Product Description

When the peaceful inhabitants of the beautiful planet Terra come under attack from the last surviving members of humanity adrift in an aging spaceship, the stage is set for an all-out war between the two species for control of the planet. But will an unlikely friendship between a rebellious young Terrian (voiced by Evan Rachel Wood) and an injured human pilot (Luke Wilson) somehow convince their leaders that war is not the answer?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7437 in DVD
• Brand: LIONSGATE ENT.
• Released on: 2009-09-22
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 84 minutes

Features

• BATTLE FOR TERRA: BLU-RAY (BLU-RAY DISC)

Amazon.com
Earthlings are the bad guys in this animated saga, which was released to theaters in 3-D. And the good guys? That would be the Terrans, big-eyed little tadpole creatures whose planet is about to be invaded by human beings in search of a permanent living space--and hey, if the atmosphere of this alien planet isn't exactly fit for humans, the visitors can always blast the place with an oxygen-producing terra-forming machine that will make it habitable. The only collateral damage is that the natives will be killed off. Huh? As you can see, the allegorical undertones here are, well, overtones, all of which might seem less heavy-handed if the story were absorbing and the characters were compelling, but director Aristomenis Tsirbas concentrates on the environmental message and the non-show-offy 3D design. We mostly follow a Terran (voiced by Evan Rachel Wood) who comes upon a lone astronaut (Luke Wilson), much to the confusion of her Terran quasi-boyfriend (Justin Long). In the absence of a lot of plot excitement, kids might take some enjoyment in the nerdy declarations of a cute robot (David Cross). Can the brutal intentions of the invading general (Brian Cox) be stopped in time to save Terra? Will you still be awake to learn the answer? --Robert Horton


Stills from Battle for Terra(Click for larger image)

Customer Reviews

Great animation Blu, and a good film too....
This Blu has been screening nicely in the store as sadly no one got to see this with that joke of a theatrical release slate.

Plenty to dissect here regarding both the subtle and overlaying future of humanity themes, but in the end the positive outcomes shine through as does the awesome animation, both preserved beautifully on the Blu. This recent trend of 5.1 Uncompressed PCM on Blu is a nice change, and it bodes well for an action filled finale like this. The clarity, colors and style of animation look great here, and I bookmarked the last 17 minute battle scene for customers and that alone has sold itself. The supplements are a bit mismanaged and include:
* 4:45 minute making-of. Way too short for what this film took to make, and most of the other extras should have been spliced into this selection.
* 4 deleted scenes totaling 7 minutes. For what this film was they all should have been left in their respective sequences.
* 25 second quip on a storyboard to final rendering analysis on one scene.
* 2:13 minute Animatics picture in picture clip. Shows the animation changes between production levels of the escape sequence.
* 20 slides containing text and and drawing notes of initial production design.
* Pulling the Strings, 1:26 minute low grade animation clip of the director stating his reasons for making this and other films and what he hopes to accomplish.
* Crew commentary, catered to the animation followers.

The menu is eye catching and plays with some decent music. The navigation is too extensive for younger viewers and could have been made much simpler regarding the supplements (combine everything next time). This gets a 5 rating for Lionsgate on a solid picture and sound product. A PG rating with maybe a few scary moments for really young viewers, but presentable to everyone, I think. Have not had any kids run screaming to mom yet while it plays here. Hope you enjoy.

Diamond in the rough
This movie was great. It was the first 3-D movie I ever went and saw. Due to the horrible job done promoting this movie not many people even saw it. Which is fine because my friend and I had the whole theater to ourselves. A private screening at a public movie theater of one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. Most people won't like this movie because it makes us humans out to be the bad guys. The movie was great. Animation for being made with the money it was made for is excellent. The message great. If you are one of the ones who didn't get to see this in theaters, which I'm sure most of you reading this are aside from a few scary moments which may disturb younger viewers this movie truly is a diamond in the rough.

Must-Have for Thinking Sci-Fi and CGI Fans!
Battle for TerraBattle for Terra [Blu-ray]

I have seen proof positive that the kind of movies I want to see and support are actually being made. Buy or rent a copy of Battle for Terra. It's totally worth the good karma points. We need to demonstrate there's a market for these folks.

Battle for Terra has been directed and written by Aristomenis Tsirbas. Evan Spiliotopolous is the screenwriter. Well done. May the Blu-ray and DVD sales make up for what didn't happen in the box office.

In the making of segment, the Tsirbas explained that he intended for this to be an "invasion" movie. Humans are the invaders this time around. Spiliotopolous also points out that an animation like this is adult fare. Countries such as Japan and France can create animation for grownups, but in the US, audiences are still slow to catch on.

As a person of color, I usually identify with aliens in science fiction. I watch movies expecting the aliens to get the short end of the stick just like human, so-called "minority" groups.

I observed the pale-skinned, three-fingered, tadpole people glide through the first few minutes of the movie. I call them tadpole people because they had the same kind of vestigial tail without fins. They literally float-swam through their atmosphere which incidentally was poisonous to humans. The Terrans were cute in the sense that E.T. and the Muppets are cute which helps with viewer empathy. Big eyes never fail. At first, the majority of the Terran population revered the invading humans as gods. Terran Elders seemed to have a different opinion of the happenings but they refused to share what they knew with their own people. The plot thickened.

Mala was the fiesty Terran heroine who rescued a human, Jim Stanton, in order to save her own captured father. By the time, we got this part, I'd been thinking this could be Pocahontas meets John Smith 2009 times worse. With his square chin and close-shaved head, Jim Stanton looked like a Space Marine posterboy with a designer eyebrow cut. (Stanton, incidentally, reminded Her Tangh-i-ness of Richard Corben's Den. Visually. Not actually.) Jim Stanton's character arc required him to move from seeing the Terrans as potential hostiles to sacrificing his life for their welfare. Mala lost her own father but successfully defended her home planet from the crippled generation ship populated by desperate humans. It turned out the Terrans once had a warlike period but banished the evidence to the outer regions of the planet and certain underground facilities.

When I noticed the Black human President voiced by Danny Glover, I think I relaxed a tiny bit. The film's antagonist, a suitably hawkish General Hemmer leads a coup against the President in order to ensure survival of the human race. Hemmer intends to terraform the planet and write off the intelligent Terran population as collateral damage. Humans will once again have a home despite the lethal cost to another species. If Hemmer had said, "Stay the course," to Jim Stanton, we could have substituted Hemmer for any number of recent political figures.

I expected Jim Stanton and Mala to save the day, but I didn't expect the hero to die in order to make things right. This is where I really appreciated the risk taken by the director and writers. Sacrifice usually falls in standard movie fare upon some hapless sidekick (often a person of color) whose death clears the path to resolution between the warring parties. The hero strides into the sunset with the heroine on his arm and credits roll.

But it didn't go down like that in Battle for Terra. Jim Stanton takes out Hemmer and everyone else aboard the terraformer in order to put a stop to the madness. Can we say deep? After his suicide run, the Terrans opt to share their world with humans who are confined to a dome where oxygen-producing foliage can allow them to peacefully co-exist. Mala and Stanton's younger brother share a feel-good moment.

Even as much as I'm down for Spock and Uhura, I cringed at the thought of an interspecies romance but Battle for Terra didn't go there either. Thank the Force. Jim Stanton got a statue dedicated to his memory. Mala glided into the sunset piloting her own ship accompanied by a love interest of her own kind. And the Black President survived.

I can totally understand why parents might be loathe to answer questions from their little ones after watching. Why there's that disturbing near-death scene of all those cute tadpole people. And who really wants to own up to the predatorial nature of the human species?

Thinking parents who want to raise the next generation of staunch Pro-Alienists like Her Tangh-i-ness cogitate, then teleport, but don't walk to get a copy of Battle for Terra.


Peace,

Her Tangh-i-ness