clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Battle(ofCali)Ship: Lightning Edition

Searching for Lightning Shark on Google really let me down.
surfer.com

We're in a bit of a lull in the movie as it's setting up characters right now and making sure you care about them, but try and remember that there are alien spacecrafts coming towards earth so that's gotta pay off eventually, right? Well, not yet because we're back on land with Chicken Burrito. She's her own person and we'll need to get to know her better so that Tiny Hop will have something to fight for. Elder Hop has, uh, hmm, well then...hopefully that's not a bad omen for him.

And what does Chicken Burrito do? She helps injured vets with physical therapy. What a great and noble thing to do. And somehow she's with a perpetual fuck up like The Littlest Hop. Maybe she sees the good that's within the damaged person he is and is just trying to rehabilitate Mini Hop. Either way she's getting out acted by an actual military vet with no acting experience in this scene, and let me tell you, this guy is bad at acting.

Mr. Army and Chicken Burrito go hiking on the hills near all the communication dishes that sent the signal to space. I'm sure this is just a coincidence. But maybe this is important. There's an awkward conversation about a dead dog and then Ms. Burrito gets a phone call from Short Hop. He's very apologetic. He knows he screwed up and will make it better when he gets back. It feels like they've had this conversation hundreds of times in the 6 years they've been together. Remember that the movie has spanned over 6 years?

In context it's kind of funny.

This is all kind of boring, it's 30 minutes into the movie and you're starting to lose me Michael Bay. Whoa, wait, Peter Berg directed this? Huh. Oh shit, quiet everyone, we're back in space! The aliens are flying past the moon straight for earth. Finally, some good stuff. And we're back with the science nerds. “This is a joke right,” says the guy who thought Goldilocks was a great name for a planet. Then the absolute asshole Nerdboy who's angry no women like him even though he thinks he's a nice guy gets mad at someone for basically telling him ALIENS ARE FLYING TOWARDS THE PLANET because he wasn't told Dr. Goldilocks is on the phone first. What a weaselly piece of shit. There's a brief discussion about how the aliens are coming straight for Asshole Nerdboy and he's like “Get NASA on the phone!” and the doctor is like “Who the fuck do you think I'm talking to already, you would never be my first call if there was an alien invasion.”

How is a program blasting signals into space not already associated with NASA?

Huh, aliens can build spaceships that travel successfully for light years through space but can't handle a satellite dish in orbit? That seems unlikely. Yet here we are, with one of the spaceships taken out by a damned satellite. At least these things should be easy to take out with things that explode like missiles. Nerdboy tells NASA to get the Air Force on the line so we can just blow them up now or something and, BAM!, he was already conferenced in with the Air Force who just tell him to brace for impact because alien ships are coming straight for Hawaii.

Honestly, everyone seems way too relaxed that there's 5 alien ships entering the atmosphere. No one seems that panicked. I'd have shat myself by now and tried to get the President to authorize a nuclear strike on them ASAP. We see 4 of the ships plunge into the water just off one of the Hawaiian islands. Which one you ask? Who knows, but Chicken Burrito and Army Man saw it, so it's conveniently close to where the RIMPAC games are happening.

Oooo, Hong Kong, that's the first time the cameras are here. Wonder why? Oh, they're crashing the giant spaceship into the city. Cool. Lets show some school children walking around, a nice sky line, and a slow motion shot of a woman screaming. Seriously, how is this not a Michael Bay movie? The spacecraft crashes into buildings, buildings fall over, and 1000s of people die instantly. This is Hong Kong's 9/11.

Did Michael Bay sue for copyright infringement?

Smash cut to the Pentagon, in case you slept through the first 33 minutes of the movie, we get the entire plot described to us completely. So if you just want to watch the opening chicken burrito scene and skip ahead to the 33 minute mark, be my guest. But you'll be missing out on Rihanna, so don’t you fucking dare do it. As they're talking, the alien ships come online under the ocean. This can't be good for the Brothers Hop. Admiral Neeson is informed of the issue, that 4 ships that made it to earth without destroying a city are 150 miles away from them. He's sending in the Hoppers to check it out! With what also appears to be a Japanese ship. Hopefully Nagata and Baby Hop can work our their issues in the midst of an alien invasion.

The Sharks are playing the Tampa Bay Lightning. They’re scoring like 6 goals a game while giving up 1. They're really, really good. So this means the Sharks will win by 4 with whoever is in net for the Sharks getting a shut out. I wonder what Sharks player would like Battleship the most? I bet Paul Martin does. I miss Paul, remember when he played and Brent Burns was good? This season has been so disappointing so far. Thank god the Pacific is so shitty this year. Imagine cheering for any other team in this division? That must be hell.