Thanks for watching guys! I hope you enjoyed it! Yall have a good weekend and if you are in the south east, watch the water levels!

Battle: Los Angeles was criminally underrated. It looked and felt like a realistic combat movie with aliens and not just another generic invasion movie. Apparently, it had a lot of military consultants and was made with the full cooperation of the United States Marine Corps. Many of the extras were active-duty and reservist Marines and the cast went through a smaller version of boot camp, too. I like how the ending shows humanity had won the battle, but the war still continues as the aliens are still out there and the main characters resupply themselves and head back out into the battlefield.

“Dear Humanity... we regret being alien bastards. We regret coming to Earth, And we most definitely regret that the Corps just blew up our raggedy-ass fleet!”

Alien 1: "So we just need water, right?" Alien 2: "Right." Alien 1: "And the galaxy is full of icy planets and asteroids we could mine for water, right?" Alien 2: "Correct." Alien 1: "And doing so would be a lot easier and less risky than, say, invading a planet with intelligent life on it, right?" Alien 2: "What are you getting at?" Alien 1: "... I want off this ship."

As a 19K, that tank crew on the highway fighting to the bitter end really resonated with me, we don’t say “death before dismount” for nothing

I like how the aliens act like actual smart military combatants they pull back their wounded and check to make sure their target is dead they also work together like actual soldiers

I don’t think that the landsharks would sound distorted above water, mostly because I don’t think they’re fully aquatic. Semi aquatic would make much more sense considering how important combustion is to technological advancements. I would guess they lived in the oceans, but went to land to hunt or raise young as it’s safer. Eventually, they discovered fire and how to make weapons and you have a semi aquatic technological civilization. So they would’ve evolved to live on both land and in the water. This lends further credence to why they chose earth: land surrounded by water. Since combustion is useful for technology, meaning I would guess a lot of their industrial capacity was on land while people largely lived in the water. But, this land is limited, so when factions arose and took over these landsharks industry, they had no options to rebuild elsewhere or reconquer their lands. So, they packed up all they had and went to another water world with land for industry, earth, and tried to do to us what the other faction did to them. Though, this is just my idea, I could be wrong

One of the reasons I love this movie was because how realistic the aliens were acting and not just the old classic extermination bullshit with OP advanced weapons while humanity is running away. In this movie the Aliens were acting like real soldiers under an invasion. They established a beachhead, then from there they moved to other targets. They pulled their wounded out of the battlefield, and they were following orders from some kind of commanding officer on top of a vantage point where it could see everything. They also applied ambush tactics pretty well. They used drones efficiently to block against incoming attacks and took off once their command structure was compromised. The movie was definitely one of a kind, would've loved to see a proper sequel.

Battle LA is my top movies of all time, simply because it feels realistic. The way they act, the way they decided, and the way they united for a common enemy, hell even a civilian was brave enough to take arms to protect the soldiers. It is criminally underrated. Should be given more attention.

I'm pretty sure the director talked about how the reason the aliens are low-tech enough for us to fight them is because they're the equivalent of a third world militia in space terms.

Feel like you missed a beat with the design of the alien tech; it's all centered around fighting a land based opponent. They have enhanced legs, their heavy weapons walk, and their command center is quickly buried. It's hard to believe that they'd just design all that stuff to fight humans (waste of resources/time - can just drop rocks on us from orbit) so it'd seem to hint at their home planet situation. Presumably they're amphibian but mostly live in the water while their enemies were land based. Their almost immediate use of high ground, smoke, and hand signals also hints that their opponents couldn't climb very well but had excellent vision and hearing. Weapons and tech being grafted onto their bodies might also indicate that the enemy heavily scavenged from Landshark stuff - it's much harder to take and repurpose an enemy gun when the firing group is their own nerves and tendons - which might also indicate why their own tech looks so raggedy and unfinished when they're obviously capable of incredible technical achievements. As for their need for water, I don't think it was for fuel as we'd consider it but rather that salt water (which would explain them choosing Earth and not say Europa or asteroid mining) was a vital biological component for them. When the water pumping heart is stabbed you can see the light and movement in the brain dims and slows, probably indicating a reaction was just deprived of energy. Personal conjecture: On their homeworld they encroached on land that was already home to an intelligent, possibly primate-like, species with superior numbers and a propensity for scavenging any tech not nailed down and learned the hard way that transhumanism (transsharkism?) was the only viable route to survival. They obviously already had tactics for an amphibious assault and establishing coastal beach-heads and rudimentary aerial superiority but (given the events of the movie) largely lost out due to overspecialisation to an opponent with a more flexible mindset and skillset which could overcome their rigid doctrine.

Theory: The aliens could be on the run from a higher tech species and are desperate for resources. They probably had to build makeshift ships to run or fight back because their dedicated warships and defenses were likely destroyed. This also explains why their ships look so raggedy and rundown.

Imagine being the alien during that dissection scene. You’re a soldier sent to a foreign planet by your people and you land, take out some of them and get injured only to wake up and realize that your enemy is peeling your face off and tearing open your chest. They look at you like you’re weird or creepy and then they keep prying open your chest until they find your heart and ram a knife into it. That’d suck a lot

I still want a second part of this movie. Was the most realistic one in my opinion, nothing exaggerated, military seems to be displayed better than in any other movie and the aliens werent godlike enemies.

The human soldiers found a wounded alien, dragged it into the building with them, and started cutting it apart to study its anatomy and learn how to kill it more efficiently. Now think back to the marines who got grabbed by alien intelligence caste in the first firefight and dragged off, never to be seen again.

i love how realistic the shootouts were with some aliens dying as they peek up to return fire and the one next to it glancing over for a second before sort of regaining focus and firing back, especially clumping together while moving back it gives the impression that they were in fact scared of death and also recognizing open firefights as dangerous and opting for ambushes instead, only feeling confident when they had armored support like that walker robot thing

What’s scary is how these guys are the *losing* side of the war on their home world. That means whoever they were fighting against pose a bigger threat than the sharks.

My theory was that their flight through space took them very long and they simply didn't anticipate human technology to have evolved at such a high rate. I mean we made some pretty huge leaps during the last 200 years. And if a yourney through space takes you about 300 years, who knows what you'll find on the other side.

Big fan of that Halo Background music ❤️

I’d love to see a version of this where the land sharks instead of attacking the humans, choose to instead ask for an alliance. I imagine we could come to an agreement where they might be allowed to settle with us and share research as well as armed forces. Edit: plus we can direct them to Europa which is full of easily accessible water. I mean they already have us the answers we hoped to get from Europa and a few fish don’t really matter to us

I noticed that that in my first viewing, the aliens pulling their wounded from the battle. I actually really liked that. It may seem simple, but it really gave the aliens a bit of personality to them.

I've always thought that the technology of the aliens in this movie looked "crude." Their equipment had exposed parts, missing armor, patched-on segments, jerry-rigged looking parts, etc. They definitely sold the idea that these guys were already on their last legs before they got here and that their invasion was a hail mary. They found the closest habitable planet with life that they thought they might have a chance to beat, and went for it. The alternative was probably enslavement or extinction. They really should have just negotiated.

Ah, Battle L.A. The best XCOM movie we'll probably ever get.

As an alien invasion fan, Battle: Los Angeles is an underrated film with relatable human characters and interesting aliens that defied the laws of physics and acted completely sentient despite being hostile.

I really liked how the aliens in this film weren't just overpowered monsters and actually used militaristic strategies. I also like how their technology isn't crazy advanced like other alien movies with spacecraft that defy the laws of physics. The alien aircraft in this film actually had visible sources of propulsion such as rocket boosters. Its a really grounded form of alien invasion. I think Battleship did this well, too. Though, the aliens are pretty stupid to invade earth when they could just start a mining operation on Europa or some other planet or moon with ice or water.

The smartest decision in this movie goes unnoticed with the fact that it's a VETERINARIAN who does the autopsy on the alien drone. It's something a lot of Sci-Fi series glance over with regard to understanding the biology of other alien species. Too many series equate human anatomy to every intelligent creature encountered, and assume too much by projecting our understanding of physiology onto them when in all actuality how completely wrong it might be.

I love the scene where they drop a grenade in the man hole, and the alien picks it up and looks at it like. "What's this device?" Boom

Honestly always felt like the “land sharks” are a cast taken for thier organ structure, by another species. It had a Combine vibe, especially with their Ariel support being drones, and the surgical alterations.

I really like how the alien soldiers act like actual soldiers and not like npcs in a video game

my head canon to this movie is that they're the enemy aliens that were hunting the battleship movie aliens LOL, after they intercept the signal sent by the battleship aliens lol, they invaded earth

Roanoke's biological breakdowns are why I'm here, but his side-gig as a classic muscle car enthusiast is a lot of fun and I love seeing him identify cars by their year and model.

Although it felt short at the box office, This movie had an incredibly ambitious concept and scope. We need more original IPs like this

The coolest part of these aliens to me personally was their avid use of pulse rockets. They just seemed so diesel punk and technologically advanced and primitive, if that makes any sense.

I like the idea that other societies developed more into transportation and communication technology to explore the universe while humans leaned into weapons technology instead. It’s fun to imagine our weapons being considered massively overkill and lethal compared to others

Roanoke: “Soldiers” Marines in a 200 mile radius: [Angry Sounds]

I love these videos I've been bingeing on this channel for 3 days now, good to see I'm not the only 1 that watches movies/tv shows and breaks them down into bits either making sense and explaining stuff or accidentally disproving things.

The idea that the Landsharks were pushed off their world by alien Skynet is pretty cool. EDIT: LAV and “lahv” are both generally accepted, though typically if you are saying the name of the vehicle LAV is used, but any LAV is more often referred to as “lahv.” The “painter” is called a laser designator. It also has a long acronymic name, but it’s an LD.

Being in the Marine Corps my self I can honestly say that this movie had the most realistic depiction of how Marines are, from our comraderie, sense of humor, way we respond to contact etc etc Only thing it didn't include was us spray painting the boot half black and half white and have him repeating lines from star trek for our amusement while filming it

I love how the alien's weak spot ended up being the center of the chest where a human's heart would be. That's where armed forces personnel are trained to shoot (center of mass).

Personally, I love Battle LA! I really hope we get a solid sequel one day!

This movie is seriously underrated. I was so glad I went to see this in theaters.

Battle: LA is easily my favorite alien invasion movie. There was a large amount of effort put into making it.

I liked Battle: Los Angeles because it explored one of my favorite Sci Fi aphorisms, from Larry Niven: "But the [aliens] learned the hard way that the reason humanity had [tried to give] up war was that they were so very, very good at it."

Man after finding your channel I'm being reminded of a lot of old ideas of mine for movies, shows, books and games that feature interesting biology going on. With this video at 15:04 the idea of two intelligent species or races inhabiting a planet dragged my memory on something I didn't even take the time to write down. There's probably more probable methods for a situation like that. Stuff like: very recent common ancestor, with the two branches falling into the same niche or similar enough niches in separate regions. One formed and then uplifted the other, like we are doing with our pets or one started and then the other gained intelligence because of the habitat changes brought on by urbanization from the first, (I think the intelligence increase of both corvids and octopi fall into the second). My idea is a game of cat and mouse with predator and prey resulting with both rising to something similar to what we call sapience. In my particular world building the predator is pretty carnivorous because it lacks a portion of ability to synthesize its own vitamins, like the human B12 situation. They would be classified as something between mammal and reptile having both fur snake like scales, are warm blooded or cold blooded depending on the season, (space travel will likely mess up that internal clock,) has a ventilated storage "stomach" or crop, (because living prey keeps longer,) mammary glands and despite forming the embryo in a womb can detach the placenta and form an egg for the young to gestate in for up to half the gestation period. Looking like a predatory version of an iguanodon. (Most of my stuff has this personal trope of let's throw a whole new category between mammal and reptile in. Most of the creatures could be just classified as mammal like we did the platypus, but I would love to hear the justification of reasoning for that.) The prey origin species is a mostly herbivorous omnivore, a small ruminant with the other stomach chambers containing the enzymes for meat, they are a classic mammal and look like what you would get if you took raccoons and had them grab a few notes on athleticism from hares and felines. Both of these species would move to arboreal habitats as one attempted to evade the other in the trees, with the predator developing apposable thumbs in this stage. The defining moment for the two species would be a disease that both would be infected by with the prey species having little difficulty in eliminating it and the predator's immune system being unable to develop a counter to it before it's done too much damage. The chance genetic trait that allowed the predator species to go on to become sapient was the membrane of the crop became thin enough for the prey's antibodies to enter their blood. Before the disease this trait was a hindrance to survival, those with this trait would be able to fight off the disease with the prey creature bleeding in their crop, and among those that survived the most successful we're the ones who had the prey species persist the longest in their crop. That success influenced mating behaviors, and hunting habits. After the disease either mutated to a less harmful form or ran out of non immune populations the prey would develop a strategy that would render them harder than other prey items to hunt. By the time language was starting to form the prey species was almost exclusively hunted by the predator for mating rituals that could be summarized as catch, ingest and release. A common language was developed from both species listening and intuiting the meaning of behind the others noises. With language came bargaining, with bargaining came cooperation and names... I've finally decided on: the semi reptiles would be called "People-Stealers" and the ruminants "Trophies" in the common language. Almost parallel to the development of a common language between the two intelligent species languages specific to their separate vocal architectures are established. In the hunter gatherer stage, a portion of the Trophy population, near the seed of civilization for this world, would help the Stealers hunt in exchange for protection when they gather. These two cooperating populations had higher empathy for the other species, and would continue to develop more sympathy. The agricultural revolution that led to civilization began when a large herbivore was penned for later consumption. The introduction of stockpiling livestock lead to permanent food stockpiles for the Trophies and the growing of large grain grass. Trade began in earnest when the settling Trophies traded tokens to be guarded during sewing and harvest, which could be exchanged for favors and feed for livestock. Bread and cooking meat was discovered relatively close to each other, with sandwiches quickly developing as a staple food filling the overlapping diets. While this civilization was starting the majority of Stealers lived as hunter tribes in conflict with Trophy gatherer tribes. In this conflict weapons and hide and pelt armor would be developed. One of the Stealer tribes near the budding civilization launched a raid on it overwhelming their kin that was guarding the farms, as they were only equipped to scare off predators, proceeding to round up the Trophies working in the field to enslave and steal the livestock from their holding pens. This ended up leading a civilization of Stealer dominancy in conflict with a civilization of cohabitation. I've got a treat for those of you who've made it this far, cohabitation ends up being the winning strategy, and in their version of the modern era some nerd finds the original common language and literal meaning for the Trophies and tries to get some cross species action with a terrible pick up line.

Recently found this channel. I love the detail and research put into these videos! Love the summaries too!

Biologically speaking we have our brains near our sensory organs for a reason basically it's too reduce latency as is common in most animals with some exceptions

Alien commander: "Men, as you know the most important element of warfare is surprise... SURPISE" (drops soldiers and mechs on asteroids)

The way you explain your videos and add scientific theories etc is amazing, loving this channel!

Battle LA is that movie we always saw for free in streaming services and never watched.

"Insects may have evolved to the level of intellect that humans have obtained" They already have, sort of. Ants are then most efficient pathfinders and logisticians on Earth that we know of. They also have 'mentors' that teach new workers how to do their jobs even going as far as getting them a new job as they age and lose their aptitude for their current one. Ants are effing amazing.

One of my favorite movies ever right here felt and seemed very real. Packed with action and had a good concept. Great movie.

It's interesting seeing throughout the movie you can see them communicate with eachother via hand gestures and the like, it definitely makes them stand out and feel more interesting to watch ontop of seeing them react to say getting injured like the other operator ducking clutching his wound after he's hit helping the other one with the walking gun I guess a way to sum it up is they feel more human? That they aren't mindless soldiers among all 4 castes

This movie was just ahead of it's time.. I thought they were supposed to be a series of films focusing on different fronts of the global invasion. The title, Battle: Los Angeles was supposed to be the first in a franchise like the mcu. Battle: New York, Battle: London, Battle: Tokyo... Could've been fun

The concept of alien invasions has always fascinated me. Despite the absolutely terrifying possibilities, I think it would be a very interesting event for humans in a social aspect. I mean as much as we dedicate our time and efforts in discovering new and interesting ways to destroy each other, the fact is we all know how we'd react to a existential threats towards us. We are still animals, and we would fight tooth and nail for the preservation of our species.

Just here to say, Battle LA, the game, made my week back in highschool. Very nostalgic.

"Calling a c-130 a B-52" You understand that's like calling a humvee a prius.

Huh, so water is like their blood? How weird would that be to look through a telescope one day and see a planet that is almost entirely made of blood. I don't think I'd want to go there if I could help it

This has to be my favorite alien movies of all time. I'm so mad at myself for not watching your video on it till now.

great video! I was surprised by the amount of detail there was regarding the aliens

I think battle la is the most accurate depiction of how an alien invasion would go because it’s super vague and that’s how it would be irl I think

I'll join the cacophony and say that I loved this movie and hate that it was so panned. The fact they had so much lore to go with it and nothing else came of it just makes me angrier. What they presented in the movie was enough to keep me wanting more (along with the mostly accurate depiction of military procedure). Thanks for this one, Roanoke!

Roanoke Gaming: "The aliens are after Earth's most precious resource." Duke Nukem: "Nobody steal our chicks and lives!..."

I love when sgt comes back and started to load mags. It makes me want to cry . It is two things.. he is controlling what he can control to settle mentally space and it is heroic

dude the lore in this movie is sick, kinda gives me the impression that the movie was supposed to be from the aliens' perspective at one point or something

The alternative is slower. Learn the language, negotiate minor technology in return for land use to set up a colony. Then exploit existing tensions between native groups to gradually push out and claim more territory on behalf of your native allies but ultimately for your exclusive use. Doesn't hurt to use a little deniable biological warfare to weaken the natives and claim even more territory in the name of an humanitarian effort. Very effective, but slow, so I have to assume the Landsharks were under a time constraint.

It was such a great watch. Very underrated. People often want another ID4 but this wasn't supposed to be that. It was a more gritty take on the alien invasion. It was more bare bones and not full of CGI at every turn. Very dramatic and tried to give you the feel and sense of what it would have been like in those moments. I felt the despair at times. I remember thinking what would I do in that situation. Thanks for the break down. It was fun to watch and hear your thoughts. And fun to learn some backstory of the aliens 🙂

Such a great explanation! This is one of my favorite movies and i've obviously noticed they seem to be a rather clunky species but didn't give it much thought. Your video provides plentiful details into their anatomy as to their likely origins and also their likely condition as to their desperation. It makes me appreciate the movie so much more and also strangely have some empathy for them as I could see humanity doing the same thing if we were in their position.

I see a lot of negative reviews about this movie, yet I enjoy the heck out of it! Watched multiple times, and now I'm itching to watch it again. 🤣

its actually really hard to detect meteors, especially if theyre infront of the sun since the light completely blocks out out visibility

Thanks for the extra information about the Aliens. This was quite interesting. I thought that your summary of the movie was a bit rough and ready, focusing on quite a few unimportant items that detracted from your review. I have watched the movie several times and enjoy it for its simplicity of story telling. The movie is quite fast paced and believable for how a modern day squad would cope with having to deal with an "unknown enemy". That is the main storyline.

Highly underrated and prime for a sequel

The thing I liked about this movie was the aliens tech wasn’t space magic they fired conventional rockets mixed with some kind of concussion sonic blast, their exosuits weren’t power ranger/iron man suits, but more like the Call of duty advance warfare exo rigs which are based off of current prototype exo suits. Basically they possessed tech in the realm of existing irl without breaking the laws of physics. They’re kinda like a smaller slimed down version of the cabal from destiny.

This is a pretty underrated movie, it was really fun to watch and the concept of aliens stealing water is pretty damn plausible Edit: Roanoke senpai noticed me

Great video!!!

I liked this movie. I even have the DVD. I never understood why it was so underrated. I liked the mystery of the aliens, but knowing the lore now makes me enjoy it more.

Just a thought, if the species is aquatic, wouldn't the exoskeleton be indicative of a crustacean or mollusks instead of insectoid?

The scene where they rip out the alien's guts and finally kill it by popping some shit is so hilarious. Like, you sure he didn't just die of blood loss or something?

Love your Channel absolutely love the kind of content you put out these things look like some kind of jellyfish stretched over robotic body parts

A great video, and an interesting take on these aliens from Battle LA.

As a Canadian, I can confirm that we're ready to do this to y'all at any given moment

“Banding together increases survival of the species” So…Why didn’t they come to the humans peacefully and say “Hey. We’ve been kicked off our planet because we’re kinda the underdogs and we need water to survive. If you give us some of your water, we’ll give you our tech”

I'm happy looking in the comments and seeing others like this movie because it's awesome yet so underrated. Hope for a sequel.

I loved how the movie follows the platoon level military unit. Very gritty approach!

I remember being surprised that this movie wasn’t even bad. It had a real Neil Blomcamp feel to it like district nine but if the aliens were bad

I love how all these movies take an alien invasion and make it look like militaries would be completely overwhelmed. But I mean physics is still physics. I don't care what armor you're wearing, you get slapped with a crew served .50 and it's at the very least knocking your butt down and doing some bad damage to internal organs. People also conveniently forget about the balloon effect and other various bodily damages as a result of being close to explosions.

Damn nice breakdown!👍👍👍👍👍

Good job, thank you for making this video 👍

I saw a documentary that explained that having light sensitive cells, and eventually eyes, you need more nerves and neurons to properly process. If you want to use your sight effectively, you need that info quick. So the neuron cluster would form behind the eyes and eventually lead to the formation of a proper brain. Having our brains center mass would make eyesight and the ability to rely on it far worse. EDIT: I think like you yourself have pointed out, evolution doesn't plan ahead.

I really liked this movie, though “critics” and “journalists” didn’t like it. There is a rumored POSSIBLE sequel but most of that news is from 2012 and 2013. I still hope for one though.

They really left us hanging with the lack of a sequel. This is one of my favorite Alien invasion movies, and its damn good. Wish they would of made 10 and ruined it like they do with everything else lol

Great video thanks

No meltdown in the comments for him calling "Marines" "Soldiers" ? What a calm and collected community. I'm proud of yall! 😊

I’m glad you brought up humans caring for one another. It’s actually incredibly that we’re the only species that constantly put insane amounts of effort into caring for other species, and feeling responsible for them. We occasionally see this in nature, but it’s more common to see animals like zebras murdering their own if a female bred with another partner, and the countless types of animal wars. But that such a high % feels a deep connection and desire to try to take care of, support other species is insane ( just number wise)

I heard that Halo Music in the background during the explanation portion of the video, you can’t fool me, Roanoke. Lol

I like how you detail everything in the scene specially the Mustang car noice.

Story summarized: aliens were being abused at home so they started bullying the quiet kid in school.

I just found your channel and want to say thank you. This is an EXTREMELY underrated and "forgotten" movie. VERY gritty and very "war movie" like. I have always wanted science fiction to be rooted in REALITY--yes, these are aliens but we don't fight back with "super secret weapons" or whatever. This is the military. And this is WHAT WILL happen if this ever did come to be. Anyway....really like your channel and I appreciate it. Oh...and THE LORE. HAD NO IDEA!! Thanks!

My favorite scene from this movie was when the alien drags the wounded one out of combat. Made it such a better alien invasion movie.

A lot of this movie was filmed in my hometown of Shreveport, LA. I was driving to school when they blew up a highway. You can also see shots of downtown and the Red River.

Pretty cool video! The Halo music was a nice touch :)