Hasbro recently debuted a new full-length trailer for its upcoming boardgame-based film Battleship.
The interesting part? An abrupt shift to depicting the enigmatic aliens, in contrast to previous full-length trailers which focused primarily on the romantic sub-plot of the film – rather than the invasion itself.
Indeed, previous trailers implied the alien attack was limited to a single spherical engagement with a group of US battleships.
However, the latest trailer shows us that the aliens, in fact, have the capacity to attack outside their own shield, sending huge, destructive blade-ball things into major cities. We also get a good look at the aliens themselves this time, or at least their armor, if they are not robots, as it seems.
The idea of the boardgame, if you somehow haven’t played before, is that each player fires missiles blindly at the opponent’s ocean, only knowing if their missile hits, then basing further moves on the pattern of hits and misses, taking turns until one fleet or the other is completely covered in little red ‘hit’ markers.
Mostly it’s a game of chance, with little actual skill unless you get two players who know the game or each other very well.
In this film, the blind firing is represented by a lack of ability to ‘see’ the alien ships on sonar or radar, and the limited engagement space is created by a force-field the aliens deploy.
The ships, guided by a surly Liam Neeson and a rebellious Taylor Kitsch, will have to find a way to fend off the aliens blindly from inside their limited field of engagement. The sub-plot puts Kitsch’s character in bed with Neeson’s character’s daughter, played by Brooklyn Decker.
Battleship, which also stars Alexander Skarsgard, Rihanna, Josh Pence, Jesse Plemons and Peter MacNicol opens May 18, 2012.
