War of the Worlds — Page 4

I loved the movie. The ending was a ittle to pat for me... But thats the way War Of The Worlds has always ended. Fun Movie.

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Exactly!

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OK. We saw it this afternoon and for the first two-thirds of the film, I was genuinely moved to tears several times. I know it's probably because I am going through some tough stuff in my personal life, but I gotta tell ya - those similarities to 9/11 really did me in. Spoilers:
When Rachel screams as they're getting into the only moving vehicle: "Was it a Terrorist?" I immediately was set on edge. And from then on, things would happen that simply made me so upset - I've never been fond of films that have very violent imagery, but usually when it's science fiction or horror, I can handle it much better (as opposed to a real life type of violence, as in The Godfather - where you know this could really happen)...but when the crowd forced them to give up the car so they could try to escape in it - I was just freaked out...because this is exactly how people react in these situation - terror does crazy things to the human psyche and these people were willing to kill their fellow man just to get away from the aliens - now THAT scares me - man's inhumanity to man, more than what the frigging aliens were doing to them. Now don't get me wrong - I liked most of the film, though I do agree that the cute little happy ending was a bit trite for my taste. But what I didn't like was that they showed us everything. If you recall in the original - you only see the actual alien once and for only about a second or two. In this one - you see four of them rampaging through the house for several minutes in close up - it leaves nothing to the imagination and takes a lot of the fright out of the film for me. I liked the way the aliens were handled much better in the original, and in similar films like Signs (I love the way M. Night Shyamalan handles fear - by leaving quite a lot to the imagination.) Overall, I think it was a fairly well constructed film - I didn't even mind Tom Cruise in this one - he was ok at acting manic through most of it (and I'm not a fan of his). But I've seen better sci-fi films. Like The Day the Earth Stood Still - it still scares me even though it's probably 40 years old or more.

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Yeah, I agree with jrb and red about the "Is it the terrorists?" part and the end of the car scene. I was talking to my friend today and he told me that at those scenes, I was all hunched up in my chair with my hands over my mouth. I don't remember that but hey....

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I agree with Jen. Just because it's a big Hollywood blockbuster movie does not mean that it has to be "fun." I very much enjoyed the fact that it was dark and disturbing.

"Just because it's a big Hollywood blockbuster movie does not mean that it has to be "fun."

Shouldn't it at least make sense, though?

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It'd be interesting to see more movies about aliens where we learned something from them. Perhaps they would have enlightening ideas on how to stop terrorism instead of creating terrorism for a change.

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May have been new for him, but it didn't exactly reinvent the wheel as far as alien invasion films go.

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I know, but he could've chosen something else to do. Anyway, I doubt it's exactly the same as the story. First of all because it's set now.

Some logic questions:

How does bacteria killing the aliens prove that we earned our place on the planet? It seems like our technology defeating the aliens or something else would prove that we earned our place here more since we actually created technology.

As previously mentioned the making of the missing person flyers seemed unrealistic.

The grenade explosion most likely would have killed everyone in the basket, and if not, the fall to the ground would've.

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Updated On: 7/3/05 at 10:51 AM

As has been posted, he was required to take us past a movie that had already ripped off this novel (and dragged in Roswell). He threw out all that rah-rah stuff about rallying together around one leader (fantasy in today's world), and opted to make it a bonafide war movie, with a palate (gray, black, ochre) that matched PRIVATE RYAN. I wasn't prepared for how truly grim it would be, the film's tone literally set early on in the working class neighborhood.

The art direction was startlingly bleak for a big budget summer film. Cruise's home was (appropriately) so dark you could barely see the gray light creeping in. All intentional. No camp dialogue, no loud color, no sunshine. Even Fanning's bright kids clothes were washed out. We knew dire doings were on their way. But who could imagine how dire. .

Spielberg seemed to determined to show us another America -- one we never saw in, say ET. No pretty California suburbs. By the time we got there -- that train going by at the crossing! I gasped! -- I didn't have time to question all the 9/11 evoking posters until after the film. As we watch, we wince and ache, since they set off visceral memories. It's questionable that it's unlikely people fleeing a death ray would take out poster board and prepare such poignant pleas. But who knows? I think the film had a more elaborate time scheme than we perceived -- things that passed quickly, may have taken 48 hours. If we assume people simply didn't come home after the first night ofthe tripod attacks, and then there was relative calm, the posters might've made sense. I buy the trade-off. And the ferry beat that follows the posters reveal is one of the most bravura set pieces in all of Spielberg's work.

Although I agree that showing these aliens was a mistake, if not a serious one, the movie's power over me was rather absolute -- so that I did something I never do at sci-fi anymore: suspend disbelief. As I watched, I accepted all. And as always, Spielberg is a master of (among many other things) portraying dramatic events through the eyes of a child. Fanning, who annoys the hell out of me in interviews, was rather stunningly used here, no? Her claustrophobia issues, her frightened eyes, her gradual acceptance of Cruise, her innate savvy as a hip kid in 2005 mised with a universal innocence -- all touches that are classic Spielberg point of view. I found myself willing to overlook all holes -- including an unecessarily happy resolution for one character -- so caught up was I in the film's dark power. If you think about it -- what artist of Spielberg's vision and caliber would make an apocolyptic movie without employing 9/11's range of images and the emotions engendered?

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Updated On: 7/3/05 at 11:34 AM

<< To this day, Spielberg is still a superior director (and in my opinion always will be). But this IS is his "turkey". >>

So I take it you've never seen 1941??

Forget people making flyers hours after an alien invasion...I saw posters still going up weeks after 9/11, when there was no way in hell these people could still be alive. People put them up right after the tsunami too. It's hope, however far-fetched it might sound.

As far as the ending...can you think of a better weapon than your immune system? The human race has survived as long as it has because it keeps finding a way to beat diseases. Why do think AIDS is such a killer? With no immune system, a common cold turns into pneumonia and the person can die from it.

It's what happened...the aliens caught a cold. That's how HG Wells ended the story back in 1898.

I didn't think it was that much of a happy ending...nobody in that family is ever going to be the same. Cruise's character was a jerk who could care less about his kids. Then they're all he has left--and he has to give them back to their mother. What does he go back to?

I did like that it just concentrated on those 3 characters. No military war room scenes, no dragged out battle plans...it was just total chaos. I didn't need to see where the aliens came from--it didn't matter. They were on the attack, and there was no mercy. It was scary as hell.

MrMidwest, here's some more logic questions (these may have been covered earlier in the thread for all I know though):

How does the EMP kill all the car engines, but NOT the replacement parts on the shelf?

How does the NBC (or whatever network it was) have a working van too?

How does every car on the freeway stop working, yet there's a nice clear path for Tom to drive through?

Similarly, how does a 747 total their house and neighborhood, yet miss their car?

While I'm at it, why only one plane crash? The EMP would have surely fried them all, and given Jersey's flight path, it should have been raining planes.

Are we really supposed to believe that Tom's son could survive being carpet bombed and made it back to Boston alone and unscathed?

Why blindfold your daughter before killing a bonkers survivalist if you're going to close the door anyway?

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I grew tired of her hysteria, I must admit.

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