Battle: Los Angeles trailer

[Dargos]

The Battle: Los Angeles official site has a global map showing where current attacks are in progress. It appears the invaders are concentrating on coastal areas. I have the feeling that once again, evil space aliens wish to steal our worlds precious fluids and resources for themselves.

See picture that shows Evil Alien Oil Rig and World Map Of Doom.

[weemadando]

If we're lucky it'll be because they're aquatic in origin. Hence them using what look like [sadly] humanoid robots for combat. Though they also appear to be using projectile weapons.

[Purple]

What I would like to see is a return to the good old days thou. Have the aliens want earth women and water.

[Gil Hamilton]

I'm not clear all those dots are attacks in progress. For example, they are devoting an awful lot of forces to parts of Alaska where there are no people to attack. We shouldn't take that map to mean anything, it's something the movies webdesigners came up with to look flashy, nothing more.

[Guardsman Bass]

The "Refugee Dump" or "Territorial Adjustment" might be an interesting idea in a decently budget tv-series/movies with some less-than-hard sci-fi elements (like some form of FTL).

I can just imagine it - an alien flotilla/ship shows up, gets in contact with one or more human governments, and basically says, "Hello humans, your solar system has ended up in the territory of the Kaa Hive after a 2500 year territory dispute, and your planet just happens to be one in which they can live openly without constantly taking medicine to keep the local biota from eating them alive. They want areas X,Y, and Z for their dwellings and facilities, and if you try and shoot down the landing ships, they'll burn a bunch of cities."

[Artemas]

And then they start bulldozing human cities becuase the humans didn't have the proper housing permits?

[Guardsman Bass]

And then they start bulldozing human cities becuase the humans didn't have the proper housing permits?

That, and pillaging the cities in the areas they want to settle in for building materials. While lording it over any humans they come across, and just generally being dismissive to any human concerns.

You could also factor alien norms of property and propriety into it. District 9 had some of that, where the Prawns would engage in casual theft for a while because they had different norms of property.

Come to think of it, that might make a decent series of sci-fi novels.

[Losonti Tokash]

Holy shit, apparently the dudes that made Skyline were originally hired to do the effects for B:LA. As in, they got hired to do this movie, then decided to make their own "aliens invade LA" film while working on the previous one. Classy gentlemen.

[Marcus Aurelius]

And then they start bulldozing human cities becuase the humans didn't have the proper housing permits?

That, and pillaging the cities in the areas they want to settle in for building materials. While lording it over any humans they come across, and just generally being dismissive to any human concerns.

The Uplift series by David Brin already has something close to that. Most of the Galactic races wanted to either make humans a client species of some established Patron species or simply exterminate them for ecological mismanagement of Earth. One of the arguments presented by them is that humans did not have proper permits from Institute of Migration to colonize Earth

[spartasman]

The videos appear to show Alien soldiers/drones emerging from the water in that beach scene. All of the cities show under attack on that map seem to be either on the coast or on major river systems. That, and the those egg things that were showed in the sewer, and the alien drone that popped out of the swimming pool would put my guess at them being a semi-aquatic species at least.

Maybe those 'drones' are simply combat suits that hold the aliens, like President Nixons head in Futrama.

[Bug-Eyed Earl]

According to imdb, the motive behind the invasion is Spoiler

that they want our water.

[hongi]

Spoiler

It's not like ice isn't a common material in space...

[weemadando]

According to imdb, the motive behind the invasion is Spoiler

that they want our water.

Seriously, that's the no.1 "AWOOOOGA!" alert should we ever make contact with aliens. There needs to be some guy at NORAD who just presses the button as soon as they say "We want your water".

Because clearly they're fucking lying.

[hongi]

The only thing that I can think of that the Earth is unique in is our biology. Obviously in an alien invasion story, other lifeforms exist, but it's likely that our biology is different from theirs. Maybe they're like scientists who want to study/dissect various life forms and consider our sentience unimportant.

[Bug-Eyed Earl]

The director quoted about it:

http://io9.com/5594126/battle-los-angel ... o-trash-la
So why are the aliens coming to Earth in the first place? Liebesman explains: "Earth is 70 percent water. The aliens in our movie use water for may different things, so they are here for those natural resources."

[SilverWingedSeraph]

That's so fucking stupid. By volume Earth is a whole fucking lot less than 70% water. Sure, lots of its surface is covered in water, but my mass water makes up a relatively small percentage of the stuff on the planet.

And there's tons on uninhabited water sources in the solar system. There are entire fucking moons made up of it. "We want your water" is a criminally fucking retarded reason for aliens to attack our planet. Water is one of the most common compounds in the universe, unless I'm mistaken. It's not like you need to look very hard for the stuff.

[weemadando]

Well, fuck this movie then.

Unless it's a case of they've siphoned off all the other sources in the solar system for now and the "war" is started by them going: "chill folks, we just want to share your water" and it having the response of some scientist in the White House doing a spit-take and screaming: "NUKE THEM NOW!"

[Bug-Eyed Earl]

Well, fuck this movie then.

Unless it's a case of they've siphoned off all the other sources in the solar system for now and the "war" is started by them going: "chill folks, we just want to share your water" and it having the response of some scientist in the White House doing a spit-take and screaming: "NUKE THEM NOW!"

This is one of those movies where the motive for the invasion is obviously superfluous and thought up almost after large parts of the script was done.

[CaptainChewbacca]

God damn it! Can someone PLEASE tell Hollywood how much fucking WATER there is out there? There's 3 moons of Jupiter that each have as much or more water than our planet, and nobody's living there!

Speaking of the permits, though, I envisioned an alt-hist where aliens attack earth in the 1980's. Its actually a cabal of alien businessmen and they have to fight according to the 'established galactic rules of war', so they are reduced to minimal troops, no bombarding of population centers, and arming proxies with advanced tech. So it becomes an unlikely axis of powers like Argentina, Brazil, south africa, etc, against NATO and the Warsaw pact.

Things get interesting, however, when alien news correspondants, diplomats, businessmen, and humanitarian workers start decending on earth. Alien Bono visiting refugee camps in central America was fun to write.

[adam_grif]

Were any of you seriously expecting reasonable motivations

Maybe if we all write angry letters, nobody will ever make a big budget alien invasion movie with a dumb motivation ever again. Who knows? Perhaps one day we'll get an adaptation of The Killing Star or something.

Speaking of the permits, though, I envisioned an alt-hist where aliens attack earth in the 1980's. Its actually a cabal of alien businessmen and they have to fight according to the 'established galactic rules of war', so they are reduced to minimal troops, no bombarding of population centers, and arming proxies with advanced tech. So it becomes an unlikely axis of powers like Argentina, Brazil, south africa, etc, against NATO and the Warsaw pact.

Things get interesting, however, when alien news correspondants, diplomats, businessmen, and humanitarian workers start decending on earth. Alien Bono visiting refugee camps in central America was fun to write.

Another option is to be attacked by an alien individual (or small group of individuals) instead of "oh my god their whole species is invading aaaah!!!!" They would be some sort of postsingularity society where individuals go off and do whatever they want to stave off boredom in their indefinite lifespans, and some of them just happened to decide that they wanted an "old fashioned" conventional war against an alien population. They have deliberately reduced the capability of their robot armies to make the fight "interesting", which prevents the alien curb-stomp via invincible shields and ortillery scenario.

[Lurks-no-More]

Were any of you seriously expecting reasonable motivations

I can tolerate some pretty stupid motivations, but this "Space is a desert!" thingy just makes me irrationally pissed off. It's so obviously a brainbug based on people who learned, in their childhood, that Mars and Venus and Mercury have no (liquid) water, and haven't payed a moment's notice on even the most rudimentary popular planetary science.

[Metahive]

Water? Isn't that exactly what the Visitors from V wanted as well (and human T-bone steak)? Hey, maybe they're under attack from those nudist aliens that harassed Mel Gibson in Signs and they just happen to have emptied all their squirt guns right now.
Hey, water's also what those fucking Kazon were after, the stupidest race conceived for ST ever. Alien Invaders + Water = Crap, that is the formula, write it onto your eyelids, Hollywood execs.

[Serafina]

Well, it makes some sense if the oceans are their natural habitat. Of course, in that case, they are not after the water itself - just like Hitler didn't try to conquer eastern europe for it's humus.
And of course, if that was actually the case, just asking for it might work. Then again, maybe not, given all the fishing and waste and the importance of sea travel.

[Srelex]

Maybe they've already drained those sources in the solar system, and want more? Who cares anyway? I doubt they'll mention it in the film.

[Metahive]

I am somehow troubled by the thought of an aquatic race being even capable to discover space travel in some way. Oceans aren't really a habitat that supports the sort of scientific advancements I'd presume to be vital for the eventual discovery of space travel, most importantly electricity. So I'd presume more of an amphibian race if Lebensraum's the way they wish to go.
Nah, I'll stick to them needing to fight off the Nudist Aliens from Signs. Next they'll be after our wooden doors too.