Navy to take on alien bad guys in “Battleship”
December 4th, 2009 | Blogs Life at Sea Recruiting Ships | Posted by Phil Ewing
The hero of the movie "Battleship" will be the captain of a destroyer -- perhaps the captain of the Sterett -- and will fight aliens, according to the latest reports // Gregg Smith / Navy
In these dark times, what America really needs is an awesome Navy movie with lots of fleet action and battles and explosions and stuff — like “The Hunt For Red October” plus “Top Gun,” and a little “Down Periscope” sprinkled on top, for the kids. Problem is, there’s nothing that promising on the horizon, especially given the new details emerging about director Peter Berg’s big-movie version of “Battleship,” which you learned about awhile ago here on the Deck .
According to an interview, Berg says that in “Battleship” the Navy will fight alien invaders who, at some point, take on the game’s familiar five-ship armada. The movie will include the line “You sunk my battleship,” he confirmed. These science-fiction elements immediately sounded disappointing, although because Berg did his interview aboard the destroyer Sterett, in San Diego, it sounds as though the real-life Navy will be cooperating with the flick:
The hero of the film is the commanding officer of a destroyer. The destroyer is the main ship in the film, and during the tour of the Sterett, Berg told us (and the Sterett’s CO confirmed) that battleships are mostly sidelined in today’s Navy.
“Mostly sidelined!” Although maybe the Navy should bring back the battleships — initiate flame war!
Berg’s actual picture doesn’t sound as good as the one that culture blog Vulture spit-balled a few months ago when the world learned that many flicks based on childhood games were in the works. That got us to thinking: What should “Battleship” have been about? We’ll be blocking out our own treatment — leave yours in the comments.