Photos
I remember playing some old Playstation game one time about World War II where the first level is storming the beaches of Normandy and then you make your way through Nazi Germany and probably kill Hitler or something. “We’ve gotta blow up the heavy water facility, dude!” is a thing I’m pretty sure someone said to your character in the game at some point. It was a fun enough game in the way that those games can be fun, except that right away on that first level when I was getting so frustrated that I kept dying in the shallows before I could even elbow-crawl my way to a sandy barbed-wire barricade, I was awash in a genuine wave of Actual Guilt. Because my grandfather fought in World War II, and for what? So that I could have the freedom to be a piece of shit on a futon turning one of the most terrifying possible human experiences out of the entire spectrum into an “average difficulty” level on a game for Mountain Dew: Code Red enthusiasts? Unacceptable. This trailer makes me feel much the same way. Obviously, alien invasions aren’t real (or are they?!) but turning the night vision destruction of a modern city into “fantastical” Sour Patch Kidventures while there are actual real cities being destroyed right now via missiles and SKYSHIPS is kind of awful. I still might see this, but I’ll have my arms crossed the whole time. My body language will be VERY closed.
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You getting all pac man up in this shit
I think you mean your grandson fought in World War II
Also, Gabe can’t play Risk because PTSD.
Bright lights and the word “Kamchatka” cause him to flash back.
“If you watch only one documentary this year, make it this one”
Oh man, this movie is so meta for Michelle Rodriguez.
Mmm, I love a [Michelle Rodriguez] in uniform.
Other thoughts:
People still say “wife beaters” to refer to articles of clothing? BARF.
FOR REAL: Almost all of those shirts are tank tops with spaghetti straps. Sounds like someone wasn’t listening at the Kohl’s floor-team sales meeting.
Plus, A-shirts are the preferred manufacturing term for what “wife-beaters” are referring to. But whether that term is short for “Athletic shirt” or is a play on the shape it makes when laid flat in the same vein as the term “T shirt”, one thing is clear— in England they call them lorries.
She’s pretty.
I’m excited for 2012 when Universal releases their next epic: Hydration, in which people in rural Kansas struggle to find potable water. Can you imagine living in a world where some people complain about how their iPhone is outdated and others aren’t sure if they will be alive next Thursday? Hollywood, always with the wacky fantasy scenarios.
still very good trailer, i thought, though. as trailers go
i really like the music and some quick googling let me to the original, by Johann Johannsson, of Iceland (natch) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv4CuIIspdE
Oddly enough, I was watching the trailer without sound, because work, but I happened to have some mellow ambient-type music playing in the background. I was thinking that would be a really cool trick for this trailer. Turns out the trailer-making people had the same idea, but first.
I have a strong feeling the trailer, which was great, is a lot more enjoyable than the film is going to be.
yup
Will seeing “Battle: Los Angeles” trigger flashbacks for Call of Duty veterans?
I’m guessing we win.
Well, if Independence Day has taught us anything, we just need to upload a computer virus to their ships via Windows 95.
Leave it to the two Donald Sutherlands to figure it all out for us. Thanks, guys!
Okay, my brief desire to trim my beard is gone. Now I have a goal!
Alan Moore? Is that you?
I’m guessing the “win” is something like: “Well, Los Angeles is a charred crater full of 8 million corpses, but the 3 people we focused on are still alive, so… we win! USA! USA!” Hollywood.
I’m a little disappointed to see Aaron Eckhart take part in such a half-assed movie.
I’m feeling generous so I’ll give you two replies
“Star of No Reservations Aaron Eckhart making a half-assed movie. no way”
or
“What about Aaron Echkart’s ass?”
Your replies have me doubled over with laughter.
Half-Assed Movie Happens
well, you know what they say–double the replies, double the laugher.
(what? who says that? i don’t even know anymore.)
I liked the trailor, at least. I kept waiting for that moment when the quiet haunting music turned into “BOOM!” and “RUUUUN!” and it never did. A+ trailor.
trailer even :-/
Seriously. Aside from the crummy CG effects, that was a fantastic trailer. I had a passing interest in seeing this before, but now I’m definitely gonna catch it in the theater.
Haters be hatin’, but aliens are sometimes kind of terrifying.
Agreed. “Love Happens,” “No Reservations,” “The Core,” “Meet Bill,” “The Wicker Man,” and “The Black Dahlia” not withstanding.
This was supposed to be a reply to Mad Max Zorin: Beyond Thunderball’s comment on Aaron Eckhardt. Frankly, I think Mr. Eckhardt had a hand in making sure this reply was disconnected.
Double-crossed by the comment form, eh?
… I liked Meet Bill.
“Frankly”…is someone being punny…ehhhhhhhhh?
So, I google searched for a Killjoy picture, in order to make a charmingly whimsical photoshop of Gabe as Captain Killjoy (or possibly Lieutenant Killjoy), as bringing reality to any entertainment medium generally kills the escapist pleasure therein. However, HOWEVER, this was the first photo I found in my search:
Fuck. Now my joy is dead AND I soiled myself in terror. Everything is not coming up lilbobbytables, it seems.
Hi. I’m interested in learning more about how I can kill this with fire. Yes, I’ll hold.
I don’t know, not to get too seriousgum about it, but isn’t it pretty human to trivialize the world’s horror so as to not be as scared of them? Don’t we like watching humans kill aliens because it’s comforting to see a fight we can win? Perhaps more importantly, it’s kind of nice to see humans win a fight that they SHOULD win, without any moral or political grey area.
I think that’s the same reason Law & Order: 2 Fast 2 Furious type shows are so popular. In reality, lots of crimes go unsolved and often there is no justice, but in these cop procedurals we get to see authority members really care and always catch the bad guy.
It might be our way of re-appropriating our fears so that we are entertained by them instead of paralyzed by them.
Agreed. I also think that there is an element of (masochistic, natch) wish-fulfillment in these fantasies of devastation dreamed by privileged people who are on some level aware that their lives are inauthentic in some key way.* The process is something like: in order to have truly lived, you must have experienced great conflict, and bickering with your spouse over whose turn it is to take out the garbage, or even freeway driving, are not as “noble” [gag] as resisting a technologically force bent on the destruction of your people.
*Like me, I’ll cop. Though my fantasties of a more authentic life are more of an agrarian Arcadia than of my city being firebombed. And I am taking steps to make mine happen, which I hope the makers of this movie are not.
technologically SUPERIOR force. I’ll show myself out.
you guys see V last night?
About a month after 9/11, some coworkers of my then-girlfriend invited us to a BBQ and we were like, “Okay, yes. It’s time we try to appear normal and do things again, and for life to get back on track, if that is possible.” Which still did not seem guaranteed, if you remember. And so we went to this BBQ. And guess what. They had a giant TV, about 5 feet across, and the host was “Going to show Independence Day today, because you know what, I don’t care what anyone thinks, it’s time we kicked some ass, and in this movie, they blow up our cities, and we fucking get revenge.” I had a sense of foreboding and misery as the movie started, and when New York was destroyed I made sure I was outside. Shortly after that we left and I remember walking away with cheers and shouts behind me and feeling a profound sadness and kind of hating those people and feeling like they were aliens.
Also the sound system on that TV sucked. (Thank God.)
i believe this battle involves a different kind of aliens….
I literally just scrolled down through the comments because I knew and was happy that I’d find this picture. Thanks, explainer guy!
This looks so much better than Skyline.
Did somebody say Skyline? Make mine a 3-way.
is that…is that a spaghetti taco, perhaps sans tortilla?
aw. my first downvote and i don’t even understand why.
+1. Skyline looks like dogshit.
I know a guy who loves this stuff. We’re not close.
When I was a young man, the youth group I was in took a trip to King’s Island, an amusement park just north of Cincinnati. The youth group leader and his son were really excited for the trip because they wanted Skyline.
So after our day of riding the Beast and the Vortex, we stopped at a Skyline and the youth group leader and his son were the only two who got anything to eat because DUH. The worst was still to come, though.
That night we slept in the fellowship hall of a church and all night long the youth group leader and his son would fart, loudly, and then laugh and make comments to each other about the farts. At one point, the son, who was in middle school, farted and his father, our youth group leader, said, “That one sounded like it had chunks in it.”
It was soon after that, I stopped going to church.
I’m originally from Cincinnati, so I love Skyline. Sorry guys.
Jesus would want you to make it a 5-way
Correction: “When I was a young Mans…” (Sorry to go all “copyeditor” on you there.)
If the aliens destroy LA, how will Hollywood be able to make movies about aliens destroying LA?
That’s like the Klein Bottle of Development Hell.
Hahaha gotta love the Ne-Yo tag.
I like how the trailer, by starting with a slide show, carefully builds it’s case that LA is about to be invaded from space. Without those slides, people might not believe.
robot song vocals really made me unhappy. don’t they know the only acceptable sad, slow trailer song is now the “creep” choral cover?