@i-care-only-a-little just because something is a trope doesn't mean it isn't harmful, and it DEFINITELY doesn't mean it shouldn't be critically examined. for example, "the killer is a woman who is secretly a """"man""""" is a trope common to horror films, but it's incredibly transphobic and harmful.
furthermore, just because something is scary doesn't mean it has to follow a colonial model. why do all of the aliens/robots/whatever always enslave the humans? why don't they, say, reveal horrifying truths about the nature of the universe that send us into turmoil? why do they want to have slaves at all? why are they even interested in humanity in the first place? these are all modeled after colonialism explicitly, and originally it was trying to show white people the horror of what we've done to indigenous people, but it's become so ubiquitous in popular culture that it's done the opposite. when we imagine that these types of relations are so universal that they not only are inevitable for human interaction, but also for beings that are so unlike us we don't even know how they would think, it does a lot to absolve the people who committed the atrocities that they did. "oh well, sure, Columbus did some bad stuff, but that's just what happens when more powerful groups of people meet less powerful groups of people, so he really couldn't help it, the poor thing"