Battle for Terra (2009)

just watch it!

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

I've never put a review up on a film that I didn't finish watching before now but I really felt I had to warn people about this animated film.I was gripped until the end of the opening titles, it has a reasonably big name cast of voice actors and the atmosphere was good and foreboding.As soon as the opening shot on the surface of the planet comes on it is immediately clear how cheap this production is. All of it, the characters, the scenery, the textures, lighting, animation is all thoroughly second rate. Acceptable for a kids TV show from 10-12 years ago but a feature film? Definitely not. The clearest example was when the Earth guy's ship crashes, it tumbles down a slope. It is just a solid block and looks like a toy, no debris, smoke or bits falling off (or any kind of deformation of the mesh). The close up shot reveals a battered and mangled wreck..... really naff.If you take a look at other CG films of a similar era, say Wall E and Kung Fu Panda, both released a year after granted, you will see how bad this is. Finding Nemo from 2003 is far superior in every aspect and that had been out 4 years previously.But its not all about looks and style right? (Although they're pretty important in an animation) Story, character development, plot, surely they could rescue it? No. I switched off when the Earth guy has his revelation "But she defended me.... from her own kind". The story telling and handling of the main themes is really ham-fisted and laboured. If I was 7 years old I might not care but there are plenty of other children's films that are able to engage my inner kid and be entertaining to adults.Just avoid this as far as possible, and if your child really wants to see it save it for a night when you need to hire a baby sitter and pay them to sit through it with them, trust me it will be money well spent.

Even for a children's story, it's not that great and hardly believable. I have a tough time thinking that humans, even on the brink of extinction, would invade another planet without first trying to talk to the natives: Especially when THEY DID HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY TO. Even in parts of our history, which we aren't too proud of, we made a little more effort than these people to make arrangements. And it's hard to believe that it took one @sshole to pull rank to overthrow the president, the council, and all of the soldiers. Every single person in this movie thought he, on some level, was being unreasonable but, what are you gonna do? He's the general and orders are orders. And the best way to keep the aliens' history from repeating itself was to...keep it a secret? Sorry but keeping your citizens ignorant is not a preventative of violence. So this is basically a list of what would have made the movie good:1. Peace attempted but failed. 2. Maybe a group of high ranking human elitests are the reason things go down hill instead of just one. 3. Aliens not turning to religion when they see something new and unknown. Give them more credit than that. I mean, what is this? "The elders will decide what we should think of this." "But what if their wrong?" "GO TO YOUR ROOM!" 4. The actual solution to this movie was so simple that it was horrible. At the very least, the humans could have taken a moon or tried to. That would have been a lot better. 5. Give the humans a bit more integrity than this movie did...

For anyone who doesn't have kids, but who can get into some of these sci-fi "somewhat just for kids" stories, this is a real gem. It surprised me with how well it handled so many of the issues that would be involved with such a scenario - and I love that they didn't just gloss over the language barrier - they actually addressed it and had what I thought was a nifty solution (easy enough for kids to understand, but realistic enough to keep it in the realm of plausible). The gung-ho character of the commanding officer ordering the attacks was a bit unrealistic, but then there wouldn't have been much of a "crisis point" for the characters to overcome without it - that's the worst "problem" anyone might have with it from a grown-up perspective, and even that can be overlooked given the nature of human history as depicted in the movie.All-in-all, it's one of those "Goldilocks" movies - not too graphic or intense for small children, and not too sickeningly-sweet and unrealistic for adults. I have no kids, and this is one I'd have gladly paid to see even just by myself. For families and solos alike, I heartily recommend it.

I have seen many animated movies, most of which were very entertaining. There were some that were bad, and some that were good, but not great. This movie has to fall into the "bad" category. The plot of this movie was cliché, boring, half-hearted, and slow. It's almost like the writers just made it up on the spot, and decided to go with it without proofreading it. The most annoying thing about the plot was its slow (and I mean SLOW) pace. You would think that a movie involving aliens and spaceships and stuff would be full of action and suspense, but in the case of Battle for Terra, you would be dead wrong. The action scenes were appallingly boring, and the supposed "drama" surrounding the alien and the human pilot's forbidden friendship were bland and dull. The characters were flat, like cardboard, and I felt no connection to them at all. None of them had any redeeming qualities that made any aspect of the movie enjoyable. Every bit of the movie was a big cliché. You take Planet 51, Star Wars, and Avatar, and you have Battle for Terra, minus the awesomeness of Star Wars. There is nothing worthwhile to see in this movie. The animation is terrible, the plot is dumb, the movie moves at an extremely slow pace, the action scenes are lame, the characters are so dull it's unbelievable, and the emotion and heart of the movie was just nonexistent. Don't watch it, there are far better animated movies out there with far more original stories.