Today marks the release of “Men in Black III,” the sci-fi action comedy sequel that sees Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones returning as alien-hunting Agents J and K for the second time. Also, in two weeks, we will be treated with Ridley Scott’s “Prometheus,” the highly anticipated prequel to his 1979 sci-fi horror masterpiece “Alien.” To celebrate, I’m taking a look at the ten greatest alien characters ever to feature on the big-screen, be they vicious monsters, quirky visitors or conquering invaders. Whatever they may be and whatever their intentions, they’ve all got one thing in common: they’re outta this world.

10. The Coneheads, “Coneheads” (1993)

Home Planet: Remulak
Come in Peace? Yes
Alien Awesomeness: Making their screen debut in a “Saturday Night Live” sketch aired in 1977, the Coneheads are an alien family who come to Earth wishing to achieve the American Dream. A middle-class family of three, they consist of father Beldar (played by Dan Aykroyd), mother Prymaat (Jane Curtin) and teenage daughter Connie (Michelle Burke). And with their nasally voices, bizarre eating habits (pencil shavings and toilet paper are quite tasty, apparently) and pointy-tipped craniums, the Coneheads certainly stand out from a crowd, not that anyone else notices too much.

9. Klaatu, “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (1951)

Home Planet: Unknown
Comes in Peace? Sort of
Alien Awesomeness: Acting as an ambassador from an extraterrestrial confederation, Klaatu arrives on Earth in a flying saucer to deliver a message: end your violence, or we’ll end you. Performed charmingly by Michael Rennie (take notes, Keanu Reeves), Klaatu is humanoid, speaks with an English accent, and wishes only for peace on Earth, although he will obliterate our entire planet if his hand is pushed. He also has a mute robot companion named Gort, whose bulky, metallic structure and watchful presence makes for quiet, unsettling intimidation.

8. The Martians, “Mars Attacks!” (1996)

Home Planet: Mars
Come in Peace? No
Alien Awesomeness: “Ack! Ack ack ack!” Need I say more? In Tim Burton’s gleefully demented pastiche of ‘50s alien invasion movies, the villainous Martians are very much the stars of the show, skillfully stealing whole scenes from the likes of Danny DeVito and Jack Nicholson. Portrayed mostly through CGI, the diminutive Martians are devilishly mischievous, big-headed bullies clad in skin-tight spacesuits who come to Earth for the sole purpose of demolishing our buildings, graffitiing our landmarks and generally creating unruly, senseless carnage. Oh, and their only weakness? The yodelling of Slim Whitman. Ack!

7. The Prawns, “District 9” (2009)

Home Planet: Unknown
Come in Peace? Yes
Alien Awesomeness: So called for their physical resemblance to the decapod crustaceans, the Prawns aren’t exactly the most sightly of creatures, but what they are is rather cool. In 1982, a gigantic spacecraft stops and hovers above the South African city of Johannesburg. Inside the craft are the Prawns, who are promptly relocated to a series of slums, where they are feared by the locals and oppressed by the government. Terrifically animated by way of CGI, the Prawns are a ceaselessly intriguing species, capable of limb-tearing violence, heart-wrenching emotion and technological wizardry – they also have an irresistible craving for tinned cat food.

6. The Na’vi, “Avatar” (2009)

Home Planet: Pandora (moon)
Come in Peace? Kinda
Alien Awesomeness: “Smurf on a stick” was what the Na’vi were commonly referred to upon release of James Cameron’s sci-fi epic “Avatar.” “Smurf,” because of the Na’vi’s sky-tinted complexion, and “on a stick” because of the way they protruded out of the screen due to the film’s famous use of 3D. Smurfs on sticks or not, the Na’vi are a fascinating species, characterised as tree-dwelling natives dedicated to the protection of their land and living in fierce scorn of the invading human army trying to take it from them. Damn us selfish humans! Oh, and apparently they can use their ponytails to have sex with each other. Alien sex is weird, dude.

5. Predator, “Predator” (1987)

Home Planet: Unknown
Comes in Peace? No
Alien Awesomeness: The Predators are keen sportsmen, but their sport isn’t football or tennis or snowboarding: it’s hunting. And in the “Predator” series, they’re not hunting foxes or rabbits: they’re hunting us. In John McTiernan’s original sci-fi actioner, there is only one Predator, and he’s paying a visit to the jungles of Central America, where he faces an elite special forces team. He can shoot lasers, skin his victims, set off nuclear bombs and even turn invisible. But none of those are much of a match for macho man Arnold Schwarzenegger, who bravely comments right to its hideous face that the alien menace is “one ugly motherf***er.” Go Arnie!

4. Superman, “Superman” (1987)

Home Planet: Krypton
Comes in Peace? Yes
Alien Awesomeness: Superman is commonly regarded as one of the greatest superheroes to ever grace the pages of a comic book and to be projected onto the silver screen, and rightfully so: he represents justice, bravery and the quest for peace. Sent to Earth from his crumbling planet of Krypton as an infant, he grows up to become the Man of Steel, an all-American hero and part-time journalist, fearlessly and selflessly battling the forces of evil when not reporting on stuff. Christopher Reeve commandingly played the super-powered being in Richard Donner’s original film and its three subsequent sequels, the last two of which society has smartly chosen to ignore and forget.

3. The Thing, “The Thing” (1982)

Home Planet: Unknown
Comes in Peace? No
Alien Awesomeness: The Thing is a truly terrifying creation. Originally appearing on-screen in Christian Nyby’s 1951 science-fiction horror “The Thing from Another World,” the creature didn’t really get very scary until John Carpenter brilliantly remade Nyby’s film in 1982. The result was a sometimes shapeless, often undetectable but always mysterious movie monster capable of assimilating its victims and sneakily transforming into them, effectively stealing their identity. The alien creature proves particularly troubling for a group of researchers in Antarctica, who stumble upon the murderous life form and spend the rest of the film’s nail-biting runtime terrified that the creature might be one of them. Or is it you?

2. The Xenomorph, “Alien” (1979)

Home Planet: Unknown
Comes in Peace? No
Alien Awesomeness: If first impressions are everything, then one can understand why the Xenomorph got such a hard time from the crew of the Nostromo spacecraft. We first encounter the Xenomorph in Ridley Scott’s sci-fi horror masterpiece as it violently bursts out from the throbbing chest of a spasmodic John Hurt during dinner. Over the course of the film, the rest of the crew are slowly but surely offed one-by-one (sans franchise heroine Ripley) by the fully-grown alien parasite, which is fixed with two snapping sets of fangs, acid for blood and an unprecedented knack for bloody murder. Truly, the Xenomorph is the ultimate killing machine, and if you were to ever have the misfortune of encountering one, it’s game over, man! Game over!

1. E.T., “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” (1982)

Home Planet: Unknown
Comes in Peace? Yes
Alien Awesomeness: Who doesn’t love E.T.? The pudgy little alien, with his adorable wrinkles, big blue bug eyes and weird finger-torch thingy, is so sweet and cuddly that to not fall in love with him is to not have a soul. In Steven Spielberg’s science-fiction classic, E.T. is mistakenly left behind on Earth by his alien companions. He is soon taken in by 10-year-old Elliott and his two siblings, who attempt to get him back to his home planet, much as the American government tries to intervene. Both the film and the character have become beloved icons of sci-fi cinema, with E.T. warming the hearts of millions worldwide as a hopelessly lost alien just trying to phone home. D’aww.

By Stephen Watson

Picture this. You’re an Eskimo (or an Inuit – is Eskimo offensive?). You’re in snowy Alaska and have become lost in the middle of nowhere. You’re on your own. It’s cold. You’re cold. You need shelter. So, you use the skills your misplaced tribe recently taught you and build an igloo. You enter the igloo. You’re not so cold anymore. But now you’re faced with another problem: you’re bored. What do you need to quench your boredom while you hopefully await rescuing? You need some books to read! But you don’t have any books on you, nor a Kindle. You’re in a (admittedly unlikely) rut, aren’t you?

Well, Miler Lagos may have solved your problem. The Colombia-based artist, whose exhibitions have been featured all over the globe, has created an igloo – or a dome – made entirely out of books. Handy, right? The installation, which is called Home and which opened in New York last year, was carefully assembled by Lagos, who painstakingly stacked each individual book (spine facing the interior) to create a self-sustaining dome. Whether or not you can actually remove any of the books to have a quick flick through them I’m unsure – the whole structure may topple down and crush you to death. Just in case, make sure you have a Kindle with you on your next venture into Alaska’s freezing wasteland.

Everyone talks about being President of the United States one day, presumably because they like to think of themselves sitting in the Oval Office issuing Executive Orders for Free Pizza on Tuesdays and sending the military to bomb the house of the guy that gave you a swirly in 7th grade. What no one talks about, however, is just how hard the job of being in charge of 300 million people really is. For these five guys, it was harder than most, because they were dropped into a crap sandwich almost from the moment they were sworn in…

Herbert Hoover Crushed by the Great Depression

Contrary to popular belief, the 31st president did not lend his name to the famous brand of vacuum cleaner, which is unfortunately how most people come to learn about Hoover these days. Herb was elected president in a landslide in 1928, being well known as Secretary of Commerce under previous Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, a position that led him to national prominence. He sought to use his position to reform the government, since he really didn’t have anything else to worry about. After all, World War I had ended 10 years before, and the Sequel wasn’t even being filmed yet. Not to mention, the economy was stronger than at any other point in the nation’s history. What could he possibly have to worry about?

Okay, besides keeping his pimp hand strong.

Well, 6 months after he was inaugurated in March 1933, the bottom fell out of the economy. The stock market crashed, banks suddenly realized they didn’t have any money (something they probably should have addressed earlier, to be honest) and closed, people were losing their jobs and panicking, it was a bad time to be President of the United States. Hoover did his best, enacting reforms left and right, trying to stimulate the economy in various ways, but no matter what he did, the situation got worse. What had been a serious financial crisis was now the Great Depression, and no one was more depressed than Hoover.

His sad face.

By 1932, one quarter of the US population was unemployed, and subsequently homeless. They built shantytowns made of scrap material in public parks, nicknaming them “Hoovervilles” after the floundering President. Many people, chief among them the Democratic party, began to blame him for the crisis, and he was soundly defeated by Franklin D. Roosevelt in the election that year. Even when out of office, people still used him as a scapegoat for the country’s problems, though he did have the last laugh: he commissioned, and later provided his name to, one of the most enduring monuments man has ever engineered:

Unfortunately, the spray painted middle finger has since been washed away.

Abraham Lincoln has to Fight South, Bigotry, General Insanity

In 1860, the Northern and Southern states were essentially two separate countries. They had different economies, lifestyles, ways of thinking, and views of morality. The question of slavery had been fiercely debated and fought over for years prior, but things finally reached a boiling point when Abraham Lincoln, a staunch abolitionist, defeated his opponent Stephen Douglas in November 1860. Fearful that Lincoln was going to take away a major source of their revenue, 11 Southern states declared themselves independent of the United States and formed the Confederacy.

Taking their ball and going home in extreme fashion.

Now Lincoln was not going to put up with that sort of chicanery, and mobilized the so called Union to put down the rebellious states, starting a war that would last four years and cost 600,000 lives. In the midst of the wholesale slaughter, Lincoln had to deal with complaining politicians, less than productive generals, riots in New York City, diplomatic pressure from the British and French, and on top of all that, had to run a reelection campaign against George McClellan, pretentious former leader of the main Union Army who promised to end the war if elected.

Needless to say, the South was Democratic that year.

However, Lincoln secured his reelection after William Sherman burned down Atlanta and the people of the North thought that was a cool thing to do, and in April of the next year, the main Confederate Army surrendered, effectively ending the war. Finally, Lincoln had time to relax, see a show…where a disgruntled actor shot him in the head. And to top it all off, they put his face on the penny, the coin EVERYONE WANTS TO GET RID OF.

Andrew Johnson Dropkicked into Reconstruction

After the 19th Century’s Nick Cage killed President Lincoln, Andrew Johnson became only the 2nd Vice President to take over after the death of the President, and the first as a result of assassination. He already had the short end of the stick from the very start, as he was slated to be killed along with Lincoln, but his designated murderer lost his nerve and went drinking instead. Secondly, Johnson was from Tennessee, which, if you re-examine the map up there, was at war with the nation less than a week before.

Not to mention every time you look at it, the state is flipping you off.

Lincoln chose Johnson as his running mate in 1864 because he hoped that way the South would be easier to re-assimilate into the United States after the war. When Johnson came into office, he soon realized that Lincoln wasn’t just dealing with the South and the people who wanted to stop the war, but also with the people who wanted to completely destroy the South as punishment for starting the war. These Warhawks, or Radical Republicans, soon ganged up on the hapless President Johnson and took over Reconstruction, passing many laws designed to punish the South. So, by killing Lincoln, the South killed the best chance they had at a peaceful post war transition.

Which is kinda like killing this guy, if you think about…oh right.

What’s more, Johnson became the first President to be impeached on trumped up charges because the WarHawks in Congress still felt he was being too soft on the former Confederacy, and came very close to getting thrown out of office. Johnson didn’t bother seeking reelection in 1868, doing everything but announcing “Screw you guys, I’m going home, “ as he ran from the White House, which instead found itself occupied by Ulysses S. Grant, who spent four years drinking and carrying on as the North continued to beat up the South.

Gerald Ford Presides Over Government Scandal, Crisis, Distrust

Gerald Ford was not elected President; he wasn’t even elected Vice President, he was just a US Representative and House Minority Leader until Spiro Agnew resigned after a bribery scandal and Richard Nixon was basically forced to appoint Ford as his replacement. Then, after less than a year, Nixon himself resigned as a result of the Watergate scandal and Ford suddenly found himself the President of the United States.

You just know if he thought he could get away with it, those would be middle fingers.

Ford inherited a country that was suffering through the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, fighting a losing battle in Vietnam, and diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union at their lowest point in years. And, thanks to his unscrupulous predecessors, the American public did not trust its government at all, especially after Ford issued a presidential pardon to Nixon (the only way to get Nixon out of office without a messy and drug out impeachment process.)

No joke to be made from this picture; just left here for your consideration.

9 months after he was inaugurated, Saigon was conquered, and Gerald Ford had the toughest job in America. He ran for reelection but was being blamed for everything, so much so that America chose Jimmy Carter over him (ask anyone who remembers back then how well that worked out.)

George W. Bush Faces Terrorists and Environmentalists

Say what you will about George W. Bush, make fun of him, accuse him of warcrimes, blame him for the housing market crisis, whatever your thing is, but you have to acknowledge that his first year in office was a bit difficult. His problems started Election Day 2000, when every poll showed he had won the Presidency, however, his opponent refused to believe that the people of Florida would vote for Bush, despite, you know, the guy’s brother being the governor. Al Gore demanded recount after recount, and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court, who had to tell Gore that you couldn’t force people to recount the votes until you get the result you want before he was vanquished.

He would later become the first person to win the Nobel Prize via Powerpoint Presentation.

So now, finally, after paying far too much money in lawyer fees, Bush was inaugurated. He had big plans for domestic policy, and could have given too craps about the rest of the world. That is, until a group of terrorists with questionable piloting skills crashed into New York’s tallest buildings, as well as the country’s military heart. Now, the only thing that compares with the casualties of 9/11 was the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the effect of that was lessened by the fact that most of the casualties were military personnel. Even so, it was enough for the United States to go to war with Japan, so obviously Bush had to do something. He sent troops into Afghanistan to vanquish al Queda and the Taliban who were sheltering them, even though they failed to capture Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the attacks and thus the world’s most wanted man.

“Yeah, it was me. I did it.”

It didn’t help his case that the economy went insane and Saddam Hussein even more so, posturing that he had nuclear weapons and was going to use them to…prove whatever point he was trying to prove, I guess, triggering another invasion and occupation (this time we caught the bad guy at least though, so there’s that.) Combine that with his well-established public speaking difficulties, and you’ve got a man that is an easy target. Despite his shortcomings and detractors, Bush still managed to defeat John Kerry in the 2004 race. Yes, he was able to beat a man who ran on the platform that he and running mate John Edwards “even had better hair.”

John Kerry received three Purple Hearts: two for hangnails and one for a fart that didn’t come out right.

By Ben Adelman

For many working stiffs slaving away from 9:00 to 5:00, popping in a pair of earphones and listening to music can provide a merciful mental escape from the drudgeries of the daily grind. But different genres of music can have both a positive and negative impact on an employee’s productivity, meaning the difference between a promotion and a pink slip. But exactly what kind of tunes should you be listening to a work?

Luckily, Sonos have provided the answer to this all-important question in their brand new infographic, which will take you step-by-step through the process of on-the-job music selection – it’s easy as pie. So, should you be listening to rock and roll or classical? Smooth jazz or heavy metal? Hip-hop or country and western? Read on, get your iPod ready and find out.

I consider myself somewhat of a robot fan, and there are few automatons you could show me that I wouldn’t think are pretty damn cool in some capacity or another. However, there are some robots out there that, no matter how awesome you usually think robots are, are absolutely, seat-wettingly scary. The vast majority of these tend to be humanoid, skirting the phenomenon of the Uncanny Valley with varying degrees of unsettling success. No matter much closer they might bring us to having a completely realistic human robot, there’s simply no excuse for taking some of these android abominations out in public.

Repliee R-1

This thing is probably made to seem more horrible than it actually is by the soundtrack on this particular video (possibly), but it – she? – is rather terrifying. Allegedly based on a real five year old girl, it has the same strange, lifeless look that you see on the kids in those masterfully creepy Japanese horror films. Probably not something that you’d want to replace real life kids with any time in the near future.

Dental Training Robot

At first this one doesn’t seem too bad… until around 30 seconds it when they show its disembodied face and talk about how a love doll manufacturer made the inside of its mouth. It can even choke! As if that wasn’t bad enough, it also has speech recognition technology, allowing it to conduct conversations with you “just like a real patient”. While it’s probably incredibly helpful to dental students, it’s still incredibly scary.

Japanese Child Robot

This robot isn’t especially realistic to look at (and, truth be told, it’s rather too big to be a baby), but the way it moves and the noises it makes (especially the noises it makes) are what really amp up the creep factor.

Philip

He seems affable enough to begin with (and is rather unfortunate in that he has the back of his head missing), but at the end of the video this video Philip is blithely telling the interviewer that, if he does turn into the Terminator, he’ll “keep [him] warm and safe in his people zoo.” If that’s not somewhat disturbing then I don’t know what is (well, maybe the rest of the robots listed here for a start).

Jules

Jules definitely isn’t one of the scariest robots here, but the way he waxes lyrical about coming back (“Some day I’ll come and find you… and we’ll be good friends” – yeah, right!), as well as the incredibly creepy way the researchers talk to – and pet – him, makes him rather unnerving overall.

Ella wrote this post for Global-Integration, with a fond hope that the company will never take robots as creepy as these into their employ in the future.