Battle: Los Angeles is a Battle to believe in

I don't even need to see this movie to write a review of it. Here's what happens: UFOs are increasingly sighted. Suddenly the aliens emerge from where they were hiding amongst us this whole time. We fight a desperate battle and in the end win a bold, explosion-filled defiance of logic.
Even if this doesn't happen...even if the aliens win...movies of alien invasions involving huge epic battles and explosions leave me bored and my eyes hurting from too much rolling.


Imagine we were the aliens. What technologies would we need to reach another planet? Some sort of interstellar drive. Huge amounts of resources. Possible artificial gravity technology.
Let's imagine our telescope technology were to advance far enough that we could "discover" habitable alien worlds. We observe that lights exist on these alien worlds, lights that were emitted from those worlds only a few dozen light years ago. We've developed FTL traveling capabilities because we essentially can harness the energy of a star. We've developed the ability to capture and harness antimatter. We have quantum computing. Our biological bodies have been enhanced both genetically as well as through electronic implants.

So one of our scientists points out that the alien ecosystem might cause us a problem if we visit. So we send a probe first, to capture some of their microbes and learn about their biological makeup. From this, we develop antibodies and/or suits to protect us from their environment. Sorry, War of the Worlds.
Next, a general of our Pan-Global Military Alliance suggests the aliens might be hostile. So we package our own microbes into biological weapons that would simply release seemingly harmless e. coli bacteria on a completely defenseless biosphere. The aliens would have no defense, as our super-advanced orbital bombardment technology could spread the bacteria across their globe in seconds. But just in case they were capable of immune resistance to us...and all the germs we carry with us...we repurpose our Dyson-ring technology as a method to block their own star's light, which would render their planet a lifeless ice ball in weeks.

Look, I could really go on. The point is the technological divide an alien species would have over us would be similar to the one we have over chimpanzees, and therefore these pitched battles involving cool explosions and tragic protagonist deaths only cheapen the genre of science fiction.

Have you noticed that not once in the ST:TOS (Star Trek Kirk Era) and ST:TNG (Star Trek Picard Era) does an advanced civilization invade and conquer a pre-Warp civilization? Or at least it is not a recurring theme, if it does exist in various single serving episodes. The reason for this is that true science fiction writers realize that pitched, lopsided battles between two intelligent species cannot logically happen. One species would be so far advanced of the other that orbital bombardment (either of thermonuclear weapons or bio/chem weapons) would be the cheapest and simplest method to rid a planet of its occupants. Such a thing happens quite frequently in the ST universe, for example in the movie Star Trek: First Contact: the Borg travel back in time to Earth and bombard it from the atmosphere in order to prevent the humans from achieving warp capability.
Furthermore, any alien species sufficiently advanced to reach Earth and wreak havoc would have studied the planet well enough to realize if Earth's biosphere could harm them. Sorry, Signs.

So there are really two scenarios for First Contact with aliens. In the first scenario the aliens bombard us from outer space and wipe out our biosphere. This is because they perceive us as a threat to their current or future status in the galaxy, and destroying our civilization would be low risk/low return in comparison to contact and possible trade and economic ties.
The second scenario is just the opposite. The aliens contact us from outer space and set up a trade partnership with us because they have learned that humans are uniquely good in the known galaxy at being consumers.


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