If you want a better idea of the movie's origins and why it's so good, it's actually an adaptation of a fantastic manga called All You Need is Kill. It's only 2 volumes long, but it's just as if not even better than edge of Tomorrow, definitely a lot more grim and depressing being more of a tragedy. Also on the topic of the mimics, it's worth it to see what the original versions looked like, which I can best describe as giant spheres with gaping Maws filled with square stone teeth that make it hard to tell if it's mineral or organic or something else. And instead of moving with flowing tendrils, they equally as unpredictably move by generating spikes which they also use to horrifying effect as weapons, lots of people getting scewered from multiple angles all at once.
@@Opalwinter not quite, when I say spheres I mean they look more like pitch black balls with mineral blocks for teeth that split them across the middle, think more like ferrous dust from hell. They move basically the same as the movie ones, but with spices rather than tendrils and there really isn't even a clear face outside of where the maw is it's most toothy.
honestly, Edge of Tomorrow SLAPS when it comes to making the viewer learn things alongside the main character. as you said, at the start, you are all confused, quick cuts everywhere nothing feels consistent, but by the end, you basically know what's up, and are ready to face it with Tom Cruise by your side. one of my favourite sci-fi flicks ever.
@millo7295 It's a "classic disorientation technique" because it works. You're really being pissy that a moviemaking technique used specifically to disorient the viewer... disoriented the viewer? Now, me personally, I can't grasp how someone could go out and brag that they've watched so many movies that they've become jaded to something that's supposed to improve the experience.
@@Shapeshiftergreen Cage is forced to kill Rita to stop the loop since the loop resets if Cage and Rita are alive, the aliens are still a threat and Cage (or ‘Killer Cage’ as his team calls him after he killed Rita) decides to kill every last alien since he is the only one who can reset.
@@Shapeshiftergreenits not just the ending. About 90% of the story is different, the movie only borrowed the key concepts from the novel/manga. Id highly suggest you to read it yourself if you wanna know more. Id just say this contrary to Edge of tomorrows ‘happy ending’ the original novel end is a bit darker
“I’m betting you haven’t seen it either” lmao, I’ve seen this movie like 6 or 7 times. It blows my mind that people don’t talk about it, the marketing when it was coming out was crazy
People probably don't talk about it cause it came out over 10 Years ago as a one off movie with continuing the franchise in a extremely over saturated genre
I also like how the Mimics sometimes just seemingly sporadically glitch out a bit almost like a fast-forward explosion put on repeat, it looks just SO out of this world, and it makes the Mimic feel even more alien.
You explain why the concept couldn't be reused, but not really the physical design. An unnerving, wibbly-wobbly alien would work as a pretty standard design. It's the time travel that couldn't be reused (easily)
I think what he was getting at was that the story wants them to be confusing and incomprehensible to look at and that's why the design works. Could have been explained better. I could see this design being reused for other movies, but not for ALL movies. It's a very specific kind of horror.
@@indigofenix00 I mean it doesn't have to be horror. Just because they move weird and have an unrecognizable shape doesn't make them exclusive to horror. The standard big head big almond eye alien has pretty much everything from horror, to drama, to comedy. Would be pretty dope having wobbly aliens abduct humans and being confused by their physique and basically experimenting on humans by tickling them.
@Karttibone or alternatively, have featured in space opera, be they the unkownable invaders, or some peaceful group recently discovered facing great odds. There physiology is quite fun, with a lot you can do with it
@@Simplestopmotion-s8e I don't think they called them Mimics based on this movie. Rather that there's a fantasy creature "mimic" that can take a shape of almost any object, usually a treasure chest. Most notorious in Dungeons and Dragons. Since in Prey they do almost exactly the same thing, pretty sure the name was based on THOSE Mimics xD
Jean Jacket is an insane movie monster, I don't think it's an alien. Like yes it's a living creature that looks like a flying saucer, but we only assume it's an alien because we associate flying saucer with aliens, but it could just be an unkown order of fully terrestrial animal. Honestly, it looks like a giant flying sand dollar, a species of flat sea urchin
Yeah, because design team did the homework and decided to put more of a different idea into things rather than doing what worked before. Hell, Jean Jacket is a neat subversion because for most of the movie you expect a saucer like in all others, but it turns out it's a massive sky cephalopod
@@TeChNoWC7 it’s a matter of opinion, but most people are impressed. Iv even heard them called completely original some of the best monster design several times. Considering how much work and brilliance the artist put into the creatures too, it’s impressive. Like, how about you make a writhing lashing ball of twisting cords move in a way that looks good and dangerous 😆
@@xavier84623 this is an ad hominem defence that could be used for literally any creation. ‘Well you (non professional) couldn’t do better than x design’ which pretty much nullifies any critique of art. I don’t need to be able to create something as good, I can compare it to other artists and creators who can, and set the standard.
@@TeChNoWC7 …I’m saying it’s popular, they put a lot of work into it, and it’s clearly high quality on both an artistic and technical level, so why u hating?
@@xavier84623 tbh it was a MASSIVE upgrade compared to its manga counterpart to a point i am genuinely shocked how well they managed to pull it off. Then again they dont make movies like edge of tomorrow like they used to.
Fun fact: edge of tomorrow was inspired by a light novel and a manga that goes by the name "all you need is kill" so this practically makes this an anime movie
Well, it definitely feels like an anime story. A badass girl fighting incomprehensible enemies with a sword, exoskeleton power-suits, ragtag band of misfits coming together to save the day
@@helgenlane yeah it is. If you actually look up the manga, just from the title, cover page and the first pages alone you can tell that this is absolutely one of the most anime things you'll ever read.
Back when I was a kid there was this alien “documentary” called Alien Planet or something, and I just remember the alien designs being so bizarre and unique that no other movie creature has resembled them ever since. So if you wanna see aliens that really look like aliens, then maybe check it out!
Check out Prey the game. They have a very similar design to these with more variations. they definitely had evil thoughts when designing them too. They modeled them after spiders except the spider is a pitch black mass of tentacles that scuttles around and can shape shift into a fucking coffee mug or anything in the environment. So it creates this constant paranoia while walking around hoping that the lamp in the corner of the room you just walked in doesn’t murder you.
You a fan of the game? Well, Bethesda should have just named it 'Neuroshock', or some other. It's Prey in name _only,_ and that in and of it‑self, is an insult to the ones that came before.
Yeah and sometimes the spider assumes human pose- aka the Phantoms and Nightmare. Nightmare especially is quite reminiscent of Mimics from Edge of Tomorrow- a mass of shifting something that only temporarrly looks like a massive humanoid just to show you that even when it's massive it can and will chase you into tiny rooms and do horrble sht to you
As soon as he said “procedural animation” I was anticipating RW. I swear any time I come across something talking about procedural animation, RW is at the very least, given a passing mention
The mimics movement style is the closest to an amoeba. They extend the tentacles out of the center and move in that direction, while the back contracts into the core.
The Edge of tommrow mimics looks pretty unique and all but the only thing that makes it look off is its head, for some reasoon it has a jaw and i dont think an alien would have a actual working jaw, i feel like it would be very diffrent like something simular to a mouth but just as affective. I dont really know how alien life forms ways of eating would look like they would probably be so diffrent from animals on earth, we would have a very hard time understanding it.
@@VerySaneguy Funny that you say that. I'm pretty sure that the aliens originally _didn't_ have a head or eyes in a humanoid arrangement. Originally they didn't even have a head, but during production they kept adding features, because tester audiences were *too* confused by the design. Edit: oops, he literally talks about the head in the video.
if anyone played the new Armored Core game Armored Core 6, the alien lifeform in that game is pretty unique. its basicaly sentient bio gas life form that human colonizer exploit as a source of unlimited fuel, because they are a lifeform, they can infinietly reproduce, while being used as fuel, called "Corral". it is facinating, and also come with many moral implications, like how there are multiple factions of human fight each others because they cant agreed on how to deal with these Corral. the bussiness corporations want to use for fuel and gain profit, the "native colonizer" want to use them as resource to help them survive and build independence on "their planet", and a group of scientice want to destroy all the Corral because they fear it will soon evolve pass the point of no return and take over as the apex in the evolution progress of humanity.
Coral isn't a 'lifeform'. It's just an energy source which also acts as a data conduit. BUT when large amounts of coral gather together it creates a 'wave mutation'. Now THAT wave mutation is sentient. Also all those who got exposed into the coral flow had their subconscious scattered into it so the wave mutation is based on the collective consciousness of dead Rubiconians
In Prey (2017) from Arcane Studios, a typhons have similar design they have a more watery design, they look like they are made of water and in the gravity conditions of the Talos 1 station they had a more tentacle-like structure and still looked like they were flowing
to be honest having aliens being inspired from aquatic wildlife is probably the best way to go, just like the mimics looking similar to that of a jellyfish and a squid and a centipede having a fusion, having aliens inspired by wildlife of our oceans where we barely understand in the first place makes it more alien and believable for their designs.
Hollywood did the tentacle aliens in the 80's and the design in this film was considered overused or rather retro. So it's a design that Hollywood CAN copy, but won't because they did it to no end and think of it as "cheap".
The thing ruining it a bit for me is the head. I don't see any reason why a "shape-shifting" capable mimic would need a "head", which is just a free weak-spot and something requiring a lot of energy and attention just to keep it "gimbaled".
I would love to see a film adaptation of the infection from “Gemini Home Entertainment” known as Deep Root disease and the creatures that spawn from it.
This video did not convince me that these could not be dragged and dropped into a different sci-fi series. A procedurally-generated tentacle monster with a face could easily find a home in a different story written by someone creative.
In fact I find this kind of alien design to be quite generic and just being the "easy way" when trying to create something weird. I think there is a lot more merit in creating a recognizable shape that actually does make sense while still feeling alien. This kind of design is just "well, nothing more alien and weird than just no shape at all". Many people are mentioning 2017's Prey, and I think it's alien designs suffer from the same issue. They are just blobs with nothing memorable about them.
A little movie called Edge of Tomorrow. Not many know about it. A small unknown actor named Thomas Cruise Mapother IV. Very obscure, only made $100 million domestic.
The Flight of Dragons for such an early cartoon works a lot with those kinds of terror elements and poetic symbolism, that would later inspire Legend of Zelda. For biological horror Gwoemul is good at making the unknown work a lot like a wilderness bear attack, the monster is perceivable, but you don't necessarily know or SEE what you're looking at or how to deal with it.
If you want alien aliens that stand out, try Arrival and Annihilation. The alien in Annihilation is so alien it may not be a lifeform at all; it may not have wants or needs as we understand them. It doesn't get more alien than that
@0:50 What do you mean by "No one seems to have watched it" ? Edge of tomorrow was widely discussed and shared on social media, and even the most renowned movie critics on RUclips were praising it. There are numerous video essays dedicated to analyzing its stunning visuals. It's quite surprising that your just coming across this and your audience hasn't seen it, unless you're all quite young. Even my seventeen-year-old nephew and his pairs have watched it. Although it may not have been a huge box office success like all these comic book movies, it made its money back including all production costs, and it wasn't labelled a flop even by studio standards, Please get your facts right.
A quick look at the Wikipedia page says that the movie didn't do great in the US (wasn't a flop, but not a success either). I'm not saying it's some niche art-house movie that nobody's seen, but with all the movies that come out every year it's just one I hadn't had the chance to see. Most of my friends *knew of it* but either a) hadn't seen it, or b) don't remember seeing it. EDIT: also I literally say it wasn't a flop in the video, I just joked that I thought it was a box office flop because I knew next to nothing about it.
I really liked this video! I loved how you interacted with the viewer. This was my first video on your channel and I will definitely watch more! This comment is just here to make the algorithm give this work of art to others.
It's a common sci-fi trope to have the alien creature be an amorphous incomprehensible mass of tendrils. John Carpenters "The Thing" perfected that concept 40 years ago. Or even H.P. Lovecraft 100 years ago.
However this may or may not have been effected by the fact that we finished a subnautica campaign and then in my campaign (taking place afterwards) we went back to rapture (bioshock) after finding and retrieving the last son of atoms bombs (fallout) and we built Andrew Ryan a portal to the AA gun (subnautica) and the sea empress enclosure where we massively enlarged the exit so a full grown emperor or empress could exit, realized that the sea empress died and “borrowed” a vita-chamber (bioshock 2) which we made massive and gave a chunk of the empress for dna to respawn her
I've actually run into the "psycho slinky ball of destruction" type aliens before. In video games. The time travel concept is unique, but the psychotic blender of death physical appearance isn't. Off the top of my head the Mimics (yep same name) from Prey share a lot of the same eldritch qualities, though they replace the time travel with... well mimicry of the environment. They can turn into damn near anything; desks, coffee cups, potted plants, floor signs, etc. It makes looking out at an normal room horrifying because literally any item in there could be one of the damn things.
And then the novel's description that can be summed up as "A starfish-like monster that looks like a bloated dead frog". It's almost as if no one know how these alien actually looks like so they just vibe with whatever most menacing/scary they can imagine.
This is so funny, you must be very young. A lot of people saw this movie at the time because it was very popular and based on a light novel from Japan. It was so successful that they had plans to do a sequel but left it because the film was so well put together, people kinda settled with it.
My problem with this kind of alien is that it's so far removed from anything that actually exists that it stops being scary to me. Any time someone tries to make something seem incomprehensible it always just seems to just be goo to me. Once you go beyond a certain degree of complexity my brain just stops trying to understand what I'm looking at and it's dismissed as oddly textured goo instead of whatever intricate little parts it's supposed to be made of. And you keep emphasizing the fact that the alien design can't be copied because of how interconnected it is with the time loop plot, but you never explained why. Their visual appearance really has nothing to do with the story.
Really? It had the opposite effect on me. The mimic looks like a fish more akin to a lion fish. I just don't understand why people are saying it's design is "so otherworldly" and unique. It has limbs,a core body and a head ( if the filmmakers would've gone with the original idea of it being headless then maybe it's visual silhouette would be hard to read. )
I mean, the amorphous shape shifting alien is not the hyper original new thing this video is selling it as. The Thing, most lovecraftian beings, the necromorphs, cephs, typhoons...
0:43 It didn't flop. I saw the movie multiple times when it came out and it is one of my favourite sci-fi films of all time. I think you haven't seen it and assumed no one else did.
"Mimics have no consistent shape or silhouette" and somehow when they're in combat it's easier to understand what's going on than in the transformers movies fight scenes...
You may be surprised to hear that I was one of the few dozen people that watched this movie in theaters when it released. It was something I watched on a whim, and I have to say, it was worth it. Story was fantastic, many explosions, action, romance was kinda silly at moments, and it’s based off of a really good manga.
Oh my God My dad was watching this movie when I was a kid this happens very often I’ll have faint memories of I feel like I’ve seen this scene WAIT A MINUTE and remember the movie
Damn, cause when I think of Aliens, I think of jellyfish and insectoid machines. Totally not hot alien women that just so happen to look like Jellyfish or like they're wearing big straw hats *cough* Stellaris *cough*
I haven't heard of The Mist before, I'll have to give that one a look 👀 and the original War of the Worlds radio drama was one of my favourites growing up, the movie's alright
Mimics seem pretty cool, I think also that Jean Jacket from nope is up there bc that it hardly even resembles any form of life at all. And they did t even try to justify that or incorporate it into the story, they just let it happen bc of course it looks crazy, it’s an alien. There’s also the heptapods, which are most interesting in how they interact with and perceive the universe.
Saw Edge of Tomorrow in 3D. Had no clue what it was going in but "hey this looks interesting". Cruise played his part exceptionally well and the movie overall was immensely enjoying.
I thought this was going to be about the alien from NOPE. The alien is basically a jellyfish like creature that can morph into a flying saucer. The entire design was familiar and yet so different from anything else I had seen.
I really, really enjoyed this movie. The alien design is honestly quite underrated and you make a great point about how their incomprehensible nature is a core part of the movie's plot, as it can only be explored through the time loop repetition. I really should watch it again, it was surprisingly interesting. What threw me off is how it was marketed to German-speaking contries as "Edge of Tomorrow" but then upon home release it got renamed to "Live. Die. Repeat."
yeah the varied marketing across territories is an interesting choice. I understand selling it as "Live. Die. Repeat." in Japan where that's the same name as the original manga, but "Edge of Tomorrow" is a stronger title for English-speaking countries IMO
Now let’s say that one day aliens will visit earth and will have peace with us. Are we gonna have to explain to them why we have so many movies of us destroying them?
The key to designing an extraterrestrial for film is to imagine a Not form , a being that we cannot comprehend when we first see it , we need to forget what forms we see in terrestrial nature, just throw that all away, it won’t be of this world, it’s very existence is the result of evolution in a non terrestrial environment. One of the best alien beings I’ve read about was in the short story Arena by Richard Matheson , the Rollers I suggest you look into that story The Rollers are a good example of a TRUE alien body plan.
I've seen exactly one other piece of media use this style of aliens, and it's the game Prey (2017) in which the smallest form of the aliens is actually called "mimics" because they use their malleable form to literally mimic objects, with all larger forms being implied to be the mimics absorbing and taking shapes vaguely reminiscent of other things, though even in these larger forms they're still mostly an incomprehensible mess of tendrils.
"A unique Alien design... couldn't be popped into any sci fi" Aku the Shapeshifting Master of Darkness, Void Makuta, The Infinity Train's Steward, and literally any franchise with the overused nano-bots trope: "You rang"
Once you've played Prey 2017 you should revisit the points in this video. In particular the Silhouette. Because in my opinion silhouette was a big factor in making the designs distinct. Concept art by (manu) E. Petit went into detail using rorschach tests and they used Frederic Fontenoy - Metamorphose photography series as key inspiration. They purposely got rid of any humanising aspects like faces, mouths etc. and used black cloudy and moving textures that make the form of the alien even when still, feel like it's moving. They also used motion blurs and glows within the texturing of the characters to add noise and yet keep it in form with the silhouette. For example the mimics in the game have 4 legs, no head but a base where it all connects and they give off a sort of clicking sound when hiding reminding me of a grass hopper. Phantoms have a human like silhouette without a clear head and over arched shoulders. They have tendrils for arms and they give off a dark echoed sound voice that becomes more humanlike throughout playing the game. Both the technopath and telepath are similar in ideas looking like floating organs however their FX colours are key to their designs too. There are other offshoot designs for the Typhon too like different versions of phantoms with different abilities or larger mimics. Each design sharing the general silhouette whilst keeping the FX different. FX in the game adds a lot to keep the designs unique and you get a lot from the sounds, visuals and feel. Phantoms have an EMP field around them so the lights in the area flicker and explode. Poltergeists cause things to float and have a surrounding style audio that make it's feel like a poltergeist And the nightmare has a scream that appears as it cases you and the tone feels like a shark chase
It's funny that you say it can't be copied. I really like this movie, but if you only just saw it recently, you might not remember that "fast moving technology mess" was a pretty big design trope in sci-fi at the time. The early 2010s had a bunch of movies/games/shows that had creatures most likely inspired by the Michael Bay Transformers franchise, for better or worse. As much as I like Edge of Tomorrow, I remember that design already feeling derivative by the time it came out.
yeah I know the "nanotech" design trope was definitely a big thing in the mid-2010s, but I think the semi-organic design of the mimics makes it different to the Transformers nanotech nonsense that we saw a lot of (that Transformers movie came out the same year as EoT, so I doubt either of them copied the other)
Wow, that's my video at 4:04
So cool 😃
If you want a better idea of the movie's origins and why it's so good, it's actually an adaptation of a fantastic manga called All You Need is Kill. It's only 2 volumes long, but it's just as if not even better than edge of Tomorrow, definitely a lot more grim and depressing being more of a tragedy.
Also on the topic of the mimics, it's worth it to see what the original versions looked like, which I can best describe as giant spheres with gaping Maws filled with square stone teeth that make it hard to tell if it's mineral or organic or something else. And instead of moving with flowing tendrils, they equally as unpredictably move by generating spikes which they also use to horrifying effect as weapons, lots of people getting scewered from multiple angles all at once.
I brought him here. I'm proud to see this comment here after telling him
When you see your crush
@@rexex345 That sounds a lot like the description of the grievers in the Maze Runner books, maybe there is a connection there as well.
@@Opalwinter not quite, when I say spheres I mean they look more like pitch black balls with mineral blocks for teeth that split them across the middle, think more like ferrous dust from hell. They move basically the same as the movie ones, but with spices rather than tendrils and there really isn't even a clear face outside of where the maw is it's most toothy.
honestly, Edge of Tomorrow SLAPS when it comes to making the viewer learn things alongside the main character. as you said, at the start, you are all confused, quick cuts everywhere nothing feels consistent, but by the end, you basically know what's up, and are ready to face it with Tom Cruise by your side. one of my favourite sci-fi flicks ever.
@millo7295 chill out dude
@millo7295 It's a "classic disorientation technique" because it works. You're really being pissy that a moviemaking technique used specifically to disorient the viewer... disoriented the viewer? Now, me personally, I can't grasp how someone could go out and brag that they've watched so many movies that they've become jaded to something that's supposed to improve the experience.
@millo7295do you forget to enjoy movies as you watch them? or is picking them apart the joy of it?
@millo7295 bro has absolutely NO whimsy. Bro cannot fathom enjoying media.
@millo7295 You're a seasoned veteran of watching movies? Imagine exclaiming that with your whole chest like it was cool
"Edge of tomorrow" was based on "All you need is kill", but the aliens were just balls with teeth and spikes.
Was wondering if someone was gonna comment about this
I actually like both versions of the aliens. Although I prefer the ending of the book/manga better than the movie's ending.
How does the ending differ from the movie ending?@@butterfox
@@Shapeshiftergreen Cage is forced to kill Rita to stop the loop since the loop resets if Cage and Rita are alive, the aliens are still a threat and Cage (or ‘Killer Cage’ as his team calls him after he killed Rita) decides to kill every last alien since he is the only one who can reset.
@@Shapeshiftergreenits not just the ending. About 90% of the story is different, the movie only borrowed the key concepts from the novel/manga. Id highly suggest you to read it yourself if you wanna know more.
Id just say this contrary to Edge of tomorrows ‘happy ending’ the original novel end is a bit darker
“I’m betting you haven’t seen it either” lmao, I’ve seen this movie like 6 or 7 times. It blows my mind that people don’t talk about it, the marketing when it was coming out was crazy
If you enjoyed it you should read the manga All You Need is Kill which was the inspiration for this movie
People probably don't talk about it cause it came out over 10
Years ago as a one off movie with continuing the franchise in a extremely over saturated genre
Not think/know about one the best films Tom Cruise ever made? Either you haven't seen it or you have and you know how good it is.
Ditto, I watched it like 6 times and still got amazed by the intricate plotline. This is an underrated movie, though.
Sane
I also like how the Mimics sometimes just seemingly sporadically glitch out a bit almost like a fast-forward explosion put on repeat, it looks just SO out of this world, and it makes the Mimic feel even more alien.
That and the way the fold in and out of themselves
We need more black spaghetti spider alien mimics in films
Incomprehensible shapes are really cool in horror films
You explain why the concept couldn't be reused, but not really the physical design. An unnerving, wibbly-wobbly alien would work as a pretty standard design. It's the time travel that couldn't be reused (easily)
I think what he was getting at was that the story wants them to be confusing and incomprehensible to look at and that's why the design works. Could have been explained better.
I could see this design being reused for other movies, but not for ALL movies. It's a very specific kind of horror.
It’s kind of boring as an alien design tbh.
As evidenced by the mimics in Prey being essentially just the exact same thing but scaled down and decapitated.
@@indigofenix00 I mean it doesn't have to be horror. Just because they move weird and have an unrecognizable shape doesn't make them exclusive to horror. The standard big head big almond eye alien has pretty much everything from horror, to drama, to comedy. Would be pretty dope having wobbly aliens abduct humans and being confused by their physique and basically experimenting on humans by tickling them.
@Karttibone or alternatively, have featured in space opera, be they the unkownable invaders, or some peaceful group recently discovered facing great odds. There physiology is quite fun, with a lot you can do with it
"Design others can't copy"
Arkane Studios releasing their game Prey in 2017.
"Hold my mimic"
beat me to it
They even called them mimics 😂
@@Simplestopmotion-s8e I don't think they called them Mimics based on this movie. Rather that there's a fantasy creature "mimic" that can take a shape of almost any object, usually a treasure chest. Most notorious in Dungeons and Dragons. Since in Prey they do almost exactly the same thing, pretty sure the name was based on THOSE Mimics xD
Mimic and Jean Jacket are definably the best alien designs in movies, both of them have that grateful movements
I haven't watched Nope yet (it's been on my list for ages) but Jean Jacket definitely reminds me of the Eldrazi from MTG (particularly Emrakul)
@@noRugrats_ erm just to point it out: tf2 isnt a hero shooter. heck all of the chars are criminals of variing degrees.
Jean Jacket is an insane movie monster, I don't think it's an alien.
Like yes it's a living creature that looks like a flying saucer, but we only assume it's an alien because we associate flying saucer with aliens, but it could just be an unkown order of fully terrestrial animal.
Honestly, it looks like a giant flying sand dollar, a species of flat sea urchin
@@andreamassari7954 it seems to function more like a jellyfish.
Yeah, because design team did the homework and decided to put more of a different idea into things rather than doing what worked before.
Hell, Jean Jacket is a neat subversion because for most of the movie you expect a saucer like in all others, but it turns out it's a massive sky cephalopod
The amorphous alien is also an archetype of alien/monster. Edge of tomorrow just did it really really really well.
Did they though? I’m not overly impressed with the design.
@@TeChNoWC7 it’s a matter of opinion, but most people are impressed. Iv even heard them called completely original some of the best monster design several times. Considering how much work and brilliance the artist put into the creatures too, it’s impressive. Like, how about you make a writhing lashing ball of twisting cords move in a way that looks good and dangerous 😆
@@xavier84623 this is an ad hominem defence that could be used for literally any creation. ‘Well you (non professional) couldn’t do better than x design’ which pretty much nullifies any critique of art.
I don’t need to be able to create something as good, I can compare it to other artists and creators who can, and set the standard.
@@TeChNoWC7 …I’m saying it’s popular, they put a lot of work into it, and it’s clearly high quality on both an artistic and technical level, so why u hating?
@@xavier84623 tbh it was a MASSIVE upgrade compared to its manga counterpart to a point i am genuinely shocked how well they managed to pull it off. Then again they dont make movies like edge of tomorrow like they used to.
Fun fact: edge of tomorrow was inspired by a light novel and a manga that goes by the name "all you need is kill" so this practically makes this an anime movie
WWOOOOOOOOOOO
Well, it definitely feels like an anime story. A badass girl fighting incomprehensible enemies with a sword, exoskeleton power-suits, ragtag band of misfits coming together to save the day
@@helgenlane yeah it is. If you actually look up the manga, just from the title, cover page and the first pages alone you can tell that this is absolutely one of the most anime things you'll ever read.
"Things humans don't like"
"Phallic objects"
Speak for yourself
I like to hide my phallic object.
Mom, get off the internet.
yeah man what are you on about?
I 100% agree
Scream, I just commented this. Twins!
Back when I was a kid there was this alien “documentary” called Alien Planet or something, and I just remember the alien designs being so bizarre and unique that no other movie creature has resembled them ever since. So if you wanna see aliens that really look like aliens, then maybe check it out!
It's based on the book expedition check it out if you want
Wayne Barlowe. He also contributed pretty much all of the most memorable designs for the fauna for Avatar.
Check out Prey the game. They have a very similar design to these with more variations. they definitely had evil thoughts when designing them too. They modeled them after spiders except the spider is a pitch black mass of tentacles that scuttles around and can shape shift into a fucking coffee mug or anything in the environment. So it creates this constant paranoia while walking around hoping that the lamp in the corner of the room you just walked in doesn’t murder you.
Prey's been sitting in my Steam library for way too long 💀 I'll get around to playing it some day
You a fan of the game? Well, Bethesda should have just named it 'Neuroshock', or some other. It's Prey in name _only,_ and that in and of it‑self, is an insult to the ones that came before.
Yeah
and sometimes the spider assumes human pose- aka the Phantoms and Nightmare.
Nightmare especially is quite reminiscent of Mimics from Edge of Tomorrow- a mass of shifting something that only temporarrly looks like a massive humanoid just to show you that even when it's massive it can and will chase you into tiny rooms and do horrble sht to you
@@vee-bee-a It used to be named Typhon, before Bethesda forced Arcane to name it Prey because they were about to loose the trademark (dickheads)
@@vee-bee-aiirc bethesda forced Arkane to use the name Prey to not lose the ip.
Idk I feel like “weird octopus” is a pretty common alien design
Edge of Tomorrow and Oblivion are criminally underrated movies!
Never heard it flopped. One of the best sci-fi movies ever made.
Edge of Tomorrow is a great flick and very underrated.
im an absolute rainworld FANATIC and did NOT expect it to show up in this video!! HECK YEAH!!!!
The moment I heard the words “procedural animation” I was praying it’d be mentioned lol
@@OlivesAndHam lmao yeah my face lit up instantly
Yeah I heard 'Procedural animation' and instantly thought of the exact Rain World clip they showed with the Long Legs lmao
@@CalamitasBrimstoneWitch lmaooo
As soon as he said “procedural animation” I was anticipating RW. I swear any time I come across something talking about procedural animation, RW is at the very least, given a passing mention
The mimics movement style is the closest to an amoeba. They extend the tentacles out of the center and move in that direction, while the back contracts into the core.
the UFO from Nope is also peak alien design.
Nope is on my list! I'll get around to watching it eventually
That movie is terrifying
The Edge of tommrow mimics looks pretty unique and all but the only thing that makes it look off is its head, for some reasoon it has a jaw and i dont think an alien would have a actual working jaw, i feel like it would be very diffrent like something simular to a mouth but just as affective. I dont really know how alien life forms ways of eating would look like they would probably be so diffrent from animals on earth, we would have a very hard time understanding it.
What's funny is that Jean Jacket might not even be an alien but rather an animal that evolved naturally on earth. 🤔
@@VerySaneguy Funny that you say that. I'm pretty sure that the aliens originally _didn't_ have a head or eyes in a humanoid arrangement. Originally they didn't even have a head, but during production they kept adding features, because tester audiences were *too* confused by the design.
Edit: oops, he literally talks about the head in the video.
if anyone played the new Armored Core game Armored Core 6, the alien lifeform in that game is pretty unique. its basicaly sentient bio gas life form that human colonizer exploit as a source of unlimited fuel, because they are a lifeform, they can infinietly reproduce, while being used as fuel, called "Corral". it is facinating, and also come with many moral implications, like how there are multiple factions of human fight each others because they cant agreed on how to deal with these Corral. the bussiness corporations want to use for fuel and gain profit, the "native colonizer" want to use them as resource to help them survive and build independence on "their planet", and a group of scientice want to destroy all the Corral because they fear it will soon evolve pass the point of no return and take over as the apex in the evolution progress of humanity.
Coral isn't a 'lifeform'. It's just an energy source which also acts as a data conduit. BUT when large amounts of coral gather together it creates a 'wave mutation'. Now THAT wave mutation is sentient. Also all those who got exposed into the coral flow had their subconscious scattered into it so the wave mutation is based on the collective consciousness of dead Rubiconians
it's pretty similiar to coral from eureka seven
Dude the factorio music is perfect for this
In Prey (2017) from Arcane Studios, a typhons have similar design
they have a more watery design, they look like they are made of water and in the gravity conditions of the Talos 1 station they had a more tentacle-like structure and still looked like they were flowing
to be honest having aliens being inspired from aquatic wildlife is probably the best way to go, just like the mimics looking similar to that of a jellyfish and a squid and a centipede having a fusion, having aliens inspired by wildlife of our oceans where we barely understand in the first place makes it more alien and believable for their designs.
0:38 Transformers are unique aliens
I would agree
I can't argue with that
Still humanoid, only their car forms is like unique
@@gatotriyantolanang4028 Oh, right, but from their variety of enemies some are different type then humanoid, reptile, or insect like.
@@rafa8128 The most unique one is... whatever that asshole robot on wheels is named
Hollywood did the tentacle aliens in the 80's and the design in this film was considered overused or rather retro. So it's a design that Hollywood CAN copy, but won't because they did it to no end and think of it as "cheap".
I've been a defender of this movie for a while now. Really weird that a lot of people just forgot about it when it's such a fun rewatch.
The thing ruining it a bit for me is the head. I don't see any reason why a "shape-shifting" capable mimic would need a "head", which is just a free weak-spot and something requiring a lot of energy and attention just to keep it "gimbaled".
Funfact : Edge of tomorrow is based of the manga "All you need is Kill", great manga by the way.
To think its successful Live action Anime
I would love to see a film adaptation of the infection from “Gemini Home Entertainment” known as Deep Root disease and the creatures that spawn from it.
Apparently you and your friends were living under a rock. This is easily one of the best sci-fi movies in a decade.
This video did not convince me that these could not be dragged and dropped into a different sci-fi series. A procedurally-generated tentacle monster with a face could easily find a home in a different story written by someone creative.
In fact I find this kind of alien design to be quite generic and just being the "easy way" when trying to create something weird. I think there is a lot more merit in creating a recognizable shape that actually does make sense while still feeling alien. This kind of design is just "well, nothing more alien and weird than just no shape at all".
Many people are mentioning 2017's Prey, and I think it's alien designs suffer from the same issue. They are just blobs with nothing memorable about them.
god I LOVE edge of tomorrow
it's actually such a banger, I wish I'd watched it sooner ngl
A little movie called Edge of Tomorrow. Not many know about it. A small unknown actor named Thomas Cruise Mapother IV. Very obscure, only made $100 million domestic.
And don't forget to mention this movie is an inspiration from a manga with an even more different alien design named "all you need is kill"
my favorite "alien" in film has been the alien at the end of Annihilation. Super cool and unique design
I just noticed how much the mimics from Prey 2017 look like these guys
They look 100% like the smaller versions of Edge of Tomorrow small mimic drones. They even grant similliar powers
@@richardjalakas5190 fr
Edge of tomorrow is my favourite movie of all time, glad too see it mentioned
Bro, Edge of tomorrow is actually one of my favorite movies, watched at least 7 time already.
Annihilation has the best alien design I've ever seen.
You wanna go even further? Check out Lovecraft's stories, man. The Elder Things & Shoggoths are just two of my personal favorites among others.
I'm very big on Lovecraft's work! My personal favourites would be The Rats In The Walls and The Whisperer in Darkness
The Flight of Dragons for such an early cartoon works a lot with those kinds of terror elements and poetic symbolism, that would later inspire Legend of Zelda.
For biological horror Gwoemul is good at making the unknown work a lot like a wilderness bear attack, the monster is perceivable, but you don't necessarily know or SEE what you're looking at or how to deal with it.
oooh I'll have a look into both of those, thanks for the recommendations
If you want alien aliens that stand out, try Arrival and Annihilation. The alien in Annihilation is so alien it may not be a lifeform at all; it may not have wants or needs as we understand them. It doesn't get more alien than that
@0:50 What do you mean by "No one seems to have watched it" ? Edge of tomorrow was widely discussed and shared on social media, and even the most renowned movie critics on RUclips were praising it. There are numerous video essays dedicated to analyzing its stunning visuals. It's quite surprising that your just coming across this and your audience hasn't seen it, unless you're all quite young. Even my seventeen-year-old nephew and his pairs have watched it. Although it may not have been a huge box office success like all these comic book movies, it made its money back including all production costs, and it wasn't labelled a flop even by studio standards, Please get your facts right.
A quick look at the Wikipedia page says that the movie didn't do great in the US (wasn't a flop, but not a success either). I'm not saying it's some niche art-house movie that nobody's seen, but with all the movies that come out every year it's just one I hadn't had the chance to see. Most of my friends *knew of it* but either a) hadn't seen it, or b) don't remember seeing it.
EDIT: also I literally say it wasn't a flop in the video, I just joked that I thought it was a box office flop because I knew next to nothing about it.
@@MediocreGroove old man yelling at clouds
No hes right. Just because you like the op doesnt mean the op is just wromg and refuses to admit it.@@Elvis.D99
@@MediocreGroove brother you don't need to be so mad about this🙏
I really liked this video! I loved how you interacted with the viewer. This was my first video on your channel and I will definitely watch more! This comment is just here to make the algorithm give this work of art to others.
I'm glad you enjoyed it! hopefully some of my other videos scratch the same itch :)
1:13 oh no, I have. it's one of my favorite movies. But I'm just gonna keep seeing what you've got to say about it.
same same
Goofy way of talking but okay
@@qkcum ???
@@qkcumhuh
Same
It's a common sci-fi trope to have the alien creature be an amorphous incomprehensible mass of tendrils.
John Carpenters "The Thing" perfected that concept 40 years ago.
Or even H.P. Lovecraft 100 years ago.
The movie "Edge of Tomorrow" is one of my favourites in my personal opinion and one of the G.O.A.T no 🧢,like our little buddy Tapioca over there ☺️
I'd argue this design already has been mostly used again, with the Typhon from Prey. Especially their own mimics.
Bro many people have seen edge of tomorrow. Some even know it's based off of All You Need is Kill. And btw why is your video so desaturated?
just checked out the manga, and boy did they change everything for the better in the movie. completely different aliens, completely different vibe.
agreed and agreed
The video isn’t desaturated, he just lives in a dim room and has pale skin. Mark Zuckerberg vibes.
When I think of an alien, I think of one of three things: architects (subnautica)
Sea empress (also subnautica)
Reaper (also also subnautica)
However this may or may not have been effected by the fact that we finished a subnautica campaign and then in my campaign (taking place afterwards) we went back to rapture (bioshock) after finding and retrieving the last son of atoms bombs (fallout) and we built Andrew Ryan a portal to the AA gun (subnautica) and the sea empress enclosure where we massively enlarged the exit so a full grown emperor or empress could exit, realized that the sea empress died and “borrowed” a vita-chamber (bioshock 2) which we made massive and gave a chunk of the empress for dna to respawn her
ooh boy then did I make a video just for you buddy 👀 (it's not exclusively about Subnautica but a large chunk of it is)
@@noRugrats_ that’s cool, and seems like it could go the direction of our campaign
Factorio ost spotted, I see you are a man of culture as well
I've actually run into the "psycho slinky ball of destruction" type aliens before. In video games. The time travel concept is unique, but the psychotic blender of death physical appearance isn't. Off the top of my head the Mimics (yep same name) from Prey share a lot of the same eldritch qualities, though they replace the time travel with... well mimicry of the environment. They can turn into damn near anything; desks, coffee cups, potted plants, floor signs, etc. It makes looking out at an normal room horrifying because literally any item in there could be one of the damn things.
The 2017 video game 'prey' has similar alien design.
Rain World mentioned rise up scugs we gotta spread our game
fr shoutouts to mimics from All you need is kill
just a ball with teeth
if your ball has teeth please seek medical attention immediately
And then the novel's description that can be summed up as "A starfish-like monster that looks like a bloated dead frog". It's almost as if no one know how these alien actually looks like so they just vibe with whatever most menacing/scary they can imagine.
This is so funny, you must be very young. A lot of people saw this movie at the time because it was very popular and based on a light novel from Japan. It was so successful that they had plans to do a sequel but left it because the film was so well put together, people kinda settled with it.
I remember people talking about it at the time, but it didn't seem to have any lasting impact on pop culture in the way that other alien designs have
My problem with this kind of alien is that it's so far removed from anything that actually exists that it stops being scary to me. Any time someone tries to make something seem incomprehensible it always just seems to just be goo to me. Once you go beyond a certain degree of complexity my brain just stops trying to understand what I'm looking at and it's dismissed as oddly textured goo instead of whatever intricate little parts it's supposed to be made of.
And you keep emphasizing the fact that the alien design can't be copied because of how interconnected it is with the time loop plot, but you never explained why. Their visual appearance really has nothing to do with the story.
Really? It had the opposite effect on me.
The mimic looks like a fish more akin to a lion fish.
I just don't understand why people are saying it's design is "so otherworldly" and unique. It has limbs,a core body and a head ( if the filmmakers would've gone with the original idea of it being headless then maybe it's visual silhouette would be hard to read. )
Uh, The Thing? It’s literally a shapeless alien that was super unique for its time and holds up even now as an incredibly designed extraterrestrial
I mean, the amorphous shape shifting alien is not the hyper original new thing this video is selling it as.
The Thing, most lovecraftian beings, the necromorphs, cephs, typhoons...
0:43 It didn't flop. I saw the movie multiple times when it came out and it is one of my favourite sci-fi films of all time. I think you haven't seen it and assumed no one else did.
Nice video man. Congrats on the algorithm buzzing
"Mimics have no consistent shape or silhouette" and somehow when they're in combat it's easier to understand what's going on than in the transformers movies fight scenes...
If you like EoT you should read All you Need is Kill, the actual inspiration for the movie.
You may be surprised to hear that I was one of the few dozen people that watched this movie in theaters when it released. It was something I watched on a whim, and I have to say, it was worth it. Story was fantastic, many explosions, action, romance was kinda silly at moments, and it’s based off of a really good manga.
Oh my
God
My dad was watching this movie when I was a kid this happens very often I’ll have faint memories of I feel like I’ve seen this scene WAIT A MINUTE and remember the movie
"what do you mean when you were a....kid.. OH MY GOD THIS MOVIE IS TEN YEARS OLD"
I feel old now.
Honestly, Edge of Tomorrow is amazing, I don’t watch it often but when I do I always love it.
Rain world mentioned
Edge of tomorrow was such a great watch, i cant believe so few people went to see it.
mimics are living Machine learning entities. it's a super unique concept and I do enjoy it.
One of the best Tom Cruise movies. Not going to lie, I have watched it about half a dozen times. Its awesome. Can't wait for the sequel!
Way better than gray aliens, like the Chitauri and Outriders from the Avengers movies.
God, were they dull🙄
Right... So, basically a lower-rent version of The Thing, but with less adapatabilty.
haha don't get me wrong, I *much* prefer The Thing over Edge of Tomorrow, but they're both good for different reasons
Honestly, when I saw the thumbnail, I thought you're gonna talk about the Ceph from Crysis. Didn't expect this to be movie focused...
When you said "alien," I immediately thought of "Calvin" from "Life." It could totally be a baby mimic... 😮
auto like and subscribe for rainworld mentioned
is it bad that I've never played it?
@@noRugrats_ one of the best games ever made imo. It’s an incredible journey.
I've had it in my library for ages but I gotta make some time to finally play it, it seems like something I'd love
@@noRugrats_ its a great game, def do
You gotta play it man. It’s frustrating at times but very worth it!
talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique, completely not ever been done before
Damn, cause when I think of Aliens, I think of jellyfish and insectoid machines.
Totally not hot alien women that just so happen to look like Jellyfish or like they're wearing big straw hats *cough* Stellaris *cough*
I've seen plenty of movies and games with aliens that are just masses of tentacles and teeth, Carrion is a good one.
Great video! good luck with the channel, subbed.
Bro, First contact, The Mist, War of the Worlds all had interesting alien designs.
I haven't heard of The Mist before, I'll have to give that one a look 👀 and the original War of the Worlds radio drama was one of my favourites growing up, the movie's alright
@@noRugrats_ Just don't read up on it first. The ending is easily spoiled.
oh yeah I always try to go into movies blind, it's the best way to experience them imo
Mimics seem pretty cool, I think also that Jean Jacket from nope is up there bc that it hardly even resembles any form of life at all. And they did t even try to justify that or incorporate it into the story, they just let it happen bc of course it looks crazy, it’s an alien. There’s also the heptapods, which are most interesting in how they interact with and perceive the universe.
Edge of tomorrow is a really cool movie.
One of my favorites. Im a sucker for time travel shenanigans.
Wasnt expecting this video to be about it.
Saw Edge of Tomorrow in 3D. Had no clue what it was going in but "hey this looks interesting". Cruise played his part exceptionally well and the movie overall was immensely enjoying.
I thought this was going to be about the alien from NOPE. The alien is basically a jellyfish like creature that can morph into a flying saucer. The entire design was familiar and yet so different from anything else I had seen.
Factorio sound track hits hard
I loved Edge of Tomorrow. Definitely felt fresher than most “alien” plot lines as of late
I really, really enjoyed this movie. The alien design is honestly quite underrated and you make a great point about how their incomprehensible nature is a core part of the movie's plot, as it can only be explored through the time loop repetition. I really should watch it again, it was surprisingly interesting.
What threw me off is how it was marketed to German-speaking contries as "Edge of Tomorrow" but then upon home release it got renamed to "Live. Die. Repeat."
yeah the varied marketing across territories is an interesting choice. I understand selling it as "Live. Die. Repeat." in Japan where that's the same name as the original manga, but "Edge of Tomorrow" is a stronger title for English-speaking countries IMO
I saw this video and liked the start so i paused it and watched the movie, wasnt dissappointed at all, it was fantastic
Omg I am already in love with the design… it’s just perfect in every way, shape and form.
Now let’s say that one day aliens will visit earth and will have peace with us. Are we gonna have to explain to them why we have so many movies of us destroying them?
necromorph are one of the best alien design
When i think of alien i think of the krogan from mass effect then immediately a fleshmass of tentacles and horror
this is one of my favorites I can watch it over and over hope they make a second one
The key to designing an extraterrestrial for film is to imagine a Not form , a being that we cannot comprehend when we first see it , we need to forget what forms we see in terrestrial nature, just throw that all away, it won’t be of this world, it’s very existence is the result of evolution in a non terrestrial environment.
One of the best alien beings I’ve read about was in the short story Arena by Richard Matheson , the Rollers
I suggest you look into that story
The Rollers are a good example of a TRUE alien body plan.
I actually remember watching this with my dad around the time it came out and kinda forgot about it until now. I do remember really liking this film
So unearthly yet so believable. Genius design.
Ok maybe not the time travel liquid but the rest of it rocks.
I've seen exactly one other piece of media use this style of aliens, and it's the game Prey (2017) in which the smallest form of the aliens is actually called "mimics" because they use their malleable form to literally mimic objects, with all larger forms being implied to be the mimics absorbing and taking shapes vaguely reminiscent of other things, though even in these larger forms they're still mostly an incomprehensible mess of tendrils.
"A unique Alien design... couldn't be popped into any sci fi"
Aku the Shapeshifting Master of Darkness, Void Makuta, The Infinity Train's Steward, and literally any franchise with the overused nano-bots trope: "You rang"
Once you've played Prey 2017 you should revisit the points in this video. In particular the Silhouette. Because in my opinion silhouette was a big factor in making the designs distinct.
Concept art by (manu) E. Petit went into detail using rorschach tests and they used Frederic Fontenoy - Metamorphose photography series as key inspiration.
They purposely got rid of any humanising aspects like faces, mouths etc. and used black cloudy and moving textures that make the form of the alien even when still, feel like it's moving. They also used motion blurs and glows within the texturing of the characters to add noise and yet keep it in form with the silhouette. For example the mimics in the game have 4 legs, no head but a base where it all connects and they give off a sort of clicking sound when hiding reminding me of a grass hopper.
Phantoms have a human like silhouette without a clear head and over arched shoulders. They have tendrils for arms and they give off a dark echoed sound voice that becomes more humanlike throughout playing the game.
Both the technopath and telepath are similar in ideas looking like floating organs however their FX colours are key to their designs too.
There are other offshoot designs for the Typhon too like different versions of phantoms with different abilities or larger mimics. Each design sharing the general silhouette whilst keeping the FX different.
FX in the game adds a lot to keep the designs unique and you get a lot from the sounds, visuals and feel.
Phantoms have an EMP field around them so the lights in the area flicker and explode.
Poltergeists cause things to float and have a surrounding style audio that make it's feel like a poltergeist
And the nightmare has a scream that appears as it cases you and the tone feels like a shark chase
I love how well it’s animated
It's funny that you say it can't be copied. I really like this movie, but if you only just saw it recently, you might not remember that "fast moving technology mess" was a pretty big design trope in sci-fi at the time. The early 2010s had a bunch of movies/games/shows that had creatures most likely inspired by the Michael Bay Transformers franchise, for better or worse. As much as I like Edge of Tomorrow, I remember that design already feeling derivative by the time it came out.
yeah I know the "nanotech" design trope was definitely a big thing in the mid-2010s, but I think the semi-organic design of the mimics makes it different to the Transformers nanotech nonsense that we saw a lot of (that Transformers movie came out the same year as EoT, so I doubt either of them copied the other)