Battleship ... The Movie?!

The stop-motion TV series "Robot Chicken" once made a joke that Hollywood had become so drained of original ideas that they"d adapt ANYTHING into a movie -- Novels, old TV series, comic books, video games, even amusement park rides. So they joked the only thing left was to adapt board games, like "Hungry, Hungry Hippos: The Movie".

Four of five years later, rumors are spreading that director Peter Berg is going to make a movie adaptation of "Battleship" for 2011. A movie adaption ... of Battleship ... the Hasbro board game.

wetbandit, I hope you're hard at work writing those screenplays of yours, because the world of entertainment is taking a nose dive and is going to crash and burn any day now without GOOD, ORIGINAL material. 

RESPONSE from Head RAZZberry: Sadly, the notion of basing movies on toys and boardgames has become a full-fledged trend in Hollywood. Here's a LINK to read an L.A. Times article discussing the overall subject, and listing several specific "toy-inspired" movies that are now in the works...

 

Originally posted by saturnwatcher That sounds like a rivoting 90 minutes of film. Two geeks sitting face to fact at a table, seperated by their blue and red game boards: Geek One: A-12 Geek Two: Miss...G-7 Geek One: Hit! Your mama swims after troop ships! I can't wait.

Yes, that was what first came to my mind, however, as it turns out, the movie will actually be about two real fleets of five navy ships doing battle with each other. At least this is one movie with an already created and well know tag line of "you sunk my battleship!".

Agreed with the "F#$% Hollywood" comment!

I don't know how much longer I can keep doing this. I mean, I can't give any of these guys any money in good conscience. It's absolutely ridiculous how horrible movies are these days. I'm going to put my neck out there and say that this is the lowest point in H-Wood's history... This era of films, anyway. From like... what... probably 2k1 on or so.

Hey guys....let's not collapse into dispair here....after all, Barrel of Monkeys: The Motion Picture is probably already in the planning stages. If that can't revive Hollywood, nothing can.

They were just making fun of the Battleship movie on... ummm... I don't remember... Colbert or something. Yea, it was Colbert, because he brought in Jeff Goldblum. It was a really good bit, actually.

The fact that it bases itself on a popular board game that leaves itself entirely without any sort of avenue for a plot, besides perhaps a naval battle where people make it a habit of shooting where they THINK the enemy without being able to see them. But otherwise, it's another example of Hollywood playing at something else's popularity to make money. If it ends up having artistic merit, it'll be completely cheapened by the mere method from which the movie is derived. I don't even care if it's good. I can't in good conscience support a movie like this. In fact, I think most people will probably see it for the same reason they saw Snakes on a Plane.

The point of fleets without radar isn't as difficult to get around as it might initially seem. The plot could simply be set in WWI, or in the near future suggesting that some sort of stealth technology for ships has been developed.

The U.S. Navy probably experimented with something along that line late in WWII, which is what the Philadelphia Experiment was really all about. All sorts conspiracy nuts have assigned various other weird notions to that particular project, but it really was an attempt to find a way to defeat radar and magnetic detection by mines and torpedos. It evidently failed miserably. Most the the details remain classified (probably because there is nothing worth telling that came out if it). What can be stated with absolute certainty, despite claims to the contrary, is that the ship did NOT accidentally get teleported anywhere, nobody traveled through time and THERE ARE NO FRIGGING DEAD OR ALIVE ALIENS AT GROOM LAKE OR WRIGHT PATTERSON SO STOP ASKING!!!!!

Incidentally, the Navy still officially denies that their ever was a "Philadelphia Experiment" or Project Rainbow as it is sometimes alternatively called.  The effort, as I've outlined above, most likely did take place, although it probably didn't involve the U.S.S. Eldridge or any other ship. The whole thing was probably a Larry Lightbulb experiment in some little navy lab. What actually took place will likely never see the light of day probably to protect the reputations of a few credulous individuals that thought they could actually make it work, but allow me to state with 100% certainty that all the wild stories are just that.