so where's the army?
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giamatt02 — 17 years ago(January 10, 2009 09:56 AM)
There's actually a scene in the original, where Donovan is snapping shots of a military base, which has been effectively taken over by the Visitors.
He even comments, "Of course the military are cooperating fully. They're all under house arrest."
The Visitors probably moved in quickly to subdue the miltary. While really nothing was a threat to the mother ships, the militaries of Earth could certainly be a threat to the smaller crafts and Visitor troops. -
deathtoallbutmetal — 16 years ago(April 04, 2009 08:27 PM)
"what a crappy movie this was who likes it??? really? it is no wonder
passport that authenticates"
With sentence structure like that I have no doubt you could write the remake and take this series to a whole new level. -
godspeedyoublackemporer — 16 years ago(May 19, 2009 03:36 PM)
Exactly, that much was made pretty clear, from what I remember. The interesting thing is that the visitors pretty much
had
to use subterfuge - because militarily, they pretty much sucked. Despite the advanced technology they possessed, they were weak. Even their damn laser/blaster/whatever weapons were disastrously bad. (How many characters got directly hit, which pretty much nothing but a painful burn mark to show for it?) Although I doubt it was intended, I would argue that, possibly, they were
actually
a somewhat more socially evolved race than us, and they had progressed beyond human aggression, and beyond using science to come up with new ways of killing. So, when a crisis came to their planet (no food or water), and they were forced to harvest humans for food and steal the Earth's water, they wisely decided to use deception rather than force. I think that, had they simply tried a direct attack, they would've been blown out of the sky. -
gheilers — 16 years ago(June 18, 2009 07:21 AM)
I would argue that, possibly, (the Visitors) were
actually
a somewhat more socially evolved race than us, and they had progressed beyond human aggression, and beyond using science to come up with new ways of killing.
Why does that define "more socially evolved" in your opinion? -
nephihaha — 16 years ago(September 01, 2009 05:38 PM)
There are several possible explanations.
- Before the "Leader" came along, they were a peaceful, fairly civilised race (parallels here with the Germans, who WWI notwithstanding produced many great composers, philosophers etc and were for a long period more progressive than most of Europe) It's hinted at that the planet is dying, so maybe extreme causes created extreme government (as did hyperinflation and social chaos in Weimar Germany)
- They were actually using ANOTHER race's technology, but were not good at developing their own. As they are more or less parasitic upon mankind, and the Planet Earth, it is possible that they managed to infiltrate and take over another civilisation from within but couldn't progress much beyond what that other (dead?) race had invented.
- They have a severe shortage of resources. Their voyage to Earth is driven by desperation, so it's possible that they couldn't afford too many expensive and highly advanced units, or to maintain them, but they only took the technology necessary, and which they could afford.
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MovieHunger — 16 years ago(September 19, 2009 04:02 PM)
Yes, and I always thought that since they needed water, resources and food (us), they didn't want to engage in warfare where we would deploy nuclear power and ruin the earth. They just wanted to take everything back.
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mc7791 — 16 years ago(November 01, 2009 03:58 PM)
was it ever revealed that they the visitors were using the technology from another race? I know that the visitors has been defeated by another alien civilization but other than that I was under the impression that they had developed their tech on their own
itchy, wretched, rust in my aft. -Jetfire -
zeta1983-1 — 16 years ago(November 02, 2009 11:55 PM)
"was it ever revealed that they the visitors were using the technology from another race? I know that the visitors has been defeated by another alien civilization but other than that I was under the impression that they had developed their tech on their own"
When Donovan was talking to one of the aliens they mentioned that the leader took power due to the desperation but had enemies, not all agreed with him, which was compared to earthly dictatorships. They also implied that they had a more powerful enemy and used radio satelites to send an SOS, though the visitors enemy never arrived.
As for the military, most were collaborating with the visitors under the assumption they were peaceful. Even so I don't think any earthly military could defeat the visitors. They probably could've infected humanity with a virus using the cancer cure as the pretext and then once everyone had died, well most, they could easily take over the Earth with minimal damage to the environment. -
mc7791 — 16 years ago(November 03, 2009 06:15 AM)
the only problem with wiping out the human race is that it would mean that the visitors could no longer use us as a food supply. of course during the final battle crazy Diana wanted to wipe us all out anyway
itchy, wretched, rust in my aft. -Jetfire -
ryan-anderson — 10 years ago(October 08, 2015 07:12 PM)
- Before the "Leader" came along, they were a peaceful, fairly civilised race (parallels here with the Germans, who WWI notwithstanding produced many great composers, philosophers etc and were for a long period more progressive than most of Europe) It's hinted at that the planet is dying, so maybe extreme causes created extreme government (as did hyperinflation and social chaos in Weimar Germany)
Yep. And when the (weekly) series started..I remember someone saying the situation had
really
become a crisis on their home world in the year long gap between the end of the Final Battle and the beginning of the series.
I think it was also alluded to (at one point) that their "Leader" came under Diana's (corrupting) influence. They were lovers at some point.
Ignoring: MythicCDXX, Creeping Jesus/Judas, RonPaul_Lies, Digby (and aliases), ibestupid, Holiday_Hobo, sharon_18, TilaMoo, Okie-from-Muskogee/boo321, NorCalNik, Nullifidian
- Before the "Leader" came along, they were a peaceful, fairly civilised race (parallels here with the Germans, who WWI notwithstanding produced many great composers, philosophers etc and were for a long period more progressive than most of Europe) It's hinted at that the planet is dying, so maybe extreme causes created extreme government (as did hyperinflation and social chaos in Weimar Germany)
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stevenackerman69 — 16 years ago(July 21, 2009 09:27 PM)
Well, the Visitors were able to fool us by saying they came in peace. They were able to use the TV networks to make it seem like they were still helping us when they weren't. There was also the conversion process on the leaders that made them kowtow to the Visitors.
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vargamor — 16 years ago(March 28, 2010 12:04 PM)
Diana was only willing to destroy the planet because she was beaten. She's petty and vindicitive. Martin even says he's seen them use this massive weapon before. And I believe it was pretty heavily implied that once the humans were all pretty much harvested and all the water gone they were going to destroy the planet anyway, which makes sense from a military point of view. You've defeated the enemy but just in case you've left a few alive, don't want them coming after youdestroy everything.
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eddieinportland — 11 years ago(May 12, 2014 08:12 PM)
I'm sure that once the Visitors took over the planet. Some of the people that were in the military (in every country) would go AWOL and joined up with resistance cells to fight the Visitors.
There would be officers and enlisted members of all ranks and in every branch of the military that would defect and join the resistance.
In the LA resistance cell they had scientist, a police officer, gang members, a TV reporter and many other people from different walks of life. As Julie said, "We're not the only ones that are hiding and want to fight this thing." -
elgrandTA82 — 11 years ago(May 23, 2014 09:54 PM)
I always thought that Ham Taylor was meant to belong to a rogue group of the military that were fighting the visitors. It was def. implied that Ham and Chris were part of a larger group and the two along with his history with Mike implied something along the lines of Special Forces. I know the weekly series gave both Ham and Chris military backgrounds and having both served in Vietnam. Not to mention their equipment and the armor piercing rounds always hinted to me them being military, likely part of a rogue faction of the military. Also in the beginning of part 1 Sancho mentions Mike having gotten in contact with a group and them getting some volunteers (Ham and Chris). So I think that Ham and Chris represented the military who had gone AWOL and were likely arming and training resistance groups around the country, if not the world.