From a few months ago: Tired Sci-Fi Tropes, Part 1 and Part 2.
My favorites:
(1) Humanoid aliens. This is the one I always make snarky comments about whenever Matt’s watching reruns of Star Trek: Voyager.
I don’t have the space here to go into the reasons why an alien life form, even an intelligent one, is unlikely to be an upright bipedal, bilaterally symmetrical, four-limbed, endoskeletal, pentadactyl, binocular and binaural chordate.
(2) The Planet-as-Location.
Sci-fi writers love to treat “planet†as if it’s a single location. “Let’s land on the planet, where we’ll meet the one settlement of the one culture, and have the one adventure the planet can afford us.†Planets are entire WORLDS. Even with advanced technology, it will take a space exploration crew YEARS to explore and survey a single planet. Even an uninhabited one.
I’m amazed at how many aliens have human dentitions. And a mouth in the lower portion of their head.
1) So, you’re saying that if there really is intelligent life out there, it probably doesn’t resemble Jar-Jar Binks? Phew. That’s a relief.
2) Oh, whatever. I did Planet Hollywood in about 20 minutes.
At least Star Trek had the decency to provide a semblance of a justification in having all the upright bipedal, bilaterally symmetrical, four-limbed, endoskeletal, pentadactyl, binocular and binaural chordates be the product of gene-seeding and guided evolution by an ancient species of upright bipedal, bilaterally symmetrical, four-limbed, endoskeletal, pentadactyl, binocular and binaural chordates. A wee bit of a cop-out, but at least they tried.