 JammerMan  | 18 Nov 2011 7:32 a.m. PST |
I know I am a bit behind the times, but just saw the movie and thought it was pretty good. I looked and there was a little discussion on gaming the battle back in March. I was wondering if anyone actually did? |
| Grumpy Monkey | 18 Nov 2011 7:38 a.m. PST |
I thank you are confusing Battle Los Angeles, with Battle LA. Trust me on this, there is a BIG difference |
| doc mcb | 18 Nov 2011 7:39 a.m. PST |
Which one is the aquatic aliens? I thought they were pretty good. |
| Landorl | 18 Nov 2011 7:49 a.m. PST |
I've never heard of "Battle LA" before. "Battle Los Angeles" is the one that came out last year. It was pretty good, but the end wasn't too great. |
| Landorl | 18 Nov 2011 7:50 a.m. PST |
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| CmdrKiley | 18 Nov 2011 7:55 a.m. PST |
Actually Grumpy it's don't confuse it with Battle of Los Angeles, note the small addition of "of" in the title. imdb.com/title/tt1758570 That's the SyFy Channel production that is the one to avoid. Trust me, I could barely sit through Mega Pirahna and Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus and this movie stank. Battle LA (aka Battle Los Angeles) rocked! I love it! Lots of gaming potential there! |
| Schogun | 18 Nov 2011 8:14 a.m. PST |
I just saw it recently, too. Not much new in the way of plot, but well filmed and good cgi. I was entertained. |
| tberry7403 | 18 Nov 2011 8:42 a.m. PST |
Trust me, I could barely sit through Mega Pirahna and Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus and this movie stank. You didn't appreciate Nia Peeples taking out an alien bot by pithing it with a katana? |
Lee Brilleaux  | 18 Nov 2011 10:25 a.m. PST |
I saw it on a transatlantic flight with lots of turbulence noise going on around me. This was good, as it meant I could ignore the cliched dialogue and focus on things blowing up. |
| archstanton73 | 18 Nov 2011 10:45 a.m. PST |
Very good fun--But I agree with the reveiw above--Spot the war movie cliche!! |
| JammerMan | 18 Nov 2011 1:21 p.m. PST |
Nope, Battle Los Angeles..only reason I watched it was because the freeway battle scenes were shot in Shreveport LA were I live a couple of years ago. They shut down I49 to do it. but it had a water based alien enemy with ground, heavy weapon support and air support with interchangeable ships ( I guess), even my wife liked it, but a little to much action for her at times. The marine unit using desert/urban warfare. |
| John D Salt | 18 Nov 2011 1:49 p.m. PST |
I've seen both. One of them I thought was big-budget piffle, and the other I thought was low-budget piffle. I cannot now recall the plot of either, which might be attributable to my memory fading with age, but I think is because both films chose to use plot and characterisation in homeopathic quantities, as is the modern way. All the best, John. |
| Wolfprophet | 18 Nov 2011 3:36 p.m. PST |
You know…. I wonder. Everyone says Cliched dialogue…. but does anyone stop for a moment to think about how cliched real life is becoming? Our Day to day dialogues aren't much better. Just different. That said, loved Battle: Los Angeles. Battle of LA, the sci-fi channel movie…was so god awful I couldn't make it past the first four minutes….. Four minutes was all I needed to know I would hate the movie. I fast forwarded to various parts to see if maybe it got even a little better, but no. I watched about a minute an a few seconds more at a time after each forward and it just got more and more awful. I would rather stick a soldering iron in my eye and run it through to scramble the frontal lobe of my brain than suffer through the entire movie. The actors and actresses who allow themselves to be put in all these sci-fi channel original movies should really really be ashamed of themselves for willing participating in those abominations. Yeah, sure. A paying job is a paying job, but human dignity shouldn't have such a low price tag on it.
"Battle LA (aka Battle Los Angeles) rocked! I love it! Lots of gaming potential there!"
Definitely! That's half the reason I enjoyed the movie so much. I've been watching it again and again and I catch little things here and there that I didn't notice before, like during the battle on the highway, if you look carefully, you'll notice the aliens actually pulling their wounded out of the line of fire at the start of the firefight. |
| Lee Brilleaux | 18 Nov 2011 5:47 p.m. PST |
" ---does anyone stop for a moment to think about how cliched real life is becoming? Our Day to day dialogues aren't much better. Just different." An interesting point, but actual, daily conversation isn't scripted by paid professionals. My wife and I both work in careers where what we write and say are important, but that doesn't mean that we don't have conversations that go, "Have you seen the, uh, you know?" "TV remote?" "Phone book." Screen dialogue ought to have a certain snap to it. That's why we quote from 'Aliens' or 'Casablanca'. |
| Lion in the Stars | 18 Nov 2011 6:03 p.m. PST |
Occasionally MiB or Independence Day, too. |
| Thornhammer | 18 Nov 2011 7:30 p.m. PST |
Ghostbusters on a regular basis, even. So be good! For goodness sakes. Whoa-oh-oh, somebody's comin'… |
| Wolfprophet | 18 Nov 2011 8:06 p.m. PST |
"Screen dialogue ought to have a certain snap to it. That's why we quote from 'Aliens' or 'Casablanca'." Eh. Maybe. I like anti-climatic and sad endings at least half of the time. Fits well with reality where nothing is so wonderful and good rarely triumphs. Also a fan of the "Everyone died and the mission was a failure" sort of thing to help counter-balance all of the "3/4 of the team died, but we succeeded anyways" endings. Regarding Battle:LA again… I'd have to wonder just how the rest of the invasion went. They were landing all over the place… modern Militaries could deal with them, but what about the rest of the World? Can't see those African militias having much success. Surely, someplace human resistance had to crumble enough for a beachhead to be properly formed and heavily reinforced. |
| Uesugi Kenshin | 18 Nov 2011 8:10 p.m. PST |
I am basically gaming it with the following minis: Protolene Khanate (frome CMG games) vrs: US ARMY/Marines/SEALs,
PLA Chinese,
Federation Russians,
British,
Germans,
African Coalition/ Nigerians. |
| Xeno RG | 18 Nov 2011 10:51 p.m. PST |
Based on the background stuff, the progress of the invasion, from the alien point of view, seems to be "Very good!" In the first twenty-four hours they had knocked out many major cities and had, at least in LA, dealt the US a truly serious defeat that was only turned around by a lucky strike from some troops who managed to get into the rear area. Things might get even worse when the aliens start dropping heavier assets (tanks, bombers, and whatnot) to supplement the initial invasion forces. According to the wiki, the only vehicle seen on screen was basically the equivalent of a jeep (and about as fragile) so who knows what else they can deploy. Probably won't be a sequel, though -- the movie wasn't well received. |
| John Treadaway | 19 Nov 2011 3:28 a.m. PST |
RT rates it at 35% with a "consensus" of "Overlong and overly burdened with war movie clichés, Battle: Los Angeles will entertain only the most ardent action junkies." ( link )I loved it though! grin
--
Tim I agree with (whatever) the RT (is) – if one more person says "Lock and Load" or "Fire in the hole" in a film I will kick the screen in… And as my budget for tellies is limited, I'm going to have to be careful what I watch  John T |
| Tgunner | 19 Nov 2011 5:18 a.m. PST |
"if one more person says "Lock and Load" or "Fire in the hole" in a film I will kick the screen in…"
Ummm… that's pretty common mill speak John.
"Lock and Load" is an informal command to the troopies to load weapons and take them off "safe" and serves as a warning that things about about to get "interesting". "Fire in the hole" is a common warning that some serious munitions are heading down range and that you better get your  down. There's plenty from where that comes from: "Frag out", "On the way!!!", "Laze 'em!", "Fire 'em up!", "Serviced!", "Light 'em up!", "Target!", "Contact FRONT!", "Scoot-a-boot/Beat-Feet", and honestly I could go on and on (and yes, the 'ems up are different concepts!). Perhaps milspeak is cliched? After all, most of these terms are short-hands to pass information quickly and boost/maintain morale in the process. As that old French guy used to say: "The morale to the physical is as three is to one." |
| Sudwind | 19 Nov 2011 12:37 p.m. PST |
I liked that movie, but it could have been better if you could see more detail of the aliens in combat. They were always blurry, fuzzy or otherwise visually challenging…. Got a kick out of the alien heavy weapon squad. They can move armies through space, but have to fire a weapon from an exposed position. |
| badger22 | 19 Nov 2011 8:54 p.m. PST |
Lock one magazine in the magazine well. Load one round ball ammunition. I must have said those words a thousand times. Every time I wound up in the tower on a range, same exact commands. No real room for improvisation. Same with Fire in the hole. Required to be shouted three times defore setting off any demo. And as TGunner says there are lots and lots more where those come from. but they are really used in the military every day. Owen |
| The G Dog | 20 Nov 2011 7:23 a.m. PST |
For mindless entertainment…it was passable. Lots of stuff blows up. I guess it passed my 'pew pew pew' test. Could make a fun game with Tomorrow's War. As for the developing countries…the aliens seemed to be geared toward fighting a modern opponent (radio jammers and homing). Didn't see much evidence of thermal/IR imaging being used. Perhaps a lower tech force could compete in this environment? |
| alien BLOODY HELL surfer | 21 Nov 2011 8:33 a.m. PST |
Lower tech forces cause our so called sophisticated Western armies enough trouble with IED's etc – pretty sure they'd be able to put up some form of defence against the aliens. IED's seem to be the biggest hassle our troops suffer, given how the aliens are in the film (and how the LT? takes them out with his suicide 'IED') I think it'd work against them – in fact, most forces faced with overwhelming numbers and or technology will fall back to using gorilla war tactics and devices – might even work better at times than trying to fight on an even footing using standard doctrines.
A lot of the more modern western countries have scaled back their forces too, and are also not used to fighting so might fall more easily then said low tech nations. |
| billthecat | 21 Nov 2011 10:19 a.m. PST |
So why did the aliens want to invade Earth? Obviously I didn't see the movie, sounds like it might be fun. |
| Ghostrunner | 21 Nov 2011 10:58 a.m. PST |
They were here for our water, which they somehow were using to power their technology. Considering I just read an article that suggest Europa alone may have more water than the entire Earth, the idea is rather ludicrous. To their credit, it's only mentioned in a news cast blurb, and isn't really pivotal to the plot (I think it was included as a justification for them hitting coastal cities first). |
