So The BATTLE: LOS ANGELES Sequel...

Although a little too much shakycam for me. I'd give it a go.

hehe

Cool

Virtually unwatchable. Boring, dumb, and a complete waste of time.

Of course I watched it with family and with everyone talking it was hard to hear, so I started to insert dialog from "Independence Day". Then the movie became fun.

It was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. My wife, who loves alien invasion apocalyptic big disaster movies even hated it. How in the world can a bad movie get a sequel?

Didn't generate the right kind of buzz?

I removed almost every line by Michelle Rodriguez, the back stories for the soldiers and all of the scenes involving the family "brave lil' soldier" crap, and it ended up being a pretty fun embedded soldier action film.

All this time I thought they were just making it up as they went along. It made "Skyline" seem like a masterpiece...

From the trailer it looked fantastic. The reality was pretty cliche and boring. I remember someone walked in the room and asked me how it was. I said =It's ok I guess. Really fucking cliche.= *At that moment there was a typical cat scare.* =Like that for example.= Fucking SKYLINE was more entertaining!

Made it about 50 minutes in and had to turn it off; way too Michael Bay-esque for me.

What kind of fucking twathead wants a BATTLE: LA sequel? Fuck my head off it's hinges, the idea is beyond retarded…

Spot on. First one was a pretty much forgettable actioner film. Saying that, I can't say we didn't have a good time watching it. The combat was good, the fx were decent. The characters were likable. I'd like to see them continue and expand the story.

Was it the one where the guy turns into a robot? Oh no, that was another one.

they are telling good jokes..

This is the guy directing Bay's new ninja turtle movie? should be really goooood...............

Seriously, I'm amazed anyone liked this movie... bad cliches, shitting acting, bad dialog and lame aliens. It didn't even come close to living up to the "black hawk down meets ID4" promise. This movie does not deserve a sequel. I didn't forget the aweful "shaky cam" either. Fuck movies that use shaky cam. That's why man invented tri-pods you hollywood fucks.

...oh, where to start?

This film was god awful.

...and at the credits the crowd CLAPPED! Weirdest theatre experience I've ever had.

In the past when people joked around about this site being a shill for certain studios, etc., I tend to dismiss this as mere cynicism. I thought, Harry may have his biases and promote certain films simply because of this, but I didn't think it necessarily went beyond that. However, this incident coupled with a similar thing happening to a Brave trailer a few months ago really makes me wonder. Is this site merely a PR machine with the pretense and charade of nerdy people getting interesting info about movies and presenting it? Are positive mentions of movies on AICN for sale? Does this site have any integrity?

That was a great-terrible movie with a terrific-terrible ending that I would love to see more of.

semper fi !

I really liked that movie! I mean some of the acting made my head hurt, but on a whole I thought it was a good war / action movie. I just thought it was fun and well done. So I'd definitely look forward to a sequel possibly expanding the battlesights and scope.

you have dubious taste. Battle: LA at least tried to be relevant. Sure it overdid some things, but I didn't expect it to be art, just an exciting film about a buncha soldiers tossed into a meat grinder that they were not prepared for. Cliches? Sure...but what military movie DOESN'T have cliche characters or situations? And I thought the actors did a nice job. How can you fault Aaron Eckhart in this film? And then there's some of you who would rather have a Skyline sequel? WTF? That movie was utter shit with the most laughable ending ever. Man, I hated those characters with a passion. And the ending itself was preposterous. Maybe Battle: LA was not that close to Blackhawk Down, but the latter had an advantage...it wasn't about AN ALIEN INVASION. It was based on a real event. So of course it's going to be closer to what "really happened." I don't know that Battle: LA needs a sequel, though. What does need a sequel, and I have heard nothing about it, is District 9. Now THAY is a story I want to see continued.

Wrap that up in one, large, 90 minute Marine recruitment commercial? And expect me to want to sit through that crap a second time? ROTFLMAO

... recent productions on the matter make me think that if aliens ever come to this planet they will kill us all if the ever get to watch John Carter + Skyline + Battle: Los Angeles + Battleship... and I wouldn't blame them at all. at least Falling Skies is not 100% trash.

At the end of the first one I sat up and shouted "THAT WAS SHITE!!!" Seriously, did they sit down with "The Big Ol' Book Of Scriptwriting Cliches" and just tick 'em off one-by-one??? I sat down to watch it actually looking forward to it, I wanted to like it. I don't think I've ever had such a turnaround apart from "The Phantom Menace" and even then I didn't hate it as much as I hate "Battle: LA"! Take your jingoistic bullshit and shove it, Hollywood...

And while I was actually pleasently suprised and entertained by Clash, Battlefield LA was pretty empty and dull.

I loved the score.

...for someone who found Skyline more tolerable than Battle LA is not... I liked Skyline better than Battle LA. It is... I thought Battle LA was even worse than Skyline. And yes, I did. Though the end of Skyline was one of the most delightfully braindead things it has ever been my confounded, disbelieving pleasure to watch. The ending of Battle LA was just another dollop of the same unbaked M&M cookie dough the movie had fed you steady for the previous eighty minutes.

Thank you for being the arbiter of taste, and letting me know that I have none -- where would any of us be in our personal development without self-important strangers on the internet to keep us in check with their pretentious declarations? Had you not taken the time to let me know what you think of my discernment and imply conclusions about the quality of my character, I might have gone on thinking that different perspectives make life interesting. But now I clearly see that you have to be right, by virtue of your begging the question about the quality of all military films and also the unimpeachable Aaron Eckhart. So thank god for you. But, just in case anyone else would like to have an actual conversation about enjoyable garbage sci-fi, SKYLINE really went for it with its crazy ending, and I'd rather see that nutso premise explored, if the filmmakers have the balls to. SKYLINE stopped right when it was getting interesting -- ie all the terrible characters were dead and/or had their brains absorbed for use in alien bodies but kept their consciousness for some reason spoilers. The WTF is exactly the reason I want to see more.

Skyline has got to be the best blue-led-tentacled-alien-vagina-brain-punching film ever.

You've got me on the blue-LED thing, but the indisputable best alien-vagina-brain-punching is and will always be STARSHIP TROOPERS.

when Battle:LA came out i hated it, and posted on a talkback that even skyline was better than it, at least skyline had a fun, crazy stupid ending. everyone tore me apart for that comment. i stick to it. and glad to see other here feel the same.

Not sure what "logic" and "science" issues that Merrick might have had with it, but it wasn't supposed to be a hard-science fiction movie; it was a combat film with aliens thrown into the mix to make it something new.

The action scenes were on the level of a random CSI action scene; lack of any style, incoherent, frantic editing and yes that horrendous fucking shaky cam, which makes the first one almost unwatchable. Oh and have some proper dialogue this time around and make it R rated.

and substitute aliens for the enemy, and viola, there you have Battle:LA.

Wanted the soldiers to commit atrocities and be douchebags just like them. If the military are not portrayed in a bad light and keep using so-called "cliched" lines, then it's "propaganda". If they are shown to be child killers or rapists and cold-blooded murderers, then it's an "anti-war" film.

Oh wow, the similes would be endless. That's like asking, Which is better: -Being eaten alive by a shark or a lion -A kick in the nuts or a paper cut on your lip. -Sex with Rosie O'Donnel or orally pleasuring Barbara Bush - Getting poked in the eye with a sharp pencil, or a prostate exam by an obese man with chubby fingers -Fetal alcohol syndrome or parental neglect - Crucifixion or stoning I would go on - and on and on and on - but I have stuff to do.

Jesus, when will these people get a clue?

Not something I'm foaming at the mouth to see, but I thought B:LA was decently done, and much like TNT's "Falling Skies" series, looks into how humanity deals with an invasion. As long as Aaron Ekhart (sp) is involved, along w/ Michelle Rodriguez, I'll be checking it out.

Granted it's Merrick Vs. Harry, but I don't see how Battle:LA can be scorned,yet Battleship looks interesting or promsing. As for Skyline, that movie made me physically angey with how bad it was. I saw it for free and want my two hours back. And yeah, I liked Battle:LA, though it felt like it rn a bit long. But, I'd be more than happy to watch a sequel. Now we need someone to make a fan trailer for Battle: LA and tell us how marketing messed it up.

......Jim Cameron has found a real big hole so we can drop Battleship, Battle LA, Skyline, and Transformers in it. Mikey says 'chill' Jim says 'FUCK YOUUUUUU!!!!!'

No likable characters, a thoroughly boring storyline and the least impressively designed alien invaders we've seen in years. Utterly meritless bollocks for inbred teenage boys.

Of course not. There will always be idiots out there who insist that Disney is sending us subliminal sex messages.

Fade in. Introduce stock cliche characters. special effects. lots of shooting. big ass explosion. Introduce new stock cliche characters. special effects. lots of shooting. big ass explosion. Introduce news stock cliche characters. special effects. lots of shooting. big ass explosion. Introduce news stock cliche characters. special effects. lots of shooting. big ass explosion. Sequel hook. Fade out.

faith? you mean delusions based on things that cannot be proved? how's that supposed to be a good thing? this world could use a lot less faith, it has too much of it.

Seriously. I couldn't tell what was going on for most of the time, so I began staring at the wall of the theater. Just an awful film. I remember when directors used to know how to shoot and choreograph action scenes, instead of relying on shaky-cam like a crutch out of incompetence.

...what, were we supposed to be experiencing the gritty, intensity of a modern, everyday florist shop or something? Just pathetic. Only a hack would do something like that.

I can't believe people are actually defending it. No the good movies flop. The standard is shit.

I hated, hated, hated, hated, hated, hated, HATED Battle Los Angeles. Hated it.

Title line, dude. TITLE line. There's a reason authors don't try to write the whole book on the covers. The story would be cut off too soon, and the message itself would appear as a senseless babbling, so self-important that it violently thrusts itself at the reader, oblivious as to how it makes the writer appear mentally unstable rather than insightful. That's why books have covers with just their titles. That's why message boards have title lines before the body of the messages. Just FYI.

When Katniss runs into the forest I thought the camera man was on a trampoline.

Honestly they're spending too much time and energy fighting with the reactionary internet. Just shut the fuck up and quietly work on the movie. When it's time the trailers and movie will speak for itself, at least moreso then getting everyone involved to keep coming out and saying 'wait wait wait listen to this!'

Oh well.

Rather have a sequel to John Carter...and that's saying something :s

Greengrass seemed to have an understanding of how to use shaky-cam without losing the geography of the action sequence. He made the scenes visceral while still linear. Every imitator since has seemed to think shaky cam's purpose isn't a trick to put you in the scene but to further distance you from it by making the action incomprehensible and confusing. The problem is that since films like Hunger Games make loads of money despite their terrible camera work, studios continue to think shaky-cam is a draw, rather then something audiences are, at most, simply putting up with.

I tried to sit through Battle LA twice but couldn't get through it either time. And I love Sci fi, Star Wars (prequels and all) but could not get into this at all.

He really likes your work.

My brother-in-law is my litmus test for shit sci-fi and action movies. If he likes it (read: "it was FUCKING AWESOME, BRA!"), then I know I can skip it. He's a perfect fit in the douche hipster demographic: 25, parents still paying for college (7 years and still no sign of a degree, way to show some initiative there, 'bra'), does patient transport in a hospital for a living and talks to girls about 'his patients' so they will think he's some kind of medical practitioner and not just wheeling sick meat around for minimum wage. He loved Battle: Los Angeles. He loved Skyline. He hated Lord of the Rings because "that one chick wasn't hot", meaning Cate Blanchett. Everyone should have a little brother-in-law to screen movies for them. Saves me a lot of money and keeps my Netflix queue nicely tuned, thank you very much.

those flicks were ruined by that nonsense. I guess, if you take Shakycam away, Peter Berg will not have a career....

there's more atheists in the world then jus t me. and the vast majority of them live perfectly moral lives, but withoutn the need of superstition to support a good moral code. because, really, since when a moral code needs a super-fathewr in the sky tellign you what to do? if anything, it's antitetical to have a moral code based on religion. because it's morality based on fear of consequence, instead of a moral code without religion in which you do good because you understand the value of good by itself. most of our modern ideal of moraility is not even religious bit based on humanistic ideals, which are of rational origin, not religious superstition.

it might make their head hurt, but they wouldn't know why....

reality is dumber then fiction, when concerning mickey of bay.

I would like a sequel to Skyline.

The opening of Saving Private Ryan. But it had a purpose. And the rest of the film was shot more classically.

Didn't really care to see it twice. The shaky cam was really annoying though. As far as Skyline goes. It was an outrageous, fun, nearly 2 hrs. of sci-fi entertainment. The ending was insane and I loved it. Like something straight out of a comic book. At least they had the balls to try something a bit different in that regard.

The studio won't be pissed, man. Just chill.

...cause B:LA easily works as a complimentary "ground invasion" piece that the aliens from ID4 were about to launch in ID4... or maybe they DID launch it in select locations? In any event, once I saw B:LA on DVD, I REALLY wished I saw it in the theaters. With the exception of that one cheesy "...because I don't want anyone else to die under my command!" moment, thought it was great. REALLY enjoyed how matter-of-fact the Marines were about "the hostiles". No time to think about all that "we're not alone in the universe, this changes our perspective on EVERYTHING crap!" They'll let the politicians, eggheads, & p***sies sort that out later.

...the guy who directed REAL STEEL. Cause makin' them smaller & only 1½ times as big as a human being makes it A LOT easier to make robots seem like... people... and not just robots that are either set to generic good or generic evil.

That film was a pile of shit.

This was shot/edited to help green-light the feature with Sony. It showed some great potential for the feature-- http://www.MichaelFioreFilms.com/mffilms/BattleLA.html

I loved it. Yeah the tech ideas were dumb and why the aliens would bother anyway but it was a terrific, fun, exciting B movie. I don;t know when everyone around here started imagining every scifi film was meant to be 2001. Looking forward to a dumb, fun sequel!

By the shitload. Cuz we know you never can have too many stupid movies out there.

That movie ( Battle:Los Angeles ) sucked major ass. Just sayin'.

I kinda thought they could do a movie for each of the (I think) 12 cities invaded in the movie. Each one having a different outcome some the humans win, some we lose.

The way some TBers are, if 2001 were to have been released now a days it would probably get shitted on too

Catwoman doesn't have shit on it. This movie was a turd formed from digested shit.

And your brother is truly a tool. Cate is one of the most beautiful as well as talented actresses alive today.

You guys are hilarious... why don't you go tell Tarkovsky he's a slowpoke, or James Cameron that he spends too much money. 'Shaky Cam' is A) Easy as fuck to shoot, just point the camera and you're good, and B) A viable means of turning an R-rated action sequence into a PG-13 rated action sequence. For B alone the studios will never let it go... it's just too easy. We're stuck with it. And stylistically speaking, I see shaky cam as more or less a stepping stone in the evolution of subjective action filmmaking... it's a pretty obvious way to represent chaos visually, but I think it will eventually yield something better. And what, no Aaron Eckhart fans here?

The characters were remarkably bland and cliche, but I can't think of one "Aliens invade earth" movie that they aren't.

You can't tell me that it was worse than "stereotypical jewish guy complete with yamulka-wearing dad saves the earth with a Mac".

It's an alien invasion movie, not Ben Hur.

Yes, the movie wasn't great, but it wasn't nearly as bad as people make it. Wasn't a movie that I would want to see twice, but it had its moments.

What would your reaction be to my exclamation that you are without a doubt the biggest d-bag on the planet and your post is the dumbest thing I've ever read?

You talk about a moral code? Someone who has said repeatedly that they want to kill someone who directed a movie they hated? Please.....check yourself.

but the thing is, no SF movie is like 2001, not today anyway. while lots and lots of them are closer to Battle:LA. We complain about there is not enough SF movies like 2001 BECAUSE THERE AREN'T!!!

Lots of people who want to pretend they only watch intellectual movies and anything made purely as a bit of escapist fun is somehow unworthy of them. Which kinda jibes with how many people go to see Transformers movies but there you go...color me Mr Cynical.... I'm still wondering where the idea suddenly arose that scifi films used to be intelligent masterpieces only as well because I seem to recall most scifi films always being dumb as stump. But there you go. Doesn't mean you can't enjoy them;)

wonderful place you must live in where there is no conception of darkly humour. i want to live there, are there any afordable houses for sale? i didn't claim to be a paradong of morality, did I? i leave such delusion to the faith-heads.

...spoof of Black Hawk Down, but I enjoyed it much better than plain stupid Skyline. I liked the concept of alien technology, especially rocked engines in their flying drones. In fact it was pretty cool.

And, if there is a 'higher power', then the vast majority of that 90% are praying to the wrong god(s) of some sort. Which makes them just as much 'unbelievers' as any atheist or agnostic. So, in fact, most of the population **doesn't** believe in the 'right' god or any god at all, therefore the 'unbelievers' far outnumber the faithful of the 'proper' deity or deities. Perhaps you've all got it wrong and the 'right' faith was actually that of the ancient Egyptians or Greeks and you've all been wasting your time and prayers. And you're all going to The Bad Place in the end. Besides, two thousand years ago, 100% of the world believed that the Earth was flat and yet 100% of those people turned out to be, well, a bit wrong. (Psssst, that would include Jesus and his mates; the blokes you put so much faith in when it comes to Really Big Questions such as 'Where Did All This Stuff Come From?' and 'What's It All For?' and 'Why Am I Here?' Did you never stop to think that Jesus and his mates knew as much about the mysteries of the universe as the next first-century bloke wandering between hovels made of clay and straw? No? Thought not.) re: "because having a moral belief system is a bad idea right?" You can have morals - of a usually higher standard - without any proscriptive belief system. What's so moral about a belief system that preaches the eternal punishment of gay people for being 'sick perverts' who have 'chosen' to use their 'god-given' free will to indulge in a bit of bum-fun? What kind of sick and twisted bastard would 'give' you free will and then say, "But, whatever you do, **don't** use your free will to do x, y or z or there'll be eternal pain and anguish coming your way"? Free will: **don't use it, obey these commandments!** Transparently comical bollocks. But hey, go ahead and live your life according to words spoken by a bunch of uneducated carpenters and fishermen from two thousand years ago. I'm sure they'd be the first to call you a heretic for daring to suggest that The World isn't at the centre of the universe that their deity created for his special little claymation action figure in his custom-built garden.

Jesus, dude... "Ben Hur" is considered a classic EPIC. Hence, why I would compare it to a popcorn movie that passingly attempted to be epic. NOWHERE did I say BH was "a great intelligent movie". Actually, my point is the OPPOSITE. *Some* movies can be epic, entertaining, and that's OK.

Jesus, I'm fucking tired of you implying IN EVERY FUCKING TALKBACK that every single film needs to aspire to be some sort of profound, thoughtful, somber masterpiece. Movies like that are depressing and tiring, and sometimes, JUST *SOMETIMES*, there are those of us that like LIGHT entertainment.

Fuck me.

Asi, I... I don't want to know what a paradong is. But I'm finding it surprisingly difficult to **not** partially conjure one up in my mind's eye.

I actually took my handle from another TB'ers post, where he mentioned some hot actress with a "moist musky camel toe". I couldn't stop laughing and thought it would make a dandy login name. Because I've just gotta keep it classy.

The gems like 2001, or Solaris, or Forbidden Planet, or BR and so on come around once in a blue moon. That's always been the case. Why every talkback about a new scifi movie though has to devolve in to "It SUCKS!!!! Where's the new 2001, why am I such a starved intellectual science fiction fan, blah blah blah" is beyond me. Most films aren't great, but most films also have something about them to be enjoyed. Battle:LA wasn't some terrific exercise in factual based science fiction, nor was it the best made film, not was it brimming with intelligence in the scriptwriting. But frankly when I watch an alien invasion where the planets military aren't eliminated within ten seconds flat I'm not expecting more than a fun film. I can enjoy it for what it is. Pretending it was some let down because there aren't ten 2001 quality movies coming out every year smacks as some rather petty and pathetic form of geek elitism. I can't enjoy this because I'm not getting that. Kinda dumb.

Battle: Los Angeles The Day The Earth Stood Still remake Catwoman Batman and Robin The prequels

I hate the film precisely because I don't think it WAS fun or exciting...or...well...ANYTHING. It just sort of sat there like a half dead lump waiting to be put out of it's misery. ID4 might be ludicrous and stupid and contain one of the most excruciating monologues in the history of filmmaking but it's a billion times more entertaining than this insipid drivel.

taking earth back?

and i believe a sequel could work. and if we're going to throw away x-illion $ at film z, why not throw it at this one? questions?

I am glad you mentioned it. There is a house next door for sale. I went to school with the realtor and it can be yours for $1.00. Please, please move next door.

It's a non-existent movie

But a sequel makes sense and could work. The problem for B:LA was nothing was surprising. It went by the numbers. Make Battle: New Orleans or Battle: New York or Battle: Boston. But throw in some surprises. It could work. To the idiot who claimed 90% of the world believes in God... Dude I'd say barely 40% maybe even less believe in God in the US. The religions are pretty much bull shit. There is no proof any of that shit exists and most religious people do HORRIBLE things to others. So that debate is over.

Hope they do a sequel meself, I'll probably love it. Many of you guys probably won't. Haha...don't give a toss ;)

not everything can be a masterpiece, of course. but a litle mor eeffort to make actual good movies would be nice. something i don'tn see too often in mosty blockbusters. contrary to what you might think, i actually have an enourmous range of variety of movies i enjoy. I'm the guy who loves CAPTAIN KRONOS: VAMPYRE HUNTER and ICHI THE KILLER to death and double dipped on both. My problem is dumb ass movies. Being entertaiment movies is no excuse for being dumb.

it's a typo, so it's harmless. no need to imagine lovecraftian nightmares.

the priobem with BATTLE: LA was the whole bloody repitiviness of it all. the story was like it reseted every 15 minutes. it was all the same bloody thing. tip toeing to the next objective like he movie did is more the plot of a videogame then a movie. you know when you go visit a friend and he's played some first person shooter? for him it's the most exciting thing nin the wporld, for you it's boring beyond beyond description and pure insomnia cure. same thing with the movie, i felt like in was watching somebody playing a game and having all the fun for himself. they might as well have called it FIRST PERSON SHOOTER: THE MOVIE.

just a buck? are you guys using it to bury your serial killing rampage victims?

now with a sequel.

"Battle of Los Angeles"?

haters gotta h8 but i loved it

C'mon, you're boiling it down waaaay too far. I know your point but tell me, how many other actioners in the last twenty years haven't been exactly the same? Exposition purely to link set piece action scenes. You can apply the same logic to Robocop, Total Recall, Predator, etc. I could understand the bile if we were all used to every sci fi and every actioner coming from the pen of great writers, with brilliant plots and superb dialogue filling in all the scenes between thing going bang. But that hasn't ever been the way. We've got Ridley throwing us - hopefully - some fillet mignon pretty soon. That doesn't mean I see the point in complaining about the fact there's a juicy hamburger coming somwhere along the line too. I think you're taking cinema, particularly genre cinema, far too seriously if what your complaint with this movie is about it seeming like a video game action flick. What were you expecting from a film about the US military going up against aliens too dumb to mine an asteroid? It's one thing to not personally like the movie and if that's the case with you fair enough. But the people here hanging it on the basis it wasn't 'smart enough' for them really need to unclench their sphincters and let their heads slip back out. They're going to do themselves a terrible back injury otherwise like that.

You should be flattered. I got a special deal just for you. You can be next, LMAO!!!!

didn't think either film was brilliant but watched all of skyline and couldn't watch all of battlefield, was a close choice but battlefield was the less entertaining of the two, just my opinion. both films left me cold. the ending to skyline was like watching district 9 right up until he gets in the suit and then ending it before you see the consequences. i'm not comparing d9 to skyline but was expecting it to get kick ass and it didn't.

Like they blocked off an eighth of a highway, decorated it with rubble and just shot it at different angles.

Chill, man. Sorry if you took my comment so seriously and PERSONALLY. I just think Skyline was a shitty movie and I like Battle LA. There - ya happy now? I am so sorry that my comment about taste ruined your day and you felt the need to go all hyperbolic on the sarcasto meter. Did you get it out of your system? I also think that B: LA is just getting slammed for things that are present in a lot of other movies that don't get such a bad rap. Also, all these people who are saying they admired/liked Skyline's loopy out of thin air ending...okay, fine. But Skyline's deus ex machina makes the Mac virus at the end of ID 4 look plausible. I'm no arbiter of taste, but I have yet to read one person here explain what made Skyline better except the ending was ending was "unpredictable" or "insane" as if that is a determining factor. Skyline's characters were so damn annoying that they made the whiny brats of Cloverfield look likable!

Nia Peeples in a skin tight outfit as a samurai-sword-wielding government agent. Nuff said.

Was the threat level dropping like a sack of bricks at the movie's halfway point. When the aliens first showed up, they were fierce, fast, threatening and seemingly impossible to even injure. Then all of a sudden, someone figures out "shoot them in a very small and specific spot just under their rib"- and all of a sudden every marine in the platoon is a crack shot, making the enemies drop like flies. Lucky enough, at that same time the aliens decided to stop moving with impressive speed and forgot how to aim, deciding instead to meander around the battle field taking potshots at the ground beside the marines. If the aliens remained a viable threat through the whole movie, it not only would've made the marines winning seem a lot more gratifying, it would've made people overlook the other problems like the script, acting (Eckhart and Rodriguez notwithstanding) and shaky cam (which if you ask me, was working to the films credit while the aliens were scary). Here's hoping that the #1 problem they address in the sequel is how to keep the aliens threatening throughout the whole film, especially saying as their weakness is known from the outset this time.

First wasn't a good film, but it entertained me about as I expected. I'm down for more.

And how will this happen did the aliens die? IDK I have to revist this film. I loved it though, it was way better then skyline thats for sure.

Enjoyed the first one. Light on script? Yup. But enjoyed it regardless - action was great, had an old-fashioned sensibility that I appreciated. And yeah, liked the way the Marines were portrayed. So sue me - we've certainly seen plenty of negative portrayals. I don't see why that should be a Right/Left issue, frankly, but if it is...well, it is. In short - a simple, action packed, "good guys versus nasty alien invaders" popcorn movie. All it wanted to be, and that was fine with me.

I saw the movie opening day and seriously, other than the general "aliens come and battle with military" plot , I would be hard-pressed to name a single scene or even the beginning or ending (let alone any character's names). I don't even remember what the hell the aliens looked like. Literally all I can remember is that Aaron Eckhart was in it. So yeah, I'm kind of excited for the sequel.

rather than see another bland, boring horribly written piece of crap like the first one.

I was thinking EXACTLY that Asi. The film really is like watching someone else work their way through a computer game. There is a complete disconnect of any thrill or visceral response - the characters in the film might be scared but I'm not. And Smegma you really can't compare Battle LA to Robocop or Predator. The former has a sharp, satirical script upon which to pin it's over the top action stylings and the latter boasts buckets of charm, a brilliant soundtrack and a superbly mysterious alien entity. Battle LA has absolutely none of this in any way shape or form. It's mundane, serviceable, utterly bland and without even the good grace to be comically bad or annoyingly underachieving. A flatline of a movie. It's a waste of life watching it. Liebesman didn't make a movie - he made the single sentence synopsis he pitched to the studio.

That's exactly what they did for the freeway scenes. Louisiana I believe, doubling as L.A.

This film would already have been crowned a cult classic if it was from the 80s or foreign by now.

I'm not comparing the script of Robocop to the script of Battle: LA. I'm pointing out the fact that asi's video game analogy of each scene merely moving to the next action scene holds with many different films. Yes Robocop is a deeper thought out script and holds much satirical insight into the state of the world at the time it was made. But you cannot deny that even there it moved from one set piece scene to the next. There's degrees of dumbness in film and I fully agree Battle LA was a dumb film. Have stated that right from the start. But it was what it was, and complaining about it not being some deep philosophical experience as some seem to complain about here like the cinematic auteurs they seem to think they are is pretty friggin' dumb itself.

If this had been released around the time Robocop came out everyone would hold it like it was a gem. Or of it had been made in Russia or something it would be getting tons of love from the posers around here. But it seems most Talkbackers around here need to rag on stuff for no genuine reason. I can understand not liking it on a personal level but the reasons a lot of people here have given for it being "shit" apply to about 75% of all the films they seem to fellate here as well.

HOw can anyone think that that humongous turd of a movie, with it's literally turd-looking aliens, its no-name overacting actors, its lame Newport beach location, and its laughable script and story if we can even call them that without stretching the semantic and logical resources of the English language beyond breaking point, that that was better than Battle : LA? Battle:LA was not great but it wasn't that bad. It certainly was definitely not worse than Skyline. It had Aaron Eckhart - 2 Face for crying out loud - and Bridget Moynihan for crying out loud. Granted, there were annoying characters (Ne-Yo, I'm looking at you), annoying coincidences and plot contrivances (that Eckhart's character is the one that figures out the aliens weak spot to hit , for one) not to mention the always annoying shaky cam. But nothing that a well-written script wouldn't redeem in a sequel - especially if they go in a different direction. How the fuck do you even begin to redeem Skyline in a sequel after that clusterfuck of an ending? Battle: LA wasn't painting itself as a Sci-FI masterpiece, and that's what seems to annoy a lot of people. It was a dumb action movie. That's it. If you go into it with your expectations adequately calibrated, you were unlikely to be disappointed or annoyed and you just had fun with it. Skyline wasn't even an action movie - or fun. And to call it a proper alien invasion movie when we only saw a small corner of LA being wiped out (not even) is a joke of historic proportions. I don't know what the fuck it was to be honest. Other than an over-CGIed mess

Gotta hand it to him, he never slums it in a role. Still not a good movie, but Eckhart made it watchable by taking things seriously and at least being interesting. Riddle me this: How much WORSE would this film have been were he not in it? Lots of medoicre films improve with the right cast on hand (Harsh Times, anyone?)

battle la was just boring as shit bad. both were 1/10 movies yet id rather watch skyline again.

The first one didn't have a script, why should the second? Don't even hire any actors, just film people out on the street and add aliens and explosions around them. Let the CGI do all the real work for you. :)

that wraps up everything with the John Connor and Kyle Reese future warfare storyline, and not McG's formulaic T2/T3 plot just set in the future. And I liked Battle: LA. I just wonder what they could really do with it after the first one showed the marines discovering the alien invaders' weakness Iand exploiting it in the final battle ID4 style.

Having a new cast fighting in a different city. You know it will be LA with Aaron Eckhardt's troops again though.

you people really need to stop selling out so easily. Demand better and it will get better.

Skyline was bold enough to present itself in stark daylight with clear focus on the alien invasion from the protagonist's view. The filmakers appeared to be doing their best to erase the murky dollar store feel of AVP:Rectum. Battle:LA was more of an FX reel. It had the sloppy attention deficit of a troubled youth. The one who shoots up a school for no apparent reason. Sound and fury signifying nothing, blah blah blah... I need some sleep.

I enjoyed Battle: LA. It was like a riff on Independence Day, but with Marines instead of Air Force. Not sure if Battle: LA is crying out for a sequel, though. I thought it wrapped up nicely. Now an ID4 sequel, that's what I'd like to see. When Independence Day came out I saw it at least six times. Just an amazingly fun movie. The ideas they were kicking around for a sequel sounded really cool, but it never came to be.

I hated battle LA The actors wouldn't stop talking. I wanted to see a 2011 version of ID4 but the actors wouldn't stop talking.

I thought it was actually OK for what it was. I actually appreciated the bizarro ending to the film.

The concept was cool but the execution was just terrible and so were most of the characters.

As someone had previously mentioned, this is more like a COD Modern Warfare expansion pack and really nothing more. However, the most impressive take on this film would be Eckart's POV as an aging soldier who led his squad to victory. B:LA is not a great film, but I put this above shit like Skyline and Independence day.

Amongst some other things, that's the moment I really disconnected from the movie

The first one was the most easy game ever, in it's favour, the graphics were excellent, but the game was stupid, even though I couldn't figure out the control system, I still defeated the big boss at the end. ON MY FIRST TURN.

Don't bother, I don't think Bay can read anyway.

They were probably cheering the fact that the movie was over and that they could go home without having to endure any more of it. Four of us made the mistake of going to see BATLLE at the cinema and we all agreed the terrible camera work ruined it. This includes someone who is a video game fanatic but even she hated the continual 'cinematography by epileptics'.

I didn't really expect much of anything out of the movie but I ended up liking it.

Have you ever seen Beyond the Valley of the Dolls? Ebert has no business criticizing anybody else's work. That movie was complete and utter shit.

I hates me some Jesus as much as the next guy, but the fact that the guy's FEET appear in the movie doesn't really upset me. Honestly, if the Jesus content is meagre enough that I can tolerate it, it's really not going to bite you. The movie's not about Jesus, it's about the relationship between Judah and Messala. It's about friendship, betrayal and revenge.

you knowe that helping out a dumb movie like Battle:LA means you are hurting the chances of a truly good movie to be made, right? There is so much money to make movies.

It's at least possible that an alien race could have interstellar travel capability but relatively weak weaponry. A civilization will develop the level of weapons technology it needs to achieve political stasis, and will then stop. If an alien civilization achieved political unification of its planet at a tech level consistent with, say, our WWI technological level (which is certainly very possible; hell, if they hadn't made some huge political mistakes, the British might have taken the whole ball of wax by the 1890's), why would it develop anything better after that? To fight whom? You could easily get an expansionary interstellar civilization that has tech a lot like ours, with some non-weaponized advances in propulsion, that's out there kicking the shit out of caveman planets and not advancing its weapon systems because it doesn't need to. Then it reaches our planet and gets a bloody nose. Our current weapons are actually pretty damn good, in terms of the ratio of destructive power to energy investment. To make our weapons look bad, you have to do stupid shit like give the aliens shields that can stop atomic blasts, which are absurd (and much less realistic than warp drive or other fantasy stuff). The H-bomb is pretty top of the line in weapons terms, until you can accelerate large bodies to relativistic speeds - and if you do that, you don't exactly get to occupy whatever planet you just hit with that weapon later, so it's not very useful.

Though i still don't understand why they called the movie after a Nissan model.

how i fucking hate that detestable fucking horrid piece of fucking shit fuckass fucking movie. Fuck that fucking shit!!

Actually, BEN HUR is about Jesus. The subtitle of the book is even "A Tale Of The Christ". Beleive it or not, the Ben Hur and Massala story is a subplot. I mean, have you see the movie recently? Because if you do, you will notice that after the mega-cool charriot race, there's still a FULL HOUR of movie after it where it's all about Ben Hur brooding and very slowly watching him betraying his judaism for the new upstart religion, and how fucking long it takes for Jesus to die on the cross one thinks it was shot in real time.

I'm an atheist, which means i find all religions to be equaly bullshit. there's no more validity to juddaism as is to christianity. But there is a christian snobish attitude in the movie Ben Hur toward judaism that really pisses me off.

This is like having today's society with all the technological advances we have today but in warfare we would still be using pre-historic flint axes. It makes absolutly no bloody sense. I can accept it as a plot device to give the humans a fighting chance, but it's not logic at all.

And they decided to go invade a planet with equal weapons? Nothing retarded about that!

was 90 minutes of footage searching for an editor (and a plot, and coherence, and....).

You see, this aliens are so chilvarous and honourable that they decide to fight us on equal terms. Instead of, you know, nuke us from orbit to be sure. Such nice aliens!

How much easier would be for the aliens to get water from the ice moons of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, or from Pluto and Charon. Or the trans-neptunian or Oorth Cloud cometary bodies. It's ice, which mean water is an already compact form, easy to extract and transport and storage. Getting water from Earth means getting it mostly in liquid form, which is quite wasteful, and problematic to store, but also since Earth is the most massive of the rock planets of the solar system, the aliens would had to spent more energy fighting our gravity. And then having to fight us. It's just so stupid. It's so much trouble! Getting water from a jupiter moon would save them also the trouble of fighting civilized natives. Unless Europa harbors a civilization of very advanced badass sharks with lazer weapons and a bad attitude.

but without transformers. or shia labouedsvn o k

THey might as well make a sequel to BATTLE OF LOS ANGELES.....

The two separate issues are: Would an alien race that had interstellar transport necessarily have vastly better weapons than modern day Earth; and Does it make sense that they would invade us. Let's take care of the second one right off the bat: No, it makes no sense that they would invade us. ALL movies that rely on the conceit of interstellar resource war are stupid. And that includes AVATAR. It doesn't matter what the resource is, either. Water is particularly stupid, but "unobtainium" is stupid as well (if slightly less so). But the weapons question is different. Having FTL travel would itself be a "weapon" of a sort - since accelerating a large object to FTL speed and pointing it at a planet would make a hell of a weapon. But if we're talking about prosaic weapons - things you could use to achieve a political end like conquest, instead of simply achieving Total Fucking Destruction - then weapons development should plateau at whatever level made it possible for the alien race to achieve political unification. It's a sociological question. You don't build weapons just because it's fun; you build them to achieve identifiable ends. If I conquer the Earth tomorrow, what's my incentive to invest in, say, better stealth technology, or rail guns, or laser blasters, or whatever? Very little. I'm incentivized to invest in technologies that keep me on top, but nothing beyond that. Would an alien race where political unification was achieved using the alien equivalent of railroads and the gatling gun ever invent the dive bomber and the H-bomb? Probably not. Why would they? They'd eventually discover nuclear power - but the engineering path to nuclear power and nuclear WEAPONS are different. I don't think it's even impossible for an FTL race to show up and be outclassed by the weapons the USA currently has, for this reason. It is pretty stupid to think that they'd invade us with their pea shooters and wooden shields, of course. But that's also a different question.

But that's different from being a stupid or bad movie. THE TEN COMMANDMENTS is full of lots of Old Testament nonsense, but it's still a great film full of charismatic performances, solid writing, landmark special effects, incredible dramatic sweep, etc. You gotta separate the movie from the religion, guys. If I can do it, so can you. Hating BEN HUR because Judah converts is like hating RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK because the ark melts the faces of the Nazis.

All the aliens needed was to be on orbit and throw bricks at us. From orbital height, a brick hitting the ground would be like a blockbuster bomb, and that's even without bothering with explosives. Any alien that wanted to invade us would just need to park their asses above, in geostationary orbit and do turkey shooting on us. Literally thrown rock at us for a few weeks. And we couldn't do anything to prevent it. Afew weks of that type of bombardment, we would had all our infrastructures and industrial and agricultural structured reduced to the pre-history level. after that, what kind of opposition we could offer?

don't talk to me about THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, because that movie is one of my favorite comedies of all time. it always cracks me up! I fail to se the similiaritude between an apostate jew and a melting cartoon nazi in an adventure movie. the comparison is lost on me.

sorry for the multiple posts, my thoughs are not coming very fast to me today. it's not the religion content that anoys me in Ben Hur. It's how it's delievered. THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST is one of my favorite movie, and it's a very religious movie which is appologetic to christianity. And yet i love it. the relion is not the problem. the problem is the assclown fashion that it's presented in Ben Hur. And the very obnoxious put down that it goes to judaism.

The reason I'm comparing Judah's conversion to the face-melting scene is because they both make perfect sense if you accept that the underlying religions here are true. Judah interacts with Jesus, remember. If there actually was a guy named Jesus and if he actually was the son of God, it makes perfect sense that a guy whose life Jesus saved might convert. It also makes sense that a guy feeling guilt and grief might witness the events surrounding the crucifixion and be profoundly moved. Watching BEN HUR and saying, *Wow, it really insults Judaism to have Judah convert!* is like watching RAIDERS and saying, *The Nazi faces shouldn't melt because there's nothing in the ark but some crumbled stone tablets!*

Battle LA is Razzie worthy in my book, one of the worst genre movies of its year, so yeah, a sequel is pretty pointless IMO.

Sure, you're absolutely right. The aliens could use *the high ground of space* to drop rocks on us THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS style. But I don't think that's the objection people are making to the alien weapons in BATTLE: LA. I thought they were objecting to the absence of ray guns and ID4-type green shields and such. *Projectile accelerated through metal tube by combustion* is actually a pretty damn good weapon. It gets the job done, and is more efficient in energy terms than a beam weapon will ever be.

The novel is too sophisticated about the relationship between Jesus' human and divine aspects for the rabble, though. Obviously BEN HUR is using Comic Book Jesus and not a Jesus informed by the history of the Arian heresy debate. But it's still a good movie. ET is a comic book alien, but it's still a good movie.

a spacefaring civilization surely would had more advanced weapons then ones that would be comparable to what us have today. the simple fact they can crosses the spac between the stars means they have energy technology so much advanced then us that would make our nuclear power technology look we are still taming the fire. this aliens could had portable rail guns firing small pelets of matter traveling at extremely high hyper-sonic speeds that could perfurate anything, shooting the humans down regardles of what obstacle would be using as cover. And this aliens could have directional bullets, bullets that would turn corners and search their targets like mini cruise missiles. and using sound blasts that would turn a human's brain into mush. and gas or bio weapons that would kill humansd but leave the aliens inharmed. this would be the very least in how advanced compared to us they would be. and the thing is, all the stuff i said above is stuff that's already being tested today by us. sorry, but it just doesn't make sense. it's fun to what, i guess, but it takes a lot of logic liberties. I could had give the movie more leewaty in regard to that if it had any other qualities to compensate. alas, it hasn't.

Say Hitler conquers the world in 1942. Yes, that's logistically implausible, but let's say he does it. Why would a future Nazi military devote resources and manpower to developing directional bullets? Or rail guns? Who are those weapons going to be used against? The weapons they'd already have would be more than sufficient to their remaining missions, namely crowd control and genocide. They might invest in more efficient crematoria or better surveillance technology, but rail guns? Probably not. Pressure to develop better weapons would only arise if they became a spacefaring civilization and encountered a species they wanted to conquer that was technologically advanced. As long as they were taking over algae planets, dead rocks, and caveman planets (so to speak), there would still be zero institutional pressure for better weapons.

in that cvase why they invade eath? instead of just go mining in Europa. unless there's a native europan civilization that's total badass.

There's a huge difference between if the Earth was suddenly unified under one banner and an alien species bent on insterstellar WAR!!! You CAN'T be that dense, you just CAN'T be!

Just go here RIGHT FUCKING NOW! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpLH9ocVxAs

...what weapons development level was the alien civilization at when they themselves became unified on their planet? The only stimulus to further weapons development is a political enemy at or near your own level of development. That's the whole point. Necessity is the mother of invention. An alien 'nation' (heh) that takes over its own planet no longer faces any compelling necessity to continue weapons development. Until it encounters another species with decent weapons, it will continue to face no compelling necessity to continue weapons development. It would naturally be stupid to invade Earth to get water. That goes without saying, and isn't the stupidity factor here that I was disputing. I just think that the science fiction trope that spacefaring species would have bad-ass weaponry that outclasses ours in every way relies more on fantasies about ray guns than political, economic or scientific fact. People used to bitch about nuBSG using guns, for example, even though the combustion/accelerant/projectile gun is an infinitely more efficient and sensible weapon than a hand-held ray gun will ever be.

Alien invaders using bioweapons is a cool concept that could make for a good alien invasion movie. Kill all the pesky humans off with a specially engineered virus, and all you gotta do is land and start colonizing. It would also solve the problem of having to haul a bunch of weapons, troops, and war machines with on the way to Earth if you were aliens doing a viral invasion instead of a conventional military invasion. We sort of did this with the atom bombs dropped on Japan during World War II. Otherwise we might have done a full on invasion of Japan, which would have been much more logistically complex.

What about that is not getting through? You'd better have some fucking BADASS weaponry if you think you're going to go out and conquer the fucking universe!

Stuff like Starship Troopers or Halo actually work much better because in those the humans are spacefaring and have weapons and tech that are either equal, better, or at least good enough. Halo for example, the humans are better than the aliens are at ground combat, while the aliens kick our asses in space battles and have more accurate and more efficient FTL (slipspace) technology. It is all about balance. It would be more believable to see a movie that takes place in the future after we've begun colonizing space, whether just within the solar system or beyond, then we meet the hostile aliens. Maybe we are greater in number but the aliens have better tech? Or maybe the aliens are more unified and are more organized, yet are not as battle ready cause they stopped warring amongst themselves a thousand years ago but now they need to fight us, and we are more bloodthirsty due to our warlike nature and civilization of nations or separate worlds at odds with each other?

Yes, simple kinetic strike weapons (ie, our pea shooters) are very efficient in terms of delivering fatal kinetic energy to the target. But, directed energy weapons have their advantages too. They may not (with our tech) deliver as much energy on a per shot to the target, but they are a hell of a lot more accurate at anything but point blank range and, assuming rechargeable power packs, save a lot of space and weight in terms of ammo storage. As for weapons development stopping at 'good enough' levels, I don't see that because aliens would likely be aware of the possibility of an asteroid strike and thus would have developed weapons to counter this. And once you've got the principle for that, then it becomes a matter of making the package smaller, more efficient and you've got better ground weapons, too.

Turtledove's WORLDWAR tetralogy was a delightful look at a vastly superior alien race looking at conquering the primitive humans. They've sent a probe which revealed our hopelessly outmatched tech level and so they set out with a huge conquest fleet, armed with weapons more than adequate to deal with us. Only, there's a problem. These aliens NEVER hurry. They always plan everything out in exquisite details and take their time - generations - in getting anything substantive done. It's always worked. So, who needs FTL which is impossible anyway, when you've got perfectly good 'deep sleep' vessels which can carry your army to destination even if it does take decades to get there? They then get here and have a very rude awakening when the barbarians with bows and arrows they expected to face aren't around any more and, instead, have us in the middle of WW II, with tech that's only about a century behind - and who would have expected such incredible development in only 800 years? Worse, we're catching up fast. You almost feel sorry for the poor invaders. Now THAT would make a heck of a movie.