War of the Worlds

[ChoChiyo]

Tom Cruise: "You're glib."

Now if THAT ain't the pot calling the kettle black, I don't know what is.

I saw the trailers yesterday.

I saw a lot of Tom Cruise's teeth in exaggerated grinning and smirking.

The special effects look great.

A pity Tom Cruise is in it...why not Dennis Quaid? He's cute.

hehehehehe

[Damelon]

Never underestimate a man who can walk away from Nicole Kidman.......

All the more reason to be suspicious of Tom Cruise. He deserves this:
www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,16809,00.html?tnews

[Edge]

Ok.. setting aside the whole sordid Tom Cruising issue, for the moment:

Can you believe how badly they miscast the role of Ray Ferrier?

[Loredoctor]

Hmmm. I''m no fan of Tom Cruise, but apparently he plays a good loser in the movie.

[Cail]

If by "good loser" you mean "thrown headfirst into a chipper/shredder", then I may go see the film.

[Edge]

Now, that I would cheerfully pay to see.

On the other hand... Cruise, 'playing' a loser... Can you say typecasting, boys and girls?

[Loredoctor]

By the way, people: the other war of the worlds movie - the UK production - has been released on DVD. This version is more accurate to the novel, though it suffers from poor direction, effects and acting.

[Worm of Despite]

The subject matter doesn't interest me, nor the actor particularly (although, he has been in some good stuff), but, since it's Spielberg, it does spark a mild curiosity in me. Will probably rent it, like I did Minority Report.

[dlbpharmd]

Yup, definitely a "wait for DVD" movie for me.

[duchess of malfi]

Same here.

While I know a lot of people did not like Independence Day, I actually enjoyed that movie somewhat, and if I want to see a remake of War of the Worlds, I would rather see the hunky Will Smith than the plastic Tom Cruise in it.

[Furls Fire]

sigh...all this Tommy bashing

I like him, always have.

I want to see this movie, but not so much for him...I just LOVE Dakota Fanning. She's a marvelous little actress..not to mention that she reminds me so much of Chelsea. And Chelsea is just as precocious.

[[Syl]]

This version of War of the Worlds comes out on video on Tuesday. It's a little hokey, but it's really not too bad. There's a lot of walking (by my calculations, this guy walked about 1000 miles), and some cheesy special effects, but I don't know... except when the giant crab-things were walking around, I liked it.

[Loredoctor]

There are actually three other films than Spielberg's being released. Pendragon's (Syl's post), Asylum's (heard it is very good), and Jeff Wayne's animated version.

My verdict of WotW? Spielberg has done a wonderful job.

[High Lord Tolkien]

I just saw it this week.

Question:
How can something be so good and yet suck so bad at the same time?

Spoiler

The alien ships? AWESOME!
The sound and the weapons? Awesome!
People getting zapped? Awesome!
The train? Outstanding!
The little girl? Loved her!
Cruise? Did a great job!
I even liked how he grew to be a real father under the circumstances.

BUT, Ok, the blood thing? WTF was THAT all about?
Was it something like terraforming with human blood?
Dumb, stupid......!

The ships were already here? So the aliens knew that they'd need shielded battle craft hundreds of years ago when humans were fighting on horseback? Again, WTF?
The pilots came later? uh...ok
Where did the pilots come from? Are there transport ships orbiting the Earth or was it a spacewarp thingy?

Cages underneath the ships? WTF was up with that? DUMB!

I could almost buy/accept that a race as technologically advanced as these guys could screw up the bacteria research (I can see future humans making similar smaller scale mistakes) but the WHOLE invasion fleet/force? COME ON!!!

And DID Japan take out a few shielded Tripods or were they already suffering from infection?
And WAS Europe free or wasn't it?
Did someone else say that Europe got it worse? I'm not sure.

Oh and a HUGE error too.
Remember the guy who whipped out his video camera when the Tripod first surfaced in Cruises hometown?
How was it working when everything else was zapped by the EMP?
HA! do I get a No-Prize for that one?

[Loredoctor]

In response:

1. As I have explained elsewhere, and as it is explained early on in the movie (listen carefully) emp is temporary. Second, EMP only affects systems with a current running through it. So maybe the camera was turned off earlier.

2. What is wrong with using blood as fertiliser?

3. The tripods were never said to be here hundreds of years ago - that was Ogilvy's words. Maybe they planted the tripods only years ago. The same sort of lightning strike could have delivered self-constructing machinery deep into the ground. Lightning strikes are common.
Further, even if they were planted centuries ago, so does that mean the crew cant turn up later? Maybe they sent the tripods way ahead to prepare for an invasion that was centuries in advance. Maybe the aliens came via a portal that for them was a few seconds but between the events was centuries.

3. How are cages underneath the hood dumb?

4. Olgilvy heard that they worked out the weakness in Osaka. Maybe they did what Cruise did - pop a grenade in. The US military had worked out that strategy as well - listen to what the commander on the hill says.

[High Lord Tolkien]

huh? I looked for another "W of the W" before posting in this one.
I just looked again but didn't see it.
I'd love to read what you and others have said.

Can you link me?

In response:

Spoiler

1:
I think your EMP idea doesn't work or why would the older cars (especially the non-computerized ones) not work if it was just a matter of not being turned on at the time?

2:
*Was* the blood as fertiliser? A movie should be self contained. It shouldn't rely on a viewers previous sci-fi background. My wife, for example, had no idea what the blood was about and my worst and only guess was about terraforming!

3a.
I just thought that was the weakest idea, imho.
The lightning made no sense and wasn't explained.
What was the motivation for the invasion anyway?
They coveted out resources?
Way too vague for my tastes.
At least in Independance Day we knew exactly what they wanted and what they were going to do from the aliens themselves.
What caused the lightning anyway?
I like your idea but I hate it when *I* have to fill in the blanks!!
That seems like a HUGE blank area.

3b
Why kill so many with the Tripod weapons if you need the blood?
And if the Tripod weapon did the same thing (absorb the blood/fluids) then why the cage. It was just plain dumb to me. Although it did LOOK cool!

4:
I missed that.
Hopefully there will be more info on the DVD.

[Loredoctor]

I'll get the link to you, HLT.
In response:

Spoiler

1. EMP does knock out devices with a current running through them. All cars are knocked out because they always have a current running through them.

2. I am one for self-contained movies. The novel has the Martians injecting the blood into themselves, so the movie has its own version. They were fertilising the red weed, and it was terraforming (see the start where you get a glimpse of the home planet).

3. The motivation is hidden and therefore all the more scary. However, there is a hint what they are after in Morgan Freeman's speech at the start.
Thanks for the compliment, my friend.

4. I suppose they have to kill the people because I. It puts down opposition; II. It scares people (all the more easy to herd. And, III it turns people into ash (?) which is rich in phosphate - healthy for Red Weed.

My criticisms:

1. There is no sense this is the end of humanity; weak atmosphere there, though the invasion was terrifying.
2. The sudden dying of the aliens was jarring. What was needed was not dead red weed at the start, but a shot of a tripod behaving erratically earlier.

[Warmark]

im going to see it tonight, hope it is good.

[Cail]

I enjoyed it. SS did a great job of building tension without being overly graphic. It wasn't until after I left the theater that I started thinking about the huge plot holes.

And that's the sign of a good movie, I think. That you get so immersed in the story and the storytelling that you don't think about how implausable it is.

[onewyteduck]

It wasn't until after I left the theater that I started thinking about the huge plot holes.

Yeah, like how did someone the size and stature of Tom Cruise manage to physically subdue (kill?) someone the size and stature of Tim Robbins? If I were going to make a bet on that one, my money would go on Robbins!