Since “WTF Did I Watch” doesn’t have an official podcast (yet), I figured I could share them on Movies Are Dumb Sometimes! The show was intended for lesser known movies (the opposite of MADS). If you think we should bring it back, let the host, @Jespinosa1975 know!! This first episode is about the movie Battalion (2018).
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Transcript for Battlaion (2018)
Sean BLoafX
Hey everyone. Thank you for tuning into this episode of Movies Are Dumb Sometimes! Pretty soon, we will be talking about some newer movies that are being released. However, I was going through my website bloafx.com and I came across some older posts. We used to do this little podcast called “WTF Did I just watch?” It was hosted by Juan, my co-host over at “Oh, It’s on Pod.” I was listening to and I was like, “this is like the opposite of what Movies Are Dumb Sometimes is supposed to be” where MADS is talking about new movies, whereas WTF Did I Watch was about lesser known movies. So I thought I’d share with you a couple of the episodes how there were only two, what am I saying? Two actual episodes. We did talk about Trailer Park Boys in a few. But this episode of Movies Are Dumped Sometimes I just wanted to throw at you. So you can hear and maybe convince Juan over @jespinosa1975 on Twitter or just find him you can find him on “Oh! It’s On!” You could tweet him at the “Oh! It’s On!” links. ohitsonpod@gmail.com or tweet @OIOPod or on Facebook @OIOPod and tell him to get this show back on the air. So without further ado, here’s Battalion.
Juan
Oh my brains. WTF did I watch? with your host, ma Espinosa. Thank you for that introduction. This is one with WTF did I watch? And it’s Episode Two. And joining me is
Sean BLoafX
Sean, from bloafx.com.
Juan
And the movie we’re going to be discussing today is one called Battalion. Would you like to take over Sean?
Sean BLoafX
I don’t know why it was called battalion, because, where was the battalion?
Juan
That’s a good question. So just a quick little summary about this film. Well, from what I’ve read before you watched it. It’s about some surfer dude, from somewhere in LA, who all sudden it gets invaded by aliens. And people die. So he decides to join the Marines. And
Sean BLoafX
It wasn’t just people it was his whole family.
Juan
Oh, my God.
Sean BLoafX
They weren’t his family. They were his adopted family.
Juan
So would you like to start off with something with like, really grinds your gears about this film?
Sean BLoafX
What is the time that I’m watching? Is it seven months from now? is it now? Like time just kept going back and forth seven months without ever telling us what was going on? It’s one of those things where filmmakers try to be great at something, but I don’t know it didn’t work for me.
Juan
Yeah, they just mess it up. And the first thing that really grinds my gears too is when I see something that says “Seven months earlier.” It’s like really, really
Sean BLoafX
And so far every episode of WTF did I watch has done that.
Juan
All the movies that we watched so far watched, well, this is like our second one, though. But you know, from the first one to this one. But one thing that was really confusing about this film is that it was like jumping between so many timelines.
Sean BLoafX
Yeah.
Juan
That we didn’t know what the hell was going on. I mean, what are some of the examples that you saw there? Sean
Sean BLoafX
I mean, it’s like, it’s the beginning, it was seven months earlier. And then they kept cutting back to, I mean, you go, it said seven months earlier, and then you cut this shot of a soldier coming out of the ocean, and he starts being a badass, and then it goes back to like, normal time and then, but like, I don’t know if I’m just like, racist or something, but I couldn’t tell the difference between all the white people in their marine uniforms and out of their marine uniforms. So that’s probably my fault, but it says they did. I couldn’t tell who was who half of the time.
Juan
Oh, but not only that, it’s like the very beginning. When we started watching the movie, I’m like, is this a video game?
Sean BLoafX
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Juan
I was like, wait a minute, this guy just decided like, oh, let me just go find some little you know, like one of those real time RPG games or whatever you know that you sending your little ships in? You got the other other ships and they are just fighting each other.
Sean BLoafX
Oh, yeah. Yeah, like Command and Conquer something.
Juan
Exactly. I was like, what the WTF in my watching here.
Sean BLoafX
You know, what I was wondering, was why we had so much slow motion football at the beginning. And it wasn’t just slow motion football, it was slow motion rooftop football, but they call it street football. But it was on the rooftop.
Juan
And on top of that, it’s like the trying to build the story between like, I guess he’s the main character and some girl to be his girlfriend.
Sean BLoafX
Oh, Dizzy and Johnny Rico like you were saying,
Juan
But not only that, no, it’s just like this is before, before the aliens, ok, so it’s like, they got this like this whole build up of this romance going to be happening. And then he has like his R tard brother who’s not his brother, but he has like them. Like the biggest was it PTSD cuz he’s just…
Sean BLoafX
Big time!
Juan
He’s just sitting here in a dinner table just all quiet and you know, just weird looking.
Sean BLoafX
Like looking down. But there’s one thing this movie had over the last movie reviewed was that this guy – like people like you look depressed. The last movie the depressed guy everybody was the one guy was like, “That’s normal.” So I can I think the reason why this movie wasn’t so bad is because of the last movie we watched.
Juan
I kind of told you with that, too. But I guess this one also just had a little bit faster pacing in a first one we saw.
Sean BLoafX
Well, I mean, it was all over the place to Australia, Taiwan, L.A.
Juan
Yeah. So that’s the whole point. It’s like, where, what was the purpose of, you know, saying, “Oh, it’s attacking in LA.” But it shows that the first attack happened in the Philippines. Yeah. And then the aliens put up this big wall.
Sean BLoafX
Across the whole Pacific. They built this wall. And they’re like, we have to break through the wall. It’s like everybody forgot the earth was round. Unless they were flat earthers.
Juan
Oh, and another part that really granted my gear. The audio?
Sean BLoafX
Oh, I was gonna bring that up next.
Juan
Oh, Sean, which he carried to take over from that?
Sean BLoafX
No, because I hate it. Audio is more important than the video. If you cannot hear what’s going on. people’s ears are a lot more sensitive than their eyes. And how we had to turn the subtitles on. Because we couldn’t understand what they were saying. And it turns out the subtitles were wrong a quarter of the time.
Juan
Oh my god, but here’s one thing that also made me mad is that the music was so loud.
Sean BLoafX
Oh, and the sound effects.
Juan
Then it drowned out. The actors when they would talk. I was like, Yeah, what are they saying? What just happened?
Sean BLoafX
Yeah, did they? I mean, did they not do ADR? I wonder if they did ADR or not? But yeah, they should have put the money into that other than whatever else they put the money into. Now, hold on. That’s another thing we were talking about. They have all these uniforms. But nobody has any names on their uniforms. And I think for me, it would have solved a lot of confusion if they just put names on their uniforms.
Juan
Exactly. And supposedly, It is one thing to these were Marines. But they keep calling each other’s soldiers. No. And not only that, it’s like, you seem like walking around in their little BDU’s. And that’s like you basically like what you see, like the army, or the Air Force. It’s like those people walking around with a little camouflage.
Sean BLoafX
But it’s the digital print.
Juan
In the Marine Corps. Well, you know, that’s, that’s not allowed. You’re nowhere supposed to be wearing those unless either in combat or on base. And that you’re not supposed to wear those camouflage. Because I mean, they call, you look like a nasty, you know, like a bag of shit.
Sean BLoafX
Yeah. And it’s just not smart to do it anyway, cuz I took all the counterterrorism classes I took. They said don’t ever highlight yourself that you’re in the military, because that could make you a target.
Juan
Well, but you know, I hate to say this, but America now is full of targets walking around. Specially with their little dogs and looking sad. Can’t sleep because of mortar rounds. Oh, okay. topic on that, but
Sean BLoafX
I don’t want to talk anymore. That was the worst.
Juan
That was the worst
Sean BLoafX
That had nothing to do with the movie. Ah, okay, quick tangent. After my first deployment, I’m watching some TV. And there’s this lady on there. And she has PTSD from her time in the overseas. And she’s just looking into the interviewing the mortars. “They just kept falling. I saw, I hear, I can never sleep. The mortars are falling.” And I’m like, “Oh my God.” I mean, I’m trying to be sensitive and stuff. But like, Is that real? Because there’s like a million other things going on. That are a lot worse than not getting hit. me. Okay. I’m sorry.
Juan
But back to the show.
Sean BLoafX
Yeah, yeah. You brought it up.
Juan
So, so throughout the whole movie, it’s like these guys. It’s like, they’re going through, like, their basic training.
Sean BLoafX
Yeah, they show up at basic training.
Juan
It’s like the train like to rip off something out of full metal jacket, but it comes off like, so bad.
Sean BLoafX
It comes off like, quarter filled plastic coat. Okay, that was bad.
Juan
And not only that, it’s like, Okay, once they’re done with their little boot camp, so I guess your boot camp training is like, it’s, you got like six people in the whole company?
Sean BLoafX
And yeah, six people in there. And he went through and he we had to watch him to ask every single one of them. What is your name? No, that’s not your name. And I’m like, Okay, we got it after two times. And he’s an officer. Do officers do that?
Juan
And for some reason, in this in this timeline, Marine Corps here, officers are the drill instructors. I don’t know why. You know, but they are. And he’s walking around, you know, asking everybody what their name is. And it’s like Jesus Christ. How much more do we have to hear that?
Sean BLoafX
Yeah. And but it turns out their names are all machine killer anyway.
Juan
Yeah. So basically, we didn’t need to know anything like that.
Sean BLoafX
That was literally like two minutes of “What is your name? No, it’s not. What is your name? No one’s not. What is your name?”
Juan
He’s like, “Really? It’s It’s, it’s, it’s it’s Johnny.”
Sean BLoafX
Yeah. And we knew they were just got to boot camp because he asked him, let me see your driver’s license. And what did he tell him?
Juan
they confiscated all my clothes and all my personal.
Sean BLoafX
Yeah, he didn’t have it. Then why did you have when is the only time you don’t have anything is when you’re at boot camp?
Juan
Exactly.
Sean BLoafX
So we have this other girl. Her name is Gleason. She’s been part of this so far. But she’s teaching at school. I think it was a high school or college.
Juan
Yeah, it was a college.
Sean BLoafX
Yeah. And, um, she had a big old screen behind her. And you could tell it was totally green screen. And that’s the one thing I have a pet peeve on. If you’re gonna use a green screen, don’t have your people’s actors hair, like, make it tight? Because I don’t know. To me, it just takes away because then through the hair, you can see the green.
Juan
Yeah, probably you know what? Another thing too is that a lot of people stand too close to the green screen, that when the lights hit the green screen, it bounces on to the subject. So that kinda also makes it hard. So you got to keep a distance between the subject and the green screen.
Sean BLoafX
If you put lights on the person from behind them. Will it diffuse the green at all? Or is it just as strong?
Juan
That’s good question. Oh, we need to find out.
Sean BLoafX
This is the we’re, we’re “WTF? Did I just watch?” We’re not “WTF? I know everything about film.” So okay, at one point in this movie, The soldier comes out of an ocean and just starts killing all of these monsters or machines.
Juan
Yeah, like these little robots. I don’t know what the hell they were.
Sean BLoafX
It takes one shot from a rifle. It will disable these things. So I don’t know what they’re like freaking out about about how tough they are. They, like I’m sorry, I, it’s it was an enemy where eventually they got one of the enemy’s laser rifles and they’re like, Oh my God, but it’s like you shoot the thing anyway and and dies with your rifle.
Juan
Exactly. But then and then what I what I understand it’s like they’re focusing on this like super elite dude. He just came out of the ocean, you know, yelling and stuff. And then that’s it. Yeah, focus on like, three other turds that were like yeah,
Sean BLoafX
But the thing was, is that those were the soldiers that were in boot camp, but we’re getting like a flashback. But I don’t it doesn’t feel like a flashback. It feels more like a flash forward. And, it’s I don’t know, it was too confusing. It was just just play the movie out chronologically because it didn’t add to the it wasn’t Memento or anything.
Juan
And then they had some scenes that it’s like, Okay, what was that scene there? For example, we had what’s her name? What was her name again?
Sean BLoafX
Gleason.
Juan
Gleason. You know, she’s sitting there talking to a student or a friend all sudden, just like, Her face is just with this dead serious look. And you can see like, the camera kinda like, got that like, it’s like, slowly like panning out. And she sees like this recruiter, you know, these like two recruiters. And he like, stares at her and he got like this deep stare going on. And he put any points his two fingers at her. And that was it. What was the purpose of that?
Sean BLoafX
Yeah, unless that was like the moment…well, I would say that’s the moment she said, Okay, I’m gonna go join the Marine Corps and follow the footsteps of my brother. But she didn’t do that until later on when she saw the aliens were attacking the world.
Juan
That’s right. And that’s what she just said. It’s a parallel universe.
Sean BLoafX
Yeah. Oh, yeah. She was on that horrible date with that guy who was talking about real stuff. And she’s like, I don’t want to talk about that. That’s dumb. Let’s talk about astrology. like, “Okay, calm down, Lady.” But Juan, let me talk. Let’s talk. I’m gonna let you talk about it because it was your favorite scene of the whole movie. The main character, John Blake’s family gets on the plane. Oh, get on the plane, in the plane takes off.
Juan
So get this. So they’re flying to Canada. All right. They get in a plane. And then it’s a scene of the plane taking off when it’s flying. And all of a sudden, it’s like the camera pans, and his damn plane is flying right towards a fleet of enemy ships.
Sean BLoafX
Not just like a fleet. It was a fleet but there was also like a star destroyer.
Juan
Yeah, there was a couple starts to shoot a little laser. Boom blows up the ship. I mean, blows up the plane.
Sean BLoafX
Yeah, the plane just explodes. Like it was carrying a nuclear bomb. Yeah,
Juan
that’s like that was like the biggest explosion ever.
Sean BLoafX
And these lasers from these alien aircrafts do not have the rules of gravity applied to them. Because this planes debris just went straight. And it never dropped. It never was no arc. No arc at all. Just straight in a starburst explosion.
Juan
Okay, so uh, God. Wow. I mean, there was really no, no really no character development in this was there?
Sean BLoafX
It was okay. It wasn’t that bad. The acting was not the greatest but oh, I want what I wanted to say about Starship Troopers. WTF did I watch – was one of my favorite movies. Still is I still watch it every once in a while. I saw it four times in the theater when I was in the eighth grade. But, like you said, this whole Johnny Rico slash Dizzy Flores parallel is ridiculous. When she died, she kind of died like Dizzy Flores. The only thing I don’t think happened between these two, I don’t even think they ever banged it out. Because there was no, like, one of the last scenes. She’s sleeping beside behind John. Wait, his name’s John. Just like Johnny, Rick. Oh my god. Okay. So he’s, she’s sleeping right behind him. And she puts the blanket on him because he’s having a nightmare. And it’s like, well, she should have cuddled with him? And what about this nuclear bomb? Tell us about this nuclear bomb that they used at the end of the movie.
Juan
So this nuclear bomb, I mean, she’s the only one that knows how to operate it. You know, cuz God has something bad goes wrong with that, you know? They can’t bring down this wall. Okay, so. So she goes in there. And I’m kind of like, in a way, I was still a bit confused because like, she was using her handgun a lot. Also and she had a rifle. And was like, Where did you get that rifle? It’s like, Oh, she had her sleeping bag. It’s like, Okay, well, maybe I didn’t see it. But it’s like, she gets there. And then this whole scene just goes up. Like, he’s like, with a sigh of relief is like, I’m here. Okay, let me let me get my guard down. You know, let me talk to to Reek over here. Hey, Rico. I’m already in here. And he’s like, get out because you’re all coming. You know, this mothership shows up in all these little drones are going into this base where she’s into to explode, you know, to destroy it. But she’s like, they’re like, what? No, care in the world is like, Okay, what are you doing? Why? Why are you standing around?
Sean BLoafX
But my point I was trying to get you to was, this nuclear bomb they have has no remote or timer on it. Oh my god. Yeah, that’s, like, well, what are you gonna do with the device in there? Like, how do you know how to turn it on? Like there was no speak of any type of remote or time or device like that, like whoever they just said, you’re gonna have to take it in there and push the button and you’re dead.
Juan
Oh, and if you ever want to survive one of those, kind of what kind of bomb was it? Was it was it nuclear? Was it or its thermal, something.
Sean BLoafX
I think it was a thermal nuclear.
Juan
Something like that. If you ever want to survive one of those blasts. run on to a paddleboat!
Sean BLoafX
Hide behind it!
Juan
And hide behind it because I’ll do is just whisk you away into the ocean. You’ll land safely.
Sean BLoafX
Yeah, just pick it up, get behind it. And as it’s flying through the sky, lay into it and you’ll be fine. You’ll become a sergeant.
Juan
Yeah, you’ll become a sergeant, you know.
Sean BLoafX
After saving the world. Oh, that was another thing. They were like, thanks to you, we found out if we destroy their shield device, or if we destroyed their thing, their command center, the ship will fall. Like Why didn’t anybody ever destroy the command center in the first place? Shouldn’t have been a priority target? I don’t know.
Juan
That that’s a good question.
Sean BLoafX
My question is…you know what the really good question is? How many attack helicopters does the world have?
Juan
Oh my God So, so towards the end, it’s like, you know, it’s like, “Alright, the human race, you know, they got their spirits up.” I guess it’s the Marines, you know, and so they go on a full scale attack, you know, head on, and you just see hundreds and hundreds of helicopters attacking.
Sean BLoafX
Like, let like fast like jet helicopters, not just helicopters. These things are flying through the sky by the Horde.
Juan
Yeah. And they were like they were keeping up with their F-16’s F-14’s. What the hell?
Sean BLoafX
Oh, this movie was all over the place. But that’s why we were thinking, WTF did Iwatch?
Juan
So Sean, you have anything else you want to talk about?
Sean BLoafX
Npt really, I don’t. This is…there I am stuttering again, because I don’t know what to think of this movie.
Juan
Now, I would say yeah, this was class, what like, would you say would be like a B class or C class dog movie.
Sean BLoafX
If they didn’t try so hard to cover everything. It would be a B, but it’s below a B.
Juan
Damn, this is a C rated movie. So if you want to waste some time, folks, I mean, seriously, waste some time.
Sean BLoafX
A few laughs, not a lot, but a few laughs.
Juan
Yeah. And, you know, like, really get up there and read the subtitles, though. The closed captioning because you know, their audio is like awful god. I would say don’t watch it.
Sean BLoafX
Just don’t. And now I got to go to the bathroom for the fourth time since we started this movie.
Juan
All right, this is Juan and Sean and we’re signing off!
Sean BLoafX
BLoafX.com
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