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Moriarty
SPOILER ALERT !!
Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
Steven Spielberg is, simply put, the finest orchestrator of set pieces working in motion pictures at any level right now. He may well be the finest orchestrator of set pieces who has ever worked in motion pictures. He has such an innate understanding of how to use set-ups and payoffs and how to make each gain a unique and complete idea that he routinely creates movie moments that shame anyone else creating mainstream entertainment. There will be plenty of people who are so overwhelmed by the moments that are great in WAR OF THE WORLDS that they will not be able to resist a rush of hyperbole to anyone who asks how it was. You will hear the word “masterpiece” bandied about. You may even hear people compare it to RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK or JAWS.
Whatever WAR OF THE WORLDS is, it ain’t RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, and it ain’t JAWS.
There are a few things that make Spielberg such a fascinating film artist, and of all his peers, the guys he came up with, he’s the only one who I truly think has maintained every bit of the energy and ability and inventive playfulness that defined him in his youth, while also accumulating some real soul over the years that manifests in the strangest ways in his films now. Lucas has become more and more insular over the years, Coppola burned too bright to last, Milius is a genius but drives the money guys crazy, De Palma’s touched by brilliance but can vanish up his own ass at the drop of a hat, Schrader’s got the whole God thing he’s still working out, Scorsese’s class all the way but uneven at the most confusing times, and Zemeckis is better with the toys, but he just doesn’t seem to care about the scripts anymore. Of all of them, Spielberg is the one who continues to matter in a commercial sense and, I would argue, in an artistic sense. His films aren’t events because marketing people tell us they are events. His films are events because we all know that when he brings his “A” game, he has the ability to burn images into our consciousness like the very Hand Of God itself.
Growing up, I remember the first time I felt like Spielberg had punched a hole in my brain. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. Saw it at the drive-in. My parents hadn’t let me see JAWS when it came out, so I didn’t know Spielberg’s work yet. I was still just starting out as a raving movie fanatic. STAR WARS had definitely sparked my imagination earlier in the year, and I was hungry for more. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS seemed almost impossibly dense to me that first time I saw it. There was so much going on all over the world, so many characters, so many different storylines all happening at the same time, and I wasn’t quite sure I got the way it all tied together. But then everyone got to Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, and that mothership came down, and suddenly, it didn’t matter why everyone came together. It just made sense that they were all drawn for their own reasons, and they all had to be in this one place to witness this one thing, and it was every bit as magical and amazing and awe-inspiring as it would have been if it was happening for real. To a seven year old kid, it might as well have been real. When RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK came out, Spielberg pushed it even further, and the “HOLY SHIT!” moment in that film for me was when Belloq unleashed the Wrath of God. It was so far beyond what I expected to see in a fun little summer movie, so powerful and disturbing and unforgettable. It wasn’t even something you could spoil for anyone else, because you couldn’t just tell them what it was like. It was the combination of the remarkably designed special effects, the unearthly sounds, the performances (“IT’S BEAUTEEEEEFUL!!”), and that brilliant John Williams score. I don’t think I breathed the entire time that scene unfolded, and even went I went back and saw the film over and over that summer, it kept working on me the exact same way.
Maybe my favorite moment like that in any of his films is the T-Rex attack in the first JURASSIC PARK. I was working at Universal Studios as a tour guide the summer that film came out. We’d watched them shooting it all over the lot for six months leading up to the film’s release, and security had been tight. Even on the lot, no one had gotten a good look at the dinosaurs. We knew they had full-sized robots on some of the stages, but doors were kept firmly closed, and guards were posted everywhere. If you remember that summer, you remember there were no pictures leaked. Everyone kept reprinting the same image of the foot in the mud, because that’s all anyone had.
They showed the film to the tour guides just about a week before the film came out, just as the trades reviewed it. VARIETY ran the first photo of a dinosaur’s face that I saw anywhere, a small square picture of the T-Rex, but it was hard to tell what to think based on that. When we walked into that theater, the film hit us cold, and it hit us hard. I have problems with the way the movie’s built. I think it takes its time getting started, and not in a good way. I think it’s fairly clunky in terms of plot mechanics, and there’s a whole lot of coincidence that keeps things moving. But when that T-Rex escaped and attacked those two trucks on that road in the rainstorm, I wasn’t sitting there thinking, “Boy, I wish they’d handled the exposition a little better.” I was thinking, “Oh, fuck, I would hate to die being eaten. Oh, my god, this is the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen. Sweet God, Spielberg went out and found real dinosaurs and they’re going to eat those kids and I don’t want to see this and AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!” And I wasn’t alone, either. The temperature in the Alfred Hitchcock Theater on the lot went up by at least ten degrees during that scene. People were gripped by pure animal panic, and Spielberg managed to milk it for at least forty minutes there. It wasn’t the CGI that made JURASSIC PARK all that money. It was the fact that Spielberg connected with something buried deep inside our collective memory, the sensation of being a small furry thing in a world of giant predators, afraid of being eaten. It was primal, and people went back over and over and over again just to experience that adrenaline rush. I know I saw it five times at the Avco, which was still the original un-fucked giant downstairs house at the time, the first DTS theater in Los Angeles, with JURASSIC being the first DTS release. It was addictive because it was so effective, and it didn’t matter if nothing else in the film worked.
My guess is that Spielberg’s desire to make WAR OF THE WORLDS comes from watching empty CGI spectacles being rolled out summer after summer, movies like VAN HELSING that ladle on special effects so dense and busy that audiences don’t even know what they’re looking at anymore. Remember... JURASSIC PARK had a total of 65 CG effects shots in the whole film. He used it sparingly, and he leaned on the actual construction of the moment, the use of suspense and performance and audience empathy. He created a scene, not a demo reel for a new type of software. My guess is that WAR OF THE WORLDS was meant to school everyone in exactly how to do it again.
Close. But not quite.
One of the things that strikes me upon reflection is how severely lacking WAR OF THE WORLDS is in something that distinguishes Spielberg from even his most ardent imitators: humor. Spielberg is genuinely funny. It’s odd that his biggest flop is still thought to be 1941, because Spielberg is just as good as prying a huge laugh loose from an audience as he is at squeezing out the tears or unleashing real terror. In the forty minutes of JURASSIC PARK that start with the T-Rex attacking the trucks and end with the T-Rex chasing Laura Dern’s jeep, there are just as many giant laughs as there are big scares. I think it’s one of the reasons the sequence works so well. WAR OF THE WORLDS has a few wry smiles in it, but for the most part, prepare yourself for one big giant bummer that is all about fear. If you thought BATMAN BEGINS played things serious, that film plays like the Adam West ‘60s version compared to how dour WAR OF THE WORLDS is. For the most part, Spielberg’s got one thing on his mind: scaring you. This may be the most aggressive nightmare he’s ever committed to film, and I can honestly say I wouldn’t take a child under ten to see this film for any reason. There’s no pressure valve here, no moments of wonder to balance out the horror. That’s a good thing if what you’re looking for is a roller-coaster ride that plays explicitly on the fears of a post-9/11 populace, but if you’re looking for a film that hits more than one note, this isn’t it.
Tom Cruise is good in the film, particularly in the way he interacts with two other specific actors, Tim Robbins and Dakota Fanning. It’s not a particularly deep role. Ray Ferrier is not a character so much as he is a type, the Bad Dad. He wants to be the Good Dad, but he screwed up and lost his wife and now she’s remarried and he only sees his kids occasionally and he wants to connect with them but he knows he can’t and so now he’s just accepted his role as the Bad Dad. That’s pretty much it, and Spielberg takes about ten or fifteen minutes to set that up for us and make it crystal clear. Justin Chatwin plays Robbie, Ray’s son, and Dakota Fanning plays Rachel, his daughter. She’s got the better role, since all Robbie ever does is act angry. You know... because Cruise is a Bad Dad. We have to buy that, or the hug you just KNOW is coming won’t matter, right? The badder that Bad Dad is, the more we’ll care when he turns out to be the Good Dad he’s wanted to be all along.
Except... we don’t care. Or I didn’t, anyway. To turn one of Cruise’s new favorite words back on him, I thought the family dynamic at the beginning was “glib.” I thought it was all surface. And I fully acknowledge that it’s one of the perils of the genre. When I go see a film called WAR OF THE WORLDS, I’m not really there to see a tender family drama about reconciliation and forgiveness. I’m there to see aliens and spaceships and... well... the end of the world, quite frankly. About twenty minutes in, the mayhem begins in a really lovely set piece that builds... and builds... and builds... and by the time it reaches full force, you are almost blindsided because Spielberg ratchets things up so well. And he sustains that feeling not through just that one sequence, either, but through the next forty minutes to an hour, stacking up a series of harrowing moments for the Ferrier family as they decide to get the hell out of town and head for Boston, where Ray’s ex-wife Mary Ann (Miranda Otto in a role that just barely exists) is supposed to be. Spielberg’s craftsmanship, ably supported as always by cinematographer Janusz Kaminski and editor Michael Kahn, is absolutely top-notch through this entire stretch of the film, and the fact that we believe the absurd Tripods as figures of menace for even a moment has got to be a sign of just how effective his work is. Once Tim Robbins shows up, the film changes gears and becomes claustrophobic for a while, and even though there are a few great moments during this extended sequence, this is where the film runs out of gas dramatically. Everything after this sequence is simply not as powerful, not as involving, and not as viscerally compelling. Anyone complaining specifically about the ending of the film has (A) never read the book by H.G. Wells and (B) was probably looking for a more conventional action movie finale. I think the actual ending is the least of the movie’s problems, though, because there’s about a half-hour of the film that comes just before that point that feels like Spielberg’s running in place. Everything pre-Tim Robbins is so frightening, so immersive, that he is never able to generate that same level of fear once he defuses it. It’s a structural problem that’s inherent to the material, and it’s obvious that Spielberg was more interested in creating an amalgam of the original novel and the Orson Welles radio drama than he was in pesky li’l internal logic issues. Nightmares don’t always make perfect sense, and Spielberg seems to take that as permission to make a movie that is, in some ways, one of the sloppiest he’s ever made.
Don’t get me wrong. I’d recommend you see this in a theater. The biggest theater you can find, actually, with the best sound system within driving distance of you. There are things in this movie that any fan of the genre owes it to themselves to see and hear and experience. Watching this with a packed house this weekend, you’ll definitely get in touch with that communal reaction thing that makes theater-going more powerful than watching something at home alone on DVD, no matter how good your system. I’m not sure how some people are going to react to seeing a movie that so nakedly borrows the iconography of the World Trade Center attack as well as imagery that directly recalls the Holocaust, especially when this is a film that seems to be principally interested in thrilling the audience. I think it works, but I also think a little bit of this goes a long way, and Spielberg underlines the point several more times than he needs to. I like the choice to make the aliens a cipher throughout the film. We don’t learn anything about them. We don’t get a glimpse into the way they think. There’s no magic translator machine that allows us to have a conversation about motives with them. They are alien. They are completely and utterly beyond understanding to us. It’s nice, but it will frustrate some viewers who demand answers, who want things neatly resolved. David Koepp and Josh Friedman managed to encapsulate everything that H.G. Wells wrote about in their script, and they did a nice job of keeping the focus on normal people instead of the fighter pilots and the President’s cabinet and the various heads of state that these films always focus on. On that level, hats off. And technically speaking, Dennis Muren and Pablo Helman have done some magnificent work here, re-establishing ILM right at the top of the food chain where they belong. It’s one thing to create a film like STAR WARS, where nothing is real and the sets and the props and even some of the characters are all created inside a computer, but it’s much trickier to pull off something that feels handheld and lit by daylight and shot on location like this. There are a few places in the film where the condensed production process shows a bit (check out the CGI reference marks in the tunnel at the end that someone forgot to erase), but only a few. For the most part, the scale of this film is breathtakingly rendered and utterly persuasive, and it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s this film and not ROTS that ILM is nominated for next spring at the Oscars.
There are even a few shots that remind me of the way Zemeckis will push the envelope just to see what happens, like he did with that infamous mirror shot in CONTACT. Watch for the extended scene where Ray and his kids are in a car, racing away from the city, and the camera swoops around them, in and out of the car, in one unbroken and impossible take. It’s subtle, but once you realize what you’re seeing, it’s enough to make you wish for a rewind button right there in the theater. That’s Spielberg for you, though. He throws away more great visual ideas than many directors will ever have. If this film was intended to school us all on how to build a set-piece, then it’s a success on that level. However, I don’t think this is any sort of grand statement about survival or the human spirit in the face of adversity. It’s a perfect fireworks show for the long July 4th weekend, but as with even the most spectacular fireworks, it was not built to last.
"Moriarty" out.
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because your comments about FX make me laugh. Creating an ENTIRE WORLD OUT OF SOME DRAWINGS. Will forever be harder than just using some plates and adding the FX. ROTS even uses plates, models, and what not to add to the scene. Yet, that work, the work of creating a LIVING CITY PLANET, does not rank with alien destruction? Bloody hell man. Bloody hell. Glad the CLASSY bit of business on this site told it the way it is. This movie smelt like ass from day one. Cant wait to laugh at it in a movie theatre.
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why is it that this comparatively sober review actually makes me want to see the film more than harry's hyperbolic one?
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Y'know, everyone's saying that TC's recent shenanigans are messing up people's ability to suspend disbelief and be able to watch a movie with him in it without being conscious of "him" being in it. My problem however, is with Dakota Fanning...I find it hard to believe that there isn't another prepubescent actress out there who could have played this role, or for that matter, any of her other roles. What's up with that? It's like she is automatically given any role that comes up in this age class.
And for the actual WOTW review, well done. I think with any movie like this, it's best to have blunted expectations before seeing it simply due to all the hype...if anyone was to think that most "blockbusters" are going to be as good as they are talked up to be, we'd all always be disappointed. Now that I'm not hoping so much, I'll probably really enjoy myself, weird but true. -
Ebert gave this 2 stars. At this point I trust Ebert more than I trust this site.
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Jun 29, 2005 6:06:13 AM CDT
"Spielberg may be the greatest orchestrator of set pieces in the
by drunken rage
Whoa, there, big guy. Easy on the hyperbole. I don't generally enjoy Spielberg's movies and I have absolutely no desire to see this one although I may have. The reason why not: the incredibly ridiculous Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes hypefest. Who cares who his latest beard is?
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Jun 29, 2005 6:12:33 AM CDT
"I have absolutely no desire to see this one although I may have
by trusttyler
What the hell has any of that bull doo-doo have to do with watching a film? Does things that happen in the real world affect the way a film progresses and is acted and directed? For the love of Jebus, show a bit of perspective!
I'm gonna go see this movie because I quite like the look of it and I'll make an opinion on it, when I've seen it. Nothing that Cruise, Spielberg, or anyone else on the production do in real life will affect my views on the film. At all. -
Seriously though, I want to see the bashers from all the other talkbacks place Moriarty's review in the same box they've put the other ones in. All plants, all on Spielberg's payroll, all unreliable. Yadda yadda yadda.
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Jun 29, 2005 6:21:26 AM CDT
Re: At this point I trust Ebert more than I trust this site.
by jollysleeve
I find it odd that out of the 12 currently listed "cream of the crop" reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, you choose to believe the only one that didn't like the movie.
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Jun 29, 2005 6:24:00 AM CDT
Fair enough, we should all keep our expectations in check
by captain katanga
harrys review had me foaming at the mouth with anticipation for this film, and when your expectations are that high, youre almost always in for a disappointment. My one hope though, is that this is a more substantial film than, say, the Lost World. Is it near the level of Jurassic Park? I'd be happy if it was
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Jun 29, 2005 6:30:39 AM CDT
...and I can say without hyperbole that this is a million times
by zikade zarathos
"Spielberg may be the greatest orchestrator of set pieces in the history of film..." There are WAAAAY too many directors that utilize set-pieces brilliantly to say this with any certainty, and I would say that after tallying them all up, Steve would be knocked off the top 10 entirely. Kurosawa, to name one, completely buries him in this regard. ***************************** "Of all of them, Spielberg is the one who continues to matter in a commercial sense and, I would argue, in an artistic sense." I don't care about whose more "commercial," but Scorsese's beyond him in an artistic sense. I don't know how you can pit GANGS OF NEW YORK and THE AVIATOR against THE TERMINAL and CATCH ME IF YOU CAN and say that Spielburg comes out ahead.
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Jun 29, 2005 6:32:57 AM CDT
Great review. I've decided to see this, but still not this
by johnnytremaine
So War of the Worlds actually sounds a lot like it's another Lost World. Eh, Lost World wasn't geat, but was a fun goofy time at the movies. So, I'll see this too. But I'm not going buy into the whole marketing frenzy to make people see it on opening weekend. WOTW will likely play for the rest of the summer, it's not going anywhere, so I can catch it whenever.
Not to pick on Harry, he seems like a great guy, but his reviews read like he should be standing in a used car lot, wearing a checkered jacket and a loud tie, and trying to convince me to sign my life away on a jalopie. -
Totally with you on the 'whatever happens in the real world' with actors/directors/what-not shouldn't take away from how a movie is acted and directed, etc. Point in case for me? Tom Hanks. Personally I can't stand the man. I find him irksome and imensely punchable. In the real world. But dang if I didn't just dig the guy in The Terminal and Catch Me If You Can. If I'd have been unwilling to put that inherent hatred of the real persona aside I would have missed out on a couple of fun flicks at the cinema. So I agree heartily with where you're coming from. /////////////// As for all the hyperbole about Spielberg - I enthusiastically agree. Some of the greatest/scary/thrilling moments I've witnessed in my cinematic life have been down to that man. Witness, as Moriarty quite rightly said, the initial T-Rex attack in Jurassic Park. The opening temple sequence of Raiders. The arrival of the mothership in Close Encounters. The 'comparing scars' scene in Jaws and Quint's horrific Indianapolis tale. The harrowing massacre in the ghetto while that Nazi bastard plays the piano in Schindler's. The pure, heart-warming joy of ET's resurrection. All classic moments and all the work of one man. Sure, his output in the last decade and change isn't up there with his best, his recognisable bone-fide classics, but I'm still willing to give the man a chance. As an ardent cine-file it's the least I can do. I'm hearing good thinks on War of the Worlds and I will go first and foremost because it's a Spielberg movie. I owe the man that much for all the joy he has brought me over the years. And so what if it's not up there with his best? Spielberg is still one of the small number of directors out there that can still make a half decent movie even when nowhere near the top of his game. (I think I should remove my lips from the great man's ass now, as I'm sure he'd like to sit down at some point. Ahem...)
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If you are going to see it in the Cinema, I've had a couple of movie going experiences ruined by Scratched and Dirty Prints, I had to walk out of the Incredibles it was so bad, if you go on the first couple of days you are almost guaranteed a pristine projection. There are too many fuckwads working in projection who don't keep their equiptment clean. Rant over.
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just seen wotw in japan, and i really liked the 1st half of the movie, until tim robbins hand enters on screen. after that, its stoooopid.
SPOILER QUESTIONS/COMMENTS
1. am i to believe tom saved the world when he blew up the tripod, which caused all other tripods to lose their shields (like in ID4)?
2. beside havin the WORST happy endin ever, why is Boston relatively intact compared to the rest of the world? i mean, the bridge behind toms house got destroyed, but no aliens decide to blow up Boston? in robbins house, the aliens searched it 3 times, but none of them decided to destroy the row of houses the mom and rest of the family lived in? 3. so aliens control the weather? i mean, they ride lightnin bolts to earth, so does their mothership create lightnin storms?
4. what was their plan? they were here millions of years ago, before we were, and decided that this would be the time to destroy the human race and/or decide to start gardenin?
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I recommed anyone who's not been told how the ending goes down turn back now. It's okay, you don't have to come back later, it's not worth it. Now, to whoever remains, the possible criticism about the ending that I've heard and is maybe worth discussing is that Spielberg should have had the chutzpah to exterminate the family he followed around for the rest of the movie. I realize that the aliens getting teh germs is part of H.G. Wells' famous story, and so maybe it's easier to forgive for that reason (because if you are making an adaptation, spitting in the face of the source material doesn't seem like the best way to go about it). And, all things considered, it might have made the movie darker but not necessarily better. But it might get some play because Senor Spielberg has a track record of trying to make his resolutions as pat and unthreatening as possible. Honestly, though, what did you expect? "Divorced dad" tells you all you need to know about where the movie is headed. Despite the Broken Family melodrama that Spielberg has practically patented, I will see this movie, because the meat on the bone looks pretty appetizing. Another home invasion movie. Maybe this zeitgeist thing isn't a load of malarky after all.
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1. No Tom did not drop the other tripods shields at all, had you been watching the movie, the bacteria eventually got into the machines and the pilots, causing the pilots to die, rendering the machines useless.
2. I DID wonder about Boston myself... its curious that it wasn't smited as well, it's a little strange Miranda Otto is still living in the house when anyone with 2 cents of sanity would've fled...
3. The Lightning was generated by the aliens indeed. This is an interstellar lifeform in this movie, it's not absurd seeing as we don't know WHAT they're capable of.
4. That too is something I wonder about. Why wait a million years and plunder when they can plunder as soon as they arrived? Maybe it wasnt the right millenia 'series' for the red weed ;) -
I thought the film was terrible, the effects were good but the film was a huge dissapointment. I'm just suprised at the amount of love this film has been getting from a lot of people on this site this week in Stories and Talkbacks. Okay if you were under 10 years old when It came out I can understand, you've probably got loads of cool Dino toys. Whats the average age of a talkbacker these days? I'm 25.
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This is why I continue to read this site.
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Jun 29, 2005 6:57:28 AM CDT
obviously you dont know anything about aliens and wars of worlds
by dr.bulber
i do. i studied the history of them. -all of them. and theres one that keeps using my credit card. and buying things. and it keeps drinking all my rum. and telling me i'm short.
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Jun 29, 2005 7:05:56 AM CDT
dr.bulber is the Alien thats haunting you the Evil Lord Xenu?
by john-locke
and he tell's you you're short eh? you aren't Tom Cruise by any chance. Are you a Clam?
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Jun 29, 2005 7:07:09 AM CDT
But what I really need to know, Moriarty, is how many smoke fill
by burlivesleftnut
Or how many backlit scenes at that perfect "magic hour" when the light technicians get their shit JUST RIGHT? Spielberg is a parody of himself now. Thanks, Mori, you gave me just enough information for me to realize I don't want to see this.
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I would have preferred it if the aliens had won. I realise that in the original H.G. Welles novel, the fact that nature defeated the Martians was a point about the environment and humanity's dependence on nature, but it also wasn't a very logical plot twist. They've been planning an invasion for millions of years, they can dissolve human flesh with heat rays, they can devlop shields which stop all form of contemporary weaponry and they can create lightning storms, but they can't wear protective clothing or vaccinate themselves. They've gotta be the dumbest super-smart aliens in the galaxy. I realise that most sci-fi has the humans winning because it's not fun to lose, but come on. If a species is that advanced, I'm sure they've factored in something as relatively simple as disease and bacteria.
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what bacteria and when did they show it? all i saw was tim and tom lookin at blood (or i thought it was blood) and red vines. if the blood had the bacteria, didnt the tripods use it as fertilizer? and if that is how they got infected, then yippee, i answered my own question. and another question, at the end of the movie, was that a earth acorn or was that a alien acorn, cuz i aint never see nothin like that before (or maybe its in Boston).
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Hollywood is running out of gas more like. This film is going up against a movie where a Semi-dysfunctional family saves the world from destruction.
It is a popcorn movie. It is fantastic four. In fact both are War and Fantastic four are popcorn movies. In war there are now villains except the mysterious aliens who for some reason want to destroy the world. They are as the tagline goes Already here. So there will be no scenes of alien ships amassing ready to obliterate the earth like in ID4 or Hitchhikers, they emerge from the ground. This movie has the feeling of the enemy within, which is what happened on 9/11 even though the enemy was foreign and kept underground, they attacked from within. It could well be that maybe americans want to get past the whole 9/11 thing and move on.
I read the review in NYtimes by AO scott and he gave it nearly 3 stars and he did mention last years The terminal as being Spielbergs response to 9/11. I didnt like the terminal at all I found it boring.
I think what Mori was saying is that Spielberg used to be the best family director in hollywood and since AI, he has stopped making family films per se.
A family is one which every member of you family can in enjoy and quite frankly there hasnt been a really good family film out of hollywood in years bar maybe pixar films.
All we can hope for is that Indy 4 will mark the return of the spielberg that we all know and love. Judging by the way his career seems to going I wouldnt count on. in Indy 4 expect to see an older, wiser and maybe sadder indiana Jones looking back on his life with regret that he didnt start a family, may be its about time the berg hung up his megaphone and start to invest in new filmmaking talent instead.
This is just a theory and I could be wrong but here goes...
Spielberg and lucas are credited and rightly so with the creation of the Blockbuster movie. ie it was the film hollywood spent most of the year building up to for the summer movie season and that worked for over two decades.
The joke that went around was that July 4th was going to renamed Will Smith day because big willy style movie usually owned the summer.
Then came Peter Jackson and how did that change things well hollywood suddenly realised hey we can release all the crap we want during the summer and leave all the big movies till then end of the year because in january the oscars get announced and our could get nominated.
So summer is no longer the big event it used to be and spielberg the creator of this event has a problem, no longer interested in making family films, spielberg is now making stuff like Schindlers list, saving private, taken on tv, the terminal and the abe lincoln bio pic and of course Band of Brothers. All while heading a movie studio because he is no longer a jobbing director directing cack like hook. He will never make another ET movie because that reminds of being a Family filmmaker and I dont think that is what Spielberg wants to do anymore bar making maybe one more Indy film.
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I understand this is supposed to be a fantasy where we're not supposed to think too long and hard about the details but one thing about the entire premise bugs me: How did these vast metal machines lie undetected for so long beneath the streets of a city honeycombed with subway tunnels, sewers, water and power lines, and foundations?
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Milius is a great idea man, especially when it comes to military/warfare-themed properties. If you consider that to be "genius", then he fits the definition.
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Having lived in Bayonne early in my life, I can tell you that there are no subways there. So if you can posit the notion that the machines were planted underneath the sewer lines, its plausible.
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Jun 29, 2005 8:35:49 AM CDT
Cruise has lost his mind! Scientology is scary. This is funny!
by the colonel
www.intrepidmedia.com/column.asp?id=2215
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...according to the Bible, we were never small furry things afraid of getting eaten; ergo, your hypothesis on the cathartic effect that "Jurassic Park" had on the audience is flawed. O'Doyle rules!
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Jun 29, 2005 8:40:50 AM CDT
Nah, John-Locke, why go see it opening weekend? It's the 4t
by johnnytremaine
Also, last year I bought a big screen projection TV and I installed surround sound. I still love movies and talking about them, but I prefer DVDs now. Wal-Mart and Best Buy price cuts everybody else, and you can buy a new release for $15.
Going to a movie theater has lost a lot of appeal for me. Truth is, I'd much rather wait the 5 months (because you know this will be available on DVD during the holiday season) and get the probable double disc package with extras. -
...Yeah, great at getting all of us killed!
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As long as Tom Cruise goes, "Welcome to Earff!" while kickboxing an alien, or if Dakota Fanning uploads a virus into the alien computers using a regular laptop... nevermind I can't get anything to work with each other in my own house... than I WILL LOVE THIS MOVIE!!!!!!! I did read the Ebert review, though, and while I trust him 85% of the time, sometimes he's nuts. Near as I figure, he didn't like War of the Worlds because he thought the tripods were stupid and should've had four legs. I suppose that's a good enough reason as any. I've hated things for lesser reasons than that.
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Jun 29, 2005 8:43:13 AM CDT
You raved about land of the Dead. (I wouldn't have seen it
by hypeendshere
You see how your opinion is worthless now?
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Mori, I love you, but when it comes to Spielberg movies your reviews sound pretentious as hell, and I end up picturing you like the cave man critic who pees on the wall painting in Mel Brooks's History of the World Part 1. I know you've been labeled a Spielberg hater by many, and I don't think that's accurate, because if you hated him completely you wouldn
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Jun 29, 2005 8:49:00 AM CDT
Ebert's a good reviewer most of the time, but he occasionall
by fluffyunbound
He hates the idea of tripods, because he thinks that "evolution" would always lead to bilateral symmetry. Uh, no, Roger. How about learning maybe ONE fact about life before the Permian extinction before you become an evolutionary biologist in your reviews? And if a 3-leg system is "inherently unstable" because if one leg explodes the creature or structure falls, what does that say about the "inherent instability" of a bipedal animal like Man? How about you stand still while I explode one of your legs and we find out? All of which is irrelevant, anyway - since Ebert has to be smoking crack if he thinks that someone would make a film based on Wells' story and call it "War of the Worlds" but then would decide to NOT use tripods. And by the way, Rog, lack of confidence in the visual is not why you don't see any aliens in 2001, you doofus. How about using a movie you understand as your example and reference point, and leave out the movies that you apparently know nothing about? Clarke makes it absolutely clear that the monoliths are machines, alien "robotic probes" doing sentinel duty over an alien experiment that takes place over millions of years. There are no aliens in our solar system to show.
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Jun 29, 2005 9:04:29 AM CDT
The funny thing about Moriarty's gushing about some of the s
by fluffyunbound
- is that the audience won't care. I've noticed more and more that there's an "inside/outside" divide in appreciation of directors and cinematographers: people with some connection to Hollywood understand that it's a technical challenge to do an apparently seemless shot that goes from outside a car to inside a car to outside a car again; people outside Hollywood don't see any of that shit. I'm an "outside", myself. You can explain to me over and over WHY the chase scenes in "Reloaded" are so much more technically impressive than the chase scenes in "Road Warrior" because the Wachowskis get the camera to do things and go places that George Miller couldn't even have contemplated. But you can't make me care. I expect to be able to see all angles of all action, regardless of technical constraints, so just giving me what I expect to see anyway is not going to impress me. You have to do something that really pours it on and calls attention to the camera work, like in the Copa shot in Goodfellas, before I'll even deign to notice what you're doing.
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I saw this movie last night and to say I am dissapointed is an understatement. I stupidly read Harry's review along with one or two other reviews on the net and they really got me hyped up to see this. I was so let down. Dont get me wrong there are some great sequences in this film particularly the scene in the car that was mentioned in the review. People were laughing in the cinema at how they were trying to hammer home each persons role within the family. People even laughed when Dakota sees one body then ten twenty bodies floating down a river. As for what kills off the aliens!!! I mean for Gods sake if they were already here for so long do you not think that they would have thought of something so miniscule! Best line in the film for me was "peach schnaps" That one had Neil Jordan in stitches as he was sitting behind me! At the end of the day its worth a watch but do not go into this film thinking its going to be the be all and end all of summer movies. If I were you I would just wait till you get the chance to go see Kiss Kiss Bang Bang!
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... First off, they scan it extensively with that tentacle, then they send in some ground troops, and then after that, they send the tentacle back AGAIN! As for the aliens, do you think they could pass for the relatives of the ones from ID4? They didn't look entirely dissimilar ...
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No shit sherlock, it's NOT Raiders, and it's NOT Jaws. WELL, what made those films different? ACTORS! Harrison and Roy happen to be able to sell films without pumping their arms on Oprah, and attacking australian journalists. They can also take a Joke Tom. I sincerely hope no one squirts water in this film!! Fucking midget movie stars! BAH!!
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Ending where the aliens actually win? The only one I can think of off the top of my head is "The Arrival." Post others.
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Cruise and Spielberg blew it.
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Jun 29, 2005 9:28:40 AM CDT
By the way, does anybody know what Drudge has against Spielberg?
by fluffyunbound
Selectively finding all the negative reviews in America [and negative quotes from generally positive reviews] and posting them at the top of your site smacks of a vendetta. And it's not like Spiels is Monica Lewinsky or something. Has Drudge decided that this film is anti-Iraq-occupation and therefore must die?
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The 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers - well, it didn't look like they had lost at the end of the film, anyway ... As for others ... well The Arrival, he gets the message out - but so what exactly? They Live ... well the transmitter was destroyed but we don't actually see what happened next.
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Jun 29, 2005 9:38:00 AM CDT
Fluffy, ever since Spielberg went to Cuba and visited with Castr
by johnnytremaine
Although, the visit was harmless, I can see where some people thought it is wrong-headed thinking to give a photo op opportunity to a dictator, whatever your politics may be. I can't fault Spielberg for that though. He probably thought he was doing something positive, even if it backfired a bit.
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Well, they weren't really at war with us, just a hunting safari and the one hunter caused a huge amount of havoc. Danny Glover showed him a thing or two but then it was obvious (in what I thought was a very funny scene), they could so have done him over. If they Predators ever really wanted to invade us ... Then, there's John Carpenter's The Thing ... that ended suitably ambiguously ...
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Jun 29, 2005 9:50:47 AM CDT
Spielberg called his visit with Castro "the eight most important
by bigdickmcgee
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Because there are no major black characters. Face it: the toad gives a pass to anything with black actors in the lead -- THE HONEYMOONERS! Y'all should listen to him and go see THE LONGEST YARD and it'll give me room to kick my feet up when I see this this weekend.
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He supported Dem candidates like Clinton, Gore, and Kerry with huge fundraisers and donations. And, yes, apparently, according to the LA Times, the movie takes a swipe at the Iraq occupation. I'm sure Spielberg's losing sleep over Drudge, too.
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Well, OK, the aliens don't win, but they settle among us and buy houses in the suburbs!
This was the LEATHAL WEAPON of alien invasion movies, starring Sonny Corl...I mean, Jimmy Caan.
Seriously, the screenwriter who thought up that premise must have been smoking some heavy shit. -
This review contains spoilers....
Around the point in Steven Spielberg's War Of The Worlds where the grunt-soldier ET bathes the cute blonde kid in yellow, Close Encounters-style God-light, seasoned 'berg-watchers may recall the heckle Homer J. Simpson once directed at greying rock institution The Who: -
If you don't acknowledge any Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes bullshit and just ignore, it will go away. Believe me. I'm definitely going to see war of the worlds, and I gaurantee it would've been awsome if it was set in the future like Spielberg's best movies of recent memory. I'm not saying it'll be bad, just not the greatest sci-fi movie of the decade. And by the way, Roger Ebert must truly be slowly going nuts. I've seen him make some really bad decisions lately. For example-The Honeymooners thumbs up. Ice Princess Thumbs up. Howl's Moving Castle thumbs down. Yeah, poor Roeper gonna have to put that crazy sucker down sooner or later. As long as he doesn't replace with that 8 year old bastard Leonard Martin.
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Jun 29, 2005 10:17:48 AM CDT
Ebert, that 3rd tripod leg and forgive me but I have to mention
by shan
... A simple way to explain only 3 legs is that the alien war machine had shields and for the best part, they thought that they wouldn't be sustaining any damage at all. Also, using Matrix Revolutions as an example (sorry) those giant drill bits had ways to realign themselves (I think they actually had 4 legs) so that if they lost a leg, they could maintain stability. I think they had to lose two sets of legs. Presumably the WotW tripods had some trick up their sleeves to deal with the loss of one leg - or maybe even not in that they thought they wouldn't lose enough tripods to matter. If you want to argue about the number of legs ... well why didn't the aliens have air support? Or retract their legs and fly at times or ... etc etc. Does it matter?
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Jun 29, 2005 10:18:54 AM CDT
The last good Speilberg film was Raiders, and that probably had
by computerguy68
his movies are so boring now. He needs to retire. Tom just needs to die...
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http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050628/REVIEWS/50606007 funny review.
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Why would a civilization so advanced it can cross the galaxy use traditional vehicles and weapons? Why not gas, germ warfare, non-lethal energy weapons? If they want the humans, then as virus or any higher tech version of the non-lethal stuff we have now would be more effective than shooting laser beams. freaking lasers? lame. if they want everyone dead...again, a viral way of doing it makes sense. sorry the movie's main concept is what makes it damn lame...
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Interest how the big secret in that film (that Soylent Green is made from dead people) was actually a known fact to everyone in the original book (Make Room! Make Room!) and was not even a major plot point. Like Minority Report, in the book, the idea of a report that marginally differed from the other two was a known and expected fact and not considered a big surprise revelation either - mind you it did go on to be significant in the book too. The relevance of this to the talkback? Well, Spielberg direct that and this ... the WotW aliens eat people ... well sort of ... OK then, carry on - nothing to see here ...
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Jun 29, 2005 11:09:28 AM CDT
"Does it make the aliens scarier that their motives are never sp
by shan
This quote is from Ebert's review, I have seen a film where the aliens did just that. "Parasite Eve" is a terrible film supposedly based on a game but it seemed to have little to do with it. In the movie, apparently our mitochondria came from alien invaders millions of years ago who activate in the present day in a host and plan to take over (or wipe us out or something). In a ridiculously funny scene, they actually use their host to hijack a scientific press conference and do just that, announce their existence and intentions.
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http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/323312p-276365c.html Apparently she docked more than a star because the movie is "mean-spirited", since the aliens actually blow things up, and since the public acts the way the public actually would act if the end of the world came - everyone turns on each other with brutal savagery. Spielberg, you did in fact make a mistake - these people don't want a visceral experience. They "know" that the chaos, destruction, and dog-eat-dog disorder of war is something that happens in other countries, but Americans are special and will hold hands and sing songs when the apocalypse comes. Why don't you "know" that, too?
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I found this interesting, I was reading his review for WotW and he mentions Jurassic Park, so out of passing interest I clicked on the link to read his review for JP. Check this out, at one point in the review, Ebert says "I have the uneasy feeling that if Spielberg had made Close Encounters" today, we would have seen the aliens in the first 10 minutes, and by the halfway mark they'd be attacking Manhattan with death rays." This was more than 10 years ago. Spooky ain't it.
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I haven't seen this movie yet, but I get the ideas you're talking about. Many times I've seen films and loved particular elements so badly that I wanted the entire movie to rock my socks off....but sometimes you just can't let some things go. I'm glad you wrote about the Jurrassic Park moments, though, that was nostalgic as hell for me too. (Damn, I think I'm gonna watch that DVD again tonight.) Anyway, great review, well written and well thought out. Thanks for that. Spielberg, keep 'em coming!!!!!
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Despite certain details that struck me as false (only one guy in America figures out the solenoid is the key to making cars run; people flock TO gigantic killer aliens rather than AWAY; Cruise & Co. get to Miranda Otto's powered house and DON'T turn on a TV or radio) I was really digging it. Then, they met up with Tim Robbins, and the whole thing derailed, starting from the agonizingly long basement scene and its ridiculous "close encounter", and ending with Cruise's asshole son turning up in Boston after (stupidly) running onto a battlefield that appeared to be completely vaporized. Actually, for a moment, there, I thought Spielberg actually had the balls to kill the son. However, had I remembered that Morgan Freeman did the voice-over in the beginning, I would never have concluded that Tom Cruise's character would suffer any real loss. That whole third act ruined it. Oh, well, at least I got to see an OT VIII expelled from a giant alien rectum.
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since the aliens lost (which i wish they wouldve won, bein a hardcore unhappy endin type of guy), wouldnt the mothership or whatever was creatin the lightnin storm, just use some other type of weapon to destroy the earth since the tripods didnt work? i mean, if u can create lightnin, how bout just blow the planet up after u see your machines break down. another question i got, if in the ukraine and japan had the lightnin storms and seismic activity first, shouldnt have tom and family see the reports of the tripods first? or maybe the aliens have it in for America. and heres a question i always ask myself after seein a disaster movie...whos gonna clean up the mess? ill love to see a movie that shows what happens after the big disaster (ID4, WOTW, Day After Tomorrow, etc).
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I have a feeling that they want to make more than one movie. Tim Robbins had that diatribe about multi-wave invasions, and Cruise referred to WOTW as a "franchise" in an interview. Still, if only one WOTW is ever made, it makes zero sense that aliens would hedge all their bets on the tripods.
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Why the fuck did they show Dakota Fanning in front of what looked like a space ship and light hitting her? I hate movie trailers sometimes. They show too much.
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In a good way. He is a good sport about promoting the hell out of this movie. He was on 106 and Park and at last nights BET Awards. If this film tanks I dont know what to blame because dude had all the promotional bases covered. What's next? An appearance on Telemundo during Laura En America?
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could devlop after the amount of wiping a turd this big requires.
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I'd have made a hardcore sci-fi thriller from it than the family friendly movie it became. BO has proven me wrong, but I still think there is a bad-ass movie hidden in it. On WotW, I'll see it tomorrow and I don't want to read a single thing about it anymore.
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I want to see this - luv big summer popcorn flix for what they are - but I wish I could do it without giving any $ to Tom (Closet Boy) Cruise and the Scientology weenies. On th other hand, does buying a ticket qualify as making a religious donation, making it (cha-ching) tax deductible?
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Do we really need introductions this long. Who cares what Harry, Quint, Moriarty and co had for lunch, what's in their DVD collections, what books they've read or whether they satisfied their girlfriends this morning. Can't we get to the reviews quicker than having to wade through 1600 words of pure indulgence? It's the movie we are interested in, not you guys!
So Moriarity thought it was okay. That's all you needed to say. Or are they paying you 50 cents a word?
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Jun 29, 2005 1:16:13 PM CDT
There is still a hardcore JP movie out there somewhere
by performingmonkey
Whether it'll ever get made is questionable. The concept for JP4 sounded partly retarded. And if Grant and Malcolm aren't going to be in it then what's the fucking point? If they're insisting on doing the fourth movie it should at least involve the original characters or else it's NOTHING but a cash-in. The end of JP3 showd the Pteranadons flying toward the mainland. A planned setup for the opening of JP4 was the said birds interrupting a baseball/football game and killing players and crowd. Under a good director that could turn out good, but you just KNOW it won't happen that way. War of the Worlds was always going to be lacklustre if Spielberg stuck with the original ending and did his usual great first and second act followed by a third act that peters off into...WHAT, exactly, routine. A.I. had the potential to be a masterpiece. It contained a few good sequences but ultimately it's SO forgettable. The same can be said about WotW, even though it is better than A.I. Even though the Berg supposedly set out to give us something fresh with WotW it STILL feels like a retread of everything we've seen before but using more advanced technology to deliver it to us. Yes, he can do great set-pieces. And yes, he can fuck up movies. He does both here.
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Jun 29, 2005 1:19:45 PM CDT
Darkhorizons gives it a very positive review, 4 stars.
by johnnytremaine
Hey, I'm glad WOTW is turning out to be a good movie. A good movie---remember those?
So it seems now this makes two this year: Batman and WOTW.
More power to you Mr. Spielberg. Keep on, keeping on. I'm eagerly awaiting the Abe Lincoln biopic starring Liam. Even though it's not action or sci-fi, I hope Aint It Cool gives it coverage. -
I cannot believe how dull this film was.Where the fx cool?Of course but their isnt anything in this film that SIGNS or ID4 didnt cover.THere wasnt one scene that made my jaw drop.The sound the laser makes and the umbrella shield fx from the original film are more memoriable than anything in this film.Its worth a watch to kill a couple hours but dont exspect a masterpiece..peace
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...for giving us an actual review and not a Harry-esque hyperbole-fest. I'm actually more inclined to check this out now that I've seen a rational take on it.
And for the record, assuming the ending of this is the same as the ending of the Pal film, the ending sucks. The clever irony of it doesn't outweigh the fact that its so brazenly anti-climactic and dull. In my opinion, War of the Worlds should end with an explosion. A big motherfuckin' explosion. I know it sounds cliche and stupid and all that jazz, but at the end of the day that's what I'm paying to see, right? -
was a mixture of SOY and LENTil products, formed into the shape of desirable food products, such as steaks. No people, no one-gag story. Just a good mystery.
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Dude, You can write, but comeon Paul Thomas Anderson.. tighten up the intro.. ture, Jurassic Park was a great timely film.. and the book is superior to the plot of the movie and the movie exceeded expectations.. but comeon.. we get it..
I still want to see War of The Worlds though.. its what Signs shoulda been... But, I felt that it was just an eye-candy film.. which is what a summer movie is..
its going to be like Mr. and Mrs. Smith.. a fun for the moment flick.. not a historical non-fiction recreation..
Thanks though.. points and gold star to you -
Jun 29, 2005 1:46:06 PM CDT
The Happy Ending All But Killed (or at least Defused the Urgency
by zombiesolutions
as gifted a pop-director as Speilberg is, he just can't seem to handle dystopia. everything has to end up happy-happy. yes, of course, Steven, the family-unit will save us all! skyrocketing divorce rates and general nuclear familial disintegration/breakdown notwithstanding, it's the nuclear family that makes it all better in the end. of course! the disease is the cure! all evidence to the contrary of course. still, you gotta love the guy. even when he's ludicrous (which is pretty much always), he has an uncanny knack for pushing the popular consciousnesses buttons perfectly. Spielberg is like Kubrick's happy-go-lucky (and maybe slightly retarded) little brother -- Kubrick gives you the cold hard truth regardless of how much it hurts, Spielberg wants to be everybody's friend and make everything happy: even if that means twisting reality to the point of absurdity.
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Jun 29, 2005 1:46:31 PM CDT
still one day to wait. my expectation on this one is even a thou
by curryice
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Losts of action, character development, scary moments, tension... Awesome FX.
Great and good performances.
A GREAT MOVIE. -
Jun 29, 2005 2:03:12 PM CDT
Tom Cruise: Fuck you and your 360 million dollar salary. You won
by psalmolive
Link: http://www.imdb.com/news/wenn/2004-09-07 Cruise Could Make $360 Million from 'War of the Worlds' Movie superstar Tom Cruise has become the highest earning actor in Hollywood history after signing a deal that could earn him a staggering $360 million for his role in War Of The Worlds. Rather than agree a set fee for his part in the Steven Spielberg-directed epic, Cruise will earn 10 per cent of the film's box office takings plus a share of profits from DVDs, video games and toys. Experts predict the film - based on HG Wells' classic novel about a Martian attack - could make $1.8 billion at the cinema alone, of which Cruise's share would be an incredible $180 million. And, if he stars in the two planned sequels, Cruise's earnings will double at least. A Hollywood source says, "No expense will be spared. Spielberg wants to make it the film of the decade - the one that everyone talks about and rushes to see."
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...that Signs, a truly crappy alien invasion movie, should come up in this talkback, it is almost ironic in that very loose Rod Serling/Alanis Morisette sense of the word. In Signs, the aliens also demonstrated poor planning (and an obvious lack of simple environmental scanning capabilities) by committing to a surface war on a planet where they were violently allergic to the substance covering 80% of the surface. You know... water? In WOTW, it's germs. Again, a simple scan of the atmosphere should've revealed this. In Signs, a formerly lapsed religous zealot (playing a lapsed religous zealot - no real stretch there) holes up in a basement with his motherless kids to wait out the shitstorm. In WOTW, a religious zealot (playing a bad dad - also no real stretch) holes up in a basement with his temporarily motherless kids to wait out the shitstorm. And the "twist" endings are equally predictable thanks to the genius that was H.G. Wells' original story. You just can't recycle that idea and surprise anyone anymore (at least ID4 put a slightly smartass twist on the concept of the virus, even if the hardware/software compatibility issue is hard to swallow). The one thing Signs had going for it that this movie doesn't is that Mel waited until after making Signs to let the world know just how batshit crazy he is. Tom just couldn't hold out. But maybe the better effects in WOTW will balance out the bad timing and it will be remembered as being only about as bad as Signs and will be just as quickly forgotten.
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...is good for if you want to know who was in what movie and when. But for everything else? Completely unreliable. Simply because IMDB says there will be sequels, doesn't mean it's true. - n/a
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The script was just about as uninspired as I expected from Koepp, but the CGI and action were extraordinary at times. See this one on the big screen.
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Jun 29, 2005 2:28:22 PM CDT
Just the movie and it sucked. Independence Day was much better.
by themoog
Stick to ET oldman leave the summer blockbusters to Roland Emmerich.
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They were the single coolest things about this film. That first shot of the Tripod towering over Jersey was breathtaking.
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One travesty of HG wells novel is enough.
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What the hell was all THAT shit about?! Yes, it's a "happy" ending, but the feeling is still one of numbed shock. After all, millions of people are dead and Earth is decimated. The whole last portion was right in keeping with the first two acts - fucking geek reviewers. And if you really think ID4 is better... Well, have at it. If you just want a dumb-as-rocks thrill ride with no sense of reality or logic whatsoever, yeah I guess. This movie, to me, was much more intriguing and disturbing and emotional, and it felt so fucking REAL. It's the NON-cynical summer movie - GASP! Maybe summer movies will start being worth a damn again.
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The first hour or so is pretty good and then it does fall apart. I found the single dad/estranged kids angle trite.
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Jun 29, 2005 3:00:42 PM CDT
This is the film where we have to stop thinking of Spielberg as
by industrykiller
He's made like 5 forgettable films in a row. Why is he on this fucking tear of making all these movies right in a row? He's becoming a one man assembly line. His last four films have all been wholly mediocre lacking in character depth and making insane leaps of logic and convenience to get from one place to the next. And what is with his god damned ending?! Well with this one he proves he lost it. Adeiu Mr. Spielberg. Hello blockbuster factory.
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Jun 29, 2005 3:02:17 PM CDT
ebert has to pretend he is an authority of all knowing wisdom wi
by watashiwadare
and his opinion is worthless, inconsistent, sycophantic to miramax lapdogs, and trying hard to be competitive with internet sites. So it turns out lazy critiism that insults rather than reveals.
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Jun 29, 2005 3:03:01 PM CDT
Guys, go over and check out Roger Friedman's take on the mov
by johnnytremaine
at foxnews.com. It's pretty interesting. Before you flame away, yeah I know fox news has very questionable politics, but their entertainment coverage is usually pretty good.
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As Ridley Scott called the blade Runner narration, here we have an unseen Morgan Freeman playing the role of Irving The Explainer. The film spent WAY too much time in basements. This thing made the basement in signs look like a golden palace of life.
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Jun 29, 2005 3:05:09 PM CDT
Also, if mori had applied the same logic to Episode 3 and Batman
by industrykiller
On the surface characters. INSANE leaps of logic. At least WOTW sounds liek it has good set pieces unlike those other two films. It's been a shitty summer of forgettable films, we need to admit that to ourselves and start expressing it. Otherwise studios will never understand that this box office dip is due in large part to horrible film quality.
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Jun 29, 2005 3:06:29 PM CDT
How To Decode WOTW Succintly as a Metaphor for the WAR ON TERROR
by zombiesolutions
1. The US are the Tripod Aliens -- attacking an innocent populace without provocation in order to harvest their resources. *** 2. Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning are Vietna -uh, I mean- Iraqi citizens desperately trying to outrace the onslaught of "freedom" (aka imperialist occupation / mass murder / robber baroning). *** 3. The "virus" / germ / common cold is roughly analgous to the deeply entrenched and highly motivated insurgency that is growing in ferocity and is currently winning the war.
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i woke up this morning drooling for War of the Worlds and the Kong trailer. I got my War on but there was no kong trailer. WHat i got instead was some lame ass overly emotional trailer for a weepy Cameron Crowe movie that looks like a ripoff of GArden State. I was all prepared for badass Kong and got elf boy Orlando Bloom in ElizabethTowne. I want my MONKEY.
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Jun 29, 2005 3:16:16 PM CDT
Am I the ony one who thinks this is yet another Spielberg misfir
by schots
Where has Mr. Spielberg been hiding the last decade? I left the Dutch premiere feeling miserable and angry, as I always do when I think a great director has blown it. What a truly underwhelming experience this was! What a bleak and unnessecary piece of summer fare this has become. And we already h
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First of all, there is no such thing as an insurgent, they are terrorists, plain and simple. Second, why do you hate America?
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wonder if this will be incorperated into the umcoming movie?
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there are like five shots in WOTW where the camera peers out through a circular hole in glass. I cant figure the relevance of this shot out anyone have any ideas?
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The aliens in the film are the terrorists invading America just like 9/11. blowing up buildings and trying to take the Americans freedom away and Cruise and that extremely annoying Fanning kid are there to show the resolve of the American people in the face of attack. It's a pro war movie cleverly disguised as anti war.
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I read your reviews alog... but never respond. Hell, I haven't even seen WOTW yet... but by reading this review, I can only say this: you are by far, the most arrogant, singularly-idiotic, hiding-behind-a-pseudonym, hole-in-the-ass, film reviewer on planet I'M-AN-ASS. Stop hiding behind this name, make a damn movie and get it out there so we can compare your film reviews to your own work. I sick and tired of your arrogant BS!!!
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in a war between Earth and planet IM-AN-ASS. I think it would be a draw.
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Halliburton does the clean up of course.
Oh yeah and for everyone bitching about the instability of a tripod feel free to sit on a 3 legged stool and try your damndest to tip it over. Can't be done. Clearly no one here has ever milked a cow. -
A yes, only a matter of time before the 20 year old military/forieng policy expert that has just enough time in his busy schedule to post on AICN shows up.
You are both wrong and an idiot.
Choke yourself. -
Exist. From Wikipedia:
"An insurgency is an armed rebellion by any irregular armed force that rises up against an established authority, government, administration or occupation. Those carrying out an insurgency are -
Am I the only one who saw this film and was unimpressed? I wasn
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I was thoroughly underwhelmed by this movie. I thought it was beutifully shot, and I loved the alien designs, but it had no heart. I had no feeling coming out of it, and I also think that the film will fail to resonate in future years.
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Started off with a bang, but the rest of the flick never lived up to that first tripod sequence; which actually left me breathless. There are some other good parts, like the requisite Spielberg 'search' sequence which was good, but I expected better since Spielberg has already made this same sequence twice (Raptors in the kitchen and the spider sequence in Minority Report). I didn't really get why he followed that search sequence with the aliens exploring, because by that point any tension had already been sucked dry. I would have saved the alien reveal for when they bring down the tripod. Stuff that was lame: The What Lies Beneath sequence in the minivan. The only point of that scene seemed to be to see how tricky Spiel could get with the camera. I'm sure technically it was cool, but juxtaposed with the loose/natural feel of the movie it felt out of place. That scene also was pretty useless if you actually listened to it (and not watch the pretty camera work). I didn't buy the scene where the son wants to see the destruction and the couple is trying to take cruise's daughter. Very contrived and unnatural. With the amount of time spent in basements 'a bigger budgeted Signs' is an apt description.
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Bra, you aren't seriously using Wikipedia as a reliable source? It has about as much content control as the wall above the urinal. While I enjoy witicisms like "Eatin Aint Cheatin" and "Rick Flair-The Real Champ" I certainly don't make them the basis for an argument.
Call them what you want but the vast majority are foreigners and Iraqis who were already douchebag criminals, not "freedom fighters" and sure as hell not the "legitimate Iraqi resistance"
Kind of explains why they are so willing to blow up civilians at a much higher rate than get a sack and attack coalition troops. They aren't normal Iraqis and don't give a shit about the people of Iraq.
And they sure as hell aren't winning. -
Since it had heart, great characters, and a satisfying conclusion. I don't think Emmerich can hold a candle to Spiel, but at least the man understands characters we can connect with. Also,the Kong trailer is about 10x better on the big screen.
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Dakota Fanning is Katie Holmes (she's about the same age, right?) The tripods are, follow me here, tripods. And who uses tripods? Photographers, that's who. So the tripods (photographers) are trying to destroy Tom and Dakota, just like the tabloids are trying to destroy Tom and Katie. And why? So Katie won't take up Scientology. So, you see, the whole thing is a metaphor for the war on Scientology. Or not. I haven't actually seen it.
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I liked this movie. But it just seemed to missing something. The effects were terrific. I even thought Cruise was good. The supporting cast was wonderful. But the script lacked a kick to me. I found myself not caring if the aliens killed Cruise and family. Make me care Steven like you did when E.T. was around. Make my heart thump loud enough where the person sitting next to me tells me to quiet down. Basically, this movie reminded me of my ex-girlfriends cake. Looked good on the outside. But tasted okay. I really was expecting a little more.
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Nearly all of Wikipedia started in mainstream sources. "Douchebag" criminals generally don't care who's in power and so wouldn't bother to fight. Resistance does include killing civilians and innocents -- just as conventional war does. We didn't firebomb Dresden for its military catabilities. Okay, I've said my piece. Don't care to argue it any longer. When will Harry spring for some code that allows us paragraph breaks?
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Jun 29, 2005 4:15:16 PM CDT
saw it - nothing more than a good, solid entertaining monster mo
by bigdickmcgee
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HAHA. did anyone see the roger friedman's fair and balanced "article" about how WOTW is recieving nothing but "so-so to poor" reviews? sorry, but a simple trip over to rotten tomatoes.com will tell you that's hardly the case.. fucking right-wing nutjobs, if it's not the passion, it's a flop according to them.
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This flick spent WAY TOO MUCH TIME in basements. And also WAY TOO MUCH TIME playing hide and go seek in one of them. One scene was more than enough of "duck and be quiet" bullshit, I guess, what, they couldn't think of another way to build tension at that point, so they just said "Lets repeat that scene again, but this time with a tentacle!". FUCK YOU STEVE AND TOM. Fuck you. The whole notion of what Tom Cruise "has to do" in the second basement is SO FORCED and contrived it made me wish for Mel Gibson to run inside and say "I'm very angry right now!" After hitting us with some of the scariest shit I've seen in years, you take a big old shit on your own film. Real nice. Real fucking nice.
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Criminals with zero other options will fight if they get paid enough. Plenty of evidence that that is exactly what is happening there. Most still are from out of the country.
Fair point on resistance except that the people blowing up Iraqis aren't Iraqis, they are (shockingly!) actually foreign invaders. Vast majority of Iraqis are down with a new gov and want everyone, terrorists and coalition, to get the hell out of their country. Can't say I blame them. Point taken on Dresden too...Brits did it but I assume we're talking about "We" in the greater context...still a beautiful place despite the bombing.
Wikipedia might have started with mainstream sources but ANYONE who wants to add to it can do so. You don't really take the "Outside of corporate media referred to as legitimate Iraqi resistance" as anything other than bullshit do you?
If you check next to Pdiddy on Wikipedia it says I am a cock clone of Ron Jeremy but that doesn't (sadly) make it true. -
GREAT review, Mori! I was pretty blown away by Spielberg's latest...my hope is we get a 30 minute DVD focusing on Robbie's journey to Boston. http://www.971talk.com/movie/index.aspx
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"I AM INSANE WITH ANGER!!!" But seriously, the movie rocks, and get this: it's actually kinda scary. Like being at the top of a roller coaster scary (cliche, I know) only I MEAN IT. Begins was great, but this takes the cake for BEST MOVIE OF THE SUMMER. Oh, and Tom Cruise is...LIKABLE. My god. Well, see ya later.
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...actually not ignorant at all, but this review seems like point/counterpoint with Harry's.
Even though both are positive, this review seems more realistic and balanced than someone gushing about a movie just because they saw some great effects and can't wait to talk about how awesome it was. I still want to see it, but I won't walk out of the theater being disappointed because it wasn't the greatest movie of all time now. Thanks, Mori. Still the best reviewer on this site. -
The list of messages on the first page has stopped updating, in every article. Oh well, I guess the all-too-brief era of working Talkback is over. One day we will look back and call it "Camelot".
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This isnt a trilogy, pal. You're thinking of the TRIPOD trilogy, which actually has little or nothing to do with this.
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...as insurgents is about as ignorant as saying there's no such thing as a chemical imbalance. And, last time I checked, "Terrorist" wasn't an officially recognized political or even religious affiliation. Terrorism might be considered a philosophy (in that one has to subscribe to the logic of forced compliance to a mandate through weight of fear), but more accurately it's a term used to describe someone who employs terror as a tactic (or shock or awe, if those words do more for you). It's no different than calling someone a murderer or a thief, really. You're describing what they do. They terrorize. Typically terrorist activities are uprovoked threats or acts of violence against a people or organization (like the 9-11 bombings or the recent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq) intended to bring about change in the status quo. By this definition, defending territory from hostile foreign nationals is pretty much the opposite of terrorism. I'm not trying to further a political agenda here. Just trying to keep our terms straight so we all know what we're talking about, kids.
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Really. Slow. Day. At work today.
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...so what are we talking aabout?
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Everyone's going to rent this. A lot of people are saying they'll not see it just to spite Tom Cruise after his crazy recruitment drive. I'm not that interested in this version of War of the Worlds, but that other version I heard about that actually shoots the book page-for-page and bases it in the right era sounds very interesting to me. This is WotW in name only.
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Seriously, Moriarty, WTF? The second half of this film is ridiculous. From the hilarious 'probing' scene to the GIANT ALIEN ASSHOLE, to Cruise and his magnificent grenade suppositories up the GIANT, ALIEN ASSHOLE. To the sappy ass ending where a character that should've died, suddenly turned up okay.
Brilliant first hour, but the last half felt like it had been directed by someone else. It completely lost it's way and descended into a stupid mess of unredeemable crap. Spielberg should've taken an extra year on this. Pre-production is where ideas like THE GIANT, ALIEN ASSHOLE get tossed by the wayside in favor of something decent. You and Harry both, I mean Jesus, I can't be the only one who sees the problems with this film! -
MattCG, very good. The red rubbery alien asshole reminded me of the end of "Evolution" (God, I ACTUALLY remembered something from that POS sci-fi film?). I agree with most about the powerful beginning of the invasion up to Oglevy's cellar. That was clearly memorable, scarey, masterful filmmaking; er, okay not all of it was. What I kept thinking about in every shot I see Tom Cruise escaping is how strategically the road was cleared for his car to travel on. Oh yea, and did anyone notice how his car was unscratched after some jetliner crashed into his house. I mean, EVERYTHING was destroyed around it, and the car: zilch. Also, when the electromagnetic pulse took out all electtronics, how does some dude manage to capture the alien emergence on a home video camera? The worst part of the movie for me was the clunky open/close VO with Morgan Freeman quoting HG Wells. It was so out of place, they may as well have shown him reading to his grandkids out of a storybook by a warm cozy fire. This was definitely a hit and miss experience.
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Just got back fromt this movie, which I was surprised as hell that I enjoyed as much as I did (biggest rush so far this summer).
Whatever you think, there are some fucking GREAT scenes/sequences, like the appearance of the first tripod, the highway drive shot, and the terryifing scene where the maddening crowd takes the van away from Cruise, then tears itself apart fighting over it. Awesome scene with no aliens or effects.
Also, I thought the scene on the hilltop with Robbie was terrifically realized.
The true achievement? Robo-Fanning didn't bother me. I gotta give her props (or Spielberg, whatever) -
I think Alan Moore did a superb "germs kill the Martians" variation, and I think a cynic like Wells would have liked it. The British government has cultivated a super-germ for weaponization, and they turn it loose on the squids. Any civilian die-off is easily explained as part of the WOTW. (Now, let's NOT start arguing about whether Moore is an asshole, PLEASE, because that's not the point.)
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1. You don't get mercenatries to blow themselves up, though they may provide "support." 2. Yes, many fighters, insurgents, whatever are from outside Iraq, though a huge number are Iraqui. 3. Iraq is crowded with criminals and foreign combatants now because it has become an important center for fundamental Islamic terror. 4. It wasn't until we lied to the world to justify our decision that we have more right than anyone to run the joint.
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Nope, same shit's happening on this computer too.
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Where to begin here...so Scorsese doesn't measure up vs. Spielberg in an "artistic sense"? WTF Drew! Does costume design not count, cinematography, acting, mise-en-scene, blocking, framing? I've got several issues with "The Aviator", "Gangs" was a huge letdown but there are not only brilliant set pieces to both there's also amazingly detailed worlds and costume design. And what, Senor Spielbergo isn't uneven? C'mon, "Terminal" (apt title at least), "A.I" (Kubrick rolling in his grave over that travesty), "Amistad" (nuff said), "The Lost World" (couple of good set pieces), "Hook", "Always", "1941". By my count, both have three utter masterpieces to their credit, but only Scorsese makes it to Sight and Sounds top 10 films, and can lay a claim to best films of the 70's, 80's and 90's. Spielbergo does have in most of his films, dazzling MOMENTS ("Ryan's" war scenes, first hour or so of "Minority Report" (and speaking of rolling in his grave, R.I.P. PKD) the T-Rex and Raptors of "JP") and there's little to no doubt that he is a genuis with the camera, but artistically doesn't measure up to Scorsese. I know it's relatively off topic, but what do y'all think?
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at a free show, is it rude to ask for your money back after a free show??
crappy love fest ending
usual bad dad and angry kid roles, yells at his boss but cant control the kids. yep thats a longshoreman for ya.
what was with blindfolding the kid, then closing the door any way, she have xray eyes??
notice you didnt really see a lot of battles, just peoples reactions. so where did they spend the 130 million???
the lasers priming and firing reminded me of the iron giant. the aliens were identical to the ID4, so what did we do to piss them off that they come back on july 4 every few years? toms hand gun fired to many bullets. 1000's fleeing, aliens killing and only 2 people brought a gun? dont think it was germs but aids, they were after all sucking everyones blood and using to fertilize their plants, that got them so fast. love the plane crash with the perfect path opened thru the debris. what a disappointment. -
Relax, everybody. This movie rocks. Yeah the writing is lame and it starts to fall in on itself when Tim Robbins shows up, but the tripods are f**kin scary/awesome as hell, and ILM is back on their game.
Did anyone else notice the "unscrewing" effect to the ground and buildings where the first tripod emerges? A nice homage of the ominous hatch unscrewing from the radio broadcast and the 1953 movie, I thought.
And the first frames of the film, with the amoebas, dna and stuff gave away the ending for me.
But people, it's a summer movie. Drop the 'tude, drop the 9 bucks and go see it. Peace. -
Jun 29, 2005 8:14:50 PM CDT
crap - pure nothingness - aliens not scary at all - 1953 much be
by flipster
remember - harry hype is inversely proportional to actual film - love harry for site tho
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Hey zero corpse, the other film I think you're talking about could be Pendragon Pictures film. i ain't seen it but it hasn't had very good reviews from Wells fans.
It just sounds to cheaply done.
hopefully Jeff Wayne will give us a near accurate version of the book. Spielbergs film sounds incredibly contrived, formulaic and more about Cruise than W.O.T.Worlds. -
Jun 29, 2005 8:29:06 PM CDT
Moonrocks dead on - my keyboard is dead - thx 2 u i don't ha
by flipster
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It was a different kind of alien invasion movie and very well done. The trailers showed nothing, which is a refreshing change from movies that shoot their load in the teaser *cough*Kong*. The only annoying aspect was the children "Rachel...Rachel? Rachel! Bobby! Bobby? Bobby!! Move! Listen! No quesions now, move! Rachel! We have to move! Bobby! Rachel? They're coming! Bobby! Rachel! Dad? No, I'm Bobby! Where's dad? Rachel! What? Move!... and for anyone who has ever seen Tim Robbins give a political speech during the academy awards, I felt myself rooting for Tom Cruise for once. Overall, 4/5. Rachel?????!!!
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some thoughts after seeing wotw: the scenes showing humans imploding in the face of impending danger (i.e. tom taking out robbins to save his daughter, the mob scene by the ferry) are easily the most interesting & complex of the movie. personally, i would rather have had a cross- country "road movie" as the family flees from the tripods. the aliens exploring the basement had absolutely nothing that the tentacle scene right before it didn't already have. i would rather not have seen them. spielberg takes everything he worked soooo hard for in the first half just to keep the son alive & give us all a big happy hug. close but not quite steven.....
btw, kong will punish this film like ilsa, she-wolf of the ss. -
These aliens are as dumb as the ones in SIGNS. They have interplanetary travel, but don't know about germs? And someone else here pointed out the stupidity of the 'million year plan'. In that much time, the aliens could have developed hydroponics and skipped the invasion. Honestly, I would have preferred that rumored plot about parallel-earthers from the future needing a fresh start on an unspoiled planet. The scene that had me groaning the most *SPOILER* was the train--it was like the flaming cattle stampede in MARS ATTACKS. WOTW is well-made, and the first hour's really good, but then Spielberg is trying too obviously to push people's buttons (the row of flags on everyone's house, the first building destroyed is a church, the Sophie's Choice scene). However, Dakota Fanning is spooky-good!
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still over here in japan where i woke up this mornin thinkin, godzilla needs to sue some asses. the tripods sounded pretty similiar to him and then when i thought bout robbins sayin how the japanese took one down, maybe godzilla popped up and took a tripod down. so who would win, man in suit godzilla vs a tripod? i say big g since those lasers cant burn clothes (but apparently can destroy buildings and cars) and the aliens are allergic to germs. this movie really makes me appreciate ID4, big willy needs to make a sequel to that instead of havin a franchise built on this crap. the only way of me rememberin the movie without bein disappointed at myself for not watchin batman again, is to pretend that when the big explosion happened on the field wit the military, somehow tom and family died.
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I barely made it through that "review." Where you expecting the Second Coming???
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Jun 29, 2005 9:53:54 PM CDT
This begs the question: Where are the Comedies this year? Box O
by ted striker
Anyone? I think next year, or the year after, we'll see a huge amount of comedies in reaction to this year's movies.... There have been a lot of great movies this year, but perhaps this is a sluggish year at the Box Office is because there haven't been many comedies - and we need comedies these days, considering how some people feel the direction of this world is heading.
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...on the planet Precociously Annoying.
Man, I wanted the tripods to zap her into a regular little girl. Coupla points...
1.) The movie was just okay for me.
2.) Cruise was better than he usually is so that was tolerable. (Dakota still bugs me.)
2.) Now I know what happened to Tim Robbins' character in Mystic River after his stabbing...he dug a hole from the river to a farm house outside of Boston to recover, only to be murdered AGAIN by another angry, short dude wearing a leather jacket.
3.) Lots of cool scenes + lots of silly scenes + major plot holes = "meh"
4.) Tom Cruise looked very, very short in this movie.
5.) I don't think there'll be any sequels.
6.) Win, lose, or draw...ID4 was an awful movie because, a.) Randy Quaid was in it b.) Will Smith knocked out an alien with one punch c.) Bill Pulman was a former ace pilot for the military?!! & d.) Randy Quaid was in it
7.) When is someone gonna show me an alien I haven't seen before? These guys looked like a goldfish after it gets those lumps right before it croaks...and pick arms/hands that don't look ET-ish, please
8.) The aliens can use lightning flashes to rocket pilots through the ground into their tripods, but need a colonoscopy-like probe to look through basements for survivors? Even our military has infrared/thermal imaging systems. Come on!
That is all. G'night. -
couldn't have said it better...the great parts more than make up for the lame parts of this film. That always isn't the case, but it is here.
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Simply put: The best 'scary' movie he has done since JAWS. The best Sci-Fi/Horror movie since ALIENS. Simply overwhelming, awe-inspiring, terrifying, tense, tender, funny and acting at the tippy top of the game. 5/5 stars.
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Now I really can't wait to see this!
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Jun 29, 2005 11:33:11 PM CDT
This was like watching Jurassic Park and Jaws for the first time
by antonphd
I don't need my excersize for the week now. That movie was a rollercoaster if you happen to be terrified of rollercoasters. Anyone who doesn't get into this movie must not care about anyone but themselves cause it's impossible to not be moved by this movie. Whew!
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worth seeing.
especially for fans of the genre.
same good to bad ratio as that other genre pic "land of the dead".
first half great. loses it in the tim robbins scenes and the ending.
//slight spoilers//
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ok. what's with the derivative design of the creatures? they look like a combo of the aliens from ID4 and the slitheen from the new dr. who. why? best not to show them. they can only look oddly fake with their weird look and fakey gait. (get it? they do things in threes. please ignore bad biomechanics. thx.)
some aspects of the "tripods" work very well...they are terrifying in the early scenes. but, there are so many of them long shots are very effective. but, they got really fakey with me when they used goofy wire baskets for their captives.
the tim robbins scenes are acted well, shot well....but they really don't need to be so long. why do the whole homage to the original video probe scene from the 50's classic? and the tim vs. tom confrontation just seemed off tone for me.
the end...well, it sucks. i'm ok with the whole traditional deus ex machina, but why the derivative tripod crashing scene? and why the mysterious boston guys all safe and sound without doing anything? and the non-sensical reappearance of a character without any explanation?
this movie seems to be a vitim of the CG disease. they get a lot of CG happening...which really works when the story is going someplace...but just leaves us high and dry with only purty pictures to look at when they run out of story.
i was kinda let down by this. batman begins was our "goodie" for this summer.
laters!
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Jun 29, 2005 11:46:22 PM CDT
Signs is overrated. It was a good movie the 1st time I saw it, b
by mr. profit
But I dont see how a smaller Alien Invasion film like "Signs" could compare to WOTW. WOTW looks like a mindless blockbuster that could be a lot of fun while Signs was a sci fi film filmed as if it were a horror movie. People really love Signs, I thought it was an OK film. The main shock in Signs, the footage from the birthday party, was crepy at first, maybe because when I was little the stupid show Sightings used to scare me. But when you see that particular scene again, you realize that Joaquin's reaction helped sell the scene, and then you notice how stupid the CGI alien looks. I haven't seen WOTW yet, but I doubt that the lackluster ID4 is a better film. ID4 blows it's load way too early, after the world is destroyed the film drags for a while. I will check out WOTW this week. Hopefully it will be a good movie.
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I admit it - i enjoyed ID4 when it first came out, but I also had to leave my brain at home in a way unusual even by summer movie standards - and it has not aged well since. Moriarty hits on all the set-pieces that make this movie - a flawed one and certainly not Spielberg's best - heads and shoulders above INDEPENDENCE DAY. Less is sometimes more, and Spielberg still understands that in a way Emmerich never will. We never see the aliens - and then only fleeting in shadows - until near the end of the movie. When Ray's son decides he needs to see the army attack on the tripods just over the ridge, we never actually get to see anything of what's over that ridge. The focus is alwways kept, jerkily, on Ray and his family or other fleeing refugees, with tripods simply a blue in the background. And perhaps the best set-piece touch (and easily one of the most disturbing moments Spielberg has ever committed to film): the refugees pull back from the railroad tracks as the signal bars come down...and what comes through a speeding bullet train, utterly aflame from end to end. At any rate, I think it's worth checking out on the big screen at a good house for rush hour prices.
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Harry and Co. getting orgasmic-plus in anticipation, bits and pieces breathlessly displayed, long-winded reviews ridiculously prefaced by aimless anecdotes and metaphors of JUST HOW GOOD IT IS because it's just too hard to explain in so many words...and the crowd lets out a collective "MEH!" At least they did in the theater I saw it at. Would it count as SPOILERS to say that the movie ends EXACTLY the same way as the 107 year old novel, without deviation or even the inventiveness of say, ID4? Or that Luke Skywalker would have no problem bringing down a Tripod? That the aliens turn out to be more cute than scary (not kidding)?! Don't get me wrong - there's some great sequences: the first appearance of a tripod and horrific aftermath, the harrowing ferry sequence, Robbins and Cruise watching in horror as the tripods "use" the harvested humans. But let's get this straight: these aliens are DUMB man, and their invasion plan sucks. Your adrenaline will rush as your head aches trying to reconcile all the blatant inconsistencies. Just tell it like it is, okay Harry? Moriarty? Etc?
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Jun 29, 2005 11:50:38 PM CDT
Someone remind me what this infamous shot is from Contact
by tompalpatine
Mor if you wanted to compare that shot to anything it should have been Zemeckis's car shot from What Lies Beneath, which is almost exactly like the one in WoTW.
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I think it is the one where Ellie (as a little gir) runs up stairs to get her father's pills and then you see her in the bathroom mirror. At least that is one of the famous shots...not sure if that's the one you are referring to.
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Leaving the theater, I heard at least 3 different people (two were adult females) commenting that "the little girl screamed too much" and the third was an older man who said "if my daughter acted like that, I'd put her up for adoption".
I really liked the movie, but Dakota Fanning nearly ruined it. She has two acting modes: calm and intelligent or screaming.
Spielberg knows the minds of children better than any director. What kind of little girl would incessantly scream and run off when terror surrounds her? He KNOWS BETTER than this.
I hope Dakota Fanning never gets to act ever again. What an obnoxious little bitch. -
You can't blame the director for a bad script. Koepp is a hack and he writes servicable scripts, but nothing special or remotely approaching "art". He wrote Spider-Man, Panic Room, Jurassic Park...etc. He's good at writing a vehicle for special effects, but he has nothing interesting to say...just formula, formula, formula.
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Jun 30, 2005 12:09:02 AM CDT
it's fucking crap - completely not worth seeing - those sayi
by flipster
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still paying fifty bucks a nickel for fucking red weed. ate a large bag of popcorn and some nachos a sour patch kid and 7 cans of miller lite (stuffed those bitches in the fucking baby seat). by the way, best fucking way to smuggle your fucking beer or anything for that matter in the theater is to get a fucking baby seat and put all your shit in the seat and put a blanket over it and take that fucker right by the usher. once you get in the theater, plop that fucker on the seat next to you. no one will sit there because (a) there is a fucking baby in the chair and (b) no one will sit next to you because they will think the fucking baby is going to cry. the only crying that will happen is after you finish off a few of those fucking cold ones in the baby seat and start laughing at the people getting va-poo-rized by the alien AT-ATs. helps if you toke some of the red weed in the car and a few painkillers never hurt anyone either. i bout pissed myself when Tom Hanks got lifted up into the little wire basket and got yanked up inside the PINK ANUS OF DEATH!!! then they fell like 350 stories and everyone lived. I bet when Dakota kets older, Tommy is going to kick Katie Homes to the fucking curb and start laying pipe all up in her. he knows what he is doing, man. you know it is okay at the end of any movie if Morgan Freeman give a speech about how everything is okay now. i like how they got Tom Collins to play himself. i bet he was sad that his old-ass wife got killed by the triffids but have you seen her lately? i bet he smokes the red weed just to get to sleep at night. well this movie was Schpliters List meets Close Encounters and Minority Report. i only wished they would have shot the alien at the end because you know that is where the sequel is going to come from. thank you Steven for making another movie that I will only need to see once. you only have so much time in this life and you won't need to watch this movie ever again unless you have the red weed
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WAS NOT ALL 12 BUCKS OF YOURS UP ON THAT SILVER SCREEN?
WAS IT REALLY ANY WORSE THAN STAR WARS ROTS?
HAVE YOU EVER TRIED TO CREATE CREDIBLE ALIEN SPACECRAFTS VIEWABLE IN FULL DAYLIGHT IN ONE OF YOUR FILMS?
WHAT DID YOU EXPECT,OR DOES THE WORLD NEED IN THEIR ENTERTAINMENT, AN ENDING WHERE THE WORLD ENDS? OR A CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD FAMILY VALUES ONE?
DID THE FIRST 30 MINUTES OF WOTW NOT BEAT EVERYTHING OUT THIS YEAR SO FAR?
CAN YOU CREATE A COOLER SOUND THAN THAT OF THE ANGRY TRIPOD?
HAVE YOU MADE A FILM OF THIS SCOPE IN ONLY ONE YEAR?
NUFF ASKED....
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I liked the movie. Awesome visuals. The ennui ending wind down could have been avoided with a little shock punctuation. Like why waste Tim Robbins behind a closed door. Let the aliens pull him out a give him the syringe treatment in gorey detail. Pumping ineffectual shotgun blasts at the machine as his eyeballs suck back into his skull.
When the blood falls out of the tripod hatch, have a bunch of pig guts added to the slurry. "Good Lord, Human Pulp." ala Quatermass2.
I dug it though. The flaming train was awesome. All angles and views of tripods and death rays were complete candy. It's the sort of Movie you'll watch every time it's on TV because of the cool bits. -
Jun 30, 2005 1:19:50 AM CDT
burn images in your conciousness like the very hand of God himse
by windowlicker74
And talking about overdone CG movies, I think you forgot to mention one particular prequel series
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Jun 30, 2005 1:24:14 AM CDT
ZombieSolutions: "...is roughly analgous to the deeply entrenche
by triumph poops!
Thanks for that insightfully deep probling observation. Now when you pull your head out of your ass, maybe next time you'll make an actual point that's correct or vaild. Fucking "insurgent are winning" whiners. You know, I mourn and admire and honor every serviceperson who's given their life in this war on terror, but you utterly retarded clowns who think the insurgents are actually winning are truly either gutless cowards of the first magnitude or have absolutely no sense of history regarding military cost and scale and victory. For crying out loud, for the losses we've taken -- which overall are still incredibly minor given the sheer amount of forces deployed -- you're still talking about TWO WHOLE COUNTRIES where dictatorships have been eliminated as well as MILLIONS upon MILLIONS uon MILLIONS of people who as a result now have a shot at democracy, which it seems to me should be the goal of ALL nations -- that is, people having pure representative voting rights to control their destiny. For crying out loud, I can only imagine if you "insurgents are winning" people had been around during WWII and the Invasion of Normandy. On June 6th, 1944, sure, you'd be claiming you were behind the troops...the only problem is, on June 7th you'd be out in the streets protesting and saying "My God, we can't win this thing! Look at the body count we had in just one day! We have to surrender to Hitler NOW!" Sorry, but fuck that shit right up the ass. Whatever happened to the diehard American conviction to see something through? In something as serious and completely globe-threatening as the war on terror, I seriously hope and pray THAT same spirit of conviction didn't actually die out with the WWII generation, otherwise the Western children of tomorrow are going to be speaking Arabic, forced to become radical fundamentalists or have their heads lobbed off, and all women will be wearing burkas and beaten daily, while being reminded that they no longer have any rights in life. Sorry, but right now these radical insurgents are nothing more than low-life cocksucking bastards who need to die at all costs, and to believe that our troops can't handle them is truly delusional.
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Jun 30, 2005 1:36:47 AM CDT
If I had to pick all-time greatest movie "moments" (not movies,
by commando cody
In terms of execution and elements combined (direction, acting, photography, effects, lighting, music, etc.), the JURASSIC PARK T-Rex debut is like 10 minutes of film that's as flawless as moviemaking could ever hope to be. If I had to name my top 10 movie moments in film history (not necessarily entire movies, but movie MOMENTS or sequences that are unforgettable), the T-Rex attack is easily in the top 5. So I can't wait to see WOTW. From the sounds of things and the particular set pieces being mentioned, it seems like Spielberg may have cracked into at least the top 10 all over again...
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I just posted and noticed that the page which simply shows everyone's abbreviated "subject line" DOESN'T match (in terms of order) the page where you can actually read everyone's full post. I noticed that the other day in an article or two as well. Man, I hope we're not back to the old days of having to scroll up and down to follow a thread.
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Thought the flick was ok. Very cool to see the martains war machines devastate a modern landscape. Major Spielberg still doesn't have the balls to make an entire film a downer (Shindler's List doesn't count). Couldn't just have the son be a no show at the end could ya! Grandma and Grandpa unschathed, opening the door with smiles on there faces, typical. Biggest problem was the dead beat dad scenario. So it took an alien invasion to make him love his kids, lame. One question though, they make a point to have all mechanical or electrical devices fail near ground zero. Yet some guy with a camcorder can videotape the war machines rise and attack down the street. Batteries, I ain't buyin it!
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I honestly don't care what people think about War of the Worlds. I liked it, as much as I could like it. Some of the gripes people have are legit. Cruise's son shoulda died, but that's Steven for ya' and we all knew he was alive or they would've shown him getting killed in the first place. It's a movie rule, no one is dead unless they show us they're dead. Cruise just suddenly running into Tim Robbins proved to be rather a little too coincidental for me. This is not an all-time classic. However, some people here are nitpicking... not a surprise, it's what fanboys do. I mean, what the hell is this, "The aliens would've used their sensors to sense the germs!" crap? Is this freakin' Star Trek all of a sudden? The aliens died from germs, that's how it was. What kind of ending did you want? A band or rebels with stolen alien weapons? Space Rangers coming down from the skies to save our asses? Perhaps Chewbacca could've jumped into one of the tripods and used it against their own masters! If Spielberg did something else, everyone would just claim "book rape" and then he'd still have fanboys pissing in his pool. I guess it's a no-win situation for him. But I really don't care about that. I don't, WotW isn't a mastperiece in the slightest. But what I cannot fathom, even remotely... almost as much as the time a friend of mine told he hated The French Connection... is how some people can defend one of the worst, silliest, dumbest, and moronic movies in the history of movies... Independence Day. THEY DESTROYED THE ALIENS WITH A FUCKING APPLE POWERBOOK! Goddamn Apple won't even work with 90% of the shit ON EARTH, so it's just magically going to access an alien computer!? It was the single worst example of "lazy writing" I've seen on the big screen and ID4 should go down in cinema as how NOT to do things. Will Smith sucks, and can't act. He's just stupid Will Smith in everything he does. That's not acting. Him spouting off one-liners isn't fun, it's tired and annoying. There's no such thing as a popcorn flick. That sentiment is the biggest fallacy working today. Maybe if you idiots would stop "turning your brains off" you'd actually understand how bad some of these dumbed-down movies are. There IS a difference between a decent action movie and godawful garbage like Bad Boys II. Hate WotW or not, but ID4 should not be praised for making even worse mistakes.
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I thought this was an awesome movie! Kept me on edge the whole time! Very real and very scarey. It's exactly the way I would expect people would react if they were in that situation. Run your ass off and survive any way you can. It doesn't surprise me that most won't like this movie because it is not the formula ID4 disaster alien flick that most people are use to. I think it is way the hell more scarey when it is treated as a real life situation. The only thing I didn't like is that I thought the ending was a little too happy...I totally only expected Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning to survive in the end but somehow everyone lives... and that to me is the only flaw cause in life shit happens and if ya really wanted to make this real some of these people have to die. Also love the unforgettable imagery! The flaming train passing by, the hundreds of floating bodies going down the river, clothes falling from the sky.... beautiful stuff!
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I loved the first half but the second half didn't live up to the promise of the first. It's still a good "disaster" flick but I left feeling a little cold and not wanting to see it again. the ending was pretty weak, having the aliens just wandering around in a drunken stuper and then being destroyed was pretty silly. why in god's name would they go to the trouble of invading a planet without realizing that they couldn't live in its atmosphere? that's about as dumb as the "sign" aliens being killed by water
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Jun 30, 2005 2:32:11 AM CDT
You know what I never understood about the stupidity of the endi
by commando cody
Is that it could have been so easily avoided. I actually have no problem with the gimmicky updating of a biological virus to a computer virus being what takes out the aliens -- but as everyone notes (like Rainjacket above) it was the fact that Goldblum did it with a fucking Apple laptop powerbook. Which was truly lame, and to this day everyone ranks on it. But when you think of it, why didn't they just establish that in all the years of working on the alien fighter -- and in order to make it accessible to humans -- they had to put in tons of earthly supercomputer parts and data banks and other shit. In ID4 if they simply took 30 seconds to show Goldblum uploading the virus into THAT and then saying "This will store the virus code which is fucking huge and the ship will then act as the connection", least you would have bought that a helluva lot more. But the idea that his virus was just on a notebook was fucking pitiful -- not to mention, who the hell learned "alien programming language" overnight to even WRITE the fucking virus code? Then again I guess the aliens got what was coming to them for not renewing their lapsed subscription to Norton anti-virus, Intergalactic Version.
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Jun 30, 2005 2:58:48 AM CDT
Great movie I agree about the movie lacking the punch after they
by spectrebeeyatch
From there the steam dies down. Still great time at the movies. The destruction scenes are very powerful. Also stop complaining about the germs thing! Sit down and read the book and that's how it exactly happens, stop bitching. Also the script tried at least to stay in line with the book for the most part so people comparing it to ID4 and Signs. You're actually sounding decently stupid because the book was written in 1898 or around then so those movies ripped off the book actually.
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...this review is spot on. I enjoyed the movie but it felt abit empty.
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It must be hard being so retarded. The grenade escape sequence had nothing to do with the fate of the invaders. Their fate was the same as in the book. Read it.
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... That's the fucking 19th century people. Germs were the new scary discovery of the age. The narration the opens and caps the film is almost word for word from the book. ID4, Signs and every other fukcing alien invasion story.movie, comic, whatever owes much to this original story.
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I always wondered if Dreamworks had the muscle to spook reviewers... I now have a definitive YES. This movie is no where near what many reviewers claim. This movie a couple fun scenes. To compare it to Aliens is outrageous crap. To call it a great movie is laughable. It has so many completely BS scenes and effects. For example: The a-hole son survives a 1000 foot high sea of flame? Cruise miraculously drives for miles through 1000's of desperate stranded drivers and no one chucks a crowbar? Cruise holds a revolver on a crowd of hundreds of refugees and no one pulls a gun on HIM? The ferry scene especially was friggen LAUGHABLE. People would have scattered in a heartbeat on seeing the tripods, yet everyone wants to get on a super slow ferry boat to quietly sail to the other side of the river? TRIPODS FLY! That a ferry boat would be an escape worth waiting for while the tripods come over a hill is a total joke. The tripods seems to wait...laughing their asses off is quess while all the desperate humans try to escape on a ferry boat. AND THE F-IN plane wreckage!? ALL together in a tiny area like it was dropped from 20 feet by a crane. THIS SHIT CAN'T STAND! How long will some stand in awe of this B-movie hack? Also, was Robbins in this to make him (anti-war that he is) look like a shitty actor? When he showed up on screen the whole movie theater LAUGHED at his goofy expression. Then Cruise MURDERS him so he'll shut up? I guess I do get why he was in the movie.
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... how not only do we beat the superior alien menace in these movies, we do it very, very quickly. I'll bet the war in ID4 didn't even last as long as the war against Panama or Grenada ...
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Jun 30, 2005 3:45:47 AM CDT
Just saw a commercial...This baby is going down like a tripod wi
by sgtelias
Nearly EVERY decent effect is now in the TV commercial. Dreamworks is running like a burning chicken from the word of mouth this dung heap will quickly generate. Rent on Netflix, watch few scenes on slo-mo, drop in mailbox.
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Jun 30, 2005 4:10:03 AM CDT
"Dreamworks is running like a burning chicken from the word of m
by triumph poops!
What the hell drugs are people like you on? Dung heap? The fucking thing is just opening TODAY. How about letting it actually play to more of a crown than just a midnight screening, huh? It also has good reviews so far, a healthy 73 FRESH rating at Rotten Tomatoes and rising, and it's clearly the movie everyone is looking to flood out and see this whole holiday weekend. You procrastinators that are so sure it's going "down" crack me up. What, do you have stock in a competing film company that you so desperately want to see it go down? Tell you what, do us all a favor. Go to bed, break out one of the porno mags you keep hidden under your bed, and whack off already so you can lose some of that buried anger...
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I do so hate War of the Worlds
I do so hate it, boys and girls
You should not watch it on a plane
or in the house, or on a train
You should not Tivo it or you'll complain
It's bad, it's dreadful, oh can't you see?
Worse than the burning sensation when I pee
You should not watch it on Sattelite TV,
stolen from the internet, or on DVD
You should not watch it on ABC, CBS, or NBC
You'll slice your wrists, believe you me
It's worse than West Nile Virus
or Parkinson's Disease
Avoid at all costs, I beg you please!
Instead of watching I should have taken a nap
Can't believe I blew 7 bucks on that crap
Take it from a survivor, boys and girls
I'd sooner cut my penis off
than watch War of the Worlds
- a poem by Max Evry, written after crying tears of vomit from his eyesockets after seeing a recent Hollywood film -
actually, i think bein retarded is quite easy. you dont have to be taken seriously, u could do anythin u want since of my retardation, and u get to ride the short bus...hehehe...anyway, sorry if i didnt read the book (not completely anyway, and that was like back in 6th grade when goosebumps was more interestin) but readin the book should have nothin to do wit watchin the movie. i do remember from whut i read that there was no ray, rachel, robbie, tim, mom, boston, etc. just cuz theres a movie comin out based off a book, doesnt mean the millions of people who are bein bombarded wit the media attention to see the movie, should go out and read the book. the movie itself is a movie, not a quiz on the material covered in the book. i can only think of 2 people who read jurassic park, but everyone i know has seen the movie. i just think the movie couldve stated why the aliens were dyin better. maybe i was thinkin bout how crappy the movie became and wondered why i was holdin my piss for this utter crappiness. or maybe i am really retarded, if so, dont i get a cool handicap parkin sticker?
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He could have saved the Martian (or whatever) ewoks (they were kinda cute, like 3 limbed teddy bears or something) from their horrific distended anal sphincter.
I would like to see the Freudian interpretation of Tom Cruise being sucked into a giant anus (grenades in hand) only to be saved by Jango Fett in US Army garb. -
Jun 30, 2005 5:05:03 AM CDT
Nice one, Moriarty. A good review that cuts through the somewhat
by silver_joo
Minority Report was fucking terrible. Bad bad last forty minutes and a chase sequence that was identical in some bizarre way to the droid foundry bit in Attack of the Clones. Eeeek.
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If an actor's off-screen personality is too strong it takes away from the movie (or it may add to it if you like the actor). Whether I am able to distinguish between Cruise the actor and Cruise the hype-monkey isn't the point-- of course I can. What I don't want to do is support this idiot and the publicity machine that has thrown this movie and his new relationship in my face for the last few weeks. What about that do you not understand?
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harry's review is spot on what an amazing movie
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Speilberg is getting by on his name alone. This movie would have been panned by critics if someone else directed it.
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Jun 30, 2005 8:04:56 AM CDT
What moron would pay full pop for 30 min. of great effects?
by computerguy68
So if what you are saying, ILM did a great job but Speilberg dropped the ball again. This guy is SO overated, I've hated most of his stuff since "E.T.: The Extra Terrible" When are you fanboys gonna wake up and stop watching his films. Of course you turds rank him the best director!! Morons...
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Jun 30, 2005 8:12:14 AM CDT
It's hilarious reading everybody getting so worked up over a
by johnnytremaine
Look, I haven't seen it, maybe I'll catch it sometime this summer, but the movie is what it is: a big budget, CGI summer movie starring a goofy movie star. If it's a good flick, more power to it. We could use more of those. If not, oh well, better luck next time Messrs. Spielberg and Cruise.
It just kind of sucks that this is pretty much it for the rest of the summer. What's left? Dukes of Hazzard? Bleech!! That's not even a rental; Dukes is a if-you're-flipping-around-the-tube-and-you-happen-to-catch-it-on-Channel 9-type of movie. -
Jun 30, 2005 8:19:10 AM CDT
"Cruise holds a revolver on a crowd of hundreds of refugees and
by tenenbaum
Hey Dumbass...I mean SgtElis. Someone does pull a gun on Cruise in that scene...in fact they point it right against his head. That's why Cruise gives up the the van and pleads to be allowed to get his daughter out of the van. How was the short bus ride back from the theater?
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Know why Hollywood keeps churning out shit? Because nothing more is asked of them.
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WotW...good but not great. It did kinda peter out in the basement, didn't it? Pretty hardcore, otherwise. And if you didn't catch that the protazooa would be the saviour of the world in the FIRST FRAME of the movie, then...you need to either read more or watch more of TCM's classic scifi movies, every Tuesday in June (oops...missed out on that one, eh fanboy?). I'm sure the George Pal version will be played ad-nauseum this summer all over the dial. For my money, that version had a much better story. Whatever. BUT...the trailers ruled! Charlie will be sugary, Narnia will rule, Bad News Bears will be a nice wednesday night distraction and Stealth will send many to the ear doctor. I was bowled over by the Kong Trailer (esp. the shots of Ann Darrow at the apple stand and the keel-shot of the boat...they looked exactly like the shots I already know & love!!!) but best of all (supprisingly) was Elizabethtown. I got such a kick out of seeing Kristen trying to get Orlando to pronounce Louisville properly. BTW...it's pronounced "Lou-uh-Vull" or "Lou-a-Vull", not "looey-vill" or "louis-vill" (but being a former local, I can call it loser-vill, but not you). Cameron Crowe owns!!! I wish my former girlfriend from E-Town (as it is commonly known) looked as good as Kirsten. Hubba-Hubba!!!
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ID4 "Hey-yo, Zork! Howz about we'ze invade Earth with our Big fuckin' space ships and blow the fuck outta of major Cities with FIREBALLS, yo fuget-about-it? "Duh, okay Blorg dat sounds great but shouldn't we load that new anti-virus in our computers?" "Naawww, why bother." SIGNS. Yo, Xzzax you down to invade Earf n'shit? Dat's my word Szrgon. We best not fuck up like Zork and Blorg last 4th of July, and get our Anti-virus on in all our computers. "I'm all over it dog. But yo, don't you think we needs to get us some tools and weapons n'shit in case they be try'n to hit us with bats or we need to get through some doors?" "Naawwww!" WAR OF THE WORLD. Howdy ya'll, this hear is GLORP ya'll supreme Martian commander. I'ma gonna be brief'n yall on our up-commin Earth invasion. Now, first let's get a few things straight. I hear tell they got some wicked puter viruseses so we'z gonna load up our puters with the best anti-virus we gots. Now I also hear-tell that they gots this hear stuff called WATER that'll burn holy-hell outta ya if'n it gets on ya and they gots this stuff called WOOD that they use ta make doors and baseball bats with. I hears that once ya'll get locked behind one'a them thar doors or hit with one'a them thar bats you'z up the Martian canal without a paddle. So we'all gonna go down thar in our big-ole tripods and blast the holy hell outta ever-thing we see. Now, me myself personal thinks we should just burn ever human we see in-ta dust. But I knows some a ya'll is partial ta drinkin they blood even goin far as ta puttin SNACK BASKETS on the bottom-a ya'llz tripods. I say this hear is a personal choice of yall's own. Personally I thinks it kinda queer stick'n humans up yer tripod sphincter. "Scuse me supreme commander Glorp. You reckon we might be needin some some space suits or climate control in our tripods just in case there's germs on that thar planet?" "Naawwww."
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I think what puzzled me is that it took so long after Tom's character pulled a gun before someone else produced a firearm. We have this impression of the US being a society where a fair few people have guns, so we would have expected a few more people in that crowd to have had a handgun of some sort.
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Has no one noticed the briefest of cameos at the end by Gene Barry and Ann Robinson as Ray's former in-laws? Thought it was a rather elegant and nice touch on Mr. Spielberg's part.
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Jun 30, 2005 10:20:19 AM CDT
Wow, after reading these disappointed talkbacks, it seems like T
by psalmolive
Everyone hates the guy who says I told you so, so I won't. You all should hunt Tom Cruise down like the overpaid bastard he is, and demand your money back like Stan and Kenny did to Mel Gibson when they saw "The Passion".
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You sir are a git.
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You, sir, are a madman. A tasteless madman who wrote a Mortal Kombat movie. Fatality!
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I think what puzzled me is that it took so long after Tom's character pulled a gun before someone else produced a firearm. We have this impression of the US being a society where a fair few people have guns, so we would have expected a few more people in that crowd to have had a handgun of some sort.
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Jun 30, 2005 10:54:32 AM CDT
"...he routinely creates movie moments that shame anyone else cr
by aerob
AKA he routinely creates condescending, dumbed down moments that look down on his audience as a whole and treat them like children.
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Camilla Sanes - aka Aceveda's wife from THE SHIELD. I thought she was the best actor in the film. And I actually really liked this movie. Not the greatest ending but it was creepy, stayed with me, and Spielberg proves again why he is such a master craftsman.
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like this movie. Best movie I have seen at the kintop this year. F**k all the "uuuh, this is not right" and the "aaaah, that is not right" searchers. WERE YOU ENTERTAINED??? I was.
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humor in a movie where people are dying and you just thought your kid died.
nice moron -
"There Jewish holocaust is largely mythology." I guess you haven't read any of the thousands of books by non-Jews and non-Zionists exploring the endless documentation of the Final Solution. As always, the Germans were efficient -- they wanted to know exactly how many people they were hanging, gassing, shooting, starving to death and performing horrible medical experiments on. So they wrote most of it down. And what the fuck does this have to do with anything on this Talkback, including discussion of the war in Iraq?
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Folks, PEOPLE PLEASE, learn the difference between "their," "they're" and "there." It ain't freakin' rocket science.
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I realize that most of you masturbate six times a day, and never get laid. But PLEASE, try not to share your lameness in the room. SSSHHhhhhhhhhhhhh
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What is this laid you speak of?
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Jun 30, 2005 11:49:19 AM CDT
War of the Worlds- that's the most beautiful american movie
by watashiwadare
masterful, enjoyed the undercurrent political statements too.
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And, keeping it real, let's not forget over a million Rwandans, another 1.5 million Armenians and somewhere between 1.2 and 2.8 million Cambodians. Most Americans have at least heard of Rwanda, but do they know how bad it got? Unlikely. Cambodia -- oh, yeah, that was in the '70s, with Vietnam. Armenia? Where's that?
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probably a million (there are no solid numbers) during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. And 3 million Chinese dead of starvation during the early '60s because Mao's government was too proud and secretive to accept foreign assistance when the rice crop failed two years running.
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So Tommy boy gets out of the Anus by the Hudson, and next thing he's in Boston. That's what? 250 miles? Were there more tripods, panic in Connecticut, three weeks of walking with a screamer kid? You bet there were. Did we see it? NAAAAAH.
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Jun 30, 2005 12:25:55 PM CDT
Why must aliens smart enough to get here and kick our asses alwa
by vynson
Did you really have to review every movie Spielberg made before you finally got around to reviewing this one? I saw it last night and I thought it was fine except for the ending. The fact is that the only story here is the internal arc of Cruise as parent. Humanity (and certainly not Cruise) does nothing to save itself. First rule of a story is that your hero must do SOMETHING to solve his issues rather than just endure until they go away because they were too stupid to bother checking for microscopic life in all these millions of years since they buried their dumbass tripod thingers. As for you assertion that those who don't like the ending aren't familiar with the source material, you left out the rather obvious option that the ending in Wells' story sucked then, but it sucks even more now. The massive intelligence necessary to pull off the travel and the attack necessarily mandates being smart enough to check the environment for potential threats like bacteria and such. Counting on an intelligence that vast to be stupid is just bad writing. Of course, I didn't expect Koepp to do anything other than his usual hackwork, so I'm not surprised that he perpetuated this alien stupidity. I'm surprised Spielberg didn't put an improved story in place before shooting this steaming loaf. Cruise's performance was fine, as usual (I really don't care what crazy cults he joins... scientology is less damaging than Christianity so far), but Dakota Fanning was incredible. Best child actress in quite a while. A fun popcorn movie if you can turn your brain off long enough to ignore the fact that this is the dumbest alien story ever and features aliens almost as dumb as the moron invaders in SIGNS.
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...I know chances are pretty good you wont even bother to fuckin read this,but if you do,please,pretty please with a lot of sugar on it,will you decide who is the master in your book? When a new Scorsese flick comes about,he is the greatest,when its a Tarantino,oh,hes the baddest,and so on. Please,you would get way more credibility if you stuck on one choice.
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ROFL Snack baskets. HAW HAW
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exclusive interview here: www.WhiteEyeLid.com
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The whole "the only way to see this is on a giant screen with other people" line is baloney.
If it's a good story, a movie will be able to play just as well on an old tube, 19 inch TV with a crackling speaker.
Evidence: Rent the George Pal's WOTW. You're captivated by it, even if the screen size is 13 inches across and in black and white.
I think John Mctiernan said something similar in an interview once. He trained in AFI's Director's Program. The equipment each student used was an old B&W video camera. And he said that if you can manage to tell a great story using such a limited medium, then you can do it with anything. Of course, that doesn't explain Rollerball, but never mind... -
So you're saying that any movie with better production values than I can pull off with my camcorder in the back yard deserves a thumbs up? Raise the bar, dude. This kind of messed up complacency is part of the reason that Hollywood keeps releasing crap. Would you pick your doctor with these standards? Well, he does surgery better than me, so let's see how he does with my bypass...
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It must the dumbest plot device ever conceived, if you want to write a scene where the enemy has to overwheelm you, then give him a forcefield... maybe they'll put one in the next Terminator movie.... | Seriously, it ruined the film for me, it was the same dumb shit on ID4 and the cold war version... H.G. Wells made you root for the guys taking trying to take tripods with their 19th century technology... surrounding them in a goddamn bubble made the scene where the military and the aliens duke it out in the field completely useless, oh sure, the son wanted to see the tanks... powerful stuff... what a shame, the first hour was great then it melted into absolute friggin' nothingness :(
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Jun 30, 2005 1:56:52 PM CDT
I bought a ticket for batman begins, and then snuck into war of
by iamnumber1
So yeah, it's probably pointless at this late stage of the talkback but here are my two cents. This movie had great special effects, was true to the book in terms of the whole virus thing, and had some tense moments, but I felt like I've seen it all before in other movies like ID4 and signs etc. I didn't mind the happy ending (you don't get enough of them these days, and It's a nice trademark in a Spielberg movie), but all they had to do to make the ending family reunion believable was to have a sequence where the son escapes the explosion (giving spielberg an excuse to show off more special effects), and then we don't here from the son again until the end. And another thing. I'm tired of all the spielberg movies being about fathers and sons. I understand that ol' Spielberg grew up without a dad, but make the point of your movie about something else once in a while!
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Jun 30, 2005 2:04:17 PM CDT
HG Wells ideas, unlimited cash...and this piece of shit is produ
by sgtelias
This load wouldn't even inspire pride if it sat in a bus station commode (that was for Tenenbaum). Aliens can stop an A-bomb direct hit but don't have biological protection? No thermal sights to detect people in a basement? The Abrams tank which attacked the tripods has both of these items. The stupidity of the alien scheme to use humans as fertilizer after waiting a million years is simply asinine. ...Update parts of Wells with no attempt to take into account the technology/knowledge humans have acquired in the last 100 year or so since the original was written? Just another overhyped piece of crap while we wait for exponentially superior sci-fi from those with a tenth the money and 10 times the talent.
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I just wated 15 minutes of my life that I will never get back again reading through this talkback and while there were some well thought out discussions, what really made my head hurt were the complaints about the ending. All of the morons saying how lame it was that the aliens succumbed to earth germs and they would have the ability to detect them first, plan better, have a defense against them, etc. You fucking pea brained cunts. Try reading the fucking book. That is exactly how Wells ended the invasion, so kudos to Spielberg for using that. Would you dickheads have been happier if he had changed it and had a ID4 rah rah we beat 'em cause we're so much fucking better than them ending? Fuck I hate people who yip and yap about things they know fucking nothing about. And Moriarity complaining about a lack of humour? What the fuck?! The whole fucking world is coming to an end around them and he was expecting a witty comment to make us chuckle? Oh puhleeze! Again, kudos to Steven for keeping it dark and on track. It ain't supposed to be funny, it's supposed to scare you. I mean, the WHOLE world is being destroyed!!! Hello?! Paging Chris Rock and Robin Williams. Could you guys lighten things up a bit for us before we are blasted into dust? Fuck! I saw it and took it for what it was. A decent summer popcorn action flick. Best picture Oscar winner? Nope. Any Oscar consideration at all? Probably not except maybe for effects. Who the fuck cares? It can still make decent money and be a good way to kill a couple of hours. And now, I will step off my soapbox...
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Jun 30, 2005 2:08:53 PM CDT
The aliens-dying ending was appropriate and well done, but there
by iamnicksaicnsn
Definitely deserved some models or puppets... ALL SPOILERS!: The aliens are too cute, we should have never seen them, they acted like they were little ETs. When the alien has the bike fall on him, i was thinking "aww, he's curious about people..." not, "OH MY GOD THEY ARE KILLING MACHINES." The Pods were freaky enough by themselves, and showing the aliens took away from what we thought was a cold and uncaring species. Who the hell was that woman and her daughter when they were trying to get on the barge, and what was the point of having us introduced to her, and then her disappearing 5 minutes later? WHY THE HELL did the son survive??? When I was watching it, I was thinking to myself, "well, ok... so they meet up with the family... i guess i can accept that since it looks like the son's died, that shows a little balls from Spielberg..." AND THEN THE FUCKER POPS UP AGAIN!!! It was so quick! We don't even really get to see any evidence of Tom Cruise's true redemption! WHAT I LIKED: Tim Robbins, 9/11 Imagery, Iraq War references (just for the hope that someone might come away thinking about what the hell is going on in the world today), the fact that i was stuck in my seat, unable to move for the first 95% of the movie, the blood-fertilizer.
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I pretty much disagree with Moriarty on all accounts. He sounds like a bitter asshole to me sometimes
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The burning train made me think "See what happens when you dance while serving hot chocolate, Tom Hanks?"
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Aliens invade America, father who's a jerk but turns out to be a nice guy, crappy happy Hollywood ending, Spielbergs usual family drama. usual style over substance.
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OK--you shmendricks need to screw your heads on tighter before complaining about things like: 1) DAKOTA FANNING SCREAMING. Duh! A little girl who's just witnessed thousands of people dying while she and her family are being chased by monsterous tripods would probably scream MORE than she did. Hell, I'd wager a 20-spot most of you fanboys would scream more than she did if you were in that situation. 2) THE RANDOM "END" OF THE ALIENS. Duh. That's how the book finishes, and it says a hell of a lot more about mother nature's intricacies and how NO creature--man or otherwise--can figure them all out. 3) THE "HAPPY" ENDING. Duh. Let me tell you this: if I survived something like this I'd make peace with ANY of my surviving exes or enemies. Ever hear of the collective soul? Ever stop to think that having aliens kill billions of people and trash your planet pretty much puts things in perspective? 4) THE POOR PLANNING OF A SUPERIOR ARMY. Duh. All I have to point out is: A superior military power vs. an alleged bunch of sand-hugging doofuses with cheap-ass weapons. And how's it turning out? 27 months. Over 1,700 American soliders dead. Over 12,000 Iraqi citizens--men, women, children--dead. Over $200 billion dollars spent. AND IT AIN'T FINISHED YET. And you licks think a "superior" force has superior planning and figures all the nuances out? My ass. WOTW was a tremendous movie, and it's a shame McWeenie didn't enjoy it because there wasn't any "comedy." Maybe next time Spielberg can have Cruise throw a pie in one of the alien's faces while the music goes "wah wah wah wah!" Stupid, McWeenie. The world's coming to an end and people are being exterminated. I don't see the need for humor. Finally--it speaks volumes about McWeenie that he shot his meager load all over the last piece of shit Lucas released--you know, the one with knee-slapping humor like "No, you only saved my life nine times!" and more wooden performances than at a ventriloquists' convention--yet bitches about a Spielberg movie which is dark start to finish, focuses on a family, takes the lead character and makes him a total dick and KEEPS the focus on said family. Talk about idiocy. Anyway, take heart Spielberg trashers--Uwe Boll's sure to make more movies for your delicate sensabilities.
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SUCK IT! Box Office Mojo
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Sure, there's no fighter planes flown into the rectum of giant UFO. The ending is when "the hero" kills his fellow man, to protect his daughter. Everything after that I consider resolution. It's bleak and depressing as hell and I salute Spielberg and his writers.
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FOX News and happen to like their fair and balanced news reporting. See, at FOX they report the news ans separate the commentary unlike DNC-NN where the lefties comment on the news as they're reporting. I just want the facts and don't want the dogma from either side get in the way.
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to anyone complaining about the aliens having to scan for viruses and germs that perhaps the reason they are able to survive on their homeworld is the fact that they do not have such things? The fact that it is the unknown that is killing both humans and, ultimately aliens at the end of WOTW. The story is, essentially a story not about war but about survival and the fear of the unknown.
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Jun 30, 2005 3:32:30 PM CDT
Sgt.Elias, your BO comparison isn't really relevant...
by johnnytremaine
...when you consider a host of factors. I'm not a shill for Paramount of WOTW, but ROTS had a built in audience for it. WOTW only had Spielberg followers and Tom Cruise fans (a quickly decreasing body of people). Also, you have to wait a couple of weeks, even up to one month, to sentence this a success or disappointment. Remember the year before last, Pirates of the Carribean didn't exactly light the world on fire when it opened. But that sucker played and played and played and stayed in the top 5 for most of the summer season. It wound up with something like a $350 (if not more) haul. A good movie, if it connects with an audience and good word of mouth spreads, can have legs.
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Sure, earth scientists would have somehow discovered the tripod sleepers under the earth. The thing is, they weren't there before. During the lightning attacks a series of alien pods dove deep into the earth. They used all the rich ores in the earth to build the tripods from scratch. Each probe probably had a handfull of aliens on board. As soon as they finished constructing the tripods they rose up out of the earth. That's it.
While I'm ranting, here are some minor nitpicks. I would have loved to trade half of the time Tom, Dakota and Tim spent ducking the alien probe in the basement for a solid twenty mintues of exposition. Also, when Tom and the kids arrive at the relatives house, the first thing they should have done is try to get some news on the television or the radio. Instead they had of the kitchen.
The whole thing with Dakota Fanning's character have a fear of closed places or panic attacks seemed pasted on and was never explored. Wouldn't she have really freaked out from this while she was blindfolded during the Cruise beats the shit out of Robbins scene?
My final nitpick was Cruise and company arrive at the family house in Boston and the place is 99 percent untouched. There are a few overturned garbage cans and an cars parked askew, but that's it. Did the tripods miss this part of town, or did the SFX budget run out buy then.
Boy, it's got to be able to rant. Sorry about the typos. The first half rocked. Maybe he'll fix the second half for a super DVD release. I'd buy that for a dollar. -
Why is Boston untouched? Alot of it isn't, when Cruise first gets there you see some destruction. The rest of it is untouched because the Tripods hadn't made it that far yet. By that point they had begun acting crazy. Why do they milk people? What's the point of the anus? To fertilize that red weed. There was a whole scene about this. What's the invaders plan? Apparantly to live on Earth, since they're covering it with their weed, that should be the assumption. Remember that great shot where the countryside is covered with the stuff, appearing to be a totally different planet. Why didn't the invaders know about the germs? To put it in perspective, we have a rover on Mars now, there could be bacteria there we'd never know about unless we showed up and it was too late. BTW, even if they did scout the place first, the germs might not have affected them in time, notice it takes several days for the effect to set in.
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Jun 30, 2005 4:31:30 PM CDT
SpikeTBB hilarious post about the train, oh yeah movie rocked
by spectrebeeyatch
Also the other poster who used "snack baskets" made me laugh. People need to get the sticks out of their ass and enjoy something once and a while. Problems? Yeah every movie has problems ROTK had the worst ending ever!!! The movie still rocked though. I think WOTW was a good time and great to see in a theater. Also 21 million in one day ain't bad I thought it would make a lot less opening day.
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Take the blindfold from his daughter and gag Robbins with it. What a contrived scene.
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from multiple channels is that this is a fair-to-middling movie with some interesting set pieces that ultimately collapses under it's own weight and leaves the viewer unsatisfied.
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I've always heard the notion that you have to have that 'pressure valve' of humor in tense movies to give the audience a break etc. I never bought it. After seeing this film though I'm a firm believer, because if you dont' give the audience a place to laugh, they'll find their own. In my theater people were laughing at all kinds of things that normally wouldn't be funny, people even laughed when the guy in the minivan got shot. So yea, funny parts are important.
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Jun 30, 2005 4:45:02 PM CDT
Yes, Dick, I read the book and the ending sucked then too becaus
by vynson
I generally like to take a civilized tone with these things, but I must point out that Dick Fitzwell is a worthless sack of goat spunk who apparently doesn't get the fact that WE'VE READ THE DAMN BOOK!! Yes we know he stuck to the original ending. Which was a suck ass ending because it turns the aliens into a paper tiger. It sucked then. It sucks worse now. These are the second dumbest most inefficient beings in the whole freakin' cosmos. They discover earth but don't take it millions of years ago when there was nothing intelligent to screw up their plans... no, they plant dumb tripod things and wait. Of course, we don't discover the dumb things because we are apparently THE dumbest most inefficent creatures in the cosmos. We dig up dinosaur bones and fossils and oil and ore like they are prizes in our Cocoa Pebbles, but we can't find these damned things. So they sit and wait and watch for a bajillion years until there are 6 and a half billion of us running around and then they pop into their tripods on lightning beams and start vaporizing our asses? If they have that kind of technology, couldn't they think of an easier way to kill people other than one at a time? These aliens are morons. And these three-legged ATAT things are a joke. I find it hard to believe the army can't take these pathetic things out. In short, this movie expects you to be a damned idiot. It expects you to have the technical sophistication of a farmboy from the 1920s. I hoped they would offer something smarter. They didn't. I was disappointed. But at least I'm not a pathetic man-milking goo dumpster like Dick Fitzwell. Fits well if we're talking about a buttonhole, eh Dick?
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A pro-war movie, my ass!!! Remember when Tim Robbin's character wisely says that the aliens are an occupying force, and no occupying force succeeds. THINK ABOUT IT, GREENFLAME! Besides, Spielberg is a Democrat, and its been clear from the start that he has been against the Bush stance on things! FUCKING BUSHITE MORONS, WHEN WILL THEY GET THEIR PEA-BRAINS ROUND TO THE TRUTH!!!
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Good start, good second act. Fell apart completely in Tim Robbins' cellar. All I could think of was David Essex warbling "hundreds of miles of drains, sweet and clean now after the rain...." What it needed was a really good Thunderchild scene, not just the little homage with the ferry, visually impressive though it was. Just a valiant but utterly doomed last stand by an aircraft carrier or something to protect our fleeing civilians, taking out a few tripods before being sunk. Coz the third act was just a damp squib - sure, I can fanwank an explanation for the aliens bizarre ignorance of biology, but I shouldn't have time to think of these things during the movie. Plus I've lost the willing disbelief with Cruise, when he's on screen all I see is a loved-up scientologist. Forgettable, unfortunately. Uuuuullllaaaa.
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You want a big epic action/adventure/sci fi movie about giant mechanized alien craft fucking humanity? Check out Independence Day. Hell it even has forcefields. You want a small/clasutrophobic/horror/sci fi movie about an emotionally frozen father learning to become a better dad to his children in the wake of an alien invasion? See Signs. Hell it even has a basement scene. War of the Worlds gives us absolutely nothing. It adds nothing to the world of cinema. Here's a game for the folks who want to see it again. Try to name the films where you've seen all of WOTW's gags before. ID4, Godzilla, Jurassic Park, Signs, Titanic, Close Encounters...
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I mean come on? Was the ending at all plausible. Not that that wasn't how it was in the book, but maybe spielberg could devote a little bit more time to show how they got infected. And that kid robbie, he damn should have died, not that I am against his character, which i am, but just because its logistic.
And if the stupid aliens had been researching for a million years, how not find out about the birds, or germs, or most importantly, why attack when technology is so advanced, huh? Well, that's spielberg for you. -
Jun 30, 2005 5:31:14 PM CDT
Even if Spielberg wanted to change the ending from the book, the
by iamnicksaicnsn
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The aliens are the sleeper cell terrorists coming to invade America. bit of a coincidence there don't you think.
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I shall make this breif. WOW is AWSOME, Moriarity is a douche. I feel like his review of WOW is pretentious and boring. I no longer have respect for him as a writer simply because his Land o the Dead review was such total crap. There is an obvious inconsistency in is writting style that i find disturbing, and more importantly untrust worthy. To basically blow off what could be one of the best summer movies in several years simply because he feels the need to flex his film vocabulary muscle is arrogant. Anyways everyone should go see this flick it's intense and it is truly the definition of a 'rollercoaster thrill ride" summer film. Spielberg needs to keep em coming.
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What the fuck? Robbie survives?!?! Mirando Otto looks like she has spent the entire Alien Invasion in a health spa!?!?! Tom and Steve fucked up Minority Report with the happy ending too. Overall it was pretty much a perfect exercise in tension building. Yeh plenty of allegories to the Holocaust and 9/11 but I think it was more of a universal evocation of fear then anything in particular. Yeh I'm just waiting for someone to post the link to Spielberg sayng he wanted to make a modern Holocaust movie. On another note and seeing as I am not counting FF or the Island then i think it's time for my running order of films this summer. By no means is this definitive ( i don't want to piss off a geek so much i make his/her head explode) 1. Batman Begins. 2. Sin City. 3 War of the Worlds. 4 Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy. 5. Revenge of the Sith. Well I'm ready for the hate to flow on those picks.
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The silver screen is a great thing.....but dont let it rule your fucking life!!!
Go see a movie and get rid of your fucking expectations. Just see it and enjoy it for what it is and if its really a horrible movie then forget about it and if its good or great then enjoy it and move on with your FUCKING LIFE!!!
I love this site because I get to hear about upcoming movies and such but reading these talkbacks is really quite fucking pathetic. Most of you have NO LIFE AT ALL.
Harry is really pathetic too. His poor little life revolves around movies. I dont think he ever met a movie he didnt like. Moriarty is quite a bit better though.
Anyways, go get a life! Make a new friend. Get away from the computer for a few hours and go enjoy a sunset or something for fucks sake. Go impact someone elses life for the better and get out of yourselves!
And remember to keep a light touch on these movies!!! At the end of your life you will not think "Shit, I wish I had seen more movies" or "I wish I had read more talkbacks" FUCK NO! You will think "I wish I had spent more time with my family and improved other peoples lives somehow"
WOTW had some neat things in it but it wasnt great. So why cant you all just let it be what it is??? And stop attacking Tom Cruise. He is just an actor who is doing the best he knows how. He's a hell of a lot more successful than any of you losers. At least he trys to help people. -
Jun 30, 2005 6:06:45 PM CDT
Hey, Jovial Jackal, perhaps you could take a hammer to the beach
by vynson
and pound sand up your hypocritical ass? How would that be? You read the talk backs and then post that geeks who care about movies and discussing them are losers, but someone like you who doesn't care about movies or discussing them is taking the time to read and post and that makes you...? What? You want to improve other people's lives? You can improve the lives of every geek here by taking that hammer to the beach...
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Signs was the most pretentious absurd piece of crap ever made. WOTW has its flaws and the script was weak, but the visual effects and action were excellent. Don't expect David Koepp to write anything that good...look at his resume and it was obvious the script would not be great. WOTW still kicked ass though because of the tripod scenes.
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Everything before the basement was JUST okay. The best scene being the mob and the car. Everything after they meet Tim Robbins is hysterically bad. Oh and the dead body river seen... NOT SCARY. In fact its played like a fucking Monty Python comedy skit. Fucking re-tard-ed.
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The aliens are the Americans occupying Iraq..... GET IT!!!
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does fox news really have a bias? well if u look at all the other websites, and new sites and box office sites that report the box office, why is it that fox news has the only negative report on the box office? and while every other news site reporting on the box office has also stated the film has gotten generally positive reviews and fox is the only one saying it got lukewarm reviews? wtf is going on, do they have a vendetta against speilburg or cruise? like honestly is fox pissed because minority report only did so so and this one is going to paramont where its due to make 300+ in the us alone? i mean to me its just stupid idk here is the link to foxs site http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,161237,00.html
DISCUSS!!!! -
If you don't believe this is a PRO WAR movie and the aliens represent the terrorists invading the USA then go to this address -
www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/002050.html
looks like Spielberg and Cruise might disagree with you. -
Jun 30, 2005 9:18:29 PM CDT
ALIENS SHOULD HAVE WON! and someone needs to ban Jovial Jackal
by mustang765
The movie was fun (for half of it as least). I love films that give us an end-of-the-world scenario even if they arent really the end of the world. Slowed down at the basement scene. Kinda wish the aliens won though. I mean they went to so much hard work...gotta give em credit! Yo Jovial Jackal! Get the fuck outta here! I think its funny that you say not to obsess over movies but youre in here spending time bitching about us and what we talk about. I dont wanna read shit like yours in here. So with all due respect GET THE FUCK OUT!
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Read this segment from www.independent.co.uk. My God!!! "What is striking about the world in which Cruise and his two children go on the run is that it displays no social cohesion whatsoever. From the minute they start driving, Cruise is as terrified of his fellow humans as he is of the aliens. One of the the movie's narrative climaxes
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Did anyone else notice the eerie resemblance between the ending of WOTW and the 1987 Turkey Day classic Planes, Tranes, & Automobiles? Sure, ol' Tom and Dakota didn't quibber about 'pillows!', and Steve and Candy-man didn't have to hack their way thru human-entrail fueled monkey grass; but in the end everyone made it home for a nice holiday meal with the in-laws. Thank goodness for fresh ideas and happy endings.
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as the greatest alien attack movie ever made.
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Jun 30, 2005 10:26:20 PM CDT
As for "largest and most aggressive vagina in the history of the
by shan
This may not be the number one candidate but the animated version of Wicked City was more vicious. It had teeth!
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Jun 30, 2005 10:27:43 PM CDT
Sorry, that should read "There was a more aggressive (actual) va
by shan
My bad.
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It's obviously a sphincter. And I thought Top Gun had homosexual overtones. This would make Tarantino's head assplode.
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... To be honest, in my opinion, I doubt it. Not a scientific method but I don't think so because I (personally) did not think it was great.
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I agree with you, it is more like a sphincter. I was just pasting a quote ... I should know, I guess as I am a doctor. On the flip side, I didn't do very well in my ObGyn term.
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Jun 30, 2005 10:36:52 PM CDT
Wow, what a pathetically short summer movie season this year tur
by johnnytremaine
And anyone that tries to tell me that there is still Fantastic Four and The Island, I will proceed to laugh you out of Talk Back.
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Pro-war/anti-war arguers...beat it. So WotW is a movie about aliens that may or may not be about the U.S., the Nazis, or some war we're too ignorant to know about in a country we never bothered to locate in Geography classes because we'd never heard of Xenu. Bottom line...this is a MOVIE talk-back. If you're here, welcome...even if you're here to bash the people who are here to love or hate movies...welcome, but don't expect to be taken seriously. There is nothing more pathetic than bashing people anonymously. That's what most white supremacists do. So please have the balls to supply your e-mail address so you can directly receive the hate you're spreading right back in your inbox. Otherwise, be polite to those who come for the anonymous FUN of it. No one in here needs to justify who they are to me or anyone else. Call me stupid for loving or hating a movie in this talkback...cool...that's your right. But if you're claiming that I'm stupid for enjoying b.s.ing with other people who dig movies...Peace out! Humor the "geeks". Just stick to the subject. That means, MOVIES! :). Not the metaphor/allegory/your latest agenda supported website link of the movie's "real" plot...not political agendas or what you read on a website about people who hate people who blog on AICN. Compare this to any other movie you want. Just make sure it's a movie and not your personal, silly little talkback war. Also, quit bashing the age of people you don't agree with or establishing credibility for your agenda (i.e. you must be under sixteen, loser! or what are you, a 45 yr old virgin? or I'm a filmmaker myself...that's why I can squash your credentials). Nobody cares, man. We just like talkin' movies! Does anyone here disagree with that? Cause if you do...please leave. Everyone is granted one exemption to the rule though...moviemack bashing IS allowed. :) So anyway, back to WotW...after seeing it yesterday, I slept on it aaaaand still not crazy about it. It had its moments, but wasn't complete enough for me.
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Remember when Joaquin Phoenix was watching the news and they showed the glimpse of that alien walking by a hedge at a b-day party? His frantic, "Oh my G*d!" look. was pretty silly when put into perspective...like believing that silly "alien autopsy" that Fox or somebdy showed a coupla years back. WotW was better but not by much.
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Really. What happens if within the next ten years someone makes another alien attack movie?
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Jun 30, 2005 11:01:32 PM CDT
Forget WOW, its popcorn: Look at what Spielberg's up to next
by film whisperer
Good or bad, this will be the most controversial movie of the year. I mean, Bill Clinton is a consultant on the movie.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/01/movies/01spie.html? -
You know...say what you will about Lucas' latest trilogy but...why doesn't somebody talk to him about designing aliens for other movies? (excluding pink, cone-headed bearded Jedi Council guy, of course). I mean...why can't we get attacked by creatures who look like Wookies or something? Why does large head + small mouth + frog fingers+naked = brilliant destroyer of humanity? Personally...if I was gonna get peaced by an alien, I'd rather it was wearing Boba Fett's armor than nothing at all, you know? "what? I'm a about to get deathrayed by a naked, slimy goldfish squirrel hybrid?!! This totally suaaaaAAAAHHH!"...zzzZZZZZAP! POOF!
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Thanks for the link. It should be interesting.
Interesting: A former assassin is being debunked as a fraud by the alleged employer who uses deception to forward the heart of its agenda (i.e counter-intelligence), as most groups like that tend to do. Maybe that makes him credible after all? It could be a political/religious land mine of a movie..but one worth watching. We'll wait and see I guess. -
I tend to clean these talkbacks out. Damn! Where'd everybody go? Well, nighty night then.
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let's face it. this summer sucks. all the well done CGI won't make a movie not suck. where's the amazing paradigm changing movie like the first matrix? nowhere. why? can there ever be a movie as creative as star wars in 1977?
are movie audiences now so fragmented (like pop music) that there can be no true blockbusters...there is no way to please sophisticated/fanboy audience and a youth audience. could be? -
Our hero murders a man with his bare hands. There isn't a single moment where he has to confront the morality or horror of this moment in his life. Also, our hero manages to bring down a tripod through heroics (horrible scene but besides the point) and then this is completely nullified in the very next scene because they are all dying on their own anyway. The Norman Rockwell ending, where the ideal family is all alive, safe, and cheerfully sipping tea in their sweaters invaldiated all the horror they'd been through. Notice how there is no sign of the Tim character and no follow through on his relationship with his wife? It simply was incongruous and left threads untied. Why did he repeatedly insist on not telling his children anything, and we have this emphasized over and over again until eventually they see everything anyway with no reprocussions. Why was the kid made claustrophobic and then had no problem dealing with all the tight spaces and basements? Sloppy, cowardly storytelling.
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Why can't Hollywood just do it right, and make a faithful adaptation of Bear's incredible Forge of God / Anvil of Stars epic Sci-Fi series.****************************************At least in those books we have absolutely credible Science as well as thought-provoking and plausible motivations by the "Killers" as well as the reactions and response to impending Doomsday by Humanity.********************************************************Any Intelligent High Tech Civilization with the capability of Inter-stellar travel will be centuries, if not thousands of years more advanced than us.*********************************************Given the probabalities, and the age of the Local Group...the chances that any competing Intelligent civilization just happen to be anywhere equivalent to present day Earth is astronomically low. In fact, the probability is that a high tech alien civilization will be way, way more advanced than our own. As Arthur C. Clarke quoted..."Any sufficiently advanced technology will be indisdinguishable from magic".*****************************************************************This provides the context for the disturbing, and eerily powerful "The Forge of God".************************************Also, in this novel, Bear doesn't resort to the cliche of Aliens invading us so they can "eat us" or use us as some sort of food...or just want to kill us for the sake of being "evil" Aliens. It is much more thoughtful in exectution, and chillingly disturbing as a real possibility. The "Killers" know about us due to our undamped electromagnetic emmissions (e.g. radio) which we have been broadcasting in sufficent power levels such that our "baby bird chirping in the woods" covers a shperical shell with a radius of approx. 70 Light years. That volume contains THOUSANDS of stars and planetary systems. Now imagine a advanced Civilization picking up on this? What if Life in the Universe is truly a Jungle, and it is survival of the fittest, survival of the species at all costs. Perhaps a PRE-EMPTIVE strike to Wipe-out a potential competitory civilization is not beyond the realm of plausibile motives. Our, an aggressive civilization bent on radical expansion followed-up by colonization.***********************************************************Independance Day is total BULL***T ! How does one defend or defeat an advesary which has almost god-like potentiatlity?
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fair enough question. I was hoping someone would ask that. the truth is I would be stunned if a better alien attack movie is made in the next 10 years. stunned, but pleased, since War Of The Worlds was such a powerful, overwhelming experience.
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You made a post that was deprived of profanity and forceful opinion. You showed that you have a reasonable side. At the same time I for once am in complete agreement with you. Amazing. -Az
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There's a book called "Quarantine" where the alien's response is to simply seal us off from the rest of the universe, blocking out everything including the stars bar our sun. A similar approach was taken in PKD's The World Jones Made.
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Tim Robbins, 6'6", crazy man armed with a shovel. Tom Cruise, not 6'6", no shovel, even less convincingly crazy - and we're expected to believe he was able to kill him were we? Especially without seeing him injured at all. I would have been more convinced if the scene had him still digging that hole and Tom was approach him from behind and he didn't see the threat coming.
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The reason some people are confusing the collapse of the alien's shields (force fields?) with the infection is that it is never explained why the shields can hold off rockets but, after a couple days, become worn down by foreign bacteria. Searching their memory banks for SOME explanation, many people have settled on Tom's grenade attack to what seemed like a big kahuna alien as the cause of the shield collapse, which let in the bacteria. Can you blame them? Crappy storytelling leads to short attention spans. Some viewers wrote their own script to compensate.
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... How to explain that the tripods were never dug up ... well they could have been buried but out of phase with our dimension, while still being anchored to it. So when the lightning strikes, it could transfer the pilot, activate the machine and have it shift into phase and dig itself out. As for the germs, maybe they had countered for some organisms but not all, in the same way we aren't immune to everything. There could have something they overlooked or a new element in the environment that wasn't there for them before. By the time the film ended, humanity still didn't know what stopped the invasion. As for the shields ... maybe either the tripods were part organic and/or the pilots were needed alive to maintain the systems to be operative. As they got sick, they weren't able to operate the tripods ... or they were a crucial part of the circuitry themselves. As they failed, so did the tripods. None of these things are stated though, so we have to speculate. johhny5alive is right though, the shift from Ray (Tom) blowing up a tripod (when there was no evidence of tripod malfunction) to the next scene and they were sick is too fast, hence leading to some of the confusion. I've seen people think that Tom's grenade attack somehow led to the failure of the entire tripod force everywhere, sort of like ID4's mothership being destroyed.
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Jul 01, 2005 4:38:26 AM CDT
Attack of the Space Sphincters from The Cruiser's Uranus
by randomgeekhandle
Let me see... The Cruiser spends the whole movie running from, hiding in, blowing up and being pulled out of dark and threatening holes - in the ground, in a tripod's arse, in the plot (what, they buried the tripods millions of years ago and a. nobody ever found one and b. they didn't catch a cold at the time? Come on). The queer reading is just too perfect! In this vein, I especially enjoyed the sequence in which The Cruiser lurks in Katie Holmes' beard - sorry Tim Robbins' "basement" - hiding from the probing phallus of tabloid journalistic enquiry.
Or what about the sneaky Spielbergian anti-scientologist reading. The Cruiser and his fellow cult members, sorry co-religionists, are all meant to be higher alien beings or whatever, waiting for the great leap forward. Whoops! lol -
Spielberg just doesn't know when to stop. A lot of his recent movies have been utterly ruined for me by ridiculous over the top happy endings. He completely ruins the verismilitude of the film that he has so brilliantly created and shifts tone completely, it's so frustrating;
I really loved Minority Report up until the last fifteen minutes - stupid cliched "Who shot who?" moment and the three empaths living happily ever after in Goldilocks cottage...WHAT??!
AI is pretty good with lots of interesting ideas until the last twenty minutes when he completely drops the ball again with one of the cheesiest resolutions ever...
And now War of the Worlds...
A movie i was absolutely loving, with an incredibly power nightmarish feel up until the last five minute when Spiel abrubtly turns it into the carebears. I'm not talking about the germs killing the aliens (which is very anticlimatic, but is the original ending to the story)... the horrendous coda though...The wife's house is untouched and perfect?! The grandparents are alive?! The stepfather is alive?! THE SON COMES BACK ALIVE???!!! WHAT?!!
WHY???!!!
He was dead, we had gotton used to the fact that he died long ago. The film became about Tom saving Dakota and we were grand with that...it's war, people die, even loved ones! It's real! It's dramatic! It's authentic! It makes sense!
There was collective groans at this ending in the cinema i saw the movie and the film had been so good uptil that point but then this showed up and it just did my end in. SOOOO cheesy and frustrating to watch.
Spielberg cannot end a movie any more. If he made JAWS today, he'd add an epilogue with Brody arriving home and hugging his family and giving his little son a shark tooth souvineer and they'd all turn and smile at QUINT, with no legs in a wheelchair, happily painting ORCA II on his new boat...
Somebody stop him, please... -
Jul 01, 2005 5:59:42 AM CDT
The ending was horrible as was actually seeing the aliens I thou
by spectrebeeyatch
Read the book you guys come on you sound like guys who watched ID4 way too many times. The script tried to match the book with a modern twist (which didn't work aka the shields) but the germ thing is how the aliens were defeated in the book. Its ironic with their big fucking machines and their tactics they over looked the smallest thing and were killed by it. Owned. Also the ending was horrible I was really confused by it actually, nice cameo's tho. You have to admit the first hour was bad ass. Oh and about the rest of the summer why is everybody so hate filled towards The Island already? Bay I'm just guessing. Have you guys forgotten about Stealth!!! That is an instant classic I'm telling you. If you took me seriously right there go punch yourself.
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I presume that every time that you throw some disinfectant down the drain to kill off bacteria you first check for the presence of bacteriophage viruses and immunise yourself againt them? Nah, though not.
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Those books that you were talking about might actually be made into movies according to this website: "http://www.gregbear.com/A55885/Bear.nsf/pages/300071"
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... is it because it is too long?
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I don't mean to sound racist here, but why is it everytime a black actor or actress wins an Academy Award they suddenly lose all respectability: Cuba (Snow Dogs), Halle (Catwoman, Meooo-ow), Queen (Taxi); even Denzel has been guilty now and again (did anyone see the NBC movie of the week Out of Sight? Or after GLORY, Richochet?)
My point is Stealth is the first big movie for Jamie Foxx after Ray. The odds aren't good my friends. I like Jamie (see Collateral) but an AI stealth bomber?
Now, I'll go back to burning crosses. -
Jul 01, 2005 8:36:38 AM CDT
Tritium, Forge of God has been done - they just called it "Speci
by fluffyunbound
They just had the aliens try to wipe us out with a biological weapon [a hot chick - truly the most deadly weapon known to man today] instead of planet-busting antimatter weapons.
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Just out of curiosity
Was I the only one who had to suppress laughter when people were getting zapped in the beginning when the tripods first appeared, and Tom and the rest of the people started running? I instantly thought of the movie Mars Attacks. Besides that, this was the first movie I have ever seen where I noticed the actor a lot more than his character. I just couldn -
Ok, my two cents. SPOILERS AHEAD. Just saw it last night. It really affected me. It's not a "great" movie, save that label for Orwell, Fellini or Coppola, but this movie did make an impression. Possibly because I was in NYC on 9/11 and I went through many of the same emotions portrayed in the film. I didn't see the worst of it, but I did experience my friends and myself frantically trying to find people who lived and worked in the Twin Towers area. Before I evacuated my midtown building I had to say "good bye" to my family in another city on the phone, cause I honestly didn't know if I would live past noon. I then joined a sea of "refugees" walking up Broadway trying to "escape". We had no way of knowing where safety was, I fully expected to have death fall on me from above at any time. In the movie, when the aliens come out of the ground, everyone just stares instead of running because what they are witnessing is so out of their frame of reference or experience, they're just riveted. Just like having two 737's piloted into the two most famous (and now glaringly)vulnerable buildings in the world. Remember all those pictures of people just staring at the towers until having to run for their lives? It may as well have been martian tripods emerging from the ground at the towers, because what had just happened, a few minutes earlier, would have been as unlikely. The response of the son to the situation was entirely appropriate in my opinion. His whole world had just gone to hell and there didn't seem to be any hope or respite anywhere. He loved his family, but at that time, the desire to fight back against this insanity was all consuming. It's a rage you can't describe.I know how he felt. You just want to strike back, you don't care if it is irrational, or that it will cause your death. This is primal urge time. Fight or flight. That was the point of Cruies's character.He had the thousand yard stare. He went from selfish fool, to a "great dad" in two seconds flat. And I don't mean a "great dad" in Disney terms, I mean, like in the jungle, on the battlefield - do what you gotta do to save your loved ones, a primal urge, like the mama grizzly and her cubs. The tripods walking across the land spreading death, must be how our apache helicopters look like to the average Iraqi. The danger the roadside IEDs in Iraq posed to us (at first )would have been the same danger the aliens thought that our germs would pose to them...No worries...mission accomplished.... Basement scene was brilliant, Tim Robbins character was symbolic of those who were driven over the edge, he was acting totally irrationaly, and yet, not, at the same time. A perfect definition of crazy. In a Michael Bay film, "fighting back" against the onslaught would have made Robbin's character heroic, but in this case, it showed the folly of just blindly reacting which is "real life". The virus....ok, my thoughts on that. If the aliens had buried the ships 20,000 years ago, before humans walked the earth, the virus' that were here then aren't the same that are here now. The AIDS virus just 50 years ago was harmless to humans, but then it mutated and now it's a killer. I know the narration says they watched us during this time. Well, maybe because of their arrogance they watched us and forgot about the other threats.That was the point of the book, it's a timeless point. In the basement scene, you see the aliens out of their suits, fondling and playing with things. They were curious. They thought they were safe. Their "intelligence" said the basement was safe. If they had been truly watching us, or here among us all along, that stuff shouldn't have surprised them.(Maybe they got their intelligence from the CIA) So that's how they got infected, I think they went against their own rules, got out of the ship and got infected. When I got home last night I walked the dog. An 18 wheeler barrelling down Broadway made the same noise as the alien "horn". I jumped two feet.
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i am not a spielberg's fan, never was, personally i dont like his movies and his way to make them, of course it's my personal opinion so i think it's not such a big deal. Everybody else may like what likes more, no probelm for me and it's not my cup of tea becoming polemic about movies.
Even if i dont like his movies i dont judge them before even seeing them, i mean to judge a movie i need at least to watch it one time.
I will go to watch this movie, well knowing the story of Wells, his great radio broadcats and the old movie i really like and watch as well as for example Forbidden planet, i may say there was no menaing in making another remake but we all know why it's on screen now.
Friends asked me to go and watch this movie, i said why not. I don't care if it is grossing 400 mln dollars, really it's not on my point. I know what i'm going to watch, just to spend couple of hours with friends nothing more nothing less.
This movie of course will be an high grossing at the box office, but that's all...
And to say one last thing again on Spielberg, there is only one Kubrick, and always be. Saluti Uagli -
you whiny fucktard. When you write a classic selling novel that people still respect 100 years later and are acknowledged as one of the greatest sci-fi writes of all time and people pay homage to you by adapting your books into movies, then perhaps you would be entitled to an opinion. Until then shut the fuck up. Better yet since you still live in your parent's basement, why don't you build a time machine and go back and convince Wells to rewrite the ending to your liking. Twat.
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since these aliens were the 2nd dumbest ever (behind those water-lovin signs aliens), you think tripods appeared in antartica? also, do you think these aliens attacked only humans? i mean, birds were flyin towards them.
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Hey Bug, I thought that too. How did they know where the major cities in the world were going to be? Continental drift and all that. Were there tripods hidden under the Mojave Desert that were disappointed to find that there was naff all to kill? I guess the "mothership" only activated the ones under useful strategic sites - which then begs one to wonder if there are plenty of tripods still ready to rock and roll with Plan B. . .
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Moriarty, you missed the boat. You didn't laugh at all? Well, I guess i saw a different movie, and I guess the people in the theatre were watching something different too. There were laughs galore. Belly laughs. This is the best movie this summer, and if you think it was ROTS, you're smoking crack
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This film is a sci-fi extravaganza where Spielberg takes the basic premise of the 1898 H.G. Wells novel, borrows freely from his previous suspense films "Jaws" and "Jurassic Park," and creates a special effects bonanza that is bound to please a mass audience hungry for thrills and chills.
But, early on in the movie, something stranger than gross-looking aliens chasing humans all over the place emerges. A rather populist political subtext takes shape that is somewhat surprising, coming from a Hollywood insider like Spielberg. "War of the Worlds" parallels the attack on 9/11.
Narrator Morgan Freeman opens things up by stating that forces with "envious eyes" have targeted earthlings for destruction. They simply want the planet for themselves. No one is safe, no target off limits. Civilians are routinely destroyed without reason or rational explanation. Sound like anyone we know? Osama somebody?
The actual first wave alien attack comes from the sky, just as 9/11 did. Then it's a grind-it-out process as the invaders stalk humans. Some of us fight back, some of us run.
At one point in the movie, one of the characters makes the point that an occupying army can never win. Iraq reference? Sure it is.
The messages in the film, however, are not overtly political. There is no left-wing, right-wing thing going on. Tom Cruise cruises along without much point-of-view other than to save his kids from the alien killers. Spielberg is not Michael Moore. His aim is to entertain and to make a few a subtle points that do not intrude on the suspense. By the way, Spielberg is right; history shows that occupying armies cannot win in the long run.
This is the first post-9/11 movie I've seen that is actually influenced by the death and destruction visited upon us by the Islamic killers. It was clear to me that Steven Spielberg is teed off about what the terrorists are doing. His view is reflected by Cruise's teenage son who desperately wants to confront the aliens and kill them. The boy seethes with anger throughout the film because of the alien barbarity. Good for him.
So this isn't the usual Hollywood cheap shot leftist propaganda. "War of the Worlds" actually reflects the view of everyday Americans, rather than a few Beverly Hills pinheads. I liked the movie for that.
In the end, the aliens are actually confronted by God, if you can believe it. Another huge departure from the Hollywood playbook. I'm not going to dent the suspense and tell you more, but trust me, the ACLU will not like the film's conclusion.
The downside to "War of the Worlds" is that it's kind of loopy in its execution of the story line. The special effects overshadow everything and the resolution of the basic plot would make Mr. Welles shudder. But you might like the tone of the film, and if you crunch enough popcorn you might even swallow the thesis that Tom Cruise and his 11-year-old daughter are able to walk from New Jersey to Boston without changing clothes.
Strange things happen when aliens invade. Even in Hollywood. -
I haven't felt the sort of escapism to a dream reality from a speilberg film, since Jurrasic Park and Schindler's List. Butthis movie does it. For all it's flaws, the mastery of it's technique and content really took me (and my friends away) Movies like Independence Day are just movies, but this is like going through a vivid dream. The details and choices of shots and viewpoint are expertly effective on an emotional level. I actually can't wait to see it (or is that experience it?) again
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...and thought it was simply decent but nothing to get too excited about. It had a great build up, some very tense moments that were then systematically sabotaged by clumsy hollywood moments.
****SPOILERS START!****
I hated the way Ray brings down a tripod with grenades - why the fuck did they have to shoehorn this action hero crap into what I otherwise felt was a reasonably believeable character. I really would have found it more shocking and effective if it was the soldier who had been eaten, and had chosen to trojan horse the grenades inside the walker.
A few other things that jarred - the basement scene was too drawn out, again after a suitably tense build up, with these faceless destroyers, we're then treated to a couple of aliens who trot around the basement in full view flicking through photo's and papers - they may as well have smoked a pipe and had a beer; that's how scared I was of them after this scene. If we were going to see them it seems obvious to me that the best and only necessary place for that to happen is the scene at the end of the bloody film when the tripod is brought down. That way you get the tension created by these faceless murderous invaders throughout the whole damn film.
And don't even get me started on the Solenoids or the horible handycam product placement at the beginning, where EVERY bloody piece of electronic equipment is dead except for that fucking camera! **END SPOILERS**
Having said that, I'm only pissed off because I found it to be a good film ruined by a few jarring moments. Oh and there were a group of Chavs giggling a couple of rows back. Gah! -
Dick Fitzwell, you semen-sucking sack of shit. The movie sucked. The ending of the book sucked. That's my opinion. Pull your head at of that Lincoln Tunnel you call an ass and deal with it, Man-Shagger..................See, the deal is that I don't have to write a book in order to have an opinion of a book. That's the way it works. Nor do I need your gassed out blessing in order to express that opinion. Now I'm sure you have a NAMBLA meeting to get to or something similar. So good luck with that and have a great holiday weekend.
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Wow. You actually walked out of the theatre when the kid came out of the house? You animal. Way to beat 150 people to the parking lot by 90 seconds. It's your world, boss. We just live in it.
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Aliens wait a million years for no apparent reason_bury tripods for no apparent reason_disintegrate humans into ash when their blood seems to be an essential nutrient/element of the mission?_giant diameter probe cable with giant 50's era camera on the end, no UAV's, thermal sights, or fiber optics for the INTERGALACTIC travelers?_ROBBIE survives hell itself with absolutely no explanation_NO GOOD military vs. alien footage (everything happens "over the hill" or is obscured my flame or smoke (the jets and Apaches in the preview are it, you'll see no more than that)_tripods are watertight but no HEPA filters for the aliens?_alien Ewoks utterly unscary_giant pointless anus which consumes Cruise willingly_CRAZED desire of refugees to get on a slow moving ferry which has no chance of escape (and is promptly trashed)_even on the earliest US space missions returning astronauts were quarantined for days after coming back from space (this predates Wells, but not this hunk of crap script/movie). This thing is a patchwork of outdated and not updated Wells ideas with cartoonish Spielbergian family bullshit. Wait to rent. To tide you over watch present TV commercial on slo-mo. You'll see nearly every decent scene.
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i noticed that one of the aliens drinks some water flowing from a pipe in the basement. breating the air, drinking the water of another planet, and what a surpirsie they got sick and died. dumb fucking alines should have did another million years of planning. I can't even go to mexico and drink the water without getting sick. these assholes came from another planet and drank the water, crazy!
i still dug the movie. -
Jul 01, 2005 3:32:34 PM CDT
The reason War of the Worlds didn't have humour is because S
by doobieflixx
Morri, sometimes you are a daft. Why should this movie have humor? It's a real sci-fi. If this happened people wouldn't be laughing. My girl was squeezing my arm so hard throughout the film. First time in 10 years of being together that this has ever happened. And we see all the films buddy. Your glib Morri. How's that for humor? Message to Cruise: You're a great actor. Stick to that and keep your views to yourself and we will all respect you again.
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I read your post and it fits my opinion of WOtW to a tee. The only thing you left out that pissed me off the most was Spielbergo's cop-out by having the son survive.
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Jul 01, 2005 4:20:43 PM CDT
Iraqis Don't Need To See This Film Because They Are Living I
by zombiesolutions
and that's that. WE are the massive technocrat empire stealing resources and murdering thousands upon thousands of innocent civilians. deal with it, folks. (great movie, btw. really scary and exciting except for the extremely weak deus ex machina ending -- it sucked in the book, it sucked in the 1950s version, and it sucks in this version. still, as a horrifying actioner / allegory for Imperial America's unprovoked and psychotic invasion / quagmire, it really works.) so, when the insurgency finally wins, do you think that America will FINALLY realize that the republikans are evil, incompetant and insane? finally? only time will tell.
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Not sure if anyone mentioned this but why did that guy's video camera still work after they made it abundantly clear that the emp disabled everything electric-even tom's watch. Wouldn't it have also disabled the replacement starter as well as that news van.
I know it was a part of the book but I still don't fully care for the ending. And if you're going to use the "keeping faithful" argument against me then I'll counter with the 99.9% of the stuff that was changed. I just have hard time believing that such a superior intellect that had been watching us for millions of year (perhaps) to not have done a full analysis of environment. Weren't tests performed to determine if they could survive the atmosphere without protective suits? -
looks like we're on the same page! cheers, mate! *** btw, i think it would have been great if it ended with Tom Cruise all alone, surrounded by ruins. but you knew that Spielberg would cop out at the last second. he just can't sustain the darkness. he always has to dispell it in the end. up to that point, though, it was a pretty solid genre film. i mean, i was legitamitely frightened by the tripods. i can only imagine what it must be like for those poor families in Iraq. seriously, that was all i could think of.
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Jul 01, 2005 4:45:34 PM CDT
It's Time For Someone to FINALLY Make a GIANT ROBOT WAR Kind
by zombiesolutions
it could be done! it SHOULD be done. WETA, fuck KONG! KONG, blows! get to work on the EVANGELION film! chop chop!
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did they predict where humans would settle? i mean they buried those things long ago. were they just lucky to spring out and find a city to destroy?
i wasn't really a fan of the happy family ending either. i guess i can buy that the tripods might hadjust started to get to boston and maybe robbie convinced them not to flee because ray was on his way with rachel. it's a big stretch, though.
did anyone else get a creepy pedophile vibe from tim robbins? that and the amusing height difference between he and tom kept striking me during his scenes. -
i swear, wit this movie bein so terrible and disappointin, i wake up everyday wit a new question...ok if aliens buried tripods here a million years ago before HUMANS existed, and then plan to attack US (this bein proven since they used our blood as fertilizer) wouldnt it make them clairvoyant? i mena, did they go, "hey, in a million years, i think we should invade this planet and use these 2 legged walkin species as fertilizer. i mean, were a rich, trillionaire, high class race, so we can afford to just leave our tripods there even if our plans dont work." and since they been here before, wasnt there bacteria back then? i mean, did dinosaurs have em? i seen a triceratops get sick in that jP movie (if memory serves correctly) and since they been here before us, wouldnt they not be considered aliens? theyre like the native americans of america...so maybe they had the right to burn us to ash...or maybe they just work for the red sox, tryin to make sure they can win another world series...
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i wouldve rather have spent 1800 yen watchin two hours worth of this talkback then of this movie, but then again, i wouldnt know what to complain about
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last 30 mins killed it for me. the son should have died. the mother's family should ahve died. someone should have died from the family. tom cruise should have died.
sucked
sucked
sucked
crap -
When Cruise MURDERS Robbins (a noted opponent of the current war) because he won't shut up (in Robbin's character's own house no less) it shows how diseased the minds of its creators are. Reminds me of the Dutch schoolchildren murdered by the SS in WWII because they wouldn't stop crying. Or Sgt. Barnes blowing the brains out of the female villager in Platoon because she is screaming at him. Our nation is in deep moral shit right now and this shit movie maker Spielberg adds to our depravity when someone can be killed with so little cause or subsequent examination (and in a summer "popcorn movie"). Check out "The Stain of Torture" on the Washingon Post Web Site. This crap movie is DISEASED.
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Am I the only one who saw the boom mikes overhead and was distracted the whole rest of the movie lookin' for more fo-pahs?
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And it should have been an R with an unrated director's cut for the DVD. Tom Savini should have done the makeup FX and Bruce Campbell should have played Tom Cruise's part. The fight scenes should have been choreographed by the Matrix guy and of course, the whole thing should have been directed by Peter Jackson with visual FX by Weta. In fact they should have just called it "AICN Knobs: The Wet Dream". As for all the little supposed inconsistencies, the movie isn't about how many technical errors Comic Book Guy can dream up under the same electron microscope everyone uses for movies like Star Wars. Every little detail doesn't have to be explained because the whole point was that the aliens, their tehcnology and their intentions are intentionally ambiguous and just beyond us.
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everything that you were so appalled about was the freaking point. Anyway, who doesn't want to shut Tim Robbins the fuck up by any means necessary?
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A lot of people in this talk back didn't seem to enjoy this movie but i really did. In a previous statement someone compared the experiencing of watching this movie to dreaming and I would like to completely agree. This movie is a nightmare dredged up from the collective subconcious of America. Many people are pointing out the different ways to view this movie allegorically and like a dream it is symbolic in many conflicting ways. Some moments felt especially dreamlike (the ferry scene). I was very impressed by Spielbergs work on this and think its his best film in a long time. Plus, did anyone else get the feeling Spielberg was referencing the Wizard of Oz when Tom Cruises character stepped out of Tim Robbins Cabin to see the red weed horizon. It reminded me of when Dorothy makes her first steps into Oz after the tornado. Anyways, that's how i felt about it and now feel free to question my manhood
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The point was what? Robbins is digging a tunnel in his own basement and saying "Not my blood" over and over. To appall us was CERTAINLY not the point. The point (if there was any at all) was extreme circumstances justify extreme measures. Exactly like the point of Spielberg's NEXT MOVIE. I think Spielberg already had his mind on his next project(no comment on that movie as it is not a "summer popcorn flick" (what apologists for WOTW call it) for sure. His mind wasn't on making WOTW top notch that's for sure.
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It certainly wasn't for his acting (in this) or the believability of little Tommy taking him out.
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but it didn't bother me as much as some other people. in my opinion, the character's reactions had a base in reality that i could identify with. i also don't think it's a rip off, how else do you think people would react to a surprise attack and mass casualties?
maybe i read a bit too much into the movie. hell, you could see a Red Riding Hood parallel with the trip to grandma's house in boston if you really wanted to. -
Re: boom mike in shots
The pimply-faced projectionist at your theater didn't properly set up the gate of the projector. -
WOTW reminded me of Deep Impact. I haven't seen it since the theaters but that movie kept popping into my head because they just keep running and running and running...I actually thought the first hour or so made WOTW worth seeing. I agree with the general opinion that it heads south around the time Tim Robbins shows up (definitly after the grenade). I laughed at several of the low angle shots of Cruise...in an attempt to make him look taller. I thought the camerawork as "the family" drove out of the city was excellent. It went from wideshots outside of the van into 2shots and then moved back outside the van as it sped away...anyway, I enjoyed that sequence.
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First off, I loved this movie. Spielberg can make twice the film of almost anyone else in half the time. Even the ending didn't bother me. Ol Stevie likes the happy ending. Has for a long time. If you expect different, get ready for disappointment. Next: many people are basing a lot of their complaints on what they believe is the fact that the tripods had been here millions of years. Not necessarily so. Everything you learn about the invaders (excluding what you actually see) is supposition. That was a big part of the film's theme. It started early in the film. No one knows for sure what's going on, all anyone ever repeats is hearsay or theory. That's how I took the "they've been here millions of years" angle: a theory that had been posited. If they can transport themselves via static-electrical highways, why not the tripods? Am I wrong here, are was there not several big lightning flashes and one ginormous flash? I know the marketing was all about "They're Already Here", but was it really talking about the invaders? Or maybe this film was more along the lines of "I have seen the face of the enemy, and he is us"? Once the shit really hits the fan, it's mostly about what people do to save who or what they know. Maybe I'm seeing something that isn't there. Even if that's the case, at least my delusions add to my enjoyment of the film. Many people in this talkback (and numerous others I've read) seem more determined to find things to hate rather than things to enjoy in just about every movie discussed on this site. I promise it's okay to drop the armor of cynicism once in a while and actually enjoy something.
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I know that's the buzzword for anyone who actually enjoyed something but it's really smarmy and annoying. I doubt Spielberg is in this TB so no one here has anything to apologize for. I happen to like the film and I don't consider it a "popcorn" movie (another term I hate).
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I cursed.
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Jul 01, 2005 7:58:07 PM CDT
"I'm there to see Aliens and spaceships and..well..the end o
by dokkalvar
"When I go see a film called WAR OF THE WORLDS, I
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You might as well be say, all of you, "Well it would have been a great movie if it didn't have all those damn people, and character developments, and dealt with space-ships blowing stuff up." So I guess Shakespeare should also be evaluated by the same standards. "That MacBeth, what a classic - I mean what a beheading!"
Hey whatever, maybe you people go to the movies for something else. -
Just got back through seeing it. Didn't like it. Are you going to tell me that only two people have handguns when Cruise's stolen SUV gets hijacked? Spielberg missed a great opportunity for total anarchy at that moment. The preacher/soldier combo character that Tim Robbins portrayed was pointless. Aliens arriving in lightening storms? All the way from Mars? Sure. Sounds like the writers ripped off the idea from Jonn Jonz Martian Manhunter. Ships buried for thousands of years? Why? Why did they wait so long? And if they did arrive the first time to bury those ships, wouldn't they have been contaminated by the Earth's bacteria the first time out? A thankless extra role for Ann Robinson. At least Spielberg could have given her some dialogue with Cruise. Cruise's son survives the onslaught of the martian war machines at the hillside? How about using a B-2 and dropping an atomic bomb on them as they did in the original? What about other radio reports? Why weren't there any ham radio operators out there picking up some sort of info of what was going on? The martian anal sphincter was pretty amusing sucking up Cruise though. There's a funny parable there. Still, it reminded me of Randy Quaid flying his biplane into the lower opening of the alien ship in ID. The aliens reminded me of leftover bugs from Starship Troopers. Orson Welles did it right. H.G. Wells did it right. George Pal did it right. Jeff Wayne did it right. Spielberg screwed the pooch on this one.
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here we have a big summer blockbuster that isn't your typical id4 nothing but explosions and bad comedy alien flick. something that strives to be a bit more than that. something that leaves things to your imagination and makes you have to think about stuff... and people don't do anything but complain. it's a lose lose situation really... because if it was another id4, then you assholes would complain about that too. why do you even bother watching movies at all?
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upon further review ive come to the conclusion that it still sucked. i dont care how cool it was, the hollywood happy ending ruined the film.
look at the birds? DO YOU SEE THIS BIRD SPIELBERG!?! -
It's the contrivance to the character situations that is annoying. It smacks of a story meeting. Look at the Pal version - there's no "family reconciliation" drama grafted on to it. Scientist plus girl fight aliens. It doesn't need anything else. The idea that Cruise needs to be an estranged dad is not Shakespearean character development - far from it. It's actually the somewhat pernicious idea prevalent in screenwriting these days that every character needs a "hook" to let the audience identify with him. That's why in addition to the main challenge of the plot, there's always some bullshit middle American "personal problem" that has to be overcome, too. I hate it, because I hate being marketed to. They could do "Faust" next year and I can guaran-fucking-tee you that Faust would have a kid brother with Down's Syndrome, or a drinking problem, and would be divorced, or would suffer from lower back pain, or would need to reconcile with his aging father, or some other stupid New Jersey suburbanite issue to deal with, despite the fact that it's all unnecessary because Faust is FUCKING FAUST.
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No, ID4 smacks of story meeting. Stealth smacks of story meeting. The Island smacks of story meeting. Faust? come the fuck on! All Faust is is the story of JOB which at it's very essence is the story of a simple man getting troubles lobbed at him. Yes! Every narrative needs a hook or there isn't any point for me to continue watching. Based on what you're telling me film should have never gone past documentation of walls being torn-down or a train leaving a station; all RIVITING storytelling to be sure. So are you one of those perplexing critics of Speilberg's films, like the ones I had to endure in film school, who hate every moment of humanity he attempts to inject into his stories? Didn't most of Hitchcock's films also center around archetypal characters in a ubiquitous human delima in order to draw the audience into a story that they couldn't possibly relate to? Yeah, what a hack that guy was.
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A good movie with some genuinely terrifying moments but becomes a show rather than a story. The first tripod made me gasp in shock. It's just a fantastic sequence and the thing is just surreal in scope. Then you see more of them.. and more.. and then you see the aliens.. and there's nothing you don't see. There's the problem. The more you experience the less of an experience it is.
Tim Robbins character is a real waste. It would've been great if he was more serious and not a lunatic. He could've been a guy that offered some real insight into what was happening.
Last thing, did the aliens only have 1 leg? I think they did but not sure.
Well, that's it. -
First of all, Goethe's Faust, at least, is most definitely not the story of Job. Goethe's Faust is the story of a man of learning who grows tired of the concept of knowledge-in-itself and bargains for demonic power to throw himself utterly into the world of experience. As such, he represents European man as a cultural entity at the end of the Enlightenment. That being the case, dressing the story up by giving him bunions or a retarded sibling who needs an operation would not contribute to the story, but would merely be a maudlin sop to some marketing department hack whose script notes call for something "people can relate to". The problem with the human drama in WOTW is that it in no way arises from the main elements of the plot itself, and therefore feels very tacked-on and by-the-numbers. If it was an organic part of the story itself, I don't think you'd see people groaning at the ending. I don't hear anyone complaining about the human element in JAWS, or ET, or even EMPIRE OF THE SUN, because that human element is integrated with the themes of the films in question. JAWS is ABOUT the relationship of men of different generations and backgrounds in an extreme situation. The shark just happens to be the extreme situation. The fact that it's so well done is why the scene where they compare scars is one of the most memorable in modern cinema. ET is ABOUT the fact that ET and Elliot are alike. EOTS is ABOUT the fact that the wonder of admiration of youth can be stirred both by friend and enemy, hero and rogue, devoted parent and betraying guardian. That makes each and every "human" moment that takes place in those scripts organic, relevant, and "real". But can you really say that WOTW is "about" an emotionally distant guy and his maladjusted kids? You can't, because it's not. It's about aliens attacking the Earth, and the rest of it is plugged in to meet script beats. And it shows. Maybe there was a way to tell this story that would have made the human story seem less lame. If there was, Spielberg didn't find it this time. Sometimes even great directors don't hit a home run.
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First half, typical Spielberg, second half seems more like Paul W.S. Anderson.
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... and I just have to say I was floored by the imagery I saw on that screen, and the sounds that were blasting my ears. That was one hell of a fucking ride. Okay, secondly, after seeing the reaction on this talkback, I just have to step back in disgust over some of the comments I just read. "Strangle Dakota Fanning," etc. "Plot holes!!" yadda yadda. Jesus Christ, some of you people can never be satisfied. Spielberg just owned your ass on the silverscreen and you bitch about Dakota Fanning's excellent performance. "She screamed too much,"?!?! WTF! Most of YOU would be screaming, and probably an octave higher. And Mori's review... what kind of hyperbolic shit was that? How pretentious can this site get?
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I think the grenade sequence was meant to give us the satisfaction of seeing at least one of those motherfucking tripods get whacked by Cruise. I was grinning when he cut to the pulled pins in his hand. This was the big "fuck you" from Cruise's character to the motherfucking tripods that had been chasing him and killing the people he knew for all those days. As for Scientology and Katie Holmes? I COULD GIVE A FUCK LESS. That's called there's more important fucking news than his love life, or his religion. As for the million and one supposed plot holes people bring up, folks forget one important fact: movies are short. Go ahead and fill every detail in with your own movie. Know what happens? You bore people to tears. Most people, when confronted with the fact those people don't change clothes AREN'T FAZED. They say to themselves, "well, where would they get the new clothes?" I mean, everybody escaped with the clothes on their backs. Of course, Spielberg could show the week of transit between the hudson and Boston. To do what? Bore the audience? Y'all need to figure out that good filmmakers let audiences move through the movies they make by feel, and leave the audience to connect the dots on the plot.
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The only thing that disappointed me (besides the son showing up at the end) was that the THUNDERCHILD was left out. How amazing a scene would that have been?
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As in great spectacle. That doesn't mean its a great movie, a movie that will stand the test of time. I actually thought all the 9/11 thing had been overblown in the media and some talkbacks. Rather, i thought it was like watching a great conductor hit all the right notes. The effects are truly unbelievable (the first shot of the tripod rising into the sky generated a noticeable gasp in the screening I saw, unheard of in this day of jaded audiences) and it never let up. The movie is just one great set piece after another, with two attractive actors guiding us through (Cruise and Fanning). I'm not sure why the carping about the end. Its the same as the book. As for the reunion, it wouldn't be a Spielberg movie without someone "going home" at the end. If anything, the sequence felt a little lazy to me. Spielberg could've amped up the emotion, but chose not to. Overall, it is great spectacle, neither the crap the haters make it out to be, nor necessarily the masterpiece others are making it to be. It is, in fact, another example of Spielberg's almost uncanny talent for creating an epic piece of entertainment.
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As in great spectacle. That doesn't mean its a great movie, a movie that will stand the test of time. I actually thought all the 9/11 thing had been overblown in the media and some talkbacks. Rather, i thought it was like watching a great conductor hit all the right notes. The effects are truly unbelievable (the first shot of the tripod rising into the sky generated a noticeable gasp in the screening I saw, unheard of in this day of jaded audiences) and it never let up. The movie is just one great set piece after another, with two attractive actors guiding us through (Cruise and Fanning). I'm not sure why the carping about the end. Its the same as the book. As for the reunion, it wouldn't be a Spielberg movie without someone "going home" at the end. If anything, the sequence felt a little lazy to me. Spielberg could've amped up the emotion, but chose not to. Overall, it is great spectacle, neither the crap the haters make it out to be, nor necessarily the masterpiece others are making it to be. It is, in fact, another example of Spielberg's almost uncanny talent for creating an epic piece of entertainment.
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Jul 02, 2005 12:22:11 AM CDT
For whatever talk back crows are left picking at the corpse of t
by jdubya
Please forgive this drunken talkback haters. I am not an apologist. And I am not a scientologist. And Moriarty. Jurasic Park was a fine movie. And the flaws you pointed out were somewhat correct. However, Jurassic Park is not Half the Movie War of the Worlds is. This is the closest thing to an art house "summer blockbuster" we have ever seen. Everyone bitching about plot points misses a point. And they still pissed their pants when they saw the film. Keep working on your 16th draft of that Mighty Mouse screenplay your working on. Everyone who bitches about how this film was not "true to the original book" should keep reading turn of the century sci-fi novels. You can hang out with the alienist or whatever and discuss the engineering of horse drawn carriages. This film is about image and sound. The things you see and hear and how it makes you feel. This is a "Movie". The basic plot structure is "Run!! Hide!!." This is a horror movie meant to reflect our times through the prism of H.G. Wells War of the Worlds. It's quite a major achievement in "Movie" making and it's a bit controversial as many reviews have pointed out. Steven Spielber has just laid the hammer down on the U.S. of A. I'm sorry that Moriarty didn't think there was enough humor in that crack to our skulls. This movie is "entertaining" in the way that it pulls our subconcious fears/concerns/anxieties out into the communal atmosphere of the movie house and for two hours, rubs our nose in it. Yeah, it would be better if there was an Ace Fighter Jet Pilot as president who could bring those tripods down. 3/4s the reason people are disapointed in this movie is because they've never had a "Summer Blockbuster" make them feel this way, ill at ease. This movie speaks to a different part of the brain than we've been used to as of late. The f**king subconcious as opposed to the analytical. The "reptilian" or whatever primeval sh** you may or not believe in as opposed to the "Ten Steps to Write the Perfect Screenplay" text you bought at barns and noble. I've noticed that at least one of the haters is an aspiring filmaker. Keep up the good work at Olympus U. motherf**ker, cuz aparently your the son of Zeus. By the Way, Moriarty, that's pretty cool that you worked at Universal Studios back in the day, and i say that sincerely. I just think your read on this film is wrong. And I think Harry is right. That's f**ed up any way cuz that guy will hype anything so long as the add revenue will keep coming in. Yes im talking about land of the deade/whatever that movie was called with the decomposing skin cabin people and hell boy. that's right hell boy.
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by the way, i want to point out more controversy regarding this movies critical response, i undertstand people are looking at this movie in regards to our current experience and you should read the review from salon.com, i'm sorry if you take my advice and have to watch a 30 second advertisement for whatever they're pitching at the moment, they're an insightful outfit sometimes though, so you should check them out anyways when you can pull yourself from the drudge report, i don't always agree with their articles and for the past week they've been attacking scientology, cuz, i guess, that's a serious dragon that needs slaying cuz L.Ron Hubbard is a loon or whatever, but anyway, the review of the movie there was basically saying that this movie is an expoloitation of 9-11 because there was that bit with the picture collages and messages, which the reviewer was saying that Spielberg was trying to get to us on emotional level. You can connect to this review on rottentomatos im sure us crows know that site. I think the reviewers take on the movie,and especially that bit, is b.s. That's merely iconography, sapped of any emotional legitamcy by our media, except for those directly affected by the tragedy. This imagery no longer holds that emotional weight because of our media's exploitation of it and I think Spielberg only intends it to be a marker for us to check some of those gut level emotions and how they have changed in the time between.
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Tommy Boy killed Robbins' crazy ass because if he didn't hurry up and shut his face the aliens were gonna kill all of 'em. In a time of survival at any cost, you dont think, you DO.
And I liked the movie, save for the ass ending, but it's not worth saying it ruined it for me. -
Or he could have hid on the other side of the room under a mirror, or left, or hit Robbins over the head with a shovel and gagged him, or tried to talk him down (he had been lucid prior to endless probing and aliens in his basement). Attempting to quietly murder someone is quite a trick...especially a former "ambulance driver" who has dealt with PCP drugged and psychotic patients hundreds of times in his career (and previous wrestled a shotgun away from Cruise himself). The point, without a doubt, was killing vocal dissenters (could Tim Robbins be a more obvious example of a vocal dissenter in a "time of danger") is OK, even in their home, even if they previously befriended you, even if their are other options if they may be a danger. The quality of mercy is not one Spielberg portrays favorably. The German "Betty Boop" machine gunner in Pvt Ryan who has to be killed later anyway as an example. Spielberg wants America to use overwhelming violence against any threat immediately and forcefully. I thought his most powerful moment in Pvt Ryan was the somewhat intellectual soldier, overloaded with weapons (representing the US elite) waits indecisively at the bottom of the steps while the Jewish soldier, who is out of ammo (European Jews), was in an obvious fight for his life only to be slowing and brutally killed by a vicious, merciless foe. That (WWII) was a time for overwhelming force. However, one size does not fit all. A blanket "kill 'em all" is a dangerous thing to be advocating (nearly subliminally) to Americans when they are going to a popcorn flick. For contrast, compare Frodo's talk with Gandalf in the Mines of Moria when Frodo said he should have killed Gollum when he had the chance. Gandalf responds in anger that Frodo should not be so eager to deal out death and dying. Had Spielberg directed LOTR Gollum would have been killed my Sam ("He's a villain!) and would never have been there to save Frodo from himself. I know WWII contrasted with LOTR seems a stretch but hopefully this site can withstand broad discussions. JRR had intimate familiarity with real war. Rod Serling also, in the Twilight Zone "A Quality of Mercy" forwards the same notion (Mercy is: "a gentle rain from heaven", drawn from Shakespeare in the Merchant of Venice.
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The stolen Microwave Emitter's primary function is to vaporize all water supplies in its emission radius. Were this to be possible, any human being near the device or in its path would have been flash-boiled as well, considering that approximately 78% of the human body consists of water. No one in Gotham, as well as on the boat where the device was first used and stolen, is affected by the device.
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my friend says at the end ernest should have just killed the tripods with milk.
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Jul 02, 2005 3:07:52 AM CDT
Saw it. It was great. People questioning the aliens' intelli
by zikade zarathos
It's the entire point of the book and movie that the aliens are killed/humans saved by something they BOTH completely disregard. It's to show that neither superpower is all that 'powerful' and that Nature and God and the environment ALLOWS us to live there. ****************** When Miranda Otto emerged from the house, I thought, "OK. She lived. Good enough." Then Tim pops up and I think, "Well, it's Spielberg..." Then the freakin' PARENTS show up and then the last straw was the kid, whose death showed that the family wasn't invincible, wasn't special, that they were just like everyone else. It negated the previous two hours to show that he survived when people had been completely vaporized for doing much less than walking directly into a massive fireball. Amazing film, though, just from a techincal standpoint -- from the point when the lightning starts to Cruise and Co. driving down the highway through the abandoned cars, that entire sequence should be taught in classes on where to place the camera and how to build tension and then pay it off. Really, really amazing stuff.
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What do rednecks (or wink, wink) get intoxicated on? Well, "Bunny" (Platoon reference) until you get to waste a mentally ill, or retarded person of your own in the cause against those who "hate freedom", you'll have to accept that Spielberg understands the power of his medium. He further understands the susceptibility of dumbasses especially, to his message because said dumbasses believe there isn't a message. To quote another movie... "The greatest trick of the Devil was convincing the world he doesn't exist." I'm not saying Spielberg is the Devil (maybe a minion perhaps) but your weak mind has been Jedi mind tricked repeatedly as is obvious from your posts.
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Jul 02, 2005 4:26:44 AM CDT
Asskisser, that lame response (check the clock) took an outrageo
by sgtelias
How long did you spend with the thesaurus you inbred freak? Your word craft is consistent with your skills in argument. And...unless you are old and moldy (as your mental acuity would suggest) turn off Fox News, join the military and go help those who you "support" by your dumbass, blind as a bat, jingoistic chest-thumping. P.S. I can't wait nearly another hour to hear your spittle filled response. Later Puto.
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I agree that this has to be seen IN the theater with the sound. I love the tripod horns. NOW FOR MY ISSUES: EMP Shockwave wipes out the electricity. How the hell does someone then have a working camcorder there??? That pissed me off. Then they find the "only" working car? At the dock scene, three tri-pods move in on the crowd... and don't fire... and don't fire... SHOOT DAMMIT... KILL THE HUMANS! But then it turns out they're just out to capture them from the water. Fine. LAST BEEF: Robbie should have stayed dead. He should not have survived. Boston should have been in ruins (to be consistant with the ammount of devastation and number of tripods. OTHER THAN THAT, I enjoyed the movie. Loved the undertones. GREAT VISUALS!!! (And Tim Robbins came across effectively with a hint of being a potential pedophile too... great way to freak my girlfriend and I out). So SEE THE MOVIE in the theater, you may not love it, but there's enough in there to amaze you and terrify you. (The horns... it's like a Pavlov test... those horns just make your skin crawl).
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I'm not being sarcastic. That was pretty damn good.
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That Greg Egan book Quarrantine was a corker.
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Lordy...it was like those intense moments in Jaws only stretched over two hours! It looks to me like the people who claim to not like this movie are over thinking the Hell out of it. I was pleasantly surprised to find it went as close to the book as it did and managed to re-create that pervasive sense of dread and horror I got when reading the book as a tween. Nice homage (there were more) to Pal's version using the same sound effect when the snooper eye was looking for Ray, Rachel and Robbins character in the basement scene. Speaking of...I disagree with Moriarity (very rare) concerning that scene...it's supposed to feel claustrophobic. Loved the background noises during that scene as it, again, was straight out of the book and helped create a "they've already made it their world" feel...along with the creeping red weed, of course. What you term "running out of gas" was for me a welcome time to catch my breath and the developing tension between the characters was almost equal to the tension outside. "...absurd tripods?!!!" I would call 'em the must fully realized bio-mechanisms anyone has ever attempted to put on screen. What fantastical yet fully functional design work! Simply stunning, really though I do admit the aliens themselves were a bit too cutesy (Tamarin monkeys?). Good Lord folks...Ray was defending his daughter (and himself) by killing the obviously deranged Robbins character. Of course, after seeing what had happened outside, I think I'd be digging the deepest hole I could find too! Pitiful humans, why must everything in a sci-fi movie conform to your rigid frame of reference? Yeah, I could speculate that in those millions of years since the aliens had buried (maybe the tripods buried themselves
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I sear, it's like some of you really DO live in a basement! As ol' Ufthak used to say, "It ain't the size of the orc in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the orc! Nar! Baroonk pushdug!" Or something to that effect...
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"It's the entire point of the book and movie that the aliens are killed/humans saved by something they BOTH completely disregard."
Hey, GENIUS, humans don't completely disregard germs and bacteriology. In fact it's one of the most disconcerting phenomenon in the human consciousness; what with all the incurable diseases out there. So the fact that a supposedly techonologically superior alen race is unable to account for something so basic while even the US military ( or even the Russian military if you prefer) always remembers to innoculate their own troops for tropical bacteria like Malaria or Typhoid prior to sending them out to tropical based posts, is mindboggingly annoying and insulting to say the least. We are light years technologically behind them yet NASA's quarantine protocols for astronauts coming back to earth from the International space station still put their millions of years of technology to shame? WTF? I know that the original HG Wells novel ended that way, but given that we are that much more informed about diseases and bacteria ( as well as venturing into uncharted territories), who exactly said that they weren't allowed to change the ending to something more suitable and less insulting like all the other stupid logic loopholes in that excuse of a plot and a screenplay. Yes, ID4 was a far superior alien movie to this ( if we are to accept the fact that both the computer virus/incompatible technology and Mac factors were the dumbest parts of the movie; but at least they tried), because it, unlike this silly little adapatation, didn't ask you to bring your brain to the theatre. It was a summer popcorn movie, nothing more and nothing less and succeeded compleltey at being that. This mess just doesn't know what it wanted to be and ended up sucking ass. Wait for it to get to TV and then switch the channel to Oxygen and catch a rerun of Remington Steele. What a waste!!!!!!
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This movie should be up for the OSCAR. Period. Heres a Talkback post that needs to be repeated for all the morons on this site:..................................................................................................Please forgive this drunken talkback haters. I am not an apologist. And I am not a scientologist. And Moriarty. Jurasic Park was a fine movie. And the flaws you pointed out were somewhat correct. However, Jurassic Park is not Half the Movie War of the Worlds is. This is the closest thing to an art house "summer blockbuster" we have ever seen. Everyone bitching about plot points misses a point. And they still pissed their pants when they saw the film. Keep working on your 16th draft of that Mighty Mouse screenplay your working on. Everyone who bitches about how this film was not "true to the original book" should keep reading turn of the century sci-fi novels. You can hang out with the alienist or whatever and discuss the engineering of horse drawn carriages. This film is about image and sound. The things you see and hear and how it makes you feel. This is a "Movie". The basic plot structure is "Run!! Hide!!." This is a horror movie meant to reflect our times through the prism of H.G. Wells War of the Worlds. It's quite a major achievement in "Movie" making and it's a bit controversial as many reviews have pointed out. Steven Spielber has just laid the hammer down on the U.S. of A. I'm sorry that Moriarty didn't think there was enough humor in that crack to our skulls. This movie is "entertaining" in the way that it pulls our subconcious fears/concerns/anxieties out into the communal atmosphere of the movie house and for two hours, rubs our nose in it. Yeah, it would be better if there was an Ace Fighter Jet Pilot as president who could bring those tripods down. 3/4s the reason people are disapointed in this movie is because they've never had a "Summer Blockbuster" make them feel this way, ill at ease. This movie speaks to a different part of the brain than we've been used to as of late. The f**king subconcious as opposed to the analytical. The "reptilian" or whatever primeval sh** you may or not believe in as opposed to the "Ten Steps to Write the Perfect Screenplay" text you bought at barns and noble. I've noticed that at least one of the haters is an aspiring filmaker. Keep up the good work at Olympus U. motherf**ker, cuz aparently your the son of Zeus. By the Way, Moriarty, that's pretty cool that you worked at Universal Studios back in the day, and i say that sincerely. I just think your read on this film is wrong. And I think Harry is right. That's f**ed up any way cuz that guy will hype anything so long as the add revenue will keep coming in. Yes im talking about land of the deade/whatever that movie was called with the decomposing skin cabin people and hell boy. that's right hell boy
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Jul 02, 2005 3:43:55 PM CDT
Kai_Mah'gra -- You're missing the bigger picture, here..
by zikade zarathos
"Logic loopholes?" Christ almighty. You're not arguing against the movie, you're arguing that the aliens were ill-prepared, which they were, WHICH WAS THE POINT. We DO completely disregard the planet and it's lifeforms, but I guess since we take precautions with our astronauts, you must think we live in perfect harmony with the ecosystem. Again, the point of the movie was that Mother Nature/God/th World has set up conditions that allow us to live here, and our "right" to live on Earth comes from the natural way of things, not by any means of force. The aliens aren't meant to be anything else than a way to show us that, and if you refuse to accept the filmmaker's aliens and all their faults, you refuse to accept the movie. But don't lambast the film for your preconcieved notions of what aliens SHOULD be when you walked through that door. An ending "less insulting?" Since you like ID4 more, I suppose you would have enjoyed us finding some ridiculous way to stop the alien hordes, and tada, we win. Congratulations, that would make the entire story one long jingoistic and mawkish excercize, not to mention one pointless fucking movie. But I guess that'd be fine with you, because, to YOU, it would be more "realistic" that we upload a computer virus onto an alien ship, and scream one-liners while we fly away to safety. ID4 wasn't ABOUT anything. It was about blowing shit up real pretty like, and, as you so eloquently put it, "asked you leave your brains at the door." Yeah, it's mindless, alright.
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.....did you have to keep a mirror in front of you when typing that shite up to make sure you kept on a straight face, or do you just happen to be enough of a moron to actually believe it's true? What a bunch of idiotic tripe!!!! Kissing ass with Moriarty and Harry is all well and good, but come on!! Just because amjority of the talkbackers are expresssing just how mind-numbingly insulting this movie was as an intellectual experience or even entertainment event, means that they are drunk??? Get yourself a freaking brain cell, at the very least it just might do more than just act as a counterwight to your feet.
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....er...yeah, just a little FYI for you. I HAVE read the original H.G. Wells' depiction, and I have also watched the 1953 version, and both of which, multiple times. I get the whole 'God put the germs on the earth to allow us to live here' angle. And guess what? It was a logically weak plot resolution to an invasion storyline then and it's even worse so know knowing what we do with regards to the fields of bacteriology and pathology. It was only more forgiveable and parhaps even admirable back then and during Wells' time because our medical knowledge back then was not as fleshed out as it is now. Just because Wells wrote it that way and in a manner that logically worked in his world and time, does not mean that any director or writer remaking the movie cannot update it to suit a more well informed audience nor that we should ignore over a hundered years of progress in the fields of pathology and immunology; particularly when the invading force have the benefit of millions of years of observation time to get it righ and still drop the ball. Try to get that through your thick head and just let it simmer for a while before sitting down to respond, ok cupcake? And those aren't my preconceived notions of what aliens should be; they are logical deductions, Einstein!!! If you are advanced enough to send down an invasion force through a lightning storm and through lightning strikes, then maybe just maybe don't you imagine that something such as mundane as bacteria would be a little pedestrain to overlook? Maybe? But then again for someone who claims to abhor "mindless" entertainment, Logic, nonetheless seems to come rather accidentaly and tenously, if at all, where you're involved. Speaking of Mindlessness, the reason I said that ID4 was a superior movie ( and I did acknowledge the weak points genius, try to read my post again, if you can manage it) was because it was set out as an entertaining summer blockbuster ( read popcorn movie and, yes, mindless fun) and joyride. Nothing more. It never set out to be anything more and it completely succeed as it was the most successful movie at the box office that year while not winning any movie critics awards; which of course it didn't set out to do. (how many screenplay awards are you willing to wager that WOTW wins, at all?). This remake did ( by the very words of the Director and the Writer) set out to be more than just mindless fun; it set out to be a thinking man's movie. And it failed miserably......and woefully pathetically miserably at that. I realize that's a bit hard for you to take right now but just keep taking in the comments from other talkbackers as they get back from viewing it, and see if any of it correlates to your convoluted world view of Spielberg-is-a-god nonsense. Oh, but wait, that will probably be because all these many people who found the movie to be crappy don't really know what the hell they are talking about, right? (like Speilberg ass-kissers that is) Nor can they tell a good movie from a bad movie. Right? Get your head out of the sand or better yet get your head out of your ass; this was at best a partially entertaining movie with an entirely crappy plotline, made even worse with the rest of the ludicrous logic loopholes in the name of updates that that hack of a writer, infected this story with.
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I'm not a huge Spielberg fan, but I thought this movie was pretty fuckin great, and partly because THANK CHRIST he didn't try to make it funny. It is about running and hiding and that's why it works. It would not work if there was a wisecracking Jeff Goldblum character, or a daughter who does gymnastics to fight the aliens, or some fat guy from Seinfeld. I was worried when the afro puff guy from Biker Boyz showed up, but he's not in it for long. Jurassic Park is a fun movie but this one is much easier to take seriously. I liked Minority Report but I hated how Spielberg felt like he had to randomly throw jokes in the middle of a serious story, so he has business like the jetpack cooking the hamburger patties. (What the fuck is that man?) This one is much more tasteful and has got to be the scariest PG-13 movie of all time. Enjoy the nightmares kids, when you are older you will look back nostalgically and thank your parents for bringing you to this. Unless you're a sissy.
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Lando... if the sources you site are indeed true, the administration would be jumping up and down on these leads, but you hear the President speak nary a word about Syrian involvement. His "big speech" the other night gave no such evidence. Why? Why didn't Powell try to save his legacy and jump all over these "reports" about the WMDs "definately" being in Syria? Why haven't we invaded Syria since they are implicite in this supposed scheme? Why?
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Doesn't it occur to anyone that maybe the aliens DID innoculate their crewmembers, but forgot/underestimated something? What did the aliens die of? Which disease? You don't know, and it isn't the point to know! And since you so strongly believe the Mac virus in ID4 was so much more believable, why didn't the aliens have a simple firewall for their computer system? But my point is about WotW, is that the movie is about playing on our fears. This is evident by the nightmarish images strewn throughout the movie: The "fire" train, the tripod showing up on the hill overlooking the ferry, the people trapped in the sinking vehicles, the crashed airliner WITH NO BODIES inside, the nameless mass slaughter, the falling clothing, the face of the tripod emerging through the flames on the hill, the Hummer rolling down the hill in flames that was only moments going the other direction, the tripods sprying BLOOD everywhere... the list of horrific images is endless. The movie is about confronting such horror; surviving terror. We don't know WHY the aliens did what they did. Why? Because the movie is about Ray Ferrier and his family, not about what the President had for breakfast, or the kooky strategies being cooked up by the Joint-Chiefs-of-Staff. We live through the horror of humanity's extermination from the POV of a common man. Why did the aliens die? We don't know, because RAY doesn't know, and YOU wouldn't know if you had lived through it. You would just be glad they are DEAD and you AREN'T.
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Spielberg set out to exploit our post 9/11 fears of random annihilation and did it brilliantly. This isn't an "alien invasion" movie. It's another holocaust film. The criticize the movie for not answering questions about the aliens is attacking it for something it never intended to do in the first place. That being said, I think, like Saving Private Ryan, this movie has a one-dimensional quality that won't stand up to repeated viewing. It's riveting the first time you see it, but once you get past that the thinness of the story begins to stand out more. I was riveted by it though. It's the closest Spielberg has gotten to making a non-stop set piece movie with little pretense of a story, just one darn thing after another.
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I just saw the movie and I didn't think it was all that great. I loved the first half as the invasion built up (despite the annoying son hates father subplot) but then it took this weird detour into Tim Robbin's dank, dark basement and didn't really do much from there. Go watch ID4 and the Signs, consecutively, and you'll get a much better experience. It sucks because I've been looking forward to this movie all year. Screw this special effects crap. I'm going to go check out "Hustle and Flow".
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Never in the history of talkbacks has this.....hold on a moment....how did you bastards get all those posts in before me? They weren't there a minute ago....
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. . . and all I know is that every time those tripods emitted that defeaning, two-tone horn blast, I was scared to pieces. What terrific sound editing. I was wobbly when I stood up to leave the theater.
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.....hey genius, try reading my post again and you might actually notice this time around that I DID say that the whole use of a Mac (perhaps the most incompatible computer technology on the planet) as well as the concept of a computer virus used to bring down an alien invasion despite the incompatible computer technology, were in fact the weakest if not dumbest aspects of ID4. Don't put freaking words in my mouth if you can't even understand what I said in the first place. What I did say was that despite all those weaknesses, ID4 was more successful at what it was (i.e a popcorn movie) than WOTW was at whatever the hell it was trying to be ( a cerebral faithful adaptation of the classic Wells novel?). Images of fear are nice and all, but if you're going to expect your audience to buy into that kind of fear and yet ignore simple disturbing facts (such as the fact that when a plane explodes in mid-air, the debris field is freaking wide - inertia - and not exactly selective enough as to conveniently avoid the main star's van in it's path of destruction; or a EMP blast that again, conveniently "forgets" to take out the pivotal camcorder used to capture the alien attack as it begins, or a teenage boy who somehow miraculously survives an alien onslaught that battalions of US infantry don't, for the sole purpose of a needless sappy ending.......do you want me to go on???) then you have another thing coming. All of this of course would have been forgiveable had the movie not taken itself seriously to begin with ( which ID4 did not) and if the writer as well as Speilberg had not already gone and fronted this as a cerebral movie, which they did. They set the bar that high, and they failed to reach it. And yes, of course, no one mentions anything about what type of bacteria it was that killed the aliens, because as you rightly put it, that is not the freaking point. But asking me to believe that aliens observing us for millions of years with supposedly far superior techonology and science than us, can't pick out what could be dangerous to them in all that time nor develop technology against what they can't possibly account for (environmental filters anyone; what? they don't have HEPA filters on planet tripod??) is asking a bit much. Don't just defend a movie for the sake of defending it.
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Don't knock it 'til you try it.
Macs can read and interpret more than any PC on the planet. It's just that, due to their advanced nature, they actually don't need to talk in the "complex" nature that other systems do. PCs might rule the planet, but "language wise", even Microsoft execs will tell you they're inferior to the Mac when it comes to "language".
That is all.
Nighty night. -
I think the biggest problem with the movie is not how the aliens behave, but how the PEOPLE behave. Several times in the film there are crowds of people pressing in around where something bad just happened. We get attacked and that night we are ready to shoot people for a car? And only two people have a gun? Sorry city folks, but if you are out in the middle of nowhere there are more guns than people. The cities are being attacked, let's run to the city? There's a battle going on, let's run toward it! Sure, gathering together in big crowds is the best way to stay alive during a war!
Irritating kids aside, there isn't one thing that humans do in this film that isn't just stupid and sheep-like. While thoughts of 9/11 and Iraq are somewhat unavoidable, I think this movie is really more like the East Cost blackout when New Yorkers were so amazed that the power was out and just filled the streets for no good reason. When something bad happens, don't run out in the street. Society won't fall apart in a day if we are attacked and don't have electricity, and a lot more than two people in a crowd will have guns. -
Jul 03, 2005 1:07:16 AM CDT
The PLOT is simple: STAY ALIVE. That is the Plot, the point and
by uberman
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He didn't shy away from showing people blown to ash or liquidfied. Didn't hold back.
To be fair, he did make Saving Private Ryan and Schindlers List. I thought that the build up to the reveal of the first tripod didn't work. If u rewatch the film you'll see that the crow reaction was badly directed. The crowd didn't have a realistic reaction. U could tell that they couldn't see the tripod in their mind. They had the " I guess now I pretend to be scared" look. Great images but unevenly directed and key moments took the easy hollywood way out. BITCHES! -
Speaking of crowd scenes...During the ferry scene when everyone is trying to board the ferry, I laughed when I noticed an Assistant Director or PA waving his arms, guiding people to run onto the dock. It was obvious that the guy was not freaked out by the tripod heading his way. As for the great MAC/Virus/ID4 debate: Mac users are extremely happy that we don't have to deal with virus' since it's a much more secure OS. Anyone tired of viruses, phishing, scripts that automatically load web pages, and all the other problems associated with surfing with Windows. If your a gamer, obviously you'll stay PC. But if you only surf and do word processing, check out the Mac. Windows DOES have more software for doing illegal stuff; so that's a mark against Mac.
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Saw a free screening at the Writer's Guild with some friends tonight and liked it better than I thought. However, Spielberg did exactlty what I knew he would to screw it up. What was that horseshit ending? His ex-wife's block is the only one not affected? She and her parents were the only ones not to evacuate? How did Robbie survive when we saw what happened to that hill? How can Ray not know what hummus is when he lives in one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world? Bullshit. Why does the ex-wife's new husband look like a rich boy dweeb? Rachel doesn't talk like a real kid. The whole "go to your special place" scene was crap. And why was everyone else acting realistically, but Tim Robbins was over the top and a joke? Robbins is a good actor, but he reminded me of Peter Stormare's doctor in Minority Report. A character totally out of place with the rest of the movie. Moriarty mentioned there was no humor in the movie. Sure there was, it just wasn't funny. The newslady who asks Ray if he was on the plane, but since he's not, she doesn't have to be human towards him. When Tim Robbins had his reveal, the audience actually laughed. That's not what should have happened. The only connections to 911 and Iraq were the ones obviously telegraphed by the script. When the little girls asks if the attacks are from the terrorists, it sounded written. And a lot of the effects lookes too CGI to me. Don't the build models anymore? Why do the ships in Close Encounters look real? Because they were. Doug Trumbull did stuff 30 years ago that still looks better than stuff we get today.
But with all that I liked most of the movie. The tension was good. The sound design was great. People getting wasted was nice. But Ray didn't lose anything. How much tension can there be when you know Tom Cruises family won't even get a scratch. Spielberg doesn't have the integrity to do something like that. Hell, the boy wasn't even burned even though we saw that hill on fire. The final 20 minutes was very weak, but that's what happens when you start shooting without a finished script. I could've sat through a longer movie had it been written well, but c'mon, David Koepp is a terrible writer. And given more time, Spielberg would've found a way to get Ray and his wife back together. You noticed that they didn't show her new husband at the end, that way they could just have Tom and Miranda smile at each other. C'mon Steve, we all know your mom and dad divorced when you were a kid, but you already dealt with it in ET. You don't have to do it in every film you do afterwards. Sometimes mommies and daddies don't love each other forever. Just ask Amy Irving. -
Y'know...everyone keeps saying these things crashed here MILLIONS of years ago. The characters said this in the movie SPECULATIVELY!!! My guess is these things came down maybe a hundred years or more, give or take decades. Meteors fall ALL the time and are buried completely. Plus who's to say these things didn't come down as meteors (like in the book) and burrow to their present locations. They mentioned seismic activity in the movie - maybe that was it? C'mon people! The movie was excellent despite its flaws! I have yet to see a perfect movie. This one rocked. And ID4 should terminated with extreme predjudice...Armageddon as well.
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http://agentarc.blogspot.com/2005/07/sound-fury.html Is the best read on the movie I've seen yet.
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anyway great movie, i don
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A mediocre cultist actor without a high school diploma starts lambasting psychiatry, and nobody is beating the living snot out of him and his tomboy beanpole? Oh, brother!
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"The thing is, we never believe the tripods and their invasion are practical. How did these vast metal machines lie undetected for so long beneath the streets of a city honeycombed with subway tunnels, sewers, water and power lines, and foundations?"
Who says they weren't buried more than a few feet down? When I watched this scene I immediately assumed that they must have been buried miles and miles beneith the surface. Some people just seem to nit-pick for the sake of it. -
Jul 03, 2005 8:35:50 AM CDT
The movie rocked hard! I loved it! Many of you talkbackers are
by samuel steamer
...But calling it crap just proves that you don't have a clue about what filmmaking is about. To all you you negative ill minded talkbackers who like to stir the pot (you know who you are). Fuck off! Don't come around here no more. Go take a film course and understand what you are talking about if you are going to make such strong claims. Then come talk. Idiots. Fuck-heads! You've got me fuming. Finally a thrilling movie and you complain because you couldn't suspend your disbelief? The effects, acting and story were great. to all those who have not seen it...go and be thrilled.
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You must like uninspired storytelling. I've taken film courses, I teach film, and I know a bad ending when I see it. You're just angry because your mom had to pick you and your friends up from the theater.
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The only part of this movie worth keeping is:
*From* Cruise comes into see his daughter after getting some shuteye.
*To* They haul ass through the crowded highway.
The rest bored me to death.
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Jul 03, 2005 3:12:51 PM CDT
Hi, "I Dunno." An apologist is simply a person who defends a po
by vynson
And it isn't a new buzzword. For example, read Plato's The Apology which features the trial of Socrates. Socrates isn't saying he's sorry, but rather defending his point of view. Apology means a defense. The word has been wrapped in a connotation of attrition, but that isn't what it means.
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I've heard some people say this movie was political. From what, Robbin's 'occupations fail' line? I didn't like this movie because it had this HUGE political statment all set up ready to go, and no one had the balls to pull it off. I almost feel that the ending was changed to the traditional 'safe' ending from what it could, should have been. Okay, here's the deal. The machines are shielded, unstoppable, and eating people. Robbins says some were stopped somehow in Japan. Now what is Japan? Home of the Kamakazee. Moving on, we've got Tom in the cage getting eaten with a couple hand grenades on him. He's saved, but the bombs are ingested and boom, dead aliens. So now here's where the big political statement gets made, but only if you've got a pair of grapefruit size cajones swinging down by your knees.................................... To kill aliens you need to get a bomb inside their shields. And they eat people, bring people into their bellies, get a bomb into their bellies by having them eat a bomb, a human bomb!.................................................................That's right, the aliens get stopped by SUICIDE BOMBERS strapping up and feeding themselves to the aliens. How are we getting our ass kicked in Iraq? Suicide bombers. How do we win the war against the aliens? Suicide bombers!!! Now THATS a political statment. Fuck you Tim Robbins, you hack.
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Jul 03, 2005 7:13:24 PM CDT
I saw WotW today. The Kong teaser was much better looking on the
by orionsangels
As for WotW. I don't know really. My reaction to seeing this film was, eh. It had a few good moments. ILM did some nice work, but I noticed sometimes when a special effect was about to appear. The actors looked like they were standing in front of green screen. It has that, we're standing in front of a moving film quality, like Titanic had. The aliens themselves look like the cousins of the ones in Independence Day.
What happened to movie scores? They're not as good as they used to be. It's barely noticeable here and this is John Williams we're talking about. I did like that horn sound the aliens produce whenever they're about to attack. Brandsmart employee's are going to love it when they have to show off surround sound to customers.
Dakota Fanning was cute and funny and Tom was good as well. My sister cried during a certain scene. I just didn't really feel this movie. It doesn't have that Spielberg magic and I'm tired of Spielberg movies in washed out colors. Just use normal color. If you know the story of WotW. The ending was predictable and ubrupt. When all is said and done. I was never into this film. It didn't rev my engine. -
Jul 03, 2005 7:39:25 PM CDT
The aliens in WotW looked like the aliens in ID4 which looked li
by i dunno
...although the aliens in this WotW have an excuse because they roughly follow the look of the aliens as described in the original WotW novel. They even managed to make the physically impossible tripod structure somewhat plausible, so they have that going for them. Which is nice.
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War of the Worlds was a huge let down. The effects for the most part looked horrible, as if they were from the 50's. If these things were stored here years ago, wouldn't they have gotten sick when they got home? He took liberties on the whole story, why was the ending so abrupt. Here is another in a list of failures from Steven S. Last good film was Private Ryan.
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"The effects for the most part looked horrible, as if they were from the 50's." That's just crazy talk or you didn't really see the movie. The buried pods have no alien inside. The alien pilots get sent down by the lighting, like seeds being planted into the pods. How could the aliens get sick? "why was the ending so abrupt?" duh, because that's how the book is, before you attack a movie, get your facts straight. how old are you? 13?
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how did the pods get there years ago? they just appeared. No recon done to decide "hey lets see if we can live there?" Did we send Alan Sheppard up without oxygen? I'm sorry you probably don't know who he was, look it up on the net. no we did our homework! the 50s like effects i speak of are the scenes where the pods are on the hills, looking down on the river, or when people are running down the hill. By the way a jumbo jet crashes on your house, yet part of the house is still standing and no shrapnell hits the car. also very convinent that all the cars died on the freeway in a manner that allows Cruise to driver right through.
There were cool parts don't get me wrong. In the beginning when Cruise is running through hell was done very well. I am all for suspending disbelief for a popcorn movie, but the ball was dropped in this one. Maybe I am spoiled from the well written script and good direction in Batman Begins. I grew up watching Jaws, Raiders and ET first run at theatres. I admire Steven S. It is dissapointing that he has lost his touch. Maybe it's just that I have a high IQ and actually can think. Not that I am stooping to your level in personal attacks. -
oh Ya I read the book however it could have been done better. I' am not saying change the ending, but do it better. The War of the World movie from the 60's did a better job showing the aliens gettng sick
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And this coming from persons who believe in a God that drifts around in space? In a story where a red sea was parted by Moses? Christians are calling Scientology stupid and wierd? HAHAHAHA! You have got to be kidding me! Pot calling the kettle black, I say!
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haha...I agree with everything you said (and said well), but I still liked the movie. The tripod scenes were just too powerful and kickass...they overpowered the lame script for me.
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I agree that the end was kind of weak, and the ID4 end was absurd, but how else could the aliens possibly lose? The only way I can think of would be to have some friendly aliens come in and kill the bad aliens, but that would be even more implausible. The downside of having overpowering aliens is that there is no real way for little ants (humans) to possbily win without some major leaps in logic. I agree that Koepp is a crappy screenwriter, but I cut him some slack on that one point.
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Steven fucked up big time. Ah ha, whoa....
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I mean I am not saying change the stories ending. Morgan Freeman's closing lines were good. But start to establish the aliens geting sick. We see everyone getting their ass kicked, then all of a sudden a tripod slumped over. I totally understand what you are saying. But lets see it happening. That's what I meant by abrupt. By the way did anyone else thing the giant asshole was a weird choice for sucking in the humans? I mean that kinda made the Tripod seem organic organisms like in Battlestar Galactica, but their are ailens inside controlling it? too many holes.
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I agree with you. Loved the movie, though, ending was abrupt. Wish there was more visual re biology conquering the tripods.
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Jul 04, 2005 12:03:09 AM CDT
What Tim Robbins help to show though, in WotW is that Liberal
by orionsangels
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How did this become a political discussion. And what's more crazy, caring that innocent people die for a lie, or stating you are about morals and family values, and then eating dinner at the White House with a Porn Star. No not Clinton, Bush did that
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Jul 04, 2005 12:39:48 AM CDT
I was kidding, muvyman. You really need to calm down there buddy
by orionsangels
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I believe that this film had an incredibly short post-production schedule. Spielberg has gotten into the habit of having really short schedules for his films. I belive that the film which he just started this week, will be in theaters in the holidays. I couldn't find the production start date of WOTW but I know that whole schedule was less than a year. Spielberg relied heavily on schematics. I wasn't to sure going in that the effects would be at their best. They were not. He did the same thing with The Terminal. The few effects that the movie had were horrible. I will say that WOTW did have some amazing sequences. The continues drive through traffic and others. More films from him but maybe at a lesser quality. Don't know. BITCHES!.
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Jul 04, 2005 2:38:58 AM CDT
"Christians are calling Scientology stupid and wierd? HAHAHAHA!
by thirteen 13
Well thats no different than you athiests believing that a DNA molecule assembled itself, by complete random chance, from non living matter, in an environment that couldn't support. And then continued on by random chance to evolve perfectly with every single correct ingredient in the right exact place at the exact right time by random chance. Or that fish decided to breath air one day and flop onto the beach until their gills developed lungs. Those fish sure are persistent aren't they. And why do we still have apes and gorillas. Why didn't they evolve. What, they didn't want to join the party or what. Every group has their own fairytales including you athiests. And given the vast astonomical odds against your theories and lack of science behind it (nowhere near enough to prove even close to beyond a reasonable doubt), it would seem that yours is the biggest fairytale of all. I think what aggravates you even more is that more and more scientists and researchers, with much credit to their names, are moving more and more toward intelligent design because with each day science is starting to prove it, and show the many faults and shortcomings of darwinism.
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If you did not see the 1957 war of the worlds, watch it, Listen to orsen wells master piece of radio theatre, both of those gave me chills, to the core of my being, this new one was good but not chills like that, my reason, I thought it is acted well, directed well, the effects are good, but the effects are not (real) I see the false in the cgi, no matter how good it is cgi will always be inferior to good old fashion animatronics, animatronics and puppets and makeup are real, the obey all the known and unknown(but real non the less), laws of physics, real stuff moves in the real world the right way, cgi does not, it never will, good example of what I am saying, before Newton, people did not know what gravity was but if people before Newton saw (those law of physics broken and imitated by computer) they would have thought it looked bad, shocks and scares and awe came from the classic films you guys have talked about raiders, jaws, ce3k, yes they used process to composite shots together, but it was shocking because it was real- no one will ever be scared by a cgi image, Bruce was scary because he was real, (if you don
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(Whoops...hit "enter" too soon)Ah, memories. I remember being a kid when the first Star Wars and CE3K came out, and critics thought that SF was the death of cinema. But look at the numbers: LOTR made nearly 3 billion dollars in theaters alone. All by itself, RotS is nearly at the 3/4 billion dollar mark and WotW will likely hit the 1/4 billion dollar mark next weekend (see boxofficemojo.com)...all are heavily powered by CGI, so no, I don't think the overall sorry state of box office is the culprit. Most likely the advent of the DVD era...I mean, who in their right mind would waste ten bucks on Bewitched?! BTW, the reason that you see lines around the block in footage of older movie releases like Jaws, Star Wars, etc. is because movies were marketed completely different in those days...multiplexes didn't exist. In my hometown, only ONE theater was allowed to show Star Wars in '77, so lines formed around the block for over a year, with no home video release until the 80s. Unimaginably limited marketing compared to these days...
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Man, WOTW was just awful... Mr Spielberg is following his good friend Mr Lucas down the senile path methinks. In a nutshell - not enough aliens (and when we do see them is the ones out of ID4), too much family drama - also, it looks like SS has just watched Signs and decided to clone the 'its not what you see but what you dont that builds up the tension' ethos. Basically this film was not what I expected - the best part about it was the Kong trailer before it.
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I will paste from a responce from another post of the other review talk back......
No I don -
Once again, this movie was full of plot holes and was based on a weak script, but I don't agree with all these criticisms. There are only so many ways to make scary looking aliens. I thought the aliens looked different from the ID4 ones and others in film..."real" aliens would probably look like puddles of sludge or something with no eyes that would not work on film for most the audience. Hardcore sci-fi fans would appreciate it, but the common filmgoer wouldn't be able to relate. But if you are going to make aliens with eyes, a mouth, arms, etc, you aren't going to be able to differentiate them much from other "human-looking" aliens.
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1. The invasion. I know its based on the book but its too unbelievable that an invading army would just attack us using these 'walkers' that kill us one by one. The logistics are retarded. Do you know how long it would take them to do that and how many ships they would have to create? I personally think he should have added a bit to the beginning, like a change in our air composition that should have killed most of us and they would use the walkers for the few immune - but their air terraforming was unsuccesful (unknown to them) thus the walkers became the only line of attack. This would have been cool because it would have shown a flaw in their science which would foreshadow the ending.
2. So many unrealsitic reactions; why didn't tom cruise at al get more supplies at his ex-wifes house (or what was left), instead of trying to subsist on tabasco sauce and peanut butter? Why was the son still in his dirty clothes when Tom C. made it to Boston. Did he happen to arrive minutes earlier? That's gay.
3. The aliens sucked. No imagination to them at all. And if you are gonna introduce them in the middle, you need to go a bit further with them at the end because after the first half, there was nothing left to discover about them. The whole flick was about figuring out what these things were all about.
4. Why does Speilberg hav to make everypoint so obvious. the coolest thing I though in the movie was the terraforming using our blood but it would have been so cool if it was kind of hinted at like Tom Cruise gets some on his tongue during all the action and then notice it tastes like blood then he can look out over at one of those things and sees it spraying out red liquid. Boom! But no, Speilberg has to show a human get carried down in front of us, then injected by a see-through needle so we can see the blood go all the way up and out. C'mon. Don't make it so friggin' obvious and ruin the concept.
5. Like an earlier poster, I couldn't help but feel the aliens way of looking for surviving humans using a tentacle was so primitive. This would again take literally forever.
6. The close ups of the ships were too human-looking. Even the markings on the side were so 90s Sci-Fi. It can't be ignored that an incredibly advanced society will probably have much more sophisticated ways to diferentiate one ship from another. I know this is a minor point but it ties in with the lack of imagination and wonder of this movie. Even E.T. or Close Encounters while, what 20 years ago?, was a somewhat wondrous take on aliens that explored new avenues. This did diddly.
7. lastly, please explain the working car thing. From what I heard, he said put in a new coil. Now regardless, wouldn't any parts that got fried or disrupted in the cars, also get fried while on the store shelf? What about cars that were off at the time? Wouldn't that be the same as sitting on a shelf? Wouldn't only parts built after the disruption be useable?
I really, really thought I was gonna like this movie. It was fun but not good.
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Those religions have been around for thousands of years and have some basis in historical fact. Yes there are whacky things in the bible like talking snakes and guys parting seas but most jews and christians see those as parables or metaphores and don't take them literally. That's a far cry from a 50 year old religion thought up by a science fiction writer. Yes there is VOLUNTEER tithing in other religions but in scientology it's mandatory. If you can't aknowledge the difference then you're just being a troll.
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Jul 04, 2005 7:24:04 AM CDT
So why is every King Kong remake overrun with posts whining that
by minderbinder
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cuz avg iq is 100
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Jul 04, 2005 8:29:06 AM CDT
Well for one thing,minderbinder, WotW is best known as a novel b
by i dunno
Not by the 50's movie so it's more of a adaptation of the novel than a remake. Kong is best known for the original movie. After reading the script, the Kong remake doesn't seem to add anything or change a thing from the the 30's movie except the FX so to me it's ultimatly pointless. Anyway, I thought everyone on this site was drooling over Kong. Harry and his crew certainly are.
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I've watched a lot a movies at this point and I've seen almost all of Spielberg's movies. This movie falls way short of a good Spielberg movie, but If this movie can so easily impress you, good for you. You found a movie you enjoy.
Personally I think music plays a very important part in the movies. It builds that emotion between you and the characters. It can uplift you, build drama, create tension. You should leave the theater humming the theme of the movie. This movie had none of that. Just like the art of the guitar solo has left modern rock music. The same is happening with music in movies. It's a shame. What can I say, I just have or have a different interpretation of what an impressive or quality movie should be. -
Jul 04, 2005 9:59:59 AM CDT
Not all Conservatives are christians or even religious for that
by orionsangels
I know Liberals would love to think we're all just crazy religious fanatics, but we're not. That would be like thinking Liberal's are all just weed smoking protestors who are hell bent against the United States Government at all cost.
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I'm not a big Spielberg fan. In fact, I dont' think he's made anything really great in quite a long time. (Saving Private Ryan was good, but the script, without any sort of justification to WHY D-Day had to happen is a huge annoyance to me. I really don't like WWII movies for that reason. From what I hear, QTs WWII movie is going to be different. Anyway..)
I had high hopes for WotW. I was hoping it would be a return to form. It was a good movie. But my god..it was so rushed..so sloppy at times. It completly broke the realm of disbelief.
The thing about a good sci-fi movie, is that while you're watching it, you should be able to ignore the science of it. To ignore the entire realm of science fiction before it and focus on this one thing as a work of art. I couldn't do that with WotW.
It started off bad, with the convienent exceptions to the EMP effect of the lightning (The camera +the car). That was a terrible first step, and it kind of broke the illusion for the entire movie. Then near the end, the derivativeness of the whole thing went into high gear of sorts. The sucker thing looked out of Half-Life..and when they shot down the alien ship and the cockpit emptied...me and my wife looked at each other and frowned. It was kind of a cheap knockoff of one of the most powerful scenes of Neon Genesis Evangelion.
It wasn't a bad movie. It was a pretty good one actually. But it SHOULD have been great. They dropped the ball. -
"Those religions have been around for thousands of years and have some basis in historical fact. Yes there are whacky things in the bible like talking snakes and guys parting seas but most jews and christians see those as parables or metaphores and don't take them literally. That's a far cry from a 50 year old religion thought up by a science fiction writer. Yes there is VOLUNTEER tithing in other religions but in scientology it's mandatory. If you can't aknowledge the difference then you're just being a troll."
Typical for a Christian religious fanatic to ridulcule others into beleiving that their religion is correct and other are wrong. SO, you feel that, 50 years in, Christianity was not a religion? And, please, tell me about god? (note the lower-case on the g). Where is he? Is he a floating mass in the clouds? In our souls? Have you heard about the EleRitous Relgion? Based upon 20 big pink Elephants with Tutus dancing in the heavens? Why does this religion not have as much validity as Christianity? Do you have evidence of Christianity? PHYSICAL. Scientific. Not this FAITH BS! Historical fact? Please! Scientologists have just as much an equal claim to their beliefs than Christians, Muslims, Catholics, Satanists, athiests.
Incidentally, a big question for Christian out there: How come, when a miracle baby or person survives, say, a Tsunami or Plane crash, Christians scream, "God's Child! god saved them!". You hear this all over the pres. BUT, we never hear about the tens of thousands of Chirstian beleiving, God Praying persons who were all bypassed by god, who suffered, were crushed. I say "where was god when those persons needed him?" Please, stop exploting the use of the name of the god for the one who makes it and start begining to let the world know about the millions of god practicing persons who die in suffering accidents every year, DESPITE the fact they pray in this god. QUESTION religion! Stop walking around like lemmings, believing everything mommy and daddy told you. -
That means I recognize the fact that I don't know. No one does. So assuming that I'm a fanatic Christian based on my post is incorrect. Pointing out whatever logistical flaws there are in Christianity doesn't chnage the well documented fact that Scientology was thought up by a science fiction writer on a bet to see if he could come up with a religion and make money. It doesn't change the fact that it's a cult in the truest sense of the word, meaning if you try to leave they come after you. It doesn't change the fact that they make it completly clear that you have to pay money to aheive enlightenment. Not a donation or a tithe, a fee. And it doesn't change the fact that there are several mysterious deaths surrounding this cult that are quickly covered up. All of this is documented. Now without falling back on the "well Christianity sucks too" argument, do you still find it so hard to believe that this "religion" creeps out a lot of people?
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Jul 04, 2005 11:51:43 AM CDT
"...weed smoking protestors who are hell bent against the United
by dog of mystery
You say that like it's a bad thing. Hey 13Thriteen, thnaks for parading your ignorance about the theory of evolution for us all to laugh at. There's no mystery about why there are 'still' apes you cretin, anymore than it is strange there are still fish or dim-witted evolution-deniers - evolution is a hap-hazard process conditioned by habitat and conditions, not some prime directive. If an organism is perfectly suited to its environment and manages to reproduce succesfully, change is not required, Mutations will still occur, the vast majority being not useful or even fatal, so evolution may still follow. It might not be noticible over the course of human history of course, although we see germs and viruses evolving all the time. Where is the tiniest scrap of evidence to suggest the universe was created by design? Because it works? If it didn't we wouldn't be here, but that doesn't mean some celestial father figure waved his magic wand and thus there was a pair of naked hippies and a talking snake. Jesus was a cunt too, if the differing accounts of his life in a book that's supposed to be the Word Of God are to be believed. Sure, he could make the pretty speeches, but why didn't he just use his super-powers to kick the Roman's out of his country rather than fannying about with water into wine party tricks? Scientology is equally nutty of course, people will swallow any old hooey if it makes them feel better. Cowards.
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Pointing out whatever logistical flaws there are in Christianity doesn't chnage the well documented fact that Scientology was thought up by a science fiction writer on a bet to see if he could come up with a religion and make money.
-Fact? Really? Please PROVE this ridiculous statment.
It doesn't change the fact that it's a cult in the truest sense of the word, meaning if you try to leave they come after you.
-Fact? A cult? Proof again please, seeing that you LOVE to use the word FACT. I can just as easily say the same for Christianity. ANd, you say you can't leave? Funny, I know of several persons who tried Scientology and left, no problem, and this is a fact! I can post a few names too if you like. Do you have PROOF on this that it is FACT that if you try to leave, they won't let you? What happens? Kidnap?
It doesn't change the fact that they make it completly clear that you have to pay money to aheive enlightenment. Not a donation or a tithe, a fee.
-HAHAA! this is soooo funny! I love they way you lamefully attempt to differentiate fee and a donation! Nice, yet, bad try!
And it doesn't change the fact that there are several mysterious deaths surrounding this cult that are quickly covered up. All of this is documented.
-You are kidding me, huh? Christianity, and many other religions, through wars, protests, kidnappings, terrorisim, have been the direct source for millions of deaths. Proof? Begin with the persecution of Jesus then move through The Crusades. You are being funny, aren't you?
Now without falling back on the "well Christianity sucks too" argument, do you still find it so hard to believe that this "religion" creeps out a lot of people?
-Not hardly as much as Christianity. Catholism. Both of these religions manipulate and fool billions. Tells lies, sell a bill of good about spirits, make persons feel guilty, guilt them into paying a fee, er, I mean, donation. Scientolgy a small fraction compared to that.
Your last post was simply satire, correct? -
I'm an idiot.
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...I keep seeing comments about aliens not getting sick when they 'brought' the tripods to earth in the first place.
Ludicrous! Use a bit of imagination guys. Who in gods name said they brought them personally? Why couldn't it be that they just sent them as unmanned probes thousands of years ago - to burrow into the planet and remain hidden? The bloody things could have even been programmed to monitor humanities development and then head towards densely populated areas and key strategic points where emergence would cause the maximum amount of damage.
There's hundreds of possibly explanations to that gap in storytelling.
As to the whole, 'wouldn't they have been prepared for germs in the same way that we would if we went to another planet' arguement - well yes, maybe, but only if, like us, they came from an ecosystem which germs and bacteria were a part of. They were aliens after all, why would the biological rules of our planet necessarily hold sway on theirs?
This sort of stuff didn't really bother me, Spielberg probably thought it would be disrespectful to the audience and the source material if he started trying to explain every little facet of the premise.
The thing that did bother me was the Handycam advert that was shoehorned into a sequence which it totally invalidated the logic of.
I expected more creative integrity from Spielberg. -
Se that's why I come to the TBs, it's not just masochism. Gold. makemyfilm, you seem very upset. And very obnoxious. I'm not going to sit here and post links to all the factual recorded data on Scientology, look it up yourself, that's what the internet is for. And it's on computers now too. If you refuse to research it yourself then I honestly could not care less whether you believe me or not. And voluntary tithing is different from a disinct amount of money you have to pay to reach each new level in Scientology. But just nevermind. You're obviously not capable of speaking intelligently on this and living a mile from the Scientology World HQ, I have to deal with enough of this shit in real life.
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-I'm not going to sit here and post links to all the factual recorded data on Scientology
Exactly what right wingers say when painted in a corner with no real facts to back themselves up. Actually, my post wa pretty clear, vs yours, which tends to throw crap into the wind with the hopes that it will desperately stick to something, anything! Shame! -
how the hell did you come to the right winger conclusion? Like I said, do you own research. Start with www.xenu.net, the only one I know offhand. They'll probably have more links including news reports, legal documents, testimony from people who have excaped Scientology and stuff written in Hubbard's own handwriting. And one last thing, over-use of exclamation marks make the bay Jebus, er, Xenu cry.
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Good but uneven. As just about everyone else has pointed out, a great first half and uneven/sentimental second half. Re the germs thing, the point of Wells' novel was that we think we are so great but we lack humility and we can be undone by something so tiny that we overlook it in our arrogance. It was also clearly a reference to Iraq, the USA, for all its high-tech weapons, will leave Iraq with tail between legs sooner or later after having brought appalling destruction to ordinary people. "Not my blood..." says Tim Robbins' character.
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Also sorry to see Spielberg bottled out of having Ogilvy be a deranged religious nut as he is in the book. Instead he combines elements of the curate and the artilleryman who wants to go underground. The US religious right would not take kindly to seeing a christian whack-job endangering everyone.
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Maybe it's just me but I thought there were coded references to Tom's sexuality in the film. When his daughter is watching Spongebob Squarepants (denounced as gay by nutjobs) and a character says something like "we all have our little secrets" as the camera focuses on Tom. The whole hiding-in-the-basement as an intrusive penis-like camera tries to search you out is suggestive and the going-into-a-giant-anus scene has been discussed at length. Maybe nothing or was Spielberg having a bit of fun?
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"I'm gonna shoot this conversation between Ray and another dockworker through the moving wheels of these huge dock vehicles." Bravo, Maestro.
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Jul 04, 2005 9:20:08 PM CDT
Movies have no build up anymore. He takes the kids from his ex a
by orionsangels
Watch close encounters, when spielberg knew how to direct, that's how you build and develop a story. sorry steven, but you've last that magic on this picture.
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Jul 04, 2005 9:36:10 PM CDT
Actually there's only 3 real reasons why people barely go to
by orionsangels
3. You can wait for the DVD, which comes out fairly quickly these days. 2. Get the movie online. 1. It's all been done!
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Close Encounters, Raiders! Classics. Indiana Jones goes under a fucking moving truck! No fucking computers. That's a fucking movie moment right there. That's fucking movie magic. They don't make'em like that anymore, no siree and who says Jaws isn't full a holes? That shark still looks ridiculous when it decides to jump on top of the boat and sink it. Like a big fucking robot! What used to really help spielberg was the boombastic musical score by Williams. Gave ya chills. That's gone in movies these days. The magic is fucking gone. Did I say fucking enough?
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Jul 04, 2005 9:44:20 PM CDT
These so called movie critics on these movie news sites, these H
by orionsangels
Nothing, I just had to build hype so my website gets the most hits.
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Jul 04, 2005 10:56:04 PM CDT
moviemack is a troll and shouldn't be encouraged by any sort
by i dunno
...even by your own set of rules, you're ripping on Raiders? RAIDERS? I get it that you're trolling but are you also brain dead?
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-Like I said, do you own research. Start with www.xenu.net, the only one I know offhand.
Typical for a person who gets painted into a corner to spew at what they call "facts", only to lack the evidence when fully confronted. That link to that site is farciful. No proof there. Just a bunch of religious right screwballs like yourself. -
Saving Private Ryan wasn't a good script because it didn't explain why it was justified? You can't be serious. Welcome to world history. If you want justification look at the 5 years prior to the invasion.
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The movies you are holding responsible for the box office drought - WOTW, Batman Begins, ROTS - are the movies that are doing WELL at the box office. The BO problem is more a problem of depth than anything else. There are a handful of successful tentpole films but they're no longer tentpoling. Also, is it specified in WOTW that it is human germs that take out the aliens? It could have been anything. Maybe the aliens did an environmental survey including all known and unknown organisms that use humans as a host, but fucked up and forgot to test every last bug that occupies the intestine of the red-winged blackbird, and one of those did a species jump and wiped them out. It's a big planet. Not that I think the germ thing is a good plot device or anything - I don't. But I just wanted to point out that drinking the blood of humans doesn't in and of itself expose you to every possible microorganism on Earth.
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$200 million worldwide baby, 5 days! Great BO take for a great movie! This film will make $300 mil domestically indicating that, the world loves this film. So, WOTW haters, tail beneath legs, turn around, and go back and watch the films that are your "Godfathers", movies that include the fine artistic stylings of a one Adam Sandler!
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I never thought I would ever say this, but other than the long intro about shit I dont care about in Mor;s life, he nailed it.
Saw War of the Worlds, twice actually, as weird circumstances came about, but enjoyed it.
Most disturbed that Spielberg felt the need to use 9/11 iconography when he apparently really didn -
The germs I was fine with that's what happened in the book and I'd pissed if they messed with it. The shields was lazy writing, newknuckles made a great point with the mines. I don't understand why not just have their armor be really strong and our rockets and bullets etc could not break it? I guess that would ruin the snack basket scene but whatever.
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That's not to say that he hasn't done some great work...Jaws, E.T., and Close Encounters were all excellent, but they were long, long ago and his work has been uneven since then. I don't understand why he works with David Koepp so much when the guy can't write. Maybe because Spielberg is a bit of a whore and loves these big box office hits even if the movie isn't that good. You would think with $3 billion in the bank, he would only care about making great movies, but I guess you don't get to be that successful without being somewhat whorelike. Well, I liked WOTW, but it's hard not to think what it could have been had some care been put into it.
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Spielberg is great and most directors will never produce as much great work as he has. But my point was that he is viewed as almost "godlike" and he falls way short of that mark. He's technically brilliant, but doesn't seem to care about plot holes, etc as much as he used to. WOTW was a huge rush job and some of it shows...but hey the tripods kicked ass, so I'm still glad I went to see it. I just hate to see something fall so short of a masterpiece when it could have been so much closer with a bit more planning and common sense, etc.
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Jul 05, 2005 6:27:54 AM CDT
"now that we are there we cannot leave without being able to cla
by hypeendshere
everything up till then was garbage. everything after, I'm with you all the way.
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"We have to kill the terrorists". Well that's fine but terrorism isn't one tangible, monolithic thing we can just destroy. It's not one country or one group of people, it's an idea. As long as the reasons behind the terrorism are still there, nothing short of total genocide will stop it. So it's very easy to just say "kill all the terrorists" but that will never happen. And it doesn't help that we invaded the wrong country to begin with. All we did in Iraq was further destabilize the country and create a shitload more terrorists. And everyone with their little magnetic ribbons on the back of their SUVs will eventually realize this and realize that their sons and daughters died for nothing.
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Jul 05, 2005 8:21:04 AM CDT
I've just read a post by makemyfilm that defends scientology
by tonywilson
I Dunno, HypeEndsHere, thank god or xenu or darwin, that you guys have brains.
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Here's the thing with evolution: IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE IN IT, YOU'RE FROM THE PREVIOUS STAGE.
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Jul 05, 2005 8:42:43 AM CDT
Damn. For the first time ever, I think I agree with Moriarty 100
by mortsleam
That's odd. Good movie. Amazing set peices. Loses all focus, momentum, pacing and drama in final reel. Tim Robbins is channeling his broken southie character from Mystic River. Shoulda been Kevin Dillon reprising his crazy survivalist schtick from 24. Either way, it derails the film. That and the fact that aliens aren't particularly threatening outside of their tripods. Why give them tiny baby mouths and big ET eyes? Make the aliens suiqdfaced freaks dripping goo, excise any shot of them startled by bicycle wheels, re-edit the last forty minutes so there's actual TENSION and SUSPENSE and maybe, just maybe, you got something.
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Can't think straight yet.
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Are primo losers. LOSERS.
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at least ID4 doesnt pretend it's anything but dumb fun movie, which is all it is. WOTW plays it so serious, but how can one expect to take it serious when it's even as dumb, or dumber than ID4? i think all these positive reactions/high praise from some TBers and critics are because they missed the glaring(sometimes to the point of making the movie looks idiotic) lapse in logic throughout the movie. and i dont blame them, it's easy to be distracted by the spectacles which hit us fast and furious to notice those. but even then, as you're watching the movie, you cant help noticing them sometimes. some things youjust cant let it slide by easily. seems to me spielberg is solely concerned with creating iconic imagery, and chose to ignore all internal logic. and i thought the estranged father son story comes off like an afterthought as well. it's just as cliche and mediocre a family story as any i've seen. but back to the lapses in logic, really, like many have pointed out here before, there are just too many to forgive: ray's car parked outside his wife's house was fine while the fallen planes totalled everything else; the reporter camera manage to film the lightning while it's supposed to render all electronics dead; characters motivations/actions not belivable(making ray's moment to decide which child he should help seems contrived); crowd that at times comes across like extras being directed than real people(you're telling me panic crowd of hundreds will let a SINGLE row of soldiers stand between them and the ferry?); and of course the idiotic machines burried undetected by archeologists or subway engineers for so long. in today's world... NOT possible. so what... it's burried miles and miles underground then? if so, the movie sure makes it look that they were just under the asphalt - it takes the machine about a minute to rise to the surface; and when the son revealed to be alive at the end, right there it just takes me out of the movie. nothing like making you aware you're watching a spielberg movie than having a son suddenly revealed to be fine at the end when there's no fucking way the son could have survived that tripod attack on the hill. no fucking way. so what i'm saying is... i enjoyed the movie, but it's nowhere near what some of these TBers thought it is. it's no masterpiece, and it's not a serious sci fi for that matter. just because it wants to be taken as a serious movie about alien invasion doesnt make it such. i enjoyed the movie on the same level i did with ID4 - both are visually dazzling but braindead. and yes, harry's proved to us once again that he's the king of hyperbole.
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Jul 05, 2005 10:10:04 PM CDT
Christ, what ASS-END Arkansas Community College do you teach at?
by burlivesleftnut
I weep for our children, you stupid inbred cunt.
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at least ID4 doesnt pretend it's high art. it's a dumb fun movie and it makes no excuses. WOTW plays it serious, but how can one expect to take this seriously when the lapse in logic are so glaring to the point of making the movie idiotic at times. it's even dumber than ID4 if that's possible. i think the positive reactions from TBers and critics alike is because they missed these holes when they're watching it. and i dont blame them. it's easy to be distracted by the spectacles that you might not notice them. and spielberg makes sure the spectacles come at us fast and furisous, so that we really wont notice them. but even as you're watching the movie, these holes are plenty to be found throughout and distracting enough you just cant let slide easily. it's like spielberg solely concerns himself with creating iconic images, and ignore all internal logics. even the story comes across like an afterthought to me - it's as cliched and mediocre family story as i've ever seen. but back to the lapses in logic... people here have mentioned them, and really, there's just no way getting around them: ray's car parker outside wife's house was fine while everything else was totalled by the fallen planes; reporter camera could film the lightning when it's supposed to render all electronics dead; unbelievable character motivations/actions(making ray's moment to choose which child to help seems contrived); crowd that at times seems like extras being directed than real people(you're telling me that hundreds of panic people will let a SINGLE row of soldiers get between them and the ferry?); thousand of years these huge ass machines been underground and not one archeologist or subway engineer have seen them? in today's world that's just not possible. so it's buried miles and miles underneath then? but the movie makes it look like they're just right under the asphalt - it takes the tripod about a minute to rise to the surface; and when the son was revealed to be alive at the end, that took me right out of the movie. mothing like making you aware you're watching a spielberg movie than having the son revealed to be fine at the end of the movie when there's no way the son could have survived that tripod attack at the hill. no fucking way. and personally i thought the grenade scene was out of place. it belongs in ID4 or mission:impossible movie, not WOTW. that close up shot of cruise spitting out the pins out into his hand is too much of an action hero moment that itdoesnt feel right with the rest of the movie. it's like spielberg forgot he's supposed to be directing "serious" alien invasion movie, and not the next installment of indy. so what i'm saying is... i enjoyed the movie. but it's no masterpiece. it's not even a serious sci fi. just because it tries to present itself as a serious alien invasion movie doesnt make it such. i enjoyed it on the same level as i did with ID4 - both are visually dazzling with both are just as braindead.
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Jul 05, 2005 10:51:56 PM CDT
and the ending is lame no matter how many of you purists try to
by cloudrider`
the movie makes adjustment that deviate from the book when it needs to, so why not change the ending as well? the bacteria offing the aliens thing is just lame. it might seem like genius a HUNDRED years ago. a hundred years ago wells even thought mars was red because it's covered in red weed. if spielberg thought martians invaders is not plausible to audience of today's sensibility, then bacteria thing is surely is just as silly. what's with these aliens invading the universe with no clothes on. at least the aliens in ID4 wore protective suits. these retardos in WOTW and Signs deserve their hundred-years-in-the-making invasions totalled in a single night.
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Jul 05, 2005 11:02:11 PM CDT
and... so these machines have been buried thousands of years, ri
by cloudrider`
at least they've been down there before we humans existed, right? otherwise someone would have witnessed it and we would read about it in the bible. and so, my question is... if these machines have been buried that long wouldnt that make these tripod very very outdated for the aliens? ten thousand years(how old are we homo sapiens?) is no bathroom break. so, you think these aliens wouldnt have come up with something far more advanced in all that time to annihilate us with? you're telling me these pilot aliens have to learn to operate ancient relics first before they got beamed down to earth? that's like burrying flame thrower/rocks catapults and thousands years later unearthed them to war even though we already have tanks, fighter planes, nukes? now, that sounds moronic now, doesnt it?
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I though that scene would have been much cooler if the army guy had the grenades instead of Tom Cruise. If, as the army guy was being sucked in, you see him grapple with his grenade belt then seconds later, after he's been sucked in, boom! It would have been such a cool statement about the army guy - this unknown soldier - giving his life to try and save the others. Way more powerful then the usual Bruce-Willis-does-it-all crap that all movies have now. This is just another reason why Speilberg has lost the plot.
Regarding wooden acting, when Tom Cruise was having his meltdown (over peanut butter and jelly sandwiches), it reminded me so much of how good Richard Dreyfuss (sp?) ' s was in Close Encounters. I mean, I felt for him, and for his scared family. With Tom Cruise, it seemed phoned-in and his family seemed so together, even with the girl's little claustraphobia problem (which seemed so contrived). And if you're gonna introduce that claustrophobia issue, why wasn't it used later, like when they were in the basement being hunted by the tentacle-streetlight? Her trying to remain calm would have given the movie some realism and much needed tension.
Oh, and Lando's an idiot. People keep using Hiroshima as such a good example of might and preemptive strikes being a success. Completely diff't situation then the Terrorist War were are waging now. The worst thing any commanding officer could do is really on a strategy that was succesful 50 years ago. The history books are litered with long destroyed societies that never adapted to changing warfare. Read The Sling and the Stone for a great explanetion of this. -
Jul 05, 2005 11:06:47 PM CDT
and the ending is lame no matter how many of you purists try to
by cloudrider`
the movie makes adjustment that deviate from the book when it needs to, so why not change the ending as well? the bacteria offing the aliens thing is just lame, not to mention cliche nowadays what with it being done already in Signs. it might seem like genius a HUNDRED years ago. a hundred years ago wells even thought mars was red because it's covered in red weed. if spielberg thought martians invaders is not plausible to audience of today's sensibility, then bacteria thing is surely is just as silly. what's with these aliens invading the universe with no clothes on. at least the aliens in ID4 wore protective suits. these retardos in WOTW and Signs deserve their hundred-years-in-the-making invasions totalled in a single night.
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Jul 05, 2005 11:10:34 PM CDT
"otherwise someone would have witnessed it and we would read abo
by fluffyunbound
I'm assuming - I'm HOPING - that this is a joke. Right? A joke? Please confirm this.
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no heat sensor? even our 'primitive' technology can do thermal scanning. these aliens have star trek transporter(lightning my ass!) but have trouble finding people in basement??? that sure sounds as dumb as the aliens who have trouble breaking down wooden doors in Signs. and the thing about that tentacle scene is it is a RIP OFF from the same scene in MR and JP. it's tense, sure, but when it played all i could think about was spielberg was running out of original ideas that he now has to rip off his own movies. and like someone else already said, that basement is surely of strategic importance for the aliens to have to come down there not once, not twice, but three fucking times to check it out!
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dont tell me you think you believe in dinosaurs too. it's purely hollywood invention and made belief to make archeology less boring than it is. the bible makes no account that these creatures even existed, and anyone claiming the opposite is just looney. looney i tell you!
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Jul 06, 2005 12:22:58 AM CDT
if you think i was even close to being finished mocking this mov
by cloudrider`
well, you're wrong. i find the movie is now more and more fun for me in that where's waldo way. idiotic contrivances abound in this movie. you just have to know where and how to spot them. and as soon as you find one hole, sometimes it will lead you to another. and i now lay claim to the tripods being too ancient a relic, thousands years too outdated, for the aliens to use, as it seems that my post above was the first to mention this overlooked hole. horray! anyone else spot something new?
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Lando, I understand your concern about our piece-meal occupation of Iraq and the harm it puts on our soldiers but it is of our own doing. We chose to defend our Saudi trading allies. Instead we attacked Iraq, a country that had complete control of its citizenry. A terrorist could not be developed in such a repressed society. Granted, Suddam could have sent some out but he didn't. He was busy with Isreal and Iran. We all know that the way to prevent terrorism is to give people hope and a future. terrorism is born out of despair. We've completely f'd that up for Iraq. And now every back-water country is using our invasion as a pretext to hating the US. These same people who used to want to buy blue jeans and listen to Puffy-puff Daddy are now being reprogrammed to hate us and its easy for them to do. Its way too late to just start bombing sh*t. And as for Japan, we had to convince one person, the Emperor to lay down arms. That's it. The Japanese people at the time would do anything the Emperor wanted - and did. I agree that the bomb (2 wasn't even necessary by any stretch of the imagination!) saved Americans lives as a Japanese soldier would rather die then surrender, after the war, we treated the Japanese with respect and dignity and let them build their own community up. Now I know the troops in Iraq would do the same if given the circumstances but they can't because of the underground insurgency. That's way the similarities are completely different. We didn't so much as occupy Japan (or Germany for that matter) as help them rebuild. Neither country had much of a resitance and this wasn't because of our firepower, it was because of beliefs, religion, and hope. We have to really face facts regarding Iraq. Eventually, we are going to have to let them decide their own fate. Granted we are holding out in the hope that a Democracy will form but if the people want a strict-religious gov't, they'll get it. Of course, many don't but with so much outside interference, its all a crap-storm and we're stuck in the middle. Bombing the Sunni triangle will accomplish what under this scenario?
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News Flash: The US is NOT the only nation in the world with an atomic bomb as in 1945. Comparisons with Japan in WWII are not relevant.
Sorry you bloody cunt, we aren't going to bomb Laos...I mean the Sunni Triangle, so stop dreaming you sick fuck. Go back down to your Star and Bars torture bunker and party with Zed. [...and why the racist moniker mocking Lando/Billy Dee? Does the ONE African American main character in the original trilogy really bother you that much?]
WORLD: Asskisser is a douchebag and a disgrace to true American values (if he is truly an American at all). Advocating carpet bombing of civilians is vile desperation. Warmongering dickheads have been a plague on humanity since ancient times. Asskisser is proof that the gene pool is still infected. -
Lando's asswiper says: "What I want is not more inhumane than what we did to Japan. Have you seen any kamikazees lately? Nope. have you seen any Japanese car bombers? Any suicide bombing by them? NONE. they know better."
Yep, they are NOT thinking about it, they are thinking about defending themselves from the nuclear weapons that NORTH KOREA (the ignored yet, most dangerous leg of the "tripod of evil") now has...which were developed on Mr. Bush's watch. Japan (if not today) can develop nukes in days, furthering proliferation. While morons like you were "teaching lessons" to those who had nothing to do with 9/11 and no WMD. I agree on one thing, we should leave Iraq when the "mission is accomplished"...wait, that was month's ago by Bush's math.
It is difficult not to respond when someone as sick as Lando's Asswiper chimes in. I have no expectation of anything other than bullshit from him, yet the thought that someone could believe that most Americans are as sick and violent as him is likely given our recent behavior. -
I'm sick of people saying what a great performance by Cruise it is, that he plays a humorless asshole who comes to believe in aliens - this may be the first time he hasn't been acting.
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If everyone can just look to Lando's post above. Ok, now anytime the stupid troll comes on here with his inanely and insanely simplified views. Every normal person on here can think back to how he really feels in his heart of hearts and have a good laugh while ignoring his cries for attention. I'll take bets on what trauma from his childhood lead him down the road of pathological idiocy. First up, at 5/2, Mrs Asskissian didn't hold him enough when he was a child. Then at slightly longer odds 7/1 Mr Asskissian raped him when he was a 10 yr old to toughen him up and stop any sensitivity he may have had creeping out. Anyone got any more suggestions?
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Jul 06, 2005 3:47:41 AM CDT
It was "ok" for what it was. But JAMES CAMERON should have made
by commando cody
Spielberg has said in interviews he had to wait quite a few years to make WOTW since ID4 beat him to the punch of doing an alien invasion flick. Well, having finally seen this, I hope someone doesn't wait too, too long as well to try AGAIN. Someone's got to have a great all-out alien invasion flick in them. Overall, I enjoyed the movie for what it was, a mindless popcorn flick. Some nice set pieces, but too many logic lapses as others have already noted (so I won't bother repeating them). In the end, this SHOULD have been so much more with a better, more logic-driven rewrite pulled on it. I can't believe Spielberg or Cruise or Paula Wagner or whoever didn't see that this particular screenplay really wasn't up to speed as much as it should have been. So here's hoping in the next decade someone like Cameron makes an alien invasion flick, because you KNOW he'd have gone all-balls out with the action and destruction AND given his great storytelling sense, it would have been far, far better written overall.
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Jul 06, 2005 3:50:24 AM CDT
"otherwise someone would have witnessed it and we would read abo
by gobofraggleuk
That is the funniest, and saddest, thing I've read in quite a while. Hilarious. Pathetic. Hilarious. Pathetic. I'm torn.
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Oh you are one, entertaining homosexually repressed idiotic motherfucker. Thanks for just being you Lando. Can I have a hug?
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Jul 06, 2005 4:21:58 AM CDT
You were fucking around about bombing Iraq back to the stone age
by tonywilson
Because you seemed pretty serious. You defended your views more than once. Fair enough if it was joke. But with all the crazy shit you get on these talkbacks it's hard to tell.
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Jul 06, 2005 4:54:17 AM CDT
Ok we get the gist. You're a repressed pervert. Were you ser
by tonywilson
It's a simple enough question. If you were then everything I said stands. If you were joking then fine. Let go of your inferiority complex. Seriously can I have hug?
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Yup, up in the July 2 area of this TB. Technology advances in spurts for us humans but why is it necessarily so for "aliens?" Like I said, this is all fiction...science fiction at that. So, one can endlessly speculate and de-speculate the speculative criticisms. ** Lando, you forgot the neutron bomb. We'll need all that oil in Saudia Arabia. Just a suggestion: We at AICN expect, nay, DESERVE originality in our trollers. Your personal attacks only make you come off like a fourteen year old male...hey!, wouldn't that be the target demographic for this movie? Sorry, forgot where I was.
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...come accross as a 16 year old?
Honestly. -
Jul 06, 2005 5:28:33 AM CDT
"Bombing Iraq into the stoneage is something I will always fully
by tonywilson
Ah fantastic, you proved you are a fucking idiot. Because the terrorists wouldnt just leave with everyone else would they? You wouldn't actually cause more muslims to become terrorists and try to destroy the US would you? (those are rhetorical questions btw, don't try and answer them)
Mate you really really can't teach college or whatever you said you did. That is the single dumbest argument for bombing anyone, ever. Oh and don't forget this piece of 6th form rationalization; "Uh yeh we did it worse before, we can do it again"
Hahaha. I was actually slightly concerned you might be influencing young minds. But nah no one that dumb could be a teacher? Right?. LOL.
Yeh Dresden went down as military success. It's just a shame that everyone has agreed it was an atrocity. You don't have a fucking clue about the world or politics, or how to defeat terrorists. You are really good at transference though. And insulting people. I'll give you that. Shame they don't teach those in college, you'd be great. -
War of the World was so completely empty of anything memorable, there is no doubt that Steven Spielberg is lost.
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Your analogy with Japan is not valid. Japan is a country comprised of a military that the US was at war with, formally decared so. Terrorism is not a country or a race or even a religion. It's an idea. You could destroy the entire middle east all you would accompish would be strenghtening the resolve of any survivors. All we're doing in Iraq is making more terrorists and no one is giving a thought to the reason that there is terrorism in the first place.
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He's a raving, poorly educated nut job. Honestly, reading his posts only make me feel sorry for him. I think its hysterical that he thought I was PRO-terrorism because I think he is stupid. THAT IS GENIUS! I am going to start applying logic like that to every avenue of my life. "I'm sorry you think I was speeding officer. You must be a fucking terrorist!"
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...in fact, a recent report by the CIA (I know this administration hates them but they ARE still our guys) stated that the terrorist being trained in Iraq right now will become a WORLDwide problem in four to five years. They are getting the same training (see: live fire excersizes) that we provided to the Muhajadeen in Afghanistan when it was the Soviet's turn in the barrel. Nothing like On The Job Training. Actually, this administration is addressing some of the root causes such as getting the Saudis to drop their support of the Wahabi educational system. Maybe the aliens in WotW could've picked up a few pointers in germ warfare, yes?
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..."Row, Row, Row your boat gently down the stream. Merrily, Mer...What's the matter with you? Can't you sing? YOUR MOTHERS ARE GOING TO DIE! I'M GOING TO KILL ALL YOUR MOTHERS ALONG WITH THE REST OF YOU IF YOU DON'T START SINGING!" [Apologies to Andy Robinson, #1 psycho for my money (till now)from Dirty Harry].
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Lando's point of view is so sad everyone should now not say another damn word to him. The only way to stop his retardedness is to not reply to him. As for how old he is, sixteen seems a little much. If he was that old, he would be driving around in his parent
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So by this logic, you WotW haters are anti-semetic.
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If you are really such a military boy, why don't you spot for the bombings you so want? You know, put yourself in the triangle right before they blast it, just to make sure people are there. Also, what you say really doesn't matter, since your ass will be banned soon enough. Plus for all of your name calling the only one that seems ignorant is you. I bet you also wouldn't let women have the right to choose, would you.
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Landoasskissian disagrees with me. HE MUST BE A TERRORIST LOVER GROVELING AT THEIR FEET.
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...but your views do frighten me. Only because you were right when you said that a lot of other people share your opinions. If you really are a teacher then that's even worse because if you really are a historian then you should know why we're in this thing and how we incurred this whole terrorism thing in the first place. If given all that knowledge you still advocate simply blowing up the mid east then there
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hiya folx, i'm not a Spielberg fan, only movie i really like made by him is "The Duel" also wrapped to be a TV movie. I saw WotW last night with 2 friends. I went anyway just to spend 2 hours in relax, nothing to say about ILM CGI effects, they are top level, sometimes maybe exceeded a bit too much (Highway explosion and most of background explosions). Many of the original novel is taken good especially the end, a bid quick paced according to me but anyway it was the right end. I must say as well i still like more the old movie. I really dont understand the director's point of view. Im tired of Cruise's PPP and costant mindless screaming. The most irritating thing was the screaming i can't believe. By the way, if you want to see a sci fi movie without any deep thinking well go for it. I knew i would be disappointed but no problem with that. I may like or dislike things as everyone else. Sure i would have enjoyied more a better movie in this way and like someone said around here i think what cameron would have done with a potential story like this. Of course it's a remake and remakes aren't a good thing and to make a remake of 150 mln $ i sure could expect mor ethan this. De gustibus. My vote 2 out of 5.
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Jul 07, 2005 3:16:54 AM CDT
Lando, is your name Bob Wilson? Or do you just copy, word for wo
by tonywilson
http://www.spectacle.org/298/wilmine.html
So either you are Bob Wilson or you just plagarise him. Nice going retard, most people who plagarise, plagarise great minds. You copied another dumb twat. Shame on you. -
i stand corrected. thought i was the first. but, i disagree when you said that since this is a science FICTION movie, then speculations dont matter. if that
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easy. how about let the aliens win! it
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Jul 07, 2005 7:54:00 AM CDT
the thing about letting the world destroyed and the aliens win i
by cloudrider`
no one will have the balls to do it,ESPECIALLY spielberg. millions have died, but that
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and while i dont condone the insults he hurled at others, i have to say those are some of the best insults i
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And if it's true that you know a lot of generals who have the same opinions you have, that's not good. How do I use precedent to illustrate that using conventional warfare against terorism is doomed to fail? I'd have to scan all the way back to 10 hours ago. In case you haven't heard, there are a few traffic jams going on in England. So the answer is that we give the mid east a 72 hour warning and then bomb them, assuming that the civilians will leave in time. Guess what, Mr Strategist, the enemy are civilians.
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Please keep posting, dumb fuck. It just keeps getting funnier and more disturbing with every new sentence. Do you have a blog someplace? I want all my friends to read this moronic diarrhea that keeps dripping from your mouth.
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Or is all the gay imagery because you are another closet case? I don't give a shit one way or another. And honestly all the homophobic remarks bother me not even a little bit, because I am gay and I would much rather suck a stink loaf out of Harry's ass then breath the same air as you. As for my point? I thought I made that clear. My point is, you are a dumb shit. That is the end all of the argument. I really feel bad that you can't even tell how zany/moronic/childish/solipsistic your own posts read. If I thought you were joking around, I would say you are a satirist of the highest order, but you're not. And it honestly is infinitely sad that someone like you would teach (which I don't think you do) or claim they are from a military family (um *I* am and trust me, no one sits around their table wanted talking about killing people). You're full of lies and half baked immature ideas. If you disagree with people, that is fine, but honestly your arguments have no basis in any level of the real world we live in. What you say is just ignorant. If you don't want to be viewed that way, then grow up... learn to read... and stop trying to lie to defend your stupid stupid ideas.
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OK, I'm gonna have to chime in here because I think I'm the only one here who can really see both sides of this issue. See, I *am* a gay four-star general. I am torn between my love of killing people of another color or political slant and my love of the wet soft kiss from another man. You can see my delimna? I can't even count the number of times that I have had a man zereo'd in on my sniper-scope, ready to pull the trigger, thinking to myself: "under diferent circumstances, I could love this man".
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Heh. And Lando, yours was beautiful in its own special way. And you can go on and on with all the gay imagery. I have already told you it doesn't bother me. HAVE FUN!
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Here's why. 2 Reasons. #1 The aliens in Mars Attacks were much more interesting and funny. #2 RAW STAR POWER; Jack Nicholson and Tom Jones beat out Cruise and Fanning hands down.
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There has never been, nor will there likely be and end to an alien invasion movie that will top Tom Jones and all the woodland creatures of the forest getting down to the groove of "It's Not Unusual".
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Tom Cruise is Gay. And sterile. His kids with Nicole Kidman were adopted. And the "engagement" to Katie Holmes is to boost both careers. Jessica Alba was offered the part of Tom's wife in real life and turned it down. Scientology money can buy a lot of things. Like a Generation Y wife for a better Q rating in younger demographics.
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Jul 09, 2005 8:03:06 PM CDT
One week at #1 and now #2. Word of mouth just up to the hype.
by sgtelias
Less than half what Fantastic Four made with WOTW on more screens. I agree with the Cameron supporters. What would he have done with a $132 million dollar budget?
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It's in it's second week! The film is still on it's way to make well over 200 million ( I guarantee FF will not come close to that) This year, 200 million is a freaking blockbuster.
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That just can't be said enough. You're a complete mental case. Hate to break it to you but with all that hate and bile in you, you're not making it into anybody's heaven.
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I had to stay away from the thread until I saw the film. Yeah, the rest of the world may have seen it but I had to throw in my $0.02. I loved it. The Tripods were excellent and the carnage is widespread and visceral
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IMO impressive until the point when they emerge from that basement, the morning after fleeing Tommy Boy's New Jersey apt, into the wreckage of the airliner...The movie turns too stagey, episodic, and anti-logical after that, just a series of fairly interesting images...C'mon, the aliens go through everything it takes to develop the kind of technology they display, including space travel, and never take germs (ie Unfriendly Environments 101) into account? Or think to wear a robe when they go outside to look at the bike E.T. in that farmhouse?
Some nice f/x work though. In parts. -
...that lead to the film not being as great as it could've been. I have a feeling that while Spielberg is going through a 'dark phase' in his filmmaking career he still has an undeniable urge to lighten things up and in this film it becomes quite evident. The tonality of the film has two polar opposites which clash. We have the very holocaust-ish survivor stuff that shows trains on fire, planes wrecked, people swarming, the ugliness of desperate man with the car, bodies floating down the stream. These are all moody, dark, sombre and very real parts that would've been so effective if the tripods didn't shoot purple and yellow (and whatever other colours) rays that evaporated ppl. It just seemed like it belonged in a 'fun popcorn' movie like ID4 as opposed to this which tried to take it very seriously. And with the 'million years' statement, nobody actually knew when the aliens arrived with their death machines. It was just conjecture by Tim Robbins' character. And I was quite happy with the virus killing the aliens, it was just in the execution of it all that it was lost because it was just so all of a sudden. Would've been nice to see the seeds planted from the beginning. Maybe when the aliens enter the basement one of them coughs or something. I dunno, I'm no Spielberg so maybe I'm just speaking out of my ass.
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There are two stages in Spielberg's career: before and after becoming a father. It always struck me at how easily the Richard Dreyfuss character abandons his wife and kids in Close Encounters. Spielberg could not relate. Looking at ET for the first time as a father, he realized all the guns were misplaced, so he removed them in the DVD.
WOTW is simply the story of a shallow father that realizes late in life that the one thing that, truly matters is his children. The backdrop happens to be an alien invasion. On that level, this movie is awesome. Unfortunately 95% of you here won't be able to really appreciate this fact. Watch this movie after you have had been playing daddy for a few years, and it takes on a whole different meaning. If you leave the theater complaining about how the aliens were transported via lightning bolts, that's not the point Spielberg was focusing on. He doesn't need to apologize.
I'm also surprised about the griping I read concerning how Ray brought down the Tripod. HELLO. This is a nod to Luke bringing down the AT AT Walker in Empire. Where do you think Lucas got the idea of the Walkers? -
Jul 11, 2005 11:27:43 AM CDT
Hey, the Happing Ending feels like a Dream, just like MINORITY R
by drath
I'm not one of the unhappy ending whores who only want Spielberg to give them a merciless wicked depressing ending just for the sake of having one....but the ending was so abrupt with the family all being intact and right where Ray thought they'd be...that I ended up wondering if he really did get turned into fertilizer and was now in Heaven for finally risking his life to save his daughter (everything else he did up until then might have been self serving until he chased the Tripod after she was taken--except maybe for going home after the first barrage, but he was in shock then). From that moment on, the War started to turn around after no hints at all that anything was going wrong with the Aliens' plans. It's the same way in Minority Report, the ending could easily be a dream that Anderton is having now that he's in dreamland prison. It's almost like Spielberg is having his cake and eating it too, giving you a happy ending that might actually be fake. Okay, I guess all Spielberg's movies could be seen that way (Brody didn't really shoot the Shark in Jaws! Indy and Marion didn't keep their eyes shut in Raiders! Grant really did get eaten in Jurassic Park! David never got out of the amphibicopter!), but still, it was more noticable in the Spielberg/Cruise movies than most others. *********************** I don't agree with Mori about Dakota Fanning have the better role of the two kids. The son only acted angry? Sure, but all she gets to do is freak out and be generally annoying. Is that realistic? Maybe, but I think most kids would go numb long before she finally did. I think this was a waste of the actress's precosciousness too. At least Spielberg made use of Haley Joel Osment's talents in AI, I don't think most kids his age would have felt so unsettling, but here I felt like SS could have had any quasi-talented child playing this Fay Ray role. **************** Also, now that I've seen the movie I see why Mori didn't say anything about family dramas in SS's other alien movies. WotW's resolution is so predictable that it seems to be irrelevant next to the imagery and the subtle-as-a-rhino-horn-up-the-ass anti-war subtext. It's not irrelevant though. This is a war seen through the eyes of a "draft dodger," or at least someone who is just trying to survive. If Close Encounters and ET showed the desintigration of the original nuclear domestic unit, WotW shows the consequences as the family is nearly whiped out by war and tragedy. This is not the "God punished me" stuff we saw in SIGNS either, this is plain old human frailty, our own pettiness ruining our lives. The movie even seems to suggest that the only savlation lies in fantasy (because again, the ending felt like a tacked on dream, and I'm not sure that wasn't intentional). Maybe I'm giving the movie too much credit for thinking that way, or maybe I'm not. I didn't love it, but I felt there was a lot to talk about. To Moriarty's credit, he says as much in his review even if he doesn't see everything I saw in it, and I'm sorry I took him to task for being pretentious about it.
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WOTW rules. Very scary, very memorable, and it will stand the test of time. This is the first true post-9/11 film to come out.
I think you TBers are fucked in the head. -
Suck on that bitches... Hey, wait a minute, I was just kidding. Where'd everybody go? Don't worry about it. I'll turn out the lights.
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