War Of The Worlds

[Alethia]

enjoyable, didn't think it was that intense however.  the gay bad-father resentful-kids thing was handled really well at the beginning, but the scenes later fucking sucked (the car scene, the scene with his son as the tanks drive by, the end).  i would rather have not seen the aliens.  action was handled very well, and the mob scene around the van was very very intense.  great fun.

[Ghostboy]

GT says this has no focus or clarity, but that doesn't make any sense to me - it does lack clarity, but that's because of the intense focus, which keeps the special effects in the periphery and puts the experience of the invasion front and center, rather than the invasion itself. And this is a great thing, because otherwise, indeed, this would just be another variant on - well, on all the cinematic variants of the original Wells novel, which were too bombastic to end as simply and organically as the book did. I'm very pleased that the movie's scope was so limited, and that it followed the book so closely - in this constriction, Spielberg really seems to find new opportunities, a new story to tell. Yes, it's about destruction - I personally think that's the point of it. As I wrote in my full length review, he's using the strict context of Wells' story to reinterpret a disaster that has in this mass media age become a pop culture cliche. This is far more valuable, at least to me, than another rollercoaster ride of an invasion film - or, for that matter, Jurassic Park, which I was never that fond of anyway.

Would it have been better had John C. Reilly played the dad? Sure, but I'm not going to complain - I like Cruise enough, and liking him is enough to make the movie work (whereas if you don't like him, you're screwed from the get-go). And yes, to get into semantics, he could have afforded that car, and that it costs more than his house is a good bit of character development. Notice the engine sitting on the kitchen table? All there for a point.

I loved Signs, and will be in the minority in thinking that it is ultimately a more finely constructed film than this; but this takes the whole subjective invasion story to an entirely different level - the same means to a very different, and ultimately better end.

It lacks the imagination of Minority Report and A.I., or the joy of any number of his films, but there's no need for that in this story, and I'm glad Spielberg did something different.

[w/o horse]

It's way better than independance day. And if you think this is his worst movie you obviously haven't seen 1941

1941 is still better than The Terminal.

I haven't seen WotW yet, but this statement has been quoted for truth.

[SHAFTR]

I enjoyed it a lot, so far my pick for best film of 05.  The actions sequences were great and the film never slows up.  It reminded me of Jurassic Park, and that is a good thing.  I don't know why, but I always fall for Spielberg's americana and always added cheesiness, kind of in the Capra way.

[MacGuffin]

IGN Interviews David Koepp
In depth on War of the Worlds with Spielberg's screenwriter.
 
How cool is it to write something and get to see it really pay off in movie theaters? David Koepp gets to see exactly how cool it is. He wrote or co-wrote Spider-Man, Lost World: Jurassic Park, Mission: Impossible, Panic Room and Carlito's Way. True, talent does rise to the top in Hollywood, but don't you still have to be a little lucky? I mean, you type a scene in which alien invaders destroy New Jersey's Bayonne Bridge, concrete and cars and trucks bouncing every which way, and Steven Spielberg makes it happen. My guess is David Koepp considers himself a little lucky. Could any success in Hollywood really be taken for granted? One just gives it their best shot, and Koepp has done that more than a few times. He's also directed his share of movies: Secret Window, Stir of Echoes, The Trigger Effect and Suspicious.

But today the focus of attention is, what else? War of the Worlds. IGN FilmForce's Steve Head recently spoke with Koepp about getting this new version of the science fiction classic on paper for Spielberg.

IGN FILMFORCE: The New York premiere is tomorrow night but you've already seen the movie?

DAVID KOEPP: Yes, about three weeks ago.

IGNFF: I dug it. I loved destruction and all that stuff. I'm not slighting my sensibilities admitting that, it's just this is pretty far away from an art house film and it has a non-typical ending. There were some people who walked out of War of the Worlds saying, "It's atrocious." I'm thinking to myself, "Why?" I mean, I like to understand why somebody doesn't like something. It probably doesn't do any good for us to go into detail about the ending because we want to protect our readers from spoilers, but what would you say to somebody who doesn't agree with the ending? You can't for the most part change somebody's mind on a movie, but what can you say to someone to make them think about it the way you saw it? Is this faithful to the original story? Was the ending too abrupt?

KOEPP: Was the ending too abrupt? I don't think it is.

[SPOILER WARNING: Koepp next discussed spoilers relating to the ending of the movie – if you want to read the spoilers, click and drag your mouse over the below blank space. If you're avoiding spoilers, just continue reading with the next question.]

It is exactly faithful to the book. I think if you look at it again, the ending is set up throughout; you know what their fate is going to be. But also, the ending of the story is really the ending of [Ray Ferrier's (Tom Cruise)] story with his kids, not so much the ending of what became of the invasion. The invasion failed, but we weren't... we made a conscious choice from the beginning to make the story of the movie about the invasion from space. The plot follows this guy and his kids. And the conclusion of the plot is when it goes from being a father who would do nothing for his kids to a father who would do anything for his kids, including die. So, once that's done, that was our movie. And what becomes with the invasion is, we also felt like it's such a well-known piece of material, and we say from the very first shot of the movie it's going to be bacteria, just like you read in the book if you're paying attention. So that to us didn't seem like the kind of movie we were making. You know how Independence Day ends with the big fight scene and where they figure out the computer virus and they blow up the ship and all that. We just weren't interested in How Does Randy Quaid Defeat The Aliens? You know what I mean? It's more about how does [Ray Ferrier] reconcile himself with fatherhood? That was our story. We feel like that story was fully told.

IGNFF: What were some of the challenges adapting the book? Was there a lot of freedom that Steven gave you or did he have specifics about certain things that he wanted to do?

KOEPP: The nice thing about Steven is in the first draft he'll always, he lays back. He'll have a few ideas and he'll say, "This would be nice and that would be nice and if you could work in a scene where..." Blah, blah, blah. But then he'll just say, "Now go write it." Even if you ask additional questions, he'll say, "I have an opinion but I'd rather see what you do, so why don't you just write it." Because I think he just feels like from the first draft he wants to get your opinion. What he pays for is your opinion, you know? And he wants to get that because he knows perfectly well he's going to have his way with the script, and if he wants something in it he knows that it's going to end up in it. But what he'd like to do is get your opinion first.

IGNFF: You've been working with him for a very long time. Does Steven go to you as a Go-To Guy? Does he really trust your instincts on certain things? Give you a lot of trust?

KOEPP: I think so. I mean, I think the fact that he keeps hiring me I think shows me trust; that he's giving me trust. I think so. We see movies in a similar way, which is fun. What's good is I was a little more calm this time than I had been in the past because I was really nervous. On Jurassic Park I was like twenty-nine and it was very hard to forget like, "Oh, my God I'm working with Steven Spielberg," you know? Which tends to freeze you up a little bit. And this time I was just a little more relaxed about it and I think I did better as a result. What's fun though is what hasn't changed: it's that all movies still have to start with a couple people sitting in a room saying, "What about a scene where...?" And that aspect of pitching and coming up with ideas is still great. [Spielberg] is incredibly boyish and enthusiastic about it. That's the fun part and it's the part of the movie-making where anything is possible; where it's as good as you see it in your mind. When the movie finishes, it can be really good, but it's never quite as good as what you saw it in your head because that's impossible.

IGNFF: There are some shots in this film that are quite amazing. For one, the extended sequence on the highway with Ray and his kids in the minivan. There's no edits and the camera swings around them.

KOEPP: Isn't that amazing?

IGNFF: It is.

KOEPP: That was on a soundstage.

IGNFF: My film appreciation course leads me to say I hope some in the audience appreciate that.

KOEPP: I know. It's amazing. They shot the footage on a motorcycle. The camera footage behind them was from a camera mounted on a motorcycle on the highway and the actors were on a stage with a blue screen, and it's so seamless. (He laughs)

IGNFF: A couple minutes into that shot I was thinking, "Damn! There isn't even an edit in this shot so far." And the camera pulls back to a wide shot. Impressive.

KOEPP: The filmmaking is astonishing.

IGNFF: Did you write that scene as is or how does that work?

KOEPP: I didn't write it as one shot. I wish I did. (He laughs) But, I wrote them as people in a car talking, racing down the highway.

IGNFF: I'm guessing Spielberg can just take your stuff and see it in an entirely different way?

KOEPP: What's amazing is, I did the three movies for Brian De Palma and now the three for Steven. Whenever I show up on the set with Brian, what he's doing is always the mirror of what I wrote. You know, so if I wrote it and I pictured the door on the left, I go to the set and invariably the door is on the right, just because he brain must be exactly backwards from mine. (He laughs) With Steven I write it and I see it in 2-D. Then I go to the set and it's in 3-D. Like shot around the car, I would of course just picture the usual set-ups, or when they swim across the river and they get that big view of all the death and destruction, I saw them as swimming across the river, climbing up a bluff and looking back across the river and seeing down below. But the way Steven shot it, it's happening all around them. It's happening in the foreground and in the background and they're in the middle instead of as if they're seeing it.

IGNFF: What you'd thought of as one shot became much more than that.

KOEPP: Yeah, it was a bluff on the river over on the Connecticut side, but the tripods were on both sides. I'd pictured them all happening over there and [Ray and his kids] get up and look and you cut to their faces and you cut to the tripods. And instead [Spielberg] shot it as one big swirling nightmare.

IGNFF: I was pretty much blown away by it. I mean there's some things that happen on the screen that make me think, "Damn, this is some unreal s***."

KOEPP: (He laughs) It's cool.

IGNFF: The ferry sequence. That's like some super production value going on there, that maybe only Spielberg can do.

KOEPP: Maybe in terms of accomplishment. He's the only one who can do it in terms of the price he does it for. I mean it's really an affordable movie for what happens in it.

IGNFF: An epic bargain?

KOEPP: (He laughs) Yeah, I mean he's so economical when he shoots. If you can ever get on his set for a story someday it's fun to just watch how quickly and decisively he moves.

IGNFF: How is it for you when you're on the set with him? Being the writer, do you get to do that that much, be around when he's working?

KOEPP: I'll go sometimes. But I don't really like to go to the set because, or I didn't for long periods of time, because they're interpreting what you wrote, they're not just recording it and they're not doing it just exactly the way that you saw it, and that feels weird, you know? So it's just better to go away and let them do it because they've got to do their job; they've got to change it a little and they've got to make it work for them and it's not always fun to be around that. What's amazing is how quickly he shoots and how quickly he'll compose a master [shot]. With a dialogue scene you'll see it and it's just coming together in his head, but it's amazing. He shot this in seventy-two days, which is crazy. Nobody could have shot this in seventy-two days; they would have needed a hundred-and-forty.

IGNFF: And he's able to get what he wants out of his actors. You know, I mean this isn't some kind of lame soap opera or TV movie or something like that where you've got two, maybe three chances to get the shot and then move on. They really deliver. In their early character-defining interactions the actors come across naturally, as real, no forced affectations, all great interaction.

KOEPP: Yeah, he makes them work.

IGNFF: In studying the book, what made you most excited about adapting it? What gets you jazzed about doing this new interpretation in screenplay form?

KOEPP: The first thing that caught my attention, and I hadn't thought about it when I read it as a teenager or when I first saw the movie or when I listened to the musical version about a hundred times in my dorm room in college... are you familiar with the musical version?

IGNFF: No, I've never heard it before.

KOEPP: A lot of your readers will know it. It's big on the Internet. Jeff Wayne, a British musician, in the '70s did a musical version of War of the Worlds narrated by Richard Burton, which you've got to get a hold of. You can get it on Amazon. It's great. It had a slight disco influence, which was unfortunate, but mostly it was rock and roll which was great. It was the sort of thing you listened to if you were in college in the Seventies or early Eighties with towels shoved under your door. (He laughs) I listened to it like a hundred times. So I knew the story really well but what I had forgotten was the way H.G. Wells told it; it was strictly first person, except for that little section in the middle where he talks about his brother and what he'd gone through in London. You stick with the narrator the whole time. If he doesn't see it, you don't see it. He hears rumors about what's going on elsewhere in the world, but he doesn't know if it's true or not.

IGNFF: You've worked in a scene where you've got townspeople talking while Ray and his family push through a crowd. You know, where one guy's saying Europe was incinerated and a moment later another guys says he'd heard they were able to fight them back. You don't know what to believe.

KOEPP: Yeah, and they're wrong and you know... But that's the key to our movie, because we've seen so many alien movies and so many disaster movies we can sweep the clichés off the table if you just limit ourselves to one person on the periphery. That idea seemed exciting to me because, then I got to the cellar section in the book and thought, I want to see if I can run this between what is traditional the climax of the movie structurally, let's see if we can run twenty pages in a basement, you know? And see if the audience will stay with it. Because that's usually when these kinds of movies are exploding and you're cutting back and forth between the Taj Mahal and Washington, D.C. and the Great Wall. Let's go in a basement instead and try as much as possible upend what we've seen before in this kind of movie. That's what's exciting I thought.
 
IGNFF: It's an interesting perspective; a change in the presentation. I was telling a friend last night that I was so sick of the needless voiceover from a news anchor telling you what's going on from some TV station or report.

KOEPP: That was one of the other things we wanted to get rid of.

IGNFF: With one exception I think.

KOEPP: The one lapse in our rule – because one of our rules was No On-Camera TV People except at the very beginning, but that's only because they turn it right off. But we really needed that information about how the [alien's tripods] came down, to see it in order to understand it. So we had that news van. And the only way we figured we were still sticking to our rule was she was the news producer not the on-camera person. (He laughs) That was the only way we could coolly rationalize it.

IGNFF: Was Ray and his family always on his way to Boston? Was Boston part of your original concept?

KOEPP: As I saw it, yes. I wanted it to be road movie and I wanted them to be getting to something very elemental, like Mother. Because everything in the movie is about something elemental: food, shelter, heat, survival. I picked Boston because I wanted the river crossing and I felt like I needed the river, but also it's old. I wanted like the Ironbound and the docks to represent this kind of rustbelt American early industrial look to contrast with the super-sophistication of the tripods. I wanted Boston because it's old and it also represents the birth of our country and it's got some antiquity to it.

IGNFF: What's interesting is we'd interviewed Spielberg a couple of times for his other movies, A.I., Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can, and I don't recall him ever mentioning that he was doing War of the Worlds or that he was even interested in it. There must have been in the back of his mind, War of the Worlds, but he wasn't saying anything to us. Then a few months later, he's starting production on War of the Worlds. How did you keep that thing under wraps?

KOEPP: [Spielberg] wouldn't give [the screenplay] to anybody. I would email it to him, and he would give a section of the script that was relating to whatever somebody was doing. Like only five people read the whole script.

IGNFF: I guess he really knows what he wants to be secretive about.

KOEPP: Yeah, to quite a scary degree. (He laughs)

IGNFF: Really, is there anything I shouldn't know?

KOEPP: I don't know. I don't know it. (He laughs) I think deep down it bothers Steven that I was allowed to read the script.

But you know, that personal point of view was really the interesting thing to me. The other was the political aspect of it, because I thought even though we try never to deal overtly with the present day world situation.

IGNFF: A connection could probably be drawn from Ogilvy's (Tim Robbins) line "Occupations never work."

KOEPP: There was one line that I overwrote a little bit because I couldn't resist.

IGNFF: Was it the "occupation" one?

KOEPP: Yeah, but Steven was smart enough to have him off camera while he's saying it. The great thing about the book is, if you look at its history, it was written in the 1890s about British imperialism. When Orson Welles moved it to the late '30s it suddenly became about fear of fascism, you know, like the rise of fascism and "Oh, they're coming to get us." In the early '50s, of course, I think it was about the fear that the commies are coming to get us, and that's why religion became so important in the George Pal movie because the commies were godless, we believe in God, and that's what's going to save us in the end. Now today, it will be interpreted... politically I think the movie will be seen as a prism that will reflect whatever people already believe. Some people think it's about terrorism in this post 9/11 American paranoia; I think elsewhere in the world it might be viewed as an allegory about the Iraq war; in other countries where they're afraid of an American invasion they might see it differently.
 
IGNFF: Yes, one may just draw from War of the Worlds what they already believe, as if they'll see it from their paradigm; they're thinking a certain way, they'll connect with or read certain elements.

KOEPP: It's like most people tend to read... I mean, like you know how you only read op-eds that you agree with already? It's like I can't bring myself to get more than two paragraphs through David Brooks so I'll go and read Bob Herbert who confirms what I already think is true.

IGNFF: There's a comfort in that. It's like working in an ideological comfort zone. It doesn't rub you the wrong way and then repel you. I guess you're right, people are going to draw out of it whatever they want. Do you think this War of the Worlds might rub some people the wrong way?

KOEPP: No. Well, my crass response is that's actually good. That means they'll be talking about it. If other people want to defend or attack it, they have to go see it. (He laughs) If people are talking about it and some are upset I think it just sells more tickets.

IGNFF: Makes me think, Sam Peckinpah believed that anyone talking about his movie, whether it was good or bad, it was a good thing for the box office and they'd see the movie was good.

KOEPP: You know, this is the first intelligent conversation I've had about the movie. The only other people I've talked to they're like on-camera entertainment show people. (He laughs) Their teeth are so bright I can't concentrate on what they're saying.

[Gamblour.]

Am I the only one who saw serious class issues?

SPOILERS

First of all, the aliens, as we see them, begin attacking in Tom Cruise's neighborhood, which is essentially a working/mid-class neighborhood. Where do they run to? The mother's house, the rich white suburban home, which has been untouched. When the aliens make their way there, they yet again run, now to Boston where they find the rich white family standing in cardigans, sipping tea, not covered blood or ash, and they're wondering what all the racket's about. I dunno, it's the only thing besides the ending that pissed me off.

I think its great that the story feels like its intentionally meandering, because it's what's really happening, the characters are forced to wander from situation to another without any really sense of planning or destination. They see a shotgun raised in the air, they know that whoever holds it is their best option. They just react and move.

[Finn]

now this has to be a publicity stunt:

From IMDB....

Cruise Believes in Aliens

Hollywood actor Tom Cruise believes in aliens - claiming it would be arrogant to think we, as humans, were alone in this universe. The movie star is currently promoting his new film War Of The Worlds, which sees him on the run from extra-terrestrials who cause havoc on earth. In a interview with German newspaper Bild, Cruise says, "Yes, of course (I believe in aliens). Are you really so arrogant as to believe we are alone in this universe? Millions of stars, and we're supposed to be the only living creatures? No, there are many things out there, we just don't know." Cruise is a long-time follower of the controversial Church of Scientology and is believed to be converting his fiancee Katie Holmes to the religion.

[modage]

http://www.xixax.com/viewtopic.php?t=2733&start=180

[SHAFTR]

now this has to be a publicity stunt:

From IMDB....

Cruise Believes in Aliens

Hollywood actor Tom Cruise believes in aliens - claiming it would be arrogant to think we, as humans, were alone in this universe. The movie star is currently promoting his new film War Of The Worlds, which sees him on the run from extra-terrestrials who cause havoc on earth. In a interview with German newspaper Bild, Cruise says, "Yes, of course (I believe in aliens). Are you really so arrogant as to believe we are alone in this universe? Millions of stars, and we're supposed to be the only living creatures? No, there are many things out there, we just don't know." Cruise is a long-time follower of the controversial Church of Scientology and is believed to be converting his fiancee Katie Holmes to the religion.

I doubt it is.  He has an alien movie and someone asks him if he believes in aliens.  He answers yes, an answer many of us would probably give.

[cine]

what the.. do some of YOU think we're the only people in the universe? come on now.


oh and for the record, spielberg has said FOREVER that he believes in aliens. so this shouldn't be a huge deal to anyone..

[RegularKarate]

Yeah, I don't understand how that's a "publicity stunt".

Okay... saw this last night and... oh yeah SPOILERS!!!

...the movie is amazing as an experience, but fails as a complete film.  The ending is so boring and abrupt (yes, I'm aware it's how the book ends) and the kid living was predictably aweful, but everything until Tim Robbins shows up is so intense and expertly executed.

The spinning around the mini-van shot?  Fuck You! That was incredible!

And it was so 80s... it was like the other side of E.T.  We've got divorce from the parent's view and we've got bad aliens instead of good aliens.  
The CG matched the classic camera-work so well that you just buy everything that's going on... man... amazing.

I think this is the film's problem... it's so intense that it can't do anything but piss-out in the end... Speilberg endings can't work with a movie like this... and this is no exception.

but the rest of the film... wow.

[thadius sterling]

I loved Signs, and will be in the minority in thinking that it is ultimately a more finely constructed film than this; but this takes the whole subjective invasion story to an entirely different level - the same means to a very different, and ultimately better end.

I completely agree, I loved signs. And it was more intricately constructed, balanced on a pinpoint even. But the subjective invasion is uprooted, and is more wide-scale. In Signs they come like a theif in the night almost, in WoW they launch a military attack. I also liked that Spielberg did a good job of de-cruising cruise.

And I actually liked the Terminal I have no excuse, either. It seduced me with its sappy cliche movie mechanics.

[MacGuffin]

FEATURE - Industrial, Light and Muren
For Dennis Muren, the wizard of George Lucas' special effects house ILM, the highlight of War of the Worlds occurs at the very beginning. Source: FilmStew.com

The images of death and destruction and alien attacks on view in the original 1953 version of The War of the Worlds still play out in Dennis Muren's mind, even now, even though he's blowing audiences away beginning today with his work on Steven Spielberg's latest sci-fi adventure, War of the Worlds.

"I know everything they went through," says Muren of the original's director, Byron Haskin, and his visual FX crew, during a recent interview with FilmStew. "I saw that when I was six years old, when it came out, and I still remember it. Green is still my favorite color because of that movie, because the ray machines had these green things on the side. They shot most of the effects for that in three weeks, which is amazing. They had no time on it."

"But I understand definitely where they came through and what they had to work with," he continues. "So I'm very aware of the past. I think it's a good time now to be doing this stuff. There are thousands of kids coming out of schools that want to do what I do. Most of them need to study filmmaking. They're studying how to use a computer and that's important, but that's not what my job is about."

Muren's job on War of the Worlds and so many other features such as The Abyss, Terminator 2 and Episodes I and II of Star Wars is that of visual effects supervisor. And so, for War of the Worlds, he helped devise the lethal tripods, the stark imagery of people blasted to dust, the actual aliens on view, and all the shots of stuff crashing down real good.

"I just saw it two nights ago for the first time," marvels Muren as he addresses his handiwork and that of the ILM team he oversaw. "Seeing it with the sound and all was really great. But I think the intersection sequence (in which the alien tripods materialize in a New Jersey neighborhood) is just terrific -- the way that grows from this sort of benign event in the street to another level to another level to the tearing of the church to the church collapsing to the ground to the things emerging to the very stillness of them to suddenly them moving to blasting to walking."

"And that's all from the script."

Muren gives all the credit to his high-profile collaborators for setting such a dynamic cinematic stage. "The way it's staged, and it grows and grows and grows, it's just brilliant. It's just great."

"Steven and [co-screenwriter] David (Koepp) came up with that," he continues. "[It's] slow knowledge of who your enemy is. You don't even know yet it's invincible. You don't find that out until a little bit later on in the story. You're always learning more about [the enemy], which is what I think probably happens in a real war situation, with a primitive people being attacked by another, more advanced technology people."

In some ways, it harkens back in reverse to the horror of Vietnam films like Platoon, with an urban jungle standing in place of a tropical one. "You wouldn't be able to understand it [the invasion]," suggests Muren. "You'd hear a sound over there and something's hitting you in the shoulder. You don't even know what's happening.

Right now, Muren is leading the charge at ILM to do more in less time and still do it better than the competition. It's part of an overhaul tied into the FX company's move from the Lucasfilm compound in San Rafael to the old Presidio grounds in San Francisco. Muren, in fact, skipped out on Revenge of the Sith in order to follow through on the project, but made time for War of the Worlds when it fell into place at an unexpectedly brisk clip.

Ask Muren what's next for him and, wearily, he says: "Vacation. I never look ahead. I won't know anything for a few more months yet." And query him about a next classic sci-fi film to reinvent and he smiles.

"I don't know," he muses. "I haven't really thought much about that. I've got a lot of favorites, and War of the Worlds sort of came out of nowhere. There's been talk about making Forbidden Planet and sort of doing that as another classic."

[modage]

the movie is amazing as an experience, but fails as a complete film.

i think this sums up exactly how i feel about it.

[mutinyco]

This was one of the most ruthless, astonishing displays of filmmaking prowess I've ever seen. Period.