Curse

Arthas006not7 · Jul 05, 2005, 04:59 PM // 16:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by UberRusty

Just like Star Wars 3, I think stunning effects will not make up for a bad plot.

Woah....you thought star wars ep 3 had a bad plot? I thought the plot and story was great, it was some of the acting that was bad to me.

Sir Skullcrasher · Jul 05, 2005, 05:31 PM // 17:31

watch out now, Steven Spielberg is a pirate.. he like to steal your ideas!! (but seriously which director out there hasn't rip off the idea from other films..

)

and yes the ship look so similar to the striders from HL 2!

Danny_Rowe · Jul 05, 2005, 06:17 PM // 18:17

i thought war of the worlds was quite pants

, i havent read the book and had no idea it was a remake. seeing as im only 17, The special effects in the movie where awesome by far the best ive seen in a while. But there just wants enough of a story too me. why did they come? when the aliens traveled down the lightening in a lil pod thing, how come theree were no marks, only little cracks in the concrete from the lightening? How in gods name did the son survive? No reason why the shields went down. ( i honestly thought they were allergic 2 birds) no reason to why all the batterys died and no phone signal. I could go on but im busy. I am a nice person at heart, but theres just so much left out in my eyes.

Acan Vishnu · Jul 05, 2005, 06:39 PM // 18:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by EchoSex

then a car is repaired by replacing the transmission when it was the battery which was not working...

Don't remember anything about the transmission being changed, I thought it was the solenoid that they replaced, after changing battery.

As far as the movie, it was a fair adaptation of the book, not stellar... but it was pretty good. I thought overall that the acting was good, but the scriptwriting was kind of sad in some places.. many of the son's lines come to mind as being particularly craptastic.

Overall I was happy with the movie, glad I went to see it.

As an aside, does anyone else think that Tom Cruise is just too well-known? I was sitting in the movie and every time he was on screen it kinda jarred me out of the movie, it was like, "Hey, thats Tom Cruise, not Ray Ferrier"

Algren Cole · Jul 05, 2005, 06:47 PM // 18:47

I'd venture to say that the OP never read the book....

Diablo™ · Jul 05, 2005, 07:07 PM // 19:07

Its not about the rip, the execution itself is weak. Character development was inconsistent. The son's character is that of a rebel (mainly against his father's escapist idealism), but there's no reason for him to become so passionate about fighting back against the aliens, even so, where do we find him in the end? Hiding with his mom somewhere in Boston (Apparently Boston is immune to alien invasions...). Cruise's character slowly evolves through the movie from being an escapist to a protector of his daughter, but the ending completely renders that character development useless by simply saying "the germs solved everything". Through out the whole movie there was not one hint of the ending, nor any relevance to it, men merely "discovers" that its ending. Their efforts are futile and a waste of my Guild Warring time. In the original War of the Worlds, the same ending was much better executed, Aliens actually conqured Earth and the virus and germs took their times and slowly killed the Aliens, the passage of time and the endurance of humanity made the ending much more meaningful, something that Spielburg failed to communicate in this movie.

On a positive note, the Special Effects was very well done, better than most movies this year. The Strider/Tripods were cool, even if it looked familiar from Half-Life 2 (I doupt you can patent the design of a tripod, there are dozens of other fiction novels that include such contraptions), and they really did convey the feeling of being hopeless. However, a poor character development, and an even poorer execution of story plots, blasphemizing the original works of H.G. Wells, recieves this movie with a score of: 4/10.

Bushmins · Jul 05, 2005, 07:13 PM // 19:13

Geoff Waynes WOTW was set in the UK not America. <---ruined it for me, just like all the other war films that are made to gloryfy the USA. Especially the WW1/2 films, i have a feeling that most Americans dont know that the US Army didnt join the war till some of their boats were blown up, very near the end of it all.

Keesa · Jul 05, 2005, 07:14 PM // 19:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Acan Vishnu

Don't remember anything about the transmission being changed, I thought it was the solenoid that they replaced, after changing battery.

As far as the movie, it was a fair adaptation of the book, not stellar... but it was pretty good. I thought overall that the acting was good, but the scriptwriting was kind of sad in some places.. many of the son's lines come to mind as being particularly craptastic.

Overall I was happy with the movie, glad I went to see it.

As an aside, does anyone else think that Tom Cruise is just too well-known? I was sitting in the movie and every time he was on screen it kinda jarred me out of the movie, it was like, "Hey, thats Tom Cruise, not Ray Ferrier"

Yes, it was the solenoid, which was pretty stupid because you can jump a solenoid to find out if it's bad or not before you try to replace it.

I hated the son character from the time he started trying to run away to join the army... he's going to leave this little sister to whom he's very devoted in the charge of a man with whom he's incredibly angry for being such a miserable excuse of a father? Sure...

I loved the effects and tried to ignore plot and character inconsistencies. /sigh

salatious · Jul 05, 2005, 07:29 PM // 19:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by PieXags

So they took some of the coolest ideas from other movies/games and made one big movie out of it?

Sounds like a good idea to me.

Also keep in mind that there've been so many ideas already in movies we don't KNOW that they stole them, hell I've thought of designs and cool shit before on my own only to later find out someone else already thought of it.

Originality is what makes movies so good.. for example:

Pulp Fiction
Momento
the Cube
Dark City
Lock Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels
Blair Witch Project

these are just some examples of Originality in a movie..
Directors like George Lucas, Steven S and a hand full of others dont give a damn about story plot or the shock and aw of film making they just want to put something out there that will do nothing more than entertain you. I havent seen this film and probably wont till it comes out n DVD becasue these kinda movies i know are going to be nothing more than entertainment for the suckers that only care about ACTION and no acting/story line.

If you want to see a good movie go see Batman Begins theres a movie with great story line super acting and the Directors vision is nothing more then flawless.

if you want to see some good movies go to www.imdb.com and look up directors like

David Fincher
Micheal Mann
Christopher Nolan
Stanley Kubrick
Brad Anderson
Ridley Scott
M. Night Shyamalan

Stay away from Directors like
George Lucas
Steven Spielberg
James Cameron

Algren Cole · Jul 05, 2005, 08:17 PM // 20:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bushmins

Geoff Waynes WOTW was set in the UK not America. <---ruined it for me, just like all the other war films that are made to gloryfy the USA. Especially the WW1/2 films, i have a feeling that most Americans dont know that the US Army didnt join the war till some of their boats were blown up, very near the end of it all.

I would venture to say that's not correct....not only do most americans know this...but it also isn't true.

The americans were supplying tanks and planes to Britain well before they were bombed by Japan.

Batman Begins WAS amazing...definately worth seeing.

Though I did think War of The Worlds was amazing as well....but probably because I had read the novel and never expected the Humans to anihilate the aliens.

salatious · Jul 05, 2005, 08:20 PM // 20:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bushmins

Geoff Waynes WOTW was set in the UK not America. <---ruined it for me, just like all the other war films that are made to gloryfy the USA. Especially the WW1/2 films, i have a feeling that most Americans dont know that the US Army didnt join the war till some of their boats were blown up, very near the end of it all.

lets not forget that if it wasnt for us joining that War that Hitler might have just had his way

Principa Discordia · Jul 05, 2005, 08:38 PM // 20:38

Get back on topic or I lock this thread, I just can't tolerate this kind of drum-beating and jingoism I don't give a crap what nation you're from.

salatious · Jul 05, 2005, 08:41 PM // 20:41

Bondage in a Avatar from a Mod????

Principa Discordia · Jul 05, 2005, 08:41 PM // 20:41

It's called art, and what did I just say? Get back on topic.

Sero.Overdose · Jul 05, 2005, 09:38 PM // 21:38

As for good Directors. Ridley Scott is my favourite Director, everything in his movies is pretty realistic. Hes done, Gladiator, Blackhawk Down, Kingdom of Heaven(will have an extra hour and a bit of footage upon DVD release). He is just one of my favourites...

Back to the topic at hand, WOTW....The terraforming...genious but too bad they spent all their time shooting everyone instead of farming them for their blood. I liked it except the son showing up at the end and boston being untouched. I think that the total takeover and struggle to survive underground should of lasted longer.

Bushmins · Jul 05, 2005, 09:59 PM // 21:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Principa Discordia

Get back on topic or I lock this thread, I just can't tolerate this kind of drum-beating and jingoism I don't give a crap what nation you're from.

That means i dont get to argue. I thought this was the absurd off topic area.

Nm

I think that the WOTW sound track (Geoff Wayne) and the early B/W film are not really related.
The radio broadcast by Orwell IS how ever related to the film and sound track.

Interesting fact about the radio broadcast is that when it was 1st aired in the US some guy shot his family and himself coz he thought it was real

Stev0 · Jul 05, 2005, 10:25 PM // 22:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by EchoSex

1. The red stuff ending up everywhere - Dreamcatcher, both book and movie.

The aliens need to convert the world over to their standard. Note the fluids within the vehicles and the use of low frequency communications.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EchoSex

2. The tubes sucking the blood out of the humans - Starship Troopers with the brain bugs.

Meh! I seriously don't think Speilberg is going to emulate anything from Paul Verhoeven's movies. The Aliens have found a way to use human chemicals to convert the planet to their use.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EchoSex

3. The alien's looks - Total rip off from the creatures of Independance Day (EXACTLY the same)

4. The ships - COMPLETE rip off of the Striders from Half-Life 2

You seriously should look around at some of HG Wells' original works on War of the Worlds. The original alien machines were 3 legged. The HL2 Striders if ANYTHING are a copy of that. The Aliens just built a larger version of themselves to move about since the effects of Earth's gravity/atmosphere are much different from that of mars. This idea is much the same as human piloting giant robots.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EchoSex

5. The scene in where Tim Robbins is killed and the girl covers her ears and sings to block out the noise - Straight from "Face Off" during the shoot out where the kids listens to "Somewhere Over The Rainbow."

Cruise's character did'nt want his daughter to hear or see what desperate measure he was about to take. You can tell she gets upset via the 'my space' speil. Telling her to look only at him as he puts her in the minivan after the plane came down around the house. Cross this with the fact that he does'nt know any childhood songs makes him instantly think of having her sing to blot out what is to happen.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EchoSex

6. The force fields being deactived - Independance Day

Have you even read any of Well's War of the Worlds novelizations? Have you even seen the original B&W movie???

Quote:

Originally Posted by EchoSex

7. The bodies being completely decentrigated up by the lasers - Both Mars Attacks! and Half-Life 2 (Remember the strider's attack and the supression beam from the combine stronghold?)

So I guess the lasers are supposed to turn them into chickens? The Aliens have studied Humans and developed weapons to remove them from polluting Earth. Easy way to do this is vaporize living tissue leaving only ash (see original b&w movie). This way you avoid colatteral damage and take the world intact.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EchoSex

8. The machines being blown up from the inside from grenades inserted under the belly - Star Wars: The Empire Strikes back, when Luke sticks the explosive on the belly of the ATAT. (Sorry if I'm wrong Star Wars fans, it could've been an ATST, I just don't remember the differance :/)

Grenades being handy from an abandoned jeep. I guess there was'nt any Tac-Nukes lying about =X. The only real thing that bothered me about that scene was that no one help the poor bastard that got sucked up before Cruise but then they decided to pitch in to help HIM. The scene was played out to not only show Cruise get SOME payback but to show that these things CAN be beaten.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EchoSex

9. The bodies floating in the river - Hard Rain.

Sorry. I don't think this is yet another copied scene. Just a reminder that people are dying in unprecidented numbers. Ever hear the phrase 'Choke the river with dead'?

Quote:

Originally Posted by EchoSex

Starting to get my drift? But it wasn't just these quirks copied from other movies (and a game) that drove the film downward, it was also the inconsistancy of the whole thing. During the first part of the movie, it was acknowlaged that all batteries are completely burnt out by a thunderstorm (cell phones, watches, cars..), and yet people are seen filming the ships and taking pictures, and then a car is repaired by replacing the transmission when it was the battery which was not working...

EMP works by shorting out all OPERATING electronic equipment. In tactical nuclear warfare electronics are heavily shielded against EMP and turned off. After all you seem to have watched Indepence Day. Remember when they rebooted the FO's systems in the APC after the nuclear strike? The van was repaired because an undamaged cellenoid was replaced not the transmission.

I think it's you who has been influenced by what you have seen instead of Speilberg copying from lesser directors. I don't hear people ripping on Lucas after he put out the first Star Wars trilogy. He even admitted to using Kurosawa's filming techniques.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EchoSex

Another scene of this was unexplained incidences such as the force fields suddenly just turning off, and the death of Tim Robbins which is not explained (How was he killed?). Your also left questioning how in the world the son of the main charictor survived and how we did not find these space ships under the ground when they've been there since before civilization.

Again. Forcefields are not explained as to how they shut off in the original. The aliens just were too hungover to hit the raise shields button the next morning. Tim Robbin's character's death explanation and Cruise's son's survival need no explaining. One is we don't need to know because not knowing makes it more horrifying (he choked him ok? Wow! great plot addition there) the other just adds more un-needed explanation to a movie that is already near to 2 hours long (I seriously dont want EVERYTHING explained to me, his son is a survivor and you can see the fight in him).

Also I am sure I could make page after page of rip off instances like this with REAL proof on any movie out there. I think this movie was great and I went to see a good show and I did. I was PO'd with the fact that yet another remake of King Kong (8th movie to be exact not including spin offs) all of these were horrible except for the original 1933 movie. Once I saw the first trailer... I may be seeing this one.

Akilles · Jul 05, 2005, 10:44 PM // 22:44

it was a fun movie to watch though, i love the horn sound! it gave such a scary presence to the "striders"

the only part i had an issue with was the mother and father next to me who brought the 5 and 6 year old kids to this in which they were scared and they had to get up and leave like 6 times!!!!

Are you just dumb to bring kids this young to a movie like that? AHHHHH!!!!!!!! I came SO close to not moving my legs and say "go the other way" but i moved for the kids.

CatLady · Jul 05, 2005, 11:23 PM // 23:23

I'd like to open with the fact that one: I've never read the book, but I have seen the original movie a few times & know the books generally history/legacy and two: the remake is enjoyable enough (but nothing special) on the action-destruction level, so if you go wanting that type of film, it's fun. F/X and the ships were fun to watch etc and if you watch it in that vein, it's fine. if you're hoping for something more cerebral, you'll be disappointed.

That said...the main problem for me is that if you remain true to the original vision, the film falls apart on plot. You can't help it. Sci-fi sometimes dates badly, because of the period in which it is written and the state of science at that time. The fact that it was chosen to modernize the setting to present-day, for this re-make, didn't help.

1 - The idea that an advanced alien race with terraforming capabilities and the ability to ride lightning would be stupid enough not to check for harmful bacteria/viruses before implementing their full-scale invasion isn't very believable anymore. They had this technology for a 'million years' (since they buried the ships ages ago) and can create rooty plants and in all that time they've never invented a bio-suit or tested the air/water to see if it's suitable for their lifeform/plans? Can you imagine humans tossing thousands of colonists onto a new planet without fairly extensive research done in this area first?

2 - WHY would the aliens bury ships 'millions of years ago' when there were no humans (or much of anything) on the planet when they did it? Why not just take over the planet back then instead? Did they 'plant' the seeds of our development like we might plant corn, as part of some million-year-terraforming process, knowing they need our type of blood/protein for their plants?
And if not, why would they have developed rooty plants that fed (or something) on human protein/blood when humans didn't exist at the time they scouted the planet? And if they were keeping tabs all those millenia and re-adjusted their plants once humans showed up, that brings us back to #1 - their micro-biology capabilites vs. their apparent stupidity vs. the bacteria thing.

Maybe the actual book explains these things better?

As to child-in-peril-screaming...I hate that plot device. It doesn't endear characters to me. Directors need to learn it's not cute or scary, that constant screaming. It's just friggin' annoying. I felt the same in Aliens, and Jurassic Park, and all the others.

Re: originality/re-makes. I was extremely amused at the theater we went to, for they showed maybe 7 preview trailers. And NOT A SINGLE ONE was an original film. They were all re-makes of older films, TV shows, or adaptations of a book etc. King Kong. Chronicles of Narnia. Willy Wonka/Chocolate Factory. Bad News Bears (!!!). etc. Now, even if they were all shown on thematic-purpose since WoTW is a re-make/adaptation, it was still funny.

The loooong trailer for King Kong, IMO, looked cheesy as hell. I literally laughed out loud at the end of the trailer with the Kong doing his strike-a-pose, patented mad grizzly bear roar. The trailer just makes me think 'big-budget seen-it-all-before CGI-fest stinker'. But it is Jackson, so we'll see.

Inde · Jul 06, 2005, 12:54 AM // 00:54

Two posts nuked. I fail to see how 'stay on topic' is confusing.