Battle for Terra

Mala and her friend Senn are young creatures of an alien race that inhabits Terra, a peaceful, near Earth-like planet that is part of a star system in the Milky Way galaxy and has a rich and advanced culture.

One day, a large, mysterious object partially blocks the Terrian sun, piquing the Terrians' interest. Mala, who is inventive and headstrong, goes against the Terrian rules that ban the development of new technologies without the approval of the ruling council and creates a telescope. She takes it outside the city and uses it to view the object. A lot of recon ships emerge from the large object, come down to the city and start abducting Terrians. Some willingly offer themselves to the spaceships mistaking them as their new "gods".

After Mala's father, Roven, is abducted, she lures a ship into a trap, causing it to crash. She saves the pilot, a human named Lieutenant James "Jim" Stanton. After his personal robot assistant, Giddy, warns Mala that Jim will die without oxygen absent on the planet, she scavenges suitable plants and creates a tent in which Jim can breathe. In exchange, Giddy teaches her human language. Jim awakes and finds out his ship is damaged beyond repair. Giddy tells Mala why the humans have come: centuries beforehand, both Mars and Venus were terraformed and colonized by humans for their natural resources. 200 years later, the planets demanded independence from Earth, to no avail. This dispute escalated into a violent interplanetary war that rendered all three planets uninhabitable. The mysterious object in the sky is The Ark, a generation ship containing the remnants of the human race, traveling for several generations in search for a new home. They arrived at Terra, and gave it its name. Mala agrees to fix Jim's ship, so she can go with him to save Roven. When Mala, Jim, and Giddy return to the crash site, they discover the ship has been moved.

The trio tracks the ship to a secret underground military facility where the elders and Doron, the leader of the council, secretly retain the military technology from prior conflicts. After infiltrating the facility and fixing the ship, they fly to the Ark. In it, the commander of the human army, General Hemmer, takes over the Ark in a coup, and declares war on Terra. Mala finds Roven, but gets detected. A fight with the guards starts, in which she gets captured and Roven, while trying to keep the humans away from him with a laser, unintentionally causes a decompression that kills him and the men. Hemmer tells Jim his goal is to turn Terra into a new Earth. He will drop the Terraformer, a huge machine capable of creating an Earth-like atmosphere onto the planet's surface, annihilating the Terrians in the process. To test his loyalty, Hemmer creates a scenario in which Jim has to choose between killing Mala or his younger brother Stewart. Jim saves Stewart, while discreetly ordering Giddy to rescue Mala by breaking the glass. Hemmer orders Jim to join the space-fighters in charge of defending the Terraformer, while he personally supervises the mission within the machine.

Doron and the Terrian elders allow Terrians to defend their planet with their stockpile of military tech, but are hopelessly outnumbered with an unexpectedly large amount of opposing fighters. The humans drop the Terraformer onto the surface and it begins to poison the planet with oxygen. As the machine is close to completing its objective, Jim finds Mala fighting Stewart, and realized the immoral decision in killing the Terrians. He destroys the Terraformer with missiles, killing a betrayed Hemmer, while enduring flak fire. The ensuing explosion kills Jim as it consumes his damaged fighter. Mala, Giddy and Stewart steer away from the fireball and barely survive the fight. The Terraformer's scorched skeleton collapses, leaving only one leg standing in its wake.

After the Terraformer's destruction and Jim and Hemmer's death, humans and Terrians agree to live in peace. Having abandoned the Ark, they establish a colony on the planet, where a statue of Jim is erected in honor of his heroic actions.

• Evan Rachel Wood as Mala, a curious Terrian who take cares of her father Roven
• Luke Wilson as Lieutenant James "Jim" Stanton, a human military pilot who joins forces with Mala
• Brian Cox as General Hemmer, leader of the military wing of the Ark
• James Garner as Doron, leader of the Terrians
• David Cross as Giddy, Jim's robot assistant
• Chris Evans as Stewart Stanton, Jim Stanton's younger brother
• Dennis Quaid as Roven, Mala's handicapped father
• Justin Long as Senn, Mala's boyfriend
• Danny Glover as President Chen, the human leader in the Ark
• Amanda Peet as Maria Montez, one of the human Board Council members of the Ark
• Mark Hamill as Elder Orin
• Tiffany Brevard as Singer Soloist
• Danny Trejo as Elder Berum
• Phil LaMarr as Fabric Merchant
• Laraine Newman as Toy Merchant
• Ron Perlman as Elder Vorin

Roadside Attractions handled theatrical marketing in North America and used its business relationship with Lionsgate to open the film wide in the United States. Battle for Terra received uncharacteristically little marketing for a wide release film. The television campaign consisted of a small number of television spots on Cartoon Network and a handful of network television ads in select markets. Awareness for the film on its opening weekend was subsequently little to non-existent. This strategy of having a disproportionately small advertising campaign for a wide release was employed only one other time a year earlier with the film Delgo. The results for that film were disastrous as the $40 million Delgo grossed a mere $694,782 on 2,160 screens. The lower costing Battle for Terra fared considerably better by taking in more than twice as much revenue ($1,647,083) on roughly half as many screens (1,159) and continued on to gross $6 million internationally. Battle For Terra opened May 1 in the United States against 2 other wide releases: X-Men Origins: Wolverine (4,099 screens) and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (3,175).

The film has received mixed reviews from critics. Based on 94 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an average rating of 5.52/10, and a score of 49% from critics, saying that "Despite its earnest aspirations to be a thought-provoking sci-fi alternative, Battle for Terra lacks both a cohesive story and polished visuals, and fails to resonate."[8] Another review aggregator, Metacritic, gives the film an average score of 54% based on 19 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[9]

The film opened at #12 in the United States, grossing $1,082,064 in 1,159 theaters with an average of $934 per theater. The film's international box office began May 14, 2009 in Russia with a 5th place opening of $332,634 at 83 screens. Battle for Terra's current worldwide total is $6,101,046.

Annecy International Animated Film Festival 2009

Giffoni Film Festival 2008

Heartland Film Festival 2008

Ottawa International Animation Festival 2008

• Battle for Terra at IMDb
• Battle for Terra at Rotten Tomatoes
• Battle for Terra at Metacritic