OK, so Battle: LA is ... well, it's OK. It's not great. It didn't present itself as such a novelty that I was looking for. But then again, I am picky. I only watch movies in the theater if it is "theater worthy." The last theater worthy movie I saw was Inception, which I really did enjoy. The movie itself (talking about Battle: LA) was only theater worthy for the fact that it had big booming special effects -- special effects that we've all seen, but hey, what do you expect? The movie was rather predictable, you have an alien invasion that catches earth mostly off guard, but then you have an American hero that leads a group of people to help successfully take down the bad guys. Aside from the plot, there were even some jokes that I found to be very predictable. One great example was when they were looking for someone to hot wire a bus. One of the men jokes that a fellow platoon member (or whatever they're called) knew how because he was from Jersey. As soon as they started the line, I knew where they were going, and as a result I actually started laughing a 1/2 second before the rest of the audience did. Laughing ahead of the curve made me wonder if there's a connection between a person's intelligence, with respect to their ability to predict a pattern. To me, its kind of like reading the headlines and knowing what and how Jay Leno will be joking about them later that night. (I find myself doing that on a regular basis.) I could go on about what those implications are, but.. that's not the point. Anyways, back the the topic... this film was obviously shot to be like a military-documentary style movie. The director managed to pull this of fine in the battle scenes. That in itself wasn't worth criticizing. Instead, the bigger thing I found lacking was the alien invasion, its tactics, the technology -- the whole nine yards.
Here it is we've got another movie about an alien invasion (compare to Independence Day, Signs and War of the Worlds to name a few relatively recent ones), so you expect to have some original ideas to make these aliens stand out from alien invaders in other recent movies. There were a couple of unique things: one, the use of meteors as an explanation to the events leading up to the invasion and two, was the use of drones, by the aliens. You don't see too much drone action in other alien invader movies (Star Wars: The Clone Wars did come to mind), so this addition was a salute to the early 21'st century's use of drone aircraft in warfare. The problem with this is that the aliens' idea of drone technology was too much based on 21'st century thinking. (Its sort of like the way over-sized computers were used in early sci-fi shows, like Star Trek.) How so? The use of a terrestrial based central command center. By the time our current century ends, if we haven't killed each other off of the planet, (or have been wiped out by another doom's day scenario) this will have become obsolete. The reality is, most drones (which we'll have plenty of) will rely less on a central command center, and more upon swarm based robotics and intelligence. If you're reading this, you're probably wondering what swarm technology is. Well, I could explain it to you, but, it might be easier to just direct you to here: Wiki's Swarm Robotics Entry
There are many advantages to swarm robotics in warfare, the biggest one is not having to rely upon on central command center to control them all. OK, so then you might ask, "but who directs the swarm?" The answer to that is that the swarm itself does most of that. Sure, some alien out there will probably have some say in things, but really if you've got the technology to traverse a presumably great interstellar distance, certainly you would have invested in some better AI technology for your war robots.
In the scheme of things, these aliens are only slightly more advanced than we humans currently are. In 50-100 years, most of the alien technology that is used in the movie, will certainly be obtainable (except the interstellar travel part - I think that's still a bit farther off.) Otherwise, things like the use if a prosthetic limb which happens to be a weapon, could probably be done today with some DARPA funding. (The main concern there is not the technology, but the ethics behind it.)
Back to the central command thing, the idea that aliens would have a single weak spot, that if hit, delivers such a terrible blow that the whole invasion fails comes up time and time again in alien invasion movies. Surely by now, some alien would have gotten a Netflix account and would have watched a few movies to figure out that we humans always look to discover this weak point. Every Single. Time. Seriously, think about it, if you were told to go invade another planet that had life, intelligent enough to make streaming Internet movies, wouldn't you hack the system and create your own Netflix-like account to learn their preferred method in taking out aliens? If not movies, buying a PlayStation and a couple of alien shoot 'em ups would suffice. So, putting that aside, that to me, just shows the unoriginality of the story's writers. Quite frankly, most science fiction gets it wrong here in my opinion on so many levels. I'd talk more about that, but I'm saving that for the novel that I'm currently working on. I'll just say this: nano-technology. Enough said.
One thing I wished the writers would have done is to have elaborated more on how the aliens used water as a fuel source. We could speculate that it has something to do with fuel cells, but hydrogen in that equation is really just an energy delivery system. In other words, it is not an energy source. So, then we could speculate that it was part of a reaction with some other material being used as a catalyst of some sort. I don't know... but then, adding that detail would have been "beside(s) the point" right? I'm secretly hoping that a better explanation will be found in the form of a deleted scene that will be available in the DVD/Blu-Ray release. I know, dream on.
Well, so there you have it, that effectively ends my review of the film which ends this post. Now you can review my review!
Here it is we've got another movie about an alien invasion (compare to Independence Day, Signs and War of the Worlds to name a few relatively recent ones), so you expect to have some original ideas to make these aliens stand out from alien invaders in other recent movies. There were a couple of unique things: one, the use of meteors as an explanation to the events leading up to the invasion and two, was the use of drones, by the aliens. You don't see too much drone action in other alien invader movies (Star Wars: The Clone Wars did come to mind), so this addition was a salute to the early 21'st century's use of drone aircraft in warfare. The problem with this is that the aliens' idea of drone technology was too much based on 21'st century thinking. (Its sort of like the way over-sized computers were used in early sci-fi shows, like Star Trek.) How so? The use of a terrestrial based central command center. By the time our current century ends, if we haven't killed each other off of the planet, (or have been wiped out by another doom's day scenario) this will have become obsolete. The reality is, most drones (which we'll have plenty of) will rely less on a central command center, and more upon swarm based robotics and intelligence. If you're reading this, you're probably wondering what swarm technology is. Well, I could explain it to you, but, it might be easier to just direct you to here: Wiki's Swarm Robotics Entry
There are many advantages to swarm robotics in warfare, the biggest one is not having to rely upon on central command center to control them all. OK, so then you might ask, "but who directs the swarm?" The answer to that is that the swarm itself does most of that. Sure, some alien out there will probably have some say in things, but really if you've got the technology to traverse a presumably great interstellar distance, certainly you would have invested in some better AI technology for your war robots.
In the scheme of things, these aliens are only slightly more advanced than we humans currently are. In 50-100 years, most of the alien technology that is used in the movie, will certainly be obtainable (except the interstellar travel part - I think that's still a bit farther off.) Otherwise, things like the use if a prosthetic limb which happens to be a weapon, could probably be done today with some DARPA funding. (The main concern there is not the technology, but the ethics behind it.)
Back to the central command thing, the idea that aliens would have a single weak spot, that if hit, delivers such a terrible blow that the whole invasion fails comes up time and time again in alien invasion movies. Surely by now, some alien would have gotten a Netflix account and would have watched a few movies to figure out that we humans always look to discover this weak point. Every Single. Time. Seriously, think about it, if you were told to go invade another planet that had life, intelligent enough to make streaming Internet movies, wouldn't you hack the system and create your own Netflix-like account to learn their preferred method in taking out aliens? If not movies, buying a PlayStation and a couple of alien shoot 'em ups would suffice. So, putting that aside, that to me, just shows the unoriginality of the story's writers. Quite frankly, most science fiction gets it wrong here in my opinion on so many levels. I'd talk more about that, but I'm saving that for the novel that I'm currently working on. I'll just say this: nano-technology. Enough said.
One thing I wished the writers would have done is to have elaborated more on how the aliens used water as a fuel source. We could speculate that it has something to do with fuel cells, but hydrogen in that equation is really just an energy delivery system. In other words, it is not an energy source. So, then we could speculate that it was part of a reaction with some other material being used as a catalyst of some sort. I don't know... but then, adding that detail would have been "beside(s) the point" right? I'm secretly hoping that a better explanation will be found in the form of a deleted scene that will be available in the DVD/Blu-Ray release. I know, dream on.
Well, so there you have it, that effectively ends my review of the film which ends this post. Now you can review my review!
Hey Doug, I didn't even know you had a blog :) Although I guess I still think facebook is better. Although the one I am looking forward to is Cowboy's vs Alien's. So are you still considering coming down to Puebla anytime? Maybe we can talk on the phone sometime soon. Well better go, as my fingers can't type anymore.
ReplyDelete13 Days later, I just now saw your comment... You're right, for most things Facebook is better. I think of this blog as sort of my back closet of my own thoughts. Quite frankly, I kept it to myself, as a way to just write what I was thinking at the time. I also started it before I was ever on Facebook. But, then I saw this movie, and wanted to talk about it, so, here you go!
ReplyDeleteI would still like to consider coming down. Its all in the timing of finances really. If its not this spring, then perhaps it could be in the fall. I can tell you, its tough to gauge anything, because its hard for me to predict a ballpark figure on where business will be. I'll keep you posted though! (Hopefully you see this!)
I am inclined to agree that the plot was too predictable. It served as an ad for the Marines. :-) Just my thoughts on it, Doug. The character depth didn't quite get there. I know that the Staff Sargent was to appear stoic, tough, yet his emotional vulnerabilities were to have been exposed by the end of the movie. The burden he carried after losing his men on a previous mission vs his tenure within a branch of the military touted as first on the ground--"all they have is each other" was not executed properly. I didn't feel for him--or any of them, for that matter. To me, that is a test of movie. All the exploding bombs and pyrotechnic displays cannot carry a movie whose characters fail to connect with the viewer. Neat that you have a blog... I will be checking back :-)
ReplyDelete