The film was directed by Aristomenis Tsirbas who conceived it as a hard-edged live action feature with photo-real Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) environments.

The close collaboration with producing partner and investor Snoot Entertainment redirected the project to become fully animated and appeal to younger audiences.

It premiered on September 8, 2007 at the Toronto International Film Festival and was widely released in the United States on May 1, 2009 by Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions.

[5] Mala and her friend Senn are young creatures of an alien race that inhabits Terra, a peaceful, planet that is part of a star system in the Milky Way galaxy.

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.

He will drop the Terraformer, a large 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.

Roadside Attractions handled theatrical marketing in North America and used its business relationship with Lionsgate to open the film wide in the United States.

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 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).

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.