History Film / BattleLosAngeles

* ArmorIsUseless: The aliens' weapons consistently go through Marine body armor like it's not even there, being advanced alien technology. Their portable incendiary rocket-grenade launchers also appear to go through the armor on a M1 Abrams tank without much trouble. However, there are occasions where a marine's armor/helmet protects them from a glancing blow that might otherwise have been lethal.

* MildlyMilitary: For a movie that is often held up as an example of a realistic portrait of the Marine Corps, it gets several things wrong.
** Everyone pronounces the acronym for forward operating base (FOB) as "eff-oh-bee," rather than "fob," a mistake that would get them relentlessly mocked in real life.
** The film portrays laser target designators as emitting a visible beam of light, which is not accurate, as they use coded infrared beams to specifically avoid being spotted with the naked eye, only letting the observer know that the laser is on by displaying an icon in the viewfinder. This would have prevented SSgt Nantz from aiming it as he does, simply holding the device at hip level and hip firing it.
** The portrayal of Copperhead rounds is laughable. The film portrays them as slow-moving cruise missiles, when in reality they were Cannon Lauched Guided Projectile Artillery Rounds that would fly over the target at incredible speed, engage thrusters, and come around the opposite side of the target to avoid cluing in the enemy as to where the round came from. Even in the round's "Glide Mode" it was still much faster than the way the film portrays.

** The portrayal of Copperhead rounds is laughable. The film portrays them as slow-moving cruise missiles, when in reality they were RAP (Rocket Assisted Projectile) Artillery Rounds that would fly over the target at incredible speed, engage thrusters, and come around the opposite side of the target to avoid cluing in the enemy as to where the round came from. Even in the round's "Glide Mode" it was still much faster than the way the film portrays.

* BizarreAlienBiology: The invaders look vaguely humanoid, but they have cetaceous forms, and their bodies seem to be held up and shaped by some form of cybernetic endoskeleton, with weird turbines and other implants. They have no real brain as humans understand them (the head area seems to contain no vital organs) and the only way to quickly kill them beyond using massive force to blow them apart is to target a orb-like organ/machine part located to the immediate left of where the heart would be on a human.

* HeartInTheWrongPlace: [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig-Zagged]] when the Marines stab a captured alien in an attempt to find out what their [[AttackItsWeakPoint weak point]] is. It has a [[BizarreAlienBiology vital organ]] that looks like some sort of water sac in the upper left of its chest. Exactly the same place as where a human's heart isn't.

* NotSoStoic: Nantz's controlled demeanor cracks three times. The first is when he blows up the drone in the gas station, where his fingers tremble uncontrollably afterward.[[note]]Although that could be simple adrenaline shock.[[/note]] The second is when [[spoiler:Martinez is about to blow himself up]], where he flips out and starts screaming at him that he won't let more people die again like he did back in Iraq. The third time is when he confronts Lockett -- who believes him to be uncaring about his men and unfit for duty -- and explains to him that he memorized the names and numbers of every man who died under his command.

* NotSoStoic: Nantz's controlled demeanor cracks three times. The first is when he blows up the drone in the gas station, where his fingers tremble uncontrollably afterward. The second is when [[spoiler:Martinez is about to blow himself up]], where he flips out and starts screaming at him that he won't let more people die again like he did back in Iraq. The third time is when he confronts Lockett -- who believes him to be uncaring about his men and unfit for duty -- and explains to him that he memorized the names and numbers of every man who died under his command.

* {{Jerkass}}: Pretty much every Marine that insults Nantz for his NeverLiveItDown moment in Iraq. They seem to assume that he ''willingly'' got his whole squad killed.

* FreakOut: Simmons after the first fight with the aliens.

* DeathBySex: {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d as one of the Marines is stated to be a virgin. After he survives a firefight his squadmates remark: "I told you, until we get him some tail, he ain't never gonna die!" [[spoiler:And then averted; he dies on the evac helo.]]

As Los Angeles is evacuated, Marine Staff Sergeant Nantz leads his new platoon and an inexperienced lieutenant against the attackers. Their main goal is to evacuate civilians ahead of a planned bombing offensive, but matters are complicated when they must destroy the enemy's command and control center. Meanwhile, similar battles are waged across the world in other cities.

* InfantImmortality: Played straight -- on-screen, at least.

** Zigzagged with the plan to bomb Santa Monica: while it's based on real-life emergency plans in case of a West Coast invasion of LA, modern air theory and experiences from World War II, Vietnam and the first Gulf War have led to the conclusion that carpet bombing is inefficient and not cost-effective for the amount of effort and munitions expended (hence why the B-52, the USAF's premier carpet bombing platform, was rewired to carried precision guided munitions like the [=JDAM=], though it’s still perfectly capable of carpet bombing if they feel like it). On the other hand, the movie is ambiguous on ''what'' they're going to use; it could be a carpet-bombing or it could be simply very free use of regular munitions or even tactical nuclear strikes. All that's said is that the Air Force is going to bomb everything within Santa Monica to oblivion.

** As a whole, the movie portrays American tactics, as seen in Iraq. While the [[http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/battle-la-war-outcome.234238/page-2#post-8598206 relevance of that paradigm]] and some of the [[http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/realism-in-television-cinematic-military-scifi.273748/ strategic judgement calls]] are debatable, the basic squad-level level tactics are solid [[note]]With the exception of having Martinez and Nantz with the same section: the purpose of having a Platoon Commander and a Platoon NCO is to allow the platoon to be split into separate elements while retaining a leadership figure. Having Martinez and Nantz together means that the platoon's leadership is concentrated in one location, meaning the rest of the now-leaderless 1st Platoon is fighting and interfacing with Company, with a Squad Leader becoming acting Platoon Commander[[/note]].
** An inversion occurs at the start of the movie: the military is shown responding ''too'' quickly to the invasion, though there are some implications of forewarning. In most movies, the military doesn't respond fast enough, but in this case entire Army and Marine divisions are mobilized in a matter of hours. Possibly justified, since Southern California is stacked with military bases, and the Army personnel are identified as 40th Infantry Division, which is the California National Guard.

* AnyoneCanDie: Not very many of the Marines make it out of Los Angeles. [[spoiler: None of the Army personnel that joined up make it out alive. [[MichelleRodriguez Tech Sergeant Santos]], the lone Airman, however, does.]]

* VasquezAlwaysDies: [[spoiler:Surprisingly, MichelleRodriguez lives through this one.]]

* HeroicBSOD: A couple of the Marines, particularly LT Martinez, have these when the aliens bring their drones into the fray. [[ChainsOfCommanding Martinez’s is compounded by his feeling of having failed his men]], though a private pep talk from [[SergeantRock Nantz]] snaps him out of it.

* AttackItsWeakPoint: The aliens' only vulnerable point is some sort of water sac to the left of where the heart would be on a human. They can shrug off most anything else, headshots included. Grenades do the trick in a pinch.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Sure, the tide seems to be turning against the aliens, but millions of people -- if not more -- are still dead worldwide, and numerous cities have been completely destroyed. And the Los Angeles command ship may have been destroyed, but there's one in every major coastal city and there's no word on the two attacking the East Coast, or the rest of the world. The humans have won the battle, not the war. Not to mention that the aliens will defend their centers even more viciously.]]
* BizarreAlienBiology: The invaders look humanoid, but they have cretaceous forms, and their bodies seem to be held up and shaped by some form of cybernetic endoskeleton, with weird turbines. They have no real brain as humans understand them (the head area seems to contain no vital organs) and the only way to kill them beyond using massive force to blow them apart is to target a orb-like organ/machine part located to the immediate left of where the heart would be on a human.

* BottomlessMagazines: Averted -- the chaingun is explicitly stated to only have 250 rounds before they even use it, and one of the soldiers mentions being low on ammo. The humans also frequently have to throw magazines to each other. Unlike the aliens, the humans avoid MoreDakka.

** The aliens do it effectively during a battle on a freeway, sending rockets to make cars smash some unfortunate Marines.

* CurbStompBattle: The initial alien attack only becomes a curb stomp once the {{Attack Drone}}s show up and steal air superiority from the humans. [[spoiler: At the end of the movie, after Nantz's team takes out the drone control center, the Battle in Los Angeles turns in humanity's favor.]] It's also implied that LA is one of the few areas on the planet that humanity is actually holding out against the invaders, as the aliens are shown to have taken control of several other cities around the globe, including ''Paris'', which is a couple of hundred kilometers inland from the coastline.

* DeathFromAbove: The USAF's original plan to stop the invasion; keep the aliens contained on the Santa Monica shoreline and carpet bomb them. [[spoiler:It doesn't work.]]

* DevelopingDoomedCharacters: A less typical example, where a couple of Marines are shown partying, getting way too drunk and otherwise playing the trope straight, others are picking out flowers for their wedding, trying to retire with some dignity, or having a quiet goodbye with a loved one at their grave.

* EnsignNewbie: Lieutenant Martinez has just graduated from Officer Training. In his first engagement he freezes up, unable to act, and when the casevac helicopter is shot down he goes into a HeroicBSOD. It isn't until Nantz delivers a sharp, confidence-boosting lecture to him that he shapes up. By the time of the highway battle, he's confidently giving orders and deploying his men.

* FaceFullOfAlienWingWong: While not a reproductive example, Elena Santos gets a faceful of alien guts -- even in her mouth, causing the Marine riding shotgun to joke, "You let him do you on a first date."

* HeroicBSOD: A couple of the Marines, particularly Martinez, have these when the aliens bring their drones into the fray.

** [[spoiler:Hector's father]] takes a bullet to the gut after picking up an M16 to kill an alien trying to surprise the Marines rappelling down a child to safety.

** The Sea Knights fly down along the beach toward the FOB because artillery is being fired into the urban areas in Santa Monica. Helicopters in general are routed around areas where artillery is being fired to avoid being hit by airborne shells.
** Zigzagged with the plan to bomb Santa Monica: while it's based on real-life emergency plans in case of a West Coast invasion of LA, modern air theory and experiences from World War II, Vietnam and the first Gulf War have let to the conclusion that carpet bombing is inefficient and not cost-effective for the amount of effort and munitions expended (hence why the B-52, the USAF's premier carpet bombing platform, was rewired to carried precision guided munitions like the [=JDAM=]). On the other hand, the movie is ambiguous on ''what'' they're going to use; it could be a carpet-bombing or it could be simply very free use of regular munitions or even tactical nuclear strikes. All that's said is that the Air Force is going to bomb everything within Santa Monica to oblivion.

** An inversion occurs at the start of the movie: the military is shown responding ''too'' quickly to the invasion, though there are some implications of forewarning. In most movies, the military doesn't respond fast enough, but in this case entire Army and Marine divisions are mobilized in a matter of hours. Possibly justified, since Southern California is stacked with military bases.
* HopeSpot: In the middle of the highway battle, Lockett takes control of a .50 caliber machinegun in an abandoned Humvee and uses that to blow up the alien troops on the upper highway that have been shooting up the rest of the squad. Enemy fire drops off, and the Marines start cheering. Then the WalkingTank shows up.
* HoverTank: One makes a brief appearance in the end before getting blown up.
* HumanoidAliens: Despite the major physiological differences between the alien invaders and humans (see StarfishAliens, below), their body plans are still basically human-like, with two arms, two legs, an upright torso, a chest with a heart in it, and a head on top where the ranged sensory organs are located. The fact that Sergeant Nantz could say that their AchillesHeel is "to the left of where the heart would be" says as much about their general similarities to us than their specific differences.

* KeystoneArmy: The alien drone ships [[spoiler: are all controlled by a single Command and Control Center. Once Nantz and his surviving squad take it out with guided cruise missiles, all of the drones shut down and fall from the sky, giving the Americans control of the air once again.]]

** A somewhat more chilling example, but during the first ambush by the aliens, one of the downed Marines gets dragged off alive and screaming by the aliens. Later in the film, they come across an alien badly hurt, but still alive, and decide they need to know what their anatomy and weaknesses are, so they begin slicing into it and cutting it apart until it dies. The implication is that the aliens were doing ''exactly'' the same thing with humans.

* ObligatoryWarCrimeScene: The sequence where Nantz [[spoiler:stabs, cuts, and tears at a still-living alien to figure out where to hit it to kill it]]. Unlike most such scenes, there's no accompanying moral commentary on the action; the viewer is left to decide themselves between whether or not Nantz's are cruel or justified. It's an interesting case, given that [[spoiler:Nantz actually is trying to kill the alien efficiently without torturing him first; it just takes him a while to figure out how to do that, exactly]].

** The first alien soldier to be successfully shot down rises back up a minute or two later, only to be shot down by the whole squad ''again'' and a grenade dumped on it just to be sure. It is lampshaded by a delirious Lenihan.

* SergeantRock: Staff Sergeant Michael Nantz.

* StarfishAliens: The aliens have a very curious biology, with the majority of their vitals concentrated at an unusual part of their body (right of where their heart would be located) and make heavy use of cybernetics. The odd biology makes it difficult for the Marines to hurt them until they figure out where to shoot.\\\
If one looks closely at the wounded alien that is being "dissected", one can see that one of its legs is clearly damaged, and a long, rope-like tendril is extending from the creature's body. The same leg is missing the metallic/ceramic "skeleton" structures that the aliens' bio matter seems to be wrapped around, indicating that the aliens' limbs may be far longer than we're led to believe, and their bodies are held in a humanoid shape by all the machinery so they can effectively fight on land. "Doc" also digs around in the "head" area of the alien, and finds that there's nothing in there even vaguely resembling a brain; at one point Nantz even shoots the same alien in the "head" area and it has no visible effect on the creature.

* WouldNotShootACivilian: Brutally subverted in the case of the aliens, who open fire on a beach crowded with people and proceed to shoot indiscriminately at everything they see. Civilian bodies are often seen in various areas.