# Battle: Los Angeles **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 12, 2011, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battle-los-angeles/574453 "2011-03-12T21:18:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2011, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battle-los-angeles/574453/41 "2011-03-20T02:27:09Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I thought it started out pretty intense, but then sort of degenerated into a Hoo-ray fest towards the end. And of course like all alien invasion films, the aliens have to have some sort of Death Star-like exploitable weakness in their technology. > > Really Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy seems like the most realistic alien invasion in fiction. Basically a fleet of alien construction ships demolishing the Earth for reasons incomprehensible to humans and we can do nothing about it. I can’t imagine modern Earth aircraft shooting down an alien craft any more than a squadron of Sopwith Camels could take out an F-22 Raptor. Or a Roman Legion taking out a fully armed mechanized company. Consider the historical comparison of European invasions of aboriginal tribes’ lands - North America and Australia being the most extreme examples. For the most part the reason they were being invaded was incomprehensible to the natives; the Europeans were charging in for a wide variety of economic and political reasons that to the natives were of no importance at all. And the natives actually had their victories here and there, but always lost the war, in part because they usually weren’t sufficiently organized or united to provide a strategic resistance. The only really interesting and “Realistic” takes on alien invasion are the War of the Worlds movies; the aliens show up and kill everyone and never explain why, and we can’t stop them (the movies are in that respect even better than the original story) until H.G. Wells’s deux ex machina does it for us. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2011, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battle-los-angeles/574453/42 "2011-03-20T03:07:56Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Really Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy seems like the most realistic alien invasion in fiction. Basically a fleet of alien construction ships demolishing the Earth for reasons incomprehensible to humans and we can do nothing about it. Yeah, well, that was about two chapters in the book. Hard to make a movie centered on that “action.” ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2011, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battle-los-angeles/574453/43 "2011-03-20T16:00:41Z")
> [@RikWriter](#): > > Yeah, well, that was about two chapters in the book. Hard to make a movie centered on that “action.” Not really. Douglas Adams wrote like five books centered around the consequences of that action for one man. You could write any number of stories about such an alien encounter. But they would be less of a “war” story and maybe more of a disaster or end of the world tale. > [@RickJay](#): > > Consider the historical comparison of European invasions of aboriginal tribes’ lands - North America and Australia being the most extreme examples. > > For the most part the reason they were being invaded was incomprehensible to the natives; the Europeans were charging in for a wide variety of economic and political reasons that to the natives were of no importance at all. And the natives actually had their victories here and there, but always lost the war, in part because they usually weren’t sufficiently organized or united to provide a strategic resistance. > > The only really interesting and “Realistic” takes on alien invasion are the War of the Worlds movies; the aliens show up and kill everyone and never explain why, and we can’t stop them (the movies are in that respect even better than the original story) until H.G. Wells’s deux ex machina does it for us. A bigger part of why the natives lost was simply that their technology was inferior and the invading civilization was intent on staying. With the American Indians, disease was also a major factor. So the H.G. Wells ending isn’t such a stretch, just sort of reversed. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2011, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battle-los-angeles/574453/44 "2011-03-20T17:19:47Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Not really. Douglas Adams wrote like five books centered around the consequences of that action for one man. But that’s not an alien invasion movie, it’s a post-end-of-the-world adventure. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battle-los-angeles/574453/45 "2011-03-21T01:16:42Z")
I liked it, but thought it really did use a lot of cliches. That said, it doesn’t deserve the wall of hate the critics seem to have erected. It realy does carry the “ring of truth” about the way an alien invasion would be handled – something the lengthy list of military advisors at the end confirms. The characters weren’t complete cardboard, but had some flesh to them, and the effects were reasonably well done. “Shakey-cam” seems to be the word of the day, and we’ll just have to ;et this syndrome run its course. I agree that the scenario is less than convincing – the aliens, it’s suggested, want us not only for our water, but our _liquid_ water, although you’d think that the ability to cross space would enable them to melt some ice. (They’re using it to generate power? How? Unless they’ve perfected fusion, it seems like they’d be violating some laws of thermo) The biggest cliche is the “If we destroy their communication tower, they can’t cordinate their efforts” ploy that showed up in _Last Starfighter_ , _Independence Day_, and others. It’s one of the tropes used to defeat the “Aliens that arre more technologically advanced than us” trope. Like most of the solutions to that problem, it’s not remotely convincing. (after all, _we_ wouldn’t put all our communication eggs in one basket, would we?) But, heck, if they didn’y let them have that, it would’ve been harder tro make a movie. For my money, the only time we’ve had a convincing solution to “how do we beat the more advanced aliens?” was inHarry Turtledove’s “World War” series. But I doubt we’ll se that on film any time soon. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battle-los-angeles/574453/46 "2011-03-21T02:17:15Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I agree that the scenario is less than convincing – the aliens, it’s suggested, want us not only for our water, but our _liquid_ water, although you’d think that the ability to cross space would enable them to melt some ice. (They’re using it to generate power? How? Unless they’ve perfected fusion, it seems like they’d be violating some laws of thermo). I think it’s safe to say that a race that can travel interstellar distances has probably perfected fusion. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battle-los-angeles/574453/47 "2011-03-21T02:18:15Z")
Random observation: I have little evidence to support this, but when they revealed the alien soldiers had their weapons grafted to their arms, I got the impression they were conscripted from a previously conquered race, and we never actually saw the race that was invading. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battle-los-angeles/574453/48 "2011-03-21T02:33:59Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > The biggest cliche is the “If we destroy their communication tower, they can’t cordinate their efforts” ploy that showed up in _Last Starfighter_ , _Independence Day_, and others. It’s one of the tropes used to defeat the “Aliens that arre more technologically advanced than us” trope. Like most of the solutions to that problem, it’s not remotely convincing. (after all, _we_ wouldn’t put all our communication eggs in one basket, would we?) The thing is, their technology didn’t seem all that advanced. Just different. Their smallarms didn’t seem particularly deadly compared to Earth firearms. It’s not like they made their target explode into a red mist or anything. Their vehicles were vulnurable to missle and cannon attack. No shielded city-sized ships. No 100 ft tall death-ray armed tripods, power suits, or even swarms of nano-particles. ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battle-los-angeles/574453/49 "2011-03-21T02:57:01Z")
> [@Quimby](#): > > Random observation: > I have little evidence to support this, but when they revealed the alien soldiers had their weapons grafted to their arms, I got the impression they were conscripted from a previously conquered race, and we never actually saw the race that was invading. I figured they were clones generated for combat with all necessary upgrades. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battle-los-angeles/574453/50 "2011-03-21T03:40:30Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > The thing is, their technology didn’t seem all that advanced. Just different. Their smallarms didn’t seem particularly deadly compared to Earth firearms. It’s not like they made their target explode into a red mist or anything. Their vehicles were vulnurable to missle and cannon attack. No shielded city-sized ships. No 100 ft tall death-ray armed tripods, power suits, or even swarms of nano-particles. Exactly. It’s as if the only real, major, advances they have on use are their biotechnology and of course interstellar travel. Anyone else wonder how far away from the water the aliens would get before they stopped? Would Phoenix or Moscow be safe (aside from rioting and waves of refuges)? What about Toronto? Did they only land at sea or in large freshwater lakes? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battle-los-angeles/574453/51 "2011-03-21T11:35:20Z")
The limited technology is simply a case of “If the aliens did it logically the story would be over in five minutes”. If the aliens truly were after our water, there’s absolutely nothing to stop them from simply dropping big rocks on our major cities, rather than wasting their own people on a drawn-out infantry invasion on what looks like a house-by-house basis. If they’re after something else (the “they’re after our water” is presented in the film as just a conjecture, after all), then there’s probably some way to get it more easily than the intensive, micro-managed invasion they take. But the point of the film is our reaction to an invasion of American cities by non-human but resistable enemies. ---
**Author:** ![bucketybuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@bucketybuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bucketybuck)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battle-los-angeles/574453/52 "2011-03-21T11:59:52Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > The thing is, their technology didn’t seem all that advanced. Just different. Their smallarms didn’t seem particularly deadly compared to Earth firearms. It’s not like they made their target explode into a red mist or anything. Their vehicles were vulnurable to missle and cannon attack. No shielded city-sized ships. No 100 ft tall death-ray armed tripods, power suits, or even swarms of nano-particles. While I can understand why most people expect the technology of invading aliens to be far more advanced than our own, I personally dont see it as a requisite. For example, say we confirmed the presence of little green men on Mars, little green men with Unobtanium in their pockets. And say all the governments of the world group together and said, “we need this obtanium stuff, lets invade and take it, no matter the cost”. What would our invasion fleet be? It would be Space Shuttles/Rockets, crewed by men with guns, and probably using drone technology. It would take a long time to get there, but if we judged it worth the effort, thats what the invasion fleet would be. And, I guess, it would be plausible. Expensive, risky, but plausible. Battle: LA. We dont know where the Aliens came from, they could have travelled 20 years from just outside our Galaxy. They could have been prepared to travel 20years because they judged it worth it. Like we might. They may have been able to travel 20 years without actually having any super advanced guns like lasers or Deflector shields. Just as we wouldnt have. They may not have any apparant motive, but then the little green men may not have a clue what we wanted with the unobtanium either. People always expect the invading aliens to be super advanced, but for me, its not as simple as that. One does not always follow the other. We could invade the Moon if we \*really really \*wanted to, but we wouldnt be carrying laser guns would we? ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battle-los-angeles/574453/53 "2011-03-21T13:43:56Z")
> [@bucketybuck](#): > > … > Battle: LA. We dont know where the Aliens came from, they could have travelled 20 years from just outside our Galaxy. They could have been prepared to travel 20years because they judged it worth it. Like we might. They may have been able to travel 20 years without actually having any super advanced guns like lasers or Deflector shields. Just as we wouldnt have. They may not have any apparant motive, but then the little green men may not have a clue what we wanted with the unobtanium either. > > People always expect the invading aliens to be super advanced, but for me, its not as simple as that. One does not always follow the other. We could invade the Moon if we \*really really \*wanted to, but we wouldnt be carrying laser guns would we? (long, unreasonably snarky response about scientific ignorance and movies playing to the uneducated deleted) Twenty years of travel even at a good percentage of lightspeed would not bring a hypothetical alien invasion force anywhere close to “just outside our Galaxy.” Any interstellar flight of less than millenial duration requires a propulsion technology far more advanced than anything we can currently imagine, and it is not unreasonable to assume that a technology that allows a ship to travel like that would be useful in weapons. Also, a hellofalotta water is available in Oort cloud or even Kuyper Belt objects, which are more easily harvested than water on the surface of a rocky planet deep in its primary’s gravity well. But, this film seems to have shit blow up real good, so I am planniong on seeing it. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battle-los-angeles/574453/54 "2011-03-21T13:55:08Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > But really is there any “reasonable” reason to travel a thousand light years to attack some strange planet? Kill them before they develop enough to come over and kill us. (Which doesn’t explain why you don’t just accelerate an asteroid to .9c and fling it at the planet, but oh well). ---
**Author:** ![bucketybuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@bucketybuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bucketybuck)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battle-los-angeles/574453/55 "2011-03-21T15:16:03Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > (long, unreasonably snarky response about scientific ignorance and movies playing to the uneducated deleted) > > Twenty years of travel even at a good percentage of lightspeed would not bring a hypothetical alien invasion force anywhere close to “just outside our Galaxy.” Any interstellar flight of less than millenial duration requires a propulsion technology far more advanced than anything we can currently imagine, and it is not unreasonable to assume that a technology that allows a ship to travel like that would be useful in weapons. Also, a hellofalotta water is available in Oort cloud or even Kuyper Belt objects, which are more easily harvested than water on the surface of a rocky planet deep in its primary’s gravity well. > > But, this film seems to have shit blow up real good, so I am planniong on seeing it. Good job you deleted the snarky response, because it would have missed the point by about a millenial duration. Outside the galaxy, inside the galaxy, hiding inside Jupiter, surfing on the sun, it doesnt matter, nobody in the film knows where the aliens came from. My point was simply that absent any information, it does not automatically follow that because they have space travel, that they also have; > [@](#): > > ..shielded city-sized ships. … 100 ft tall death-ray armed tripods, power suits, or even swarms of nano-particles You can assume it, sure, but its not a total stretch that aliens with FTL travel still use pointy sticks that fire hot pellets at quite high speeds. Who is to say that _if_ we discover FTL travel in a few decades times, that we wont still be using more conventional weapons. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battle-los-angeles/574453/56 "2011-03-21T23:34:59Z")
> [@Quimby](#): > > I just read Roger Ebert’s review and someone must have pissed in his Cornflakes that morning because the film really doesn’t deserve the bile he heeps on it. No, it deserves about 5 times that much. I just saw it. Stunningly horrendous. A better parody than any parody could possibly be. I half expected Leslie Nielson to pop out at some point. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battle-los-angeles/574453/57 "2011-03-21T23:44:14Z")
> [@Tom\_Scud](#): > > Kill them before they develop enough to come over and kill us. > > (Which doesn’t explain why you don’t just accelerate an asteroid to .9c and fling it at the planet, but oh well). Ah the old “Our Counsel has deamed your species to be too violent and primitive. Therefore we will destroy you!” ---
**Author:** ![bucketybuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@bucketybuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bucketybuck)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battle-los-angeles/574453/58 "2011-03-21T23:51:01Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > No, it deserves about 5 times that much. I just saw it. Stunningly horrendous. A better parody than any parody could possibly be. I half expected Leslie Nielson to pop out at some point. I heard that the book was better. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2011, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battle-los-angeles/574453/59 "2011-03-22T00:00:05Z")
> [@bucketybuck](#): > > Outside the galaxy, inside the galaxy, hiding inside Jupiter, surfing on the sun, it doesnt matter, nobody in the film knows where the aliens came from. My point was simply that absent any information, it does not automatically follow that because they have space travel, that they also have; [..shielded city-sized ships. … 100 ft tall death-ray armed tripods, power suits, or even swarms of nano-particles] > > You can assume it, sure, but its not a total stretch that aliens with FTL travel still use pointy sticks that fire hot pellets at quite high speeds. Who is to say that _if_ we discover FTL travel in a few decades times, that we wont still be using more conventional weapons. No, but one CAN assume if they have managed large-scale long distance space travel (IOW, the ability to deploy combat forces capable of threatening the entire Earth), they have made the necessary prerequisit discoveries in terms of material science, energy storage and transmission, communication, avionics, chemistry, mechanical engineering and so on. The next logical step is that they have applied these technologies to military and other applications. Mabye they don’t have tripod walkers and star destroyers. But one can assume they have weapons and vehicles with far superior performance to our own. Look at the difference between military equipment from today compared to their equivalent from a few decades ago. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2011, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battle-los-angeles/574453/60 "2011-03-22T11:01:15Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > No, it deserves about 5 times that much. I just saw it. Stunningly horrendous. A better parody than any parody could possibly be. I half expected Leslie Nielson to pop out at some point. De gustibus and all that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battle-los-angeles/574453.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battle-los-angeles/574453.md?page=4)