Battle for Terra

[Zor]

An alien invasion film, but in a diferent way than most

So far it looks quite Interesting for what it is.

Thoughts?

Zor

[Samuel]

Another world, another war, another victory in the making for our glorious emperor!
-Commisar, Winter Assult

On a more serious note, the role reversal is good, but the rationale, as always, suck. Seriously, "running out of air"?

[weemadando]

Eh, it looks alright, but I don't see why those aliens are being cast as the victims here.

After all, those fuckers started it back in 1996 when they tried to terraform the Earth for colonization.

Or am I the only one who immediately got that vibe from those aliens?

[Falkenhayn]

On a more serious note, the role reversal is good, but the rationale, as always, suck. Seriously, "running out of air"?

Oh come on. They say straight up that Earth has been destroyed. People understand "We don't have air" in the context of a 2 minute trailer and no planet to return to.

It looks pretty intriguing to me. I haven't seen sci-fi conquest outside of "Crush the Rebels" or "Kill All Humans" or some such black-and-white scenario. I'd see it in the hope that the writers and director realize their plot in a meaningful and entertaining way; something that does justice to the implications.

[Adrian McNair]

The concept has potential, but the execution leaves much to be desired. All of the cliches appear to be present here. The turncoat pilot who will inevitably go native, the rebellious female alien who will form a bond with said defector, the power-crazed xenophobic general (played by Brian Cox of course), etc. Naturally, the so-called 'alien' species in question are analogues of Native Americans. This is essentially Pocahontas in space. It's also highly convenient that the Terrans have fully-functional war machines just lying around. The quality of the CGI also seems to be highly lacking and cheap compared to Pixar or Square Enix's output.

io9's spoiler-heavy review of it confirms my doubts.

The film would probably be vastly improved if the indigenous population were not anthropromophisized, were mute and relied on hand gestures/sign language to communicate with each other. As it stands, they're naseautingly cute and their overt pacifism irritates me. It makes me wish the humans would break out the nukes and call it a day.

[weemadando]

From that review:
"In the midst of the battle the humans deposit the massive transformer on Terra's ground and begin to change the atmosphere of the planet."

So they have the tech onboard their fucking ship to terraform the atmosphere of that planet, but they're RUNNING OUT OF AIR. Fuck off.

[CaptainChewbacca]

It's also highly convenient that the Terrans have fully-functional war machines just lying around.

Didn't you know? Space-hippies always have a few uber-doomsday-weapons-of-death (UDWOD) lying around from ancient times when they WERE badasses.

[ray245]

The concept has potential, but the execution leaves much to be desired. All of the cliches appear to be present here. The turncoat pilot who will inevitably go native, the rebellious female alien who will form a bond with said defector, the power-crazed xenophobic general (played by Brian Cox of course), etc. Naturally, the so-called 'alien' species in question are analogues of Native Americans. This is essentially Pocahontas in space. It's also highly convenient that the Terrans have fully-functional war machines just lying around. The quality of the CGI also seems to be highly lacking and cheap compared to Pixar or Square Enix's output.

io9's spoiler-heavy review of it confirms my doubts.

The film would probably be vastly improved if the indigenous population were not anthropromophisized, were mute and relied on hand gestures/sign language to communicate with each other. As it stands, they're naseautingly cute and their overt pacifism irritates me. It makes me wish the humans would break out the nukes and call it a day.

Spoiler

Great, so there is another way which both races can live peaceful with each other? When can we see movies, where the stupid action of a hero caused the extinction of the human race?

[Adrian McNair]

With all that being said, here's hoping that James Cameron's Avatar is a superior take on this particular subject matter. If anyone can pull it off, Cameron certainly can.

[xerex]

From that review:
"In the midst of the battle the humans deposit the massive transformer on Terra's ground and begin to change the atmosphere of the planet."

So they have the tech onboard their fucking ship to terraform the atmosphere of that planet, but they're RUNNING OUT OF AIR. Fuck off.

well the review itself indicates the ship is "run down". its entirely possible the tech to terrafrom a living planet is different from maintianing atmosphere in a metal spaceship

[Spanky The Dolphin]

This looks pretty anemic and uninspired; just another no-name CG cartoon.

At best, they'll probably end up with either middling success or a minor bomb. But at worst, it could be a sci-fi equivalent of Delgo.

[Teleros]

well the review itself indicates the ship is "run down". its entirely possible the tech to terrafrom a living planet is different from maintianing atmosphere in a metal spaceship

However, the atmosphere of the movie-Terra is helium, of which there is a hell of a lot out in space. So even if their machine can only convert helium into a Nitrogen-Oxygen mix, they shouldn't have a problem.

[Falkenhayn]

The concept has potential, but the execution leaves much to be desired. All of the cliches appear to be present here. The turncoat pilot who will inevitably go native, the rebellious female alien who will form a bond with said defector, the power-crazed xenophobic general (played by Brian Cox of course), etc. Naturally, the so-called 'alien' species in question are analogues of Native Americans. This is essentially Pocahontas in space. It's also highly convenient that the Terrans have fully-functional war machines just lying around. The quality of the CGI also seems to be highly lacking and cheap compared to Pixar or Square Enix's output.

io9's spoiler-heavy review of it confirms my doubts.

The film would probably be vastly improved if the indigenous population were not anthropromophisized, were mute and relied on hand gestures/sign language to communicate with each other. As it stands, they're naseautingly cute and their overt pacifism irritates me. It makes me wish the humans would break out the nukes and call it a day.

Damn. Thanks for saving me the trouble and the cash.

[Darksider]

It's also highly convenient that the Terrans have fully-functional war machines just lying around.

Didn't you know? Space-hippies always have a few uber-doomsday-weapons-of-death (UDWOD) lying around from ancient times when they WERE badasses.

not only to they have weapons lying around, but apparently a bunch of space hippies who don't even know what war is are able to fight on equal footing with the battle-hardened veterans of a genocidal war.....

[Samuel]

It's also highly convenient that the Terrans have fully-functional war machines just lying around.

Didn't you know? Space-hippies always have a few uber-doomsday-weapons-of-death (UDWOD) lying around from ancient times when they WERE badasses.

not only to they have weapons lying around, but apparently a bunch of space hippies who don't even know what war is are able to fight on equal footing with the battle-hardened veterans of a genocidal war.....

Your missing the big picture. Why the heck are they using fighters? Anyone heard of orbital bombardment? We could plaster the planet from space faster and with fewer casulties. Honestly, someone needs to be courtmartialed...

[starslayer]

However, the atmosphere of the movie-Terra is helium, of which there is a hell of a lot out in space. So even if their machine can only convert helium into a Nitrogen-Oxygen mix, they shouldn't have a problem.

Which brings up an even bigger question: how do the Terrans breathe? Helium's inert, and can't serve as a catalyst for biological reactions the way oxygen does. Jesus, the humans don't even need to bombard them from space; just pump oxygen into the atmosphere and watch everything die if you want (bombardment's still easier, yeah, but whatever). This also brings to mind why we would even consider a world with a helium atmosphere, considering it would have much stronger gravity than Earth to hold onto all that helium, and maintain approximately an atmosphere of pressure (I admit this is a reaching assumption, but there you go).

[Darksider]

Your missing the big picture. Why the heck are they using fighters? Anyone heard of orbital bombardment? We could plaster the planet from space faster and with fewer casulties. Honestly, someone needs to be courtmartialed...

They may lack weapons of sufficient power to destroy the terran cities. No one knows if they can pull a BDZ or not. Perhaps all their planetbusters were used up in the war between mars and venus. Also, they're trying to live there, so they want as much habitable land as possible. Nuking the shit out of their new colony might be a bad idea.

[Lord Insanity]

That preview kind of looks like a SPORE-ified version of Blue Planet. (Don't be fooled by the first part of the preview.) Blue Planet pretty much disappeared after Final Fantasy Spirits Within tanked at the box-office. If Battle for Terra wasn't quite so SPORE cutesy I would think it looked awesome. The best thing it has going for it is that the Humans are the aggressor rather than the defenders. It looks like a total waste of an awesome premise and the animation doesn't even look as good as a dead movie project from almost a decade ago.

[Pulp Hero]

The best "Earth invades an alien planet" plot has already been done (see above) and the animation looks like The Incredibles without the charm or style. The military will be warmongering idiots.

And Terra, really? They couldn't think of a less confusing name? Unless it turns out that this place is really Earth, retaken by the alien scum. Which at this point I think is about a 70/30 chance.

[Samuel]

Your missing the big picture. Why the heck are they using fighters? Anyone heard of orbital bombardment? We could plaster the planet from space faster and with fewer casulties. Honestly, someone needs to be courtmartialed...

They may lack weapons of sufficient power to destroy the terran cities. No one knows if they can pull a BDZ or not. Perhaps all their planetbusters were used up in the war between mars and venus. Also, they're trying to live there, so they want as much habitable land as possible. Nuking the shit out of their new colony might be a bad idea.

We call them asteroids. All problems CAN be solved with enough brute force.

Besides, the fallout isn't that bad if the population is conentrated enough.

[Teleros]

And Terra, really? They couldn't think of a less confusing name? Unless it turns out that this place is really Earth, retaken by the alien scum. Which at this point I think is about a 70/30 chance.

Probably an advertising gimmick. Say "Battle for Terra" and anyone who recognises the word will think "Battle for Earth"... it's not (presumably), but it gets them interested in the movie.

[Darksider]

Your missing the big picture. Why the heck are they using fighters? Anyone heard of orbital bombardment? We could plaster the planet from space faster and with fewer casulties. Honestly, someone needs to be courtmartialed...

They may lack weapons of sufficient power to destroy the terran cities. No one knows if they can pull a BDZ or not. Perhaps all their planetbusters were used up in the war between mars and venus. Also, they're trying to live there, so they want as much habitable land as possible. Nuking the shit out of their new colony might be a bad idea.

We call them asteroids. All problems CAN be solved with enough brute force.

Besides, the fallout isn't that bad if the population is conentrated enough.

That's true. Given that the entire remaining human population can apparently Spoiler

live in a single dome habitat, they either don't have that many people left, or sustain massive casualties during the invasion.

Still, blasting the planet back to the stone age may be effective, but it will limit the humans options for societal growth.

[J Ryan]

And Terra, really? They couldn't think of a less confusing name? Unless it turns out that this place is really Earth, retaken by the alien scum. Which at this point I think is about a 70/30 chance.

Probably an advertising gimmick. Say "Battle for Terra" and anyone who recognises the word will think "Battle for Earth"... it's not (presumably), but it gets them interested in the movie.

Am I the only one that upon hearing Battle for Terra, immediately thought this was WH40k?

[Teleros]

That's true. Given that the entire remaining human population can apparently Spoiler

live in a single dome habitat, they either don't have that many people left, or sustain massive casualties during the invasion.

Depends on the size, plus whether there were any more elsewhere on the planet.

Am I the only one that upon hearing Battle for Terra, immediately thought this was WH40k?

Nope. I assumed it was Horus Heresy-related as well .

[Marcus Aurelius]

Your missing the big picture. Why the heck are they using fighters?

Blame George Lucas for that. After Star Wars any scifi movie or TV series featuring space or atmospheric must have fighters. The Star Trek franchise is the only exception since it precedes Star Wars. Fighters are just so cool and make good cinema. The actual reasons for the use of fighters is not important and let's face it, the reason invented by Lucas himself did not really make much sense either.