Battle: Los Angeles trailer

[Marcus Aurelius]

The atomic bomb is a pretty good choice; that's what George Pal used in the '53 movie. It's also a good reason why you can't let the puny humans have a "moment" in modern adaptations. If the Martians just have really good point defense or something that occasionally lets a shell through to kill them, then sure as shit a nuke will take them down. That would leave the audience and the characters with hope, and if there's hope in your WotW adaptation, you're doing it wrong.

Well, yes and no. Wells assumed his audience was smart enough to understand that inflicting minor casualties to a massive invasion force does not equal a real chance for victory. The movie makers from the 1953 version on have assumed that the aliens will have to appear totally invincible for the same effect, mostly because the average movie goer is not very knowledgeable and thinks that nukes are 'kill everything' kind of weapons, which they are not.

An alien invasion force, especially if robotic, could easily survive an occasional nuke that goes through the defenses even without magic-tech shields. If the aliens survived a nuclear strike it would make an even better dramatic effect, but movie makers after WW2 have not believed that audience would buy that, which is kind of strange considering that audiences will often buy much more fantastical things in scifi. All in all I think it's just lazy writing like Stark seems to imply, something not totally unheard of in Hollywood...

[Serafina]

Actually, showing a nuke being dropped on an alien force (or a modern one for that matter) and only taking out a few targets while the other continue their onslaught would be quite nice - especially because people expect the opposite: either it kills everyone (except a lone survivor) or it doesn't even scratch them.
You could do the "moment of false hope" quite simply: Show a few alien war machines getting vaporized, show a lot of smoke - and then cut to the earth military getting cut down by the 100 aliens that have not been killed.

That would pretty much be such a "Thunderchild-moment", without resolving to handwave-invulnerability.

[Stark]

It'd be pretty trivial to show the same effect now; alien war machines capable of casually destroying ballistic missiles and stealth fighters would immediately reduce the US military to a more manageable state, and give them global agility (instead of the apparently prefered slow lumbering doom) and the human race can be doomed but still blow them up with pipe bombs or whatever.

The book had effective pacing; at each stage, Wells allows the characters and the reader to imagine the situation is bad but under control before it gets worse. Do any invasion movies even still use the device of stepped reinforcement? This allows (for instance) the powerful aliens to attack xyz town heading abc direction, kill and be killed in conflicts in a shared, domestic environment, and then increasing the scale to sell the jeopardy by expanding the situation.

The problem with 'lol shields' to my mind is that where there are shields, there are workarounds. There is no workaround to huge armour, or space lasers, or superior agility, etc. You can't have a finale that says LOL THEN THEIR LASERS RUN OUT OF BATTERIES unless your setup involves cheese, so its worth avoiding.

[Marcus Aurelius]

The problem with 'lol shields' to my mind is that where there are shields, there are workarounds. There is no workaround to huge armour, or space lasers, or superior agility, etc. You can't have a finale that says LOL THEN THEIR LASERS RUN OUT OF BATTERIES unless your setup involves cheese, so its worth avoiding.

If you are trying to say that writing a believable alien invasion story is difficult, I don't think anyone would disagree. If you must have a happy ending, which these days is almost mandatory for a big budget film, you almost invariably end up with some kind of deus ex machina. Even Wells pretty much resorted to that, but strangely it is less ridiculous than the computer virus thing in Independence Day, which is still a pretty good movie for laughs, but not much anything else. I actually did like the Spielberg version of WotW, although I would have preferred some other lead actor. The visuals and atmosphere are quite good in that one, and the deus ex machina is less irritating when you know that it's coming...

[Stark]

Honestly I think it would have been interesting to (for instance) have the aliens disable worldwide networks and datalinks LIKE THE CYLONS and ruin humanity, and then die because they got the stoned virus. Its the same thing, it cripples our technology appropriately, but its updated to fit context rather than 'oh yeah they're immune to everything 3 guesses how long that lasts'.

[RedImperator]

The problem with translating the scene is that in the 19th century, powerful ironclads were a strong symbol of all modern technology and industry had to produce, especially in England. Even the name 'Thunderchild' represents the creation of all that iron and steam can do in warfare... and the Martains just pew pew it with their laser. What is the strongest symbol of modern industry and power? A microchip? A space satellite? It doesn't translate well, culturally or technologically. Its similar to how 'we have no effective fire control for our guns' doesn't really translate well into 'oh they are actually invincible'.

The atomic bomb is a pretty good choice; that's what George Pal used in the '53 movie. It's also a good reason why you can't let the puny humans have a "moment" in modern adaptations. If the Martians just have really good point defense or something that occasionally lets a shell through to kill them, then sure as shit a nuke will take them down. That would leave the audience and the characters with hope, and if there's hope in your WotW adaptation, you're doing it wrong.

Wasn't the point of the Thunderchild (and earlier, artillery hiding in trees) to give a sense of false hope? "Hey, if we fight smart, we just might win this thing". Followed by tripods just blasting anything that could hide people, and adapting to the new tactics.

Yeah, that was exactly the point. As Stark said, the novel keeps letting the characters and audience believe that the situation is still under control, just to pull the rug out from under them. Thunderchild was the last rug; after that point, everyone knows the Martians will overrun Britain (and, it's hinted, the entire world).

[Serafina]

Well, you don't have to resort to a giant deus-ex-machina for a happy ending. However, you pretty much need to rule out a few things:

-Orbital bombardment. We don't have a real counter for that - so either humanity needs slightly better technology, or the invaders don't have it. Having them arrive with something but giant spaceships is IMO a good solution - interstellar teleportation/wormholes or interstellar drop-pods (like in WotW) are viable alternatives.

-Rule out a massive numerical advantage. The above already covers that pretty well. Having to fight off a vanguard-force that constructs portals (or beacons or whatever) that will bring in those numbers are also a good way. Alternatively - if they are hunting for resources or a new home planet, they might just be short on resources or population.

-NO magic invulnerability. That's pretty much self-explanatory.


A good example for an alien invasion with a human victory is the Scrin-invasion in Command&Conquer. Orbital bombardment was ruled out because their ship was destroyed, and humanity had counters anyway. They didn't have a massive force because they did not expect to need one - but they tried to call in more forces. And while they were quite tough, they were not invulnerable. The eventual victory was quite believable IIRC, while still having good suspension.
Independence Day would be the example how you are NOT supposed to do it. It had orbital bombardment (well, more or less), a massive numerical advantage AND magic invulnerability. There was no other way to win than a deus-ex-machina, and any intelligent viewer will know that from the start.

Of course, giving the humans a tough bite helps with all of the above. The argument that we didn't have a global conflict in a long time is a pretty good explanation while aliens might underestimate us.


I generally like wells approach of pulling the rug, but in the end it will build up a deus-ex-machina (or a loss for humanity). You can still do false hope, but if you do it all the time (and if it isn't only appearing that way) you are writing yourself in that corner.

[Stark]

Uh, 'ruling out' orbital bombardment is fucking trivial. Create a motive that prevents destroying major population centres, the environment, whatever. Bam, done. They can orbital bombard whoever they want, except the protaganists.

Likewise, a numerical advantage isn't intrinsically wrong either. What's wrong with 5 million space lizard soldiers? How does this require a stupid ending to resolve?

Wells didn't 'write himself into a corner'. The WHOLE FUCKING POINT was to illustrate to 19th century England what its like being the little African who gets shitkicked by more advanced, unknowable foreigners. The martian defeat allowed the framing story to even exist, and it emasculates society by illustrating that small things - just like the bacteria that martians considered humans - can be dangerous and even deadly. Did you miss this subtext?

[Shroom Man 777]

I wasn't even making a distinction between the two movies (and the geography issue, which I freely admit was ridiculous - moreover, the stock footage was before the actual fight scene and had no part in it).

I swear the scene with F-22s forming up to attack Fallen was basically the same scene with F-22s forming up to attack Megatron in the first movie. Weirdly enough, the stock footage used before the actual fight scene didn't have any F-22s and like nobody said anything about F-22s in TF2 in the radio dialogue, just F-16s or something.

My point is that the first TF also depicted the military fighting back and winning against the Bayformers, and it was not savaged for that while TF2 was. It is because TF1's military action involved an awesome bunch of military badasses with motorcycle powerslide dickstab-grenade launchering and like last stand against Devastator and kicking his ass. Whereas TF2 just stacked some tanks on one side, some robots on the other side, and had them go pew-pew on each other and throw explosions - they were being a bunch of fatties.

The quality of the movie doesn't affect the fact that the military lands hits and held their own against the Bayformers.

The quality of the movie is affected by the quality of the fight scenes, and the quality of the fight scenes affects the quality of the movie. While the military landed hits and held their own against the Bayformers, the scene was crappy because all they did was line up tanks on one side and line up robots on the other side while having them go pew-pew and having them basically throw explosions at each other? They could've done it better. Hell, the final fighter furball between the F-18s and the alien thinggies in Independence Day was way more entertaining. Because the PRESIDENT of AMERICA was leading the attack!

Note how Scorponok versus the A-10 was more awesome than "big bunch of tanks versus big bunch of robots".

But I dunno. Is that really a problem with the military being called wank if it holds up against alien robots, or is it a problem with generic big hueg fight battle scenes having shitty coordination and choreography? Weren't similar hueg wave attacks in, like, the LOTR sequels also similarly regarded as lacking compared to the more "personal" fight scenes in the Fellowship of the Ring?

[hongi]

We all know that an alien invasion that doesn't at least have the potential to use orbital bombardment is massively neutered. Well for once, I'd actually like to see the aliens kicking ass and taking names by blowing up cities. Orbital bombardment doesn't mean automatic loss for the humans (although it'd be interesting if we did lose, I like downer endings) since you could say that they don't have many nukes or that they want to keep the planet relatively intact. Just because we have the capability to reduce Afghanistan to ashes doesn't mean we would. And if we can't dislodge them entirely since they hold space superiority, then there's the entirely awesome angle of a long-term guerilla war between the occupiers and humans.

[Gil Hamilton]

Yeah, that was exactly the point. As Stark said, the novel keeps letting the characters and audience believe that the situation is still under control, just to pull the rug out from under them. Thunderchild was the last rug; after that point, everyone knows the Martians will overrun Britain (and, it's hinted, the entire world).

The problem is, I think, that that obliges whatever solution that is presented to be more ridiculous if you still want humanity to win. Ratcheting up dramatic tension by making the aliens Magically Invincible (rather than effectively invincible due to really good military prowess and advanced technology) is one thing, but if they are Magically Invincible, how do you reasonably beat them?

In the original War of the Worlds, the Martians weren't Magically Invincible, but they were beyond the ken of Victorian England to fight, but then they all fall over to the sniffles. This worked... the first time. Wells had a reason for how his story ended in addition to the fact that it was someone what a novel concept at the time. However, every WotW remake since the original has been kind of retarded, because you know the Magically Invincible Martians are going to get the sniffles and die. It worked for Wells and hasn't worked since. After all, in the Spielberg one, is there any damn good reason why the Martians WOULDN'T use proper safety procautions in dealing with foriegn microbiota? Not really, it kind of makes the aliens look lame.

This sort of thing culminates with Independence Day, where the Magically Invincible Aliens are brought down by a hair brained scheme whose lynchpin is a cable repairman with an MIT education hacking an alien supercomputer with his Apple Powerbook. How ridiculous did that make the aliens look with their tentacles a-quiver with impotent rage as they're defenses are lowered by the might of Steve Jobs? The silver bullet stuff got lampooned by Mars Attacks!, but the end of alot Spielberg's War of the Worlds and Independence Day really was only a hair less silly than the alien's heads exploding when they are exposed to Slim Whitman.

[Gil Hamilton]

On the trailer itself: I like it.

It looks like what the invaders are doing is starting their invasion off with dumping garbage from orbit on cities, which is a good move assuming that their goal is to CONQUER the cities they are invading rather than wipe them off the map. Spraying Los Angeles with thousands of small meteors accomplishes something that merely nuking it doesn't, it causes large amounts of fires that the defenders of the city have to deal with and huge amounts of civil disorder. People are going to be out on the streets with the fires and damage, either trying to escape or looking for protection or, in true LA fashion, looting and rioting. This is going to snarl the crap out of the police and fire departments, particularly if the bombardment manages to knock out water and power. Hospitals are going to be completely tied up.

That's when you invade, possibly with dropping in heavier ordinance to kill the defenders on the surface.

It's at least sensible and opening move. It also looks like they are sending in Kill-Bots rather than fleshy alien troops. That's interesting.

[Stark]

The problem is, I think, that that obliges whatever solution that is presented to be more ridiculous if you still want humanity to win. Ratcheting up dramatic tension by making the aliens Magically Invincible (rather than effectively invincible due to really good military prowess and advanced technology) is one thing, but if they are Magically Invincible, how do you reasonably beat them?

In the original War of the Worlds, the Martians weren't Magically Invincible, but they were beyond the ken of Victorian England to fight, but then they all fall over to the sniffles. This worked... the first time. Wells had a reason for how his story ended in addition to the fact that it was someone what a novel concept at the time. However, every WotW remake since the original has been kind of retarded, because you know the Magically Invincible Martians are going to get the sniffles and die. It worked for Wells and hasn't worked since. After all, in the Spielberg one, is there any damn good reason why the Martians WOULDN'T use proper safety procautions in dealing with foriegn microbiota? Not really, it kind of makes the aliens look lame.

This sort of thing culminates with Independence Day, where the Magically Invincible Aliens are brought down by a hair brained scheme whose lynchpin is a cable repairman with an MIT education hacking an alien supercomputer with his Apple Powerbook. How ridiculous did that make the aliens look with their tentacles a-quiver with impotent rage as they're defenses are lowered by the might of Steve Jobs? The silver bullet stuff got lampooned by Mars Attacks!, but the end of alot Spielberg's War of the Worlds and Independence Day really was only a hair less silly than the alien's heads exploding when they are exposed to Slim Whitman.

Bacteria isn't a 'silver bullet' in WotW. The invasion has destroyed England, displaced millions of people, ruined towns - essentially, visited the then-modern results of war on the secure white homeland full of indolent people for whom warfare and brutality is safely remote - drives people to hysteria or madness, and is then ended so that the world can reflect and change its attitudes. Since the story is socially motivated, it could never have been people that defeated the Martians; the story gives mankind a new appreciation of their own vulnerability and the power of the 'little people'. Wells wanted characters (and the audience) to consider how vulnerable they were in the to the Space British Empire, not wank to A-10s or talk about how bitchin cool maxim guns were.

Whereas in American movies, the hero pew pews the wazoo and cheers for victory, reset to status quo. Characters and heroes always have to win.

[Gil Hamilton]

Not in the first War of the Worlds, it wasn't, but just about every other War of the Worlds, the aliens are unstoppable and then they die of the sniffles. It seems like a cheap cop-out after the first.

[Artemas]

that's because they haven't updated it. They update everything else, the society, the technology, the military, the weapons, the politics, the ideals, but still use the end-game that is totally unsuited to more modern depictions. For a modern War of the Worlds, the aliens would have to fuckoff for some largely unknowlable reason, but even then you're still basically adopting a work all about 19th imperialism to modern times, which doesn't really work. Do something different. District 9 is to apartheid south africa (or any other country that has unwanted immigrants living like shit, ie france, germany, usa, etc), as the war of the worlds was to 19th Britain. People should stop trying to 'remake' these anachronistic works, and come up with a contempory problem that people don't want to deal with.

Unless they remake War of the Worlds in true 1890 splendour.

I don't know, insurgency against aliens, after they behave like dicks and make up a reason for invading earth, ala iraq?

[weemadando]

Just have the Aliens come, defeat us in a matter of hours, subjugates, strip-mines and enslaves and then disappear one day after the space UN tells them that they're being naughty and grants earth space UN sovereignty. And then humanity is thrust into inter-stellar politics and is like some North African shithole that keeps being told to lift it's game.

[Artemas]

or the aliens dump a bunch of other aliens they opressed onto earth as a ruling caste and then the space un grants earth autonomy and then ethnic cleansing as oppressed humans and oppressed aliens murder each other in hatred, so that they can control the shit hole

or maybe the reverse of avatar, the space east india company invades and then gasses cities so that people will move so that they can stripmine imaginary minerals, except humans don't win

or maybe

the aliens disband all of the earth military and police, and then there is a rebellion

no, no one is that stupid

[Purple]

or maybe the reverse of avatar, the space east india company invades and then gasses cities so that people will move so that they can stripmine imaginary minerals, except humans don't win

See Battlefield Earth. Lame movie, great book.

Personally thou, I think the best solution would be to find a modern problem like the lack of oil and extrapolate on that.
The aliens want something from us, something we have. But not something like oil, maybe they simply want us to come into the galactic community. What ever really.


At first they try diplomacy but the myriad of nations on earth can't agree on anything. So they demand we pull together into a single nation or at least a stronger UN or they will just leave us there. Half the world wants to do this, the other half does not. (put America in this other half)

A civil war breaks out that decimates the world, but the aliens pitch in to support the side that they want to win and they prevent the use of WMDs.

So the aliens, fighting along side humans vs other humans. That I would like to see. Like Space Vietnam.

[weemadando]

THIS

So the aliens, fighting along side humans vs other humans. That I would like to see. Like Space Vietnam.

AND THIS

or the aliens dump a bunch of other aliens they opressed onto earth as a ruling caste and then the space un grants earth autonomy and then ethnic cleansing as oppressed humans and oppressed aliens murder each other in hatred, so that they can control the shit hole

EQUALS

Amazing movie that would bomb at the box office because of lack of SPARTAFREEDOMUHRICA!!! FUCK YEAH!

[Artemas]

yeah, i know

on the other hand, district 9.

[Purple]

What is that?

Also, what I think is that for once we need a movie that does not have the aliens either sneaking around in the background or being overly expansionist metaphors for the Conquistadors.

Why not have a movie where the space aliens really want to be good to us. But we act like idiots prompting them to intervene to save us from our self.

Like, space America in space.

[Srelex]

The original Day the Earth Stood Still?

[Purple]

Anything, just as long as there exists some middle ground between sneaking (MIB) and conquering (WOW).
It's just that the two clichés get repeated over and over again showing the aliens as pretty much two dimensional things.

Give us something original.

[Stofsk]

Originality? From Hollywood? Good luck.

[adam_grif]

I want to see a Predator movie where the Predators for the Ethical Treatment of Aliens interrupt their hunt and start splashing glowy fake predator blood all over them to short out their cloaks and have a protest and shit.

I mean wow, imagine if an entire interstellar species didn't only have one culture and agree on everything!