Non Humans are People.

[MoonHunter]

I saw the movie Eragon the other night.

>[review]It is not the book, nor as good. It has roughly the same plot and some character names, but so not the books. However, it is a reasonable fantasy movie. www.eragonmovie.com/ www.imdb.com/title/tt0449010/ and to balance things en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eragon [/review].

One feature of the movie that I really liked was that the Non-Humans were... well Humans. Nobody had prosthetics or serious latex applications or even bizzare makeup. They were all recognizable as Humans. Yet at the same time, you knew they were non-humans.

Arya is our "Elf". Now when you look up her images, you can see her difference. She is a bit paler, her eyebrows are a bit shaped, her hair is a different color than anyone else's in the movie. She does not have pointed ears or even odd colored eyes. Yet, if she was walking down the street, you would not give her a second look.. she is perfectly human. (Okay, you might give her a second look, but it would not be "woah, elf babe", just "woah, pretty girl.)
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1808715990/photo/970408379
http://www.imdb.com/gallery/ss/0449010/Ss/0449010/279.jpg?path=gallery&path_key=0449010
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1808715990/photo/970419773
Looking for more.

The Urgals are our Trolls/Orcs. They are brutal, violent tribals who work for the bad guys.  They are all big and heavyset humans, with tribal styled dot tattoos on their faces. Sure they shuffle and are all the same build, but you could see them walk down the street and all you would do is not look them in the eyes.

No net posted pictures of these guys yet.
(Note in the Books, they are more monsterous)

The point I am trying to make is, Not Humans don't have to be Non-Humans.  They can be distinct cultural and "ethnic" groups.  Now sure I have said this before and all my New Looks have been Humans as other species (Lyrans http://www.strolen.com/content.php?node=1464 and Orcen http://www.strolen.com/content.php?node=1818 most notably). Here is a movie that shows how this can be achieved culture and description, rather than by props and specific non-humaness.

Now do your not-humans have to have pointed ears, fangs, horns, or be oddly short, or be a combination of odd crunchy bits and stat mods?  What do you all think?

[MoonHunter]

Economics Teacher: Bueller?... Bueller?... Bueller?

[Pariah]

Um, he's sick. My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with a girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious.

[EchoMirage]

Well.
I read the book, found it to be a half-decent fairytale written by a kiddo, not worth of a second read.
The movie, which I was emotionally blackmailed into seeing (using a delectable bosom as argument, no less), was... horrid.

Thinking about it, I had to come to the conclusion that the elves and dwarves and Urglars were so human because the more human they are, the more you save on props (fake ears, fake jaws, teeth, etc).

I like it when the elf is more than just 'long-lived forest human' and the dwarf is more than 'laborious mountain human'.

[Dozus]

Hey, it worked with Star Trek in the first series.  Remember when Klingons were just bronze-skinned, bearded scoundrels?  And most aliens just had shiny shirts?  There's something to be said for keeping things subtle and simple.