War of the Worlds film- what do you all think?

[Ravager]

Plot spoilers may be included

I watched the new War of the Worlds film yesterday. I wondered what everyone else felt about it.

I thought it was pretty good despit all the time it spent in basements and the destroying of New York yet again .

So did anyone else like it or hate it?

[Vicsun]

Horrible. Abominable. Atrocious.

An insult to cinema around the globe.

[Luis Antonio]

[QUOTE=Vicsun]Horrible. Abominable. Atrocious.

An insult to cinema around the globe.[/QUOTE]

Just a word: Wow.

Its not that bad, I like it.

[Caden]

Decent. Had lots of good parts in it. Great to see on the big screen. *Unless you went with somebody who kept laughing during the suspenseful parts*

[Ideal Maxima]

one of the best movies i've seen all year.

it's a bit confusing to the average person, but i understood it.

some parts are still foggy though, like how the heck did the boy (robby or something) live at the end?

i think in the dvd they should have an alternate ending where Tom Cruise dies. Ahahaha like when he goes into the ship and he rips off all the grenades, instead of gettin pulled out, he stays inside and dies.

[blake]

I liked it alot, still kept the original feel and those giant ships were hella scary. I thought they did a good job with the sounds, it really sounded martian to me. The aliens looks pretty non threatening though. I Thought it was funny when I was the only person that knew what was going to happen even though it was a remake Uh, well. I live in Texas, what do you expect?

[Ravager]

Plot inconsistencies

Cruise's character seemed very lucky to me, how did a plane crashing somehow completely miss his car, and the fireball didn't burn (or even singe ) the stairs?
How did he survive in the crowd in New York?
The basement stairs seemed the same in both cases.
What was the weakness of the big monsters, anyway, birds?! or was it water or something else?
If the head of the monster was the weak point why did no-one think of *that* earlier? (Maybe Spielberg is trying to get a point across about the US forces )
It probably should have showed some of rest of the world rather than just the US.

Other than that it was pretty good, despite all the basement time .

[Rob-hin]

The movie begins awsome.
It's really cool how the robots show up and zap everyone cause all round panic. Later, when Tom is running with his kids, some things are pretty good, like the river with with the bodies and the ferry. I also liked the bit where people fight over a car, very human, very real.

Then the movie goes to hell.
The basement is ok for a while but gets boring. It's unclear what the hell the aliens are doing and why they fail in the end. Sure, they try to clearify, but it leaves many questions unanswered and you have to fill in the blancs yourself.
The ending is way to sudden and basically come out of the blue... this because of the idea behind the movie: Tom is no Will Smith saving the world (or just the USA ) and thus there are no plot twists involving him and making the ending very sudden and... odd.

All in all, amusing but it doesn't hold the high standard it reaches in the beginning.

[Vicsun]

it's a bit confusing to the average person, but i understood it.

Really? What do you think the average person would find confusing?

some parts are still foggy though, like how the heck did the boy (robby or something) live at the end?

He got his act together and suddenly decided (off-screen) that dying in a ball of fire was not the way to go, so while Tom Cruise was in the basement he was on his way to Boston.

What was the weakness of the big monsters, anyway, birds?! or was it water or something else?

Bacteria, or viruses or something.


I have a distinct feeling Spielberg's idea for the movie was "hey guys, I have this bunch of money here, so I think I'll use them to make some awesome special effects and maybe even make a movie to go along with them if I'm feeling adventurous".

[Chanak]

@Vic: My memory is a bit foggy concerning H.G. Wells' original work, but I think the movie adaptations of his book all use the bacteria/virus line to explain how the invaders ultimately fail. I don't recall if that's what H.G. used in his book (I don't believe that at that time, viruses were either discovered or confirmed to exist, although bacteria were well-known).

[C Elegans]

I have not seen the movie and I certainly do not intend to.

[QUOTE=Chanak](I don't believe that at that time, viruses were either discovered or confirmed to exist, although bacteria were well-known).[/QUOTE]

The discovery of viruses as disease-bearing vectors would have been around the same time as the novel was written. It was however at the time still unclear whether it was really some kind of organism or a toxin. The first virus could not be spotted in microscope until the 1930's I think.

[fable]

Wells was big on irony--sort of a modern Euripides. In the Invisible Man, he showed that far from invisibility being a wonderful thing, it would lead to isolation, ostracisim, easy tagging for death. And the invaders in War of the Worlds did die from exposure to some unknown Terran illness. The concept of sickness-inducing substances was not new, just not proven; that pillar of the Puritan community, Increase Mather, had once suggested in writing to the local government that they drop smallpox-infected clothing around a Native American encampment to kill off potential future enemies. The concept of immunity, too, was known, thanks to Europeans such as the Spanish, English, French, Dutch, and Portuguese bringing microbes they didn't suffer from to native communities that then suffered epidemics. But again, the delivery mechanism wasn't understood, and there were always plenty of people willing to credit a "just God" for all the killings.

[Ideal Maxima]

Really? What do you think the average person would find confusing?

Ok, well:

birds?! or was it water or something else?

Well, Vic answered the question, it was bacteria. The aliens' immune systems were unfamiliar to paramecium and all that crud. The crows, simply transfered all the bacteria and germs when they were sitting on the machines.

[Caden]

[QUOTE=Ravager]Cruise's character seemed very lucky to me, how did a plane crashing somehow completely miss his car, and the fireball didn't burn (or even singe ) the stairs?
How did he survive in the crowd in New York?
The basement stairs seemed the same in both cases.
What was the weakness of the big monsters, anyway, birds?! or was it water or something else?
If the head of the monster was the weak point why did no-one think of *that* earlier? (Maybe Spielberg is trying to get a point across about the US forces )
It probably should have showed some of rest of the world rather than just the US.

Other than that it was pretty good, despite all the basement time .[/QUOTE]
Maybe I could help with some of these. (edit Spoilers BEWare!!)
the aim of how the plane crashed didn't seem directed anywhere near his car, but with all the other destruction that happened I was a little surprised that his car was left standing or that he could even get his car around all the rubble.

he survived the crowd I think only because he scared them off momentarily with the gun he had. Which seemed obvious to me and once he left the car he was no more a target than any other person in that city so the crowd left him alone.

I have no idea what you mean about the stairs. I'll have to watch that part again. I was looking around and it seemed much of what was in the basement wasn't burned. Perhaps the fire only singed and stayed along the top of the basement as it seemed b4 tom cruise closed the door and burned his arm doing so.

What killed the aliens was OUR planet's viruses and other bacteria. Much like how 99% of the native americans were wiped out. And the head of the machine isn't the weak point. Like I had to point out to someone else, what tom cruise was screaming about the birds was the fact that they were touching the machine and therefore the alien must have had his shield down. It was hard to hear, but that is what he was screaming about "it's shield is down!" Now why it's shield was down in the first place seemed like the only plot hole to me. Like, did it just slip the alien's mind to put it back on or something? Maybe he forgot after collecting people to put it back on. Perhaps his sickness had something to do with his train of thought.


I only know a little bit about H.G. Wells' original War of the Worlds and I wouldn't be surprised if the movie wasn't anything like it. I mean in the original weren't the aliens from mars or was that just in the radio broadcast? But the movie wasn't bad otherwise, I think.

[Rob-hin]

[QUOTE=Ideal Maxima]
Well, Vic answered the question, it was bacteria. The aliens' immune systems were unfamiliar to paramecium and all that crud. The crows, simply transfered all the bacteria and germs when they were sitting on the machines.[/QUOTE]

Well I knew that obvously.
But it it didn't show! One has to guess himself.
The ending is just BOING, 'The end' Out of the blue.

I didn't find it confusing, I found it irritating.


Edit:
Since we're looking for mistakes...(minor spoiler)
When the aliens come, the send an EMP that kills all electronics in the city. When the first robot emerges, someone has a camcorder and records it all. Why isn't that this broken too? Rather silly imo.

[Ravager]

Okay, I suppose I should have guessed about the bacteria, but you would think that could have been explained in the last few minutes of narrative.

@Caden, I meant the crowd running awayy from the first alien in New York.

Thanks for all your replies everyone .

[Caden]

[QUOTE=Rob-hin]Well I knew that obvously.
But it it didn't show! One has to guess himself.
The ending is just BOING, 'The end' Out of the blue.

I didn't find it confusing, I found it irritating.
[/QUOTE]ENDING SPOILER****Are you sure? I remember the ending saying something about the aliens having lost the fight the second they came to earth, breathed in our air and drank our water by the smallest of something creatures god made certain to put on our planet. (saying this while actually showing microscopic organisms on the screen) There's not much to guess.

[C Elegans]

[QUOTE=fable]The concept of sickness-inducing substances was not new, just not proven; that pillar of the Puritan community, Increase Mather, had once suggested in writing to the local government that they drop smallpox-infected clothing around a Native American encampment to kill off potential future enemies. The concept of immunity, too, was known, thanks to Europeans such as the Spanish, English, French, Dutch, and Portuguese bringing microbes they didn't suffer from to native communities that then suffered epidemics. But again, the delivery mechanism wasn't understood, and there were always plenty of people willing to credit a "just God" for all the killings. [/QUOTE]

The pathogenic or "germ" theory of disease (the theory that microorganisms, "germs", spread disease) was well established for bacteria by 1898, thanks to Pasteur, Henle and others. The concept of immunity was known also from vaccines, Jenner discovered the first vaccine already in the beginning of the century.

The germ theory of disease was first suggested by the Romans, and again by Italian monks during the 15th century IIRC, but Europe prefered to believe in god as a cause for disease at the time.

I don't remember if I have read War of the worlds or not, I think not but if I have it was so long ago so I don't remember anything. Is it clear in the novel what the aliens die from?

[Rob-hin]

[QUOTE=Caden]ENDING SPOILER****Are you sure? I remember the ending saying something about the aliens having lost the fight the second they came to earth, breathed in our air and drank our water by the smallest of something creatures god made certain to put on our planet. (saying this while actually showing microscopic organisms on the screen) There's not much to guess.[/QUOTE]

**Another spoiler**
Yes, there was the ending with the waterdrup, the same as how the movie started. But it did not enlighten the situation. It stated WHY, but not HOW, what the aliens were doing and such.. too many ?'s remained still.

[Chanak]

[QUOTE=Rob-hin]Edit:
Since we're looking for mistakes...(minor spoiler)
When the aliens come, the send an EMP that kills all electronics in the city. When the first robot emerges, someone has a camcorder and records it all. Why isn't that this broken too? Rather silly imo.[/QUOTE]

Answer: obviously this camera had no transistors or printed circuitboards, Rob. It was a...camera with vacuum tubes!