Battle: Los Angeles trailer

[cosmicalstorm]

Going to watch it when I'm stoned. Hopefully it won't be as depressing as Skyline.

[Darksider]

At the very least the focus on military characters means it won't be as depressingly boring as skyline.

[TC27]

At the very least the focus on military characters means it won't be as depressingly boring as skyline.

This is what interests me the most about this film - usually the military are the the background whilst the lead character tries to save his family/girl he's shagging. Hopefully we will get to see some nice CGI as the worlds hyperpower points lots of nasty ordinance at the aliens.

On the other hand the trailer indicates our protagonist ends up trying to save a bunch of civilians whilst the rest of the military get the hell out...falls into the trap that we cant relate to a warrior unless he's also a humanitarian.

[weemadando]

At the very least the focus on military characters means it won't be as depressingly boring as skyline.

This is what interests me the most about this film - usually the military are the the background whilst the lead character tries to save his family/girl he's shagging. Hopefully we will get to see some nice CGI as the worlds hyperpower points lots of nasty ordinance at the aliens.

On the other hand the trailer indicates our protagonist ends up trying to save a bunch of civilians whilst the rest of the military get the hell out...falls into the trap that we cant relate to a warrior unless he's also a humanitarian.

To be fair, clearing sections of the city so that you can turn it into killy-killy-death-zones with all manner of very expensive weaponry without murdering your civilian population is a reasonable move for a military operation.

[Srelex]

Here's some interesting stuff:

http://io9.com/5738021/behold-battle-la ... h/gallery/

[Gil Hamilton]

Heh heh. Holy shit, son! Their water mines have an area of effect of 400 square feet DUDE, we are ALL GONNA DIE!.. well, unless we stand 12 feet away from the mine.

[LionElJonson]

You know, if I was going to do an alien invasion movie, I'd have the aliens roll up into orbit, and then broadcast the following.

"Our observations of your society indicates that you will possess recursively self-improving artificial intelligences within the next twenty years. These artificial intelligences will create an existential risk for our society, and, if improperly implemented, your own. However, it would not be ethical to simply commit genocide upon you to prevent this from occurring. Therefore, we will be launching a pacification mission to assume political control over your species. Please cooperate, so that this transfer of power can be accomplished smoothly and with minimal loss of life. Thank you for your time."

Then the alien drop pods start falling, and the invasion begins.

[Peptuck]

Heh heh. Holy shit, son! Their water mines have an area of effect of 400 square feet DUDE, we are ALL GONNA DIE!.. well, unless we stand 12 feet away from the mine.

I'm 99% certain they meant that it had a burst radius of 400 feet. Which, if true, is pretty scary for a simple mine.

[Iroscato]

You know what I think? The alien invasion movie has been done. It has been completely, utterly, we-Base-Delta-Zero'd-that shit done.

We have had massive ships hovering over cities, said ships destroying said cities, weak and feeble alien creatures taking refuge in advanced technology, said aliens falling ill after being exposed to human illness.

We've had really depressing, gritty invasion movies like Skyline (which also was a mishmash of several other invasion movies), we've had the shaky-cam, documentary style. We've had parodies, spoofs, pisstakes, remakes, sequels, prequels, novel adaptations, and prequels of remakes of sequels.

We've had aliens after our resources, aliens after our brainssss, aliens after some prime real estate on Earth.
Aliens waiting 'a million years' before handing our arses to us. Aliens who just want a slice of that crazy ol' human life.

Skyline proved something to me. It is now impossible to make an original, fresh invasion movie. There is such a thing as limited ideas, and we've run out of them. But what is so frustrating is that Skyline was made on a tiny budget, and it made a ridiculous amount of money. It already has a sequel or two planned, and they will also make massive amounts of money. Battle: Los Angeles is, as far as I know, also made on a tiny budget. It will also make a huge amount of money, inviting sequels that will also make similiar amounts of money.

As such, hollywood will continue to make profits from our stupidity, as it has always been, and as it will always be so.

But I'm still going to see it. Looks pretty cool.

[Cykeisme]

Maybe aliens should just come to Earth and make alien invasion movies, make a ton of money, and use it to buy what they want from humans.

[Block]

You know what I think? The alien invasion movie has been done. It has been completely, utterly, we-Base-Delta-Zero'd-that shit done.

We have had massive ships hovering over cities, said ships destroying said cities, weak and feeble alien creatures taking refuge in advanced technology, said aliens falling ill after being exposed to human illness.

We've had really depressing, gritty invasion movies like Skyline (which also was a mishmash of several other invasion movies), we've had the shaky-cam, documentary style. We've had parodies, spoofs, pisstakes, remakes, sequels, prequels, novel adaptations, and prequels of remakes of sequels.

We've had aliens after our resources, aliens after our brainssss, aliens after some prime real estate on Earth.
Aliens waiting 'a million years' before handing our arses to us. Aliens who just want a slice of that crazy ol' human life.

Skyline proved something to me. It is now impossible to make an original, fresh invasion movie. There is such a thing as limited ideas, and we've run out of them. But what is so frustrating is that Skyline was made on a tiny budget, and it made a ridiculous amount of money. It already has a sequel or two planned, and they will also make massive amounts of money. Battle: Los Angeles is, as far as I know, also made on a tiny budget. It will also make a huge amount of money, inviting sequels that will also make similiar amounts of money.

As such, hollywood will continue to make profits from our stupidity, as it has always been, and as it will always be so.

But I'm still going to see it. Looks pretty cool.

You're incorrect. Not every type of invasion movie has been done. There's never been a movie where aliens invade and we just kick the shit out of them. No desperate struggle, no last second win, just an ass whipping from beginning to end with giant nationalistic symbols plastered all over the place and patriotic music stirring the fervor of the audience. I mean I can't imagine why that's never been done before.

[spartasman]

Harry Turtledove already wrote a short story like that, and I for one would love to see it as a movie.

[Slacker]

Reading one of the blurbs on those images, it seems they went for a water landing because it was easier than a more traditional planetary landing-it's easier for their drop pods to land in water, bleeding off the energy from dropping from orbit, like the old Apollo program.

So I guess that's something. Kind of.

[Skgoa]

Yeah sure... apart from water being just as hard as concrete at that kinds of speed. If they don't reduce speed at a drastic rate before reaching ground, a swamp might be a better choice. Landing in water is a good thing for primitive space ships because you don't have to account for landing ON things.


I think the "we are being colonized" line says everything about the alien's motivations we need to know. Earth is a pretty nice planet and there might not be any other ones with such a nice environment nearer to their homeworld... so while yes, technically they don't come FOR our water, that it has huge amounts of water readily available in it's atmosphere is one of the factors in earth's favor.

[Joe Momma]

If you cant find a plausible reason for an alien ground invasion then my default option is that the aliens are into some kind of ritualistic warfare/bloodsport and don just use orbital bombardment/robots/radiation because they would find it boring.

You could do a riff off of B5's Earth-Minbari War "It was all a mistake." The alien vessel is damaged by an accident and emerges out of hyperspace or whatthehellever in Earth orbit dropping debris like a motherfucker. Said debris is mistaken for an orbital bombardment and throws enough crap into the atmosphere to keep ground observors from noting the actual condition of the vessel. The ship's too damaged to do anything but maintain orbit and eventually land. They've got enough propulsive power to slow themselves down for a single landing but not enough to get anywhere else in the system that might have the necessary resources and besides which the ship's life support is rapidly failing so they need a habitable location to get the work done and luckily for them Earth qualifies. This is especially fortuitous as they ended up here as a result of the accident and had no prior knowledge of the system or its inhabitants.

Given the situation, the aliens send shuttles down to attempt negotiating trade with the locals in exchanges for necessary resources and a landing area to repair their ship. The monkeys think this is the follow-up invasion from the previous "orbital bombardment" and strike back before the aliens can find a way to meaningfully communicate. Now the aliens' limited available military forces are deployed to push the raging primates back from areas with useful resources and make a landing spot so they can get their ship fixed. They feel bad about the miscommunication but it's a desperate situation and frankly they just want to GTFO of here and to hell with these savage primates anyway.

I'm sure there's some holes in the above but the general premise offers a reason for the aliens to actually invade Earth for resources while explaining the limited extent that they can bring their superior technology to bear (making for a more even fight), offers a couple of reasonable endgames (the aliens finish their work and blow out never to return, the humans kill them all, or somehow negotiations are managed and the situation defused) and hopefully presents a motivation for both sides that an audience can sympathize with. And more hopefully hasn't been done to death.

[SylasGaunt]

Some new clips are starting to filter out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Avj0H9XBc44

[Haruko]

Just have the Aliens come, defeat us in a matter of hours, subjugates, strip-mines and enslaves and then disappear one day after the space UN tells them that they're being naughty and grants earth space UN sovereignty. And then humanity is thrust into inter-stellar politics and is like some North African shithole that keeps being told to lift it's game.

I have thought about how War of the Worlds could be "updated" in terms of how the aliens are defeated, as a member before you mentioned. The poor tactics and strategy by the aliens (at least in the latest remake, as my memory of the original film is hazy) would make more sense, and the human military would have more opportunity to shine if it was simply that the alien invaders were not the professional military of their race, but a bunch of criminals, bandits—the undesirables of society. I do not know about motive, but maybe they are trying to make a profit, maybe by taking in humans as slaves for sale and razing the earth just for the hell of it while they do it.

In this regard, the fancy toys they have, such as the seemingly top-of-the-line tanks and aircraft they possess, only seem to be something that is clearly military grade since the race they are a part of is so advanced. Take for example, Zim from Invader Zim, that idiot of the Irken race who was tricked into sending himself into exile thinking he is participating in a military operation, but in essence he is just a civilian with some fancy toys, though he had the advantage of accidentally being sent a top-of-the-line tank once when an Irken slave switched the labels to two packages in a silly act of rebellion, heh.

Maybe a few of these alien invaders may have second thoughts, or maybe they were essentially being slave-driven by these invaders, and they come to the humans with the intent to help... whether hoping to secure something for themselves in the process...

In any case, the thought occurs that the humans have the opportunity to take something from these invaders, with the help of their alien informants/spies, that will enable them to quickly send out a plea for help to that alien race's government, and the end can have the aliens' professional military coming in at the end to easily wipe out the invaders.

Now here is the kicker. It was mentioned earlier that Mr. Orwell's novel was meant as social commentary related to war. In that regard, maybe the alien government has an ulterior motive for helping. Perhaps they force the humans into treaties that are to be broken and we continue to get exploited, just as we [Americans] did with the Indians every time they sought aid when our criminals, bandits, etc came in and started harassing them. (But then again it was a matter of policy in America to send the poor out to the frontier as a kind of "buffer," it seems.) Relatedly, perhaps the aliens' government covertly pushed for this invasion to happen in the first place, even funneling supplies to these guys, only to waste them at the end and use the opportunity to assert themselves in a seemingly righteous manner that keeps their citizens' support.

[Iroscato]

I might have been wrong about my previous post, I'd forgotten about Cowboys vs Aliens
It's got Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig as 19th century cowboys fighting aliens...Indiana Jones and James Bond teaming up against advanced alien attackers? Wouldn't wanna call it

[spartasman]

Those poor, poor alien bastards...