Skyline Trailer

[Companion Cube]

Finally, the sequel to District 9!

Watching the trailer, I notice they show an alien ship getting shot down. It'd be strange to show parts of the final "humans win" scene in a trailer, so hopefully that's an early success or surprise attack before it becomes obvious that the humans are going to lose. That would tie in with the Stephen Hawking stuff they quoted in the first trailer.

[Stark]

It's sad that all aliens and even alien glowy special effects now look the same.

I even prefer the monolithic 70s/80s aliens to the pointly transforming aliens now.

[Oskuro]

Wait, what? Where did you get that from?

At several points throughout the second trailer you see people staring at the blue lights, their eyes going all varicose and nasty, and them being pulled away.

There's even a line of dialogue from one of the characters saying "When you look at it it's when it takes hold" over a sequence of a hot chick looking at the light and her eyes going wrong.

So I guess the blue lights are lures that enable the magic'o'psychic tractor beam to lock on or something. Turns out the aliens are just weekend fishermen stumbling upon a new pond.

This also means that the movie will mix elements of alien invasion movies, ID4 style, with elements of "don't look" horror flics, The Ring style.

[Stark]

Is it a Day of the Triffids remake with more splosions?

[VT-16]

Hmm, biotech up the wazoo, aliens turning humans into alien-biotech...? Could this be like some kind of bio-von Neumann scenario? Self-replicating machinery using biomass?

[Peptuck]

So, its the Scrin meets the Collectors with mindfucking light beams and giant vacuums.

....looks interesting.

[Zor]

Hmm, biotech up the wazoo, aliens turning humans into alien-biotech...? Could this be like some kind of bio-von Neumann scenario? Self-replicating machinery using biomass?

If that was the case, why not abduct cows or trees? Why focus on the hairless crested savanah apes?

Zor

[VT-16]

They need them for batteries computing power.

[Stark]

It's pretty funny to watch nerds try to divine an entire plot from a trailer - the peak of lols is when they are outraged when the actual movie doesn't follow their chinese whispers version.

[Srelex]

Hey man, idle speculation is fun!

Maybe they're just collecting us to put on display, Pokémon style.

[Oskuro]

The answer is obvious: The ships are the aliens' version of Twitter, gathering followers.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Wait, what? Where did you get that from?

At several points throughout the second trailer you see people staring at the blue lights, their eyes going all varicose and nasty, and them being pulled away.

There's even a line of dialogue from one of the characters saying "When you look at it it's when it takes hold" over a sequence of a hot chick looking at the light and her eyes going wrong.

So I guess the blue lights are lures that enable the magic'o'psychic tractor beam to lock on or something. Turns out the aliens are just weekend fishermen stumbling upon a new pond.

This also means that the movie will mix elements of alien invasion movies, ID4 style, with elements of "don't look" horror flics, The Ring style.

D'oh! Completely forgot to look at the second trailer.

Yeah, definitely reinforces my earlier 'meh' attitude towards it. I know it's only a preview, but it looks like every other damn preview out there. Just substitute Transformers for aliens and you've got virtually the same thing. If I see it in theaters, it will be with friends so I have a backup plan for fun should the movie suck.

[mr friendly guy]

What could make the plot a bit more than the usual aliens are stupid and we arse rape them via plot device, maybe NASA did invent an FTL communication device as Zor and Adam are postulating. Maybe the signal got picked up by the alien's enemies who ride in like the cavalry and save us like in "The Boy who Saved Earth."

At least that would be different from computer virus disables alien technology business.

[Coalition]

Either way, those fighter planes in the movie were not F-22s but some other weird stealthy designs.

It looked like drones were being used. If the alien blue beam of control works against direct sight, then a drone would be among the best items to use. The beam is aimed at a regular plane, the pilot sees it, and is under their control. The beam is aimed at a drone, the rough light is transmitted to the control van, and the drone pilot doesn't get controlled.

[Thirdfain]

If that was the case, why not abduct cows or trees? Why focus on the hairless crested savanah apes?

Zor

Because if they don't, the hairless apes will hurl nuclear missiles at them and totally fuck up their bar-b-que?

[Gil Hamilton]

Is it me or was that a Star Spawn of Cthulhu menacing the main characters for a while there?

[Swindle1984]

Are they even checking out radio waves? Is there some intrinsic physical property of alienium that dictates that all objects constructed of it must be constantly looking for life by searching for radio transmissions? It's what SETI did, but there's pretty obviously nobody actively making themselves know like that in our neighborhood. Maybe the Aliens SPACE SETI lost all their funding due to the financial crisis or something.

Or they could be avoiding drawing attention to themselves because of, you know, the killer space aliens hurling relativistic kill vehicles around and launching nukes at everything they find due to some xenophobia or some shit. And we're the only ones dumb/ignorant enough to yell, "hey, over here!" while everyone else is trying to slip under the radar.

Oh hey, we got attacked by the first aliens that noticed us.

[Hawkwings]

Looks like an X-45 and a bunch of MQ-9 Reapers. That plane at 1:34 is definitely not an F-22.

Anyways, I like the "benevolent aliens come to save us and wreck their shit" theory. Of course, now we owe them and their price is a 10% harvest of all humans every 20 years or something.

[lance]

Looks like an X-45 and a bunch of MQ-9 Reapers. That plane at 1:34 is definitely not an F-22.

Anyways, I like the "benevolent aliens come to save us and wreck their shit" theory. Of course, now we owe them and their price is a 10% harvest of all humans every 20 years or something.

Couldn't it just be superman?

[Manus Celer Dei]

Turns out the aliens are just weekend fishermen stumbling upon a new pond.

Skyline is actually just a sci-fi remake of Jaws, with the humans playing the part of the shark.

Don't you get it? We're the monsters! All along, we were the monsters!

I'm actually pretty looking forward to this. Doesn't seem like it's going to be anything super-original aside from maybe the abduction stuff, but it's been a while since there's been a big old-fashioned alien invasion movie.

[Hawkwings]

Other theory: the "message" mentioned in the trailer is not what brought in invading aliens here. The "message" is sent out after the invasion, after we destroy and salvage one of their ships, and discover that they have powerful enemies that we might be able to draw here to help us. Our plucky techie-type hero reverse-engineers the thing, sends out a message, then barely escapes as the aliens detect the transmission. Then, a couple days later, the cavalry show up and blow the shit out of the invaders.

[mr friendly guy]

Other theory: the "message" mentioned in the trailer is not what brought in invading aliens here. The "message" is sent out after the invasion, after we destroy and salvage one of their ships, and discover that they have powerful enemies that we might be able to draw here to help us. Our plucky techie-type hero reverse-engineers the thing, sends out a message, then barely escapes as the aliens detect the transmission. Then, a couple days later, the cavalry show up and blow the shit out of the invaders.

Hey I posted that theory 5 days before you did.

Well its screening in Australia now, however I think I will wait and see if my friend wants to see it when I catch up with him. Otherwise I might see it myself if the reviews warrant it.

[adam_grif]

Spoiler

4chan is saying that the aliens are harvesting "a rare protein" in human brains or something. The signal was apparently sent a few months before the events of the film, no mention of stl/ftl.

[Srelex]

Meh, I thought it would be something like that. I would prefer it if their motives were just left ambigious though.

[Kamakazie Sith]

I saw Skyline at 1201am this morning. I give the movie 2 out of 5 stars. I don't know about you, but when I see an alien invasion movie I expect lots of eye candy. This movie took a long time out of its hour and a half to get up to speed. I almost felt like I was watching Cloverfield again (except for the really annoying shaking camera). Some will be surprised by the path this movie takes but the ending and how they got there will disappoint most.