!!The board game:
* GoddamnedBats: The two-peg patrol boat/destroyer, or the one-peg submarine(s) in versions where they exist, are this. Their small profiles allow a lucky player to turn around the entire game even if they're at a disadvantage. Conversely, managing to sink the things early on makes winning a whole lot easier.
* MemeticMutation: "You sank my battleship!" tends to get used as a StockShoutOut in all sorts of places.
* ValuesDissonance: The original box art depicted a father and son playing the game while [[StayInTheKitchen the mother and daughter watched from the kitchen]]. The questionable part was edited out of the retro edition.

!!The film:
* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
** The aliens as a peaceful expedition. They repeatedly avoid harming non-threatening humans and only fire when fired upon, which raises the possibility that they were not invaders or scouting for an attack but peaceful, and twitchy humans botched first contact.
** Alex as an arrogant screw-up who got lucky throughout the film. That this fits well with his early film portrayal makes it even easier.
* AudienceAlienatingPremise: The film basically never had a chance in any territory where ''Battleship'' is well-known. Very few people would be interested in a film based on a simplistic children's board game with no plot--it wasn't so much TaintedByThePreview as it was Tainted by the Initial Announcement. The fact that the film's plot is essentially about slavishly recreating the setup of the board game (down to the enemy using peg-shaped missiles) while also being about an ''alien invasion'' ended up being a further nail, as it made the whole thing impossible to take seriously.
* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: [[Music/{{ACDC}} Thun-der!]]
* EnsembleDarkhorse: The warwheels are the only interesting "characters" in the movie.
* FanNickname: Due to their prominence in this movie, many members of the Navy have given the movie the nickname "[[Film/CowboysAndAliens Shipmates and Aliens]]".
* FridgeBrilliance:
** Why were there Australian F-18s first on the scene? It's because they don't have carriers and those F-18s couldn't land but can be refueled in the air from American midair refuelers. They were already in the air when the shields went down.
** While the club-hauling maneuver ''shouldn't'' work, the ''Iowa'' class has a different rapid braking maneuver called a "barn door stop" that works very well: The engines are put into full reverse and simultaneously the large twin rudders are both cranked to centerline, virtually eliminating water flow under the ship. Doing so stops a 45,000 ton battleship within its own 700-foot length. Of course, such a rapid stop means every single unsecured object on the ship winds up on the nearest forward bulkhead. Combining club-hauling with a barn door stop at least is in the logical neighborhood of possibly working.
* FridgeHorror:
** So yeah, the day is saved, but think about it. This is an organized military invading Earth that lost its means of communication. Sooner or later search and rescue parties will be sent, and as soon as they get word out about us...
** The aliens' dome appears to completely cut off the Hawaiian islands from the world for many hours. There are ''151'' commercial flights to Hawaii per day, ''none'' of which are capable of landing on an aircraft carrier, and ''many'' of which would've been far past the point of return when the only land in 2900 miles was abruptly blocked off. How many innocent vacationers wound up drowning when those planes ran out of fuel?
* FridgeLogic: Just how did they get the ''Missouri'' fueled, loaded, and generally back into fighting condition in only a few hours?
* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: ''Battleship'' notably made over $200 million overseas before opening in the U.S. While the film was largely ignored in America, European markets such as the UK helped it make four times more overseas than it did in the US. This might be because the abovementioned AudienceAlienatingPremise simply didn't apply as much; outside of Canada and the US, the original "Battleship" board game is either unknown or is known by a different name, so overseas audiences were more easily able to view the movie at face value; In Japan, it has its own sizable following, especially centered around ''Missouri'''s club-hauling moment of awesome.
* MisBlamed: Critics of this movie often go on about it being another mindless Creator/MichaelBay flick. It was directed and produced by Peter Berg.
* {{Narm}}:
** Is this the first time that a movie's very existence, even on the most basic conceptual level, has been so narmy?
** The scene with the veterans stepping up to help prepare and launch the ''Missouri'' again, especially when aged veterans in an ancient ship dramatically outperform modern vessels against the aliens. Goes straight into NarmCharm for some.
** "''Mahalo'', motha-[[CurseCutShort *CENSORED DUE TO PG-13 RATING*]]."
%%* NarmCharm: Don't take it too seriously and you might just have some fun.
%% Explain how the work qualifies.
* NightmareFuel: The shots of the interior of the ''Samson'' taking on water after being hit by the aliens' weaponry, which includes sailors yelling for help as the compartments they're in start to fill up.
* TheProblemWithLicensedGames: The video game tie-in on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 is a short, cookie cutter FirstPersonShooter with nothing special in it apart from the ability to command ships that is clearly tacked-in due to its inconvenience.
* QuestionableCasting: Even though [[SugarWiki/HeReallyCanAct her acting was fairly decent]], why the hell was Music/{{Rihanna}} in this film? (Answer: The director saw an interview and her hosting of ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' and was sufficiently impressed.)
* RetroactiveRecognition:
** That techie at the SETI radar installation would later find a new job in [[Series/TheCrazyOnes advertising]].
** A pre-''Series/MrRobot'' Creator/RamiMalek appears briefly as Admiral Shane's watch officer.
* SignatureScene: "Mahalo, motherf-"
** Bringing the titular Battleship to battle-readiness while AC/DC's Thunderstruck is blasting in the background.
* SoOkayItsAverage: Seems to be the consensus amongst those who didn't find it as bad as it could be.
* SpiritualAdaptation:
** A RockBeatsLaser maritime battle complete with discredited captain and unlikely crew? It's ''Film/DownPeriscope'' but DarkerAndEdgier!
** If the premise of a World War II-era battleship going up against more advanced aliens to save the Earth sounds familiar, then this film is the closest thing to an American adaptation of ''Anime/SpaceBattleshipYamato''.
* TearJerker: Stone's death. Made even worse when you remember that the last thing Alex said to him was "I'm sorry I let you down." And the last shot of him is standing on the ship's deck, scanning the seas for Alex.
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Many felt that TheStinger of the one surviving alien landing in Scotland made for a better premise than the film itself.
* TookTheBadFilmSeriously: Creator/LiamNeeson gives a very noble performance as an admiral; yet he doesn't seem to be aware that he's an admiral fighting off an alien invasion in a movie [[MerchandiseDriven based on a board game]]. Contrast with Music/{{Rihanna}}, who's clearly having fun with her role; and Creator/TaylorKitsch trying to hold his own.
* SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome: Some of the [[Creator/IndustrialLightAndMagic same people]] who worked on the Film/TransformersFilmSeries, as well as Creator/DoubleNegativeVFX from ''Film/JohnCarter'' and Image Engine from ''Film/District9'', worked on the special effects in this film, and it shows.
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