So I just saw Battleship...

[xerex]

just came back from seeing it.

my view - not bad, was at least entertaining.

however im wondering if this was originally intended to be another sort of movie- the aliens are not really aggressive. they only fire when fired upon and leave civilians alone. and hopper is clearly shown to be a dick when he orders the JPJ on a suicide run after his brother has been killed and ignores rescuing people from the other ship--its takes another officer yelling at him to bring him to his senses.

from what I recall the sequence of events is.

3 destroyers approach big alien ship, 3 smaller alien ship show up.

destroyers sounds their horn, alien ship sends a sonic boom.

the dinghy with Rianna and Hopper starts firing on the nearest alien ship, the alien responds,

destroyer then moves to protect the dinghy, the aliens only attack the destroyers that are actually firing on them , as soon as they stop, the aliens leave them alone.

[Pendleton]

That's pretty much the chain of events for the first contact, yes. The alien ships only engage their weapons when threatened, as after Hopper turns the ship parallel to the alien ships, they disengage their lock and go on about their business (whether benign or otherwise).

[xerex]

oh and might I add for a B movie , it did have a kickass soundtrack/score--ACDC THUNDER

[Blayne]

Being the only movie that looked worth a damn at my local movie theater I went to it, I saw it and then I loved it.

It's proof that you can have an sci fi special effects glomp action movie like "Transformers" and yet at least try to be intelligent; from reading this thread before seeing it and I confirm that there's a definate ambiguity as to whether the aliens had hostile intentions but I think we can safely lean towards it being justified for the RIMPAC forces to respond as they did by our standards of engagement.

Romance was only barely relevant to the plot which was nice so it didn't distract from the military engagement; I personally really liked the effort to at least try to have a homage to the board game. It reminded me a bunch of the better space scifi's out there and was pretty clever, they went to a great deal of effort to justify it and it took time and effort to work.

Loved having them cooperate with Japanese naval officers, it prevented it from outright being America Saves the Day; I liked Captain Nagata, he arguably saved the day and it was hilarious irony for him to be on the Missouri. Also the two characters (Hopper and Nagata) had an interesting dynamic going.

So if there's absolutely anything about this movie people liked you may also like to check out:
[*disclaimer the following descriptions are largely tongue in cheek but semi-accurate*]

Moretsu Space Pirates: Legal Space pirates who commit insurance fraud.
Zipang: JSDF Mirai sent back in time to commit grandfather paradox in WWII.
Starship Operators: The only Moh's Hard Science SciFi anime; also the least patriotic freedom fighters ever.
Infinite Ryvius: Hunt for the Red October meets The Lord of the Flies IN SPACE; also kinda like a not crappy Reimaged Battlestar Galactica.

[phongn]

Starship Operators: The only Moh's Hard Science SciFi anime; also the least patriotic freedom fighters ever.

Planetes beats any anime at sci-fi hardness.

[Blayne]

Freudian slip, meant to write "military space opera", otherwise even Planetes gets beaten by Space Bros.

[Kanastrous]

Had a meeting today at which I was gratified to learn that in fact the CIC sets and contents were not destroyed but in fact were folded, held and are being used in the 'MAERSK Alabama' movie as the CIC of USS Bainbridge, one of the USN ships involved in the rescue. I -knew- that stuff was too useful to just junk...

Oh, what the hell...

[PeZook]

You have an awesome job. That is all.

[SAMAS]

Apparently, the Novelization kills the ambiguity, with some scenes from the aliens' POV that show that they're actually testing the defenses, as it were, to see if an invasion is feasible.

[Action Avenue]

I was afraid it was going to be a stupid movie and it sounds like it's been confirmed here. Think I'll wait for the chutes and ladders to make it to the big screen......