Kevin's Watch

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?

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.

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.