Ever since District 9, extra-terrestrial land ownership has been on my mind. In Battle for Terra, (more or less) some of the same questions pop up: who gets to stay, and who gets to say who stays?
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 races 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?
Living in perfect harmony in gravity-defying cities above the clouds, the inhabitants of the planet Terra are complete strangers to war. So when Terra is invaded by human beings fleeing a civil war and environmental catastrophe, many of the Terrians at first welcome the invaders as gods. Only the feisty young Mala (Evan Rachel Wood) fights back, luring one of the invading spacecrafts to destruction after her father is abducted, then rescuing its pilot—a humannamed Jim (Luke Wilson).
In return for saving his life, Jim promises to help Mala find her father, taking her on a perilous journey to the Ark—the humans’ aging mother ship. Along the way, Mala and Jim learn that their people really aren’t so different from one another. But with the Earthforce army poised to invade Terra and render it uninhabitable for Terrians, Mala and Jim must find a way to help the two races coexist—before it’s too late.
This beautiful animated feature is presented in not one, not two, but THREE dimensions — with the aid of SM City North EDSA’s Digital Theater and a pair of 3D glasses. The Terrians’ flying glide-bikes(?) fly alongside a whale-like creature and there’s depth, snow from the subterranean parts of the planet seemingly fly towards the viewer, and debris from exploding things narrowly dodge the viewer’s face.
Centering on Mala (Evan Rachel Wood), an inhabitant of Terra, (and seemingly the only one not satisfied with the little boxes that the elders try to impose) the story gets told through her rebellious little eyes. (Or whatever Terrians call their optical input) She’s convinced that there’s something that the elders aren’t telling everyone — and the catalyst for finding out the mysterious political/religious secret? A full-on invasion of their lovely little planet — by humans.
As mentioned in the synopsis above, Mala finds an unlikely friendship with Jim Stanton (Luke Wilson), a soldier from the invading force — bargaining her saving him for her getting the chance to save her father.
There’s also probably the best supporting character — Giddy! Voiced by David Cross — his presence adds a lightheartedness to several scenes, and he acts like how a good supporting character should.
The environmentalist/societal undertones run deep in this storyline — as Giddy relates, the humans have used up pretty much all the natural sources that their planets (they’ve colonized Venus and Mars) have — and the last of them are in The Ark, an aging warship that has set out to find other inhabitable planets — and they’ve got Terra on their sights.
But the humans can’t survive Terrian atmosphere — and it becomes an issue of either us or them — the humans have devised something of an atmosphere converter, which should allow them to acclimate to the environment but in the process cut off the Terrians of their life-giving, high-pressure air. (Also, apparently, in the future, military protocol is still driven by the belief that, in order to achieve something, one must conquer it — defeat it, to be triumphant. One would think that they’d be like the peace-loving shoppers of Wall-E. :p )
While this is an animated feature, the treatment with which preservation-of-planet/war is pretty serious. It felt too … heavy, at times, and may throw off some of the younger children in the audience. The 3D experience, however, is something to behold — getting to showcase something-that-we’ve-never-seen-before, like an alien planet and turning that into visuals with depth, embroiled in this … war story, really — it’s something.
Recommendation: get a healthy heaving of popcorn, lean back, and pop those 3D glasses on — unless you’re looking for JUST another light-hearted animated alien invasion movie.
3.5/5
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A very special Thank You to SM Cinema / SM City Digital Theatre for the invites!
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Also, a shout-out to blogger friends — many of whom I haven’t seen since GI Joe — and the special Bloggers dinner @ Marina afterwards. Fun!
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