Back in early November we reported that Peter Berg's Battleship movie, based upon the popular Hasbro game, might feature aliens as the antagonists. Turns out it was more than just a rumor after all. Berg sat down with several reporters recently, and the director unloaded a ton of information about the film, aliens and all. Berg showed off pre-production concepts of the alien ships — designed by ILM — who will be doing the FX, and also brought images of the battleship USS Missouri.

Below are the highlights of what he said (thanks to the folks over at CHUD):

- The alien race are called The Regents. They come from a planet with a similar ecology to ours and have a similar biological make-up. Expect a combination of actors and CGI; Berg used Davey Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean as a reference point.

- The aliens are not on Earth to destroy us. They are instead trying to build something, because they are in need of a power source. They do not want to deal with the humans, but will kill if they have to. The aliens' mission will not be a secret in the movie.

- The aliens do not have advanced technology. While their boats fly down to Earth, once they hit water, they stay in the water. One of the ships gets damaged, which might be why the aliens cannot fly away.

- The ships look like giant water bugs, with giant legs that race across the surface of the sea.

- Some of the aliens are scientific and intelligent, while others are very violent. But they are all focused on fixing the mechanical problem with one of their ships.

- The hero of the film is the Commanding Officer of a destroyer, which is the main ship in the film. The hero has a team of five guys. They will be cut off from the rest of the world, but have a five ship fleet.

- Aspects of the game will be in the movie. The aliens will render the Navy's technology inoperable. Falling back on old school methods, the heroes will track and destroy the alien fleet through trial and error. Just like in the game.

- Since the movie is all about strategy, the aliens will not be unstoppable, but rather evenly matched with the Navy.

- Berg ensured that the famous phrase "You sank my battleship" will be in the movie.

- While the movie is set in modern day and features the newest naval technology, Berg will still use WWII elements. The Japanese will be mentioned and so will the USS Missouri, which fought during WWII.

- The reason Berg picked aliens to battle with, was because he didn't want to explain why the US Navy was at war with another country. He wanted something larger than life.

- Battleship will be in IMAX, and Berg is also thinking about shooting some sequences in 3-D. 

So there you have it. Are you intrigued, or rolling your eyes into the back of your heads? Personally, I can't help but be intrigued. The inner child in me who loved battleships and war machines and aliens and all those things guys dig at a young age is thinking, "this sounds awesome!" The adult in me is thinking, "OK, so we know Hollywood can do special effects like never before...but will there be a half-way interesting story?"

Looks like we're going to find out after all, one way or the other.