Battleship: Spoilers, Discuss, Yadda, Yadda, Yadda

[Admiral2]

I was thinking about Predator 2 when he let a pregnant Maria Conchita Alonso go. I just saw the battleship aliens as soldiers following their laws of war. They attacked the highway to cut off the mountain, after which they let civilians alone in the rest of the world. When the John Paul Jones with cold guns turned off of her ramming attack she was let go. When Missouri made her turn to give a broadside they also hesitated, which did bite them in the ass.

The problem with this comparison is the ultimate goal. Predators are not invaders in the martial sense. They come down to Earth to hunt. They pick off a few humans that can defend themselves, collect their spines as trophies and go home. They don't go after humans that can't offer a decent fight. The one that spared Maria Conchita didn't necessarily care about the baby. He probably just thought a woman who was pregnant would be less physically capable of defending herself than one who isn't. Again, this is not evidence of any ethical sense on the part of the aliens.

The Battleship aliens are invaders in the martial sense. They sent troops and ships and immediately set about trying to achieve strategic goals. They closed off the area around the Hawaiian Islands to almost all ship and air traffic, then used the ships they brought to deal with the ships they missed and used the troops to take and hold the NASA station to use as a comms station. Yes, they let one ship go when it backed down, but then they had to deal with that same ship over the next several hours, and after it finally decided to sink the thing, it let the crew get to another ship to finish the fight and destroy their comms station, which got compromised because they let some NASA geek and a physical therapist with nice tits do whatever they pleased without incident. On the face of it this looks chivalrous, like with the Predators, but it's just as likely that the aliens were suffering from mind-blowing stupidity.

This is a problem in a literary sense, because chivalrous/stupid aliens that will let you screw them as long as you're not acting aggressive are not scary, and alien invaders that don't frighten anybody make for horrendous alien invasion movies. The aliens in Battle:LA were frightening on some level. So were the aliens in Independence Day. The aliens in this movie were a joke.

Which brings me back to my original comment, which had nothing to do with any code of honor on the Hirogen's part. The Hirogen were non-scary aliens the typically clueless writers of Voyager tried to pass off as Predators, while the Battleship aliens are non-scary aliens that the writers of this movie tried to pass off as War Of The Worlds Martians, and the one thing the Hirogen have over the Battleship aliens is that the Hirogen at least talked once in a while.

This is why I said don't think too hard about this. We're talking about stupid aliens in a stupid alien invasion movie.

Then they turned Missouri from a museum to a functioning battlewagon in like five minutes. Not even Bill Adama could do that. Not even the crew of Space Battleship Yamato could do that.

Come to think of it, that was the Independence Day moment, where the old veterans on Missouri join the young sailors

No that was the Under Siege moment. Literally stolen from a Steven Seagall movie...

instead of veteran pilots volunteering to fly the F-18s that came out of nowhere.

The Hornets came off the carrier once the barrier was down. In Independence Day several pilots were on leave, leaving several planes available after the aliens' initial attack.

Yet then we have the weirdness of being at Pearl Harbor and no active duty shore sailors stepping up with the squadron survivors to join in this battle like the disabled soldier on the mountain did. Thinking about it now, plot points aside, the feeling was more Armageddon then Independence Day or Battle:LA

And yet, Armageddon was still a better movie.

 

[Balrog]

I'm holding out for the movie version of 'Hungry, Hungry Hippos'

 

[Star Wolf]

Come to think of it, that was the Independence Day moment, where the old veterans on Missouri join the young sailors

No that was the Under Siege moment. Literally stolen from a Steven Seagall movie...

instead of veteran pilots volunteering to fly the F-18s that came out of nowhere.

The Hornets came off the carrier once the barrier was down. In Independence Day several pilots were on leave, leaving several planes available after the aliens' initial attack.

Yet then we have the weirdness of being at Pearl Harbor and no active duty shore sailors stepping up with the squadron survivors to join in this battle like the disabled soldier on the mountain did. Thinking about it now, plot points aside, the feeling was more Armageddon then Independence Day or Battle:LA

And yet, Armageddon was still a better movie.

The way I saw Independence Day was the President leading a WWII sized airwing made up of Randy Quaid and other Vietnam vets to attack the Area 51 mothership, after Will Smith's and presumably the rest of the west coast fighter squadrons were already lost in the initial battle. Thus the F-18s that came out of nowhere comment and the Independence Day moment from the film. It was not a reference to the Ronald Reagan F-18's which saved Missouri. Curiously I have seen The Right Stuff more recently then Armaggedon, yet the strut of the veterans reminded me of the roughnecks making a Right Stuff inspired strut also. I mentioned Under Siege too, just not on this message board's thread

No I did mention it, post #2, confusing these multiple conversations are

 

[RAMA]

C-, mainly for some nice alien FX....otherwise, it was pretty stupid. What sort of strategic advantage would aliens advanced enough to make it to Earth after a recent message into space have by fighting in the water instead of the air or space? Why are they firing missles with scarely more power than Earth missles? Why did the lead protagonist of the movie spend 10 minutes looking for a chicken burrito?

 

[Gaith]

And why must a crap trifle of a movie like this be over ninety minutes long, let alone two hours and ten?

 

[Disruptor]

Who needs this when Syfy has American Warships on tonight. At least they're timely with their mockbusters.

Mario Van Peebles stars...Sonny Spoon's gonna get his rappin' POSSE and go New Jack City on those aliens.

Edit: I watched most that and have to say that it was terrible not even in fun-terrible way. Carl Weathers spends most of the movie in a Ramada Inn convention room talking to some guy with a bad fake accent.

Van Peebles represents the fine standards of the US Navy by have an affair with an officer under his command.

US stealth bombers and Chinese jet use the same cockpit and helmet designs.

When they said they were sending mothballed ships and museum aircraft to aid the Iowa, I almost expected Snoopy on his flying "Sopwith Camel" doghouse to arrive.

I think one minute of BATTLESHIP footage had 10 times the budget of American Warships.

 

[Admiral2]

Who needs this when Syfy has American Warships on tonight. At least they're timely with their mockbusters.

Mario Van Peebles stars...Sonny Spoon's gonna get his rappin' POSSE and go New Jack City on those aliens.

Edit: I watched most that and have to say that it was terrible not even in fun-terrible way. Carl Weathers spends most of the movie in a Ramada Inn convention room talking to some guy with a bad fake accent.

Van Peebles represents the fine standards of the US Navy by have an affair with an officer under his command.

US stealth bombers and Chinese jet use the same cockpit and helmet designs.

When they said they were sending mothballed ships and museum aircraft to aid the Iowa, I almost expected Snoopy on his flying "Sopwith Camel" doghouse to arrive.

I think one minute of BATTLESHIP footage had 10 times the budget of American Warships.

Well, at least the junior officer was hot (she was Gannett on ENT once upon a time...).

What kills me was they were walking around on the deck next to the main guns while they were firing. Just walking around. In real life they'd be deafened and slammed flat with each shot. Do any of these people read a book?

 

[Star Wolf]

And why must a crap trifle of a movie like this be over ninety minutes long, let alone two hours and ten?

My partner was saying that the movie seemed short to her. It may not be great art but it doesn't drag.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Yeah, it didn't feel long to me. Berg spaces out the action and humor well so that it doesn't get too boring or tedious.

 

[Admiral2]

Yeah, it didn't feel long to me. Berg spaces out the action and humor well so that it doesn't get too boring or tedious.

I'll admit, boring isn't it's major problem.

 

[od0_ital]

Read on IMDB.com that there's a bonus postcredit scene. This has been confirmed by a friend who saw it before I did the other night.

Now I gotta go see it again to find out what I missed the first time...and I'm catchin' hell from her for not waitin' for it the first time.

 

[Cutter John]

^^ Yeah, I've gotten in the habit of staying through the credits everytime I go to the movies, just in case.

I read a post on another board arguing that the aliens' apparently stupid actions make perfect sense if you assume that:

a) The "attack" was really a crash-landing caused by accidentally clipping a satellite on the way down.

b) The aliens spend most of the film acting in self-defence and are actively working to minimise casualties.

c) The real bad guy is the human protagonist, who continually escalates the situation with his deranged over-reactions, and who only comes out looking like a hero because his actions manage to get his commanding officer killed, leaving no witnesses to the fact that he exceeded his orders and opened fire without authorisation.

Haven't seen the movie, but its an interesting alternate take.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Who needs this when Syfy has American Warships on tonight. At least they're timely with their mockbusters.

Mario Van Peebles stars...Sonny Spoon's gonna get his rappin' POSSE and go New Jack City on those aliens.

Edit: I watched most that and have to say that it was terrible not even in fun-terrible way. Carl Weathers spends most of the movie in a Ramada Inn convention room talking to some guy with a bad fake accent.

Van Peebles represents the fine standards of the US Navy by have an affair with an officer under his command.

US stealth bombers and Chinese jet use the same cockpit and helmet designs.

When they said they were sending mothballed ships and museum aircraft to aid the Iowa, I almost expected Snoopy on his flying "Sopwith Camel" doghouse to arrive.

I think one minute of BATTLESHIP footage had 10 times the budget of American Warships.

Well, at least the junior officer was hot (she was Gannett on ENT once upon a time...).

What kills me was they were walking around on the deck next to the main guns while they were firing. Just walking around. In real life they'd be deafened and slammed flat with each shot. Do any of these people read a book?

To be fair, by Syfy/Asylum standards that was about the top of the heap. There seemed to be some effort put into the production and it moved along well. I even learned something, I didn't know about voice-operated phones.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Read on IMDB.com that there's a bonus postcredit scene. This has been confirmed by a friend who saw it before I did the other night.

Now I gotta go see it again to find out what I missed the first time...and I'm catchin' hell from her for not waitin' for it the first time.

I wouldn't bother unless you really want to see the movie again anyway. It didn't add much and it's easy enough to find on YouTube, so it's not really worth waiting through the credits or paying admission (if you have to) solely for that scene. There's no special effects wizardry that needs to be seen on the big screen or anything.

Spoiler: Post-Credits Scene Description

Three schoolkids in Scotland discover a piece of debris from the alien ship that crashed into the satellite. An older guy comes along and starts trying a bunch of different methods to cut open the damaged piece of the craft. Once he finally cuts a hole in it they all peer inside, only to be scared off when an alien hand suddenly reaches out and grasps the edge of the hole. The end.

 

[Admiral2]

I read a post on another board arguing that the aliens' apparently stupid actions make perfect sense if you assume that:

a) The "attack" was really a crash-landing caused by accidentally clipping a satellite on the way down.

One ship crash landed. The others functioned perfectly enough to land safely, blockade an archipelago, sink three ships and debark enough troops to occupy the top of a hill with an entire research base on it. Should we also assume they did all this just to call home for a tow?

b) The aliens spend most of the film acting in self-defence and are actively working to minimise casualties.

Then how do you explain the giant bladed bocce balls they started tossing around into populated cities? Peaceful probes with screwed up guidance systems?

c) The real bad guy is the human protagonist, who continually escalates the situation with his deranged over-reactions, and who only comes out looking like a hero because his actions manage to get his commanding officer killed, leaving no witnesses to the fact that he exceeded his orders and opened fire without authorisation.

"Weapons Tight" means "Do not fire unless attacked," not "Do not fire without permission." All the protagonist did was walk up to the mothership and touch it, and got electrocuted and flung into the ocean for his trouble. That qualifies as an attack, which meant that he had all the authorization he needed to shoot back, and his shipmates had every right to open fire in his defense. No human did anything outside of his authority concerning his or her response to the aliens' actions.

Haven't seen the movie, but its an interesting alternate take.

A while back I got into a low-level argument with someone over the actions of Admiral Ozzel in TESB. His alternate take was that since he didn't want to believe Imperial Officers were stupid, he liked to think that Ozzel was really a Rebel Sympathizer trying to protect the base at Hoth. The problem is that the evidence on the screen says otherwise, that in fact while other Impies may be brilliant, Ozzel was disrespectful (to Vader of all people) and a moron.

As interesting as this alternate take is, what's shown on screen makes it BS. The aliens' actions are just as easily explained by the possibility that the guy with brains died in the crash and his subordinates tried to continue the advance mission without a clear understanding of how to deal with the natives in the meantime.

But alternate takes are fanfiction, not canon. Canon says, they came, they attacked and the protagonists are heroes for stopping them.

 

[Star Wolf]

I read a post on another board arguing that the aliens' apparently stupid actions make perfect sense if you assume that:

a) The "attack" was really a crash-landing caused by accidentally clipping a satellite on the way down.

b) The aliens spend most of the film acting in self-defence and are actively working to minimise casualties.

c) The real bad guy is the human protagonist, who continually escalates the situation with his deranged over-reactions, and who only comes out looking like a hero because his actions manage to get his commanding officer killed, leaving no witnesses to the fact that he exceeded his orders and opened fire without authorisation.

Haven't seen the movie, but its an interesting alternate take.

Well the "attack" on Hong Kong was an accident, but how was humanity supposed to know that. As it was nobody said unknown, fire. As I have been suggesting the aliens were following their laws of war, but attack they did even accepting noncombantant casualties to cut the roads to the mountains.

The hero didn't kill his CO. The squadron commander, his older brother ordered a ship to fire a warning shot, which was not recognized as such. And his CO along with the rest of the squadron was lost in the battle which followed.

Its the Navy, they keep logs even if the movie didn't show sailors repeating every order and those SOPs. If something survives the admiralty would do their best to reconstruct the incident.

 

[Trekker4747]

Didn't go see it this weekend. Maybe next weekend. Meh.

 

[Star Wolf]

Didn't go see it this weekend. Maybe next weekend. Meh.

Better make it soon or you will watch it at home

Who needs this when Syfy has American Warships on tonight. At least they're timely with their mockbusters.

Having seen parts of the first hour it was NuBSG on water

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

Battleship got buttfucked with the Liam Neeson sized cock of The Avengers this weekend. Who didn't see that cumming?

 

[Trekker4747]

Didn't go see it this weekend. Maybe next weekend. Meh.

Better make it soon or you will watch it at home

I'll probably go see it this next weekend.