MovieChat Forums > Battleship (2012) Discussion > It's pretty obvious that we were the bad...

It's pretty obvious that we were the bad guys here

posted 9 years ago by LamontSmith
14 replies | jump to latest

The aliens crash landed on our planet and were trying to get home when we attacked them.

The first sailor made initial aggressive physical contact with their ship and it's first act was to create a defensive force field perimeter. They don't attack non-threatening entities and we humans have an instinctive fear of the unknown as a life-preserving defense mechanism......so we shot at them. Only problem was that they were stronger and better prepared to defend themselves than we thought. In almost every instance from initial contact, when we stop attacking them, they stop attacking us. That's not the posture of an invasion force. Also, they board the Navy vessel to steal parts and energy to help repair their own ship so they can leave the planet.

Watch it again from that perspective, that they were shipwrecked on a hostile world full of violent beings, and you'll watch the movie completely differently.

http://them0vieblog.com/2012/04/13/we-come-in-peace-shoot-to-kill-battleships-truly-alien-alien-invasion/

http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=127907

My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness. - The Dalai Lama

[–] TwoMinutesToMidnight 9 years ago

They made no attempt at communication, did they? They were clearly the aggressors.

We dug coal together.

[–] gary_overman 9 years ago

They made no attempt at communication, did they? They were clearly the aggressors.

That's the way I saw it as well.

[–] Plague2005 9 years ago

Watch the movie again. When it crashed, one of the ships broke off when it hit a satellite. It was assumed to be a communication panel. So it could very well be that the aliens lost their communication mode and language translator in that.

[–] Plague2005 9 years ago

Not to mention that the mind meld Alien did with Hooper could very well be their way of asking for help. He saw flashes of destruction. It could be what the aliens were saying happened to their planet. They could be the survivors and landed in a hostile world trying to destroy them. So that mind meld could be their "We come in peace" message.

[–] Blueghost 9 years ago

It's a film for teenagers that was made as if it were for an adult audience.

The problem is that the game Battleship is about surface warfare, not fighting aliens who seem to stay in Earth's oceans for much of the film.

The producers chose the aliens as bad guys script because they were gutless cowards and didn't want to show what a Battleship actually does; fight ship of other navies around the world.

There was an attempt to patch up hurt feelings between American and Japanese, which I think was just complete nonsense.

Does any teenager or anyone under the age of 50 really harbor any kind of resentment towards Japan? NOT ME. I love Japanese food, Japanese movies, Japanese women, and Japanese culture, even though I'm a red-white-and-blue blooded American.

So, the film was condescending in that regard. Gutless in terms of finding a terrestrial enemy (say North Korea, maybe a rogue Russian vessel, or even Somalia) to fight, and, on top of that, rode the coat tails of the Transformer movies.

THAT'S WHY IT FAILED.

[–] Inspector81 9 years ago

There was an attempt to patch up hurt feelings between American and Japanese, which I think was just complete nonsense.

Does any teenager or anyone under the age of 50 really harbor any kind of resentment towards Japan? NOT ME. I love Japanese food, Japanese movies, Japanese women, and Japanese culture, even though I'm a red-white-and-blue blooded American.

So, the film was condescending in that regard. Gutless in terms of finding a terrestrial enemy (say North Korea, maybe a rogue Russian vessel, or even Somalia) to fight, and, on top of that, rode the coat tails of the Transformer movies.

I didn't find the film condescending at all, that's on you Blueghost. It was just showing that the US and Japanese are friends now when we were once enemies, big deal.

You do know there is a classic Japanese Anime from the 70's called Space Battleship Yamato? That anime series had the IJN Yamato, the world's largest battleship, being resurrected into a spaceship to fight off invading aliens. Sound familiar? This film had the Missouri, America's most famous battleship, doing almost the same thing.

Space Battleship Yamato came over to the US in 1980 and was renamed Star Blazers. It's one of the most beloved and popular animes of all time and was recently remade by the Japanese into a live action film and reanimated in HD with all new animation with the same original music in 2012.

The original 1974 Japanese intro:

http://youtu.be/LKe0wARmks4

The original 1980 Star Blazers intro:

http://youtu.be/ItKC89IVEJc

The trailers for the reanimated Space Battleship Yamato from 2012 released in the U.S. as Star Blazers 2199:

http://youtu.be/fweCj5yWFk4

There's nothing condescending about paying homage to a classic anime and showing friendship with the Japanese and Battleship was doing that whether you knew it or not.

[–] parbon84 9 years ago

I always forget that enjoying yourself and having fun are only for teenagers.

[–] usman-khan 9 years ago

You are right and i think it was pretty obvious... it was more like a mining vessel or something, not a military vessel as their weapons weren't really military. All they did was self defense. I though everyone knew by now that the american navy was the bad guys.

Look inside yourself and understand the universe

[–] Abuhin 9 years ago

You are right and i think it was pretty obvious... it was more like a mining vessel or something, not a military vessel as their weapons weren't really military


Well, then. You got to admire the alien work ethic. That's a lot of rock breaking they plan on doing:
https://youtu.be/e5maBLlFo7s?t=5m50s

[–] oos_005s 9 years ago

I agree. Humans were clearly the agressors. When we honked the horn, they honked back. Yes, it destroyed glass and was too powerful. But the aliens probably didn't think it would have that effect. If they wanted to be hostile at that point, they'd have launched those grenades.
Secondly, they have a system that differentiates red from green: red for strategic or threatening targets, green for whatever else they don't wish to harm.

The fact they didn't communicate, is perhaps because their comm-ship was destroyed?

And furthermore, if they wanted to invade us... why only send a handful of men then?

----
rape is sad,but everything happens for a reason -Justin Bieber. And you admire this jagoff?

[–] MaximRecoil 8 years ago

Is your post a joke, or are you just stupid? They made the first aggressive move, i.e., putting up a force field in an area that they had no legitimate claim to. This caused the death of a fighter pilot who crashed into it, and also held captive the people within the bounds of the force field. We call this "false imprisonment".

Then they initiated an attack on a Marine base, taking out several parked helicopters and running over / killing some Marines who were running trying to get out of the way. They then destroyed another helicopter and its occupants, who were firing on them in self-defense, and then went out of their way to destroy a helicopter and it's pilot who was only trying to escape.

Then they destroyed a bridge, causing who-knows-how-many injuries and deaths among people who had done nothing whatsoever to them.

I don't dance, tell jokes or wear my pants too tight, but I do know about a thousand songs.

[–] ATG6 (3000) 5 years ago

A force field is a defensive measure.

All of their early attacks and most of the later ones were only when they were threatened. Maybe they weren't hostile, or maybe they had a philosophy of minimizing casualties, or maybe they were just saving ammo.

They did attack the marine base and the helicopters and freeway, but only after we fired at them, and those are military targets -- attack aircraft and critical infrastructure. They didn't send a few spinners through downtown Honolulu.

But maybe they were an invasion force, and they just wanted to minimize hostilities until they sent out word for reinforcements.

[–] DaliParton 8 years ago

I agree.

There is one thing in the movie that leaves no doubt about the writers' intent - the choice of CCR's Fortunate Son for the ending credits music.

Fortunate Son is an unapologetic Vietnam War protest song. A case can be made either way about many events in the movie. But there is no way to reconcile that song with any other interpretation than criticism of the military's response to the aliens.

Its pretty remarkable too. Peter Berg has since gone on to direct a bunch of neo-patriotic pablum, none of it subtle. So this movie seems to be a fluke in his career. It makes me wonder how much creative control he actually had on this film. Was he hostile to the writers' message and tried to obscure it, thus giving cover to anyone who just wants cheer, "USA! USA! USA!" ? Did he unintentionally make the movie more clever by trying to disguise the message?

[–] ace2 (572) 6 years ago

Something must have been cut. Avoiding the kid in the baseball field, and then letting the scientist just walk out of his lab. Unless they viewed humans as insects/pets not worth even killing. But that doesn't really work either - if my cat started shooting at me, I would still be concerned.