BattleForTerra Tagged Articles at Cinematical

A few months ago, I saw two new sci-fi movies at the San Francisco International Film Festival, and now both are in limited release: Duncan Jones's Moon (21 screens) and Aristomenis Tsirbas' Battle for Terra (2 screens). And it got me thinking. These two movies couldn't be more different, and the main distinction between them is this. Moon is sci-fi based on an actual sci-fi idea. That means that science actually figures into the fiction somewhere. And Battle for Terra is the perfect example of a war film decorated with sci-fi trimmings; its big "twist" is that the humans are the bad guys and the aliens are the good guys, but aside from that the story unfolds exactly like a regular war film. The aliens, spaceships and other gizmos don't really figure into the major themes or plot.

It got me thinking about how many science fiction movies are really just war movies in disguise. (The current Terminator Salvation is another one.) It's very easy to transform the combatants of a war to alien races and make the cause of the war something fictitious, like the "spice" in Dune (1984). It's much easier to explain why people are fighting over that powerful stuff than why they're fighting over differences in religions or beliefs. And it's much nicer to justify battling alien invaders than it is to justify humans fighting humans. Frankly, I'm all for this little bit of deception, provided the sci-fi movies have three things. Battle for Terra has none of them.

By Scott Weinberg (Originally published 4/29/08 -- Tribeca Film Festival -- back when the film was just Terra.)

One always wants to give an independently-produced animated feature a little extra kindness, seeing as how amazingly difficult it must be to get a CG feature produced in an industry dominated by Pixar, DreamWorks, and Fox. These movies are monumentally hard to create, even with the best experts and a boat-load of money, so imagine how tough it must be for a Canadian outfit like Snoot Entertainment. Debut effort from the feldgling company, Terra is certainly not a brilliant little experiment, but it sure is colorful enough to warrant a few peeks. Animation buffs will appreciate the film's lush landscapes -- but I'm wondering if the movie has that "kid appeal" that's the absolute lifeblood of CG features.

The plot kicks off in slightly familiar fashion, but then we're thrown a nice little curve-ball: Seems the planet of Terra is populated by these kind-hearted and really adorable tadpole-ish creatures. This species knows nothing of war or violence, so when a massive "something" appears in the sky, most of the Terrians mistake the presence for that of a "new god." (The movie touches on religion only tangentially, but also rather interestingly.) But it's not a god; it's an invading force. Obviously the viewer is expecting the invader to be some sort of horribly nasty creature, and in some ways it is: The invader is us.

It is of course impossible to say whether the much-discussed work print leak damaged Wolverine's box office take, nor whether Fox's cockamamie strategy of tacking on different mid-credits codas to different prints of the film helped matters. All we can conclude is that if piracy hurt, it didn't hurt that much (which really has been the refrain for the movie industry all along), since I don't think too many people will be unhappy with an $87 million first weekend. For those keeping score, that's well ahead of X-Men, marginally ahead of Bryan Singer's X2, and roughly $15 million behind Brett Ratner's X-Men: The Last Stand. Wolverine is not likely to hold up well, but it's hard to imagine a scenario where it doesn't get to $200 million domestic. And after all the angst, that's a victory.

One thing to consider is what this means for the straight action model of the comic book movie. I didn't dislike Wolverine like a lot of people did, but it undoubtedly did away with the nuance, intricacy and character focus that we've gotten used to seeing in major comic book adaptations. I bet it's much easier to make a Wolverine than a Iron Man or an X2 or a Watchmen, and it seems not to be much less financially rewarding.

I very much enjoyed not watching Ghosts of Girlfriends Past this weekend, and it seems so did a bunch of other people. The Matthew McConaughey romantic comedy picked up $15.3 million, which isn't bad, but puts the film way behind the last three identical Matthew McConaughey romantic comedies. And the 3D-animated Battle for Terra, while not a Delgo-level bust, couldn't break the top 10 and ended up with just over $1 million on around 1,200 screens. It's tough out there for animated features not bankrolled and marketed by huge studios.

The weekend's top 10 after the jump.

I don't know about you, but I've barely warmed up this year, yet already I feel inundated with thoughts of summer, thanks to our friends the movie marketers. Bowing to the inevitable -- after all, everyone shops for board shorts and bikinis in the spring, not the summer, right? -- my attention was drawn to "Top 10 Summer Movies Guaranteed to Bomb" in Coed Magazine.

Since that site features some images that are NSFW, I'll list a few here with my comments and encourage you to check out the entire list along with their reasoning -- which, frankly, is faulty on almost every one. Their basic criteria, by the way, is that these movies "just don't jive with the summer spirit. They're too serious, too treacly, or too completely, horribly awful." Here's the bottom five:

• Dance Flick. From the Wayans family; opening against Terminator Salvation and Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian; it's a comedy tailor-made for teens. Not a bomb.
• Away We Go. Sam Mendes directs and John Krasinski stars in an indie comedy. Depends entirely on critics and word of mouth. Could be a bomb.
• Final Destination: Death Trip 3D. Did My Bloody Valentine 3-D teach us nothing? Ka-ching!! Not a bomb.
• Battle for Terra. Animated and in 3-D. Might do OK against Wolverine for parents who think claw guy is too violent for their kids.
• All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (pictured). Low-budget horror usually does fine. Not a barn burner, but not a bomb.

I was expecting to see a few big-budget productions on the list -- at least one or two bomb every year -- and so I ask for your input. Are these summer movies guaranteed to bomb? Or are there other, worthier, more potentially cringe-worthy flicks that will prove to be box office poison?

The 18th annual Florida Film Festival ended a week ago last night, and do you want to know why our coverage of the fest is going up just now? Because I'm selfish and wanted to catch up with as many of the forty or so features as possible, even after the awards had been announced and everyone had gone home (for the record, I managed to miss each and every winning film -- Prince of Broadway, The Garden, Prodigal Sons, Neil Young: Don't Be Denied, and the exceedingly popular Poundcake -- and am kicking myself still).

However, between the appearances by Ken Russell, Glenn Close, and Jon Voight (oh, my!), I did manage to catch my fair share of world, regional, and local premieres at this celebration of Original Cinema, and you can see what we saw after the jump.

A whole bunch of new movie posters have been unveiled as part of this year's ShoWest conference and convention in Las Vegas, which runs through Thursday. ShoWest is like a trade show for film exhibitors who use this as a way to communicate with studios and the MPAA -- sort of like a 'State of the Union' for all parties involved. Apart from theater-related panels (future of 3D, etc) and a massive convention floor, studios arrive to promote some of their upcoming films, as well as screen entire movies. This year the films being screened in their entirety include The Soloist, The Proposal, Whatever Works and Battle for Terra, among others.

As you can see above, ShoWest is also a place to debut brand new movie posters, and Coming Soon has up a gallery of several -- including Sherlock Holmes, New Moon, Star Trek character shots, Sorority Row, 500 Days of Summer, The Hurt Locker, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and a few others. We highlighted the two we thought you'd be most interested in, but also feel free to hop over to CS' gallery for larger looks at all the new posters. We'll report back if anything sensational happens in Vegas a little later in the week.

I Love You Beth Cooper
A high school nerd proclaims his love for the most popular girl in school during his graduation speech and in response she decides to give him the night of his life. In some ways this looks like a by the numbers high school comedy, but there's charm and wit at work here. And there's no denying the appeal of Heroes' Hayden Panetierre as the object of our protagonist's affection. Here's William's take on the trailer, and you can see the movie on July 10.

Lesbian Vampire Killers
This movie wears its Shaun of the Dead influence pretty obviously and it's hard not to love a concept like lesbian vampires. Fun little homage or humorless knock-off? Time will tell, but I'm feeling optimistic about this one. Two Welsh lads (one hefty, one not so much) have their hiking excursion interrupted by a pack of blood sucking lesbians. No U.S. release info for this one just yet.