I finally saw Battlefield LA

I'm currently watching the end of it right now as a matter of fact. However, I almost turned it off half-way through, and cant seem to find much interest in the rest of the film. With the uprising octave soundtrack to promote feelings of pride, the ever present personal involvement of fictional military troops personal lives, and what I can only classify, as this is a fictional story, I can't help but feel that this is a military enlistment propaganda machine, just like the others that have exited for thousands of years, and will continue for thousands more.

I don't have feelings of angst towards those who have joined the forces. I myself would choose this as a living if my gut feelings did not direct me towards knowledge stating reasons otherwise.

Am I the only one who felt this throughout the movie? If so, then I pray to whatever god you call your own.

I didn't even make it halfway watching that movie. But I agree, it certainly is a tool for recruitment, lately movies have been taking this theme and running with it. Also we've heard that the Pentagon approved scripts just recently for the Bin Laden movie.

allegedly the White House is sending national security secrets to Hollywood. King is saying that this propaganda needs to be looked into by Congress

The movie that really caught my attention was Transformers 3. Everything about it screamed Ad for the military.

Interesting thoughts on the movie. Although I haven't seen it, I saw Independance day. And that was enough for me...

To be honest, I think this thread belongs in the movie forum.

Originally posted by ClapOnKyle
Am I the only one who felt this throughout the movie?

You're not the only one. That movie seemed like one big advertisement for the Marines. Not that I'm against that. Damn good movie.

Haven't seen Battle LA yet, but I haven't heard any thing good about it either. Another alien movie/military recruitment campaign coming out soon is Battleship.



This one stinks of a recruitment scheme as well.

Originally posted by ClapOnKyle
I'm currently watching the end of it right now as a matter of fact. However, I almost turned it off half-way through, and cant seem to find much interest in the rest of the film. With the uprising octave soundtrack to promote feelings of pride, the ever present personal involvement of fictional military troops personal lives, and what I can only classify, as this is a fictional story, I can't help but feel that this is a military enlistment propaganda machine, just like the others that have exited for thousands of years, and will continue for thousands more.

I don't have feelings of angst towards those who have joined the forces. I myself would choose this as a living if my gut feelings did not direct me towards knowledge stating reasons otherwise.

Am I the only one who felt this throughout the movie? If so, then I pray to whatever god you call your own.

Yes, the movie seemed to use alien threat as an every-enemy they could safely fight without concern for poltiics, while promoting enlistment. It actually felt rather transparent in that regard.

reply to post by ClapOnKyle

I finally saw Battlefield LA

...I'm SO sorry.

I never got that sense while watching it. I thought it was a decent show though, I like action movies.

Bottom line is you are in control of what you do, as far as joining the military, not a movie.

Yeah its a recruitment movie and its not even a very good one. They could have replaced the aliens with Nazi zombies from Jupiter that's come to eat our brains and it would have had just as much meaning. The aliens where pathetic with no background. Its just invade - US soldiers figure there's a boss somewhere - US soldiers singlehandedly save the world - end of story.

Oh, it was definitely there.

What I do was I simply make a conscious decision to ignore all the product placements, jingoism, worn-out cliches, and "subtle messages" when I watch a movie. Thus, a military recruitment video becomes a shaky-cam movie about shooting aliens with a machine gun, and thus becomes fairly enjoyable.

Sometimes you just have to take something as the sum of its parts.

cmon people....sure there are some clues in movies ...but lets face they are movies,and unless im mistaken movies are fictional and a form of "escapism"as in escape from the reality of the world we live in .....

peace

reply to post by hopenotfeariswhatweneed
They are not realy escapism though, more a reinforcment of current world events.
If your interested in reading an intelligent and thought provoking look at a possible encounter
between mankind and an alien civilization, check out arthur c clarkes childhoods end.
I guarantee you will be awed from first page till last, and not one shot is fired in the whole
story, no pumped up american cowboys running about saving us all in between shouting
"Ooh-rah" every few seconds.

Saying BattlefieldLA is trying to recruit you because it has soldiers that win a battle against aliens is like saying ..

Fast and Furious is trying to sell you Japanese muscle cars..

Cowboys and Aliens is trying to sell you horses...

Devil Wears Prada is trying to sell you high end clothes...

It is a movie about US soldiers fighting alien invaders....a tired concept and oh so original...No?

What did you expect? Same plot retold and rehashed since the 1950s....Aliens come to destroy Earth...it looks really bad for the Earth and the US for a while, then some wiz kid...tough guy finds a weakness and defeats the enemy in the end. Since the military has all the really cool armaments...they are usually in the thick of it...

reply to post by ClapOnKyle

I can't help but feel that this is a military enlistment propaganda machine, just like the others that have exited for thousands of years, and will continue for thousands more.

Yeah, it was a great recruitment tool for the USMC, no doubt. And it isn't the first one, either.

Back in the 1970s, the movie The Final Countdown spiked the arrival of new enlistees in the US Navy. Then there was the miniseries, Band of Brothers, that saw the airborne school at Fort Benning, Georgia packed to the gills for almost two years thereafter.

I don't find this level of recruiting to be problematic... and being a former member of the armed services, I actually enjoyed the concept and action sequences. I far prefer this avenue of approach to having recruiters (that anyone who has been in service knows they dislike) prancing around our high schools and universities.

Just one person's opinion

...

You guys see that classic book written by Heinlein and made into a Paul Veerhoven film called Starship Troopers? That's an awesome movie.

See because Heinlein was making a comment about how our whole world could be "united" by a great enemy. In his book, the enemy is far away, pelting Earth with asteroids, so we have to go kill them. One assumes that Ender Wiggin from another similar book "Ender's Game" (by Orson Scott Card) would be comfortable right along side Johnny Rico. Actually Rico's friend the Doogie Howser guy becomes an Ender Wiggin type character at the end we see him telepathically communicating with the bug and he happily shouts "It's in pain!!" and they all cheer. Haha, great flicks and books.

So now this stuff all has to be rehashed for the next group of theatre rats and movie-sharing buckaneers. Yeah, I saw this flick called "Battle of Los Angeles" (no book planned, I assume?) and it is as other say, a recruiting film for the USMC versus some alien foe in the future. I liked the film for its fun parts, I assume they'll reveal more about the aliens in some sequel, all these "franchises" are planned with three-film blueprint so the first film is meant to be an experiment, and I think this one did well enough to justify a sequel. But I kinda liked the film "Section 9" even more than this one. If we are going to compare this kind of "semi-weak aliens come to Earth" genre, then I pick Section 9 because of its sheer lunacy. That actor was great, I love his performance in that film, especially the scenes where they've got the Nazi-type South African scientists hooking him up to the guns and they just jab him with a cattle prod to cause his firing reflex, and when it works they say "Ya das is gud!" ...Haha, epic film.

reply to post by Atzil321

arther c clarke...the name sounds familiar,on your recomendation i will read this story

peace

reply to post by smallpeeps


District 9 surely? Unless the name was changed for US audiences.

I definitely wasted my money watching Battle: Los Angeles in the cinema but not because of the blatant recruiting (I didn't mind it while I was watching, I was too busy waiting for something good to happen and think now that if it's an ad for the US army then damn, American military must be really stupid based on the actions in this movie).

My main problem was they didn't bother with any backstory except for Aaron Eckhart's character so when people died, I honestly didn't give a damn.

I hope they don't make any sequels though because the end seemed to signify that was it, Earth won. There's nothing else they could turn into a movie from that one. That and I'd be pissed if they do manage to poop out a sequel or two for this while a much better movie (Cloverfield) is left with questions unanswered, like what the hell happened next.

I thought Battle: LA was absolutely HORRIBLE

Worst movie I've seen in a long, long time. Luckily I downloaded it, so I didn't waste any money. But damn, I didn't even finish it, it was THAT bad.

Quarantine was pretty damn bad too. I saw that in the theater, so I wasted my money as I walked out about 3/4 of the way through it.

LA was just boring, stupid, there wasn't a single second in the whole movie that grabbed my attention. I can usually find something about any movie that is positive, but no, not with Battle: LA. I didn't pay anything for it and I still want my money back, heh.

As far as it being a recruitment tool for the military... I didn't really catch that. Not saying it's impossible that was their intention, but it just didn't have anything that would seem to make the military seem like a cool place to be.

Man that movie sucked... hard.

Originally posted by curious7
reply to post by smallpeeps

 

District 9 surely? Unless the name was changed for US audiences.

Yeah that's the one. Fun movie, quite wacky.

Cloverfield was garbage, I think only blind theater goers rated it highly because the lack of anything to see didn't bother them.

Originally posted by smallpeeps

Originally posted by curious7
reply to post by smallpeeps

 

District 9 surely? Unless the name was changed for US audiences.

Yeah that's the one. Fun movie, quite wacky.

Cloverfield was garbage, I think only blind theater goers rated it highly because the lack of anything to see didn't bother them.

I dunno, not a regular visitor to such establishments myself but I went to see what the hype was about and what the actual creature looked like. Blown away, ended up going another ttwo more times then buying the special edition version of the DVD. First 20 minutes with the party are boring but then it picks up, personally haven't seen a monster movie as good as Cloverfield and I've seen a lot.

Never understood the fuss about the shaky cam either, I never really noticed it any time I saw the movie and that number is in the 30s now what with tv also airing it several times.

Someone mentioned Quarantine.....

I saw maybe 5 minutes of it on tv and switched off (the dog in the elevator scene). That part alone made me switch off hating it because I'd seen REC months before and then the US remake came on and I thought "that never happened in the original" and never looked back.