The reason Friday was initially suspicious and fearful of Colonel Draper

ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS was such a delightful movie in our childhood that it is still fun to watch, despite the dated technology.

We remember how suspicious and fearful Friday was of Christopher Draper at first. We reasonably assumed that this was a natural reaction.

It suddenly dawned on me after watching this movie for the umpteenth time why Friday was so fearful.

It dawned on me when Draper was watching the black and white surveillance video of the advanced aliens. One of the guards turns his helmet and we see a Caucasian face. At least the advanced aliens were not monsters, at least to us earthmen. But now it became obvious. Draper resembled the alien slave masters. It took a while for Friday to comprehend that Draper was not one of the alien slave masters.

Every time I watched the movie, I was always grateful that the advanced aliens kept away from Earth. Their space and military technology were several centuries ahead of Earth. Earth was no match for them. I surmised the advanced aliens must have known about Earth and as inferior as Earth's military technology may have been to them, it was enough to make a military confrontation costly and not worth the effort to subdue Earth. Clearly the advanced aliens were not a peaceful scientific or mercantile species; they were exploitive.