It was better than it could have been, and much better than I'd feared it was going to be. Nothing great, nothing outstanding but IMO they avoided a number of possible clichés: for example I spent a good portion of the film gritting my teeth in the expectation that the lead (military) character was going to walk off hand in hand into the sunset with the female civilian. And no big backslapping/ group hug scene when the junior guys in the team realised that Staff Sergeant Nantz wasn't actually the cold-blooded self-serving survivor they had believed him to be. Essentially it was a war film with aliens rather than Germans/ Iraqis/ whoever as the bad guys. Also it was well done in that the Aliens weren't (at any stage) invincible and all-powerful, they were just overwhelming. A nice touch. The only really bad bit was the declaration by a talking head scientist on TV stating "They are definitely here for our water, we have noticed a significant drop in ocean levels since their arrival (in 24 hours?! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!), Earth is the only place in the universe where H20 exists in liquid form". Er, if that's so then why and how does the alien technology rely on water for fuel? But given that that was a 5-second slice of the movie it could have been some sort of piss take of similar movie tropes. My friend and I both quite enjoyed it and decided that it'll be on our "to buy on DVD" lists - but only when it's reduced in price. It's worth a fiver or so, but not ~£14, to add to a personal library.
Liquid water the fuel source?! How inane. Any technology capable of extracting the hydrogen out of water could obviously melt ice mined from other planet and comets. Oh well...it still sounds pretty good. I'll give it a shot. Thanks for the review! BTW..it appears to have that newer realistic way of depicting alien ships that we saw in District 9. Hopefully they look like real physical ships instead of some over-CGI'd version of transformers.
What? Water? You gotta be kidding with me. Europa has TONS of water and no pesky humans to deal with. Hydrogen is the number one element and Oxygen is the number three element. . . IN THE WHOLE UNIVERSE. Any species with the means of crossing the gulf between the stars, SURELY has the power to burn those two elements (which gives off a usable energy) in order to create their own fuel. Utterly moronic. ~String
A better question may be WHY didn't they just find territory outside the USA, then begin mining water without anyone else around? LOL or why would they release land based weapons first then airforces? And how idiotic is it to have the military believe they have spaceships but no aircraft? I almost lol'd outloud at that one! So they traveled here from god knows where and have no aircraft? um hummmmm they military ppl actually believed it in the film until they SAW some lol. Or what's even worse, they loose far more than they saved! And also umm let's see their rather pathetic tactics at trying to attack mecha without any mecha themselves! ahaha omg I so laughed at that, it would be a slaughter (as it was in the film). Seriously so many confusing contradictory things in it I almost couldn't bare to watch.
A better question may be WHY didn't they just find territory outside the USA, then begin mining water without anyone else around? LOL or why would they release land based weapons first then airforces? And how idiotic is it to have the military believe they have spaceships but no aircraft? I almost lol'd outloud at that one! So they traveled here from god knows where and have no aircraft? um hummmmm they military ppl actually believed it in the film until they SAW some lol. Or what's even worse, they loose far more than they saved! And also umm let's see their rather pathetic tactics at trying to attack mecha without any mecha themselves! ahaha omg I so laughed at that, it would be a slaughter (as it was in the film). Seriously so many confusing contradictory things in it I almost couldn't bare to watch.
the guy actually said in the known universe either way it is a pretty ridiculous notion. but still awesome movie and they did do a good job of leading you into thinking they were going to have a cliche and then turning it around
I haven't seen the movie yet, but I plan on it. What really gets me about really botching the science in a SF movie, is when they show it in the preview. It's bad enough just having it in the movie. However very good special effects goes a long way to easing the pain.
It's a good action movie...a bit of bad science, but no more than other scifi movies have done. Unlike Skyline, there's a plot, and some character development.
I just saw "Skyline" and it was pretty bad. I mean, I was entertained, but not in a completely good way. "Battle LA" was actually good, I mean, "good" in a, "HEY, that was really fun" sort of way. Not in a "Wow, that story didn't have a single plot or scientific hole in it!" sort of way, because it had a shit load of holes. My issues were: Nuclear weapons. My goddamned government better have NO compunction about nuking a city filled with squirmy Americans if Aliens invade. These ships didn't have "shields", and they operated--roughly--without a need for suspension of disbelief (which I appreciate). I kept saying to my boyfriend, "Uh, Rick. . . where are the nukes?" In Skyline they dropped one and it sort of worked then they gave up. In this movie, apparently they were afraid to use them. That annoyed me. When you're at war it's a numbers game and the species was definitely dependent on a clean victory and nothing ensures destruction like a nuke-yoo-lar weapon. Hell, I would have blasted LA (and other cities) with about 20 just to make sure. Really? Water as energy? It's easy stuff to make and as I said, you can make it anywhere with some REALLY nifty side effects. Also, for the record, the movie acted like water was scarce (yeah, yeah, they were worried about the liquid variety, but that was bunk). Aliens with the power to traverse the stars would have LONG tapped into many other forms of energy. And, while I could suspend disbelief and accept the water-as-energy rule, I just don't buy the need to invade Earth to get it. The news caster says, "Yeah, and ocean levels are already dropping [because of the Alien ships using the stuff as fuel]!" Um. There are--maximum--100 of the alien "command ships" on earth. But lets give'em ONE THOUSAND (just to make the argument). If each ship was 1 mile in diameter (which is an exaggeration), and consumed water equaling the volume 1/2 of it's total size (1/2 cubic mile, let's say, which--btw--would make their great "power source" really in-efficient if you asked me, especially when compared to other hypothetical methods, one being the sun) per day that would SURELY be a lot!!! Right? No. It wouldn't The Earth has 332 MILLION CUBIC MILES of water. Even if those aliens (who's numbers I exaggerated)--over two days--consumed what I sated, that would be just 1,000 cubic miles of water. That's roughly the volume that evaporates from the earth in two days. We wouldn't even begin "noticing" their usage until after a few years, and even then, it would only be just barely. But, yeah. It was fun. And, as always, it was the USA, USA, USA, USA who saved the whole world. Who needs the French!? ~String
I have it on good authority that the French were still finishing their café and croissants whereas you uncultured Americans just rushed in in that si amusant gung-ho manner you have. After all, it may be the end of our world as we know it, but surely mon brave, one can take the time for a visit to the Louvre on the way, non? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Par-ee was probably spared the carnage because it was inland. I really love seeing it get blown up in movies. London? New York? Eh, been there done that. But Paris getting clobbered is the cat's meow. ~String
Not so clean cut, for many reasons. While typically movie makers (and scientists in real life) under-value the potential of the nuke, it isn't an 'I win' button. (and yes I am using the only available combat data for nukes) Hiroshima and Nagasaki had a combined population of 450,000 people. The combined casualties including those that died after from radiation poisoning etc. : 199,000 The break down: Nagasaki : 255,000 135,000 52% Hiroshima: 195,000 64,000 32% Two atomic bombings have a kill ratio of 44% While impressive, it is by no means a cleansing which is what you want when invaded by aliens. In addition radiation after effects make it difficult for the squishy humans to go in and finish the scouring up. While yes, modern nukes are 100 times more powerful, this gives them a blast radius of just over 4 times the size, against cities that are significantly larger than either Hiroshima or Nagasaki were. Hell some experts say that a napalm run against Hiroshima would have been more effective, since the city was mostly wood. But back to Battle:LA It was actually nice that they didn't consider it, and rather went with the right strategy for cleaning out the city, and ensuring the city was cleared. And even if you put all your troops in MOPP4 or whatever they call it now, the debris field caused by the nuke is going to make searching for survived enemy combatants much more difficult than going home to home. Bombing a place actually can make it a better defensible position. Even the conventional bombing run would have had a similar effect, they heavy bombing though wouldn't have brought in the radiation and would have cut down on the sheer number of troops they were fighting, which is why it makes sense. Someone made a comment about them thinking there was no air support, Keep in mind that until a certain point there hadn't been any. That's what they were planning on, and Murphy's rules of combat state : #34 No plan survives the first contact intact.
I concur with the reasoning for no nukes, aside from killing the movie plot. Granted, you want to draw the line, but you also want to be able to use a plan B. I can also see the lack of air attack at first as a strategy. They could obviously tune into our broadcasts, so they'd have an idea of what kind of air support we have. What better way to flush our planes out than to give us the idea we have superiority, and then when we're flying around, take us out. Remember Murphy's #34 in Independence Day? "They've got shields!" Shouldn't we assume they have something, if they're far more advanced than us, just in case?
I disagree. We're not talking about an average invasion: we're talking about an invader from another planet. Nuclear weapons would most certainly have done the trick. The aliens had no shielding and operated on the same basic principles that we know of. A full on strike--standard for what we'd use against an enemy capital (usually 12-20 smaller nukes followed by 3-5 of the big boys) would have utterly destroyed everything in LA. This is where the movie makes two massive leaps that I refuse to believe: The military is utterly destroyed in LA. Don't try to tell me the POTUS wouldn't say, "Okay, we gave conventional weapons a chance. . . ." and opt for a nuclear strike. The US did a REALLY bad job of knowing what was going on on the ground. Our surveillance was laughable (and this is from a younger brother who's in the Air Force and works for the NSA). He loved the movie but did a hundred head-slaps at the slow adjustment in military tactics. Again, given the knowledge that fifty other cities were suffering and being destroyed by a much more powerful alien force and that humanity was 1 second to midnight from being destroyed, I patently refuse to believe that the nuclear powers on earth wouldn't have targeted those cities with 1/2 of everything they had and let loose. ~String Someone made a comment about them thinking there was no air support, Keep in mind that until a certain point there hadn't been any. That's what they were planning on, and Murphy's rules of combat state : #34 No plan survives the first contact intact.[/QUOTE]
I showed already that the number of casualties inflicted by a nuclear assault would not be sufficient to drive out the alien invader. Even though they were not vastly superior in technology, thier biology was already shown to be hardier than human biology. In addition winning the war by rendering vast swathes of land unusable. Given that you can only expect somewhere around 50% casualties, and the command structure was buried underground the net effect would not have been sufficient to drive the invader back. Not to mention that the drones showed very effective against the Air Force. There is no guarantee that ICBM or SLBM would have made it, or that they couldn't try to intercept the warheads. Also not sure where you get the numbers like that for a full strike, I don't disagree that sounds about right, but I don't recall ever seeing specific numbers, since a first strike was going to be 1/3 of the arsenal. Fallout would have become a huge problem if they used somewhere in the area of 20 nukes on LA, most of Nevada would have to be evacuated, much of the west coast as well. Given that the enemy wasn't ever 'invinceable' only at best harder to kill and had the advantage of a surprise attack, going nuclear so early on would be a bad idea. Yes the intel was much poorer than it should have been, without any real reasoning behind it. Movie directors != military tactical experts. And from personal experience in the army, while battlefield changes can occur rapidly, strategic changes do take forever by comparison. Also on the nuke issue, do you really think Obama (assuming him as POTUS) would actually EVER deploy one? I personally don't think he would, I could see him signing a surrender before using nukes. Two things, they were not much more powerful, in fact they primarily had the advantage of surprise, and may have had a numbers advantage, but even that is unclear, and there is evidence that it was unlikely. They landed by surprise in many areas and overwhelmed local defenses, think 'Blitzkrieg' while initially effective, and having the advantage of well built drones, and drone control structures, there is no reason to think that the war would have maintained its current direction everywhere, yes many cities would fall, but to be honest 50 cities in a global conflict is not significant. The weapons they used were actually highly ineffectual, many people taking a direct hit and surviving the shot. From the alien perspective they may have thought of us the way we thought of them : Hard to kill. In fact the civilian killed was one of the few where one shot downed a human, several of the others survived shots that with our own weaponry would have been fatal. Most of the marines that we see die, died in the helecopter incident. Counting for the Lt. fully half the fielded unit did not die to due to enemy small arms.
