"Skyline, Falling Skies, Battle:LA or Cowboys and Aliens?" Topic

Recent spate of 'alien invasion' movies aside….(not counting 'Paul' of course! NOT!)….

what are your most 'favorite' New/recent aliens from TV/and or movies??? (and why???)

Slishfully,
Sgt DWW-btod (so many invasions, so little time and my saucer is double-parked!)

I watched Battle: Los Angeles last weekend and liked it.

"Hello, little guy! It's the sweetie man coming!"

Not really all that interested in alien movies much (or the aliens in them), but my friend made me watch it, and Wikus Van De Merwe is just such a classic character he makes the film.

Not really all that interested in alien movies much (or the aliens in them), but my friend made me watch it, and Wikus Van De Merwe is just such a classic character he makes the film.

Try living in a country full of guys like him…

No thanks! :)

Battle: Los Angeles was a good movie IMO.

Skyline left me frustrated.

Haven't seen the others.

JohnG

Only seen Battle LA. I loved it my girl friend called it the biggest pile of crap she had seen in ages. The action was cool but the back stroy was truly crap. Aliens after our water… please! And the script was a pile of poo. But I still loved it.
:-)

Tony, you're bang on the money. The script almost felt like it had been borrowed from a WWII propaganda movie, but the action sequences made up for it.

Battle LA wasn't the smartest film on the block, but it had an internal logic that was consistent enough and it was great eye candy. Certainly wasn't anywhere near as cringe worthy in terms of story and dialogue as some believe. Am hopefully going to watch Falling Skies very soon. Skyline was probably one of the worst films I have ever seen.

+ 1 for District 9. Had everything I wanted except lesbians.

I quite liked Battle:LA and agree with the comments above about it. Skyline was so bad that I was angry that I wasted my time on it. Didn't realize Cowboys and Aliens was even released yet, don't have cable, so haven't seen Falling Skies.

Saw Skyline, my wife called it "90 minutes of her life she'd never get back". CGI was good but story was terrible. Previews I've seen of Battle LA looks like it was shot at the same time as Skyline and uses the same CGI and shares some scenes. I'll wait for the DVD.

Battle LA is a significantly superior film to Skyline. Ok, that's not saying much, but trust me at the very least you won't feel like you've been mugged.

Skyline makes Battle:L.A. look like an Oscar contender.

D9 is head and shoulders above the rest.

Especially Avatar.

D9 has an alien wearing a bra getting drunk and urinating on its shack.

Top that, Cameron.

Yet to watch Battle:LA or Skyline.

I liked Skyline, presuming you turn it off about 5 minutes early. Please don't kill me for liking it.

On the other hand I felt that Battle: LA was pure drivel. Not even fun to watch. I could have compressed that film to about 30 minutes of awesome, and cut the rest. Maybe I will . . . .

So yeah, Crusties, er Prawns FTW.

Battle LA Rocked!! What was wrong with it!? It was a movie nothing more and pretty fun plus,it had US Marines in it so how could it be bad.

If you ask me, D9 isn't even in the same class as Skyline, Battle, and Falling Skies. (Can't comment on Cowboys 'til I see it, but I'm holding onto hopes that it will be in the same class as D9.) It was a brilliant movie that managed to marry dramatic and genre elements so that neither was eclipsed by the other.

These other movies/shows are nothing more than rehashed drivel populated with character stereotypes meandering through cliched storylines. I was particularly disappointed with Falling Skies. It had so much potential, but it turned out to be another Jerry Springer episode taking place within a genre setting.

I'd like nothing more than to see Hollyweird drag itself away from these pseudo-dramas that use genre elements as nothing more than catalysts for their paltry attempts at "serious" drama. Remember the days when such genre elements were the focus of the story? Remember the days when the alien/zombie/vampire/whatever wasn't just a means of deriving character pathos? I do – and I lament their passing…

YMMV

I just got Battle LA this weekend, so I haven't seen it yet.

Watched Skyline and thought it was an OK B-Zombie Movie (substitue zombies for flying aliens)until the end and thought it was absolutely garbage.

Watched Monsters and thought it was horrible. After the initial 5 minutes (which sort of peaked my interest), it became the story of 2 people I really didn't care about wandering around Mexico trying to smuggle themselves back into the United States. Whom then, after watching some alien monsters exchange genetic material in front of them (at least that's what I think that was going on) decided they don't want to go back home. Totally lame movie. Supposedly the movie was to be more of a commentary on illegal immigration, but it certainly didn't make me feel any more sympathetic.

I finally got around to watching the new version of War of the Worlds. Thought it was decent modern interpetation of the original story, which I'm reading again right now. Especially compared to the SyFi version that came out around the same time. However after watching it I found so many holes in the modern revisions that it just goes to show there's some true idiots behind these movies. Like the idea of burying the war machines thousands of years in advance and no human accidentally dug one up? It the aliens used humans for fertilizer for their terraforming and were so invulnerable, then why bother vaporizing humans and just scoop them up an start grinding away. Oh and what kind of bird actually lands on a distressed erratically walking alien war machine???

I was not a fan of D9 for some reason.
I really did like Battle LA. Liked it alot!
I also enjoyed Avatar.
Super 8 was lame.

Yeah … watched Falling Skies last night … along with some of the other movies mentioned, they might have some good gaming possibilities … however, they were War of the Worlds re-dux, IMO … And a lot of these "movies" reminds me of a shooter video game. But if you like it … watch it … do what works for you. Screw the critics …

Skyline--at least it's no Battlefield Earth. If I weren't so stingy and tickets prices so high, I would've walked out.

District 9 for the win.

Rumor has it that Skyline and Battle LA are connected by more than director/FX crew lazyness… I liked B:LA, didn't think much of Skyline, but loved D9! Avatar was nice, but we started calling it "Dances with Smurfmonkeys", as it's nothing more than a sci-fi Dances with Wolves with a happy ending!

it's nothing more than a sci-fi Dances with Wolves with a happy ending!

Well, yes, but…

…they sent the 'bad guys' back up to their ANTIMATTER-DRIVE STARSHIP, and assumed they won't do something like drop a rock on the proposed mining site, kill all of the Na'vi, then go back down and pick up operations again.

Well, yes, but…

…they sent the 'bad guys' back up to their ANTIMATTER-DRIVE STARSHIP, and assumed they won't do something like drop a rock on the proposed mining site, kill all of the Na'vi, then go back down and pick up operations again.

Or simply fire the engines in orbit and sterilise the entire planet. Bye bye Eywa.

Of the listed titles I have only watched D9 and the Falling Skies pilot.

D9 was horribad. There's a functional interstellar vessel floating around and we're not studying it? Right.

Falling Skies seems watchable but suffers from trying to copy the new BSG in many ways. There's also the whole weird thing about soldiers being evil-lite and not sympathetic. The mix of weapons the survivors have is very weird -- especially for Massachusetts.

> D9 was horribad. There's a functional interstellar vessel floating around and we're not studying it? Right.

As I recall, it had "Don't touch me" tech that made it impossible to study.

D9 was horribad. There's a functional interstellar vessel floating around and we're not studying it? Right.

As I recall, it had "Don't touch me" tech that made it impossible to study.

As a matter of fact, wasn't the whole point of the film that this big, evil weapons manufacturer (among others) WAS studying it in the hopes of exploiting their tech, but was unable to get the things to work because they required some sort of biochemical signature? How did you miss that part?

I've heard almost universally bad things about Skyline, but have not seen it.

I really liked District 9. It was not your typical alien invasion film.

I kinda liked Battle: LA. It was a bit formulaic and straightforward, but I saw a lot of gaming potential there. Overall, I give it more pluses than minuses. My kid brother, on the other hand loved it. He had been an army NCO before getting wounded in Iraq, and he says it's the first sci-fi movie he's seen that treats the military as professionals and not idiots.

I've actually got no opinion on Cowboys & aliens. It's got some big names and looks pretty good, but I dunno… Couldn't they come up with a better name?

I saw the pilot for Falling Skies last night, in all it's 52" wide-screen, high-def, surround-sound glory, and recorded it. First, you have to keep in mind it's a television series, so I'm ok with them padding out the storyline with a lot of plot tangents, but it looks like it's going to be a good series. I already have a 28mm force of rag-tag resistance fighters (who have already had their share of tabletop butt-kickings at the hands of various sci-fi opponents), and I can see a lot of scenario fodder in this show, from small skirmishes in a warehouse to larger-scale street battles. POSSIBLE SPOILER: At the end of the show they had a clip from an upcoming show, and it looks like the aliens will use armed human children as sort of combat drones. Interesting…I wonder who makes scruffy drone-children in 28mm. But there were a couple of things I wasn't so crazy about:
A) Too many commercials. I timed some of the segments, and it was literally 5 minutes of show followed by 5 minutes of commercials. If that ratio held throughout the show, and it sure seemed like it did, that's only 50% of actual story. I hope it gets better in future episodes.
B) Everyone had AKs. Everyone. They did mention other weapons, and they had a truck-mounted .50, but the AK-47 seemed to be almost standard issue. I can see a few here and there, but the show could have been set in post-apocalyptic Moscow.
C) The show is set in and around Boston, but no one in the show sounds like it. They all have those funny-sounding west coast accents with the weird pronunciation of the letter R. But I can live with all that.

I saw a lot of weapons other than AK-47's.

Plot holes you could drive a GALAXY CLASS starship through aside….let's talk about the DESIGN of the 'aliens' from several of the 'alien invasion-type' movies…

I rate the one's I've seen accordingly:

'Prawns' (D9) A-
'biotech' (skyline) C-
'Skidders' (Falling Skies) B+
'Uranium bugs' (High Plains Invaders) D+
'mek-aliens' (Battle:LA) B+
SyFy version of movie B-
'western aliens' (Cowboys and Aliens) 'A?'(from previews so far)
'Parallax' (Green Lantern) A- (from previews, will see movie tonight!)
'Martians?' WOTW 2005/Tom Cruise 'A' also liked 1953 'Martians'
'Ghota' (Alien Trespass) 'B' (tentacle, big eye, invisibility and 'slimed' folks…what's NOT to 'love!')
'dna-things' (Monsters) D-
'Box-car ET' (Super-8) F-

and no, I'm NOT rating 'Aliens' or 'Predators' as those speak for themselves….

This list is not ALL inclusive…as 'Falling Skies' also has the 2-legged 'bots?' and there may be other 'goodies' over time…

Also, you might come up with other examples I've MISSED…but I'm basically thinking along lines of MINIATURES that (for the most part) HAVEN'T been made…YET or are not in 'general production'…(though one can always HOPE someone will do some more 'not-Ghota' or whatever 'Prawns' or 'Skidders' or ???????)

Slishfully,
Sgt DWW-btod….off to see GL tonight and then will be standing in line for 'Cowboys and Aliens'…(I do hope it doesn't blow 'chunks'….)

I enjoyed Battlefield: LA for what it was. Just wish they'd cut the final 30 seconds or so – where they were flying back to the city and all the other choppers joined them. Lame.

I'm really going to enjoy Falling Skies.

> A) Too many commercials. I timed some of the segments,
> and it was literally 5 minutes of show followed by 5
> minutes of commercials. If that ratio held throughout the
> show, and it sure seemed like it did, that's only 50% of
> actual story. I hope it gets better in future episodes.

For the first hour they did 1 commercial break every 10 minutes, but the breaks were only for 2 commercials: one for the car that was sponsoring the show and then a random one. The 2nd hour had more commercials. To make up for the first hour I'm sure. I would bet that the ads during rest of the season will just be like any other normal TV series.

> B) Everyone had AKs. Everyone. They did mention other
> weapons, and they had a truck-mounted .50, but the AK-47
> seemed to be almost standard issue. I can see a few here
> and there, but the show could have been set in
> post-apocalyptic Moscow.

Hal, his gf, and the 13 year old kid had M4s. Dai had an MP-5 and a shotgun. Anthony and his buddy (the one who died) shared an Uzi and a GPMG. The CO had what looked like a G36. The only main character w/an AK was Wyle's character.

Going on just the look of the aliens then
1 D9 prawns even though the movie was total B class crap
2 avatar I really liked the"people" and the creatures they rode/hunted
3 Battle LA Havn't seen the movie yet but the aliens look cool
4 Falling skies mechwalkers
5 Falling skies skidders thought they looked kinda dumb

Altius, I didn't miss that part. That part was stupid. The "doesn't work" part would be a subsystem. Divorce that from the "kills things real good" subsystem and you're cooking with gas.

Altius, I didn't miss that part. That part was stupid. The "doesn't work" part would be a subsystem. Divorce that from the "kills things real good" subsystem and you're cooking with gas.

Ah, so you did see it, but you're dismissing it in order to make your first post not look so silly. Gotcha. :)

Hal, his gf, and the 13 year old kid had M4s. Dai had an MP-5 and a shotgun. Anthony and his buddy (the one who died) shared an Uzi and a GPMG. The CO had what looked like a G36. The only main character w/an AK was Wyle's character.

I suppose you're right. I guess I must have been seeing the same AK in scene after scene and drew my own conclusion. Damn, i hate it when my hyperbole backfires.

And on the commercial bit, I did time it during the second half, but commercials sure seemed to overwhelm the story throughout. I guess I just hate commercials.

Caught Falling Skies. It certainly has echoes of BSG in terms of character conflict. It didn't grab me, but in the absence of anything else I'll keep watching, though I don't hold out high hopes for this.

Anyone mentioned the new V yet? That's about two notches above Skyline for me.

Skyline was directed by two brothers who were also contract SFX providers for the B:LA production. They scampered from B:LA and went off to make Skyline, I believe legal action has been launched against them as there was an allegation that they had worked on Skyline using resources for B:LA. Don't think the case went anywhere.

Falling Skies is unwatchable in the made for TV format with a small to middling crisis boiling up to a commercial break every few minutes. I'll wait until it drops in onto On Demand, then you can watch it with breaks that are at least shorter. Don't you get the feeling that They are Us.

What's with the outlaw's "bazooka" story in Falling Skies? Bazooks went out after the Korean Conflict. Writers should have tossed in a reference to an AT-4, Carl Gustav, or for the love of Pete, a Dragon. Curiously Bazookas were on my mind when the outlaw chief started up on how they were no got vs the alien fliers. I saw a bazooka at the 1st Inf. Museum near Wheaton, IL on Sat. Took a picture. When I put it up on my desktop as an image, I noticed the hotbox had been toggled from SAFE to FIRE as it lay on the demo blanket with a rocket round right next to it. We can only hope.

Writers should have tossed in a reference to an AT-4, Carl Gustav, or for the love of Pete, a Dragon.

Well, the head honcho played by Dale Dye did mention near the beginning that another group wasted two AT-4s firing at the mechs.

Matsuru,
They did mention AT-4s at the beginning of Falling Skies--apparently their excessive usse is what triggers the alien
"nuking" of a part of Boston.

I just saw Battle: LA Sunday morning--I had not gone to see it when out in the theater 'cause I assumed it would really suck--and really enjoyed it. Yes, I thought the whole water thing was stupid, but oterwise, it was good. And I liked the alien design and equipment, as they seemed relatively plausible and different enough to be "alien."

Rob

Falling Skylids… soo… bored …

> What's with the outlaw's "bazooka" story in Falling Skies?

He's a biker/criminal. He spent his time boozing, getting laid, working on his bike, and killing people, along with a laundry list of other minor crimes. I doubt he spent much time on TMP, memorizing 40K stats, or worrying about the difference between a rocket launcher and a bazooka. ;-)

There's a web-comic on the Falling Skies' website that tells the story leading right up to the beginning of the TV show. As others here already pointed out, two guys used an AT-4 to shoot down an alien ship and the aliens responded by "nuking" that part of town.

> D9 was horribad. There's a functional interstellar vessel floating around and we're not studying it? Right.

As I recall, it had "Don't touch me" tech that made it impossible to study.

The blurb on the pre-release blog made it clear that some advances had nevertheless been made from studying Prawn tech (such as aircraft-mounted laser cannon).

…. Skyline was terrible. It had no story. No point. No….GAAAAAAAH. RAGE. It was just soo terrible and made zero sense.

D9 was great. Loved the Prawn mech above all else. Half the time I watch the movie, I just skip to the end to watch the carnage.

I had a long discussion with someone over Battle L.A. It's straight forward. It's 'cheesy' in terms of dialogue. But if you look at it this way. Reality is quite cheesy. "Cheesy" lines like that speech motivate in reality when the situation is right, and the situation was indeed right. Then there's the matter of us getting our asses kicked at first, then our guns start 'magically working against them'. Well. Sun Tsu said "Know one's self and not one's enemy, one victory for one loss." It focuses on the one squad during a long period of time (Condensing 24 hours down into roughly 2 hours means we miss all the mundane stuff. Like inter-squad info sharing.) They had someone do the closest thing to an autopsy on one of those things. Found what general area to hit them in and that made them easier to kill. That and there's the shock factor. Think you can aim straight when you're fighting freakin' aliens on home soil for the very first time and you know nothing about them except they shot first? And the whole thing is kind of… dark. I mean first you got the guy being dragged off to god only knows what fate during an ambush. Plus the wounded. Then they find the police station empty with (In my opinion, insufficiently) traumatized survivors. Then their med-evac suddenly gets blown from the sky, alerting them to the fact that the enemy has air power and is deploying it now. They get ambushed again and shot up. Civilian casualties. They do manage to down an aircraft only to find that the enemy is more advanced and more coordinated than they first thought, which surely must add to the downer on morale. By the time they get a hold of the vehicles they've had their asses handed to them nearly every time with only one minor victory and a semi-successful suicide/stalling defense. By the time they finally get evaced, they've lost almost as badly as the marines in Aliens did. I think the only reason for their last task, their final hurrah to try to kill the(suspected) CiC center was to keep the movie from ending on a down note.
As for the aliens going after water…. Well. Hydrogen fuel. Makes sense, no? If they have a method of pulling the molecules they need from Water, then our planet would be a perfect resource center for them. They do lack society though, being a hivemind, so perhaps they didn't quite figure out that He3 is a more powerful energy source and is abundant in the atmosphere of Jupiter. I'm sure at one point they were pure flesh as well until they started hybridizing with mechanized grafts. (Something along the lines of the Cybermen?)
That's my take on it anyways.

Altius, that is not the reason. Machines *do not* work that way. They wouldn't have to trade those things to thugs for cat food. *Everything* on that ship would be worth its weight in gold until every major corporation and intelligence outfit on Earth had at least three copies of each item to test.

Altius, that is not the reason. Machines *do not* work that way.

Meh…

It was addressed. But since it was not the focus of the story, I didn't feel like getting all anal retentive d-baggy about it and instead chose to accept their answer and let them just move on and tell the story.

They wouldn't have to trade those things to thugs for cat food. *Everything* on that ship would be worth its weight in gold until every major corporation and intelligence outfit on Earth had at least three copies of each item to test.

Well, again, that was explained. Most of the prawns were at a very low intellectual level and had no concept of worth or value. Plus, they were like cat food junkies. A junkie doesn't care what something is worth. He can only see as far as getting his next fix. In fact, they made a big deal about emphasizing that point, just as they made a big deal over the tech issues. You seem to have missed both of these points entirely. Are you sure you watched the movie?

Yes, I saw the movie. It would also be important to keep alien tech out of the hands of the sorts of folks who were trading for it with cat food.

This is the same movie where the alien fuel mutates an organism not even from their world into one of them. Awesome.

This is the same movie where the alien fuel mutates an organism not even from their world into one of them.

Sure, why not? It's just fantasy, after all. Are you saying that you're one of those that demand plausibility from fantasy? Awesome!

:)

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Is it only me, or did Falling Skies resemble the Terminator franchise pretty closely or what?!

Altius, I'm with you – Falling Skies DID have heaps of AKs. At least the first half – I only recall other weapons starting to appear in the second hour, like M4s, an Uzi and a squad MG. You'd think 80% would be more like M16/M4s/SAWs; 9% hunting rifles/semiautos, and 1% AKs….

I remember saying to my wife – "it looks like Americans won the war on terror and confiscated insurgent weapons to equip their own army"….

But I reckon there was a real Terminator vibe…

Battle: LA was OK. Thin on plot, was more FPS shooter turned into a movie than anything else. Did like the competent portrayal of soldiers though; and amidst all the confusion, why should all the answers be suddenly found?

Saw Battle: LA lastnight, was better than I thought. Kind of reminded me of Blackhawk Down. I agree, the soldier portrayal, Fog of War, etc. was pretty well done. And … I'd imagine it could be a fairly "accurate" protrayal of what possibly would happen in that sort of invasion scenario … Of course the gaming possiblities is certainly there, regardless …

As for the aliens going after water…. Well. Hydrogen fuel. Makes sense, no? If they have a method of pulling the molecules they need from Water, then our planet would be a perfect resource center for them. They do lack society though, being a hivemind, so perhaps they didn't quite figure out that He3 is a more powerful energy source and is abundant in the atmosphere of Jupiter. I'm sure at one point they were pure flesh as well until they started hybridizing with mechanized grafts. (Something along the lines of the Cybermen?)
That's my take on it anyways.

A glaring plot hole. A more satisfying explanation could be that attacking from the water could mean that they were simply choosing attack sites where there was only one front line. If they'd gone in para-style, they would have been surrounded on all sides and need to break out to make contact between their lines.

The liquid water bit… could be that they have some sort of gizmo that extracts vacuum energy and uses water as the exchange medium, becoming "useless" once it's passed through the device (which is sort of how the Casimir effect works anyway and why we can't actually use it to extract infinite energy).