New details have emerged on the Battleship adaptation that place it squarely in the science-fiction camp.
Peter Berg, the director of the film, recently invited a group of journalists on a tour of a US Navy destroyer, where he outlined what he was planning for the much-maligned adaptation of the board game. The story will apparently concern the US Navy taking on a fleet of aliens, named The Regent, who have come to Earth for an as-yet unrevealed purpose.
“The idea of finding a credible context for [a conventional enemy] eluded me,” Berg told HitFix. “A film where America goes to war against China or America goes to war against England or Australia or Japan or any of the few countries that have credible navies. It felt like it would border on some sort of jingoistic American military exercise that I could not get my head around. I liked the idea of something that felt big, larger than life and I liked the challenge it presented.”
As for the aliens themselves, Berg is keen to stress that this won’t be an Independence Day-on-water type of film. Rather, human technology will still be slightly inferior but fully capable of taking on that of The Regent, as he told Latino Review. “There’s a group of life forms from some other planet have come to our planet for something. They’ve got a very specific agenda. That agenda is not global domination. It’s an agenda and that agenda puts them into conflict with members of our military. Their technology is relatable. It’s not incredibly far out and unbeatable. It’s comprehensible. Hopefully it’ll make for good fun and an intense ride.”
Battleships is currently scheduled for a tentative 2011 release date.
