Worse than Expected

A while ago, I noted that a feature film based on the boardgame "Battleship" was in the works, to be directed by Peter Berg and released in 2011. At the time, I wondered about who the enemy would be, and how the fleets would be constituted. It turns out that things are rather worse than I had imagined:

A couple of weeks ago Latino Review revealed that the bad guys in Battleship won't be another Earthly navy but in fact an alien fleet; that revelation is what spurred Berg and Universal to put this expedition together, as they wanted to get information about the movie - which won't start filming until next spring - out there to combat rumor, speculation and the natural skepticism that comes from hearing a movie is being made from one of the most plotless board games of all time.

Berg opened up the info floodgates, even showing us pre-production concepts of the alien ships. Designed by ILM, who will be doing the FX, the alien ships look like giant water bugs, with giant hydrofoil legs that race across the surface of the sea. They're huge, black and scary looking.

That's.... super. Regarding the constitution of the "Hero Fleet":

- The hero of the film is the Commanding Officer of a destroyer. The destroyer is the main ship in the film, and during the tour of the Sterett Berg told us (and the Sterett's CO confirmed) that battleships are mostly sidelined in today's Navy.

- There is a battleship component, but Berg won't explain how it works. However, he did mention that

- There is a WWII component as well. While the movie is set in the modern day and features the most cutting edge naval tech, a WWII element comes into play. I'm just spitballing here, but I bet that the alien's goal, as well as the enigmatic battleship, are connected to this WWII component.

Apparently one ship in the Hero Fleet will be Japanese; odds on whether this is the first friendly to go down? And here's Berg explaining the alien nonsense:

The idea of finding a credible context for that eluded me. The idea of a film where America goes to war against China, or a movie where America goes to war against England or Australia or Japan, one of the countries that has a credible navy, felt like it would borderline on some kind of jingoistic American military exercise I couldn't get my head around. I like the idea of something bigger, larger than life and the challenge it presented.

And so... your solution was to mashup Waterworld and Independence Day?