War Of The Worlds

[MacGuffin]

NEON being spelling accurate would be like McMurphy after the lobotomy in "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest."

[NEON MERCURY]

hahahahaha....

i can't help it...i think i have reallly shakey fingerss..

[mutinyco]

Is that before or after the pillow treatment?

[Stefen]

haha look at yourself, cause I am, and i'm laughing. HAHA. Neons a good guy.

[Myxo]

SPOILERS

Just got back from War of the Worlds. Mixed feelings..

Best special effects I have seen in a very, very long time. Spielberg is an absolute genius at getting you really fucking scared of his monsters. I won't sit here and name the number of times I was astonished at the CG skills it took to bring this together and make it truely frightening. There were just too many brilliant moments. Everything from how the machines nuked people to the horrifying sounds they made. Fucking awesome..

..and that said, here comes the stuff that didn't work for me..

The film worked really well until they shacked up with Tim Robbins for 30 minutes. I was totally ready for Cruise to get out there and discover some "master plan" for getting through the shields of these things. Did anyone else notice that they did actually make a point to note that our weapons didn't work? Who else caught that people in Japan brought these things down.

"They must have a weakness!"

All of this was, in my mind, preparing the audience to be ready for our hero to sort things out. Instead we're brought to the edge of our seats and led to believe that a super intelligent race didn't do enough homework to realize that after an invasion, they couldn't survive here.

Somebody's gettin fired on their home planet for this fuckup. They can build tripods of doom but didn't bother to take a soil sample or study our atmosphere? Didn't Morgan Freeman tell us that they'd planned this invasion for millions of years? Hell, they placed those machines in our ground long before we were even here. If they wanted our planet so badly, why the fuck did they wait until we could potentially do something to defend ourselves? Shit, invade Earth in the late 19th century and they wouldn't need EMPs!

Anyway, I was disappointed that Spielberg portrayed the human race as maggots. In the end, all it took was a little bit of what we've evolved to resist and the movie ended because the aliens couldn't hack it.

..not a very cool story. Gotta be a better way to tell it and still amaze me with effects.

[mutinyco]

Doesn't bother me anymore than Jack Torrance failing in his quest, then freezing to death with an absurd expression on his face...

[modage]

..not a very cool story.

well then, it's hg wells that you dont like, not el spielbergo.

[Tictacbk]

Shit, invade Earth in the late 19th century and they wouldn't need EMPs!

That's how it went down in the book...you know back when the story was concieved...in 1898

[SiliasRuby]

Saw this last night and was quite blown away and even though that Myxomatosis was right about the certain flaws of the film. It still had many moments. Woosh, it jolted me.

[ProgWRX]

Personally i LOVED it. For some reason i was in the absolute perfect mood to watch this movie. From the moment the lightning started to hit and the mood turns desperate and gut wrenching my face was fixed in a strained tight lipped fashion. I got so much into the story that i had to hold back tears when the people started getting pulverized. It felt as if i held my breath during that whole sequence of the first attack to the point where he reaches his house, full of human-dust.

I used to feel so jaded about alien invasion movies and at first i had only a passing interest in this movie, i knew i was going to see it eventually because of the spielberg/cruise combination, but as the movie started getting reviewed and i saw that the human element was so important in the film, i started getting more and more excited about it, and i gotta say it didnt dissapoint. I was ready for the sort of anticlimactic ending, and aside from a couple of problems (SPOILERS**********************  like the kid coming back in the end ***************************************** end SPOILERS)
i gotta say i enjoyed every minute of it.

Moments that stuck with me:

- the guy breaking into the windshield bare handed
- the way they shot the initial sequence w/ the first tripod (the way the camera sort of followed Ray in hand held erratic glory)
- the mini van shot which has been mentioned many times...
- the ferriers walking thru the woods while the people's ashes and clothes "snowed" down on them...
- the plane crash and its aftermath (although i wouldve gotten rid of the news van scenes, talk about annoying)

[MacGuffin]

Chalk Tom Cruise up yet again for managing to dismemeber a movie into a movie star show off because even when playing a normal guy, he seems to have all the answers for every problem the movie has.

But does he really?

*SPOILERS*


I think his character's lack of not having all the answers is summed up with the exchange, "What's the capital of Australia?" "That's one my brother knows."

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

Definitely. Best special effects in the film.

I'd really like to see how they did it. The only thing I can come up with was that it was just a steering wheel and some seats on a blue screen.

Actually, fuck that. I really love not knowing how they did it. I love that I can still be amazed by a special effect.

Well, if you ever want to know, it's discussed in the Koepp interview I posted on Page 12 that I guess no one read.

[Ghostboy]

I actually did read it shortly after making that post. Honestly I did!

[Redlum]

This is actually a B Movie. A really awesome, expensive B movie made by a master. All that 9/11 talk is baloney when Spielberg allows everyone to survive. Did the stepdad make it? He shouldn't have.

[MacGuffin]

*SPOILERS*




Is this a gaffe or did I miss some explanation?

The film makes a point of showing that all of the electronics quit working; cars, TV, phones, Ray's watch. So how is it the guy in the street has a working video camera?  

[Kal]

damnit I'm trying not to read anything here... I couldnt find time to go and see it yet... will try to go tomorrow

Over 100 mill in the first 5 days, which is not bad at all... much better than all the later Spielberg films... of course that very different too