Battle: Los Angeles is a 2011 American military science fiction action film directed by Jonathan Liebesman and written by Chris Bertolini.Jonathan Liebesman (Director). (2011). Battle: Los Angeles [Motion picture] Production Notes. United States: Columbia Pictures. The film stars Aaron Eckhart, Michelle Rodriguez, Ramon Rodriguez, Bridget Moynahan, Ne-Yo, and Michael Peña. The film follows a Marine staff sergeant who leads a platoon of U.S. Marines, joined by other stranded military personnel, defending Los Angeles from an alien invasion.
The film was a co-production of Columbia Pictures, Relativity Media, producers Neal H. Moritz and Ori Marmur's Original Film, and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing. The film won the BMI TV Music Award for composer Brian Tyler. The film score was orchestrated by Tyler in conjunction with the Hollywood Studio Symphony. The soundtrack was released by the Varèse Sarabande music label on March 8, 2011.
Principal photography began in September 2009, and the film was released in the United States on March 11, 2011. It grossed $212 million worldwide against a production budget of around $70–77 million, and received mostly negative reviews from critics. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray on June 14, 2011.
Plot On August 12, 2011, hostile alien spacecraft make landings off the coasts of large cities. Los Angeles is evacuated while Marines from Camp Pendleton arrive, including Staff Sergeant Michael Nantz, an Iraq War veteran. Nantz, who was to begin his retirement, is assigned to the 1st Platoon, Echo Company, of the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines.
Under the command of 2nd Lieutenant William Martinez, the platoon arrives at a forward operating base (FOB) established at Santa Monica Airport. The alien ground forces have no apparent air support while using rapid dominance. Hence, the Air Force prepares a carpet bombing of the Santa Monica area, and the platoon is given three hours to retrieve civilians from a police station. As they advance through Los Angeles, they are ambushed and suffer multiple casualties. Nantz takes Marines Imlay and Harris to look for Lenihan, who is missing from the group. After fighting off an alien, they team up with some soldiers from the Army's 40th Infantry Division and an Air Force intelligence technical sergeant, Elena Santos. At the police station, the makeshift platoon finds five civilians: veterinarian Michele, children Kirsten, Amy, Hector, and Hector's father Joe. A helicopter arrives to evacuate wounded Marines but cannot take on the weight of the civilians. During takeoff, it is destroyed by alien air units, killing Grayston, Guerrero, Lenihan, and Simmons.
The Marines commandeer an abandoned transit bus for the evacuation. En route, they deduce that the alien air units are drones that target human radio transmissions; Santos reveals that her mission is to locate and destroy the aliens' command center controlling the drones. When their bus comes under attack by aliens on an elevated freeway, the Marines rappel the group to street level. In the ensuing battle, Marines Stavrou and Mottola and the remainder of the California Army National Guard soldiers are killed, while both Joe and Lieutenant Martinez are wounded. Martinez uses his radio to attract the aliens, then detonates explosives, sacrificing himself for his team. Nantz is now in command of surviving personnel Santos, Imlay, Kerns, Lockett, Harris, Adukwu, and the civilians, continuing their escape from the bombing zone. A scientist speculates on news media that the aliens seek Earth's water resources for fuel while exterminating the human population.
The planned carpet bombing fails to materialize. Reaching the FOB, the Marines find it destroyed, and the military retreats from the city. The Marines plan to escort the civilians to an alternate extraction point. When Joe dies from his wounds, Nantz comforts Hector. Lockett confronts Nantz regarding his brother, a Marine who, with four others, was killed during Nantz's last tour. They come to peace when Nantz explains that he continues to think of them and recites each one's name, rank, and serial number. Nantz motivates the group to move forward to honor their fallen comrades, including Joe, for his bravery. They reach the extraction point and evacuate by helicopter.
In flight, the chopper experiences a brief loss of power. Nantz theorizes that they are flying near the alien command center, transmitting intense radio messages to its drones. He orders his unit to accompany the civilians while he stays to reconnoiter the area, but his Marines join him. Searching through sewers, they confirm the presence of a large alien vessel. Kerns radios to request missiles, which Nantz manually directs using a laser designator while the others defend his position. Kerns is killed when a drone homes in on his radio, but the Marines succeed in guiding a missile to the command module, which is destroyed. The uncontrolled drones fall from the sky, and the alien ground forces retreat.
The remaining marines—Nantz, Imlay, Lockett, Harris, Adukwu, and Santos—are evacuated to a base in the Mojave Desert, greeted as heroes. They are told that their successful plan has been transmitted to the militaries battling alien forces in other cities, that Michele and the three children were rescued, and that they can now rest. Instead, they re-arm and depart to retake Los Angeles.
Cast
Aaron Eckhart as United States Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Michael Nantz Michelle Rodriguez as United States Air Force Technical Sergeant Elena Santos, 1st Force, 61 Air Base Wing Ne-Yo as United States Marine Corps Corporal Kevin J. "Specks" Harris Bridget Moynahan as Michele Michael Peña as Joe Rincon Cory Hardrict as United States Marine Corps Corporal Jason "Cochise" Lockett Jim Parrack as United States Marine Corps Lance Corporal Peter J. "Irish" Kerns Gino Anthony Pesi as United States Marine Corps Corporal Nick C. "Stavs" Stavrou Lucas Till as United States Marine Corps Corporal Scott Grayston Ramon Rodriguez as United States Marine Corps 2nd Lieutenant William Martinez, 1st Platoon Noel Fisher as United States Marine Corps Private First Class Shaun "Casper" Lenihan Adetokumboh M'Cormack as United States Navy Hospital Corpsman Second Class Jibril A. "Doc" Adukwu Will Rothhaar as United States Marine Corps Corporal Lee "Cowboy" Imlay Neil Brown Jr. as United States Marine Corps Corporal Richard "Motown" Guerrero Taylor Handley as United States Marine Corps Lance Corporal Corey Simmons James Hiroyuki Liao as United States Marine Corps Lance Corporal Steven "Motorolla" Mottola Joey King as Kristen Bryce Cass as Hector Rincon Jadin Gould as Amy
Production Development Jonathan Liebesman intended the film to be a realistic depiction of an alien invasion in the style of a war film, taking inspiration from the films Black Hawk Down, Saving Private Ryan, and United 93 for his documentary style of filming. Liebesman also drew inspiration from YouTube videos of Marines fighting in Fallujah for the look of the film. As a result, the film was not shot in 3D as the director felt that combined with the handheld camera style of shooting would make the audience "throw up in two minutes." Instead, standard film was used, intercutting footage from three different cameras. The filmmakers tested shooting the film digitally on a Red camera, but found the camera could not capture the same quality image as standard film. The film was shot for a PG-13 rating, as the director felt making the film overly gory did not suit the more suspenseful tone they were trying to achieve. Screenwriter Chris Bertolini tried to include humour and suspense as well as action, which he felt were important elements to help draw the audience into the drama. In an interview with IGN, Liebesman described the interaction between actors, as well as the natural development of the film during pre-production exclaiming, "What comes out of that is a lot of tiny little details and tiny things that these guys bring out." He also noted, "Whether it's, just off the top of my head, Ne-Yo, who plays Harris, and Gino [Pesi], who plays Stavrou, have a great relationship, a lot of which they made up behind the scenes. Just little things, characters that you thought, 'Ah, s--t this wasn't really in the script.' These guys, like Guerrero (Neil Brown Jr.). He's one of the guys way back there but he's got a personality and he brought it and it was just stuff you don't expect."
Themes and analysis The film's story was partly inspired by the Battle of Los Angeles, a rumored enemy attack and subsequent anti-aircraft artillery barrage that took place in Los Angeles during World War II, on the night of February 24, 1942. The incident occurred a day after the Bombardment of Ellwood when an Imperial Japanese submarine launched shells at US aviation fuel tanks; West-coast tensions were already running high in the months after the December 1941 Pearl Harbor Attack and entry of the US into World War II. Eyewitnesses and radar data reported an unknown aerial craft over the Los Angeles area on February 24, leading to fears of a Japanese attack on the US mainland. But a review of the incident found no proof of Japanese presence in the area and attributed the incident to an overreaction by US military forces. In later years, UFO investigators speculated the aircraft spotted on the night was an extraterrestrial craft.The History of the 4th AA Command, Western Defense Command, Jan 9 1942 to July 1 1945 (extract) , edited by Dale Goudie, Jim Klotz and Chris Lambright. Cufors.org, accessed 04 May 2020
This real incident was used as the main focus of an early teaser trailer to promote the film, in which it is strongly implied the alien invaders spent decades planning their attack and invasion. The filmmakers drew upon this historical event in an attempt to help ground the film in reality. Aaron Eckhart said that the objective of the film was to make as realistic an alien invasion movie as possible; "The goal was: this is a war movie, a documentary-style war movie—with aliens in it." The film, however, was not the first motion picture to touch upon the events surrounding the tale of the Pacific air raids. In 1979, the comedy drama film 1941 directed by Steven Spielberg, alluded to the 1942 shelling as well as other surprise military engagements.Steven Spielberg. (1979). 1941 [Motion picture] The Making of 1941. United States: Universal Pictures. On March 12, 2011, a day after the official release for Battle: Los Angeles, a mockbuster produced by the independent film company The Asylum, entitled Battle of Los Angeles, premiered on the Syfy cable TV channel in the United States.
Filming