Aliens in Scifi

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Some alien races have different forms. Aliens with their Face Hugger/Soldier(?)/Queen forms, or the Zerg (Starcraft). The Startrek Xindi had some variety, though they weren't really one single species. But at least they had space dolphins.

Andromeda had

Spoiler

Suns

as their own intelligent species. Of course, they created humanoid Avatars and few if any knew about that...

 

[frankthedm]

One part is that we get what our special effects guys come up with. Hence mostly bipedal life forms. Because we could hire actors to wear a suit. Digital SFX has gotten better now, so expect weird aliens...

While they can be made more convincingly in movies, nonhuman aliens not meant to foes/gunfodder will still take a backseat to "close to human aliens", often with a gender that have the same body shape as human females. We'll get some exceptions, but some human aspects will creep in, like the soulful eyes of the prawns in "District 9."

What Measure Is A Non Human - Television Tropes & Idioms