By Jason Apuzzo. • Given the sudden shift in theme and meanings in ABC’s V, it’s obvious that we’ve got to keep a careful eye on sci-fi these days – as each new project further proliferates and complicates the political messages being conveyed by the genre. Aside from V – which within one week went from satirizing global warming hysteria, to associating the Israeli Mossad and the Catholic Church with suicide bombing (!) – two other interesting cases in point are the forthcoming Battle: Los Angeles, and Steven Spielberg’s new Falling Skies TV series. Let’s do a little speculative ‘deep reading,’ shall we?
The latest Battle: LA trailer (see above), which just hit the internet this week, revealed something interesting: namely, the aliens’ motivations in the film for attacking Earth. Apparently Battle: LA‘s wave of alien invaders – among many similar alien hordes arriving on our planet during the 2011 and 2012 movie calendars – will be arriving specifically in order to seize our natural resources.
Now, this is a fairly typical theme in the alien invasion genre going all the way back to the 1950s, and it has been re-appearing as recently as in V (and James Cameron reversed the scenario in Avatar, with humans doing the invading) … and yet I can’t help but wonder if in a post-Iraq War world whether the subtext of this film, much as in Spielberg’s War of the Worlds (at least, according to War of the World‘s screenwriter, David Koepp), is to let Americans now feel ‘what it’s like to be invaded/exploited’ ourselves? (Even when we’re not actually exploiting anyone, but liberating people living under tyranny.)
I only ask this because of this somewhat peculiar, on-the-nose line that appears conspicuously early in the trailer:
“When you invade a place for its resources, you wipe out the indigenous population. Right now, we are being colonized.”
Which real-world invasion/’colonialist’ scenario is that referring to? I’d love to know. Somehow I think I already do.
Were it to be a reverse commentary on the Iraq War, Battle: LA would certainly resemble Spielberg’s War of the Worlds – and, on that note, the other big alien invasion trailer to hit recently was for Spielberg’s Falling Skies TV series (see above).
Aside from recycling every cliché of the genre imaginable, the trailer was noteworthy for this similarly on-the-nose line:
“History is full of inferior forces creating so much trouble that the invading army leaves.”
Hmm. I wonder what ‘history’ this line is referring to here. I keep scratching my head, but I can’t come up with anything – maybe some of Libertas’ clever readers could help? In any case, one gets the sense from both the Battle: LA and Falling Skies trailers – and even from last week’s episode of V (alas) – that the thematic ‘purpose’ of some of these alien invasion thrillers may actually be Iraq War-payback.
Should that be the case – and I’m not yet assuming it is – I’m allowed to find such a message troubling; it has an angry, vengeful, self-loathing quality at a time when the mandarins of our culture are currently lecturing everyone about how we’re supposed to be ‘toning down our rhetoric.’ Hollywood, look in the mirror.
• We’re apparently going to be getting a Total Recall remake with Colin Farrell, a remake which will not be taking audiences to Mars this time , however – nor will the film be shot in 3D. This might actually be the only case in recent memory of aliens actually being removed from a project, rather than added to them (i.e., Universal’s Battleship).
• And speaking of Universal’s Battleship, James Cameron is back in the news – after a whole 2 weeks – for publicly blasting, so to speak, Universal’s alien-invasion themed Battleship. Here’s Cameron:
We have a story crisis. Now they want to make the Battleship game into a film. This is pure desperation. Everyone in Hollywood knows how important it is that a film is a brand before it hit theaters. If a brand has been around, Harry Potter for example, or Spider-Man, you are light years ahead. And there lies the problem. Because unfortunately these franchises are become more and more ridiculous. Battleship. This degrades the cinema.
Unfortunately I agree with him here. We just had Missile Command go into development this week, and in a few months we’ll be getting a third Transformers movie, with McG’s Ouija board game movie not far behind. What’s next, a Voltron movie? Oh, wait, somebody’s already doing that … In other Cameron news, incidentally, here is an update on the Cameron-Guillermo del Toro adaptation of Lovecraft’s ‘alien invasion’ novel At the Mountains of Madness.
• Incidentally, Universal’s $200 million alien-invasion ‘epic’/board-game adaption Battleship is currently in the midst of reshoots – based on the fact that multiple endings of the film were apparently shot (which probably doesn’t help the budget) – but nonetheless Battleship star Brooklyn Decker is out praising her ’embattled’ director, Peter Berg.
But her standing up for her director isn’t really what’s got you excited, though, is it? You want to see the recent pictures of her shooting the film on the beach in Hawaii – so here you go. You deserve that, after making it through the Falling Skies trailer.
• It seems impossible, yet even more alien invasion projects were announced this week: Fox just announced that it’s put a movie adaptation of Atari’s classic video game Missile Command into development – a game which has no plot, incidentally; and, just today, something called Alien Sleeper Cell went into development, as well, with District 9 producer Bill Block attached. The title Alien Sleeper Cell alone should tell you everything you need to know about whether the current wave of alien invasion films carry political/ideological connotations.
• The lovely and talented Anne Francis of 1956’s Forbidden Planet has died – just a few months after her Forbidden Planet co-star Leslie Nielsen also passed away. Our condolences to her family. Ms. Francis was a marvelous star, and did a wonderful (if short-lived) series in 1965 called Honey West in which she played a stylish, 60s go-go girl detective. She had a sweet, pixie-like charm about her – and she will certainly be missed.
• Did you know that the alien invasion genre has even hit this year’s Sundance? Of course, Sundance being Sundance … they’ll be premiering Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same (no, that’s not a Roger Corman movie) at this year’s festival, along with Another Earth (check out an interview with director Mike Cahill here) and Troll Hunters – the latter being, I suppose, more of a ‘creature invasion’ film.
• And on the Creature Invasion Front, Piranha 3D just hit Blu-ray (including 3D Blu-ray; see our review here); David Fincher will apparently be shooting the massive squids of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in 3D; Gareth Edwards, director of the indie alien invasion thriller Monsters (see our review here) has improbably been given the Godzilla reboot – which can only mean Legendary Pictures hasn’t actually seen Edwards’ film; and, of course, Troll Hunters will be getting its world premiere at Sundance. I love Troll Hunters’ trailer, by the way – is that because I’ve met so many trolls in LA? The movie does seem authentic in depicting trolls, although in real-life they’re usually much shorter.
• In other Alien Invasion/Sci-Fi News & Notes: we may be getting a Tron sequel after all; there will apparently be a Cowboys & Aliens Super Bowl commercial (you can catch actor Sam Rockwell discussing Cowboys & Aliens here); here are DVD/Blu-ray details for Skyline (see our review here); J.J. Abrams’ Super 8 and also Transformers 3 will be getting the IMAX treatment; we may also be getting a Super 8 trailer in March; there are some new production stills out for Steven Spielberg’s Terra Nova TV series; Charlize Theron may be in contention for the Alien prequels (I doubt she’ll make it; it will probably be Noomi Rapace); there’s a new TV spot out for I am Number Four; the new alien invader-comedy Paul has a new trailer (it’s terrible); the faux-documentary alien invasion thriller Apollo 18 will now be released on April 22nd; Jodie Foster has signed on for Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium; check out this new trailer for the Star Wars Blu-rays; and there’s a great new trailer out for the new Star Wars: The Old Republic video game.
• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … Transformers 3′s Rosie Huntington-Whiteley has an artsy, sexy new photoshoot out, perhaps designed to make people forget that Megan Fox was once the belle of that alien invasion franchise. Click here to see more of the shoot .. which is quite an eye-full.
And that’s what’s happening today on the Alien Invasion Front!
Posted on January 13th, 2011 at 4:26pm.
