*** spoiler alert *** My review of War of the Worlds by AURaptor

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*** spoiler alert *** My review of War of the Worlds

POSTED BY: AURAPTOR
UPDATED: Tuesday, August 2, 2005 01:28
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Thursday, July 14, 2005 6:04 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SimonSays:
The whole alien "remote probe" scoping out old farm houses for straglers was ridiculous! Why would aliens waste their time out in the country? They would concentrate their time in metropolitan (heavy populated) area. Yet Bostom is vertually un-scathed!

I disagree with your comments. First, you are assuming they are under some kind of a time limit (you said, "Why would aliens waste their time out in the country?). I saw no evidence of any kind of time limit in the movie. The aliens could proceed at any speed they wanted. Wasted time can only exist if there is a deadline (or limited time). Second, you are making an assumption that you "understand" these aliens. You seem to know what they would do and how they would behave. The reality is that you do not. Of course I don't either. Very little info is given about these aliens so determining their thought processes is difficult. Nevertheless, we do know some things about them. Therefore I am going to conjecture (which makes me as guilty as you). In the book, HG Wells makes it clear that these aliens viewed the intelligences of earth, at best, as though little more than how we would view monkeys or lemurs. Additionally, we were scrutinized from space the way we might "scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water." Wells, Pal, and Spielberg were very clear that this was not about war. This was about slaughter. WotW is not a war story, it is a disaster story, a story of survival even if suvival would ultimately prove futile (you were going to die, it was only a matter of time). I believe, based on what we know of them, that they considered us defeated the moment they landed. You assume they have a strategy. Strategy is used to defeat an enemy. You think that they should take over the population centers first and then clear the countrysides. In reality it doesn't matter what they do. We are already defeated in their mind. The loss of a couple of tripods will not change that. It doesn't matter to them if Boston is defeated and destroyed now or a year from now. They don't appear to be under any kind of schedule. Time limits are not a factor. It doesn't matter if the cities are taken first and then the countrysides or the other way around. Also, it wouldn't matter if they started from a fixed point and fanned out destroying whatever countryside or cities they came across. Nor would it matter if they just behaved randomly. Whatever they do, we are goners.

Why do the aliens "remote probe" that house? Because they can. They can do whatever they want and tackle whoever they want whenever they want.

As we were basically already defeated in WotW the tripods could wander aimlessly with little thought to what we did. Boston could be dealt with whenever they so wished. Humans could be harvested or blasted at leisure.

WotW isn't about us vs them. You are trying to see war and strategy where none exists. This is genocide of a conquered people.

So in the end, what you see as a weakness of the movie I see as a strength. Their apparently aimless lack of strategy reinforces the idea that we were defeated and not worth much of a bother. Imprisoning for harvesting or outright destruction could happen at their own whim.

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Thursday, July 14, 2005 6:55 PM

SHATTERER

Sorry about the long posts. The longer I make them the less possibility people will read them. Then I don't have to worry about people debating them (hehe).

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Friday, July 29, 2005 3:23 PM

HKCAVALIER

I just saw the movie. For me the plot and characters struck just the right mix of ordinary, plausible and totally mystifying at the same time. I've never seen Tom Cruise seem more unremarkable, you know, in a good way. Not since Born on the Fourth of July has he had to play so much real helplessness and despair. I get so tired of heroes in movies always having the answer.

The movie was grueling. It made me very sad to see Cruise's character so stuck in his personal control dramas that it required the near destruction of the world to bring him to the point where he could respect his children as individuals. I mean, without the alien invasion, it could easily have taken him another 20 years to open up and "get" his son. He could easily have gone his whole life resentful and childish to the end.

The world has gotten so challenging so quickly in the last few years and people seem so unprepared to deal.

I'd like to make a couple comments in defense of the ending.

Select to view spoiler:

I look at this way: if this had actually happened and they were looking at a way to tell the story, they would absolutely have picked the story about the Man and his two children that make it to one of the few cities in the world that was still standing. What a story! Right? Why tell a story about unlucky people, or just "normally lucky?" Also, from a dramatic standpoint, seeing the father and son reunited had a lot of meaning for me. I'm glad it happened. They'd changed in some very powerful ways and saw each other in a totally different way now. Nothing schmaltzy and heartwarming, just real.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Sunday, July 31, 2005 10:01 AM

Thank you Shatterer! You hit exactly the points I wanted to, and better than I ever could have. I haven't read the book in a very long time, but what stuck with me through all these years is exactly that feeling--the feeling of not a war, but of a slaughter.

Select to view spoiler:

I'd like to make two points. The first involves one of my favorite scenes in the movie. The aliens are moving through the basement looking at all the objects and pictures. They aren't hurrying, they aren't looking for anything in paticular, they're just chilling out. These aliens fit exactly the point Shatterer is making. The war is over, the war was over for them from the moment they decided to take over. They're already in exploration mode.

My second point involves the ending. Several people seem to be of the opinin that having the aliens die of some disease is stupid, prehaps even anticlimatic. I think you miss the point though. It's made clear to us at the start that these aliens don't really think any more of us than we do of a bacteria under a microscope. This arrogance is exactly what brings them down. The simply don't think of the possiblity. They're too busy thinking about the 'big picutre' to consider the risk of bacteria and viruses. It's the exact same thing we humans do so often. We damn up a river to make power, even though it can have negative consequences. We build thousands of nuclear weapons, even though if we ever use those weapons it won't matter what we were fighting about because we'll all be dead. We drive big old cars around, even though we're polluting and useing up resources. None of this makes any sense, but all of it is stuff we do.

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Monday, August 1, 2005 11:32 PM

LETSBEBADGUYS

I loved this film.
It was GREAT!
I think this one of the best movies ever!

Mal: "We're not gonna die. We can't die, Bendis. You know why? Because we are so...very...pretty. We are just too pretty for God to let us die."

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Tuesday, August 2, 2005 1:28 AM

DUCESTECUM

Quote:
Originally posted by MainlyMe:
Spoilers....kinda

My only major qualm is that the aliens spend an entire day investigating a cabin in the middle of nowhere, but don't touch the pretty buildings in Boston?

At the end, when those people came out, I think they were just shocked to see something had been happening outside: "Wait a second....when did this...How long were we playing Boggle?"

Too true! LOL and how long does it take to walk from NYC to Boston anyway? I have to say I'm in agreement with all of you who thought it was trash! Good special effects but too many instances of having to put one's brain on hold!

"And I'm thinking you weren't burdened with an over-abundance of schooling." Mal, Train Job

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