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Alright Dean. What do you think aliens look like?
好吧，院长，那你觉得外星人会长什么样呢？
They're sad because they think that we don't like them.
他们长着一张苦瓜脸，因为他们觉得我们不喜欢他们。
It really depends on how long they've been evolving.
外星人的长相很大程度上取决于他们进化时间的长短。
That's an alien.
外星人应该就长那样儿。
Aliens have noses?
外星人也有鼻子吗？
There's no right answer, since no one really knows.
这个问题其实并没有正确答案，因为并没有人真正知道外星人的长相。
But we often imagine extraterrestrials to look a certain way, because we've encountered them in books, films, or on TV shows.
但我们经常都会想象外星人的模样，因为书籍、电影电视里都经常有他们的身影。
Oh my god, it's one of those facehuggers from the Alien movie.
天了噜，这不是外星人电影里的异形怪物吗？
Which means that when we think about aliens, we're usually thinking about the product of someone else's imagination.
换句话说，想到外星人时，我们想到的通常都是某个人想象力的产物。
This is the first film featuring life out in space: A Trip to the Moon by Georges Méliès.
乔治·梅里爱导演的《月球旅行记》是电影界第一部外天空生命题材的电影。
It came out in 1902 and the strange moon aliens in it are not at all that strange.
该电影上映于1902年，但电影中那些长相陌生的月球外星人其实一点儿也不陌生。
They actually look a lot like us.
反而跟我们人类很像。
These creatures were incredibly ambitious at the time, but they were also convenient.
尽管这些生物野心勃勃，但他们也很容易相处。
Partly to do with even the practicality of having...needing someone to play it, you know?
部分原因是因为我们要用人来扮演这些外星人。
This is Charlie Henley, an Oscar-nominated visual effects supervisor who worked on Ridley Scott's Alien series.
这位是获得过奥斯卡提名的视觉特效总监查理·亨莱，他完成的作品包括雷德利·斯科特导演的外星人系列。
So yeah, he spends a lot of time thinking about aliens.
所以，没错，他很多时候都是想外星人方面的问题。
Obviously sometimes it's just like, well, we'll dress somebody up.
显然，有时候外星人是我们用人扮的。
How you feeling? Good. Good? Ok.
感觉怎么样？挺好的。还行吧？那行。
So they're gonna end up with a head and arms and legs, you know?
所以人扮演出来的外星人通常都会有头和四肢。
The idea's that they would relate to us if they're intelligent, so we'd be kinda similar.
我们想的是如果外星人也有智慧，那他们应该会跟我们有一定联系，所以和我们有一定的相似之处。
But that's not how everyone sees it.
但并不是所有人都这么想。
We don't have any reason to believe that they would look anything like us.
我们没有任何理由认为外星人会长得跟我们人类差不多。
The form of a human being is the result of several billion years of evolution.
人类的形体是数十亿年进化的结果。
There's no reason to believe that the development of life would be so similar as it was on Earth,
我们没有理由认为其他星球上生命的进化过程会和地球上相似，
that the sort of the form of life would look anything like we have on Earth.
相信其他星球上的生命形态会和地球上的任何一种生命形态相似。
That's Andrew Siemion, the director of SETI Institute where they conduct experiments to detect extraterrestrial technology.
这位是通过实验检测外星科技的塞提学院院长安德鲁·西米昂。
We're lucky in that we don't have to think too much about the biological organism, the specifics of the life that created the technology,
幸运的是，我们不用太过纠结于外星生命的生理结构，也就是创造这些技术的生命体的长相细节，
because we just search directly for the technology and then we use that as a proxy for the existence of life.
因为我们只要直接寻找他们的技术，能以此作为地外生命存在的证据就可以了。
But imagining alien organisms, especially ones with relatable features, is what feeds a popular theme in science fiction: the relationship between us and them.
然而，想象外星人的模样，尤其是把它们想象成跟我们有一定相似特征的模样，也就是外星人和人类的关系恰好是科幻小说中的一个热门主题。
There's always a point of contact, an interaction that's sometimes hostile and other times it leads to a warm and fuzzy relationship.
这类小说中总会涉及到人类与外星人接触的清醒，这种接触有时是不怀好意的，有时则会催生出温暖而有有些暧昧的关系。
Quite often, we kind of want to put ourselves onto the alien, you know, in their stories. It's like it has an element of being human.
可以说，很多时候我们都是在把自己投射到外星人的故事里，外星人也就有了人类的一面。
And that's made for some powerful storytelling.
这种做法还成就了强有力的故事叙述。
Are they good or are they bad? What would we do if they try to communicate with us?
他们究竟是不是善类？如果他们要跟我们联系我们该怎么办？
I think those are their names. So what are we gonna call them?
那应该就是他们的名字，我们应该怎么称呼他们啊？
Science fiction has stuck around as a major Hollywood genre for decades.
数十年来，科幻小说一直是好莱坞电影的大头。
With more advanced visual effects technology in recent years, filmmakers had more room to experiment with the alien form.
几年来随着特效技术的进步，在外星人形体的问题上，制片方有了更多的实验空间。
But even with the right tools, it can be hard to break out of what we already know.
然而，即便是有了合适的工具，要想突破我们对外星人已有的印象还是不容易。
Normally there's a bit of a history for the film, there's some DNA that you want to follow.
通常外星人电影都可以追溯到先前的作品，这类电影都有可以追溯的DNA。
For example the Neomorph in the new Alien is effectively like a new creature that Ridley wanted to create, but it had the DNA of the original alien, so obviously features relate to that.
就拿《异形:契约》中的生化人来说，实际上，雷德利可能是想通过它创造一种新型生物，但它身上还是有前外星人的基因，它们的形态非常类似。
That connection creates a strong sense of nostalgia for franchises like Alien, but sometimes when creators break away from that DNA, that leads to new forms.
这种联系能让《异形》之类的电影产生强烈的怀旧情绪，然而，有时创作者突破了这一基因就能创作出全新形态的外星人。
In The Edge of Tomorrow, there's a creature called a "Mimic" and we did some design work for that originally,
《明日边缘》里有种叫“模仿者”的外星生物，我们原本设计了一些方案，
but the brief for that was it shouldn't be humanistic obviously and it should follow the normal laws.
然而，我们的宗旨是这种生物不应该带有明显的人类特征，但他也应该遵守一般的法则。
And that's a difficult task for filmmakers.
要达到这一要求对制片方来说并不容易。
But the challenge with anything like that is that if it doesn't follow the laws that we know, it's hard to sell it as something real and tangible.
然而，做这种东西的问题在于如果它不遵循我们已知的法则，那我们很难把它做得真实有形而又能让观众接受。
They need to come up with something totally new, but also have it makes sense to us.
他们不仅需要设计出全新的外星人形象，还要让观众能够理解。
Often, the trick is to find inspiration in nature.
一般情况下的诀窍是去大自然中寻找灵感。
For example, the Neomorph, we referenced these Goblin sharks which are quite rare, found in the deep sea
就拿《异形:契约》中的生化人来说，我们参照了这种生活深海里而非常稀少的加布林鲨，
and they have a particular quality to the skin, but also just the mechanism of how their mouths open.
它们的皮肤也很特别，还有它们那突出的嘴唇。
Or the ink-squirting Heptapods in Arrival: they're otherworldly but still familiar.
还有《降临》里会喷墨的触手怪，它们虽然长得很奇怪，但也不是完全陌生的。
And even Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy. Who effectively is an alien, but you know not in any classical sense, like he was kind of made, like he's made out of a tree.
以及《银河护卫队》里的格鲁特。格鲁特实际上是外星人，但从主要特征来看也不完全是，感觉它其实是树做的。
The design brief there is to make him friendly, but also figure out the technicalities of how it's gonna work.
这里面的是设计宗旨是为了赋予它友好的外表，同时也是为了弄清楚它的作用。
These aliens come from someone else's imagination and they might not be entirely rooted in science, but the depictions make us think about life beyond our planet.
这些外星人都来自某个人的想象，尽管他们可能不都是以科学为依据的，但对它们的描述能够引发我们对地外生命的思考。
We're all sort of wondering about the same thing.
我们好奇的其实是同一个问题。
And I think some people draw pictures of it and some people make movies about it and some people make music about it and some people talk to their friends and family,
一些人是用画画的形式，一些人是用电影的形式，音乐的形式或者是与朋友家人讨论，
and some scientists try to determine the answer using the principles of basic science and observational astronomy,
有些科学家甚至企图用基础科学或者观测天文学的基本原理来解释这些生物的形象，
but it's all part of I think the same human question which is of course: are we alone?
但我觉得我们其实都是在回答同一个人类问题，那就是，我们是宇宙中唯一存在的生命体吗？
