Battle for Terra (2007)

1 rating: -3.0

A movie directed by Aristomenis Tsirbas

Earthlings are the bad guys in this animated saga, which was released to theaters in 3-D. And the good guys? That would be the Terrans, big-eyed little tadpole creatures whose planet is about to be invaded by human beings in search of a permanent living … see full wiki

Tags: Movies

Cast: James Garner, Ron Perlman, Danny Glover, Mark Hamill, David Cross

Director: Aristomenis Tsirbas

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A runner-up to Avatar

Dec 5, 2010

by newtonooi
posted in Movie Hype

Rating:

-3

I don't know what the relationship was between the makers of this movie and the makers of Avatar, but this movie and Avatar seem highly alike, except this one seems like a cheaper, scaled down, more child-friendly version. In both movies mankind has stumbled upon a planet that is useful for humanity, but is occupied by a native species. In both movies, mankind decides to take the alien planet by force, and do so by killing of the natives. And in both movies, a human soldier befriends a local female, gets converted to the native side, and helps to fight against his own people. So two very similar movies, but with very different results at the box office.

Whereas Avatar is a heavyweight among recent films, Terra disappeared from the big screen soon after it debuted, and received minimal notice from critics. Personally, I agree with its failure. For a movie made in 2007 with state of the art special effects, the film suffers from horrible screen-writing. First of, the aliens speak English. Yes, there is another planet in this Galaxy occupied by aliens that speak perfect American English. Second, they have very American habits, such as public schools, rebellious teenagers, kids who don't like their parents' cooking, rulers who like to hide facts from their people, etc... Third, it is quite easy to tell the male aliens from the female aliens. Seeing that most people would not be able to distinguish a male dolphin from a female dolphin, or a male crocodile from a female crocodile, even though dolphins and crocodiles are familiar animals on Earth, why would this movie's producers go to the trouble to make the aliens so easily recognizable as boys and girls. Now all this would be ok if the movie was comedy, such as in Planet 51. But for a "serious" movie, these clear white-washes suspend belief. If you want to watch a child-friendly movie about humans visiting another world, might I suggest Planet 51 or some of the Star Trek movies instead.

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