Personally, I think the board game Mystery Date would make a fine movie, all chick flick-y and full of shopping and stuff. And whenever she gets back from one of her mega-spending sprees, the doorbell rings and the dud is standing there…
…and then he whips out the chainsaw…
A warship of any type has a wide variety of weapons on board. A single ship could have handguns, rifles, heavy machine guns, cannon, missiles of both surface to air and surface to surface variety, anti-submarine systems and a helicopter or two with its own ordnance. No single target will be engaged with “all of them”, if for no other reason than because it’s impossible. It’s a naval command as envisioned by a 5-year-old.
…which, to be fair, -is- kind of the whole concept of the movie…
When I saw the trailer for Real Steel, I assumed that it was based on Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, but the Wikipedia article on it says that it’s based on a Richard Matheson short story. I’ve heard rumors about a movie based on the Ouiji board, a remake of Clue and Risk: The Movie.
And Ridley Scott is supposed to be directing Monopoly: The Movie.
Leaving for now the fact that the Iowa class battleships’ main guns guns could fire different types of shells, I’ll just list the armaments on the boats post 1981 overhaul:
Nine 16"/50 caliber Mark II guns
Twenty 5"/38 caliber double purpose guns
Four 20mm/76 cal Mk 15 Vulcan Phalanx 6-barrelled Gatling guns
32 Tomahawk cruise missles,
16 harpoon anti-ship missles
And the decoys :
Torpedo SLQ-25 Nixie towed torpedo decoy
Anti-Air Mk 36 SRBOC chaff launcher
ECM/ESM AN/SLQ-32(V) 3 ECM
source
That’s five different weapon systems, not including the purely defensive systems. The Captain is going to have to be a touch more specific. Besides, it’s just a cheesy line. What captain says that? I’m half expecting that his next line is going to be “I want the missiles! I want the big guns! I want the little guns and every gun in between! I want officers standing on the deck, firing with their sidearms! I want the cooks throwing steak knives out the galley windows at those those tentacled bastards! Today is our Independence Day!”
That’s Connect Four. Get your plastic grid games straight, darn it! 
I hope he says it during his tear-jerking, climactic death scene.
It sounds like it was written by these guys.
So you’re saying that even people who are totally on board with Cowboys & Aliens think that a Battleship movie is ridiculous? They should play the trailer in before a more highbrow movie; it’ll give the audience nosebleeds.
Unfortunately, I just checked the movie listings, and the most highbrow movie outside of the art house theatres is the new Harry Potter movie.
Ouiji board movie? Witchboard. And it had at least one Sequel.
Actually, I thought Cowboys & Aliens was a decent flick. Good effects, a few laughs, I enjoyed myself.
The audience was mostly college kids.
in the movie “the beast,” the sergeant ordered all weapons (on the t-72 MBT) fired. that included the 125mm gun, the 12.5mm machine gun, and the flamethrower. they did kill two dessert antelopes. and that was in complete darkness.
You mean the giant squid movie? Are you telling me there’s a scene with a Soviet tank against a giant squid? Fucking awesome!
And, apparently, antelope covered in chocolate sprinkles.
If only we could get cowboys & aliens, krakens & tanks, and monkeys & guns in one place…
you guys were too young to watch stephen baldwin movies?
Now THAT’S an invasion I can support!
Joe
sheesh, ‘dessert’ twice now.
It’s the high cheese factor that gets me more than anything, I can feel my arteries hardening. It’s also nonsense. I don’t know if Liam Neeson’s character is supposed to be on a battleship or cruiser when he trots out that one, but either way it’s dumb and jarring. For example, the tomahawk cruise missiles aren’t designed to hit moving targets. They need GPS co-ordinates and reconnaissance photos to direct them.
I wondered how long it would be before someone invoked Pirates of the Caribbean. I don’t know what the ride was like before the film was released, but I assume the basic elements were in place. Pirates + cursed treasure makes a good basis for a fun action movie. In contrast, the game of battleships brings nothing to the table. There are simply no elements that are suitable for adaption, other than the most basic idea of two fleets in conflict.
“Fire the weapons”
“Which weapons, sir?”
“All of them.”
“But sir, it isn’t our turn yet!”
If you really want to make a fleet vs aliens film, why tie it to a board game involving plastic pegs? I predict there will be a couple nods to the game (the radar being jammed is a clue), and they will be groan worthy.
That’s fair enough, it is possible it might turn out to be a passable bit of entertainment, although I’m not optimistic. However, I don’t think we are shitting on it unduly. It’s simply a dreadful concept, probably spurred by the amount of plastic Hasbro has shifted in the wake of the Transformers franchise.
and zepplins vs pteradactyls.
Battleship is the movie that nobody wanted. Cowboys & Aliens is the movie nobody knew they wanted. There’s a difference.
This. I love big, dumb action movies, so I’m in.