Disney’s catalog.
7 Flight Of The Navigator
A Boy Lost To Time
Flight of the Navigator
Display card tags widget Display card community and brand rating widget Display card main info widget- Release Date
- July 30, 1986
WHERE TO WATCH
- Runtime
- 90 Minutes
- Director
- Randal Kleiser
- Writers
- Michael Burton, Matt MacManus
Flight of the Navigator begins on the 4th of July with a young kid, David, celebrating with his family. When asked to get his brother later on, David falls into a ditch and then wakes up while it’s still dark as if nothing has happened, but he soon realizes eight years have passed.
He hasn’t aged, but everyone else has, leading NASA scientists to study David and a spaceship they found nearby. It’s a typical 80s adventure kid movie that’s a bit more muted compared to something like The Goonies, but Disney fans can find some fun between David and the alien ship.
6 Strange World
A Pulpy Adventure Story
Strange World
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- Release Date
- November 23, 2022
- Runtime
- 102 minutes
- Director
- Don Hall
- Writers
- Qui Nguyen
- Studio(s)
- Disney
Strange World was designed around many of the themes and characters of pulpy adventure books of the early 1900s, which is also what helped the Indiana Jones franchise. The narrative focuses on how Searcher Clade discovered a plant when he was young that could be used for electricity. He gained popularity from the discovery, but lost his father in the process.
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Years later, Searcher accompanies a research team to find out what is happening to these plants, which are dying, deep inside the planet’s core, which is filled with alien creatures. It’s a movie about exploration, action, and fathers coming to terms with their sons.
5 John Carter
A Cowboy Out Of Water
John Carter
Display card tags widget Display card community and brand rating widget Display card main info widget- Release Date
- March 9, 2012
WHERE TO WATCH
- Runtime
- 132 minutes
- Director
- Andrew Stanton
- Writers
- Michael Chabon, Mark Andrews, Andrew Stanton
- Studio(s)
- Disney
John Carter is based on an early 1900s adventure book franchise known as the Barsoom series, and Barsoom in the books is Mars. The movie begins during the Civil War, wherein a disgraced soldier, John Carter, finds a gold mine and an alien inside.
Upon vanquishing the alien, John is transported to Mars, where he finds multiple factions warring for control of the planet from the more monstrous Green Martians to the human-like Red Martians. It’s perhaps stuffed with too much lore for one movie, but the CG effects still look good today, and the designs of many of the cities and ships are reminiscent of RPGs like Final Fantasy 12, which gaming fans will love.
4 Treasure Planet
A Suitable Non-Muppet Rendition
Treasure Planet
Display card tags widget Display card community and brand rating widget Display card main info widget- Release Date
- November 27, 2002
WHERE TO WATCH
- Cast
- Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Martin Short, Emma Thompson
- Runtime
- 95minutes
- Director
- John Musker
- Studio(s)
- Disney
Treasure Planet is a twist on the 1883 novel, Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, which has been remade many times over on TV and in film. Disney also produced Muppet Treasure Island which is admittedly the better movie and one of the best things the Muppets have ever done.
Still, Treasure Planet is good too, as it reimagined the whole thing in space, and who doesn’t love a good space pirate adventure? While they hit the save beats as the novel, what Disney fans will dig about this adaptation is all the alien races and gadgetry at foot. It’s one of the more forgotten early 2000s Disney films that hasn’t quite reached the nostalgic heights of some other 2D animated knockouts, but it’s worth another look-see.
3 Lightyear
A Movie That Spawned A Toy Empire
Lightyear
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- Release Date
- June 8, 2022
- Runtime
- 105 Minutes
- Director
- Angus MacLane
- Writers
- Jason Headley, Angus MacLane
- Studio(s)
- Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar Animation Studios
In the Toy Story movies, Buzz Lightyear was a toy based on a movie Andy loved when he was younger. Lightyear IS that movie that is stated in the opening credits, and unlike Toy Story, this animated Pixar adventure is a bit dark for kids, which makes it more compelling. It begins with Buzz crash landing with his space colony on a hazardous planet, and after a year of research, he volunteers to test a new warp crystal that can hopefully get them off the planet.
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When he returns, Buzz finds out that time has advanced four years. Every time he leaves, in a heartbreaking montage, his friends age up as he stays the same. That’s just the tip of the iceberg in this adventure about Buzz learning what it is to be a team player and to admit when he has lost, so that he can finally move on.
2 My Favorite Martian
Zoot Suit Riot
My Favorite Martian
Display card tags widget Display card community and brand rating widget Display card main info widget- Release Date
- February 11, 1999
WHERE TO WATCH
- Runtime
- 94 minutes
My Favorite Martian is a loose remake of a TV show from the '60s. The idea is that a Martian crash-lands on Earth, a news producer finds him, and then the two slowly get to know each other after a rocky start.
It’s a formulaic movie, but thanks to the performances of Christopher Lloyd as the Martian and Jeff Daniels as the reporter, their chemistry couldn’t be any better. Seinfeld’s Newman, Wayne Knight, also has a blast as an alien space suit named Zoot. Except for some wonky 90s CG, it still holds up thanks to the cast.
1 Lilo & Stitch
Ohana Means Family
Lilo & Stitch
Display card tags widget Display card community and brand rating widget Display card main info widget- Release Date
- June 21, 2002
WHERE TO WATCH
- Runtime
- 85 minutes
- Director
- Chris Sanders, Dean DeBlois
- Writers
- Chris Sanders, Dean DeBlois
- Producers
- Clark Spencer
- Studio(s)
- Disney
The recent Lilo & Stitch remake is polarizing, but all fans can at least agree it doesn’t hold a candle to the original movie. It’s a down-to-earth and simple movie, even though the concept is wild. Stitch, or Experiment 626, was created in a lab to be a weapon of war, but escaped his galactic prison and plunged toward Earth. Lilo is a recent orphan who lost her parents in a car crash and doesn’t fit in with the rest of her classmates, and is at odds with her older sister.
Together, Lilo teaches Stitch about the importance of family while Stitch brings Lilo closer together with her sister. “Ohana means family.” It’s a quote Disney fans know by heart. Filled with heart, beautiful animation, and slapstick comedy, Lilo & Stitch is the perfect alien movie.