War Of The Worlds, a review (of sorts), and some rambling...*SPOILERS*
POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Saturday, January 7, 2006 13:58
VIEWED: 3908
PAGE 1 of 3
Mr. Speilberg, what happened to you?
I used to see a Steven Speilberg movie to have fun. Now, it seems, I see a Speilberg movie to get somewhat unsettled as I mentally play connect the thin plot dots to it's inevitable Hollywood cheesefest ending.
Whether it's trying to rip tears outta us with the cruel treatment of the kid in AI, or watching Tom Cruise chase his eyeballs in Minority Report, or seeing Tom walk into a room to silently kill a man while his little girl sleeps nearby in WOTW, we know all will be upbeat in the end. I'm kinda tired of it. Don't give us gritty or disgusting if it's gonna be happy-happy bull
time by the end.
Tom Cruise is very good in it, and the FX are the usual excellence from ILM, but the flick feels hollow- reminds me of a childhood poem "Here I sit, broken hearted..." you know the rest
Like Jurassic Park, it is an experience, and on that level alone, is very much worth a look,*beat* however...
I went out and got the 1953 version to compare, and, well, there IS no comparison! George Pal's work holds up quite nicely, and it doesn't drag( Plus the DVD has the entire Mercury Theatre radio production on it!).
Comments?
Chrisisall watching the skies
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Um, where've you been?
Are you just now seeing this movie?
I've heard the Mercury Theatre broadcast, read the original story, seen the Gene Barry version and saw the Spielberg ADAPTATION.
(That's the key word: ADAPTATION.)
Me? I liked it. It was a good ride.
And Dakota Fanning acted her little ass off.
Not a big fan of Tom Cruise, but he was also good.
If you did indeed see the Barry version, you'll note that it's got a "positive" ending as well.
You used to go to Spielberg movies and expect to "have fun"?
I bet you were REALLY upset at "Shindler's List", eh?
So, let me guess: you don't read a synopsis of a film before you go skipping off to the multiplex?
It's War of the Worlds. NOT E.T.
And if you'd read or heard any of the interviews with Spielberg, you'd have known that this was NOT E.T. by any stretch of the imagination.
: /
"Take me, sir. Take me hard." -- Zoe
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Quote:Tallgrrl, you're taking the wind out of my rant!!
Originally posted by Tallgrrl:
Me? I liked it. It was a good ride.
And Dakota Fanning acted her little ass off.
Not a big fan of Tom Cruise, but he was also good.
If you did indeed see the Barry version, you'll note that it's got a "positive" ending as well.
The 'positive' ending I mean is having the son disappear so we get sad, then having him magically re-appear at the end so we get all happy.
It WAS a good ride, but with a little thought it could've been a great one, IMHO.
The Barry version was just more spectacular and creative. This one was just 'run-hide-run-hide-it's over'. And what's with Cruise turning into Luke Skywalker and taking down one of the Walkers-er, I mean Martian machines? And why come to Earth millions of years ago to plant ships? Are they back for mere Human target practice? They covered that better in Predator:)
Note: if I had never seen the Barry version, then sure, I would've liked it a lot more, but still, don't you see a 'cheese' ending to most of Speilberg's later films?
Chrisisall, demanding more than ever in this post-Serenity era (Steven should go to 'Joss school')
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Okay, I watched the movie again since my last post to confirm the awful truth- compared to the 1953 version, it blows. It's worse than Jurrasic Park 2, at least that movie had Jeff Goldblum in it. On a second viewing all the plot holes are magnified with spectacle taking the back seat.
When was the last time things started erupting loudly from the earth underneath your feet, and made buildings split in two, and you hung around within a stone's throw to watch it?
All right, I could make a long list, but I won't. Suffice it to say, as good a ride as it is once, it definitly doesn't stand up for a second time.
Chrisisall, a friend to Martians everywhere
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PLUS: 'harvesting' humans for their blood?
Isn't that a little reminisent of harvesting humans for their 'energy' *COUGH/Matrix rip*, excuse me.
Chrisisall
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Quote:Haven't seen the film, but the blood-drinking goes straight back to H.G. Wells--roughly 100 years before The Matrix.
PLUS: 'harvesting' humans for their blood?
Isn't that a little reminisent of harvesting humans for their 'energy' *COUGH/Matrix rip*, excuse me.
...But then again, Wells did have that time machine.
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Quote:I read Time Machine, but not WOTW. So it was in his novel first, huh? Matrix was inspired by him then. *COUGH/Wells rip*, excuse me.
Originally posted by StakeTheLurk:
the blood-drinking goes straight back to H.G. Wells--roughly 100 years before The Matrix.
...But then again, Wells did have that time machine.
Chrisisall of the Eloi
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The people in this movie were dumb as rocks; I was rooting for the aliens, personally. I wanted the little brat kid and his father to get ground up into alien compost. But Dakota Fanning lives happily ever after. That, I insist upon. She’s just too adorable.
All in all, I never really liked War of the World’s. The whole story is an exercise in the dues ex machina. It would never have been as popular as it is, in fact may never have even been remember, had it not been for the controversy created by Orwell’s 1938 radio broadcast, suggesting that people really are that stupid.
Every time the conspiracy fruitcakes get on their soapbox, it reminds of this radio broadcast and how gullible people really can be. You tell people that there our national interests are at stake by terrorist who might explode a nuclear bomb on our doorstep or fly a plane into a building and people won’t give a shit until it happens. But if you introduce aliens or some secret government plot to shaft the little guy into the story and people will buy it like its milk before a snowstorm. God, maybe people really are that stupid.
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Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum.
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Hey there Chris,
I much prefer the post Schindler's Spielberg to the pre-Schindler's one. And I don't hold with this happy ending rap. I saw A.I., and that was in no way a happy ending. Creepy yes, disturbing yes, devastatingly downbeat even, but happy? For whom? The human race is gone, Chris. All that's left are these memory machines, reliving a past that doesn't even belong to them. And the whole thing with Blue Fairy and Mommy and living one day forever is just a Freudian nightmare. Best Kubrick movie he never made.
And WoTW was a horror movie. The entire human race was helpless against forces even we in the audience couldn't understand. Like Schindler's it's an examination of fate under the most extreme circumstances. I thought the burried ships and such were bafflingly improbable, but what do you expect from a truly alien mind? It was a movie about a holocaust. With Spielberg, you gotta lead with your heart. Those folks stood there and watched while the aliens came out of the ground because aliens were coming out of the ground! They knew that something utterly alien to their entire existence was right there under the ground, so they stood in baffled awe, like deer stuck in headlights.
As for the ending...Now, just for a moment imagine that the events of this movie actually happened. Who's story would you make a movie out of? Some poor schmuck who's entire family bites it? No, you'll make the movie about this one bizarrely lucky family that managed to survive intact. Again, late Spielberg's central theme is the mysterious workings of fate.
And from a narrative point of view, having the father and the son meet at the end is important. Their reunion isn't some schmaltzy freeze-frame, but a difficult encounter between two human beings who know each other better now than they ever would have without the invasion. That's a disturbing truth, that good things innevitably come from catastrophe; they can't not.
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Okay, I watched the movie again since my last post to confirm the awful truth- compared to the 1953 version, it blows. It's worse than Jurrasic Park 2, at least that movie had Jeff Goldblum in it. On a second viewing all the plot holes are magnified with spectacle taking the back seat.
When was the last time things started erupting loudly from the earth underneath your feet, and made buildings split in two, and you hung around within a stone's throw to watch it?
All right, I could make a long list, but I won't. Suffice it to say, as good a ride as it is once, it definitly doesn't stand up for a second time.
Chrisisall, a friend to Martians everywhere
Surely Hell hath frozen over, for I agree with Chrisisall. ( About WOTW AND Jurassic Park 2! ) The list of things we're suppose to buy amongst all the plot holes in this 'adaptation' is bewildering.
The next time your only teenage son whines that he wants to wander over a hill, with no weapons, training or damn business of being there in the first place to watch heavy artillary do battle w/ invincible alien craft...you knock his ass out and carry him away!!! This was NOT the time for Jr. to be expanding his sphere of independence from weekend dad as some lame ass right of passage. Hell, I don't even have kids, and now I know why.
" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "
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