So, a few things about aliens.  One, today is the birthday of SETI, a program to search for extra-terrestial intelligence, which you should think is cool, because if you don’t, you’ve got a real lack of imagination and should get excited about, among other things, the new Stark Trek movie.

But I digress: also about aliens, there’s a new The Day the Earth Stood Still movie coming out, which prompts a clever reflection in First Things:

This is the way a lot of “alien as messiah” films go, and the 1951 version had more than its share of religious stuff. There was Klaatu’s reference to “the Almighty Spirit,” plus that climatic Lazarus-like resurrection. There was, however, nothing miraculous to be found. It was due to a medical science far beyond our capacity to understand. In these alien–savior films, everything is beyond our capacity to understand.

In the 1982 E.T., we have both a resurrection (cheers were said to be heard in theatres) and an ascension, awe-struck humans looking upward at their departing friend.

You want more sci-fi religion? There’s Jeff Bridges as the Starman in 1984. He impregnates an Earth woman and promises that her Child will be a Teacher. That’s my capitalization of the two words, but you won’t miss the capital letters dripping from the Starman’s accent. There was even a short-lived television series based on the product of that union. Starman, by the way, resurrects a deer killed by a red-neck hunter—so, take that you awful NRA people! Were the film being made today, I think an Alaskan moose shot by a pony-tailed governor would likely get the role. While there is no resurrection in Starman, except for the deer, the ascension scene is not to be missed—another picture of slack-jawed humans gazing wonderingly upward.

We want to believe there’s Somebody Out There, somebody wiser, stronger, smarter, kinder than ourselves. Surely, in this vast, incomprehensible cosmos there must be other beings selflessly prepared to snatch us out of our troubles. You can hope so. A lot of science fiction is depending on it.