WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Nope.The alien villain Jean Jacket in Nope‘s ending morphed into a jellyfish-like creature after taking on the appearance of a classic UFO design for most of the film. While this made for an impressive visual spectacle, it left many wondering what the alien in Nope actually was. The Nope alien’s physiology was unique and defied many people’s expectations of what sci-fi horror extraterrestrials look like (although this was to be expected from Jordan Peele, a director known for subverting tropes). Jean Jacket was an enigma, especially when it changed forms. Nope left many mysteries unanswered, but hints dropped throughout the movie may explain the creature’s behavior — although the less-than-definitive answer still leaves much mystique around the Nope alien.
Visionary horror movie director Jordan Peele threw many curveballs at audiences when it came to the Nope alien, such as that the UFO is actually a sentient creature, that it may not even be from outer space, and — most of all — when Jean Jacket changed form at the end of the movie. Nope is far from a straightforward sci-fi horror movie, and it completely flips the alien abduction subgenre on its head. The ending of Nope, and how the UFO changes into the alien’s presumably-true form, was a narrative twist that added another layer to this thematic thread — one that it couldn’t explain in full lest it ruin the movie’s mystique. That doesn’t mean Jordan Peele’s horror left every audience member satisfied with what it revealed about Jean Jacket though, but thankfully the director has since clarified a few things about why the alien in Nope changes at the end.
Why The Alien Really Changed In Nope
While a full explanation of Nope‘s alien and UFO is never provided in the movie, the animal kingdom provides some clues. The Nope alien’s predatory nature hints at the reasons for the startling change. Jean Jacket’s behavior is similar to deimatic behavior in creatures like octopi. When threatened, octopi may make themselves appear much larger and camouflage themselves in order to frighten away predators. In fact, “deimatic” originates from a Greek term that means “to frighten.” The behavior is typically reserved for prey or threatened animals, suggesting that despite its imposing presence, the alien was actually intimated by OJ in the Nope ending.
Although Jean Jacket showed typical predatory behavior, such as establishing its territory and attacking living organisms that make eye contact, it is also very cautious. The Nope alien typically used a stationary cloud to camouflage itself above the ranch. Jean Jacket’s shape shifting at the end of Nope meant it viewed the Haywoods as a viable threat. With OJ’s experience training animals, he becomes aware of some of the creature’s habits and deduces its weaknesses, such as its inability to digest inorganic matter. OJ and the other protagonists are also able to predict its movements by the creature’s effect on electricity and surrounding technology. Realizing the danger the Haywood family presents, Jean Jacket likely puffs up to meet their challenge.
With Nope, Jordan Peele has reinvented the classic UFO film. Jean Jacket’s transformation has been described online as resembling biblical angels. Some have even pointed out how the alien in Nope’s final form is the closest anime fans will get to a live-action Neon Genesis Evangelion, Jean Jacket is highly comparable to the angels in the popular anime. It makes sense, as Peele is known for drawing inspiration from a multitude of sources for his films, which can also be seen in Nope‘s “Akira shot” – when Em drifts on a motorcycle away from the camera. Whether the anime-inspired Nope‘s alien or not, the ending hints that it may be humanity, and not the alien, that is the bigger threat.
A Real Navy UFO Encounter Inspired The Alien In Nope
Jordan Peele has previously discussed in interviews that Jean Jacket in Nope was inspired by a real-life UFO encountered over the Pacific Ocean — as reported by U.S. Navy pilots Alex Dietrich and Dave Fravor. While the real-life UFO didn’t kill people like Jean Jacket in Nope, the roots of Peele’s organic flying saucer concept can be gleaned from the circumstances of the documented Navy encounter. In 2004, a Navy carrier’s radar identified what operators described to be “multiple anomalous aerial vehicles” over the horizon – descending at the outrageous speed of over 80,000 feet in less than a second.
After the pilots Fravor and Dietrich quickly rushed to the scene to investigate, the first thing they saw was a 737 airplane-sized patch of white water on an otherwise calm ocean – suggesting that whatever the Navy radars picked up was just under the surface. According to Fravor, this was followed by an object in the shape resembling a Tic-Tac shifting about above the water – with a motion that Dietrich describes as unpredictable and impossibly fast. When Fravor flew closer to investigate, the ship climbed to meet him in the air – only to disappear without a trace.
While Jean Jacket’s strange predatory behavior in Nope are tributary elements to classic horror, thriller, and sci-fi, the way the creature moved was taken directly from this real-life UFO encounter in 2004. Similar to how Jean Jacket flies with impossible speed and without any visible means of propulsion, the UFO that disappeared in front of Fravor then reappeared on the Navy carrier’s radar – 60 miles away from where the two pilots were – just seconds after the encounter. The incident remains unexplained to this day, and it’s easy to see how it inspired Jordan Peele’s fresh, Kaiju-like subversion of the overused sci-fi flying saucer trope.
What Jordan Peele Wanted To Achieve With The Nope Alien Changing
Jordan Peele doesn’t make any creative decisions without reason, and the alien changing at the end of Nope is no exception. From the outset Jordan Peele had set out to subvert traditional UFO sci-fi movies with Nope, and the design of the alien Jean Jacket both before and after the change was an integral part of this. Speaking to The New York Times, Jordan Peele revealed that the Nope alien looking like a traditional, almost corny, UFO for most of the movie was a decision made at the very start of the creative process. “There was something about the notion of starting with “Close Encounters” but realizing we’re in “Jaws” that had an allure to it” Peele explained, “The great tradition of flying-saucer movies is one that I admire and I haven’t seen enough attempts at it.”
Peele then went on to illustrate how the interior of the alien in Nope is the most important thing about its form, and it’s when the characters are inside it that, for the director, the true thematic elements of the horror he wanted to convey become apparent. Peele said of the development of the Nope alien “There were many factors in the construction of what we call the Jean Jacket interior. And it went through several iterations. But I think the idea for me was getting across the most nightmarish environment possible, and involving the realization that being pulled up into this U.F.O. is not, in fact, an ascendance into a conversation or a negotiation with an alien species. It is a straight shot into digestion.”
Certainly a harrowing prospect, and one that gives some context as to why the alien in Nope has so many unconventional forms, and why it changes. It’s not a traditional flying saucer, as the movie already explained clearly. However, this decision allowed Jordan Peele to explore sources of horror not usually present in the alien abduction sci-fi movies Nope is almost satirizing: “I created something that was claustrophobic and yet felt like you’re so massively out of any sense of control, and in that state with a group of people. Part of the true fear of this thing is being not just a victim, but one of many victims who are all screaming together is, I feel, a particularly helpless feeling. So I built, essentially, a tunnel, a tract, that we were ushering people through. And then there’s a larger sense of the interior of that space. It’s much more like a theater in itself. And there’s something of a bouncy-castle-from-hell energy going on with the way it conducts wind and all.”
This story originally appeared on Screenrant
