TechnoGranny and NannoGranny, JoAnn Forrester saw "Battleship" on Memorial Day Week-end and we were amazed at the shoot em up blow em up technology and the nuances about the nineties video game. Listen in as we discuss what "we saw" and reacted to. TechnoGranny and Nanno Granny go to the movies and review, "Battleship"
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TechnoGranny and NannoGranny go to the movies to review "Battleship"
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| Colonel Greg Gadson in the movie, "Battleship" |
On Memorial Day Week-end JoAnn Forrester and I went to see Battleship, one of the reasons that I really wanted to go was because I had seen a handicapped “active” military Colonel who was going to play in the movie, the last frontier in movies, a man with robotic legs. I don’t know much about Col. Greg Gadson except that I believe he is a motivational speaker. If he isn’t he should be. He played football for the army and he is a huge hulk of a guy with a huge, head and neck so he know he was meant to run interference. In the movie he did 90% of the action in the movie without using a stunt double. If you see the movie, you will be amazed that a man with robotic legs could stay up on them long enough to throw the kinds of punches that he does. For the movie the director had brought a stunt double but he convinced the director to let him try the stunts. So here he is an individual with handicaps and yet he is acting in his first movie and attempting the stunts and did 90% of them.
This is a grand example of someone who has used what he has left to regain what he has lost, a classic example of the lost hammer in the biblical story during the building of the Prophet’s school. On top of all of that this was not easy terrain where he was doing these stunts, in Hawaii and rough natural terrain on location. He plays a military veteran who has lost his legs above the knees very similar to his own situation. What a motivational guy.
The movie is also about other characters finding courage, the geeky scientist, the spoiled blonde bombshell, who wanted her chicken burrito and wanted it now and of course Hopper, the devil may care, talented but always in trouble anti-hero. How could we miss with a movie like this? The movie is all about ordinary people rising to the occasion including World War II veterans that were basically “museum” pieces. I loved the underlying message, that there is a little hero in everyone, including the gunner who observed that the aliens had eyes like his pet lizard.
The message was teamwork, can do attitude, the acquiring of bravery, not underestimating the collective talents of a group or nation. This is not just a movie with great action and outstanding special effects. The special effect should be that you go away with an epiphany that “acquiring bravery” can facilitate you doing whatever you dream that you can accomplish. Add a little teamwork and collective talents and isn’t that the American way?
Col. Greg Gadson, a double amputee who lost his legs in Iraq, was introduced to the Giants in 2007 by his friend and former Army football teammate Mike Sullivan. For the four seasons since he gave a few speeches to the Super Bowl XLII champs, he's been an inspiration for the Giants' players and coaches. Gadson spoke to reporters in the USS Intrepid Museum before a screening of the movie Battleship, in which he makes his acting debut. Gadson had never even thought about acting before director Peter Berg called him about two years ago. Gadson said Berg "is a New Yorker and was obviously tangentially aware of my story," and also read about Gadson in a January 2010 National Geographic article about advancements in prosthetics.
Battleship seems to have been modeled after a Milton Bradley Game. Here is the Wikipedia definition
Battleship (also Battleships or Sea Battle[1]) is a guessing game for two players. It is known worldwide as a pencil and paper game which predates World War I. It was published by Milton Bradley Company in 1943 as the pad-and-pencil game "Broadsides, the Game of Naval Strategy", and as a board game in 1967.[2] The game is played on four grids, two for each player. The grids are typically square – usually 10×10 – and the individual squares in the grid are identified by letter and number.[3]On one grid the player arranges ships and records the shots by the opponent. On the other grid the player records his/her own shots. Before play begins, each player secretly arranges their ships on their primary grid. Each ship occupies a number of consecutive squares on the grid, arranged either horizontally or vertically. The number of squares for each ship is determined by the type of the ship. The ships cannot overlap (i.e., only one ship can occupy any given square in the grid). The types and numbers of ships allowed are the same for each player. These may vary depending on the rules.
There are two typical complements of ships, as given in the Milton Bradley version of the rules:
After the ships have been positioned, the game proceeds in a series of rounds. In each round, each player's turn consists of announcing a target square in the opponent's grid which is to be shot at. If a ship occupies the square, then it takes a hit. The player's opponent announces whether or not the shot has hit one of the opponent's ships; the opponent then fires a shot at the first player's ships. When all of the squares of a ship have been hit, the ship is sunk. After all of one player's ships have been sunk, the game ends and the other player wins.
For the Salvo variation, each player may take as many shots in one turn as that player has ships remaining. The starting player announces all five shots, then the opponent announces which if any are hits. Each time a player's ship is sunk, that player has one fewer shot in subsequent turns. In some versions (e.g. Hoyle Classic Board Games) the aircraft carrier has two shots. There is a point in the movie where you will definitely notice the similarity between the game Battleship and targeting enemy ships. It’s the first time in a long time that I said, “I would watch that movie again.
