question of the day: Where are all the benign alien first-contact stories?

In fact, the only first-contact movie of any import from the 2000s I can think of in which aliens were not trying to kill us as a motive for coming to Earth in the first place is District 9... though our poor treatment of the alien visitors leads to the beginnings of an insurgency among them.

Where are all the benign alien first-contact stories? Sure, a story needs conflict, but as E.T. and Contact and District 9 demonstrate, our own fears can readily supply that. There’s no reason why a science fiction movie can’t feature nice aliens. But that hardly ever happens, and even less so in recent years. Is this just too optimistic a scenario for our anxious, paranoid times? Or is something else going on?

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