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SDCC '10: Mr. Beaks Checks Out The Urban Alien Warfare Of BATTLE: LOS ANGELES!
Beaks here...
Of all the by-committee studio films vying for the attention of consumers at the San Diego Comic Con this year, Jonathan Liebesman's BATTLE: LOS ANGELES seemingly stands apart. It isn't a sequel/remake/reboot, it's not based on a comic book (or any other pre-existing material) and it isn't a star vehicle. Perhaps this is why so many people were buzzing about the film going into yesterday's Sony panel in the hangar-sized Hall H; in today's mainstream marketplace, it's refreshing to engage with something that isn't 100% pre-sold. Studio's don't often trust audiences to take a chance on the unknown. So... rejoice?
Borrowing the hand-held aesthetic used to harrowing effect by Ridley Scott in BLACK HAWK DOWN (which drew heavily on Gillo Pontecorvo's BATTLE OF ALGIERS), Liebesman's BATTLE: LOS ANGELES looks like it could be one hell of a video game. From the opening shots of the pacific coast being shelled from above by unseen alien warships (which also seem to be targeting a fleet of military helicopters carrying the soldiers with whom we'll be thrust into battle), the Liebesman is clearly doing everything he can to reinvigorate the alien invasion movie. Rather than obsessing on the destruction of well-known landmarks (ala Roland Emmerich), Liebesman depicts the assault as a brutal shock-and-awe campaign brought to our shores: skyscrapers and homes are indiscriminately reduced to CG rubble; meanwhile, the army scrambles to identify the enemy combatants and formulate some kind of a counterattack.
The invasion is linked to the infamous "Battle of Los Angeles", the 1942 anti-aircraft flurry that lit up the skies over the city for reasons that still aren't clear. Christopher Bertolini's screenplay asserts that this barrage was in fact provoked by hostile alien spaceships - and now the bastards are back with lots more firepower.
After the opening raid, we jump forward to an urban warfare sequence in which soldiers (led by star Aaron Eckhart) find themselves slugging it out with aliens in a residential neighborhood. It's door-to-door fighting right out of BLACK HAWK DOWN, and Liebesman has filmed it all with a surfeit of bombast and brio. The cool thing about this set piece is that we never fully glimpse the aliens; they're always scampering out of frame or obscured by a tree branch as the camera tries to keep tabs on the unfolding action. I'm not much of a gamer, but the way this sequence is shot reminds me of RESISTANCE. It's not mind-blowingly brilliant stuff, but it's effective.
It's impossible to make a judgment call based on eight or ten minutes of unfinished footage, but BATTLE: LOS ANGELES looks like it could offer up a fun spin on the played-out alien invasion genre. We'll find out if Liebesman's got the goods on March 11, 2011.
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I've been anticipating this for some time.
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Pull my finger.
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Bank on that.
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Liebesman's goods are only so-so.
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Jul 23, 2010 1:30:51 PM CDT
All anbody here sees is that Ana Lucia is part of this project..
by hobocode
and the spewing bile begins.
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because this needs to be awesome.
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Not a concoction *I* would've cooked up, but the proof will be in the eating of the pudding.
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1. Grab asteroid from asteroid belt.
2. Send it towards Earth, causing ELE.
3. Wait for dust to settle.
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Jul 23, 2010 1:34:24 PM CDT
Is there a Michelle Rodriguez shower scene?
by bp_drills_america_a_new_asshole
Like the one in Starship Troopers where they all shower together? I want to see her showe then get fucked hard by Eckhart's character. There, you have my ten bucks.
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Jul 23, 2010 1:35:38 PM CDT
WHEN I THINK MICHELLE RODRIQUEZ, I THINK 'ANGRY SEX'
by bringingsexyback
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Brooklyn, a black kid who's always runnin' his mouth, a feisty Hispanic wom..oh, we gots that.., the bespectacled brain with a new bride and baby on the way at home?..etc.etc.etc.
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laugh..
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Somebody had to say it.
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but the whole bit about the real Battle of Los Angeles being aliens is kinda silly. Why wouldn't they just have invaded back then? For this seeming to go for a doco-style tone, why spoil that with a goofy backstory element like that?Oh well. I'm not gonna let that bother me, as I'm an alien invasion flick junkie. So I'll have to give this one a fair shake once the trailer hits.
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was spotted on the set of this movie!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Give me Resistance 3!!!!!!!!!!
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Does Michelle Rodriguez play the same character?
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Now That is cool news.
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Jul 23, 2010 2:24:34 PM CDT
I like the sounds of this, a gritty BHD alien invasion movie,
by moore12
but I just have a feeling it won't be nearly as cool.
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The Helm of Thor EXISTS, and it is BEAUTIFUL!!!
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http://cdn.superherohype.com/images/stories/07de0d7e63c7f23b3b60089233e1389f.jpg
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...so are also hundreds of other movies that come out every year. This week alone start three original movies at the U.S. Box office! (Plus 1 documentary and an adaptation of a novel.)
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...fly across galactic space in giant spaceships, and presumably have the generally advanced technology and weaponry to boot, but they come down to the surface and run around, fighting what amounts to guerilla warfare?Somebody explain the logic of this to me, or else this film's lost me before it even starts.
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And Branagh is racking up the points almost too quickly to keep up with. Could this be the redemption so badly needed after the hideously bad Iron Man 2?
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If you've got the advantage of being in orbit the easiest thing to do is just gather up space junk like asteroids and such and drop them on the planet below.
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it doesn't really make sense, as do many alien invasion films were the ET's go to war against the humans. Sometimes you just gotta go with it.Of course, this is why a Mass Effect or a Halo movie makes more sense. In both of those, the humans have sufficient technology and military might to counter the aliens, plus the canvass is not just Earth, but across the Milky Way.
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For one, Iron Man 2 wasn't horrible, it just wasn't The Avengers. As an audience, most of us wanted so much more. I think what we got was good, but because the film wasn't chock full of revelations and more obvious easter eggs, geeks were disappointed.
I will say that just showing the Helm of Thor pulled Branaugh out of the shithouse, a beastly trailer at SDCC will keep him out. -
he gives the aliens a cold. And they're running Windows 95, so it all works out in the end. Now that I think of it, the end of Independence Day should have been all the main characters hooked up to machines, their victory being only a simulation (a la The Matrix). Will Smith wakes up only long enough to see Jeff Goldblum being dissected. Fade to green.
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I didn't think IM2 was without merit, but what disappointed me wasn't anything geek-related - I thought the story was a complete mess, choppy, empty, rushed, flimsy, and underwhelming throughout, especially at the end. Even the acting seemed flat and tense. I loved the first IM and this one just bored me.Like you, I'm hoping to see a knockout Thor trailer!
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Jul 23, 2010 3:08:35 PM CDT
kevred, the USA could just bomb the shit outta anyone, too
by zillabeast
Iraq, Afghanastan, Somalia....we go in and ground and pound too though. I'm not saying these aliens are trying to avoid "collateral damage" or anything, but maybe they have a motive?
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Jul 23, 2010 3:21:30 PM CDT
unless they're trying to capture, leaving the ships doesnt make
by george newman
Yeah, i don't get the urban warfare angle, other than "it looks cool". But that doesn't really do it anymore if there isn't some meat behind it. Or at least reason.
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Only reason for a ground invasion.
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forces, so why not? Rape and pillage, rape and pillage.
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If Howard Stark has really screwed over that Russian scientist a built his Empire on his work. But no, that might make people feel bad.
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they saw District 9 and they were like i want me some of that!
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slutty bitches
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they put it in the asshole.
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...I'm thinking that a militaristic alien race that possesses the technology of interstellar travel would have also picked up the technology to subdue their enemies, en masse, without having to fight one-on-one in the streets.Maybe they just enjoy violence (or skimn's women theory). But it seems massively inefficient for them to warp between systems and then slog it out the old fashioned way every time. Surely the energy they'd have tapped into for space travel would also result in some kind of more efficient weapon for such tasks.I know it's just a dumb Hollywood movie. But it's still not easy to switch off the "that doesn't make sense" reaction. :)
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I'm guessing it will only be worn briefly, in some kind of ceremonial capacity. But even that woudl be cool - to see that entire outfit on the big screen would be a big kick.Of course, wearing it during a full-on battle with The Destroyer would be nice too. (Assuming that character is actually in the film--it's been quite a dry spell since those pics of it first appeared, and it's not listed in the IMDB cast.)
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Jul 23, 2010 4:08:11 PM CDT
Every knows aliens love putting it in asshole
by crispin_glovers_acid_flashback
Ask any abductee that has suffered the wrath of anal probe. Aliens come to earth to fight guerilla warfare because they wants the assholes.
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There is an interesting theory why invading aliens would prefer hand to hand combat rather than blasting cities from their space ships. They know that sooner or later humans would resort to nuclear weapons which would render the planet radioactive and useless to them. So if the aliens can dismantle Earth's defences with a ground assault, that would be the preferable tactic.
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Alien ground warfare was gonna happen in ID4 as well, if you remember. There's different kind of alien invasion movies. This one falls into the "We want your planet to live on/exploit, so we need to clear out the roaches!" category. The simple fact of the matter is that while you may be able to destroy wholesale entire population centers, if your end goal is to INHABIT the planet, it's kinda shooting yourself in the foot to glass the entire surface. As for reasons to be on the planet: the film 'Aliens' would never have happened if they nuked the site from orbit, since it's the only way to be sure. Besides, if the aliens were anything like humans, they would want to get down n' dirty and do some ol' fashioned fighting.
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why the fuck cant we have live streams from all the panels?expand the con to the internets and finally end the pleas to move the con out of sd
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cool
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fucking edit button.
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why is it so difficult to stream the whole show? E3 has live streaming,Blizzcon also has and i suppose a lot of other well-known world-wide conferences.but for comic-con i have to search throughout the web if someone has uploaded videos from the panels which ofc will be in a terrible mobile phone video qualite.
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right?
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It is the indie poor man's version of the same film basically, and I guess it is getting some buzz at SDCC. Pretty odd there are going to be two LA gets destroyed by aliens flicks coming.
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wait a month or two, then hit the ground. ever see THE TRIGGER EFFECT?
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Depending on the level of technology of our given alien invader,it would be most likely that they would need to send in some kind of personnel to secure their newly gained holdings, depending on their motives for coming to
take our resources. To leave the planet livable for them, at least.
T.'. -
Completely sick of shakey cam bullshit.
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That's something I'd like to see in an alien invasion movie. At least if the aliens' motive was to take over the planet, and not merely decimating it.Also, what about the invaders doing some genetic engineering and creating human sleeper agents to infiltrate and compromise defenses and communication systems, ala Number Six on Battlestar Galactica? Just because Battlestar used that idea, doesn't mean it couldn't be done in another film about a planetary invasion. If it makes sense, then use it.So between that and a planet wide EMP bombardment, there would still be some stragglers with guns roaming around for easy pickings. Plus, "people might be glad to be caught" and put in nice comfy cages after running around in the wild without the conveniences of modern society, as stated in The War of the Worlds 1938 broadcast.
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That would be the cleanest solution. Unleash a zombie virus, and then sit back and watch us from orbit as we eat ourselves or starve to death.
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exercises for new alien troops, for the later invasion of a larger planet inhabited by more advanced and formidable beings?
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Sure its technically not an alien invasion movie, but it would be pretty damn fun. OMW's balance of action, humor, and just plain cool stuff would really give audiences a kick. Plus, it has a good but simple enough to adapt story, and a sorta love story angle in it that's not too sappy or contrived.
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An awesome book, a classic. Go get a copy.
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Jul 24, 2010 11:56:06 AM CDT
Ok, LA, we get it.............................. .............
by gotilk
You've been attacked by aliens.
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Jul 24, 2010 4:47:51 PM CDT
don't know if this is good or bad, but... CHANGE THE TITLE!!!
by aka_gern_blanston
because Battle: Los Angeles sounds a tad too similar to Battlefield Earth, and, justified or no, that's not a comparison you want springing to people's minds while seeing an ad for your film. Just a thought...
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When they start using it in romantic comedies to give it that "edge", you know it's jumped the shark. Let's get back to actual composition, shall we?
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fuck, March 11th? too far away. this movie will do very well.
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Our website is: http://www.shoes2.us/
We also sell a variety of brand-name items: The following is our best-selling items. I hope you like it
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This one is going to be fun. Of course, that's what I thought about Staff of Kings based on plot alone and the controls were atrocious.
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I also had the Avatar idea for a few years before it was written.
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I was at Comic-con and watched this preview last Thursday. I thought that this was essentially a remake of Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds retold from the point of view of a squad of Marines defending Los Angeles and conducting urban warfare had he decided to do it in Saving Private Ryan mode.
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videogame-esque viewpoint. right at the end of the film, shit's crazy.
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But I wish they'd do Turtledove's WORLDWAR novels as a series of films. 1942, and the world's a mess ... then the aliens arrive but one almost has to feel sorry for them because they aren't the invincible, technological giants of WAR OF THE WORLDS. Nope, just about 50 years ahead of where we are today. And the horseback primitives they were expecting are nowhere in sight. How can a people have changed so much in a mere 800 years? Oh they're still well ahead of us. But not as much as they'd hoped. And we're learning. Fast. A fun series which needs to be made into movies if only for the fun bits with Hitler, Stalin, Tojo, Churchill and Roosevelt trying to get along to deal with the more immediate threat.
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