Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Battle for Tera -- the suckest movie of the year




Transformer: Revenge of Fallen, Star Trek, (maybe) Terminator Salvation ... These sci-fi movies are dominating top on the list of movies of the year. Well, sci-fi movies are now also on the bottom of the list as well. I proudly present to you: Battle for Terra.

I find this first official review of mine to "GreenTeaMovie" quite easy, because this movie is easily concluded in one word: sucks. I'd been trying to stay objective when watching this movie, and had an open mind (which is required when you are watching a sci-fi movie)...but, I still had to leave cinema in great dissapoinment.

Let's talk about good things about the movie before we move on to the bad parts. Well, first of all the idea of the story is good: Human have no place to live, they have to destroy other species on a planet called Tera and built a new colonization. But, one human had conflict in doing so because he owed his life to a Terranian (the species living on Terra). So, in the end, the human sacrificed himself by turning against his own kind and ended the war between Terra and human. It sounds heroic, and indeed heroism is the only good thing that was protrayed well in the movie. You will enjoy the last heroic sacrifice of the character, despite you may hate the other part of the story. Turning against your own kind of people is not an easy thing for anyone to do, I have to admit. But I find one thing funny is: human beings built a big monumen for the man ... to remember his betrayal against his own kind? Well, forget my question and don't think too much, he is a hero, that's it.

If you get really frustrated when watching the movie, take a moment and close our eyes, listen to the music. The background music and theme music from the music is still ok. You know, the kind of heroic music ... It's soundtrack is fine, and I think you'll enjoy the music as well and calm down your negative feeling for the movie.

Okay, now let's talk about my dissatisfaction about the movie. The movie is opened by talking about Terranians. They are a species looked like eartworm, but with hands, and can fly. Good creation...but not so good because everyone looked the same except the different colour clothes they are wearing. I find it hard to distinguish the main Terranian characters among themselves and from others because they just look all the same! (I had to differentiate them by thier voices) Okay, I persuaded myself that probably the Teranian species are like that, probably they are lacking of genetic variation.

Never mind, I moved on... but when it came to the part that involve humans, every men look the same! Hm...almost the same, at least. Come on! Are Homo sapiens lacking of genetic variation as well? Obviously the creativity team and the drawing team in the movie production should learn more about creating different characters before wasting money producing this movie. I would advice them to look among themselves and realise that physical appearance variations exist among human beings, even between siblings!

Secondly, the speech in the movie. The talking is just ... too childish! I think even a normal 7-year-old kid will find the speech too immature. Moreover, try this, Terranians and human beings speak different language...okay, acceptable. But, there's one scene like this:

TERRANIAN: You speak our language! (in amazed look)
HUMAN ROBOT: Yes, I do. Because I'm programmed to speak different language.
TERRANIAN: Teach me! (begging)
HUMAN ROBOT: Okay. (then shooting laser into the teranian's eyes)
TERRANIAN: Wow! I feel so many words in my head...(wondering a moment) what language I'm speaking? I can speak your language! (looked excited)

This is one of the stupidest scene in the movie. The Terranian (and so others of her kind) speak a languange called English even before the introduction of human kind in the movie...and the Terranian was so happy after she learned that she could speak English...what the...?! Are the script-writters only 12-year-old? Why don't they just ignore the probability that Terranian speaks different language? You see, Vulcans and human are just so harmony because they speak the same language. Every species of different planets in Star Wars just speak English...there's some thing should be ignored when producing a sci-fi.

However, you can't ignore something in sci-fi... Thirdly, about the illogical of the movie. You don't need a Spock's Vulcan mind of "logic/illogic" kind of thinking to watch a sci-fi movie. I can accept the alternate universe in Star Trek, but I cannot accept the concept that combustion can occur under circumstances without oxygen! One scene we watched that the heroic human asphyxiated and cannot breath in Terra because of lacking of oxygen, the next scene of war you can see fire and combustion happening here and there in Terra...well, the script writers should refer back thier primary school science books. If they exclude the scene that human asphyxiating in Terra, everything can be fine. But, I think they need to mention that particular scene, so that in the climax of the story, human beings can built a Terratransforming machine to produce oxygen to kill all Terranians on Terra. (Yes, human planned to colonize Tera by producing oxygen. What a brilliant plan, right?)

And there's one more scene when the human robot illustrate how oxygen looks like to a Terranian... a tri-atom particle. Hello...even a Chemistry E student knows oxygen is O2 and it is mde up of two atoms! Some more, a photosynthetic green plants can live on Terra while human beings cannot, because, in the movie, green planst do no photosynthesis (because or else they will produce oxygen that kill Teranians), no respiration...there are just too much scene in the movie where they tend to put science in the movie but they convey it in the wrong way -- a very big, apprently, obvious wrong way.

Enough say for this "Battle of Terra". You need a higher level of clearance of any logical sense in your mind when watching this movie. Pretend yourselve as a child. Pretend that you don't know anything about oxygen. Pretend that all Teranians are speaking English, but they are not speaking English...and you will (probably) enjoy the heroism of the movie and agree the building of the human's monumen. However, keep this in mind: if you bring any kid along to watch this movie, please correct the facts in the movie after cinema because you don't want the kid to fail his or her Science subject.

CAST: I don't know how to rate because it is a cartoon.
STORY: 1.5
CINEMATOGRAPHY: 2.5
EFFECT: 2.5
an overall >>> 1.5

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