Out of This World

The film’s debut is still far, far away (well, some two weeks anyway), but fans are already in orbit over Amidala, the teen queen of the planet Naboo (and Luke and Leia’s future mom), played by Natalie Portman in Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace. “She’s got that Princess Diana type of glamor,” says Star Wars Web site guru Jody Reeves. “She’s beautiful and exotic. But she’s not a space babe—she’s a kick-butt character.”

Even as an earthling, Jane Fonda put the sizzle in sci-fi as 41 st-century space bombshell Barbarella (1968). “There were all these men hanging around the set as extras, and Jane would parade around, enjoying all the whistles,” recalls costar Milo O’Shea. Sting, however, was cool to his cosmic look in 1984’s Dune. “I felt I was a coat hanger for a nice costume,” he told Playboy.

Kim Basinger’s eye-catching style in 1988’s My Stepmother Is an Alien “was kind of loony but also sweet and feminine,” recalls costume designer Aggie Guerard Rodgers. Says costar Seth Green: “She was a nice alien, like the kind of witch Samantha was on Bewitched.”

Oscar-nominated Starman Jeff Bridges blasted onto America’s radar in 1984. The secret to his alien’s charm? “He could do a lot of damage if he wanted to, but he was basically cool,” says Bridges. In 1997’s The Fifth Element Milla Jovovich’s Leeloo (right) was equally benevolent. “She doesn’t need to be a monster,” the actress told the Chicago Sun-Times. “She has grace.”

3rd Rock from the Sun‘s Sally Solomon (played by Kristen Johnston) is “good-looking and tough, like Lauren Bacall or Marlene Dietrich,” says show co-creator Terry Turner. “We think of her as Harrison Ford in a dress.”

As the lovely-on-the-outside, lizard-on-the-inside Diana on the 1980s TV series V, Jane Sadler (above) inspired more than fan mail. “Gay guys dressed up as me on Halloween. I was sort of the Joan Collins of outer space,” says the actress, now working in Australia. Natasha Henstridge‘s appeal in the two Species films was more superficial: She was often naked. As she said to Britain’s Daily Mirror, “Why would an alien be wearing anything?”

For a franchise that once aimed to go where no man had gone before, Star Trek beamed up plenty of extraterrestrial chicks. Marina Sirtis (top inset) was dubbed Counselor Cleavage by some fans for the body-hugging uniforms she wore as half-Betazoid Deanna Troi on Trek’s Next Generation. “I watch episodes now and I can see when I had a big lunch,” says Sirtis. Terry Farrell (bottom inset) landed on Deep Space Nine as a Trill with a cover-girl face. And Voyager‘s reformed Borg, Seven (Jeri Ryan, right), made resistance futile for fans. Though her skintight spandex, corsets and four-inch heels can be confining, at least “Seven has better fashion sense than Princess Leia,” says Ryan. “I’ll take the catsuit over the cinnamon-roll hair.”

Makeup wasn’t a problem on the set of 1958’s campy Queen of Outer Space, says Zsa Zsa Gabor (center, as a Venusian scientist), but dialogue—like “I hate that qveen!”—was. “The thing I remember most,” she says, “was trying not to laugh when I said my lines.” But of course, dahling.

David Bowie, as the ethereal alien in 1976’s The Man Who Fell to Earth, was “tail, striking and mostly gorgeous,” says costar Candy Clark. “Until he revealed himself and there was stuff oozing out of his body.”