Battle Los Angeles

[DaOld Man]

Say it yesterday. Plenty of action. Had mixed feelings about the ending, but aint gonna share any spoilers.

Overall, I liked it.

[shmokes]

Rotten Tomatoes says it sucks balls.  Will wait at least till DVD, if not indefinitely.

[BobA]

It had alot of action and the handi cam viewpoint was hard to follow at times but I found it entertaining.  Alot better than some movies that the critics give great reviews and I HATE! 

[RayB]

It's polished, but there isn't much story. They tried to make it "Band of Brothers" but VS aliens in an urban environment, and ultimately you don't really care about any of the characters (unlike in BoB).

It's a boring movie with high polish and I kept thinking to myself "This should have been a video game".

Some people clapped at the end and we overheard some saying "that was awesome!". Well, whatever. I guess teenagers haven't seen enough movies to understand when they've been cheated out of a story. (Not to mention the extra $3 to see it in "Ultra AVX", which is a whole other rip off in itself).

It's not cheesy like, say "Doom" but... it's not a $14.50 movie. Wait to rent it.

[ark_ader]

It's polished, but there isn't much story. They tried to make it "Band of Brothers" but VS aliens in an urban environment, and ultimately you don't really care about any of the characters (unlike in BoB).

It's a boring movie with high polish and I kept thinking to myself "This should have been a video game".

Some people clapped at the end and we overheard some saying "that was awesome!". Well, whatever. I guess teenagers haven't seen enough movies to understand when they've been cheated out of a story. (Not to mention the extra $3 to see it in "Ultra AVX", which is a whole other rip off in itself).

It's not cheesy like, say "Doom" but... it's not a $14.50 movie. Wait to rent it.

It costs $14.50 to go to the movies? 

I moan about spending £6.  Jeepers!

[shmokes]

Yeah, you pay a $3 premium to see it in 3D (which is almost never worth it).  Regular price in a big city is $10-12.  A bit less in small towns.  In my old college town it was only $8.

[hypernova]

It's a boring movie with high polish and I kept thinking to myself "This should have been a video game".

Guy at work loved the movie itself, and he kept saying the same thing about it being a video game would've been awesome.

Looks like a great action flick, but as with any apocalyptic invasion scenario, the reviews are rarely good.  I do think a bunch of those rotten tomato reviews just like spouting keywords like "cliched" and being part of the majority.  Any idiot who saw any of the previews would have realized this would be heavy on action, light on story.

[shmokes]

Any idiot who saw any of the previews would have realized this would be heavy on action, light on story.

Realizing in advance that a movie will suck doesn't excuse the suck.  Also, many MANY action-heavy movies are well reviewed.  Hell, I could rattle off a list of movies based on comic book superheroes with a 90+ tomato rating. 

[javeryh]

It costs $14.50 to go to the movies? 

I moan about spending £6.  Jeepers!

This is why I NEVER go to the movies.  Add in the cost of a babysitter at $15/hour and you are looking at $100 easy for a night out with the wife.  I'd rather buy the blu-ray sight unseen for $20 when it comes out or just wait for Netflix or HBO to show it.  Other than some kids movies (Toy Story 3) the last movie the wife and I saw in the theater was The Dark Knight... and we don't ever plan on going back.  This is the reason why plans are underway for a projector and 120" screen in the house.   

Battle: LA looks awesomely cheesy ala Starship Troopers so I'll definitely watch it eventually - just not in the theater.   

[flashiv]

This is why I NEVER go to the movies.  Add in the cost of a babysitter at $15/hour and you are looking at $100 easy for a night out with the wife.  I'd rather buy the blu-ray sight unseen for $20 when it comes out or just wait for Netflix or HBO to show it.  Other than some kids movies (Toy Story 3) the last movie the wife and I saw in the theater was The Dark Knight... and we don't ever plan on going back.  This is the reason why plans are underway for a projector and 120" screen in the house.   

Battle: LA looks awesomely cheesy ala Starship Troopers so I'll definitely watch it eventually - just not in the theater.   

At $15/hours I'll baby-sit your kids.  We can play arcade games all night. 

[shmokes]

I know, who the hell are you hiring to watch your kids, early childhood development PhDs?   

[shmokes]

The sad thing is that no, it doesn't.

[flashiv]

The sad thing is that no, it doesn't.

It buys more if you get the generic brand. 

[RayB]

It's a boring movie with high polish and I kept thinking to myself "This should have been a video game".

Looks like a great action flick, but as with any apocalyptic invasion scenario, the reviews are rarely good.  I do think a bunch of those rotten tomato reviews just like spouting keywords like "cliched" and being part of the majority.  Any idiot who saw any of the previews would have realized this would be heavy on action, light on story.

Well then I'm an idiot. No, seriously, I knew to set my expectations low, but I got bored because I've seen it all before. (That's just what happens when you watch too many movies).

@JaveryH: There's no Starship Troopers cheese. The movie takes itself 100% seriously and it's polished enough to not come off as cheesy.--just nothing new.

THe alien designs were weird. Ships are cool, aliens not. One robot looks exactly inspired by this thing:



It was also incredibly stupid that knocking out a command control ship causes all the drones to just drop out of the sky! You're an advanced alien species, able to traverse space and land on a planet ready to wipe it out of its indigenous life; Do you design your drones to go into standby mode if communications to the central hub go down? Or do you design them to just shut off and let gravity take over?

[Vigo]

Alien invasion flicks just don't seem to grab me these days, not unless it looks to add something special to the table. That being said, I could not find one unique quality about this movie from the previews, just looked like the usual re-hash of the usual clichés.

The only alien flick that piqued my interest lately is Cowboys and Aliens.

[javeryh]

How much are you guys paying for sitters?  Pretty much everyone around me (outside NYC) pays $15.  Even at $10/hour that's still like $30 if you just run out to the movie and come home (so $60 total not including any popcorn or snacks).  Too expensive!

 

[Howard_Casto]

I saw this movie in 1998 when it was called Independance Day and hated it then.   I've seen it remade at least a dozen times on low budget cable since. 

I have no intention of ever watching this crap. 

[shmokes]

How much are you guys paying for sitters?  Pretty much everyone around me (outside NYC) pays $15.  Even at $10/hour that's still like $30 if you just run out to the movie and come home (so $60 total not including any popcorn or snacks).  Too expensive!

 

About half the time my babysitters are free cos I have a great girl and great friends who refuse to take money.  I end up having to pay with a bottle of wine or something.  The girl who we paid to babysit charged $6 an hour, but we always paid her $10.  We've had others too.  Right now I'm in a small town in Idaho and the girl we've had babysit a couple times is great and I think she wants to charge like $5 an hour or something ridiculous like that.  We just pay her like we did the last girl.  And we don't go out much.

[danny_galaga]

I'm conflicted by this movie. It looks awful, but Aaron Eckhart is an actual actor...

But then James Franco is a real actor too, and I definitely know I don't want to see A knights tale 2 

[Mikezilla]

I'm conflicted by this movie. It looks awful, but Aaron Eckhart is an actual actor...

But then James Franco is a real actor too, and I definitely know I don't want to see A knights tale 2 

I need to see that 127 hours movie then, I dont understand why everyone keeps thinking James Franco is legit from one movie. What else was he in to show his acting chops? I only saw him in the Spiderman flicks, and as the dude in Pineapple Express.

[DaOld Man]

I liked the movie for the action. Action is non stop.
As far as the rest, it certainly wasnt the best movie Id ever seen.
Like I said, the ending was just not right, IMHO.
Will probably watch it again on DVD just to see if I missed anything.

I actually liked ID4. (Even though it ripped several previous science fiction movies).

And I think it should be unlawful for someone to review a movie they havent even seen yet.

[javeryh]

I need to see that 127 hours movie then, I dont understand why everyone keeps thinking James Franco is legit from one movie. What else was he in to show his acting chops? I only saw him in the Spiderman flicks, and as the dude in Pineapple Express.

He was pretty good in Freaks and Geeks but that's all I know him from other than the Spider-man movies.

[hypernova]

Any idiot who saw any of the previews would have realized this would be heavy on action, light on story.

Realizing in advance that a movie will suck doesn't excuse the suck.  Also, many MANY action-heavy movies are well reviewed.  Hell, I could rattle off a list of movies based on comic book superheroes with a 90+ tomato rating. 

Of course it doesn't excuse it.  But any person going into it shouldn't say they expected anything more.  Also, my statement was applied to this movie specifically.  And that other invasion movie that came out a few months ago.  Don't even remember the name, and I haven't heard anything about it since.

Comic book based movies have a bunch of that thing called plot already ripe for the picking.  No originality required.

[shmokes]

 

127 hours movie then, I dont understand why everyone keeps thinking James Franco is legit from one movie. What else was he in to show his acting chops? I only saw him in the Spiderman flicks, and as the dude in Pineapple Express.

He was in Milk.  Played Harvey Milk's gay lover opposite Sean Penn.  But regardless, 127 Hours, by itself, will convince you.

[RayB]

He was in Milk.  Played Harvey Milk's gay lover opposite Sean Penn.  But regardless, 127 Hours, by itself, will convince you.

Just to be clear... convince one that he's good or bad?

[Ginsu Victim]

Watched B:LA yesterday, and my wife and I both loved it. It's no District 9, but it was a helluva good time at the movies.

"This should have been a video game"

It is. It's on XBLA for 800 msp.

[Mikezilla]

127 hours movie then, I dont understand why everyone keeps thinking James Franco is legit from one movie. What else was he in to show his acting chops? I only saw him in the Spiderman flicks, and as the dude in Pineapple Express.

He was in Milk.  Played Harvey Milk's gay lover opposite Sean Penn.  But regardless, 127 Hours, by itself, will convince you.

Ahh. Never saw that one, obviously. Yeah, I wanted to see 127 Hours in theatres but never had the time. Looks like I got a movie night ahead of me. Still gotta see How To Train Your Dragon too. 

[danny_galaga]

I'm conflicted by this movie. It looks awful, but Aaron Eckhart is an actual actor...

But then James Franco is a real actor too, and I definitely know I don't want to see A knights tale 2 

I need to see that 127 hours movie then, I dont understand why everyone keeps thinking James Franco is legit from one movie. What else was he in to show his acting chops? I only saw him in the Spiderman flicks, and as the dude in Pineapple Express.

I haven't seen it either. But it has great reviews. And if you are a great actor in ONE movie, you are still a great actor. It's not a skill that comes and goes...

[Vigo]

I'm conflicted by this movie. It looks awful, but Aaron Eckhart is an actual actor...

But then James Franco is a real actor too, and I definitely know I don't want to see A knights tale 2 

I need to see that 127 hours movie then, I dont understand why everyone keeps thinking James Franco is legit from one movie. What else was he in to show his acting chops? I only saw him in the Spiderman flicks, and as the dude in Pineapple Express.

I haven't seen it either. But it has great reviews. And if you are a great actor in ONE movie, you are still a great actor. It's not a skill that comes and goes...

I'd say plenty of actors are hit and miss. They are usually just directed poorly or they don't fit the role. Doesn't necessarily mean the actor is not good, they just shouldn't have been playing that role.

That being said, I'm the same way as you. I see an actor that I like, their legitimacy makes me a bit more excited to see a new movie they are in. I figure at least 1 character in the movie has to be entertaining.

[danny_galaga]

I'm conflicted by this movie. It looks awful, but Aaron Eckhart is an actual actor...

But then James Franco is a real actor too, and I definitely know I don't want to see A knights tale 2  

I need to see that 127 hours movie then, I dont understand why everyone keeps thinking James Franco is legit from one movie. What else was he in to show his acting chops? I only saw him in the Spiderman flicks, and as the dude in Pineapple Express.

I haven't seen it either. But it has great reviews. And if you are a great actor in ONE movie, you are still a great actor. It's not a skill that comes and goes...

I'd say plenty of actors are hit and miss. They are usually just directed poorly or they don't fit the role. Doesn't necessarily mean the actor is not good, they just shouldn't have been playing that role.

That being said, I'm the same way as you. I see an actor that I like, their legitimacy makes me a bit more excited to see a new movie they are in. I figure at least 1 character in the movie has to be entertaining.

Yes and no. I'm saying that no matter how good James Franco is, I'm never going to see A Knights Tale 2  

Back on topic, just saw Battle LA tonight. I give it a 3/5. Aaron does this big speech about not forgetting about fallen comrades etc, and then he says 'But none of that matters right now'. The whole cinema burst out laughing

Edit: forgot to mention it has 'hey it's that guy' girl, Michelle Rodriguez. And I really dug the weaponry of the aliens. Seemed more real than mysterious death ray type devices. On the down side, if you were an alien race trying to take all the water from an inhabited planet, wouldn't you land in the middle of the ocean, far away from trouble? You could take all the water you want, and by the time humans could do anything about it, you'd be on your merry way

Oh, Mo Henry did the negative cutting 

my score for recent movies you may have seen:

  5/5 - The Way Back, The Kings Speech, Michael Clayton, In Bruges, Gran Torino, Mary and Max

4.5/5 - Taken, Iron Man, Reign Over Me, Watchmen, The girl with the dragon tattoo

  4/5 - True Grit, Traitor, Bedtime Stories, Sunshine, pineapple express

3.5/5 - 300, Max Payne, You dont mess with the Zohan, Yes Man

  3/5 - That new Indiana Jones flick, Disturbia, That new TMNT flick,

2.5/5 - Angels and Demons

  2/5 - The Love Guru. Note: My 2 is probably someone elses 1. Just leaving room for worse!

[DaOld Man]

I was going to mention about the water but you beat me to it.

The news caster said that "scientists are noting the oceans levels decreasing." Gimme a break. How many aliens would it take sucking up water to notice a decrease in the ocean level in just a day?

More I think about it, the less I like this movie, maybe I was just caught up in the non stop action.

[shateredsoul]

I know, who the hell are you hiring to watch your kids, early childhood development PhDs?  

I charge $24/hr for my side job.. I don't have the PhD in Dev Psych just yet but I petitioned for the Masters Degree, PhD in 2/3 years.

I'll throw in a case study of your kids for free and tell you why you're a horrible parent also at no extra cost even though I've not a parent my self yet. You'd be surprised how many ppl publish about children  but have not had their own kids, they make the research that influences how you're told to raise your kids and how schooling is structured.

[shmokes]

I think it's alright to write about kids if you haven't had them.  I mean, it's a double-edged sword.  You just can't be prepared to have your first kid.  No matter what you think it's gonna be like, you're wrong.  You're underestimating the difficulty and time requirements.

So when people don't have kids, but write about parenting, they have the disadvantage of not truly understanding what it's like and what it takes to be a parent.  But on the other hand that same knowledge can taint a study, I expect.  There's nothing like powerful anecdotal evidence to convince someone of something that isn't generally true.  A person with no kids can approach a situation with less emotional clutter getting in the way of scientific research.  He has no motive to favor certain techniques (that he happens to use on his own kids).

Essentially, I think it's probably good or bad.  Sometimes having been through it will give you much deeper insight and unerstanding.  Sometimes it could contaminate the results.  Sometimes it's probably irrelevant.

[hypernova]

Hm...Did not see that coming.

We went from talking about a summer action/blockbuster type movie to academic research regarding parenting.

[RayB]

I was going to mention about the water but you beat me to it.

The news caster said that "scientists are noting the oceans levels decreasing." Gimme a break. How many aliens would it take sucking up water to notice a decrease in the ocean level in just a day?

More I think about it, the less I like this movie, maybe I was just caught up in the non stop action.

That irritated me too, as well as the few quotes where a scientist or whoever was saying "they are here to do ____" and "they are after ___" etc, with absolutely certainty. The truth was there was no way for them to know with absolute certainty other than "they're trying to wipe us out". A slight change in the sentences to make them sound like theories rather than absolute facts would have made it way less cheesy. Like "they may be after our water".

BTW, anyone else catch the scene that went from night to cloudy day in the space of about 10 minutes?

[Dartful Dodger]

I really liked this movie. It's the best movie I've seen in a long time.
(that speaks more about how poorly the other movies were, but still it's a great movie)

After reading that it had a disappointing ending I thought it was going to have the typical human scientists finds a weakness that destroys all of the advance race in one shot. Well it doesn't. I liked the ending too.

It's an Aliens attack the Earth movie, keeping that in mind and all the nit picking about realism is just silly.  If it does bother you, here's a realism that should really make you hate the movie: There are no aliens.

The whole water thing was a little out there, but I wrote it off as "The news jumping to conclusions". Just look at all the odd ball predictions they had after the Earth Quake in Japan. But even if they were draining the ocean, look at all the measurements with global warming. They're claiming water levels in the ocean are rising at .00001 millimeters every 20 years or so, I’m sure if they have that kind of precision going on, they'll notice that these aliens are draining the oceans.

[dre-w]

Ahh... Michelle Rodriguez......  if she wasn't typecasted already, I wonder how well she'd do in a romantic love story wearing a dress..  haha

I enjoyed this movie so much I saw it twice in theaters.  Although, not enough to pay for the movie..  I said I enjoyed it, not liked it, but it was a hella lot better then Skyline and District 9..  I'll give it that.  Not being in 3D was also a plus.  There was a few things that I nitpicked at but I couldn't agree more with Pinball Jims statement "Aliens are aliens, human logic doesn't apply"

When they find the command control ship underground, how the hell did it get down there without destroying the street above it??  I've come to the conclusion that it's the Technodrome.

What the heck is up with our marines?  I mean come on, they couldn't have put together a worst team to go in and rescue the hostages..  You had some virgin wimp kid, some guy who just got out of rehabilitation or counceling scared of gunshot noises, some inexperienced kid who was only with the marines for couple months is going to lead this team, and then they go and have the sarge join the one team that has a marine whos brother was killed in a previous mission under that sarges command.. seriously

What was up with the laser pointer, don't we have some sort of infrared invisible laser by now so the enemy won't know we are shooting a missile at them..

Finding the weak spot on that alien was hilarious!  It was totally just relaxing, slightly wiggling around while they are operating on it and stabbing it..  I just kept picturing the alien saying "o0o0oo nope, that's not it.  oo0o0o nope. Still not it"


Again, just nitpickin   

[shmokes]

There is no alien logic or human logic.  There's the logic of your story, and your story has to follow the rules or it's bad.  In other words, your story has to make sense within whatever world you establish.  The Lord of the Rings was a decent movie; I assure you that there's no such thing as wizards and elves.  Nobody's claiming that every movie has to follow the laws of real-world physics and logic.  But you can't set your movie in that world and then break those laws without explaining it or establishing that for one reason or another those laws no longer apply.  You must realize that the very same people who are hating on this movie liked Spiderman.  It's not about following human logic, it's about not sucking.

Also, while District 9 was hardly a masterpiece, I'm pretty confident that it's an order of magnitude better than Battle L.A. . . . and I haven't even seen Battle L.A.   

[danny_galaga]

There is no alien logic or human logic.  There's the logic of your story, and your story has to follow the rules or it's bad.  In other words, your story has to make sense within whatever world you establish.  The Lord of the Rings was a decent movie; I assure you that there's no such thing as wizards and elves.  Nobody's claiming that every movie has to follow the laws of real-world physics and logic.  But you can't set your movie in that world and then break those laws without explaining it or establishing that for one reason or another those laws no longer apply.  You must realize that the very same people who are hating on this movie liked Spiderman.  It's not about following human logic, it's about not sucking.

Also, while District 9 was hardly a masterpiece, I'm pretty confident that it's an order of magnitude better than Battle L.A. . . . and I haven't even seen Battle L.A.   

your prediction is correct. District 9 is much better than Battle LA. Battle LA is the same degree better than Skyline. Oh, also, I happened to like the ending of Battle LA (",)

[dre-w]

There is no alien logic or human logic.  There's the logic of your story, and your story has to follow the rules or it's bad.  In other words, your story has to make sense within whatever world you establish.

Yeh the alien/human logic statement made is just something I try to keep in mind when watching a movie like this.  Helped me look past a lot of other things that I disagreed with in the movie and makes it more fun.

For instance,

This advanced alien race traveled all the way to Earth to take over the planet or whatever the intention was, logically YOU would think that they would have some sort of gamma pulse blast or some weapon to just wipe out the entire population on land instead of using ground warfare tactics.. but again that's human logic not alien

idk, it wasn't bad but wasn't good either.  District 9..  where do I even begin on that piece..  not only were the trailers so misleading and half the stuff shown wasn't even in the movie, but the whole thing was so overhyped that when I saw it I was confused and totally letdown.  Made no sense whatsoever, even when applying the human/alien logic.   

[shmokes]

Frankly even what I said about having to follow rules is a rule that can be bent.  If your movie is engaging enough you can get away with little holes.  It's more or less sleight of hand.  You get everybody's attention focused in one place so you can pull a little cheat somewhere else.  But this can only be done by masters of their craft.  Amateurs try and the audience just rolls their eyes and says, "Um . . . I saw that.  You're not fooling anyone."

Of course the Alien Invasion movie faces some obstacles because it's only interesting if it's set in our world.  But it it can be done..  Star Trek First Contact did it and, to an extent the new Star Trek reboot did it.  There's Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the Thing, the Blob.  But the safest thing is to realize that the idea really is bombastically stupid and then embrace it.  Then you can at least get things like They Live, Men in Black and Plan 9 From Outer Space.   

[Mikezilla]

idk, it wasn't bad but wasn't good either.  District 9..  where do I even begin on that piece..  not only were the trailers so misleading and half the stuff shown wasn't even in the movie, but the whole thing was so overhyped that when I saw it I was confused and totally letdown.  Made no sense whatsoever, even when applying the human/alien logic.

You didnt like District 9? I thought it was awesome, and I totally "got it". Its a social satire based on how people were treated during Apartheid. Just fast forward into the future, and they are doing it with aliens instead of people. I thought it was a great movie, I loved the effects, actually cared about the character, and loved how the movie came full circle. The scenes with the military corporation, is exactly how I imagined something like that would happen. Loved that movie. I also enjoyed it because it started out as a short film, and the effects were amazing considering the budget. One dude did all the motion capture for all the aliens.

[Dartful Dodger]

I didn't like District 9. It's just a poor remake of Alien Nation. Bad acting, bad effects and bad dialog. It's just a movie made by amateurs that has a low budget amateur feel to it. Alien Nation had the same social satire, but it was subtle. Social satire was all District 9 had. Just in case the aliens being oppressed in South Africa was to subtle they had interviews with African Americans (CNN joke) saying what the liberals think whites say about blacks.

Blacks oppression by whites will always be a hot topic for the white guilt upper middle class, which is why the artsy fartsy types loved this movie. 

I bet if it was in French with subtitles it would have won best picture.


Battle Los Angeles was an alien invasion movie where the human forces are behind in technology, but ahead in numbers and the need to survive. The social commentary takes a back seat to the action.  They even stopped potential love interests from ruining this film. The more

I think about Battle Los Angeles the more I liked it.

[shmokes]

The social commentary in District 9 was pretty ham-fisted.  Like . . . they didn't trust the audience to make the appropriate associations w/r/t/ apartheid so they just set the thing in Johannesburg?  I mean, that's just beating us over the head.  The bad guys in District 9 were also two dimensional and absurdly diabolical.  I'm talking like mad-scientist, James-Bond-villain diabolical. 

Otherwise, though, it was pretty good.  And the protagonist was the antithesis of the stereotypical action hero (he was a coward, and selfish, and cruel in the beginning).  And, strangely, the same people who created the ridiculous villains managed to create a layered, complex human being for the protagonist.  And we see a totally believable and compelling transition throughout the movie as his character is developed, responding to the ---smurfy--- things that are happening to him and rethinking things that he previously took for granted by virtue of being in the comfortable position of the oppressing majority and having never engaged in any serious ethical questioning before.  Even by the end the protagonist was deeply flawed.  He still presumably lacks empathy.  The only reason he is able to consider what's happening to the aliens from their point of view is that it literally starts happening to him.  That's maybe a step in the right direction, but it's a small one.

Anyway, like I said, I haven't seen Battle L.A., but it looks just awful.  Even if I watch it and it's ten times better than I expected, it'll still not be nearly as good a film as District 9 (which itself is just pretty good, but not great).

[Mikezilla]

The social commentary in District 9 was pretty ham-fisted.  Like . . . they didn't trust the audience to make the appropriate associations w/r/t/ apartheid so they just set the thing in Johannesburg?  I mean, that's just beating us over the head.  The bad guys in District 9 were also two dimensional and absurdly diabolical.  I'm talking like mad-scientist, James-Bond-villain diabolical. 

Otherwise, though, it was pretty good.  And the protagonist was the antithesis of the stereotypical action hero (he was a coward, and selfish, and cruel in the beginning).  And, strangely, the same people who created the ridiculous villains managed to create a layered, complex human being for the protagonist.  And we see a totally believable and compelling transition throughout the movie as his character is developed, responding to the ---smurfy--- things that are happening to him and rethinking things that he previously took for granted by virtue of being in the comfortable position of the oppressing majority and having never engaged in any serious ethical questioning before.  Even by the end the protagonist was deeply flawed.  He still presumably lacks empathy.  The only reason he is able to consider what's happening to the aliens from their point of view is that it literally starts happening to him.  That's maybe a step in the right direction, but it's a small one.

Anyway, like I said, I haven't seen Battle L.A., but it looks just awful.  Even if I watch it and it's ten times better than I expected, it'll still not be nearly as good a film as District 9 (which itself is just pretty good, but not great).

+1 I completely agree with Shmokes on this one. Granted I havent seen Battle LA, I have been reading everything that is blacked out, because I dont think its one of those movies where the ending gets spoiled if you know it before hand. It seems like a complete cut and dry alien invasion movie. I read that two competing writers that thought they were going to rip each other off went to two different studios with similar ideas (skyline, battle LA). I havent seen either, but cmon. What do you expect to be different? Aliens come, try to wipe us out, and we win. 

I never saw Alien Nation. I think I was too young.

[Vigo]

Alien Nation and District 9 are both the same premise, but completely different takes on the idea. I like them both, but neither are fantastic films. Alien nation is almost like a lethal weapon style movie, but toss in some recently immigrated aliens and an alien cop as partner. Meh, its worth a watch...it's stars James Caan.

[Dartful Dodger]

I read that two competing writers that thought they were going to rip each other off went to two different studios with similar ideas (skyline, battle LA).

Battle LA was a big budget movie that paid a studio a lot of money to develop the graphics and editing technology to make Battle LA.

That studio then turned around and quickly cranked out Skyline and released it before Battle LA.

Battle LA was a lot better than Skyline.

Skyline is to Battle LA as District 9 is to Alien Nation.

Amateurish rip offs.

[Mikezilla]

Alien Nation and District 9 are both the same premise, but completely different takes on the idea. I like them both, but neither are fantastic films. Alien nation is almost like a lethal weapon style movie, but toss in some recently immigrated aliens and an alien cop as partner. Meh, its worth a watch...it's stars James Caan.

Oh its a movie? I thought it was a TV show.

[Vigo]

Alien Nation and District 9 are both the same premise, but completely different takes on the idea. I like them both, but neither are fantastic films. Alien nation is almost like a lethal weapon style movie, but toss in some recently immigrated aliens and an alien cop as partner. Meh, its worth a watch...it's stars James Caan.

Oh its a movie? I thought it was a TV show.

It's both, it got turned into a TV show. I haven't seen much of the tv show, so I can't really comment on that.

[Dartful Dodger]

The funny thing is the Alien Nation's movie ended wrapping up its story line.  District 9 was showing us so many layers of the alien and human relationships it felt more like a made for TV movie that's kicking off of tv series.

[SNAAKE]

It's the best movie I've seen in a long time.

whoa stopped reading right here.........


battle LA gets a good 7/10 from me. horrible acting by pretty much everyone except aaron eckhart. without him it it would be 5/10, same as skyline. CGI was ok and nothing out of the ordinary.

[Ginsu Victim]

Aliens come, try to wipe us out, and we win. 

they win one battle, but the war isn't over.

[AtomSmasher]

The social commentary in District 9 was pretty ham-fisted.  Like . . . they didn't trust the audience to make the appropriate associations w/r/t/ apartheid so they just set the thing in Johannesburg? 

It was set in Johannesburg because the writer/director was born, raised, and lived in Johannesburg.  He originally made a short film which was seen by Peter Jackson who was able to get the funding to turn it into a full movie.

[Mikezilla]

Aliens come, try to wipe us out, and we win. 

they win one battle, but the war isn't over.

Hm. Interesting.

[shmokes]

The social commentary in District 9 was pretty ham-fisted.  Like . . . they didn't trust the audience to make the appropriate associations w/r/t/ apartheid so they just set the thing in Johannesburg? 

It was set in Johannesburg because the writer/director was born, raised, and lived in Johannesburg.  He originally made a short film which was seen by Peter Jackson who was able to get the funding to turn it into a full movie.

Lol . . . Well, that's a little bit better I'll admit.  I still seem to remember it being not very subtle in its parallels to apartied.  But I saw it in the theater, so It's not fresh enough in my memory to comment reliably.

[danny_galaga]

The social commentary in District 9 was pretty ham-fisted.  Like . . . they didn't trust the audience to make the appropriate associations w/r/t/ apartheid so they just set the thing in Johannesburg? 

It was set in Johannesburg because the writer/director was born, raised, and lived in Johannesburg.  He originally made a short film which was seen by Peter Jackson who was able to get the funding to turn it into a full movie.

Lol . . . Well, that's a little bit better I'll admit.  I still seem to remember it being not very subtle in its parallels to apartied.  But I saw it in the theater, so It's not fresh enough in my memory to comment reliably.

And not just that, the original short was a parody of the TV show, COPS. Which was pretty clever I thought...

[dre-w]

Alien Nation and District 9 are both the same premise, but completely different takes on the idea. I like them both, but neither are fantastic films. Alien nation is almost like a lethal weapon style movie, but toss in some recently immigrated aliens and an alien cop as partner. Meh, its worth a watch...it's stars James Caan.

Oh its a movie? I thought it was a TV show.

It's both, it got turned into a TV show. I haven't seen much of the tv show, so I can't really comment on that.

Oh dude you should totally comment on that, everybodys doin it..  they haven't seen the movie but will start comparing about how much better another movie is they saw..

I didn't want to have to really get into explaining about why I didn't like D9 since this topic was about BLA but since the two movies are about aliens coming to Earth.. why not.

- In BLA the aliens aren't ---Bad words, bad words, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when saint censors you?--- and actually use their weapons instead of trading them in for cat food..

- I couldn't really tell if D9 was trying to be a documentary or a movie switching back n forth between steady cam.

- In the D9 trailers I saw in theaters, they were interrogating some alien with subtitles asking how their weapons work and the aliens subtitles stated they didn't want any trouble but at the end it said something along the lines of he would be sorry if he didn't let them go.. wasn't in the movie and lead me to believe that there was going to be some sort of showdown.. funny how now I'm looking for it on youtube and they pulled that trailer.  And none of the tv spots I saw back then had the main --cream-filled twinkie-- character with the accent.  Not one of those trailers that are on youtube now did I see in theaters or on tv.

- In D9 I get the device was alien, but you're going to tell me that the same stuff used to fuel their ship is what turned that guy into an alien?  What the hell are they using for fuel some sort of alien dna piss?

- I may have missed the part in the movie where they explained why they allowed this mobb to run the center of the alien camp hoarding all the alien weapons.

- Eviction notices given to aliens.

- The ship that started to fly away at the end, would never happen..  Even though it's in South Africa, Team America would have had that place locked down as soon as some sort of rebellious activity started.


What really did it for me was how much hype was circulating this movie.  Everywhere I went there was D9 posters or signs telling me the bathroom was for humans only or my local comic book store was for humans only.. especially in LA.  I have to admit, their marketing campaign was genius.  Me and my friends were so looking forward to this movie.  The only thing though is that after we saw the movie, some of my friends didn't want to admit they got all caught up in the hype and instead gave this movie way more praise than it deserved..  They went and had to research why the "prawns" were a bunch of wimps and their addiction to catfood to answer some of my questions, and even then their answers still didn't make sense to me. Yeh I saw the short film Johannesburg and the guys other work and was really impressed.  The transformer dancing car commercial was pretty sick.  I just think BLA was more enjoyable than D9.  I mean who here doesn't enjoy Gears of War?  I wouldn't pay to go see BLA in theaters as it would make a great Netflix or rental, but if I had to choose between the two, I'd pick BLA.  But again that's just my opinion and everyone has different taste here.

[AtomSmasher]

Sounds like you're opinion of movies has a lot to do with you're expectations going in and the hype surrounding it.  D9 was hyped to be great, but it was just okay, so you thought it sucked.  Critics say BLA sucks, but it was just okay, so you thought it was really good.

[dre-w]

Sounds like you're opinion of movies has a lot to do with you're expectations going in and the hype surrounding it.  D9 was hyped to be great, but it was just okay, so you thought it sucked.  Critics say BLA sucks, but it was just okay, so you thought it was really good.

Well I did post a number of other reasons I didn't like this movie but the hype did play a role in it as well for me.  Maybe if the trailers showed more than just 15 seconds of helicopters flying up to the ship and alien interrogation and I knew what I was getting into.. maybe I wouldn't hate it as much as I do.  I had no idea it was going to be part documentary part sci-fi love story with some annoying main character (FOOK!)

You can check back at my previous posts if you want I never really edit unless it's a goofy typo, but I don't remember saying anything about BLA being really good..  all I said was I enjoyed it more than D9 but that's about it.   

[SNAAKE]

I dont know what you people(lol) are smoking but d9 was GOOD.

personal opinion of course. much better than most sci-fi movies. I liked the story, music, acting, action sequences. "FOOK!" dude was all right too.

[BurgerKingDiamond]

I didn't want to this POS but my girlfriend had positive recommendations from a co-worker, and she wouldn't listen to my objections... So I gave in. It was exactly what I expected. I stupid CGI fest action movie with absolutely no plot. It felt like I was just watching someone play CoD for 2 two hours. I fell asleep. I hated this movie.

[Mikezilla]

I dont know what you people(lol) are smoking but d9 was GOOD.

personal opinion of course. much better than most sci-fi movies. I liked the story, music, acting, action sequences. "FOOK!" dude was all right too.

Agreed. 

[RayB]

D9 has a story
BLA has no story

[BurgerKingDiamond]

D9 has a story
BLA has no story

Everyone I've talked to about D9 has liked it, but I personally hated it. I couldn't finish it because of the STUPID shaky camera. I can't stand when they do that in movies. I'm watching a movie, I know it's not real, I don't want to watch a shaky camcorder. It makes me feel sick.

[Vigo]

I hate the shaky camcorder look a well. The sad thing is that seems to be overused everywhere right now, I tried my hardest to like Cloverfield, but I really couldn't get past that the entire film was in shakycam.

[SNAAKE]

well shaky doesnt always ruin movies. just gotta balance things out and not overuse it.

agree with cloverfield though. the ENTIRE movie was shaky cam. I got a massive headache after watching it...

[shmokes]

It doesn't always ruin movies, but it's probably at least almost always a bad idea.  A great example is the cinematography in the second two Bourne movies vs. the first one.  All three are good movies, but the camera work in the second two is obnoxious.

[RayB]

BLA has way worse shakey-cam than any other movie i've seen save Cloverfield. It had this sort of unatural "synthesized shake" look too it (As if it was added in post-procesing).

[Mikezilla]

It doesn't always ruin movies, but it's probably at least almost always a bad idea.  A great example is the cinematography in the second two Bourne movies vs. the first one.  All three are good movies, but the camera work in the second two is obnoxious.

I never saw the bourne movies, but a lot of times they do that to speed up/blur fight scenes in order to hide stuff. I remember they did that a lot in Batman Begins.

I personally like it when its warranted, like Cloverfield. It gave you that sense that it was really recorded by someone because thats how it would be given the circumstances. Of course I dont like it CONSTANTLY, because I get a little nauseous, and I also dont like it just for the sake of using it like some movies do. If its used in subtle ways, it isnt that big of a distraction. In my opinion anyway.

[shmokes]

I never saw the bourne movies . . .

You should remedy that.   

[DaOld Man]

I never saw the bourne movies . . .

You should remedy that.   

+1

[Mikezilla]

I never saw the bourne movies . . .

You should remedy that.   

I know, even my girlfriend has seen them, and she barely even watches movies. I met Matt Damon at a premiere once, and he is so freakin short, I couldnt think of him as a threat to anyone, let a lone an action star. I think thats why I havent watched em 

[shmokes]

Google says Matt Damon is 5'10 or 5'11.  Average height for an American male is 5'9 if I'm not mistaken.

[Mikezilla]

Google is full of ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- then because I was standing right next to him, talking to him and Im 6'3 and the top of his head was around my chin area. No, youre right about the average height, but the dude is short.

[dre-w]

Google is full of ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- then because I was standing right next to him, talking to him and Im 6'3 and the top of his head was around my chin area. No, youre right about the average height, but the dude is short.

Umm...  dude, Matt Damon isn't short..  you're freakin tall.  Now I get why your handle is Mikezilla
 

[Vigo]

There is a internet argument on this posted elsewhere...

http://www.celebheights.com/s/Matt-Damon-134.html

After reading this, I would agree that damon is shorter than advertised

[SNAAKE]

Celebrities are always tiny and old in person.  Always.

saw camron diaz last year in person. she looked at least 50 lol..

wasnt...SSSSMOKIN

[Dartful Dodger]

If celebrities weren't tiny, they wouldn't all be able to fit into your TV.