War of the worlds

[Danoff]

It wasn't anything we introduced, it was microscopic organisms that we have battled since before we were sentient beings. It had nothing to do with us introducing anything (pollutants?) into the water. The point of this was to show that we as humans are insignificant and the War of the Worlds was not won by humans but by creatures so tiny that we can't see them with the naked eye. It is the same thing that happened to Native Americans when they met settlers. The settlers gave them a cold and they died because they had no immunity built up against it.

👍

I was going to say exactly the same thing.

 

[Driftster]

^^^ very very funny...

If you can't find the comedy in that.......you have no hope

 

[Joey D]

It wasn't anything we introduced, it was microscopic organisms that we have battled since before we were sentient beings. It had nothing to do with us introducing anything (pollutants?) into the water. The point of this was to show that we as humans are insignificant and the War of the Worlds was not won by humans but by creatures so tiny that we can't see them with the naked eye. It is the same thing that happened to Native Americans when they met settlers. The settlers gave them a cold and they died because they had no immunity built up against it.

Except when we shot Native American the bullets didn't bounce right off.

But I still want to know how a big powerful race of aliens that had BEEN TO THE PLANET BEFORE died soon after then got here. I mean the race of aliens had to have been here at some point in time because the big tripod things were already here. Also when they built the city how come they didn't find the tripods? I want to know that.

But honestly the book is much better.

 

[darkwind]

I didn't think it was that good... I mean, yeah the SFX were good, but MAN what was with all the squealing and screaming? And what was Cruise's role? He didn't do anything major. Whoo hoo he saved 12 people with a hand grenade and lived til the end.... I didn't see much else from him.

And what was with the rock?! The one he picks up right before the tripod busted through the ground?! "Oh god it's cold! I'll make a big scene about it, put it in my pocket, and waste $12,000 in 30 seconds of film!"

Speilburg(yeah I know it's probably wrong.... >_>) has really lost his touch as a director and he needs to hire better scriptwriters... and no more Dakota Fanning... that girl ever get a role where she doesn't scream through half the movie, and it will be the end of the world!

👎 I think I'll stick with the book.

 

[Danoff]

But I still want to know how a big powerful race of aliens that had BEEN TO THE PLANET BEFORE died soon after then got here.

Ah, a hole that opened up only because they tried to change the plot (badly). How is it that we didn't find these machines earlier? How would they know which areas we would populate? It's a stupid premise that they'd be buried here beforehand.

Much better was the concept that they launched an assault, having never been here, and were defeated by micro-organisms.

 

[Zardoz]

...Much better was the concept that they launched an assault, having never been here, and were defeated by micro-organisms.

That's why the book, and the 1953 movie, make more sense.

The more you analyze this flick, the worse it gets...

 

[Joey D]

That's why the book, and the 1953 movie, make more sense.

The more you analyze this flick, the worse it gets...

If you analyze any film it gets worse, look at The Fast and the Furious. You analyze that thing and it just turns even stupider then it already was.

Hell taking film classes was the worse thing I ever did, I lost my apperciation for classics because of all the "flaws" in them.

 

[Danoff]

If you analyze any film it gets worse, look at The Fast and the Furious. You analyze that thing and it just turns even stupider then it already was.

Hell taking film classes was the worse thing I ever did, I lost my apperciation for classics because of all the "flaws" in them.

Ok Fast and the Furious probably wasn't the best example... I mean if ANY film was going to get worse under analysis, it was going to be that one.

I think the matrix gets better under analysis. As does LOTR. As does Fight Club. Basically, poor movies tend to get worse under analysis.

 

[Joey D]

Well we analyzed some classic movies in my film classes and it ruined my apperciation for them. Movies like Citizen Kane, Close Encounters of the Thrid Kind, Singing in the Rain, Feild of Dreams, North by Northwest, Bullitt and so on. I mean some real classic movies, that were ruined by analyzing them.

And Close Encounters of the Thrid Kind is my favorite movie of all time, and it was sorta ruined by analyzing it.

 

[a6m5]

Ah, a hole that opened up only because they tried to change the plot (badly). How is it that we didn't find these machines earlier? How would they know which areas we would populate? It's a stupid premise that they'd be buried here beforehand.

Much better was the concept that they launched an assault, having never been here, and were defeated by micro-organisms.

You're so right about this. I loved this movie, but it would've made so much more sense if they stuck with the original plot.

 

[Driftster]

yeah..because I don't see how we NEVER knew there were giant robots underground......i mean..yeah..
but still
does anyone have an answer as to what the tripods were firing?

 

[a6m5]

yeah..because I don't see how we NEVER knew there were giant robots underground......i mean..yeah..
but still
does anyone have an answer as to what the tripods were firing?

I thought it was some sort of atomic/nuclear rays. They just turned people into ashes or blew them away. We could summon Famine, but it's probably some bs laser Hollywood came up with anyways.

 

[Driftster]

ok..
so.....here's some more questions.
the lightning hit the ground..sent the pods..
and left the rocks/asphault around it..ice cold..

Was there ANY importance to cruise pointing out that the rocks were ice cold?

 

[a6m5]

ok..
so.....here's some more questions.
the lightning hit the ground..sent the pods..
and left the rocks/asphault around it..ice cold..

Was there ANY importance to cruise pointing out that the rocks were ice cold?

I don't know, Drift. Lots of things didn't make much sense in that movie though. I'm going to quote Zardoz here:

The more you analyze this flick, the worse it gets...

 

[FoolKiller]

does anyone have an answer as to what the tripods were firing?

Originally it was a heat ray. Spielberg would probably call it a plasma ray today. Or it could be some new technology that Spielberg and the writers forgot to explain leaving another hole.

Was there ANY importance to cruise pointing out that the rocks were ice cold?

The spaceships were extremely cold from space and so they made the ground around them cold? That's the best wild guess I can make.

But I still want to know how a big powerful race of aliens that had BEEN TO THE PLANET BEFORE died soon after then got here. I mean the race of aliens had to have been here at some point in time because the big tripod things were already here.

Evolution. Assuming there were many microscopic organisms that actually formed by that time they would not be what we have today. The flu changes year to year. I am sure after all those many years ago none of the germs are the same today.

As to why we didn't find the machines before, I have no clue.

 

[Dave A]

Surely the ships would have gone from being very cold to very hot after entering the earths atmosphere at that speed.

 

[FoolKiller]

Surely the ships would have gone from being very cold to very hot after entering the earths atmosphere at that speed.

Which is why I said it was a wild guess.

 

[Danoff]

Surely the ships would have gone from being very cold to very hot after entering the earths atmosphere at that speed.

But they were hanging out in that storm for a long time - at high altitude, where they would have cooled off... or something....

 

[Zardoz]

...does anyone have an answer as to what the tripods were firing?

I have the DVD of the 1953 movie, in which the scientist played by Gene Barry yells to the General an explanation of what the ray appears to be. I'll try to remember to cue it up tonight and write down what he says. Its very cool.

 

[Driftster]

ok..That will answer 1..

But still...

A: "Lightning" was striking the ground..meaning the lightning would have had to have been EXTREMELY Cold "energy" because it still made a crack....

Which...would have ATLEAST cause someone's glasses to fog up and people to notice the tempurature drop around the "strike zone"...

well i'm not going to get into it...this movie is just that..a movie..

it makes no sense.,.that's why I don't like it..because it leaves nonsensical questions like this in my head....

it doesn't tie everything together

 

[FoolKiller]

If a time traveling DeLorean can instantly become so cold that it burns to the touch then I am sure there is some movie realm plausible explanation for this as well.

 

[Zardoz]

Does anyone have an answer as to what the tripods were firing?

In the great old 1953 movie, when the Martians first start moving and open up on the surrounding Army forces, wasting everything with their ray cannons, Major General Mann yells to the scientist Dr. Clayton Forrester (played by Gene Barry, who did a cameo right at the end of the new movie) "That skeleton beam must be what they used to wipe out the French cities!".

Forrester yells back: "It neutralizes mesons, somehow! They're the atomic glue holding matter together! Cut across their lines of magnetic force and any object will simply cease to exist!"

He's talking about the twin ray guns mounted on each side of the Martian machines that shoot a green pulsing ray. Whatever it hits just vanishes in a green flash, with the outline of people's skeletons briefly illuminated for an instant. The stalk-mounted weapon coming out of the top fires a red heat ray that instantly fries whatever it hits, burning it to ash.

I'd say Spielberg and his elves, who paid a lot of homage to the old movie in their new one, decided to combine the two rays of the old movie into one, so to speak. Notice how the single weapon in the new movie instantly breaks down whatever it hits, making it "cease to exist", but leaving a fine ash like the heat ray did in the old movie, even though there is no fire.

I like the tripods in the new movie, but the "fighting machines" of the original are extremely cool, too:

They're supported by three anti-gravity beams, hover maybe eight or ten meters above the ground, move slowly, and are protected by shields that come up when under attack.

If you ever see the old movie, don't be put off by the ridiculously cheesy opening, or the semi-corny first few scenes. It hits its stride early on, and continually gets better and better as it goes on. It ends up being a true classic of the era. Here's the Wiki page:

"War of The Worlds" 1953 version

And the Amazon page:

DVD

 

[Danoff]

The new movie was more true to the book's description of the machines and the whole blood thing than the old movie.

Not saying it was better, just that when it came to the descriptions in the book - the new movie was truer than the older one.

 

[Zardoz]

The new movie was more true to the book's description of the machines...

I can't find it now, but a while back I read that the producer and director were going to go with the book's tripods, but couldn't figure out how they would make them walk. Three-legged walking stumped them, so they went with the anti-grav stuff instead.

 

[Dave A]

Isn't there another War of the Worlds film being made, on a lower budget set in the same year as the book was ect?

 

[slackbladder]

Finally got round to seeing the film. Not as bad as I thought it'd be considering I've read the book ooooh...twenty times!
Interestingly the majority of the Chapter titles were straight out of the book or at least were a variation of it.

It was a bit of a pick 'n' mix though as in many respects it was a modern version of the '53 Byron Haskin movie (Gene Barry and Anne Robinson have a cameo at the end) with the aliens (I say aliens as they are never called Martians though in the opening the red planet is alluded to) being loosely designed on the '53 movie, the three fingers particularly (shame not to see them as Wells described with tentacles though the aliens faces are pretty accurate to his description). The "eye" that goes into the basement is very similar in design to the 1953 original.

But it was good to see tripods in the film. I think why in the original they appear to be flying saucers was because sightings of ufo's were being reported, usually as "flying saucers" in the 50's. The tripods in the Spielberg version had a crab like apperance, or like a jellyfish with its legs bending in a animalistic way as if they were living things.

The "Heat-Ray" effect has more to do with getting a 12 rating than anything else I feel. Having hundreds of people burst into flames would probably have been regarded as too violent for a 12 rated audience. Still the shots of clothes falling from the sky added a nice touch.

I didn't have any problems with the film as such, though Robbie should not have been back at the house in Boston. I found Dakota Fanning a little irratating though that's partly because I don't like kids. Tom Cruise was okay though I'm no fan. The effects were good though I found the films appearance, a slightly rough look, bothered me a little. But I was watching it on a 46" screen!
The sound was great, particulalry DTS. I found it much more dramatic compared to DD.

So I kinda liked it. Possibly I'll buy it.

As for other versions there are two (supposedly) - one by Pendragon Productions wikipedia link and the other by a production company called the Asylum wikipedia link .
Personally, after the book, my favourite War of the Worlds re-telling is the Jeff Wayne "musical" version - particulaly good in SACD 5.1 surround sound!
And just ou of interest you can see some early CG work for an upcoming animated version - War of the Worlds online

 

[a6m5]

The effects were good though I found the films appearance, a slightly rough look, bothered me a little. But I was watching it on a 46" screen!
The sound was great, particulalry DTS. I found it much more dramatic compared to DD.

So I kinda liked it. Possibly I'll buy it.

It was bit grainy, wasn't it? It didn't bother me though. Actually, I think I quite liked the "look". My Panasonic is almost the same size, a 47" widescreen. I agree with your take on DTS also. 👍

 

[slackbladder]

I know some people feel the scene in the basement with the "Ogilvy" character may have been pointless, after all it could have just been Cruise and Fanning avoiding the aliens alone.
But when Cruise's character kills "Ogilvy" for fear that the aliens would hear it was really about his willingness to do anything to protect his daughter. In the beginning of the film "Ray" seems to be devoid of parental qualities but the basement scene shows that ultimately, like any father, they would do anything to protect their child.
Now it may be a bit unsubtle and simplistic but I do get the reason why those scenes were there.

I'm not happy about the force fields the tripods have mind. Why not just have the tripods metal being impervious to high explosives etc? I guess they could'nt have the scene where a tripod is brought down if they did that. Oh, and that hand falling out of the hatch is straight out of the '53 movie.

Some things were similar to the book. You see birds, crows I think clustering about the hood of the tripods as Wells describes in the book. But I did think the red weed was a bit, well, weedy (as in weak). In the book it chokes streams, covers houses and in places is waist deep.

Anyway I was expecting not too like it but I did. Heh, maybe I'm easily pleased!

 

[a6m5]

I know some people feel the scene in the basement with the "Ogilvy" character may have been pointless, after all it could have just been Cruise and Fanning avoiding the aliens alone.
But when Cruise's character kills "Ogilvy" for fear that the aliens would hear it was really about his willingness to do anything to protect his daughter. In the beginning of the film "Ray" seems to be devoid of parental qualities but the basement scene shows that ultimately, like any father, they would do anything to protect their child.
Now it may be a bit unsubtle and simplistic but I do get the reason why those scenes were there.

Spoiler!
Scene definitely belonged in the movie for the reason you mentioned. My problem with that scene was the poor execution. Robbins behavior, Cruise taking out Robbins easily, Cruise murdering Robbins, instead of tying him up or knocking him out. Done little differently, I think it would've worked out a lot better.

 

[slackbladder]

Spoiler!
Scene definitely belonged in the movie for the reason you mentioned. My problem with that scene was the poor execution. Robbins behavior, Cruise taking out Robbins easily, Cruise murdering Robbins, instead of tying him up or knocking him out. Done little differently, I think it would've worked out a lot better.

Yes, it could easily had been done in other more believable ways. Like I said it was rather unsubtly done. Personally they should have kept it as in the book and had Robbins character dragged out by the Aliens!