INTER-SPECIES PAIRINGS MADE IN HEAVEN

#5 – Men in Black

Not only do aliens act as key informants for Agent K and his mishap-prone sidekick Agent J, but many of them are actually employed by the MIB and play a crucial role in the protection of the earth. Those outer-spacers aren’t all bad – some of them want to help us out. And some of them just want to go home. (Did anyone else notice an overarching theme within Spielberg’s E.T. and Super 8?)

#4 – Babe

When a small talking pig makes a hardened old farmer do a jig, you know you’ve hit on-screen friendship gold. He trains the pig to do dog things, and, as we learnt above, this makes them best friends. Are pigs dirty, smelly and best cut into strips and shallow fried? No. They are adorable companions to the young and old. And if Babe didn’t teach you this, Charlotte’s Web (the old one) will.

#3 – The Little Mermaid

In a world where crabs have friendly Jamaican accents and dispense bountiful relationship advice, befriending crustaceans is crucial. Ariel and Sebastian are the perfect sub-aquatic duo. Disney do the cross-species thing right, after all. Just think of Mowgli and Baloo kickin’ it in the jungle, Sleeping Beauty and her horde of harmonious wood-dwellers, and the ultimate inter-species pairing – love between human and inanimate object – Andy and Woody.

#2 – My Neighbour Totoro

Studio Ghibli casts species boundaries asunder. Dragons morph into men and babies become fish. Cross-species relationships are the accepted norm. In My Neighbour Totoro a little girl’s fondness for a forest dwelling furry giant signifies man’s oneness with the earth. Poetry in multi-creature motion.

#1 – The Never-ending Story

Bastion rides all over the world of Fantasia on the back of his personal luckdragon, Falkor. The befriending of dreams.

CATASTROPHIC BEFRIENDINGS OF INAPPROPRIATE CREATURES

#5 – Ratatouille

Rats spread disease. They should not be in the kitchen lest we face another plague. Despite the fact that Pixar can do not wrong and Ratatouille is a great film, cleanliness is next to godliness and this pairing would be instantly shut down by Food Hygiene Inspectors.

#4 – Grizzly Man

Grizzly Man meets a grisly end due to his inappropriate befriending of man-eating bears. Let this be a lesson to us all.

#3 – Gremlins

They may look cute and cuddly, but so did the grizzlies. Do not befriend something you found in an arcane emporium of exotic treasures in a far flung land, that has been sold to you by a wizened grey man smoking a pipe longer than your arm. Ever.

#2 – King Kong

The amount of stroking and swooning that takes place between Naomi Watts and Serkis’ Kong in Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake pushes the bounds of friendship into the realms of the inappropriate. Do we want to think about the logistics of breeding between this couple or do we want to cast it to the inappropriate befriending pile? Yes, I thought so.

#1 – Alien vs. Predator

Possibly the most ridiculous on-screen friendship ever devised. Predators are breeding Aliens for hunting, and humans are caught in a pyramid amongst the cross-species cross-fire. Where does the inappropriate befriending come in? Humans decide the Predators must be allowed to succeed in their mission so that Aliens do not overrun the earth so, obviously, when all the other humans are dead, the leading lady and a lone Predator become amigos to fight the aliens. Laughable.

What’s your favourite interspecies buddy-up? Let us know below!