Game-Related Movie: Battleship

Classic Battleship

Yes, I watched Battleship. The movie based on the board game. Except that the combatants are a navy and a bunch of aliens that seemed to have decided that an aquatic base of operations was the optimal way to take over the Earth. Why not? The British did pretty well for themselves that way. Other things that the movie used from the game? How about setting up a virtual grid over the sea with which to direct Aegis missile fire? Or my favourite, the ordnance used by the invading aliens: explosive canisters shaped like the hit/miss pegs in the game.

In all the movie was better than I expected in some ways, though worse in others. Score one for the retired crewmen showing up to power up the retired USS Missouri (the first model ship I ever built) and score the winning blow. Also refreshing to see a veteran amputee as a main character. Actually, those were the highlights of the movie.

The aliens were really confusing, or just seemed confused themselves, which they might have been, having landed on a strange new world. They are trying to 'phone home' using the messaging system that signalled Earth's existence to them in the first place. They seemed to be okay with leaving humans alone, including (apparently) letting one go that had snuck into their camp, letting him just walk away with with a suitcase of super communication stuff. Were they just preserving their live for futures as slaves to the new alien overlords? Instead, the invaders prefer to destroy mechanical things and inert structures. But only some of them? No-one taught them to finish a job or what?

But the biggest laugh for me was the naming of Landsat 7 as the special satellite used to send the signals (or rather, boost them) toward the Earth-like planet. But, I guess only those familiar with Earth observation remote sensing would know that Landsat 7 (a) does not look like that, (b) is concerned only with looking at earth, not beaming signals to Rigel 12, (c) has a 16-day revisit rate, not 24 hours, and of course (d), it's broken, but that's beside the point. That point being, if you're going to have a fictitious satellite, why not give it a fictitious satellite name? How about Quarterback? Because it's passing a message. Or TinCan, 'cause it resembles a tin can phone when beaming the message? Anything!

Oh well, what more can one expect? It was an enjoyable show to watch while doing the laundry.

Further thoughts:

The aircraft carrier survives without a scratch. Don't think I've ever played a game of battleship and have a carrier survive.

During the 'sea grid and missiles' scene, the captain directing the firing should have called out D-3 (Delta 3), H-6 or one of the other coordinates that resulted in the famous "You sunk my Battleship!" from the commercials.

There were no cruisers or submarines. Cruisers may not have been much different from what was in the show, but the aliens did not seem to have an effective defense against underwater attacks. Seemed like a sub or two could have laid waste to the big boss alien structure, though I guess the shield extended under water to an unpassable depth and no sub were trapped inside. But come on! I want to see the USS Dallas pull an emergency surfacing maneuver again! "Come on, Big D! Fly!"

Photo source: www.pexels.com/photo/battleship-game-old-school-vintage-84833/, free use license.