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So it begins to look like Battle for Terra might turn out to be a misanthropic pacifist–environmentalist parable about evil, rapacious Western imperialism versus nature and noble savages. And, again, there's some of that, though neither side of the equation is quite as simple as that.

Giddy (David Cross), Mala, and Jim Stanton (Luke Wilson)

Despite the cynical judgment of Stanton's robotic sidekick Giddy (Kung Fu Panda's David Cross) that "everything different scares" humans, mankind isn't monolithically benighted or oppressive. Civilian leaders urge restraint in dealing with the "Terrians" (as the humans call them, having scoped out their planet as a new Terra). The military does rather take it on the chin, even if a single human being, the villainous General Hemmer (Brian Cox), is essentially scapegoated for mankind's sins. (Note the "diversity" of the sympathetic civilian leaders—President Chen (Danny Glover), scientist Maria Montez (Amanda Peet)—while Hemmer is of course a white man.)

As for the Terrians, they're neither as savage nor as innocent as they might seem, and the anti-war motif is balanced by a somber acknowledgement that "Even gentle beings must defend themselves when attacked." In an idealistic speech that is the opposite of war-is-hell utilitarianism, Doron says something like, "I have to believe that the qualities that make us great can also make us strong, and that love and mercy can triumph over hate and aggression."

If it's not as one-sided as it might have been, it's not as engaging either. The characters never really come to life, and the story, despite a few riveting moments, is more often by the numbers. The human characters even look generic—there'd be no telling Stanton apart from his younger brother if it weren't for a telltale notch in his left eyebrow—and their clothes move like they're molded on their bodies, with no folds or hanging.

Some of the battle scenes are quite impressive

While the story is more coherent than WALL-E (which isn't saying much; narratively speaking, practically everything in WALL-E falls down the moment you push on it), its efforts at realism only highlight its lapses. Mala's people breathe, and the plants of her world exude, something other than oxygen—but then Giddy quickly finds one plant species that exudes oxygen—and one specimen of that plant immediately fills a large oxygen tent with enough 02 to revive a nearly dead Stanton.

Most glaringly, nobody thinks of proposing the oxygen-tent model on a larger scale in time to prevent all-out war. Driven by desperation as the Ark, mankind's interstellar home (and another visual triumph), slowly breaks apart, Hemmer plans to terraform the new planet into an oxygen environment hospitable to humans but deadly to Terrians—that is, to commit genocide. He even cites mankind's Judeo-Christian heritage in connection with the terraforming process, which he says would take seven days: "Very biblical, don't you think?"

The civilian leaders lamely protest that they need more time to debate and vote. Nobody on the Ark thinks to say, "Why don't we just build a biodome somewhere, at least to start?" This is the "Idiot Plot" fallacy (hat tip: Roger Ebert), in which conflict is sustained by not allowing anyone to propose the obvious solution.

Some well-done action sequences, particularly the climactic battle, recall Star Wars—but Star Wars has already been done. Battle for Terra might have made a deeper impression had it gone more its own way. At its best, it almost does.

Talk About It

1. Do you think there could be life on other planets?
   
   
2. If we encountered a complex alien species in its native environment, do you think we would be able to tell whether they were sub-rational creatures (like animals) or personal, rational, spiritual beings (what the Malacandrans in C. S. Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet called "hnau")? Fallen or unfallen? What implications would these possibilities have?
   
   

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