Curse

Eclair · Jul 06, 2005, 01:00 AM // 01:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by CatLady

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.

1. Microbes and viruses might be something that they are completely unfamiliar with. Even with our own advanced technologies, we still make countless mistakes simply because of the things we have not encountered before. In the original novel, it was stated that the Aliens lived in a environment with no harmful pathogens, so it is completely plausible that they basically "screwed" up.

2. They could have launched countless numbers of these machines out into space, and burrowing themselves into any planet that might sustain life, finally coming to cultivate it when its ready. Also, it is quite apparent that Tim Robbins is completely dilusional. How would he know that they were here for a million years? Part of what made the movie so enjoyable to me was that the survivors had so many different accounts of what happened, and both Cruise's character and the audience has to sort out what is real and what is not.

CatLady · Jul 06, 2005, 01:16 AM // 01:16

Those things are possible/plausible in novels, sure. But I think the point remains that for a visual film, it does not work today...not without some explanation or even conjecture/hints for suspension of disbelief to be possible by the audience.

As you say - Robbin's was nuts...but Freeman's narrator makes much the same assumption at the start of the film - fiction wise, you could say that their arrival is what wiped out the dinosaurs...that would be good story-wise - one tiny line added to the movie to make those modern questions go away.

I do like the fact that the film is based on the 'average person's' viewpoint of the invasion, rather than a military/global one. There doesn't need to be tons of characterization or explantion to make a good slice-of-life film, but this one still doesn't work as a suspension of disbelief piece of cinema. If they had wanted to leave it completely mysterious/common-man-in-the-dark, they shouldn't have had the narration or Robbin's character's wild theories aired - the images should have been enough.

Eclair · Jul 06, 2005, 02:37 AM // 02:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by CatLady

Those things are possible/plausible in novels, sure. But I think the point remains that for a visual film, it does not work today...not without some explanation or even conjecture/hints for suspension of disbelief to be possible by the audience.

As you say - Robbin's was nuts...but Freeman's narrator makes much the same assumption at the start of the film - fiction wise, you could say that their arrival is what wiped out the dinosaurs...that would be good story-wise - one tiny line added to the movie to make those modern questions go away.

I do like the fact that the film is based on the 'average person's' viewpoint of the invasion, rather than a military/global one. There doesn't need to be tons of characterization or explantion to make a good slice-of-life film, but this one still doesn't work as a suspension of disbelief piece of cinema. If they had wanted to leave it completely mysterious/common-man-in-the-dark, they shouldn't have had the narration or Robbin's character's wild theories aired - the images should have been enough.

I agree though, they should have left out the narration, and worked the virus part in a more subtle manner. I think the Tim Robbins part was fine though, as it added to the overall mood, which was to confused Ray/the audience.

EchoSex · Jul 06, 2005, 02:46 AM // 02:46

I'm not a butthead for making this thread, am I? o_O

Marc Grahamsworth · Jul 06, 2005, 02:52 AM // 02:52

What would've been better if they'd actually set a War of the Worlds movie in the original setting: 19th century England

.

And as many have said, Spielburg didn't really rip-off anyone. It was all in the book. The movie may have not had much of a plot, true, but neither did the original story. War of the Worlds was meant to show how pathetic humanity really is in the face of extermination and it was also meant to show the varying ways we would react to a situation. I was really depressed after watching the film and felt that life was pointless - which for me, is the whole point of the film (fortunately, this feeling was only temporary

).

Pevil Lahuta's Pet Moa · Jul 06, 2005, 02:56 AM // 02:56

I feel bad for poor echosex...i dont think 1 person has agreed with him, only proved him wrong and gotten pissed. As much as it gets me T.O.ed (ticked off) that some ppl hyave such low opinions of this movie, you gotta understand its opinion. I mean how many academy award winning and nominated movies have i seen that i hate (crouching tiger, hidden dragon, lost in translation, Hero)

ty3c · Jul 10, 2005, 06:02 AM // 06:02

go see the old flim

this one just sucks.

Principa Discordia · Jul 10, 2005, 11:50 PM // 23:50

I just finally got to see the movie.

As someone who has read the H.G. Wells original, and seen the old movie, I give this movie a 7.5/10.

I liked it. Quite a lot, actually.

Soup4Brains · Jul 11, 2005, 02:33 AM // 02:33

1. The red stuff ending up everywhere - Dreamcatcher, both book and movie.
The red weed was from the original book.

2. The tubes sucking the blood out of the humans - Starship Troopers with the brain bugs.
They used human blood for noursihment and also the nutrients in the blood are used to fertilize the aformentioned red weed.

3. The alien's looks - Total rip off from the creatures of Independance Day (EXACTLY the same)
Not exacty, but close enough that I agree with you on this one.

4. The ships - COMPLETE rip off of the Striders from Half-Life 2
The Half-Life 2 Striders were created to resemble the original WOTW aliens. The movie and game couldn't have possibly ripped off one another; HL2 was kept behind closed doors since it began production in '98, and the WOTW movie also kept all its content secret until its release.

6. The force fields being deactived - Independance Day
In Independence Day, deactivating the force fields required going into the alien mothership; in WOTW the germs did the job.

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?)
See #4.

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 :/)
Are you kidding? This is a common concept used all the time in various art forms.

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...
EMPs effect only electronics with complete circuits. It wasn't the battery that was replaced in the car. I forgot what it was called, but since the one that they used to replace it was not in the car and part of the circuit during the EMP, it was unharmed. As for the camera, the battery wasn't in it when the EMP hit.

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.
The force fields were killed off by the germs infecting the aliens' systems.
Who even said Tim Robbins was killed? He could have simply been knocked unconcious. We're led to assume that he was killed with the shovel.
The son should have died. VERY bad story decision having him live.

In closing, just because there are similarities to other movies/games doesn't mean they were being ripped off. Everything you cited were faily loose similarities.

Lalii · Jul 11, 2005, 02:41 AM // 02:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Keesa

I liked everything except the stupid tantrums Fanning kept throwing... wanted to slap her...

Considering what her character was exposed to she did it perfectly. Hell, if that really happened I'd be doing a crapload more screaming than she was. I though it was great. Not saying it was pleasant to listen to but I'm sick of movies that try to hit a nerve yet fail to bring any real human reactions into it. This one did a good job of that.

I liked the movie personally, flaws and all. The only thing I really didn't like (and I know its because the movie was primarily made for an American audience, of which I am not) was the constant terrorist references. That irritated me above all else. But I guess they were trying to bring modern influences into it.

But still, damn good movie.

Edge Martinez · Jul 11, 2005, 03:03 AM // 03:03

They offed Tim Robbins... I HEARTILY recommend it!