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Battle Los Angeles
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. ;D
Mikezilla:
--- Quote ---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.
--- End quote ---
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:
--- Quote from: shmokes on March 23, 2011, 12:57:55 pm ---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).
--- End quote ---
+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. :blah:
I never saw Alien Nation. I think I was too young.
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