[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] grey101 They are sauropods and the portrayal of them is far more realistic than the man lizards bungie had them out to be.[/quote] I'm not sure about realistic. When dealing with the aesthetic portrayal of fictional alien races, there is no such concept as realism. For something to be realistic, it has to be somewhat accurately reflected in reality. As we have no alien races to compare to, and no standard to say what a realistic alien actually looks like, this remains purely an imaginative exercise with absolutely no basis in fact. Even if we had knowledge of real aliens, it is still much too general an area to set up what is realistic and what is not. Anything from another Human race to a puddle of sentient slime could show up. In other words, almost anything could be possible within reason. The Elites were Saurian-like, but they were not Saurians. They are still aliens and do not fit into any of the Earth classifications for life as they currently exist. Therefore, to expect that all of the features of a Saurian creature should appear on them is unreasonable. I see no reason to belittle Bungie's aesthetic choices in this regard. I think that the only important considerations in designing your alien races is what their purpose is in the story and how you want them to be perceived by in-universe characters and by the audience. I'm not sure realism should be a consideration, or even can be a consideration. Merely reason. In most cases, the audience's ability to relate decreases as you push the designs more towards the Eldritch Abomination end of the spectrum (Unless you happen to be a literary genius), so there are compromises that have to be made in places. This works well for things like the Alien films; doesn't work so well when you want those alien races to sympathetic and relatable to some degree.