Pixels (2015)
Play for the planet.
Video game experts are recruited by the military to fight 1980s-era video game characters who've attacked New York.
In Pixels, consciousness is carried by machines — a plane of “arcade invasion”. The story fights on E8/E13 of the E0–E14 reality ladder, compressing technology, war, survival.
Same rung, same subject
Films fighting at the same level of reality, about the same things.
Transformers: Beginnings (2007)E8/E13 · rare rung · technology, war
The Flood (2023)E8/E13 · rare rung · survival, technology
Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)E13 · rare rung · technology, war
Space Battleship Yamato (2010)E13 · rare rung · survival, technology
The Matrix (1999)E8/E13 · rare rung · technology
The Matrix Revolutions (2003)E8/E13 · rare rung · technologySame subject, different rung
The same preoccupations examined at another scale — one mind versus a nation.
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)E7/E12 · rare rung · technology, war
Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971)E7/E10 · rare rung · survival, technology
Starship Troopers: Invasion (2012)E6/E11 · rare rung · survival, technology
Outlander (2008)E6/E9/E10 · rare rung · survival, technology
Priest (2011)E6/E9/E10 · rare rung · survival, war
Pacific Rim (2013)E11/E14 · rare rung · survival, technologyAlso bends a rule of reality
Other films that change a standing rule of their world — ranked first by those bending it at the same rung.
I, Robot (2004)alters at E10 · same rung · loose
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)alters at E10 · same rung · loose
WarGames (1983)alters at E10 · same rung · loose
I Am Mother (2019)alters at E10 · same rung · loose
Bigbug (2022)alters at E10 · same rung · loose
Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970)alters at E10 · same rung · rigorousAlso hides consciousness here
Other films that move a human interior onto the same kind of thing.
The Transformers: The Movie (1986)consciousness in machines · transformer war cosmos
Alien: Covenant (2017)consciousness in machines · colonial horror frontier
Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)consciousness in machines · AI‑war dystopia
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023)consciousness in machines · mechanical alien war
Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (2025)consciousness in machines · AI nuclear apocalypse
BLAME! (2017)consciousness in machines · net-city dystopiaSame subject, different mask
The same preoccupations carried by a different kind of thing — grief told through the dead, an animal, a machine.
Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)consciousness in aliens · survival, technology
Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)consciousness in animals · survival, technology
Cosmic Sin (2021)consciousness in aliens · survival, technology
Scary Movie 4 (2006)consciousness in objects · survival, technology
Underworld: Awakening (2012)consciousness in monsters · survival, technology
A Minecraft Movie (2025)consciousness in monsters · technology, warSame people
Shared director or cast.
