What on Earth (1966) - a satirical 10min film about aliens who believe the Earth's dominant lifeform is cars
What on Earth (1966) - a satirical 10min film about aliens who believe the Earth's dominant lifeform is cars
If you asked an alien who had never seen a car before, "design a vehicle that carries one single human for 90% of the trips and sits idle 90% of the day", they would never in a million years come up with something as hideously oversized and wasteful as a modern car....
31also, it weighs a ton or 2 to carry 70 to 90kg
it can run as fast as 200km, while it's legally forbidden to go faster than 130, to be ridden mostly in places where it's limited to 50 or 30km
optionally, it makes awful noises and drinks the blood of animals that died millions of years ago
20I think if you add the requirement to have protection from the elements, you won't be too far from a car.
9You're not talking about the American pickup trucks right now, are you? Because then we'd have to include meteor showers to "the elements"
8Velomobiles are pretty cool.
2
So that's were the inspiration for Ford Prefect came from.
17I remember Carl Sagan writing something similar in one of his books, I didn't know it was based on this film.
6"based on this"… book
and a radio show to start with. Read those books; they are, literally, awesome
7
I think the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy has a similar concept when an alien visits earth and they attempt to stop and communitcate with a car but just get run over instead.
14Ford Prefect - an alien from betelguse who chose then name Ford Prefect as it was "nicely inconsicuos". Douglas Adams later explained in an interview that Ford thought the dominant species on earth were cars. In the shitty film adaptation he is almost run over by a car while trying to greet it.
8
Known to be a problem so long ago and still no closer to solving it.
9National Film Board of Canada represent! 🇨🇦
I remember seeing this in school as a kid. I'm 46 now.
2