History Film / Battleship

** Lt. Col. Canales is played by real life Col. Gadson. [[DisabledCharacterDisabledActor Like his character, he lost both legs in Iraq]]. He was also an honorary co-captain of the New York Giants when they won Super Bowl 42, and wears their hat throughout the movie.

-->"Boom."

* PowerWalk: Performed by the U.S. Navy veterans when they come to the aid of the ''JPJ''[='=]s survivors in getting the ''Missouri'' back into fighting shape.

* OverprotectiveDad: The Admiral is implied to be this.

** Crossing over with ArtisticLicenseEngineering, clubhauling[[labelnote:*]]turning a ship suddenly by dropping its anchor on the side that you wish to turn and using the ship's momentum to swing around[[/labelnote]] an ''Iowa''-class battleship is completely impossible: even if you used all four anchors, the ship is too massive and would be moving too fast for the chains to hold up, and more to the point, the chains simply aren't ''long'' enough to reach the sea floor in the middle of the pacific anyways.
** Bringing a museum ship up to fighting capability in under a day is impossible. Even assuming that live ammo and fuel are stored onboard strains belief. In real life it took two years to recommission an Iowa-class battleship (though that did include upgrading and installing new weapons and systems). Firing the boilers alone takes the better part of day.
** The scene where the main characters struggle to carry a 2,500lb 16-inch armor-piercing shell from the aft magazine to the forward turrets is rather ridiculous. Transferring main battery ammunition between the fore and aft magazines was a common enough operation that the designers of the ''Iowa''-class battleships included an overhead-rail trolley system in the central "Broadway" passageway to do it quickly and safely. The ship also has multiple shell dolleys for moving the big shells around the compartment, loading them onto the ready racks & ammo hoists, etc. Having eight guys try to deadlift one and lug it 500 feet is both slower and asking to kill somebody.

** In the novel Alex ''almost'' gets it out after losing the ''John Paul Jones'', but is cut off at the last word. Of course, he was in fact talking about a destroyer at the time...

* AwesomeButImpractical: The battleship ''Missouri'' in a modern navy. As Alex explains to a little boy taking a tour, the battleship is essentially a dinosaur fossil even compared to ships like his much smaller destroyer. Battleships were made obsolete by aircraft, missiles and advanced targeting systems -- three things that had been nullified by the aliens making it more effective for direct combat than the destroyers. In fact, the buoy targeting method is a more advanced version of how battleship targeting was traditionally performed. But somehow Alex forgot, that in '80s Iowa-class battleship were upgraded with then-modern radars, missile weaponry and active defences, and were pretty useful in Desert Storm operation. Obsolete, but nothing like dinosaur fossil.

* BottomlessMagazines: In the final battle, USS ''Missouri'' fires her sixteen-inch guns several times in the span of a few seconds, only stopping so Alex Hopper can [[RuleOfDrama shout "Reload!"]] The actual rate of fire for such guns is around [[http://www.ussnewjersey.com/hist_sts.htm two rounds per gun per minute]]. Also, there is no such thing as an automatic 16 inch gun, they are reloaded after every shot.

* TheCavalry: Just when it seems Alex, Nagata and Co have sailed their last mission against the aliens [[spoiler:the armed might of the Pacific Rim navies comes to the rescue in the form Australian fighter jets blowing the enemy up]].

* CurbStompBattle: The first battle with the aliens. Due to the shield jamming their missile guidance systems they're forced to engage the alien ships with only their five-inch guns, which are piddly next to what the aliens can dish out. Both the ''Sampson'' and ''Myoko'' are destroyed very quickly one after the other, the former with all hands.

* HumanoidAliens: The invaders are basically oversized, pale humans with gecko-like eyes, goatees made of something resembling porcupine quills, and clawlike FourFingeredHands. Revisiting the film 10 years later, many have drawn comparisons between the aliens and [[MemeticMutation Craig]] from the early beta of ''VideoGame/HaloInfinite''.

* NotOfThisEarth: Alien debris is composed of unknown elements (and lawrencium); impressive, since our indications are that everything we haven't identified is extremely unstable. Lawrencium, number 103 on the periodic table, has a half-life of 216 minutes at its stablest known isotope, and everything above it only gets shorter-lived.

** When Hopper and his girlfriend are late and trying to find their way onto the battleship it's just a flimsy excuse to linger overlong on his Ford pickup.

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: After Alex gets arrested and tased in the opening scene, Stone comes in and starts yelling about how he was screwing around with his commander's daughter, which therefore messes with his job, and his life, and he's through with just letting Alex repeatedly go through with stupid stuff.

* AdvertisingByAssociation: The film was proudly declared as coming "From {{Creator/Hasbro}}, the company that brought you ''Film/{{Transformers}}''", in spite of neither film being actually made by the same studio (note:Hasbro's film division at the time just developed the concepts for other studios. Also, they didn't create the original Battleship game, they just bought out the owners).

* IKnowWhatWeCanDoCut: Alex is asked how they're going to get a two-ton artillery shell over to the battleship's remaining intact cannon. Alex thinks for a second, then we cut to the men transporting it the only way they can: by hand.

%%* OneBulletLeft: The ''USS Missouri'' in the climax; [[spoiler: after expending almost all of their 16-inch shells on the alien mothership, the protagonists are left with a choice to use their last remaining shell to either finish off the mothership, or destroy the hijacked signal facility the aliens are using to send a distress signal to their home fleet, at the risk of being destroyed by a final salvo launched from the now-foundering mothership. They ultimately [[HeroicSacrifice choose the latter]], but thankfully a pair of Hornets [[BigDamnHeroes arrive just in the nick of time]] to intercept the salvo and finish off the mothership.]]

%%* OneBulletLeft: The ''USS Missouri'' in the climax.

* OneBulletLeft: The ''USS Missouri'' in the climax.

* OneBulletLeft:

* VasquezAlwaysDies: Averted by Cora Raikes despite being both [[VasquezAlwaysDies the tough gunner girl]] and [[BlackDudeDiesFirst black]].

* AFatherToHisMen: Admiral Shane tells off his superiors for wanting to sacrifice more men.

* HumanoidAliens: The invaders are basically oversized, pale humans with gecko-like eyes, goatees made of something resembling porcupine quills, and clawlike FourFingeredHands.

** The CO and XO of the ship being taken out with a single hit, instead of them being at different battle stations to avoid just this scenario.

** Crossing over with ArtisticLicenseEngineering, clubhauling[[labelnote:*]]turning a ship suddenly by dropping its anchor on the side that you wish to turn and using the ship's momentum to swing around[[/labelnote]] an ''Iowa''-class battleship is completely impossible: even if you used all four anchors, the ship is too massive and would be moving too fast for the chains to hold up.

''Battleship'' is a sci-fi action film released in 2012, directed by Peter Berg and starring Creator/LiamNeeson, Taylor Kitsch, Creator/BrooklynDecker, Creator/AlexanderSkarsgard, and Music/{{Rihanna}}, ''very loosely based'' on the board game {{TabletopGame/Battleship}}. [[LiveActionAdaptation Yes, the one with red and white pegs and a grid and "you sunk my battleship!"]]

* LampshadeHanging: Mercilessly in the novelization.

** Likely for the sake of landlubbers watching, the characters avoid nearly all nautical terms which would be second nature to any sailor.
** It's rather odd how often the new commanding officer of the destroyer finds himself all alone with no subordinates or only Raikes supporting him.

** The impractical part of the battleship is its cost in relation to its capabilities. Originally they were designed to fight other battleships and then the rest of the surface fleet. However submarines and aircraft were far better in this role, so they ended up relegated to shore bombardment mostly. With missile upgrades and add ons they still had value, just not enough value to compensate for the immense cost of building and maintaining them.

* NoRangeLikePointBlankRange: Although the sixteen-inch guns of the ''Missouri'' can easily engage at over twenty miles away, the battleship is practically spitting distance from the alien craft when they actually attack. Having only a small handful of shells, however, plus an undersized crew they could hardly afford to waste shots getting the range for a longer ranged engagement.

** Even better? ''None of that was faked!'' The movie showed the actual ''Missouri'' being properly activated by real Navy vets, some of which were actual ''Missouri'' crewmembers during her active service.

* EpicLaunchSequence: The eponymous warship, USS ''Missouri'', is given [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMwQbD3ZI4o a proper revival]] when it's needed for the final assault.** Even better? ''None of that was faked!'' The movie showed the actual ''Missouri'' being properly activated by real Navy vets, some of which were actual ''Missouri'' crewmembers during her active service.