MovieChat Forums > The 5th Wave (2016) Discussion > Why children?

Why children?

posted 9 years ago by matias-pequeno
15 replies | jump to latest

Why waste resources and time on training feeble children as soldiers, creating suitable armor for children en masse, establishing assembly lines for said armor when the aliens are already in command of a whole platoon of strong trained soldiers?

Haven't finished the movie, yet. I mean, it's obvious the army is actually the bad guys, right?

And the dynamic between Chloe and the stereotypical infallible hot knight is hilarious.

What's wrong with me? Why do I do this to myself? I even paid to watch this... :sigh:

[–] meowingdoggos 9 years ago

Finish the movie and you'll know why. I don't wanna spoil

[–] matias-pequeno 9 years ago

I finished it and found out they have alien supersoldiers with superstrength and superreflexes who have already successfully infiltrated society. So, supersoldiers + US army vs. children.

The kids outsmart the aliens suspiciously easy, too, so I guess I know what's going on: On their way to the Earth, the aliens got infected by a virus which made them go full retard. How this happened is probably going to be explained in the sequel, I'm sure.

I miss the days were children in movies were children... Ah, Goonies... Where art thou, brothers?

[–] yankerix_claesos 8 years ago

Amen. This was one of the worst movies I've seen in years.

[–] znapper 9 years ago

The reason?

The reason for that, is so that the biggest target group (tweens) would bother to watch it.

Money.

[–] phantom_pixie 9 years ago

It's pretty obvious when the "army" are the only ones with working cars in a world that have gone dark for everyone else. And then they use tiny-tweens to videogame shoot the rest of all humans. instead of just not waste the time and effort, and just kill them on their own.

Taget audience should be target practice.

X ~We are the people our parents warned us about

[–] bloody_spasm 9 years ago

Haven't finished it as well, but I was waiting for the Ender's Game twist since they showed Ben the Alien 'parasite'
was thinking: that's not even a see-through mirror but a screen. and when they get the helmets: that just lights up everybody's head that isn't chipped.
+ when they first encounter "Aliens" the ones with the green heads were chatting and laughing. hardly seems like alien behaviour

[–] bloody_spasm 9 years ago

and not 5minutes later is my suspicion confirmed... when Ringer extracts the chip from her neck...

[–] ryoko_the_spacepirate1 9 years ago

probably because its psychologically hard for the adults to shoot or kill the children and because t saves themselves from suffering casualties.after all if the children win or loose the humans are still dying.

"I think I liked it better when I thought Sylar ate brains." -Warriorrenegade

[–] matias-pequeno 9 years ago

That's a good argument actually. I've always thought about what would happen if governments would send regiments of nude women soldiers to a war.

I still think the trained super soldiers with super strength and super reflexes would be much more effective.

[–] imvaughn 9 years ago

Because they are easy to indoctrinate. For example racist skin heads target high school & middle schools. Kids are easy to sway. Show them an alien through trick glasses & they believe you because they are taught to believe adults from a young age. Adults are more skeptical.

[–] davidhedemark-53028 9 years ago

Read the book and it will all make sense! Screw this movie. It's complete trash compared to the book.

[–] duffman_III 9 years ago

Because the book it's based upon is a young-adult, teen girl book.

[–] TheHappySpaceInvader 9 years ago

Why children? Because it's based on a book from the "young adult fiction" genre and, sadly, the majority of these are utter trash, with a plot solely contrived towards positioning children as the heroes, succeeding where adults have failed.

My 10 year old son used to read similar stuff - Charlie Higson's recent novels ("Young Bond" series, "The Enemy"), "House of Secrets" series, "Hunger Games" series etc. He's already clocked the too-similar plot lines and says he's bored with them.

It's a real shame when there's better quality and original young adult fiction available, (e.g. Michelle Paver's books) that are more deserving of becoming movies.... but then, Hollywood doesn't "do" sophisticated.