* spoiler alert * My review of War of the Worlds

POSTED BY: AURaptor
UPDATED: Tuesday, August 2, 2005 11:28
VIEWED: 15622
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AURAPTOR

Wednesday, June 29, 2005 11:20 PM

Sure, you know the story by now. But Spielberg takes a few liberties here and there w/ the classic, while still paying homage to the original. Just saw it today, so here are my thoughts ( not so much a review..)

Select to view spoiler:

I didn't like this movie very much. It had some dandy visuals, as damn well it should. But several things about this movie didn't work - AT ALL. Tom Cruise plays a divorced dad-Ray. Robbie and Rachel are his kids who generally stay w/ mom and her new hubby. Robbie's the defiant older son, and Rachel is the wise-beyond-her-years younger daughter. Ok, to the point. What I HATED about his movie is how everyone reacts to things woefully unnatural. Lightning strikes the ground and makes a hole in the street, so everyone crowds around to take a look. Ok, fine. But when the ground below starts to shake, and cracks in the pavement start radiating from said hole ?? RUN LIKE HELL?? Nawwh...seems everyone in NY simply moves back a few feet to give this phenomenon a bit more space to .... shake more and break up more pavement? No friggin way.

Continuing w/ the tearing up of the ground beneath their feet, the curious citizens of NY city kinda sorta think it's about time to move away...only after a SUV falls into the ever widening sink hole..and GETS TOSSED 50 ft in the air back out!! (Begin mingling away, but not TOO fast....) So out pops a ginormous 3 legged alien ship...100 ft tall? ( think giant walking machines from Matrix ) Yeah, I'm thinking taking pictures as you're still STANDING there is a smart thing to do.... untill the vaporizing rays start blasting and NOW you decide it's time to run. But the idiots run DIRECTLY away from the aliens ..as in line of sight! No one thinks of scurruing down an alley or crossing the street a few times to zig zag their way out of certain death....And folks keep DOING this through out the movie....

Then there's Robbie. He's out to prove something to his now distant Dad. In one scene that makes no sense what so ever, Robbie decides to become a man, he MUST defy his father. He wants to SEE our tanks,planes and helicopters do battle w/ an array of alien ships, just over the ridge. Never mind that he's SEEN what these things can do... " I just gotta see! " Bullshit! You run and get the hell OUT of there. Lame ass script, imo! Father tries to get son to come back w/ him, leaving the young daughter all alone (sorta) as the end of all humanity rages just over the ridge. Please. So, Dad lets teenage son go... ( oh, the symbolism ), who promply runs head long over the ridge ( no gun, no training, not even a damn stick in his hand! ) and BLAMO! All hell breaks loose, the aliens bust through the lines and leave Daddy and daughter fleeing in terror.

Then they're saved by Tim Robbin's character(Ogilvy ). He's holed up in his celler, w/ a shot gun and an ax. He's survived the initial onslaught, and isn't worried about seeing death ( he's an ambulance driver , or was ) But when he see's the aliens making humans into fertilizer for ..more aliens? galactic ganja ? ... THAT'S when he really loses it. See, all the death, destruction, mayhem and losing his entire family was hard to take, but THIS!! He starts screaming and carrying on ..'Not MY blood! Not MY blood!'. So, Ray does what any sensible father would do in that situation. He blindfolds Rachel, closes the door and then kills Ogilvy. Riiight.

Ok, so both dad and daughter get snatched up in an alien ship and are about to become Purina Alien Chow , only dad finds a few handy gernades and..well, naturally he destoys the ship and they escape. And I can only assume that when you kill one giant walking tripod alien ship, none of the others will dare mess w/ you. I say this because the two end up finally making it to Boston, where dad's ex is staying for the weekend. Despite the fact that all the major centers of civilization have been destroyed, they decide it's best to go looking at another one first..just to be sure.

And in a scene that's sure to piss off anyone from New York, Ray walks by a statue of a MinuteMan ( t

ANNIE

Thursday, June 30, 2005 12:11 AM

Have to disagree; :)
My son, grandson and myself went to see it this afternoon; we were highly entertained. Not much caring about picking it apart, just sitting back and watching. :)

HELL'S KITTEN

Thursday, June 30, 2005 12:14 AM

I haven't seen it yet, and I'm not entirely sure I will. No good reason for that, it's just how it is. Anyway, every time I hear about Tom Cruise or War of the Worlds, I think of this article from an interview with Harlan Ellison (who, by the way, is a really fascinating man to hang around with):

Quote:
12:00 AM, 02-JUNE-05

Ellison Talks Spielberg's War

SF writer Harlan Ellison questioned why director Steven Spielberg didn't give more credit to fellow author H.G. Wells in his upcoming film adaptation of The War of the Worlds. Speaking to SCI FI Wire at Enigma Con at the University of California, Los Angeles, Ellison said: "What annoys me is that Spielberg is such an egomaniac these days that it has to be 'Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds. No, you puss-bag. It's H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds, and it wouldn't kill you to put his f--king name on it."

Ellison, author of such books as I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, added: "That shows his arrogance. It's like Disney. Disney didn't write Snow White or Robin Hood or Bambi, but it's 'Walt Disney's universe.' It's the universe according to frozen Walt."

Ellison hosted a 90-minute panel at the conference, which he titled "How Does SF Stay in Business in a World of Marching Morons?" "Spielberg is only a craftsman, that's all he is," Ellison said. "He's not a genius. He's not a trend setter. There isn't one moment of any Spielberg film ... that matches the least moment of a Kurosawa film. Kurosawa was a blinding genius of cinema. His vision was astonishing."

Ellison said that he has little interest in seeing remakes and added: "We live in a society that values less and less the original."

I guess I'm in agreement with everything, especially the last paragraph.

Thanks for your review of the movie, AURaptor.

无党派人士

RKLENSETH

Thursday, June 30, 2005 12:28 AM

Roger Ebert gave War of the Worlds a pretty bad review. As did other notable reviewers.

Wasn't War of the Worlds suppose to be a three part movie? Did that scrap that idea or something?

Oh, and play Cantr II at www.cantr.net.

ECGORDON

Thursday, June 30, 2005 2:07 AM

I wouldn't trust a review from Roger Ebert at all. Also, I generally respect Ellison's viewpoint, but as far as I have seen this film is not being billed as "Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds." It is "A Steven Spielberg Film, War of the Worlds, based on the novel by H. G. Wells" very prominently in the opening credits.

Yes, there are quite a few plot inconsistencies, but I do not think they outweigh the overall strengths of the film. It took a few liberties with the story but was true to the spirit of the book.

If I was of a mind to, I could nitpick every episode of Firefly (and Serenity), but that would not mean that I do not think they are exceptionally entertaining. The same applies to War of the Worlds. And the tripods were damn impressive.

wo men ren ran zai fei xing.

ECGORDON

Thursday, June 30, 2005 2:12 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Hell's Kitten:
...from an interview with Harlan Ellison (who, by the way, is a really fascinating man to hang around with):

You can't get away with a pronouncement like that without more explanation. When and where were you lucky enough to hang out with Harlan?

wo men ren ran zai fei xing.

PIFFLE101

Thursday, June 30, 2005 3:01 AM

I was excited scared, and sad all at the same time. Wierd ending, but I loved the action (and usually I hate action)
SPOILER!
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WHen we first saw the humans get drained of blood from the alien thing, the first thing I thought was River. "The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds, given adequate vacumming systems..." lol I love bein a browncoat!

TOMANTA

Thursday, June 30, 2005 5:32 AM

I have to agree, the script for this movie was really, really poor. Many, many plot holes - some you pointed out, some you missed. SPOILERS.

Select to view spoiler:

How did Robbie live through the big attack that was meant to make us think he was dead?

WHY would the aliens bury ships on earth and wait for a few thousand years in case something interesting happens and they could use them? I'm fine with aliens invading for no apparent reason, but the method of attack and the poor attempts to explain what they are doing is just bad.

Why do the aliens stick around in a small town outside of Boston all night? Don't they have people to kill? And with how fast they were sucking up humans from those cages, why were they full?

I have other issues, but I'm lazy.

"Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government."

AURAPTOR

Thursday, June 30, 2005 10:12 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Tomanta:
I have to agree, the script for this movie was really, really poor. Many, many plot holes - some you pointed out, some you missed. SPOILERS.

Select to view spoiler:

How did Robbie live through the big attack that was meant to make us think he was dead?

WHY would the aliens bury ships on earth and wait for a few thousand years in case something interesting happens and they could use them? I'm fine with aliens invading for no apparent reason, but the method of attack and the poor attempts to explain what they are doing is just bad.

Why do the aliens stick around in a small town outside of Boston all night? Don't they have people to kill? And with how fast they were sucking up humans from those cages, why were they full?

I have other issues, but I'm lazy.

"Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government."

There were far too many plot holes for me to put down all at once. I wanted to give others a chance to fill in the blanks.

Select to view spoiler:

Along what you said, how could those enormous machines of the aliens NOT have been accidentally found? You'd think that in millions of yrs of geologic activity and human digging/drilling around, ONE of them would have been discovered. That made no sense

Why were the humans stuck like grapes and stuck one at a time ? Why not ( pardon the greusomness) shovel us in giant shredders and spray us around like mulch??? Glad they didn't, personally.

There are others, but I'm late for work

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

FREMDFIRMA

Thursday, June 30, 2005 12:11 PM

Select to view spoiler:

Why were the humans stuck like grapes and stuck one at a time ? Why not ( pardon the greusomness) shovel us in giant shredders and spray us around like mulch??? Glad they didn't, personally.

BWAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! *gasp* hahahahah *choke* hahahaha *wheeze* hahahah !

Ok, maybe I have a macabre sense of humor, but that just killed me!

<--wiping coffee off his screen...

-F

JRC

Thursday, June 30, 2005 4:39 PM

Talk about over-analyzing!! Aside from their technology, we know nothing about these creatures. And Spielburg just lets us guess as to why they did all these things, wondering what will happen next. I loved this movie, and it left me with questions also, but those same questions did not take away from my enjoyment of it.

Everyone dies alone.

KNIBBLET

Thursday, June 30, 2005 4:56 PM

With me, it's chicken wild rice soup. GADS! That was funny. *choke choke, wipe wipe*

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
BWAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! *gasp* hahahahah *choke* hahahaha *wheeze* hahahah!
Ok, maybe I have a macabre sense of humor, but that just killed me!
<--wiping coffee off his screen...
Select to view spoiler:
Why were the humans stuck like grapes and stuck one at a time ? Why not (pardon the greusomness) shovel us in giant shredders and spray us around like mulch??? Glad they didn't, personally.

http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/MN-Firefly/

JRC

Thursday, June 30, 2005 5:27 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Sure, you know the story by now. But Spielberg takes a few liberties here and there w/ the classic, while still paying homage to the original. Just saw it today, so here are my thoughts ( not so much a review..)

Select to view spoiler:
I didn't like this movie very much. It had some dandy visuals, as damn well it should. But several things about this movie didn't work - AT ALL. Tom Cruise plays a divorced dad-Ray. Robbie and Rachel are his kids who generally stay w/ mom and her new hubby. Robbie's the defiant older son, and Rachel is the wise-beyond-her-years younger daughter. Ok, to the point. What I HATED about his movie is how everyone reacts to things woefully unnatural. Lightning strikes the ground and makes a hole in the street, so everyone crowds around to take a look. Ok, fine. But when the ground below starts to shake, and cracks in the pavement start radiating from said hole ?? RUN LIKE HELL?? Nawwh...seems everyone in NY simply moves back a few feet to give this phenomenon a bit more space to .... shake more and break up more pavement? No friggin way.

Continuing w/ the tearing up of the ground beneath their feet, the curious citizens of NY city kinda sorta think it's about time to move away...only after a SUV falls into the ever widening sink hole..and GETS TOSSED 50 ft in the air back out!! (Begin mingling away, but not TOO fast....) So out pops a ginormous 3 legged alien ship...100 ft tall? ( think giant walking machines from Matrix ) Yeah, I'm thinking taking pictures as you're still STANDING there is a smart thing to do.... untill the vaporizing rays start blasting and NOW you decide it's time to run. But the idiots run DIRECTLY away from the aliens ..as in line of sight! No one thinks of scurruing down an alley or crossing the street a few times to zig zag their way out of certain death....And folks keep DOING this through out the movie....

Then there's Robbie. He's out to prove something to his now distant Dad. In one scene that makes no sense what so ever, Robbie decides to become a man, he MUST defy his father. He wants to SEE our tanks,planes and helicopters do battle w/ an array of alien ships, just over the ridge. Never mind that he's SEEN what these things can do... " I just gotta see! " Bullshit! You run and get the hell OUT of there. Lame ass script, imo! Father tries to get son to come back w/ him, leaving the young daughter all alone (sorta) as the end of all humanity rages just over the ridge. Please. So, Dad lets teenage son go... ( oh, the symbolism ), who promply runs head long over the ridge ( no gun, no training, not even a damn stick in his hand! ) and BLAMO! All hell breaks loose, the aliens bust through the lines and leave Daddy and daughter fleeing in terror.

Then they're saved by Tim Robbin's character(Ogilvy ). He's holed up in his celler, w/ a shot gun and an ax. He's survived the initial onslaught, and isn't worried about seeing death ( he's an ambulance driver , or was ) But when he see's the aliens making humans into fertilizer for ..more aliens? galactic ganja ? ... THAT'S when he really loses it. See, all the death, destruction, mayhem and losing his entire family was hard to take, but THIS!! He starts screaming and carrying on ..'Not MY blood! Not MY blood!'. So, Ray does what any sensible father would do in that situation. He blindfolds Rachel, closes the door and then kills Ogilvy. Riiight.

Ok, so both dad and daughter get snatched up in an alien ship and are about to become Purina Alien Chow , only dad finds a few handy gernades and..well, naturally he destoys the ship and they escape. And I can only assume that when you kill one giant walking tripod alien ship, none of the others will dare mess w/ you. I say this because the two end up finally making it to Boston, where dad's ex is staying for the weekend. Despite the fact that all the major centers of civilization have been destroyed, they decide it's best to go looking at another one first..just to be sure.

And in a scene that's sure to piss off anyone from New York

BLACKEYEDGIRL

Thursday, June 30, 2005 6:52 PM

I hate to be the bitch here but are any of you familiar with the original broadcast or at least of the basic original material? Sounds like Spielberg did whatever the hell he felt like with this "adaption" which to me sounds more and more like Spielberg taking a story people were kinda familiar with and compeltely molding it into what he wanted it to be with little reverence to the original brilliance.

Select to view spoiler:

I mean in the original the aliens come from the damn sky, not the earth. Sounds like Independance Day was closer to WotW than this version. What kills the aliens in this one?

I have no plans to see this movie as the first one was awesome. It's my mom's favorite movie, and we have the original radio broadcast on CD and let me tell you all the Spielberg and Cruise on earth couldn't improve on those.

BTW: Fun fact: ET was based off the actual alien in the original War of the Worlds, it's a 'blink and you'll miss it' moment, but once you see it you realize Spielberg's been sucking ideas off of others for longer than you thought.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Inara: "Do aliens live among us?"
Kaylee: "Yes. One of them's a doctor."

BIKISDAD

Thursday, June 30, 2005 7:46 PM

Yep, I remember seeing the original movie years ago, too. This re-make couldn't possibly be as good as that was.

I have the same feeling about the new "King Kong" movie. There's a very good reason why the original, with Faye Wray (sp?), was such a classic. I'm absolutely sure the new one will have a better picture, effects, cinematography, and other technical features. But the way the STORY is told will probably suffer as a result.

Apathy on the Rise. No One Cares.

HELL'S KITTEN

Thursday, June 30, 2005 8:01 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by ecgordon:
Quote:
Originally posted by Hell's Kitten:
...from an interview with Harlan Ellison (who, by the way, is a really fascinating man to hang around with):

You can't get away with a pronouncement like that without more explanation. When and where were you lucky enough to hang out with Harlan?

That wasn't so much a "pronouncement" as it was a "sidebar," I'd say. Maybe even an "afterthought."

Um, yeah, it's a long story, but I'll try to hit just the highlights. At a comic book convention, I was fortunate enough to be high bidder in a charity auction; the object of bidding being a lunch with Neil Gaiman during another convention several months later in Madison, WI. At this particular convention, Neil Gaiman and Harlan Ellison were guests of honor where they would finish writing the book they've been writing together for some time.

While setting up all the details with the man who was running the convention, he mentioned that I could opt for a dinner with Harlan and Neil (and a few other guests) instead of the lunch with Neil. Now, at that time, I had never heard of this "Harlan" fellow, so I said to the convention running man "Gosh, that would be neat, but I'd prefer the lunch with Neil............. Unless you'd let me do both." (insert cute smiles and eyelash fluttering and whatever other wiles I had at my disposal... over email... heh)

Conventioning Running Man was such a sweet guy (I'm still friends with him, by the way) that he let me do both. So, for the entire weekend, I was able to hang around with both Harlan and Neil; dinners, driving around, book store signings, hotel room gatherings, lunches, and other sorts of after-hours / after-con milling about and chatting. All the stories Harlan would tell, all the every-day small talk, all inside info on new things Neil was working on... it was fantastic... I could listen to Harlan speak for an eternity and never get tired of it. It was really trippy. I hoped for just a lunch with me and Neil, and ended up getting that and a whole lot more. Um. Platonically speaking.

Here's where I'll stop before I continue to ramble, reminiscing dreamily about a weekend that happened 3 years ago, which is completely off topic. /end thread hijacking

Cheers.

无党派人士

AURAPTOR

Thursday, June 30, 2005 8:22 PM

*spoiler*

Quote:

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WHen we first saw the humans get drained of blood from the alien thing, the first thing I thought was River. "The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds, given adequate vacumming systems..." lol I love bein a browncoat!

YES! THAT'S why it bothered me so much. I KNEW there was a burrowed memory of something deep down that just didn't sit right. Great observation! Even better than my People Chipper™ comment.

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

JRC

Friday, July 1, 2005 12:41 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by BlackEyedGirl:
I hate to be the bitch here but are any of you familiar with the original broadcast or at least of the basic original material? Sounds like Spielberg did whatever the hell he felt like with this "adaption" which to me sounds more and more like Spielberg taking a story people were kinda familiar with and compeltely molding it into what he wanted it to be with little reverence to the original brilliance.
Select to view spoiler:
I mean in the original the aliens come from the damn sky, not the earth. Sounds like Independance Day was closer to WotW than this version. What kills the aliens in this one?

I have no plans to see this movie as the first one was awesome. It's my mom's favorite movie, and we have the original radio broadcast on CD and let me tell you all the Spielberg and Cruise on earth couldn't improve on those.

BTW: Fun fact: ET was based off the actual alien in the original War of the Worlds, it's a 'blink and you'll miss it' moment, but once you see it you realize Spielberg's been sucking ideas off of others for longer than you thought.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Inara: "Do aliens live among us?"
Kaylee: "Yes. One of them's a doctor."

Why can't Spielberg take the old versions (both movie and/or radio) and make his own "adaptation"? I have seen the original movie numerous times, heard the broadcast, but never read the novel, which I understand, is somewhat like this new "adaptation". It's his to do with what he wants, then put it out there for all to see, if you want to. Don't be like those people who condemned "The Last Temptation of Christ" without seeing the it.

The aliens do come from the sky, they're "transported" through the lightning to the tripods. They also die just like the aliens in the first movie, from germs or viruses which we long ago became immune to.

Spielberg may or may not have improved on the originals (I believe he did with the new family dynamic), but the material was still his to do whatever he wanted to do with it! If another director comes along in 50 years and thinks he can improve on this version, then I say more power to him!

Everyone dies alone.

INSANESPIKE

Friday, July 1, 2005 1:04 AM

While I will admit that I found the movie pretty entertaining, I think I did walk away from the theatre a little disappointed. To me, the movie just didn't come across as this huge blockbuster it was hyped up to be.

Select to view spoiler:

And I agree with what a lot of you had said, there are a LOT of plot holes, my favorite being one someone else said, why hadn't we discovered at least one of the ships by now? You'd think with all the tunnels, sewers, and everything else beneath New York, someone would have at least STUMBLED across one.

And also, another little one I kinda noticed. When the first ship is coming out of the ground, EVERYTHING electronic in the area has ceased working. Cars, cell phones, even watches. Yet, as this gigantic thing is rising out of the ground, someone is standing there RECORDING the whole thing on a camcorder! What makes a camcorder to special that it wouldnt have been affected like everything else?

All in all, I'd say its probably worth seeing, just don't go in expecting to see a masterpiece, and you'll come out just fine.

"How drunk was I last night?"

BIKISDAD

Friday, July 1, 2005 1:15 AM

Oh, Spielberg has the clout and the box office track record to make any movie he wants, any way he wants. He just hasn't made anything that's interested me since, well, I really liked "Saving Private Ryan" (and not just because Nathan Fillion was in it). Most of his other movies tend to be skewed toward a much younger audience. And it looks like that's what he's doing with WotW - skewing it toward a younger audience than the original film. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, it will probably do better at the box office because of that. It just won't do better with any of my money.

Apathy on the Rise. No One Cares.

BLACKEYEDGIRL

Friday, July 1, 2005 2:36 AM

I guess my biggest problem with all of these remakes is what someone else mentioned. They try to make them bigger and better while usually sacrificing story to get it done.

There are so many people out there with excellent movie ideas who don't get a chance to make them because these big names are too damn busy trying to improve and recreate movies which were essentially classics and fine to begin with. Very few of these remakes have lived up to their original. There are few movies that have balanced effects and story, Independance Day, the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and the Matrix are only a few of these, but a vast majority are just big damn effects masturbation hours.

I argue that you got more of a human story and more character development when you didn't have the CGI department around to make everything look 'better' and to create monsters and explosions that they couldn't otherwise do. Look at Star Wars, I argue in Episodes 1-3 that the story suffered because someone was too busy jerking off the special effects. The first 3 were good because it was about the story not where it was being told, that aspect was secondary. I still think animatronics often look far better than CGI cos they are tangible and offer actors something to interact with other than a blue screen.

I love special effects but to me it seems like movies are moving the way of TV, which is find a formula, if it sells then reproduce the exact same formula over and over again until we have beaten it to death and no one wants to see it any more. They wonder why people aren't going to the movies, its simple it's all the same shit they've seen before, regurgitated yet again.

There are some stories that couldn't have been well made without all the fancy effects, Hitchikers Guide comes to mind (if you've ever seen the original movie you'll understand why I say that), but I think that there are some classic movies that should be left well enough alone. War of the Worlds has been done enough, Spielberg must have some other ideas in that gigantic noggin of his. If he is half the filmatic genius we all think he is can't he find something else? I mean Catch Me If You Can was a damn remake. I think it's sad that there are so many excellent writers out there (like Joss) who have to create lowest common denominator shit (not like Joss) to get to the point where they can actually be creative and come up with an original story. People are bored with the same old crap. The only reason why Batman is doing so well is cos they cleaned the slate and started over (and I have to say this is a definate improvement), but also they didn't hire the biggest names in hollywood to write and direct the thing.

Sorry I'm just ranty cos I think the public keeps getting jipped out of quality movies for the sake of letting the good old boys make what ever they want. Look at the Passion of the Christ, NO ONE wanted to make that movie cos they thought it was a bad idea, and it ended up being the top grossing film of that year. yeah it was a common story but no one had bothered bringing it to life, and its one of the oldest stories in human history! Temptation of Christ was a excellent movie as well. But I mean there are all these stories out there waiting to be told and instead we get movies that have already been made cos it's in a sense easier to try to out do an original than be an original.

Rant done, sorry.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Inara: "Do aliens live among us?"
Kaylee: "Yes. One of them's a doctor."

INTHESHINYCIRCUSLIFE

Friday, July 1, 2005 6:01 AM

I hated that movie, I walked out halfway through. Absolutely horrible. And I intend to tell everyone I meet. Somebody's gotta get the truth out there.

FREMDFIRMA

Friday, July 1, 2005 6:40 AM

You mean they don't have the cylinder-unscrewing scene, with classic creepifying sound effects ??!!!

I'm sorry, but imop that's an utterly integral part of the story lead-in cause of the mood it sets, and how that scene develops!

Speilberg's a moron.

-F

MAINLYME

Friday, July 1, 2005 10:55 PM

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?"

WHOISRIVER

Saturday, July 2, 2005 10:38 AM

I am amused by the amount of people here slating the movie WHO HAVEN'T EVEN SEEN IT.

I am also amused by the people slating the plot holes, ending etc - a majority of which are in the original book.

Bejesus. Can you imagine the kind of reviews Serenity is going to get from the general public if they are this closed minded?

"But why didn't they have lazers?!!!?!!?!?!"

TheInside.org - Firefly Producers NEW TV series

AURAPTOR

Saturday, July 2, 2005 2:35 PM

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?"

*laugh* Good one. 'Boggle' hee hee!

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

FAHQ

Sunday, July 3, 2005 12:29 AM

I would be looking forward to seeing it if it didnt have that @$$hat Tom Cruise in it.

The reviews mean nothing when it comes to him- I wont pay to see it.

"My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle."

ROLAND

Sunday, July 3, 2005 1:03 AM

Actually, Tom Cruise did a pretty good acting job in this, and I'm NOT a Tom Cruise fan. But I have to agree with AURAPTOR. This was a horrible movie. I was really looking forward to the movie, but after I saw it last night, I wish I could have gotten my money back. I know it is billed as a sci-fi action movie, but I saw it as more of a horror movie the way Spielberg made it. I was hoping for something along the lines of Independence Day but this wasn't even close. There was no humor except for a line very early in the movie. The characters seemed to know, somehow, that the machines had been buried on Earth for a million years. Why would you bury machines that long ago, when there was no human life? Were the aliens psychic and knew that the conditions would come to pass that would create human life on Earth?
And of course the perfect Hollywood ending where all the main characters live, despite it being EXTREMELY unlikely that Robbie would have lived. The ending just seemed very weak considering the blockbuster this was supposed to be. I'm one of those people that at least like most movies I see, but this one was an exception. Hopefully Fantastic Four is better than this, it would be hard not to be.

SIMONSAYS

Sunday, July 3, 2005 1:09 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Hell's Kitten:
I haven't seen it yet, and I'm not entirely sure I will.

Hell's Kitten (are you a Hell's Kitchen Fan?),
I totally agree with Ellison! Tom Cruise is a total media whore (or should I say media "companion" ) Why do most of these Hollywood types think that they are God's gift to the silver screen?
If I see another magazine cover with Tom Cruise and his love-de-jour....

NUF SAID!

FAHQ

Sunday, July 3, 2005 7:53 PM

Oh, please dont get me wrong-I have nothing to say about His acting skills. As a person I think he is a complete @$$hat. Worse yet, as a scientologist he is worthy of nothing more than complete contempt.

"My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle."

MISGUIDED BY VOICES

Sunday, July 3, 2005 8:35 PM

I'm not sure where I fall on the film at the moment - had problems that took me far out of the story, but Spielberg did a good job directing it IMO.

I guess its proof positive that if you don't get the script right (or nearly there), the film will end up a mess - seems to me that if they hadn't had to rush this into production, some of the crap direlog(s) would have been re-done.

The problem with Dakota Fanning is that she clearly is freakishly mature for her age - but that means that she's only able to play Children of the Damned. The guy playing Robbie just sucked, and Tim Robbins was in an entirely different movie.

Somehow they kept putting humour in the film where it didn't fit at all (I'm sorry, but the peanut butter on the window just looked stupid, not profound).

Shame, because as I say, the 'Berg brought his game, and Cruise rarely fell into his stock mannerisms - good directors usually get a good performance from him.

And the less said about John Williams "cut and paste" soundtrack the better; did he just tell Steve to go ahead and use the stuff from the temp track of the old movies?

I think its been mentioned above - the confrontation between father and son "I just have to see". I got the idea, and with some more work on the script it could have worked - with those crap parents miming in the background and creepy ET eyed girl doing her best Kaylee:

"My dad's right there! Look, look where I'm pointing!"

"I threw up on your bed"

OPUS

Sunday, July 3, 2005 10:04 PM

I saw the film Friday, pretty good, but it lost a lot by having Cruise as the star. Tom Cruise is good at playing Tom Cruise. He plays the same character over and over.
They should have gone with an unknown, or if they absolutely needed a star maybe Ed Norton or someone along those lines.
It would be nice if they actually had made the story from the book.
The main character is never named, the majority of the book he isn't running from the alien machines,but following them and it takes place in England.
The biggest plot hole for me, from the film...if the aliens came and buried the machines, I'm guessing centuries ago. Wouldn't they have learned about earth germs, virus's and bacteria then? The book deals with the issue quite well.
Also, why bury them? Except for a way for the filmakers to create a great visual it seems like a stupid idea.

SIMONSAYS

Monday, July 4, 2005 5:06 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Opus:
I saw the film Friday, pretty good, but it lost a lot by having Cruise as the star. Tom Cruise is good at playing Tom Cruise. He plays the same character over and over.
They should have gone with an unknown, or if they absolutely needed a star maybe Ed Norton or someone along those lines.
It would be nice if they actually had made the story from the book.
The main character is never named, the majority of the book he isn't running from the alien machines,but following them and it takes place in England.
The biggest plot hole for me, from the film...if the aliens came and buried the machines, I'm guessing centuries ago. Wouldn't they have learned about earth germs, virus's and bacteria then? The book deals with the issue quite well.
Also, why bury them? Except for a way for the filmakers to create a great visual it seems like a stupid idea.

SO TRUE! The whole divorsed dad & angry teen son thing was very distracting to the story.
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 was disapointed - the movie did not live up to the Spielberg/cruise hype!

TMURRIE

Monday, July 4, 2005 5:55 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by BlackEyedGirl:

Select to view spoiler:
I mean in the original the aliens come from the damn sky, not the earth. Sounds like Independance Day was closer to WotW than this version. What kills the aliens in this one?

well I believe that it was...

Select to view spoiler:

Well I thought that the aliens died because their immune systems sucked, and they basically died of all the bacteria that was on Earth. I don't blame these aliens, planting their giant tripod things millions of years ago, just so they can tackle a bunch of ants(humans), and they didn't even think to check it for an influenza, isn't that how the original ended? or am I going crazy again. Also, that Ray guy Tom Cruise played would NOT have killed Tim Robbins character, now THAT was out of character big time...

peace out playa

SIMONSAYS

Monday, July 4, 2005 7:12 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by tmurrie:
Quote:
Originally posted by BlackEyedGirl:

Select to view spoiler:
I mean in the original the aliens come from the damn sky, not the earth. Sounds like Independance Day was closer to WotW than this version. What kills the aliens in this one?

well I believe that it was...

Select to view spoiler:
Well I thought that the aliens died because their immune systems sucked, and they basically died of all the bacteria that was on Earth. I don't blame these aliens, planting their giant tripod things millions of years ago, just so they can tackle a bunch of ants(humans), and they didn't even think to check it for an influenza, isn't that how the original ended? or am I going crazy again. Also, that Ray guy Tom Cruise played would NOT have killed Tim Robbins character, now THAT was out of character big time...

peace out playa

Select to view spoiler:

You are 100% right! There is no way that Ray would kill anybody!

You also know that the Military has got a lot of "Star Wars" toys that would easily bring down a 1 million year old man eating tri-pod space craft

This Bomb should put Tom's career in the toilet
Don't hate the player, hate the game!

Remember what LOUIS VUITTON said: "It's in the bag!"

DAIKATH

Monday, July 4, 2005 8:38 AM

I loved the movie, another Spielberg classic.

The movie wasnt a direct adaption of the book because that movie had already been made very excelent. Instead they went with the new perspective of having it all happening to another person like you and me. Not another super hero who runs into them.

Select to view spoiler:

The fact that the father let his son go was in response to this new perspective, to let the side of us which wants to fight the monsters. Be part of the epic battle portrayed in the previous movies.

Ray killed the shotgun cellar guy because he was making a lot of noise while they had to be quiet to hide from the aliens. If he didnt do that chances are the aliens would have heard them and would have killed them. Ray knew that.

The fact that the son made it in the end of the movie was to accentuate the up feeling, that we are not helpless and not another sheep in the herd being slaughtered.

ICCLEDAMES

Monday, July 4, 2005 1:45 PM

I thought it was an excellent film. I see what everyone's saying but watching it, I was completely engrossed. Normally I'm quite critical of films while I'm watching them, picking out bad lines, etc, etc but with War of the Worlds, I was so immersed in it, I didn't have chance.

Being a Star Wars fan (obviously not as much as Firefly Serenity of course ) I found myself liking War of the Worlds far more than Revenge of the Sith.

Select to view spoiler:

I've never read the original book nor seen/heard anything of it before but I thought that the aliens would be killed not by nature, but by the pollution. I figured that if they had burried their machines so many years before (and you would have thought they might have had the sense to check that the atmosphere and everything was OK for them) then the reason that they all started dying was because the world had changed. The environment and atmosphere were now full of things that weren't there before and thus the aliens were unprepared. That was what I thought at the time. Obviously I was wrong...

I definitely recommend it to those people who haven't seen it yet!

OPUS

Monday, July 4, 2005 2:56 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Daikath:
I loved the movie, another Spielberg classic.

The movie wasnt a direct adaption of the book because that movie had already been made very excelent. Instead they went with the new perspective of having it all happening to another person like you and me. Not another super hero who runs into them.

The other film didn't follow the book anymore than this one did, the story, from the book has never been filmed.
The lead character from the book is anything but a superhero, he was an everyman. To the point where he's not even given a name.

LILLYBELLA

Monday, July 4, 2005 5:46 PM

i saw the movie and I could really see how the world in the 30's went into panick mode and thought that they were being attacked. bunchof paranoid twits... Any way the movie was entertaining and it did show what mankind would do to eachother in order to servive. Tom Cruise looked like the pretty boy that he is so there you go...

But on a more important note!!!! i saw the preview for SERENITY!!!!!! i cannot wait until I see the movie...

DANFAN

Monday, July 4, 2005 7:43 PM

As far as the plot goes, I too admit that it had its holes. Yet, the journey was enjoyable enough for me that the plot holes didn't break me out of the story.

However, some of the complaints I've seen from several people don't seem quite cricket to me:

1) "...the things have been buried for millions of years, why weren't they found?" Only one character said they had been buried for millions of years and he was a NUTBAG! Before he was a nutbag, he was an AMBULANCE DRIVER. I don't get my scientific information about subterranean features from nutbags or ambulance drivers (no disrespect meant to the drivers... I think they are great at what they do). So why does this one crazy man's pronouncement become gospel? Far more likely they were buried a few thousand years ago. Hence geologic activity is no impact. And the nutbag's knowledge that the devices were buried millions of years ago came from the same store of knowledge that informed him he could dig with a shovel all the way to New York where the Resistance was forming up in the subway tunnels.

2) "... so with all the drilling and digging we've done, why weren't they found?" What is the deepest building foundation or subway tunnel ever dug? Perhaps a couple hundred feet? Put the machines 10 feet deeper and no construction company will ever find them. Why didn't any geological drillings find them? What is the cross section of a geological/oil core? A foot? Two? Need to drill a lot of those to find a few thousand machines scattered about the face of the planet.

3) "... so why didn't the aliens do X or Y like we would?" I think the operative word is "alien." They would operate by their own precepts... some of which might be fatally flawed. Just as we do... just as ours are. Viet Nam. Waterloo. The list is endless.

4) "... so why didn't they think of vaccinations?" This ending was cutting edge, state of the art when Wells wrote it a century ago. It is admittedly weak now. But it doesn't take much forgiveness to make it work. Say they buried the things 7000 years ago. They vaccinated against the tuberculosis of that time. With our own medical technology, we have grown TB that eats yesterday's antibiotics like potato chips. How effective would a 7000 year old vaccination be against that? We've grown Super Staph that makes yesterday's version look geriatric. A new flu virus every year. The list goes on. Admittedly, why wouldn't the invaders have thought of that? Good question. A plot hole. I'll accept it because the story was entertaining.

Just a few thoughts.

GUNRUNNER

Monday, July 4, 2005 8:57 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by danfan:
2) "... so with all the drilling and digging we've done, why weren't they found?" What is the deepest building foundation or subway tunnel ever dug? Perhaps a couple hundred feet? Put the machines 10 feet deeper and no construction company will ever find them. Why didn't any geological drillings find them? What is the cross section of a geological/oil core? A foot? Two? Need to drill a lot of those to find a few thousand machines scattered about the face of the planet.

A giant metal alien killing machine would show up nicely on a Magnetic Anomaly Detectors found on naval sub hunting aircraft and Gunships like the AC-130. Any nuclear reaction (I assume the aliens are using some for advanced form of nuclear power) would show up on military surveillance satellites.

Quote:
Originally posted by SimonSays:
Select to view spoiler:
You also know that the Military has got a lot of "Star Wars" toys that would easily bring down a 1 million year old man eating tri-pod space craft

“Star Wars” toys? Hah! Good old-fashioned cold war era tactical nuclear weapons would bring them down. Even some Maverick, Hellfire or Ataka missiles could disable one if it blew off a leg. A few thousand Alien Tri-Pods don’t stand much of a chance against the million plus military and militia forces of the combined nations of Earth; NATO alone has sufficient conventional firepower to level every major city a Continent.

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DAIKATH

Monday, July 4, 2005 9:17 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by GunRunner:
“Star Wars” toys? Hah! Good old-fashioned cold war era tactical nuclear weapons would bring them down.

In the original movie atomic weapons failed.

ALso in referance to the bacteria and virusses. Any idea how many indians died when europeans brought the flu?

GUNRUNNER

Monday, July 4, 2005 9:41 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Daikath:
Quote:
Originally posted by GunRunner:
“Star Wars” toys? Hah! Good old-fashioned cold war era tactical nuclear weapons would bring them down.

In the original movie atomic weapons failed.

Weapons technology has changed alot since 1953. A 1950’s bomb vs. a 1980’s one is like a brick vs. a gun. Besides in the Original movie they were dealing with an advanced aircraft, while a walking vehicle is much more vulnerable by design, the blast would knock them over possibly disabling them, and an air burst could even suck them up in to the air and drop them a mile away probably destroying.

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DANFAN

Monday, July 4, 2005 11:04 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by GunRunner:
Quote:
Originally posted by danfan:
2) "... so with all the drilling and digging we've done, why weren't they found?" What is the deepest building foundation or subway tunnel ever dug? Perhaps a couple hundred feet? Put the machines 10 feet deeper and no construction company will ever find them. Why didn't any geological drillings find them? What is the cross section of a geological/oil core? A foot? Two? Need to drill a lot of those to find a few thousand machines scattered about the face of the planet.

A giant metal alien killing machine would show up nicely on a Magnetic Anomaly Detectors found on naval sub hunting aircraft and Gunships like the AC-130.

Passive MADs are used to detect feromagnetic artifacts (iron and steel alloys used in ship hulls for example), or iron oxides such as hematite and magnetite (used to detect large geologic structures). Passive MADs could indeed detect a large buried steel object. But not a large bured object made of any non-ferrous material (such as titanium... which is a much better material for use in an object expected to survive several thousand years of subsurface exposure). There are active electromagnetic detectors that do detect non-ferrous materials. They require the generation of pulsed electromagnetic fields that induce electrical current in the non-ferrous object. As the field collapses, the effect of that induced current on the collapsing field can be measured. Such techniques are very dependent upon the strength of the inducing field and the proximity of the the object being detected. This technique is not used to detect large structures from a distance.

Quote:
Originally posted by GunRunner:
Any nuclear reaction (I assume the aliens are using some for advanced form of nuclear power) would show up on military surveillance satellites.

Lots of assumptions in that one statement.

1) "Aliens are using some advanced form of nuclear power." Unless they are using something else.

2) "Any nuclear reaction would show up on military surveillance satellites." Unless the nuclear reactor was inactive during its entire sojourn underground and was only started upon insertion of the pilots.

3) "Any nuclear reaction would show up on military surveillance satellites." From my research, it appears that military satellites detect nuclear events (i.e., detonations) and perhaps significant radiation sources. Much more information than that appears to be hard to come by. If an underground reactor is inactive (or if it ISN'T a nuclear reactor in the form we are familiar with... say a fusion reactor) then our sats might not detect a thing.

But hey, it's a movie...

GUNRUNNER

Monday, July 4, 2005 11:24 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by danfan:
Quote:
3) "Any nuclear reaction would show up on military surveillance satellites." From my research, it appears that military satellites detect nuclear events (i.e., detonations) and perhaps significant radiation sources. Much more information than that appears to be hard to come by. If an underground reactor is inactive (or if it ISN'T a nuclear reactor in the form we are familiar with... say a fusion reactor) then our sats might not detect a thing.

Surveillance Satellites can detect the heat produced by a reactor (an inactive reactor still produces some heat) and the effect that heat causes on the local environment (melting ice, changes in local water and soil)- the USAF and NRO use(d) these tip offs to located subterranean nuclear plants and warhead manufacturing plants in Russia.

And yes the Aliens could use something totally foreign to us, but I assume they have the same basic technologys we have.

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DANFAN

Monday, July 4, 2005 11:53 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by GunRunner:
And yes the Aliens could use something totally foreign to us, but I assume they have the same basic technologys we have.

We are one century removed from the time of the author of the original novel. When he was alive, the greatest scientists of the time were investigating the fundamental nature of radiation and energetic particles... it was cutting edge science. The prevailing theories of the time held that the source of the sun's energy was that it was contracting under its own gravitational field and compressing the gasses in its core, thus heating them up and emitting light. The technology of nuclear energy didn't exist. I would think that assuming that aliens capable of making such machines several thousand years ago would use energy technologies the same as ours is a big assumption.

Be that as it may, we understand the basic technology of a fusion reactor (even if we don't possess the expertise to create one at this time). An inactive fusion reactor is at ambient temperature and produces no unusual radiation if it has never been activated.

Or, when the pilots were inserted, they could have brought magnetic bottles of antimatter with them. It makes far more sense not to store potentially volatile fuel (chemical, nuclear, or otherwise) for such long periods of time. Fuel by its nature is energetically unstable... that's why it's fuel. Hence, even unused, it tends to lose potency. Nuclear decay isn't a significant consideration for a few thousand years... but maybe the aliens wouldn't want to leave it around for us to detect before they were ready. Fill the tank up when you're ready to drive, not a few millenia earlier.

And on a related topic... debating fuel sources for a fictional craft in a B movie makes me feel so ... pathetically geekish. But it's fun. Why is that? ;-)

EDITED to include a little more mat'l about scientific understanding of energy sources at the end of the 19th century.

GUNRUNNER

Tuesday, July 5, 2005 12:44 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by danfan:
And on a related topic... debating fuel sources for a fictional craft in a B movie makes me feel so ... pathetically geekish. But it's fun. Why is that? ;-)

I don't know but I bet people like Einstein, Galileo, Drebbel, Craven and the Wrights were considered pathetic geeks at one point.

Anyways good points and a good discussion.

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GINOBIFFARONI

Tuesday, July 5, 2005 2:24 AM

I watched this movie last weekend and just have one observation.......

I liked the characters so much, I found myself cheering the aliens on. To quote a halfremembered line from Bablyon5, " after you are all dead, we will send our people to your planet to plant flowers spelling the words Too annoying to live, in letters large enough to be read from orbit.

Maybe those were the red vine things ?

When my eloquence escapes you
My logic ties you up and rapes you

http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/the_police/de_do_do_do_de_da_da_da.h
tml

BEA

Tuesday, July 12, 2005 5:13 AM

Finally someone who agrees with me. Thank you auraptor! I must admit, I have never seen the original nor read the book, so there I am in the theatre looking forward to some quality entertainment and what happens? The whole story does not make any sense to me whatsoever and the only thing saving me from getting my brain sucked out by boredom are the special effects...

There's no place I can be since I found Serenity

SHATTERER

Friday, July 15, 2005 12:31 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by danfan:
As far as the plot goes, I too admit that it had its holes. Yet, the journey was enjoyable enough for me that the plot holes didn't break me out of the story.

However, some of the complaints I've seen from several people don't seem quite cricket to me:

1) "...the things have been buried for millions of years, why weren't they found?" Only one character said they had been buried for millions of years and he was a NUTBAG! Before he was a nutbag, he was an AMBULANCE DRIVER. I don't get my scientific information about subterranean features from nutbags or ambulance drivers (no disrespect meant to the drivers... I think they are great at what they do). So why does this one crazy man's pronouncement become gospel? Far more likely they were buried a few thousand years ago. Hence geologic activity is no impact. And the nutbag's knowledge that the devices were buried millions of years ago came from the same store of knowledge that informed him he could dig with a shovel all the way to New York where the Resistance was forming up in the subway tunnels.

2) "... so with all the drilling and digging we've done, why weren't they found?" What is the deepest building foundation or subway tunnel ever dug? Perhaps a couple hundred feet? Put the machines 10 feet deeper and no construction company will ever find them. Why didn't any geological drillings find them? What is the cross section of a geological/oil core? A foot? Two? Need to drill a lot of those to find a few thousand machines scattered about the face of the planet.

3) "... so why didn't the aliens do X or Y like we would?" I think the operative word is "alien." They would operate by their own precepts... some of which might be fatally flawed. Just as we do... just as ours are. Viet Nam. Waterloo. The list is endless.

4) "... so why didn't they think of vaccinations?" This ending was cutting edge, state of the art when Wells wrote it a century ago. It is admittedly weak now. But it doesn't take much forgiveness to make it work. Say they buried the things 7000 years ago. They vaccinated against the tuberculosis of that time. With our own medical technology, we have grown TB that eats yesterday's antibiotics like potato chips. How effective would a 7000 year old vaccination be against that? We've grown Super Staph that makes yesterday's version look geriatric. A new flu virus every year. The list goes on. Admittedly, why wouldn't the invaders have thought of that? Good question. A plot hole. I'll accept it because the story was entertaining.

Just a few thoughts.

Thank you,

I was going to write all of this stuff myself but since you did it I do not have to. In fact I was going to write about every single point you mentioned. Ah, hell, I'm going to anyway.

We don't know how far back in the past these things were buried. It appeared to me to be uninformed guesswork on the part of a lot of people trying to make sense of the tragedy happening around them. Likewise, no info is given as to how deep they were buried. 50 feet? 500 feet? 10 miles? Without this information we can't know if humanity would have ever happened to have found them. If you go far enough down no modern MAD would find them. We know these aliens are much more advanced than us but we are not told how much more advanced. Specific details regarding their technology is not supplied. Therefore it is just as reasonable (well, as resonable as you can be considering this is a sci-fi story about an alien invasion force) to assume that they could have drilled their craft 30+ miles below the surface as 30 feet.

I like your assessment of "aliens". I have also thought about this myself over the years. Most people view aliens through the filter of science fiction shows like Star Trek and Babylon 5. Aliens are usually depicted as human looking people with latex noses who act and behave like 20th-21st century earth people. If life developed independently elsewhere, their beliefs, thought processes, e

SHATTERER

Friday, July 15, 2005 4:04 AM

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.

SHATTERER

Friday, July 15, 2005 4:55 AM

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).

HKCAVALIER

Saturday, July 30, 2005 1:23 AM

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.

AX

Sunday, July 31, 2005 8:01 PM

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.

LETSBEBADGUYS

Tuesday, August 2, 2005 9:32 AM

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."

DUCESTECUM

Tuesday, August 2, 2005 11:28 AM

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

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

* spoiler alert * My review of War of the Worlds