Battleship: Spoilers, Discuss, Yadda, Yadda, Yadda

[Harvey]

What the hell is "traditional" sci-fi, then? Avatar is science fiction through and through. On screen, I'd wager that most studio tentpoles of the last five years have been sci-fi.

 

[Admiral2]

Also I agree with the poster who said the humans were the bad guys. They clearly started the fight. At every turn the aliens used restraint and only went all out when they tried to phone home.

People latching on to this myth keep forgetting the giant bladed bocce balls of doom, and lobbing giant bladed bocce balls of doom willy-nilly into civilian populations is not a sign of "restraint" on anyone's part, no matter what provocation they claim drove them to it.

Except that they were intelligent and explicitly avoided killing civilians.

Are you drunk? How did they crash through skyscrapers in the middle of a work day and not kill people???

No, that doesn't qualify as an attack unless it also qualifies as an attack when you pee on an electrified fence. He was stupid enough to play around on a piece of high-tech equipment that he did not understand. That he got electrocuted for his trouble is not at all surprising. In the real military he would be chewed out for his stupidity in touching something when he had no idea what it did or how it worked.

Finding out what it did and how it worked was what the team in the rigid-hulled inflatable boat was sent to do, and given that a RHIB is not a ship, and therefore doesn't mount fifteen different kinds of radar, the only things the boat crew would be able to use to investigate the object would be their own senses, including touch.

So no, hyzmarca, in the real military he would not be chewed out for doing his f***ing JOB and tripping a security feature in the process. Instead, his commanders would try to recover him, get the rest of the team away and make sure no other surprise hurt anybody else, which is exactly what happened in the movie. No human being "provoked" or "started" a damn thing.

You're assuming that it was a security feature and not simply that the pylon had a current running through it as part of it's basic function.

And you're assuming it's a basic function and not a security feature. The key word here is "assume."

The thing he touched had writing on it. For all we know that Writing said "danger, high voltage".

Or it said "Trespassers will be shot," "Do not appraoch or you will be attacked, "To Serve Man," something similar for all we know. The facts we have indicate it was probably not something benign.

Sending people over to investigate was a dumb move itself.

Not if you need information and that's your only option.

But really, touching things at random is also dumb.

Dude, walking over to random stuff and touching it is how Humans evolved into tool-using animals. Read. A. BOOK.

 

[Star Wolf]

I know the John Paul Jones should have taken gas turbine power and sent it to the sensors and the away team should not have left their ship without triquarters.

 

[The Wormhole]

Got to say, I really enjoyed this movie. It was really fucking awesome! Sure, the plot's got a million cliches and there are some total WTF moments, but damn, it sure made for a fun afternoon.

The whole assembling the veterans and taking out the WWII battleship museum sequence was excellent even if it made no sense at all. I also liked Lt. Hopper's developing friendship with Captain Nagata, cliched though it was. Their conversations about The Art of War were really funny.

I could have done without the crybaby bridge officer. Seriously, I always find these kinds of guys annoying. I doubt someone who serves in the military would immediately freak out like that as soon as shit hits the fan.

I laughed my ass off when it was revealed the aliens' weakness is exposure to sunlight. But I suppose that aliens such idiotic weakness is a common trope to the alien invasion stories going all the way back to War of the Worlds. Although the aliens themselves are kind of cool and a welcome departure from the beasts that have been passed off as aliens in recent years.

I was disappointed Liam Neeson only really had a glorified cameo. The guy's a great actor and it would have been really cool to see him get in on the action.

What was the point to Rihanna's line about "my father said they'd find us one day" in referance to the aliens? It just seemed to come completely out of the blue and served no relevance at all. It was like "Hey guys, we need something vague and cryptic for the trailers to make the movie seem interesting." "How about this?" "Okay, but how do we fit that into the movie." "I dunno. I guess I'll have to find a way to sandwhich it in somehow."

Overall, an excellent movie, one of the best I've seen in a long time. Seriously, I don't remember the last time I walked out of a movie feeling that great about it.

 

[Aeolusdallas]

I think a lot more will depend on how well Prometheus does.

However, should it give some studio second thoughts about greenlighting the next stupid Baysplosion movie, or Hungry, Hungry Hippos: The Motion Picture, we'll all be richer for it.

Aside form Star Trek XI in the past 5 years, a lot of sci-fi really hasn't done that well either on TV or on film.

[and before you say it, I don't consider Avatar nor Transformers to be 'traditional' sci-fi in terms of aliens, space ships etc.]

Avatar is with out a doubt Sci-Fi.

 

[Aeolusdallas]

People latching on to this myth keep forgetting the giant bladed bocce balls of doom, and lobbing giant bladed bocce balls of doom willy-nilly into civilian populations is not a sign of "restraint" on anyone's part, no matter what provocation they claim drove them to it.

Except that they were intelligent and explicitly avoided killing civilians.

Are you drunk? How did they crash through skyscrapers in the middle of a work day and not kill people???





And you're assuming it's a basic function and not a security feature. The key word here is "assume."



Or it said "Trespassers will be shot," "Do not appraoch or you will be attacked, "To Serve Man," something similar for all we know. The facts we have indicate it was probably not something benign.

Sending people over to investigate was a dumb move itself.

Not if you need information and that's your only option.

But really, touching things at random is also dumb.

Dude, walking over to random stuff and touching it is how Humans evolved into tool-using animals. Read. A. BOOK.

I am beginning to seriously doubt that you actually saw the movie.......

Hong kong was an accident. Even the humans in the movie knew this. The highway attack clearly showed the balls avoiding civilians whenever possible.

 

[hyzmarca]

I know the John Paul Jones should have taken gas turbine power and sent it to the sensors and the away team should not have left their ship without triquarters.

A sane first contact protocol would be to establish communication before sending anyone anywhere near the alien ship.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

I laughed my ass off when it was revealed the aliens' weakness is exposure to sunlight. But I suppose that aliens such idiotic weakness is a common trope to the alien invasion stories going all the way back to War of the Worlds.

I didn't find that implausible at all. In fact it makes perfect sense. If you come from a planet that gets less light from its star than Earth does from the Sun, of course you're not going to be used to bright sunlight. At least they came prepared for it with sun visors and tinting on their suits and windows.

And it wasn't like Signs where water is like acid to the aliens so they inexplicably decide to come to a planet that's 75% covered in water and run around naked in the water vapor and wet plants. Or War of the Worlds where the aliens are super advanced but don't consider that there might be Earth microbes their bodies aren't prepared to deal with, so they run around naked again. At least these aliens were smart enough to wear environment suits that protected them from their particular weaknesses.

 

[Star Wolf]

I know the John Paul Jones should have taken gas turbine power and sent it to the sensors and the away team should not have left their ship without triquarters.

A sane first contact protocol would be to establish communication before sending anyone anywhere near the alien ship.

The Federation may have first contact protocols with first contact trained officers. I doubt US Navy destroyer squadrons have them.

 

[hyzmarca]

I know the John Paul Jones should have taken gas turbine power and sent it to the sensors and the away team should not have left their ship without triquarters.

A sane first contact protocol would be to establish communication before sending anyone anywhere near the alien ship.

The Federation may have first contact protocols with first contact trained officers. I doubt US Navy destroyer squadrons have them.

Probably not. But that's another reason it was stupid to send a destroyer squadron instead of someone from NASA.

 

[Star Wolf]

Except that they were intelligent and explicitly avoided killing civilians.

Are you drunk? How did they crash through skyscrapers in the middle of a work day and not kill people???





And you're assuming it's a basic function and not a security feature. The key word here is "assume."



Or it said "Trespassers will be shot," "Do not appraoch or you will be attacked, "To Serve Man," something similar for all we know. The facts we have indicate it was probably not something benign.




Not if you need information and that's your only option.

But really, touching things at random is also dumb.

Dude, walking over to random stuff and touching it is how Humans evolved into tool-using animals. Read. A. BOOK.

I am beginning to seriously doubt that you actually saw the movie.......

Hong kong was an accident. Even the humans in the movie knew this. The highway attack clearly showed the balls avoiding civilians whenever possible.

An "accident" in one of the most densly popualted parts of the planet, which would cause the world's largest army to be tied down in disaster relief. Followed by the other ships landing near what would be the world's largest naval fleet and cutting it off and destroying the fleets land bases. Suddenly the accident can not be just an accident

 

[Locutus of Bored]

[and before you say it, I don't consider Avatar nor Transformers to be 'traditional' sci-fi in terms of aliens, space ships etc.]

[and before you say it, I'm going to make up some completely arbitrary rules to decide what is and isn't scifi, but those rules will still inexplicably include things like spaceships and aliens that both the movies I'm excluding feature.]

I know the John Paul Jones should have taken gas turbine power and sent it to the sensors and the away team should not have left their ship without triquarters.

A sane first contact protocol would be to establish communication before sending anyone anywhere near the alien ship.

Sending over the boat was another attempt at communication after raising them on the radio failed. Seriously, you think some giant metal towers are going to appear off the coast of Hawaii and no one's going to check them out until they respond?

 

[Star Wolf]

A sane first contact protocol would be to establish communication before sending anyone anywhere near the alien ship.

The Federation may have first contact protocols with first contact trained officers. I doubt US Navy destroyer squadrons have them.

Probably not. But that's another reason it was stupid to send a destroyer squadron instead of someone from NASA.

NASA, so with ourf fleet sitting in the middle of tfhe ocean something lands after Hong Kong was blown up and now we wait for the guys from SETI to fly out?

 

[Aeolusdallas]

Are you drunk? How did they crash through skyscrapers in the middle of a work day and not kill people???





And you're assuming it's a basic function and not a security feature. The key word here is "assume."



Or it said "Trespassers will be shot," "Do not appraoch or you will be attacked, "To Serve Man," something similar for all we know. The facts we have indicate it was probably not something benign.




Not if you need information and that's your only option.



Dude, walking over to random stuff and touching it is how Humans evolved into tool-using animals. Read. A. BOOK.

I am beginning to seriously doubt that you actually saw the movie.......

Hong kong was an accident. Even the humans in the movie knew this. The highway attack clearly showed the balls avoiding civilians whenever possible.

An "accident" in one of the most densly popualted parts of the planet, which would cause the world's largest army to be tied down in disaster relief. Followed by the other ships landing near what would be the world's largest naval fleet and cutting it off and destroying the fleets land bases. Suddenly the accident can not be just an accident

That doesn't make sense at all. The ship broke up in orbit and parts of it fell on Hong Kong. That is an accident. If you were driving a car and something fell off of a truck in front of you and it caused you to crash intoa store front killing people, does that make you guilty of murder?

 

[Locutus of Bored]

A sane first contact protocol would be to establish communication before sending anyone anywhere near the alien ship.

The Federation may have first contact protocols with first contact trained officers. I doubt US Navy destroyer squadrons have them.

Probably not. But that's another reason it was stupid to send a destroyer squadron instead of someone from NASA.

Well, first off, no one "sent" the fleet. The fleet was already there conducting exercises when the tower suddenly appeared in front of them. Of course they're responsible for checking it out.

Secondly, the fleet was not aware of the larger events going on around the world at that time. They did not know about the craft coming from space, or that they were craft at all. As far as they knew, they could have just been unmanned sensor towers or something. They were not aware of the crashes in Hong Kong or Scotland. Their speculation was all about terrestrial culprits from North Korea (specifically mentioned in the film) or perhaps China or Russia. So calling in NASA would have made no sense. Besides which, no one's sending in NASA techs without making sure the structure is safe first, so the Navy still would have had to check it out.

All they knew at first was that a large tower invisible to radar suddenly appeared in front of a naval exercise off the coast of Hawaii. The logical first thought would be that it was a terrestrial navy using some kind of stealth vehicle or structure to spy on the exercises or threaten Hawaii. That seems right in the Navy's wheelhouse and something that's their duty to check out.

 

[Aldo]

I just got back from seeing it for free. I can't in good conscious say the film was good, but I did enjoy it, for it being free and all.

There were parts where I had a grin on my face, and parts where I thought the movie was going to become good, but then something dumb happened.

And boy are the previews misleading, I thought Liam Neeson was going to be in this film a lot more than he was.

 

[Star Wolf]

I am beginning to seriously doubt that you actually saw the movie.......

Hong kong was an accident. Even the humans in the movie knew this. The highway attack clearly showed the balls avoiding civilians whenever possible.

An "accident" in one of the most densly popualted parts of the planet, which would cause the world's largest army to be tied down in disaster relief. Followed by the other ships landing near what would be the world's largest naval fleet and cutting it off and destroying the fleets land bases. Suddenly the accident can not be just an accident

That doesn't make sense at all. The ship broke up in orbit and parts of it fell on Hong Kong. That is an accident. If you were driving a car and something fell off of a truck in front of you and it caused you to crash intoa store front killing people, does that make you guilty of murder?

Nope but if you missed the large desert, and ocean, and empty lot and hit the tiny store there will be a police investigation before accident is determined to be the cause.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

And boy are the previews misleading, I thought Liam Neeson was going to be in this film a lot more than he was.

Yeah, that was pretty disappointing. I was expecting more of Neeson as well. Maybe him talking about his particular set of skills that make him a nightmare for aliens like them.

It seems misleading trailers are becoming a thing with Liam Neeson films right now after the misleading trailer set up for the big fight in Wolf-Puncher... sorry, The Grey (still a good movie, though).

Then again, I was also expecting a lot more of the Basterds after the Inglorious Basterds trailer than what we actually wound up with, as well.

 

[Aeolusdallas]

An "accident" in one of the most densly popualted parts of the planet, which would cause the world's largest army to be tied down in disaster relief. Followed by the other ships landing near what would be the world's largest naval fleet and cutting it off and destroying the fleets land bases. Suddenly the accident can not be just an accident

That doesn't make sense at all. The ship broke up in orbit and parts of it fell on Hong Kong. That is an accident. If you were driving a car and something fell off of a truck in front of you and it caused you to crash intoa store front killing people, does that make you guilty of murder?

Nope but if you missed the large desert, and ocean, and empty lot and hit the tiny store there will be a police investigation before accident is determined to be the cause.

I think you are missing the point of the word "crash" The did not control where they fell. It was an accident. The other 4 ships went to Hawaii because that is where the message they got came from. They were then attacked by human ships and only defended themselves until the point where they decided to phone home. Then they went on the offensive and even then the movie very clearly shows them trying to minimize civilian casualties.

 

[Admiral2]

I am beginning to seriously doubt that you actually saw the movie.......

Nice try, but I sat through it just like you did.

Hong kong was an accident. Even the humans in the movie knew this.

Yes it was. The bocce ball attacks after Hong Kong were deliberate.

The highway attack clearly showed the balls avoiding civilians whenever possible.

Avoiding civilians wouldn't have been necessary if they hadn't launched the balls at all. They did. Nice attack or not, that's an attack on civilians.