# Rate Spielberg's War of the Worlds



## Krug (Jun 28, 2005)

You know the drill...


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## Krug (Jun 29, 2005)

Saw it today and quite enjoyed it, though 



Spoiler



the segment in the basement with Tim Robbins went on too long. Quite a number of references to 9/11 as well. However, some really astounding visuals (and not just special efx) and faithfulness to the book helped.


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## orbitalfreak (Jun 29, 2005)

Really amazing movie.  I gave it a 10/10.

I was really impressed by the movie.  The visuals are amazing, but the movie doesn't stay  "focused" on the SFX as something to rely on.  There are several times where they could have gone for the money-shot and showcasing the tripods, but decided to stay centered on the people in the movie.   There were of course some major SFX shots, but that wasn't what the movie was emphasizing.

The acting was phenomenal.  Dakota Fanning may seem to be the "next child superstar," but she definitely deserves the title.  She has some hilarious lines, and they are delivered flawlessly.  Tom Cruise was amazing, as was the actor playing his son Robbie.  All of the scenes, the interaction, showed a lot of chemistry amongst them; they behaved like a _real_ (though dysfunctional) family.

I was shaking almost throughout the entire movie.  It was horrible, the imagery, the action, seeing these things happen (given a suspension of disbelief and pretending this was "real").  I nearly vomited at the first use of the 



Spoiler



heat ray


, which was very well done.

I had doubts about the ability to bring War of the Worlds from page to screen, but I was at least hoping to get a decently enjoyable movie without too much dumb stuff.  I instead got a spectacular piece of work that I could watch several times over.



One of the best parts, though, was the previews of "King Kong."  It looks like a near-perfect recreation and duplication of the original movie, just told using better effects.  Peter Jackson, it seems, had done another amazing job.  I'll rate it a 10/10 already.


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## GlassJaw (Jun 29, 2005)

A solid "ok".  I gave it a 7.  A decent flick but not as good as Signs.  10 out of 10?  Yikes.


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## frankthedm (Jun 29, 2005)

GlassJaw said:
			
		

> A solid "ok".  I gave it a 7.  A decent flick but not as good as Signs.  10 out of 10?  Yikes.




People thought Signs was good? It was not horrid, that was the village, but hardly good.



> a real (though dysfunctional) family.




Real Families ARE dysfunctional.


As said before, I am going to see the flick because the preview gave me the feeling of what it would had looked like had the creature from The Dunwich Horror multiplied to clear off the earth. If the flick is watered down with human drama, i may walk out.


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## ShinHakkaider (Jun 29, 2005)

I just saw this today and I have to say that of the movies that I've seen so far this summer (ROTS, Batman Begins and Mr & Mrs. Smith) I enjoyed this one the MOST. The first Tripod attack was just INTENSE and it pretty much doesnt let up from there. It's the typical spielberg journey film but still geez was it HARSH, especially that first Tripod attack in the town. 

My one complaint was the ending not the abruptness but the resolution (of the family stuff) those who have seen it might know what I'm talking about. 

The one thing that totally horrified me, was the imagery of the red weed. 

I've only seen those other films once, I'm going back to see this again on Friday...


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## frankthedm (Jun 29, 2005)

Looks like i spoke too soon. There won't be much of the human drama that waters down far too much sci fi.



LESS DRAMA MORE TRAUMA!  


EDIT :\

I was dead wrong. watered down crap about a family the should have been vaporized


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## Desdichado (Jun 29, 2005)

frankthedm said:
			
		

> People thought Signs was good? It was not horrid, that was the village, but hardly good. ...  If the flick is watered down with human drama, i may walk out.



I'm beginning to suspect that we have nothing in common in our definition of what makes a good movie.


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## frankthedm (Jun 29, 2005)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> I'm beginning to suspect that we have nothing in common in our definition of what makes a good movie.




We have nothing in common in our definition of what makes a movie good to frankthedm.


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## GlassJaw (Jun 30, 2005)

> I'm beginning to suspect that we have nothing in common in our definition of what makes a good movie.




I don't think I have anything in common with him, period.

Let me say this - I actually think Signs is MUCH better than WotW.



> The one thing that totally horrified me, was the imagery of the red weed.




This is really strange because aside from the tripods laying waste to the cities and everything else, I thought all of the alien stuff (including the aliens themselves) were extremely tame.  The coolest part of the movie was the first ship coming out from underneath the street in the beginning.  Batman was much scarier and intense than WotW.


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## ShinHakkaider (Jun 30, 2005)

GlassJaw said:
			
		

> This is really strange because aside from the tripods laying waste to the cities and everything else, I thought all of the alien stuff (including the aliens themselves) were extremely tame.  The coolest part of the movie was the first ship coming out from underneath the street in the beginning.  Batman was much scarier and intense than WotW.




Well I didnt particularly think Batman was all that great of a movie. I thought that it was alright performance wise and all but overall due to the extremely WEAK action sequences I didnt really care for it at all. It wasnt scary or intense to me in the least bit. 

War of the Worlds on the other hand... I kept picturing myself in Ray's shoes doing everything that I could to keep MY 3 year old safe and making the hard choices that he had to make. I relate to that kind of struggle more than I can to a man dressing up as a bat and fighting crime. There was also the fact that I live in NY and was in the city the day the WTC came down that certain imagery in WOTW struck home. Just in that the cold efficency of the aliens was enough to unnerve me and then there's the reveal of EXACTLY HOW the red weed was created. 

So yeah, aside from the ending, I really liked WOTW and cant wait to see it again.


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## DonTadow (Jun 30, 2005)

SPOILER ALERT THROUGHOUT:::

What the heck was that?

I"m reading the reviews and, in all honesty wondering what you guys saw.  It was horrible.  The special effects was great but STeven Spielberg dropped the ball.  The dialogue felt as if George LUcas was doing guest director parts.  I really am disappointed in Dakota.  She essentially whined, cried and made dumb decisions during half of the movie.  During the other half she was poised and smart.  The problem with that is it made an inconsistant character.  She's smart enough to watch the news, eat humas and give advice but she cries and whines during every other interval in the movie.  


"Aliens are destroying the world" 
"I want my mommy" 

"An alien ship has discovered us"
"Let me run up the stairs right to where I last saw 20 to 30 of them. Then let me stand there completely still like an idiot so they can grab me.  As a matter of fact let me run in the forest, hide, wait for them to grab my daddy then go back to my daddy and let him know i was just playing" 

   The dialogue was corny and over the top.  Especially the scene where the son for some dumb reason wants to go up the hill.  Why does he want to go up the hill?  He doesn't havea  gun or weaponry?  Because he says he wants to "see". But the worst part about this movie.  There were SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO many inconsistencies.  

Spoiler Alert : 




The movie started off great, even up until the tripods, then the idoitic inconsistencies happened. 
0. A random police officer is able to tell to tell everyone that there is nothing underneath the street and everyone believes him.  
1.  The man's camera worked but it was explained that nothing worked in the storm 
2.  When they go to the other house, and the next morning happens everything is blown up.  Essentially a plane landed on the house.  The van is not only completely undamaged but in good working order.  HEy theres even a path/road created so they can get away. 
3.  The van of endless gas.  Man I"m going to get one of those for my modern campaign.  It just kept going and going and going and going. 
4.  The camera crews camara and electrical equipment worked great .   
5.  The overzealous mob attacking the van.  It was just silly.  They are all heading toward a river and their killng each other over a car.  
6.  A car lands on the family and all are in complete working order.  
7.    The national guard did not move the vehilces off the ferry.  What idiot commander was in charge of this operation 
8.  Everyone travels in packs in this movie.  Despite the fact that it seems the aliens always attack the packs.  And the cruise family alwaysgoes back to the pack 
8a.  The burning train was a great scene.  Now how the heck the train was traveling without either derailing or exploding is beyond my knowledge of physics.  
9.  Cruise kills an innocent man, because in the next scene they get caught anyway/??? 
10.  Dakota runs up the stairs to the aliens.  Also no one set up any kind of watch.
11.  The force field protects from bullets, missles, rockets, possibly even nukes, but there is nothing like a trusty axe 
12  Why did hte aliens get out of the ship
13  So they make it ot boston and find out everythings hunky dorry there.   Apparently the large 100s of alien pods didnt make it there. 
14 Millions of years of planning and no one remembered to bring the Off!! Man.  Seriously these were the smartest dumbest aliens I"ve ever seen (and i saw Mars ATtack)  They are smart enough to know all the major cities in the world millions of years previously, they are smart enough to hide these monsterous weapons deep into the core,  They are smart enough to have weaponary that would destory beings that havnt even evolved yet, but they didn't bring ANY bio suits.  Even us humans are smart enough to do that. 
15  How the heck did the boy survive?   Everyone on that hill was burned.  
16.  NO explanation to answer any of the inconsistincies.  There was no payoff.  It was so bad that MOrgan Freeman opted out this movie and only wanted to do the voiceover.  

The no explanation works in a movie like Signs (ten times better)because the movie is focused on one family and how the aliens effect theone family.  So in the end you want to know about the one family.  This movie introduced too much stuff for them just to end the movie as they did.  This movie had a lot of good idea, some of the best special effects of the summer but the plot, story and acting were horrid.


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## frankthedm (Jun 30, 2005)

I agree with the previous poster about the dialogue & most of the inconsistencies.

but...

I went to go see a sci-fi movie not a family drama. At least this one HAS special effects. Just a real shame they had those three bags of flesh wasting screen time.


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## DonTadow (Jun 30, 2005)

frankthedm said:
			
		

> I agree with the previous poster about the dialogue & most of the inconsistencies.
> 
> but...
> 
> I went to go see a sci-fi movie not a family drama. At least this one HAS special effects. Just a real shame they had those three bags of flesh wasting screen time.



I'm all for good sci fi, but sci-fi is not explosions, aliens and special effects.  It's those things wrapped up in a story that gives you reason to suspend your belief.   It just didn't feel polished and that is what really irks me.  Outside of the dialogue a lot of those inconsistencies can be fixed with reshots, script tightening and cuts.  It shows that that they show this movie in a couple months.


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## GlassJaw (Jun 30, 2005)

That was a really good writeup Don.  You nailed most of the things I noticed too.  I usually try to look at a movie as a whole and ask myself - did I have fun watching this film?  I this case, I'd say "yes" overall but I certainly wouldn't call it a great piece of cinema.  It was an entertaining summer flick.  Nothing more, nothing less.


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## Chain Lightning (Jun 30, 2005)

SPOILER ALERT !
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-SPOILER ALERT!




			
				DonTadow said:
			
		

> SPOILER ALERT THROUGHOUT:::
> 
> What the heck was that?
> 
> ...




I agree with all your points except number nine.  In reality, you have no idea what's going to happen to you next. He didn't know that he was gonna get caught afterward despite "silencing" the crazy guy. 

And as far as Dakota's character...yeah, she's smart...but c'mon she's still a kid. Some parts of her personality are still gonna revert to that scared little girl mode. Especially when she's getting weirded out and attacked by aliens. 

But agree with all the rest of the inconsistencies. The biggest one being the resolution. Doesn't make sense either considering the intelligence of the aliens. But as a friend of mine said, "well, that's how it ends in the book ... a WotW movie will always end with that same resolution".  Which he's right. So the thing is this, if they want to make a more logical ending, the have to be willing to stray from the book's trademark ending or just not do WotW at all and do their own alien invasion movie.

Despite all that....great ride. I enjoyed the movie not for its final destination, but the ride getting there.

7 out of 10 for me. Very enjoyable. (but yes....holes of logic abound) Still enjoyed way more than SW: Ep III.


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## Mallus (Jun 30, 2005)

frankthedm said:
			
		

> There won't be much of the human drama that waters down far too much sci fi.



I'm guessing you're not a fan of Ray Bradbury then? Or films like _Gattaca_?


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## Adeodatus (Jul 1, 2005)

I was dead-set against enjoying WotW, but had to watch it because of my job. (I am a projectionist at a theatre.) I was actually really enjoying it...until the aliens showed up. Tom Cruise was such an jerk to his kids and you could see the same kinda bad attitude in his son. I was impressed. Then aliens killed stuff, which was kinda cool. Then they ran away. Then all character bleeds away from the son, Robbie, as he suddenly devlops a deathwish. Cruise maintained some of his nastiness but not enough. Tim Robbins did make a pretty good nut though.
The movie was eye-candy thinking it could be compelling commentary on the place of man in the universe, but it wasn't it was just eye-candy.

I was really disappointed when the aliens weren't the same kind of aliens as in E.T.  That waould of been so cool.


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## devilbat (Jul 1, 2005)

I saw it this afternoon, and I rate it a solid 6.  

The special effects were excellent, but the story was non-existant.  I've read reviews that have panned Dakota Fanning, but I thought her performance was admirable.  She portrayed emotions believably.  Cruise was the same as he is in all his movies (you decide if thats bad or good).


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## TwinBahamut (Jul 2, 2005)

I really, really liked this movie. It is about the best adaptation of H.G. Wells' novel that I can imagine. Rated it a 9.

I really enjoyed the human drama that many people here are complaining about. After all, the original novel was always far more about how people struggled to survive the alien invasion rather than telling a story of how a bunch of aliens wipe out humanity. And I don't think that the characters acting irrationally hurt the film at all. Rather, I think it made the "suspension of disbelief" all the more powerful. The characters acted _human_. They were scared, terrified, angry, confused, and had no idea what on earth to do. The characters weren't a bunch of D&D characters metagaming themselves into a perfect calm and possesing perfect insight into what to do in order to survive. They acted like people really would in that scenerio. And I am really impressed that Spielberg pulled off that effect.

All the special effects were perfect.

Spoilers below.

I don't agree with nitpick #14 above. Why _would_ the martians use bio-suits? How _could_ they? There are two big problems with expecting that.
       1: To the invaders, the humans were neither real enemies, nor pests to be exterminated. Humans were food to them. Things to be consumed and eaten raw. How do you biologically isolate yourself from your _food_?
       2: Not mentioned in the movie, but in the book the narrator made theories that the martians had already completely annihilated all forms of disease on thier own world, and it had been so long since then they didn't think of the possibility.


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Jul 2, 2005)

Adeodatus said:
			
		

> I was really disappointed when the aliens weren't the same kind of aliens as in E.T.  That waould of been so cool.




E.T. Kill Earth.


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## DonTadow (Jul 2, 2005)

TwinBahamut said:
			
		

> I really, really liked this movie. It is about the best adaptation of H.G. Wells' novel that I can imagine. Rated it a 9.
> 
> I really enjoyed the human drama that many people here are complaining about. After all, the original novel was always far more about how people struggled to survive the alien invasion rather than telling a story of how a bunch of aliens wipe out humanity. And I don't think that the characters acting irrationally hurt the film at all. Rather, I think it made the "suspension of disbelief" all the more powerful. The characters acted _human_. They were scared, terrified, angry, confused, and had no idea what on earth to do. The characters weren't a bunch of D&D characters metagaming themselves into a perfect calm and possesing perfect insight into what to do in order to survive. They acted like people really would in that scenerio. And I am really impressed that Spielberg pulled off that effect.
> 
> ...




I completely disagree. They acted like people trying to move a plot along. 

Examples=  girl runs up stairs towards the end... why? obviously so we can speed this up and introduce the tripods capturing the humans 

girl gets "lost" why so that we can have ton cruise get captures and blow one of them up (all the mechanical high tech devices on the pods and they use the equivelent of a reverse anus to convert people to fuel .  And why do one at a time , why not two three or all of them.  )  

Boy runs up the hill to ... see whats going on.. (at least thats what i get) for no other reason as to make the next few seens with tim robbins more plausible (we don't want four people running around a crowded basement)  

The water emerging tripods come up just when the ferry takes off, despite the fact that the other pods came right after the lightening strikes.  

1.  Examples aside, you have to take yourself out of the novel for a minute and take the movie as it is.  In the movie, the the people looked as if they were being exterminated.  The plot of the movie showed that they humans were being exterminated.  The weaponry on the ship was not to consume people but to dicentegrate them into nothing more than dust.  I don't know about you, but I don't mash my foood then burn it to dust before i eat it.  

2. Again set aside the novel , we have to take this movie for what it is.  There was no mention or suspician that the aliens had wiped disease out on their own planet.   These aliens seemed to plan for every possible contigency but the most simple one.  

In your first paragraph you mention the people acting like "normal people" and that is farther from the truth.  AGain, many of my inconsistencies show this.  MIlitary commanders not laying out the best course of action "getting those cars off for more people".  All of the people watching and starying continuosly as the church falls apart and the tripod comes out the ground.  That felt like I was watching some cheesy horror movie.  Only people in cheesy horror movies do that.  

It seems that everyone was always really close to the action, as opposed to getting far away from it.   It just didn't seem like normal peoples actions.


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## Jerome Steelsides (Jul 2, 2005)

All you people who disliked what you call a horrid story, humanistic POV, etc. - did you ever actually READ H.G. Wells' novel? The book IS the story of people. The Martians are really only secondary.

And I agree, the virus ending is a bit deus ex machina.  But it always was.

I give it a 9.


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## DonTadow (Jul 2, 2005)

Yes, and again its a great story.  But if you're going to remake that story you almost have to put it in the 19th century.  Its a history piece.  Speilberg tried to stick to he original as much as he could, however he put them in this century.  Unfortunately, he had to change a number of things to "Fit" make the attack make sense in the 21st century.  While doing that he didn't do enough and wound up with a whole bunch of inconsistencies and a horrible ending for a 21st century movie.  

Again, Signs did a lot better job with a 21st century of this plot.  It actually ended the same way.  I walked out of signs though with the feeling of triumph over humans surviving as opposed to War of the Worlds, which I walked out of confused and bewildered.  

Speilberg actually made a mistake by putting too much emphasis on the aliens making us notice the inconsistencies more.  More than likely, it was the great special effects that were emphasised over substance that led to this.  Completely opposite of signs.  

Everyone keeps clammering over the special effects.  Man It's dreamworks for sakes.  They have some of the best minds at MIT working on this stuff. I have no doubt.  They could put a broomstick on the screen for 2 hours and still pull off a wonderful special effects banaza.


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## Mark Chance (Jul 2, 2005)

TwinBahamut said:
			
		

> I really, really liked this movie. It is about the best adaptation of H.G. Wells' novel that I can imagine.




I can imagine a better one. For example, the idea that the Martians managed to hide hundreds of huge warships underneath major cities is silly. Much better for the Martians to just arrive. The clumsy addition of the EMP lightning could have been avoided entirely as a result.

The movie would have been improved by leaving out Tim Robbins's character, Cruise's character's teenage son (who was little more than a glorified extra), and by casting someone other than Cruise in the lead. How this wooden, second-string character actor ever became a top box office draw is one of the great mysteries of life.

Overall, WotW was just barely above mediocre. Gene Barry did better facing down the invaders.


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## Andre (Jul 2, 2005)

Jerome Steelsides said:
			
		

> All you people who disliked what you call a horrid story, humanistic POV, etc. - did you ever actually READ H.G. Wells' novel? The book IS the story of people. The Martians are really only secondary.
> 
> And I agree, the virus ending is a bit deus ex machina.  But it always was.
> 
> I give it a 9.




I've read the novel and found it too preachy and, even worse, boring (which is a good summary of all of Wells' novels). I agree that the movie tried to follow the novel, but updating it to our time left huge holes in consistency and verisimilitude. I also didn't like the father as an anti-hero, nor did I like the dysfunctional family. I felt the acting was fine, especially Fanning, but it couldn't make up for a defective script.

Personally, my favorite version of the story is still the operatic War of the Worlds by Jeff Wayne, narrated by the incomparable Richard Burton.


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## nikolai (Jul 2, 2005)

SPOILERS

I thought it was typical Spielberg. Lot of short cuts to establish cardboard cutout characters at the start. It then just turned into another "End of the World" film, it had some great FX set pieces and some interesting visuals at times. But I didn't think this rescued the movie from mediocrity, most of HG Wells' ideas were lost in translation. And he mucks it up by being overly sappy - as usual - the son should have stayed dead, it was like a repeat of the problems with Minority Report, which should have ended when Cruise got haloed.


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## The Serge (Jul 3, 2005)

Read the novel and was okay with it.  Saw the movie and was okay with it.  I thought that the movie adaptation was wanting and wasn't all that well done with regards to the whole human drama thing (although I can understand some of the little girl's reactions... She's only what?  10?).  I gave it a 7.


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## KenM (Jul 3, 2005)

I just saw it. Gave it a 7. Pretty good but the plot had some major logic flaws. 


 1. When they get to the ex wifes house, all Ray does to look for food is what they brought with them? They are in a place with electricty and did not check the fridge? 

  2. Amazing that there was not ONE PLACE when they drove the mini van that was totally jamed and they could not get though with it.

  3. Said mini van is TOTALLY fine after a airplane crashes close to it, but everything else is trashed.


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## Seonaid (Jul 3, 2005)

I gave it a 4. I thought it was a bad movie and gave me flashbacks to that other Spielberg disaster, _AI_. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to answer some of DonTadow's complaints. The ones I don't quote I agree with, at least partially. Click the spoiler block if you care.[sblock]







			
				DonTadow said:
			
		

> 5.  The overzealous mob attacking the van.  It was just silly.  They are all heading toward a river and their killng each other over a car.



The mob was crazy. Crazy people do ridiculous things. Mobility seems like a good thing in the face of a threat.


> 8.  Everyone travels in packs in this movie.  Despite the fact that it seems the aliens always attack the packs.  And the cruise family alwaysgoes back to the pack



Yes, as an impartial observer, this does seem ridiculous, but I'm sure that it's nice to have the comfort factor. Plus, the aliens went out of their way to hunt down individuals (as demonstrated by the ridiculous scene in the farmhouse).


> 9.  Cruise kills an innocent man, because in the next scene they get caught anyway/???



This has been addressed, and I agree with the comments already made.


> 10.  Dakota runs up the stairs to the aliens.  Also no one set up any kind of watch.



I agree with the first part, but not the second. If you're running for your life, it's kind of hard to 1) think ahead and 2) stay awake.


> 11.  The force field protects from bullets, missles, rockets, possibly even nukes, but there is nothing like a trusty axe



It never was stated (or shown) exactly how the force field works. But that brings up a similar point--what happened that the birds could land on the tripod at the end? The aliens start dying and their machines start randomly malfunctioning? I wish we had had a bit on the structure of the tripods, maybe it was some sort of biotech.


> 12  Why did hte aliens get out of the ship



Why wouldn't they? I wouldn't want to hang out in a spaceship if I could get out and breathe fresh air. Humans do this all the time in sci-fi.


> 14 Millions of years of planning and no one remembered to bring the Off!! Man.  Seriously these were the smartest dumbest aliens I"ve ever seen (and i saw Mars ATtack)  They are smart enough to know all the major cities in the world millions of years previously, they are smart enough to hide these monsterous weapons deep into the core,  They are smart enough to have weaponary that would destory beings that havnt even evolved yet, but they didn't bring ANY bio suits.  Even us humans are smart enough to do that.



I assumed that the placement of the pods was luck/random. They couldn't know ahead of time where our major cities are, except for proximity to resources such as water. And if it truly was "a million years ago" it's also possible that they didn't even know that life on the planet would need water. And we happened to only see the ones that were near people. It's not very exciting to have a pod erupt in the middle of nowhere. Poor aliens who landed in Siberia. And as was said earlier, they had no reason to suspect they needed suits of some sort. They'd been studying the planet for hundreds of thousands of years (if not actually a million). Gives enough time to make them complacent.


> 15  How the heck did the boy survive?   Everyone on that hill was burned.



That part irritated me as well. As in _AI_, Spielberg sure knows how to ruin a "good" ending.[/sblock]


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## Droogie (Jul 3, 2005)

*spoilers* Gave it a 7. Thought it was really good, but I think the idea of having the  war machines buried for thousands (millions?) of years was a crappy twist of the story. 

 If they really planted those machines before the time of humans like Tim Robbins' character suggested, why wait now to attack? Why not save the trouble and just take the planet the first time?

I didn't mind the family drama, but I guess I would have liked a bit more discussion about the aliens and whatnot. More science in this science-fiction story would have been nice. 

I wish I could have seen the army actually taking these things on rather than hearing it take place over a hill.



> In your first paragraph you mention the people acting like "normal people" and that is farther from the truth. AGain, many of my inconsistencies show this. MIlitary commanders not laying out the best course of action "getting those cars off for more people". All of the people watching and starying continuosly as the church falls apart and the tripod comes out the ground. That felt like I was watching some cheesy horror movie. Only people in cheesy horror movies do that.




Recent Time magazine article talked about mob mentality during a crisis situation. Most people, if not trained to respond appropriately, will freeze up like a deer in headlights. Many people died in the WTC because they stood around in confusion when the planes hit, rather than dash for the exits. When presented with an almost unreal, unfamilar situation, its shocking that people have a tendancy to stay put.

edit: added a small spoiler warning


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## Man in the Funny Hat (Jul 4, 2005)

Saw it just yesterday.  Gave it an 8 thought that's probably a bit too kind.  As just about every review I've read says, I also thought the first half was visually outstanding but that the second half was a jarring change of pacing. But that's a problem that carries over from the original material, not because the books pacing it particularly jarring or slow, but because it simply doesn't translate well to the pacing requirements of a movie.

POSSIBLE LIGHT SPOILERS BELOW

(Assuming of course you're one of the few that doesn't actually know the story, such as it is.)
The character development at the outset seemed stilted to me and BADLY written. I mean BADLY. I think it would have worked MUCH better to simply have the main character seperated from his wife rather than estranged and with disaffected children from that marraige. For a Doomed-World disaster movie it does itself a severe disfavor by not maximizing the affection the viewer will have for the protagonists. Then it isolates Cruises character, Ferrier. from his kids at the outset as well, sacrificing lots of opportunities to build even more viewer identification with Dad protecting Kids-In-Danger.

If the characters had been more immediately presented as entirely worthy of emotional investment that wouldn't have been as much of a loss. Isolating Ferrier could have been played for some greater emotional appeal - Dad has to go get his kids out of the way of destruction - but because all the protagonists are somewhat distant from each other at the outset all we can really do is marvel at the destruction and vicariously fear the unemotional killing machines.

And of course at the start of the latter half we go from active devastation and panicked flight to about 20 or 30 minutes of subdued, whispered conversation or silence in hiding before we get a bit more action near the end.

Now it was of course intended that all the action should be presented from a largely first-person perspective. Ferrier is in every scene and we never see anything that he, himself doesn't see so any real heroics on his part are going to be difficult to work into the scheme of things. But then that's why it's probably not the best choice to adhere too closely to Wells' story.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Jul 4, 2005)

What a piece of drek.  No logic, no internal consistency, typical Spielberg kid 'acting'.  Tremendously disappointing.  The action scenes were flat, the acting monotonous, and the ending perfunctory.  I nearly nodded off during the scenes in the basement, and I *never* fall asleep at the movies.  (Well, ok, once, but it was 'The Avengers'.  I think sleep was merciful).

Some neat effects, especially the long shots of the tripods.  But the complete lack of any sense of plausibility or continuity makes it a prime candidate for future editions of MST3K.


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## Abraxas (Jul 4, 2005)

Just saw it - gave it an 8.
It followed the book well enough (which is a huge plus for me cause I like HG Wells), and was visually very entertaining.
Only a couple of the inconsistancies really jarred me - the biggest was the clear driving lane.
I thought it was infinitely better than Signs (of course I also think any one of the original TV episodes of Lost in Space are better than Signs).


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## Beretta (Jul 4, 2005)

Rodrigo Istalindir said:
			
		

> What a piece of drek.  No logic, no internal consistency, typical Spielberg kid 'acting'.  Tremendously disappointing.  The action scenes were flat, the acting monotonous, and the ending perfunctory.  I nearly nodded off during the scenes in the basement, and I *never* fall asleep at the movies.  (Well, ok, once, but it was 'The Avengers'.  I think sleep was merciful).
> 
> Some neat effects, especially the long shots of the tripods.  But the complete lack of any sense of plausibility or continuity makes it a prime candidate for future editions of MST3K.



 Ditto. Wasted 2 hours and I went in with zero expectations (well, only the expectation to be entertained which I was not).

Tom Cruise was good as were the special effetcs but the girl who played his daughter was not. I expected better having seen her in Man on Fire.


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## Strithe (Jul 4, 2005)

Saw it Saturday.  Gave it a 5.

Great special effects, and overall good acting, but the plot was just plain goofy in parts.  (Spoilers below).


1. The buried war machines just came off as a lame way to add a "twist" to the movie.  Something like a "freak" meteor shower coupled with the EMP storms would have been more believable & acutally closer to the book.  I find it hard to believe the idea that thousands of massive war macheines would have been left undiscoverd on a planet with as much technoic activity and mining as ours.

2. The van still working after the EMP storm.  I thought anything that wasn't specially shielded that was computer-controlled would be fried from an EMP burst.  Farrier's old Mustang actually Should have still worked, since the older cars don't have very sophisticated electronics.  Of course, I'm not an expert on it so maybe I'm wrong.  Speaking of the van, I'll agree that the empty lane was awfully convenient, although the rest of the scene worked well enought that I didnt' pay that much attention to it.

3. While I can accept the fact that untrained mobs of hysterical civilians will tend to bunch up in packs even though it just makes it easier to be turned into Flambe, what was the deal with the soldiers?  ATTENION MR. SPIELBURG (AND MR. LUCAS): Military tactics actually change when the weapons technology advances beyond swords and muzzle-loading muskets!  Apparently the National Guard in WOTW hasn't changed their training since 1776 in spite of the existenace of machineguns, highly accurate artillery, and guided missiles.  "Sir, the aliens are using highly evolved techonologies far in advance of our own."   "All right, here's what well do: Bunch up into a tightly packed line formation (you know, to better couteract a bayonet charge), and advance slowly towards the enemy while firing.  Forget trying to use the terrain to our advantage, real heroes don't use cover!"

4. I thought the last part of the basement scene was WAY to drawn out.  If you were really afraid that the loony's shouting was going to result in your only surviving child being used as Miracle-Gro, I doubt you'd spend 10 minutes making a blindfold, having her sing, and quietly creeping up to Mr. Wierdo.

5. A lot of things left unexplained in the film that you wouldn't have gotten unless you'd read the book.  Just looking at the film, you have no real idea what the red weed was, or that the Aliens drank human blood (I guess the kids in the theatre would have been upset by that, as opposed to the numerous immolations, or the blood-sucking & spewing scene earlier).  On the other hand, one of the lamest things was explained in detail:  How the pilots got into the buried Tripods.  "See, they ride the lightning!" (Cue Metallica song).

6. If you want me to believe the son survives with only minor bumps & bruises, then don't show "Global thermoniculear annhiliation".  That scene worked pretty well up until that point (In spite of the Civil War military tactics).  Plus: how did the now pilotless Humvees manage an about-face & go uphill with their drivers vaporized?  The son surviving could have been worked in much better (say he disappears over the hill, there's some sounds of fighting, and then the Tripod still comes over the hill after some less-apocolyptic explosions.  In Boston, they run into the kid as a military convoy rolls by).

7. While I can understand why the main characters flee to Boston, why is everyone else going there?  "Look the city's in flames and occupied by more of those killer alien machines!  Let's go there and mill about!"

8. What exactly was the point of the last fight scene?  Maybe I need to see it again but it looked like Farrier & the soldiers pointlessly confronted a dying Tripod.  (It was something a D&D party might do: Hey, let's kill this one & get the Experience points before the module's over!).  I guess it was one of these "Spielburg moments."


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## Sarigar (Jul 4, 2005)

I gave it a 9 despite some of the obvious plot holes.  My reason for a 9, I haven't had chills like that since Aliens, although I'm not comparing WotW's to Aliens, just the unnerving quality the movie eminated, and no, not because it was bad.  The ray the tripods used, the characters being constantly on the run, the blood, and just the "feel" of the movie.  Like I said, I agree with (most of) the inconsistancies, yet I was willing to overlook many of them as either just what the characters experienced (in regards to the aliens) or the pressure the characters were under (in regards to the humans).
Also, one thing I kept thinking about while reading some of the posts was that we see so often in movies that humans immediately take their helmets off in sci-fi when they realize that the air is 'earth-like' in mix and breathable.  That's not to say that humans are portrayed as great intellects.  Maybe the aliens have bureaucratic red tape and bio suits weren't "in the budget" of the Earth invasion.  Right there we could have a whole other movie from the aliens perspective.  
Did anyone else notice the similarities between the heads of the aliens and a certain navigator alien from Farscape?


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## The_lurkeR (Jul 4, 2005)

Saw this at the drive-in Saturday night.

All I can say is I'm thankful it's two movies for the price of one, because this movie was awful!

I gave it a 4


... awful!!!




(for the curious, the second movie was Mr. and Mrs. Smith which was not bad, it was entertaining for what it was.)


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## stevelabny (Jul 4, 2005)

WORSE THAN BATMAN. 

For those who didn't read the Batman thread... i didnt like it and gave it a 4. 
This was worse.

Star Wars, Batman, Wotw. three strikes and your're out. 
Why are ticket sales down? 
Just look at all these craptacular movies.


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## John Crichton (Jul 4, 2005)

stevelabny said:
			
		

> Star Wars, Batman, Wotw. three strikes and your're out.



Um, who's out?


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## ddvmor (Jul 4, 2005)

The visuals were great.  Tom as usual was pretty good.  It was a refreshing change to have a protagonist who wasn't heroic at all - only interested in his own and his family's survival.

I disagree with some of the comments above about the lack of explanation of things like the weed.  I knew everything I needed to know and inferred the rest.  I realise there are people out there who need this stuff rammed down their throat, but most of the time it's unneccessary and wastes valuable screen-time.

Overall, I was disappointed though.  Visuals aside, I don't think there's enough meat on it to stand up to repeated viewing.



			
				Beretta said:
			
		

> Tom Cruise was good as were the special effetcs but the girl who played his daughter was not. I expected better having seen her in Man on Fire.



What was wrong with her performance?  She's a damn sight better than most other actors her age.  I think she has a great career ahead of her.


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## KenM (Jul 4, 2005)

My thought on the fight with the national guard troops: They were just buying time to get the civilian refugees out of the area. They knew they were screwed, but they had to protect the other people.


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## Mark Chance (Jul 4, 2005)

ddvmor said:
			
		

> She's a damn sight better than most other actors her age.




Certainly better than Tom Cruise, who spent most of the movie leaking glycerin tears and mumbling "Ohmygod" in between shots of his mouth hanging open.


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## KenM (Jul 4, 2005)

Mark Chance said:
			
		

> Certainly better than Tom Cruise, who spent most of the movie leaking glycerin tears and mumbling "Ohmygod" in between shoht of his mouth hanging open.




  But he does that in every movie he is in.    its expected.


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## Mark Chance (Jul 4, 2005)

KenM said:
			
		

> But he does that in every movie he is in.    its expected.




And therein is the major problem with WotW: Nothing more was expected. Mediocre script, overinflated leading man who gets out-performed by an 11-year-old, lots of _gollygee!_ effects as an all-too-common way of trying to distract the audience from how unimpressive the film actually is.

Forget story. Forget talent. But look at our shiny toys!

And folks in Hollywood want to whine about lousy ticket sales.

It all started with George Lucas and Star Wars: the overshadowing of effects at the expense of a well-written story. Bread and circuses. It's just bread and circuses.


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## Quasqueton (Jul 4, 2005)

> For example, the idea that the Martians managed to hide hundreds of huge warships underneath major cities is silly.



The huge warships were hidden everywhere. Even in the farm country.



> Um, who's out?



No, Who's on first.



> My thought on the fight with the national guard troops: They were just buying time to get the civilian refugees out of the area. They knew they were screwed, but they had to protect the other people.



The "commander" of the NG troops actually said this.

Overall, I was entertained. There were moments where it stumbled for me. And given more time to think on the plot, I see more problems. But geez. Some of y'all are just full of piss and vinegar. It's like some of you refuse to be pleasantly entertained. You *have* to complain, about anything and everything. I'd hate to DM for many of you.

I never read the book, but I did see the original (1953) movie, and it was interesting to see many of the exact same scenes.

So, what was the "red weed"?

Quasqueton

P.S. If I were Ray, in this movie, I'd have been telling everyone I met, "I killed one!"


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## Arnwyn (Jul 4, 2005)

Another "firmly mediocre" movie for me - I gave it a 6.

Pretty much all of my issues have been addressed in other posts (Strithe's post, especially).


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## Upper_Krust (Jul 4, 2005)

Hey all! 

One of the worst movies of the year (and I venture to the cinema pretty much every week) - certainly the most disappointing given the hype. I gave it a 2.

Some have already pointed out the stupidity of so much of what happened so I won't retread that, other than to say it destroyed any verisimilitude. But beyond that, the film was just plain boring, mundane and at times bordered on the tedious. The acting may well have been perfectly acceptable, but they were all acting idiots.

People who voted giving it a 9 or 10 are genuinely scaring me.


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## Andre (Jul 4, 2005)

Quasqueton said:
			
		

> Some of y'all are just full of piss and vinegar. It's like some of you refuse to be pleasantly entertained. You *have* to complain, about anything and everything. I'd hate to DM for many of you.




Quas, you've made some good points, but criticizing others isn't necessary. With respect (and I mean that) let's keep the discussion focused on the movie and not on the audience.


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## Chain Lightning (Jul 4, 2005)

SPOILERS BELOW OF COURSE - - -



			
				DonTadow said:
			
		

> Again, Signs did a lot better job with a 21st century of this plot. It actually ended the same way. I walked out of signs though with the feeling of triumph over humans surviving as opposed to War of the Worlds, which I walked out of confused and bewildered.




Have to disagree with you there. I actually think Sign's "water" ending is worse than World's "micro-scopic bacteria" ending. If we had to compare which aliens were dumber, it would be the ones that went to a planet where a lethal liquid is practically EVERYWHERE. About 70% of the Earth's surface. Inhabitants have easy access to it (faucets, bottle water, they drink it constantly), it falls out of the sky periodically, etc, etc....

Out of the two mistakes these aliens make, overlooking microscopic bacteria is at least more plausible in my mind.




			
				DonTadow said:
			
		

> Speilberg actually made a mistake by putting too much emphasis on the aliens making us notice the inconsistencies more. More than likely, it was the great special effects that were emphasised over substance that led to this. Completely opposite of signs.




Please, let's remember that the director isn't responsible for all that goes on in a movie. This movie was adapted to screenplay by Josh Friedman and David Koepp.

Also, I think WotW would've been stupid if it went the Signs route and showed less aliens to show more human drama. Why make another movie like Signs? Signs did it already. 







			
				DonTadow said:
			
		

> The water emerging tripods come up just when the ferry takes off, despite the fact that the other pods came right after the lightening strikes.




Okay, I recognize the many holes in this movie too, but this one you're pointing out is a bit reaching. Didn't it occur to you that the Tripods in the river crossing scene have been out of the ground for a while now already? And that it was a moving group of Tripods that have come upon the ferry area?





			
				DonTadow said:
			
		

> It seems that everyone was always really close to the action, as opposed to getting far away from it.   It just didn't seem like normal peoples actions.






			
				Droogie said:
			
		

> Recent Time magazine article talked about mob mentality during a crisis situation. Most people, if not trained to respond appropriately, will freeze up like a deer in headlights. Many people died in the WTC because they stood around in confusion when the planes hit, rather than dash for the exits. When presented with an almost unreal, unfamilar situation, its shocking that people have a tendancy to stay put.




What Droogie said.

Anyways, I agree with the complaints of

1. The son appearing at the end alive.

2. The silly invasion plan of the aliens - bury our machines ages before and then come back later.

3. The improbability of an alien species this advance overlooking the microscopic bacteria.


These are the major flaws of the movie to me. Everything else was done well enough. I mean, yeah ... I have some personal beefs (like with the design of the aliens themselves - didnt' like it), but that's just nit picking. The above 3 are the flaws that lowered the rating for me and kept the movie from scoring higher. I gave it a 7 out of 10. A bit generous of a score, but hey....it was fun to watch.


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## Viking Bastard (Jul 5, 2005)

SIXTY-FIVE MILLION YEARS AGO
"Sir, we have killed the last of the dinosaurs."
"Bugger! There went a good sport. Lets just bury the tripods and wait for something worthwhile to evolve here again."
"Excellent idea. Meanwhile we'll go back home and exterminate diseases."

SIXTY YEARS AGO
"Sir, they got nukes now."
"Lets wait for the internet."



It was allright. I liked Cruise's character (not common with Tom Cruise parts) and I
liked the Tim Robbins scenes. The ending was awful (the 'happy family' ending, not 
the 'killed by germs' part). The rest was 'Meh'. Gave it a 6.


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## D.Shaffer (Jul 5, 2005)

DonTadow said:
			
		

> 0. A random police officer is able to tell to tell everyone that there is nothing underneath the street and everyone believes him.
> 1.  The man's camera worked but it was explained that nothing worked in the storm
> 2.  When they go to the other house, and the next morning happens everything is blown up.  Essentially a plane landed on the house.  The van is not only completely undamaged but in good working order.  HEy theres even a path/road created so they can get away.
> 3.  The van of endless gas.  Man I"m going to get one of those for my modern campaign.  It just kept going and going and going and going.
> ...



0: He's a police officer. Why wouldnt they believe him? More over, maybe he was trying to calm people down?
1: Which camera? The one the news crew had? They would only have been effected if the EMP blast happened in the area they were in.
2: That was a bit overly coincidentally lucky. But we dont know where the plane actually crashed. It wouldnt be the first time in a film a crash happened and stopped just before reaching the heroes.
3: Newark to Boston, via car, is about 250 miles according to Mapquest.  My car could make it on a single tank of gas and a few miles to spare. (25 miles per gallon, 12 gallon tank) The parents house is likely somewhere in between so it's very feasible they could get there without having to refuel.  Or you could just assume, like I did, that they just refueled off camera.
4: They were out of the initial EMP effect.  Why wouldnt it? 
5: Mobs do strange things. When people are in a mob, they ARENT thinking rationally.
6: Yeah, that was stupid.
7: Not that it stopped people from getting on anyways.  If it is a flaw, I dont see it as a major one.
8: Contrary to what people like to think, humans are social animals. We feel better in a group, even if it's not always safest.  Furthermore, we have a bunch of people trying to flee certain areas.  There's still going to be bottlenecks where you more or less have to congregate, such as bridges or ferry crossings. If they were trying to escape NYC and were piled around one of the bridges, would you complain about the crowd there?
9: He killed a man who was borderline insane because he thought the man was turning into a danger to his daughter. He did not know that the very next scene would get them caught.  
10: There was him and his daughter left at that point, and no means of keeping time apparent in the area. How are they going to keep a watch, especially when one of them is a traumatized 10 year old?
11: Why would the force field necessarily protect the probe? If the forcefield is just a 'bubble' around the main ship, it wouldnt protect it.
12: Because they did in the first movie? That scene, along with him chopping off the probe, were obvious tributes from the first movie.  If you want a more 'in universe' reason, possibly they were curious? Or that races version of scientists?  More to the point, why wouldnt they get out? They didnt spot anything dangerous in the place and were probably behind what they thought of as their 'rear lines'.
13: Except that they did make it there. We see them in the street, remember? They were just lucky enough the aliens succumbed to the virus by the time they reached.
14: Because if they didnt it WOULDNT BE War of the Worlds, and people would likely be complaining that they butchered the original ending.  
15: Yeah, I wish we had a bit more explanation on that. I'm guessing it looked worse then it was and he survived along with a few others from the hill that made it to Boston. People have survived contact with the aliens (and not just Cruise)
16: That'd depend on what you saw as an inconsistancy, wouldnt it? I DO think the ending could have been played out a lot longer, much like in the first film.


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## Nuclear Platypus (Jul 5, 2005)

Ok, I saw it earlier today and time for me to take a couple of kicks to the horse.

Dakota was probably the best actor of them. She played a terrified, health food guzzling kid that won 3rd Place quite well. 

I was also doing the 'Huh?' thing about the Martians leaving their war machines buried underground for at least a few hundred years. I think in the book (and the War of the Worlds rts), the martians build more advanced war machines upon arriving here. Heck, they might've 'seeded' the planet with their dropships, killing the dinos, in the event they would have to make the eventual exodus from Mars (not exactly a hospitable place).

Sure they dusted humans first then harvested 'em later. They initially like insects, a nuisance to be squashed. Later on, it might've become like trying a new local cuisine. "Say, Klaatu, what's the human taste like?" "Tastes kinda like barada, Nikto, only gamier." 

Why the martians were susceptible to our diseases? Easy. 'You are what you eat'. We know enough to cook our food (animal especially) thoroughly instead of eating 'em raw. However the outcome would've been the same if earth invaded Mars (dead invaders). We are a product of our own ecosystem, having built up immunities to most pathogens and other such nasties and surely the same could be said about the martians. Compare what happened to the New World when the Europeans arrived or any other event when alien plants or animals were introduced into a new environment. Heck, fire ants from South America run amok here in the South and rabbits are (or were) a problem in Australia I believe.

As for the Red Weed, I think it was to help terraform the planet into something like Mars or it could've been something that just tagged along that just spread like wildfire in anything containing water like the 'canals' of Mars.

Assuming they truly came from Mars. I would've preferred the dropship as a meteorite approach instead of them always being here.


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## KenM (Jul 5, 2005)

I remember hearing that one of the other things Spelberg changed was that the aliens were not from Mars. But I don't remember anything in the movie saying one way or the other.


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Jul 5, 2005)

A solid 9 from me.

Sure, there were a bunch of little logic inconsistencies, but I didn't think about a single one of them until reading this thread. Well, except for two. The burying of the tripods(though it doesn't bother me) and how the kid survived(which does kind of bother me, but I can see it being at least a possibility as we didn't see enough of what happened on the other side of that hill)

Definitely loved this movie, though. The sounds are really what drew me in. I like that the soundtrack was allowed to go away so you could really hear the Tripods and the heat rays and everything else. No problem with the acting, either.


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Jul 5, 2005)

KenM said:
			
		

> I remember hearing that one of the other things Spelberg changed was that the aliens were not from Mars. But I don't remember anything in the movie saying one way or the other.



 The first space shot in the movie that pans to Earth starts at Mars, and I seem to remember the voice over mentioning Mars, or at least Red Planet.


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## DonTadow (Jul 5, 2005)

D.Shaffer said:
			
		

> 0: He's a police officer. Why wouldnt they believe him? More over, maybe he was trying to calm people down?
> 1: Which camera? The one the news crew had? They would only have been effected if the EMP blast happened in the area they were in.
> 2: That was a bit overly coincidentally lucky. But we dont know where the plane actually crashed. It wouldnt be the first time in a film a crash happened and stopped just before reaching the heroes.
> 3: Newark to Boston, via car, is about 250 miles according to Mapquest.  My car could make it on a single tank of gas and a few miles to spare. (25 miles per gallon, 12 gallon tank) The parents house is likely somewhere in between so it's very feasible they could get there without having to refuel.  Or you could just assume, like I did, that they just refueled off camera.
> ...




0 His role in the film, from viewing his expressions, shows that he "really knew" what he was talking about.  He didn't appear to just have been calming the crowd down.  His role appeared to be the person whom tells the crowd that "it is something not natural down there".  HOnestly, if I am a police officer, and im trying to calm the crowd down, Im going to try to get the crowd to disperse especially if I really didn't know what was down there.  I'm going to tell them that there could be a main or gas line and they need to vacate the area.    I am not sure what kind of cops are in your town, but I don't expect cops in my town to lie about possible threats.  

1.There were two cameras.  The first camera, and what turned my girlfriend and our group off, was the one the man was using the first film the robots.  It was so silly that minutes ago they explained how nothing worked and here he is taping everything.  (I thought it was also silly that he grabbed batteries, but I thought he was going to use them for some "magyver type thing (they were never thought of again).  

2.  Oh my, There was a plane in the front yard.  The house nearly blew apart after the crash.  The van was untouched.  Not even a mirror shattered.  Not a tire flattened.   That was VERY coincodental.  That was probably the biggest piece of crap in this whole movie.  The only reason the van survived was so speilberg could show off the crowd's lunicy in the following scene.  Im sure with a bit of thought he could have done that a better way, but it shows how quick they wanted to "knock this movie out" to fit in with their schedules.  

3.  I hate when movies want me to assume things.  HOnestly when you're assuming too much in a movie you're just making it up to try to get through it.  If i want to assume in a movie, I'll pay my 10 bucks, close my eyes and make my own movie.  Nah, I go to see the movie.  First, they were in a van which holds less gas.  I know that my cavelier gets excelent milage and won't make it 250 miles on a single tank.  How lucky that the tank would have been full anyway.  PLus the eom knocked out electricity for 100s of miles, another coincodence that they have enough gas to get to a station just outside of that area.  

Speaking of the car, another inconsistency about the movie.  The mechanic had enough time to install the "solar starter"  while the large disturbance was going on. I don't know too many mechanics whom work outside in a storm, with earthquakes going on and people running and screaming for their life.  That's dedication.  

4.  I didn't hear them say they were out of the radius.  They would hae had to drive a long way to get to the airplane crash if they were out of the radius.    Even so how did they manage to get a nice, wonderful path straight to the airplane scene.   

5.  True mobs do do crazy things when under pressure.  I love in the detroit area, where we had the brawl.  After thinking about it, after they probably walked 200 miles or so, they probably were delusional and upset and not thinking logically. 

6.  It would have made more sense for the son to disappear here and reappear later on. 

7.  Not a major flaw, but I would expect the military to make better decisions.  Then again there is the whole Iraq "Weapons of Mass Destruction" War.  

8.  There is saftey in numbers.  I'll give you that.  Perhaps this is just adifferent philosphy from me and my family.  Again, I just saw Land of the Dead and my expectiations for the characters were a bit higher based on this movie.  I would use the crowd as a detour and go to a place far away from people.  However, I see what speilberg was trying to say, humans need to band together in times of crisis.  

9.  I agree.  This was not an inconsistency in the plot as much as the script writing.  Speilberg wanted to show what a man does to save his family.  Cruise's family is our conscious, the good guy.  Cruise acting no better than the mob to save his family can be seen as justifying mob mentallity.  

10.  I"m not trying to bring d and d into my explanation, but there is little to know way I am going to leave my self completely unprotected and out in the open.  I just wouldnt put my family in that danger  Especially knowing the aliens are still out there, doing whatever they do.  I know fatigue but I would have really made it pertinent that one of us is up at all times or that we are very, very, very well hidden if we are both going to sleep.  It made no sense for them to be out there in the open.  

11.  I"m not sure why the forcefield would protect the orb, but it did when they showed the missles, bullets and projectile weapons hitting the thing.  So I would expect it to remain consistant.  

12.  Again, that might have made sense 110 years ago, but it seemed very unsmart now.  Again the smartest dumb aliens I've ever seen.  They seemed to just be going down there to go down there.  I would have liked to see them take samples, perhaps start converting the home into some kind of dwelling for them or something.  This was a conveulted scene to show animosity between Cruise and Robbins. 

13.  The aliens made it there and didn't destroy a single thing,  They stepped on the Boston boundary and the virus got them at that "exact" moment.  Again, didn't make any sense.  Plus none of the people in Boston seemed to be taking cover of any kind, they were all in there homes "cozy".  Which brings up another point, where were the emergency sirens they test every first of the month in these series.  Ahhh.  LEt me stop, everytime my girlfriend and I think about that movie we come up with more inconsistencies.  

14.  Nah, you can do that ending and still be creative.  Signs did it.  It's about being creative with it.  They could have hinted at it early in the movie.  You can do bacteria and be smart with it.  They also should have done a longer ending.  Again this shows that they didn't have alot of time to film this movie and really was "knocking it out".  

15.  Sorry, I won't make crazy assumptions while watching my movies .  You know that was crazy and silly.  

The reason I didn't enjoy this movie was my own.  I saw Batman, Sin City and Land of the Dead this summer.  Three intelligent, action movies.  This might have beena great mind numbing popcorn flick, but I was spoiled and wanted something a lot more.  And watching the movie, like so many popcorn movies, I just saw so many areas where the movie could have been smart, but the creators opted for fluff over substance.  Next year I'll watch the silly flicks first and rent the intelligent ones for later.  IT's nota good idea to have lobster and then grab a hotdog.


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Jul 5, 2005)

A lot of the things your pointing out are extremely minor.

There are better things to do than show the family pumping gas. And the cop didn't know what was going on anymore than the people. Being a cop doesn't mean he's suddenly not affected by curiosity/confusion/fear.

As for the military not moving the cars. How do you propose they move them with that huge mob of people in the way and cramming onto the boat? Mob mentality is extremely dangerous, and that wouldn't have done a thing of good.

There's nothing wrong with not liking the movie, but again, most of these you point out are either easily explained or should be inferred/assumed. That HAPPENS when you tell a story. Its why we can show a matter of days in two hours. We don't see every single minute, and we just assume that life continues on in that time, and mundane things(pumping gas, in this case) also go on.


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## DonTadow (Jul 5, 2005)

Ankh-Morpork Guard said:
			
		

> A lot of the things your pointing out are extremely minor.
> 
> There are better things to do than show the family pumping gas. And the cop didn't know what was going on anymore than the people. Being a cop doesn't mean he's suddenly not affected by curiosity/confusion/fear.
> 
> ...



I don't think logic is minor, and though some things were minor over half of my list is major points in the plot that asks too much for us to suspend our belief.  .  If you're shooting for a movie that is going to be illogical then don't aim it at 13+ tone it down and make it PG.   Again, cops are suppose to maintain order regardless of curiosity and it makes no sense for them to infer that they got gas when they just said that nothing electronical was working for miles.  

I"m not going to make any escuses for illogical storytelling. A good writer/writers can write years into a 2 hour script and still make it believable.  A good director can make nuances to direct things you are suppose to infer and understand.  Honestly, a lot of the responses about the inconsistencies are more or less excuses asking the viewer to make convuluted things up on there own as they go to make the movie believable.


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Jul 5, 2005)

DonTadow said:
			
		

> If you're shooting for a movie that is going to be illogical then don't aim it at 13+ tone it down and make it PG.




Woah, woah, woah. Since when does the movie's rating have anything to do with it being logical or not? That doesn't make ANY sense at all...its very illogical to assume that rating has anything to do with internal logic of said movie.



> Again, cops are suppose to maintain order regardless of curiosity and it makes no sense for them to infer that they got gas when they just said that nothing electronical was working for miles.




And, again, cops are still human. The cop was keeping order. He was doing just fine backing people off and gathering information(i.e. There's no water main here). Its AFTER the ground started shaking that the chaos started. Do you really expect the cop to stand around while all that's happening and try to tell people to stay calm when he's as lost and afraid as they are?

Who said we're infering they got gas when nothing electrical was working? Who says they even NEED gas for the distance they drove? We don't know how far they went. We don't know the gas mileage of the van. And it doesn't matter, either. 



> Honestly, a lot of the responses about the inconsistencies are more or less excuses asking the viewer to make convuluted things up on there own as they go to make the movie believable.




But some of us didn't even take notice of these inconsistencies while watching the movie, and so we're giving you OUR insight. We inferred while watching it. They aren't excuses.


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## DonTadow (Jul 5, 2005)

Ankh-Morpork Guard said:
			
		

> Woah, woah, woah. Since when does the movie's rating have anything to do with it being logical or not? That doesn't make ANY sense at all...its very illogical to assume that rating has anything to do with internal logic of said movie.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Popcorn movies have traditionally been pg movies or below.  We're talking about the typical summer you don't need to think movie.  It makes perfect sense.  There was a good national story about how this summer has more pg-13 movies than any previous summer.  In some ways it was the media trying to put out more intelligent movies that people would come out and see (to rebound from their slump).   A pg movie is marketed and written for the whole family.  A pg-13 movie is directed and geared for audiences over 13, an older audience whom can understand more sophisticated plots.  

I just don't think that cops should lie to citizens.  And lying to them does not keep the peace.  An ordinary beat cop doesn't know what's under streets.  So he is going to lie to the people for no reason that benefits them.  That was so laughable.   It was clearly Speilberg's way of telling the audience (it is something unnatural. )  All of the people hovering over this spot, he didn't do a good job of clearing the area.  If Spielberg wanted the character to be "another human reacting" he wouldnt have had the cop there.  He clearly made a mistake and wanted this cop to be "the authority figure" and thus the authority on what is and what isn't under the street.  Again, this comes from rushing through filming and production of this movie.  Even I, a novice writer, would have known the scene would have worked better if someone , a city worker, something said that statement,.  It would have added credibility.  

As far as the car, earlier someone printed the distance between the two places.  Now, this is me suspending my belief that the mechanic did not remove the fuel from the car (as many mechanics do when they work on cars).  The thing is that it doesnt explain how they drove such a long distance (and we know it was long because of the passage of time -night time when they arrived) without refueling atleast one time.   Pumping gas is not an important thing.  But going to a gas station that has/ or hasn't been effected is an important scene, Speilberg just didn't want to deal with.  If its in the zone, how do they react to his car working, if it isn't in the zone does he stop and get snacks, warn them.  The next scene proves he did not stop at a gas station.  Everyone was hungry and they had no food.  Surely if you're hungry and you stop at a gas station you buy snacks.  

Everytime I come back to this thread, I'm imagining the scene from Land of the Dead where the fireworks are being shot into the air and all the zombies stop and stare.  Such a reflection of humanity.  We're so facinated by the pretty pods and light shows, we incline to not see the men on motorcycles with guns.  I'm just not one of those watchers who says screw the story look at the pretty effects.


----------



## Droogie (Jul 5, 2005)

As someone mentioned, the red weed wasn't explained too clearly, or maybe I missed some dialogue... can someone give me a better idea of what it was?


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## Chain Lightning (Jul 5, 2005)

DonTadow, there's a lot of things you've brought up that I totally agree with. However, right now I'm gonna discuss things you're going bonkers over.   




			
				DonTadow said:
			
		

> .... he could have done that a better way, but it shows how quick they wanted to "knock this movie out" to fit in with their schedules.






			
				DonTadow said:
			
		

> Again, this comes from rushing through filming and production of this movie.




Okay, did you read an article or know someone who worked on the movie and gave you the info that it was 'rushed'? Or are you just assuming it was because it has so many mistakes?




			
				DonTadow said:
			
		

> (I thought it was also silly that he grabbed batteries, but I thought he was going to use them for some "magyver type thing (they were never thought of again).




Are you talking about the scene when Tom Cruise's character Ray goes back home and starts asking the kids to pack? Where he grabs a flashlight and some batteries? What's wrong with that scene? I would grab a flashlight and some batteries too. Oh, and not everything has to be brought up again later in the movie. The ketchup and the mustard in the box never played an important role afterward either.  Its not the writer's fault that you assumed that he was grabbing the batteries to do something clever with it later. 




			
				DonTadow said:
			
		

> 3. I hate when movies want me to assume things.




I agree. When certain sloppy movies come out, I sometimes hear fans explain away mistakes by saying "It was probably....blah blah blah". A good movie doesn't need you to fix its own mistakes on your end. 

Even though I agree with your statements, some of the points you are bringing up aren't mistakes at all. 

If a character goes to bed at the end of a day in one scene, then we cut to show him walking out of his apartment on the next morning, and he's wearing different clothes . . . it is okay to let the audience assume the man has a change of clothes. I mean, no sane audience member would complain that the director was sloppy because he didn't previously establish that the character had owned the different set of clothes.

With that example in mind. I think it was okay to assume the news van (at the plane crash scene) was not effected by the EMP because they news crew was lucky enough to not be near one of the lightning storms when they occured. The only info they gave as to where they recently were was that they were last filming a battle between the national guard and some tripods. The movie never tells us the journey of the van. It never showed the van at any of the lightning storms.  Are you assuming that it was in the EMP lightning storm that went over the wife's house? The one that we assume brought done the plane?

Nothing in the movie shows that the van was in that storm. Or even in the one Ray was in either. It's perfectly okay to assume that the news crew was driving away from the failed battle earlier, they were on some road between that location and Ray's wife's house. The lightning went off and brought down the plan and it crashed into that neighborhood. Hours later they arrive in that suburb and see the crash. One of the crew obvious has the idea to scavenge through the wreckage for food & water. So they stop to do so. After getting food and water, they talk to Ray, then move on. I don't see anything wrong with this.

Your beef with the gas and needing at least a scene where the issue of refueling is brought up is legit though.  It indeed would've been nice if at least something was shown.

Whether it was:
Version One: Robbie asks Ray, "Do we enough gas?" And Ray glances down at the gas meter and reponds with, "Should be just enough to get us there."

or Version Two: You see them stop somewhere at steal some gas from an abandon car in the country side. Or whatever.







			
				DonTadow said:
			
		

> 9. I agree. This was not an inconsistency in the plot as much as the script writing. Speilberg wanted to show what a man does to save his family.




Again, Speilberg did not write this. Josh Friedman and David Koepp wrote this script. It is possible that Speilberg asked those guys to write it into the movie, but we really don't know now do we? Unless you have some insider info that I'm not aware of.





			
				DonTadow said:
			
		

> Everytime I come back to this thread, I'm imagining the scene from Land of the Dead where the fireworks are being shot into the air and all the zombies stop and stare.  Such a reflection of humanity.  We're so facinated by the pretty pods and light shows, we incline to not see the men on motorcycles with guns.  I'm just not one of those watchers who says screw the story look at the pretty effects.




What part of any of my replies makes me seem like a mindless zombie easily distracted by special effects? Please, point them out to me. Also, you have yet to respond to any of my explanations to your points. Are you reading the replies or just only some of them? Or reading some...and just skimming others? I admit I've done that a few times myself.

Anyways...I say once again (like above), you make a few valid points, but some of your other ones are kinda out of there. 

With my friends and I, we love sitting around talking back and forth about movies. Our opinions vary greatly lots of times. But its good fun debating back and forth on different aspects. One of the things we notice happens sometimes is something I term as "hate vision". Hate vision is when a person hates something (or several things) in a movie so much, (because it ruins the movie for him), that the emotion spills over to everything else. As he is watching the movie his 'eyes' are filled with disgust so much that he can't see clearly the other perfectly okay things going on. I'm wondering if you may be suffering from "hate vision" my friend. Not saying your are...but I'm saying you MIGHT be. 

This happened with a few friends of mine who hated the Star Wars prequels. Actually, I don't like them either. But one time we were talking about the space ships. One guy said, "I hate the new space ships. They don't have that industrial charm that the original trilogy had. Everything is new, shiny, and smooth."  

But it wasn't. There were plenty of old republic ships that matched the style of the original trilogy. Phantom Menace starts out with a precursor to the Blockade Runner. It's design is nearly the same. Really, only Naboo ships were sleek and clean. But that's because they're from Naboo and that's how their culture built ships back then. Yeah, I hated the dumb things in Phantom Menace too , but it doesn't keep me from appreciated any of the other small things that were kinda cool. I thought Ep. III was a turd, but I liked the Arc Fighter.


----------



## stevelabny (Jul 5, 2005)

John Crichton said:
			
		

> Um, who's out?




hmm. enworld musta eaten my response.

"hollywood" is out.

when so many movies in a row suck, the potential audience loses faith in "holllywood"s abilitiy to make good movies, and therefore doesnt go see movies that theyre on the fence about. 

If Hitchhiker's Guide, Star Wars, Batman and WotW suck, the audience might avoid seeing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Chicken Little, Sky High, Brothers Grimm and Serenity. 

Also, bad movies make for bad movie going experiences. After finally getting my friends to shut up about how annoying movie theatres are, the complains are back in full force. When you can't wait for a movie to end, you are more aware of people talking or the AC being shut off or the morons in the parking lot.


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## DonTadow (Jul 5, 2005)

Chain Lightning said:
			
		

> But it wasn't. There were plenty of old republic ships that matched the style of the original trilogy. Phantom Menace starts out with a precursor to the Blockade Runner. It's design is nearly the same. Really, only Naboo ships were sleek and clean. But that's because they're from Naboo and that's how their culture built ships back then. Yeah, I hated the dumb things in Phantom Menace too , but it doesn't keep me from appreciated any of the other small things that were kinda cool. I thought Ep. III was a turd, but I liked the Arc Fighter.



The movie was rushed into production and created last year within a span of 45 days to accomodate the busy scheds of Speilberg and Cruise 
http://www.tvnz.co.nz/view/page/425828/595034/

I list both minor gripes and major ones.  I will say that the news truck is a minor one as it was quickly overshaded by the fact that the van is still in one piece and working properly.  

Writers can write the best scripts, but the director has the final say so over what gets on the screen and what doesnt get on the screen.  

I in no way want you to think I think anyone who liked this movie is a mindless zombie.  I'm referring to the replys that more or less state "great special effects, loved the movie".  I think you raise some good points and, again, the ones you picked out about mine are minor ones as compared to major plot holes like the van.  

 I'll buy your argument on hate vision, but it didn't come on until the last two acts of the movie, when things seemed hurried and nonsensical.  I will say that the first act was excellent with the exeption of the working van and the working home video recorder.


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Jul 5, 2005)

DonTadow said:
			
		

> Popcorn movies have traditionally been pg movies or below.  We're talking about the typical summer you don't need to think movie.  It makes perfect sense.  There was a good national story about how this summer has more pg-13 movies than any previous summer.  In some ways it was the media trying to put out more intelligent movies that people would come out and see (to rebound from their slump).   A pg movie is marketed and written for the whole family.  A pg-13 movie is directed and geared for audiences over 13, an older audience whom can understand more sophisticated plots.




Revenge of the Sith was PG-13...that's definitely a popcorn movie. Sure, there's an underlying plot and some other things, but Star Wars is, at its heart, popcorn serials.

The upcoming movie, Stealth(which I've seen far too many previews of) is definitely NOT PG-13, but doesn't look to be anything more than an action filled popcorn movie.

In fact, most popcorn movies are just action films, and I can't think of a SINGLE ONE that's PG. The rating doesn't tell us anything about whether its a popcorn movie or not.



> I just don't think that cops should lie to citizens.  And lying to them does not keep the peace.  An ordinary beat cop doesn't know what's under streets.  So he is going to lie to the people for no reason that benefits them.  That was so laughable.   It was clearly Speilberg's way of telling the audience (it is something unnatural. )  All of the people hovering over this spot, he didn't do a good job of clearing the area.  If Spielberg wanted the character to be "another human reacting" he wouldnt have had the cop there.  He clearly made a mistake and wanted this cop to be "the authority figure" and thus the authority on what is and what isn't under the street.




Actually, it was a man NEXT to the cop(who was wearing a hard hat, and I therefore assumed him to be a city worker) that mentioned the 'no water main' TO the cop, who simply agreed.

But even then, look at thte SITUATION. Lightning(sans thunder) just struck multiple times in ONE SINGLE SPOT that created a large hole in the middle of the concrete street and now the electricity is dead. Obviously, the cop was doing his best to calm people and provide at least some form of authority, but one can only do so much in a situation like that. 



> Again, this comes from rushing through filming and production of this movie.  Even I, a novice writer, would have known the scene would have worked better if someone , a city worker, something said that statement,.  It would have added credibility.




It was a man in a hard that who was conversing with the cop. Also, maybe you're problem is the usual "The didn't do it the way I wanted, so its therefore bad and wrong". The scene DID work. Maybe not for you, but you're just one person. Hell, this is just one website, and out of all the complaints I've seen from major reviews, etc, NO ONE says a single thing about "the cop wasn't doing his job just right".



> As far as the car, earlier someone printed the distance between the two places.  Now, this is me suspending my belief that the mechanic did not remove the fuel from the car (as many mechanics do when they work on cars).  The thing is that it doesnt explain how they drove such a long distance (and we know it was long because of the passage of time -night time when they arrived) without refueling atleast one time.   Pumping gas is not an important thing.  But going to a gas station that has/ or hasn't been effected is an important scene, Speilberg just didn't want to deal with.  If its in the zone, how do they react to his car working, if it isn't in the zone does he stop and get snacks, warn them.  The next scene proves he did not stop at a gas station.  Everyone was hungry and they had no food.  Surely if you're hungry and you stop at a gas station you buy snacks.




Its not something that is in any way important to the plot. The family needed to get to the ferry. THAT was important. So, who cares whether we see them refuel the car or not? Not all areas were hit by the EMPs, so its not hard to assume(which is something very common in movies, especially with such minor things like this) that gas was dealt with.

Again, there's nothing at all wrong with not liking the movies. And yes, there are tons of little inconsistencies in there(most notably the boy surviving and why there was always a clear path to drive on), but if those really ruined the movie for you...where you expecting a documentery and not fiction? There's a limited time for these movies, and you can only show what's important to the overall story.

Now, whether we agree or not on what is important is the key, of course. But, in the end, the person with the decision is the director. If you think you can do better, go do it and see how you fair. And really, if you look at any movie with the scrutiny you're nailing WotW with, you'll find tons of inconsistencies to tell the story. Its PART of storytelling. Always has happened, always will.


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## DonTadow (Jul 5, 2005)

Ankh-Morpork Guard said:
			
		

> Revenge of the Sith was PG-13...that's definitely a popcorn movie. Sure, there's an underlying plot and some other things, but Star Wars is, at its heart, popcorn serials.
> 
> The upcoming movie, Stealth(which I've seen far too many previews of) is definitely NOT PG-13, but doesn't look to be anything more than an action filled popcorn movie.
> 
> ...




Everyone has different reasons for liking anything.  I could care less wheather you liked it or not, I"m just voicing that factually, the movie was inconsistant and the major inconsistencies hampered the plot.   It wasn't just me, some things just weren't done well enough.  Again this is because of the rush.  I just think with a little more effort this movie could have made a bit more sense.  THe thing that angers me about this movie is it had potential to be a smart movie, better than signs and Speilberg settled on a popcorn flick.


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Jul 5, 2005)

DonTadow said:
			
		

> Everyone has different reasons for liking anything.  I could care less wheather you liked it or not, I"m just voicing that factually, the movie was inconsistant and the major inconsistencies hampered the plot.   It wasn't just me, some things just weren't done well enough.  Again this is because of the rush.  I just think with a little more effort this movie could have made a bit more sense.  THe thing that angers me about this movie is it had potential to be a smart movie, better than signs and Speilberg settled on a popcorn flick.



 But you're NOT stating fact. You're stating your own opinions and touting them as fact. The incosistencies were major, FOR YOU, but not for everyone. Obviously not, as I don't agree with you on them being major. Also, you can't say that this is because of the rush. It could very well have been this way given a more calm pace.

And it was better than Signs. I hated Signs. Any alien that dies from water while trying to take over a planet covered in so much water are complete and utter idiots. Bacteria is something that can be overlooked...but water?! When it covers 70% of said planet in plain sight? Sure, it sounds clever...but no.

Thinking about it, though, how could this movie have been more of a 'smart movie'? The real message I see is a look at the human condition. That we are, no matter how advanced we may think we are, just pack animals and not so wonderful and great. Life can easily be ended, but at the same time, Earth is our home and, according to Wells(and this movie), always will be ours. I'm not really sure what you're expecing from it.


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## DonTadow (Jul 5, 2005)

Ankh-Morpork Guard said:
			
		

> But you're NOT stating fact. You're stating your own opinions and touting them as fact. The incosistencies were major, FOR YOU, but not for everyone. Obviously not, as I don't agree with you on them being major. Also, you can't say that this is because of the rush. It could very well have been this way given a more calm pace.
> 
> And it was better than Signs. I hated Signs. Any alien that dies from water while trying to take over a planet covered in so much water are complete and utter idiots. Bacteria is something that can be overlooked...but water?! When it covers 70% of said planet in plain sight? Sure, it sounds clever...but no.
> 
> Thinking about it, though, how could this movie have been more of a 'smart movie'? The real message I see is a look at the human condition. That we are, no matter how advanced we may think we are, just pack animals and not so wonderful and great. Life can easily be ended, but at the same time, Earth is our home and, according to Wells(and this movie), always will be ours. I'm not really sure what you're expecing from it.




But there are inconsistencies??? which are facts???.  The only opinions i give is what they could have done instead of the inconsistencies.   Again, if you are happy with inconsistencies fine.   In my opinion they were a major distraction to enjoying the movie and I prefer for my movies to make sense throughout.  In my opinion the movie could have been smarter by taking a bit more time and eliminating the major inconsitencies.  I'm so curious as to how the original script for this read. 

By the way, I"m sure percentage wise we have more bacteria than water .    So if thats your reason for hating Signs it counters you reason for liking war of the worlds.


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## Abraxas (Jul 5, 2005)

Just came back to this thread and had to comment on DonTadow's list.
Of those 14 items listed as an inconsistancy only #3 actually is.
Everything else listed are things you didn't like because they were an overly lucky coincidence (which occurr in just about every movie) or are just unexplained.

What I am most surprised by is the complaint about bacteria killing them - it is War of the Worlds afterall, I would have been ticked if it had been anything but bacteria that killed them off.

Oh, and don't we have a greater variety of bacteria than varieties of water (and of course you can see the water from space)  

Oh well, off to see Land of the Dead now.


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Jul 5, 2005)

DonTadow said:
			
		

> But there are inconsistencies??? which are facts???.  The only opinions i give is what they could have done instead of the inconsistencies.   Again, if you are happy with inconsistencies fine.   In my opinion they were a major distraction to enjoying the movie and I prefer for my movies to make sense throughout.  In my opinion the movie could have been smarter by taking a bit more time and eliminating the major inconsitencies.  I'm so curious as to how the original script for this read.




Every single movie has some inconsistencies. The fact is, for the movie, the only one I really noticed while watching it was the boy living at the end...but even that can be assumed as we have NO IDEA what happened on the other side of that hill. Its just impossible to say.

The part that isn't fact are the 'major' inconsistencies. They aren't major. For you, they may be, but it is not a FACT that they are major inconsistencies. A strong case can even be made that what you note aren't inconsistencies at all, simply how the story was decided to be told and they make perfect sense within their own context.



> By the way, I"m sure percentage wise we have more bacteria than water .    So if thats your reason for hating Signs it counters you reason for liking war of the worlds.




...but you can't see all those bacteria from space. Really, though, we could make a case for both species of aliens being complete idiots. Only the ID4 aliens really knew what they were doing...but then they HAD to use those IBM made computers and ruin it all.


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## DonTadow (Jul 5, 2005)

Ankh-Morpork Guard said:
			
		

> Every single movie has some inconsistencies. The fact is, for the movie, the only one I really noticed while watching it was the boy living at the end...but even that can be assumed as we have NO IDEA what happened on the other side of that hill. Its just impossible to say.
> 
> The part that isn't fact are the 'major' inconsistencies. They aren't major. For you, they may be, but it is not a FACT that they are major inconsistencies. A strong case can even be made that what you note aren't inconsistencies at all, simply how the story was decided to be told and they make perfect sense within their own context.
> 
> ...




Every movie is fiction in some way, and all ask for you to suspend your belief in some way.  War of the Worlds asked too much of me to the point where i began laughing after some time.  When the boy came out at the end most of the audience had joined me.  

Plus in signs they never explained what was the aliens alergic too.  It could have been what was in the water.  Honestly I assumed it was bacteria in the water, clearly Shamala paying tribute to Wells.  

But none was smarter than in ID4, which clearly had it together.  They can not be blamed for purchasing equipment from one of the leading hardware distributors.  I"m sure the purchase helped save thousands of jobs.


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## barsoomcore (Jul 5, 2005)

Gave it a 6. The first hour or so was okay. The real problem for me wasn't any inconsistencies, though. When viewers are making lists of inconsistencies, the PROBLEM isn't the inconsistencies. Any movie can have holes poked in it.

The PROBLEM is that the story is insufficiently exciting to keep viewers from noticing the inconsistencies.

And I saw two fundamental (and painfully "Spielbergian") problems with WotW:

1. A reluctance to show us horror. No bodies in the plane crash? Sure, you can justify it, but if you have a plane crash without bodies, it's because you didn't want to show torn and burned bodies, and dammit, HE SHOULD HAVE. This movie should have been PAINFUL. HORRIFYING. It's meant to be SCARY, for crying out loud. When TC goes to kill TR, he blindfolds the girl... and then we're just sitting there watching her and listening to grunts and noises? COME ON. We're supposed to be watching human civilization fall apart here, Steven! Sheesh.

2. A determination to give us a sense of triumph. The last act of the film (from when TC gets grabbed) seems to be trying to rally our emotions so that we feel triumphant. They blow up a tripod, then the silly tripods can be hurt, hurrah, we're going to win this sucker after all! Of course it's just germs, but all that build-up of success serves to undermine the primary thrust of the story -- that for all our pride and our apparent power, we're in fact helpless children in the face of the universe. By giving us those moments of "triumph", Spielberg undermines his own story and ends up with a film that feels half-baked, weak and deserving of nitpicking.

Bah. Mr. Spielberg, you're better than this. You haven't been since like, 1981, but you are.


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Jul 5, 2005)

barsoomcore said:
			
		

> No bodies in the plane crash? Sure, you can justify it, but if you have a plane crash without bodies, it's because you didn't want to show torn and burned bodies, and dammit, HE SHOULD HAVE.




At first, I agreed and thought this was odd. Then there came the scene with the clothes falling from the sky in the forest. I get the impression that there were no bodies because the heat rays were used to take out the people inside.


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## Upper_Krust (Jul 5, 2005)

Hey barsoomcore! 

I agreed with much of what you said with the notable exception of...



			
				barsoomcore said:
			
		

> Bah. Mr. Spielberg, you're better than this. You haven't been since like, 1981, but you are.




You must be suffering from amnesia (no doubt induced when you tried to block out memories of the dreadful War of the Worlds), so let me refresh your memory.

Saving Private Ryan is one of the greatest movies of all time.

The original Jurassic Park was awesome.

Indiana Jones (both Temple of Doom and the Last Crusade) are virtually flawless.

While I haven't liked much else Mr Spielbergs done over the same period I realise many of his films are good, but simply not 'my kind of movie'. So I'll cut him slack for those. Unfortunately War of the Worlds is one of those I paid money to see, I should have enjoyed, if not loved it - but it turned out to be terrible.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Jul 6, 2005)

barsoomcore said:
			
		

> Bah. Mr. Spielberg, you're better than this. You haven't been since like, 1981, but you are.




Bless you.  I was beginning to think I was alone in the world.

Things that bothered me:

1.  Every scene existed to serve itself, independent (and often in contradiction to) the rest of the movie.  For example, the daughter was alternately a cynical 30 year old, a smart ass teenager, a scared little girl, and back again.  Not because that was the character, but because that's what the scene called for.  Notice how her claustrophobia came and went.  Same with the son -- rebellious car-stealing teenager, caring older brother, gung-ho soldier wannabe.  

2.  An utter disregard for internal consistency.  This goes beyond nit-picking over continuity errors and the like.  The plane crash pretty much ended any minor enjoyment I might have gotten from the film (and judging by the audience reaction , I wasn't alone).  On 9/11 we shut down commercial aviation across the country.  Something tells me that 12 hours after the tripods appearing, we wouldn't still have jetliners flying over New York.  It would be possible (and expected) to believe the the aliens were undone by bacteria, except that any race that was going to process us for food would have already understood our biology sufficiently that they would have taken that into account.   Not to mention the use of the EMP effects when it was convenient and ignoring it when it wasn't, Tim Robbins waiting till the alien was sneaking around to chamber a round in the shotgun, or the numerous other eye-roll inducing instances of sloppiness.

3.  No attempt at a plausible level of alien technology.  A million years before, they buried these high-tech skyscraper-tall robots, but they have to send a tentacle with eyes into a basement to scout for humans? (A tentacle with eyes that apparently doesn't know what a mirror is, to boot).   Never heard of infrared scanning?  

4.  Glacial pacing and scenes that went nowhere.  Up until the tripods appear, it was working well (sort of -- the scenes with the ex were ham-handed).  But then the pacing goes to crap, with the extended sequence in the basement being devoid of tension, logic, or anything else that would justify it taking up 20 minutes of the movie.   Or the scene at the ferry, where the other parent and child appear and disappear a minute later.

The most telling thing about this movie for me was that I saw it with a friend that absolutely freaks when scary stuff happens in a movie (we've all learned not to sit next to her because she'll dig her fingernails into your arm   ).  *She* was bored by it.


----------



## Rodrigo Istalindir (Jul 6, 2005)

Upper_Krust said:
			
		

> Hey barsoomcore!
> Saving Private Ryan is one of the greatest movies of all time.
> 
> The original Jurassic Park was awesome.
> ...




Saving Private Ryan was excellent for the first 20 minutes.  After that, it was every cliche from every war movie ever made, with the same Spielbergian inability to string together scenes to make a coherent whole.  Not to mention one of the stupidest ending sequences in cinematic history.  

Temple of Doom and Last Crusade pale in comparison to Raiders.  Temple of Doom suffers from obnoxiously precocious kid syndrome (another Spieldberg hallmark) and casting Kate Capshaw who didn't have half the screen presence of Karen Allen.  Crusade took the perfect mix of humour and action in Raiders and reversed it, turning it into a slapstick comedy instead of an action picture. (Especially the German Castle).  Neither is flawless, both suffer heavilty from playing down the tension and dialing up the cute.

Jurassic Park was pretty damn good, although in large part due to the way the effects were integrated into the story.

He's made three inarguably great movies (Jaws, Close Encounters, Raiders).  I'll even grant 'Schindlers List' though I've not seen it.  But even Schindlers and Jurassic was 12 years ago, and the other 3 were a quarter-century in the past.

EDIT:  Found this apropos quote from Ebert's review of Jurassic Park



			
				Roger Ebert said:
			
		

> In the 16 years since it (Close Encounters) was made, however, big-budget Hollywood seems to have lost its confidence that audiences can share big dreams. "Jurassic Park" throws a lot of dinosaurs at us, and because they look terrific (and indeed they do), we're supposed to be grateful. 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.


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## Dorchek (Jul 6, 2005)

DonTadow said:
			
		

> I'm all for good sci fi, but sci-fi is not explosions, aliens and special effects. It's those things wrapped up in a story that gives you reason to suspend your belief. It just didn't feel polished and that is what really irks me. Outside of the dialogue a lot of those inconsistencies can be fixed with reshots, script tightening and cuts. It shows that that they show this movie in a couple months.




You are so on the money! The thing i would like to add is Sci-Fi used to be a way for writers to subtly tell sensitive and controversial stories with out directly offended the parties involved, such as stories about racism. I myself enjoy both types of Sci-Fi the introspective/political and the blow-em-ups SFX extravaganzas. This movie had some good parts with the SFX but was extremely weak on internal consistancy and logic. I must say I felt for the characters but their stupid actions out numbered their smart ones. Also personally I thought Independance Day was a much better remake of WOTW from the straight Sci-Fi end and sticking to the original theme. This seemed like Splieberg wanted to make a movie about how one family felt on 9/11 but just didn't have the balls to make a movie about 9/11 so he added aliens and called it WOTW.


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## Wolf72 (Jul 6, 2005)

GlassJaw said:
			
		

> A solid "ok".  I gave it a 7.  ...




same here, very good adaptation of the book thru 21st century eyes


----------



## Abraxas (Jul 6, 2005)

I'm curious if those that didn't like this incarnation of WotW liked the 1953 version?

I personally loved the 1953 version and I believe that is part of the reason I enjoyed this movie so much - it was so similar to the 1953 version (flaws and all).

I also have to say that this thread has once again shown me that there are a number of posters here who I have no common ground with when it comes to movies


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## barsoomcore (Jul 6, 2005)

If you want to fight with me about movies (which I would LOVE), feel free to stroll past my blog: http://barsoomcore.blogspot.com 

It's mostly movie ranting. And RI, when it comes to Spielberg, we are brothers bound. Amen.

AMG: Like I said, you can justify it, certainly. But the choice to NOT show torn bodies reflects the unwillingness to generate real horror. And cheapens the impact of the film.

I remember loving the 1953 version. And I certainly love Orson Welles' version -- my mom had it on vinyl and I listened to it many, many times. And like I said, Spielberg was unable to resist undermining the bleak message of HG Wells' story. This movie tries to deliver both human triumph and human futility, with the end result of doing neither very convincingly, and leaving me feeling like I'm getting manipulated in assorted directions.

Well, you got my money, so I guess the joke's on me. And it wasn't a DISASTER. It wasn't as good as _Howl's Moving Castle_ (and that was no classic, either; but at least it had imagination and vision), but it wasn't as bad as _Pirates of the Caribbean_.

He said, just because he knows it will outrage people.


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## Arnwyn (Jul 6, 2005)

barsoomcore said:
			
		

> 1. No bodies in the plane crash? Sure, you can justify it, but if you have a plane crash without bodies, it's because you didn't want to show torn and burned bodies, and dammit, HE SHOULD HAVE.



Just as an aside - there were bodies. I counted two of 'em. (Yeah... just two. One schmuck was still strapped into her seat. Nowhere near the scale that you would think would be appropriate, though.)


			
				Ankh-Morpork Guard said:
			
		

> At first, I agreed and thought this was odd. Then there came the scene with the clothes falling from the sky in the forest. I get the impression that there were no bodies because the heat rays were used to take out the people inside.



Nope.


----------



## Kai Lord (Jul 6, 2005)

Another solid 9 for me, a higher 9 than _Batman Begins_ and lower than _Cinderella Man_.  One of the greatest summers for films in a long time.

Awesomely intense.  My wife thought it was the scariest movie she'd ever seen.  She was literally on edge or the verge of tears for about an hour and 45 minutes straight.  For me it was _Red Dawn_ with aliens.  Fantastic.  

I'm so glad Spielberg didn't pander to Verhoeven sensibilities with unnecessary gore.  The impact of seeing what happens to bodies in the path of a tripod was powerful and permeated throughout the rest of the film.  The only two moments that briefly took me out of the picture were 



Spoiler



Tim Robbins loading his shotgun at the last second


 and 



Spoiler



Cruise's son showing up at the end.  I think there should have been casualties directly connected to Tom to give the film even greater impact.



But the cinematography, acting, and overall sense of *helplessness* and "what would you do in this situation" were _awesome._  The ferry scene and follow-up on the shore were the highlights of the film.  The sheer unpredictability of the tripods, uh oh, you're in their way, will they blast you?  Pick you up?  They really did feel like alien beings and the ambiguity of their tactics added to the despair.  What a fantastic piece of filmmaking.

I could have done without the resolution to the Tim Robbins scene and the manner in which the family issues were ultimately resolved, but there's just too much that this film does right.  What an experience.


----------



## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Jul 6, 2005)

arnwyn said:
			
		

> Just as an aside - there were bodies. I counted two of 'em. (Yeah... just two. One schmuck was still strapped into her seat. Nowhere near the scale that you would think would be appropriate, though.)




Hmm...I probably won't see this again so I'll have to take your word on that. Of course, it then raises the question of why were the clothes raining down in the forest later? I assumed it was a direct way of showing passengers in planes had been heat rayed.


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## DonTadow (Jul 6, 2005)

Ankh-Morpork Guard said:
			
		

> Hmm...I probably won't see this again so I'll have to take your word on that. Of course, it then raises the question of why were the clothes raining down in the forest later? I assumed it was a direct way of showing passengers in planes had been heat rayed.



I wondered that, but, again I kept quiet.  But, thinking along those lines, 

In that case, why were the bodies washing up down the river when the girl took a whiz, if, at that point, the pods were dicentegrating people.  

::cough cough:: inconsistencies.


----------



## CGoat (Jul 6, 2005)

Wife and I left the movie...   Looked at each other and both thought it sucked.  Over-hyped.  The whole hiding in the cellar was drawn out way too much.  I didn't need to wait 5 minutes for them to hide from the snake sensor.  You would think advanced alien technology would rely on more than just a big endoscope to find your prey.

If you ask me... some things should be left alone.  Like a classic movie.   

Hey wotc won't mess with magic missle... or fireball.  So why can't hollywood figure it out. 

I agree that signs was much better... directing was a bit cheesy at times but the story was much better.


----------



## Nuclear Platypus (Jul 6, 2005)

About the Red Weed:

Its been awhile since I've read the book but wherever the Martians went, so too went the red weed. Just as the Martians attempted to exterminate the humans, so too the weed would choke out native plantlife. As for where they came from, they obviously came with the Martians tho intentially or accidently I don't know. AFAIK, the red weed was symbolic of the Martian conquest of earth and / or the native environment being conquered by an alien species. 

Here's what one critique of the movie said.


----------



## Taelorn76 (Jul 6, 2005)

Ankh-Morpork Guard said:
			
		

> Hmm...I probably won't see this again so I'll have to take your word on that. Of course, it then raises the question of why were the clothes raining down in the forest later? I assumed it was a direct way of showing passengers in planes had been heat rayed.




The clothes falling from the sky was way after the plane, it was after they crossed the river IIRC. As far as bodies on the plane I remember seeing one for sure. I don't know why but I remember specificly looking for bodies in the plane.


----------



## Mark Chance (Jul 6, 2005)

CGoat said:
			
		

> Wife and I left the movie...   Looked at each other and both thought it sucked.  Over-hyped.  The whole hiding in the cellar was drawn out way too much.  I didn't need to wait 5 minutes for them to hide from the snake sensor.  You would think advanced alien technology would rely on more than just a big endoscope to find your prey.




That what they get for spending so much of their military budget on "probing technologies."



			
				CGoat said:
			
		

> If you ask me... some things should be left alone.  Like a classic movie.




That would involve admitting the dearth of ideas. Almost everything coming out of Hollywood is either a remake or a sequel.



			
				CGoat said:
			
		

> Hey wotc won't mess with magic missle... or fireball.  So why can't hollywood figure it out.




But they did mess with them. Fireball for example: used to be no damage cap; used to expand to fill enormous, party-threatening volumes.



			
				CGoat said:
			
		

> I agree that signs was much better... directing was a bit cheesy at times but the story was much better.




That, and Signs wasn't a film about an alien invasion. It was about an unlikely nexus of events leading to the rebirth of one man's faith.


----------



## Chain Lightning (Jul 6, 2005)

DonTadow said:
			
		

> Writers can write the best scripts, but the director has the final say so over what gets on the screen and what doesnt get on the screen.





Actually, that's not always the case. Most times its the Producers that get final say. But, when the director is someone with a lot of influence (like Spielberg), they can influence the 'final say'. But if you're a relative newcomer directing a film for Bruckheimer (for example), and you the both of you debated over how a certain key scene should be done, Bruckheimer would have his way.



			
				DonTadow said:
			
		

> I in no way want you to think I think anyone who liked this movie is a mindless zombie.  I'm referring to the replys that more or less state "great special effects, loved the movie".  I think you raise some good points and, again, the ones you picked out about mine are minor ones as compared to major plot holes like the van.
> 
> I'll buy your argument on hate vision, but it didn't come on until the last two acts of the movie, when things seemed hurried and nonsensical.  I will say that the first act was excellent with the exeption of the working van and the working home video recorder.




Cool. So long as you were lumping me in with mindless zombies, I'm good.    Heh heh, yeah... 'hate vision' usually doesn't come on till act 2.  Unless its Phantom Menace, it comes on as soon as Jar Jar shows up.


----------



## Abraxas (Jul 6, 2005)

> I wondered that, but, again I kept quiet. But, thinking along those lines,
> 
> In that case, why were the bodies washing up down the river when the girl took a whiz, if, at that point, the pods were dicentegrating people.
> 
> ::cough cough:: inconsistencies.





As for not a lot of bodies in the plane - the martians ray wasn't all encompassing, as shown by the early scene where people are running and not every last one was vaporised. So, they sweep the ray across the plane and get most of the people, but a few get a very short ride to the ground.

As for the bodies in the river, those were the corpses of the folks that had been sucked dry - which they show happeneing not too much later - so no inconsistancy    , just a hint of things to come.


----------



## Taelorn76 (Jul 6, 2005)

CGoat said:
			
		

> Wife and I left the movie... Looked at each other and both thought it sucked. Over-hyped. The whole hiding in the cellar was drawn out way too much. I didn't need to wait 5 minutes for them to hide from the snake sensor. You would think advanced alien technology would rely on more than just a big endoscope to find your prey.




I am glad I am not the only one that felt that way, my freinds were both trying to defend it saying "they couldn't just sweep the room once", and "it adds drama to it makes it more suspenseful". I think you could have cut 2 to 3 miniutes from that scene and still gotten the same effect.


----------



## Taelorn76 (Jul 6, 2005)

Abraxas said:
			
		

> As for not a lot of bodies in the plane - the martians ray wasn't all encompassing, as shown by the early scene where people are running and not every last one was vaporised. So, they sweep the ray across the plane and get most of the people, but a few get a very short ride to the ground.




I am more of the mind that the plane was affected by an EMP blast. If it was the plane would not just drop straight down it would coast and nose dive for a time. Plus it it was at max altitude and max speed it could still cover several ground miles before crashing. At least thats how I reason it. But it's been many years since physics class.
Think of a triangle.


----------



## spider_minion (Jul 7, 2005)

I gave it a 6.  The movie was certainly relentless and shocking, but it felt kinda empty.  The ending was unsatisfying to say the least, and I didn't get the feeling there was anything more going on then the action from scene to scene.  The movie seemed too emotionally-overblown as well.  Of course, the special effects were amazing - particularly the striders and the red weed-covered earth.  Overall, I felt kinda neutral . . . certainly a well-made movie, but not one that really resonated with me.

I always thought that a modern remake of War of the Worlds would have to take the form of a mock news report.  At least initially, it would all be told from the view of the cameramen, like we were sitting at home watching the end of the world on TV.

And one question is bothering me.  The aliens eat humans for food, right?  What did they eat on Mars?


----------



## Abraxas (Jul 7, 2005)

In the book they drained humans for their blood, in this movie it looked like they used people as fertilizer for the red weed, not as a direct food source.


----------



## Cutter XXIII (Jul 7, 2005)

I thought it was pretty great, but not completely fulfilling (not sure why). Gave it a 7.

It occurs to me (reading this thread) that at least 6 out of 10 gamers view movies as onscreen RPG sessions. If the characters in the movie do not act in a "logical" manner befitting their own PC, they pan the movie because the characters were "stupid."

This sort of thing tends to vacillate between amusing, annoying and pitiful.

So it goes.

The scene of the tripod emerging onto the hilltop, looking down at the crowded ferry, was awesome.


----------



## DonTadow (Jul 7, 2005)

Cutter XXIII said:
			
		

> I thought it was pretty great, but not completely fulfilling (not sure why). Gave it a 7.
> 
> It occurs to me (reading this thread) that at least 6 out of 10 gamers view movies as onscreen RPG sessions. If the characters in the movie do not act in a "logical" manner befitting their own PC, they pan the movie because the characters were "stupid."
> 
> ...




I think 6 out  of 10 "gamers" just want the movie to make sense aka be logical.  I think its silly to watch, read, play or do anything that goes against its own mythos.  If a setting creates its own myth or story, it should at least abide by it.   That's the problem with the movie, it doesnt.  It says one thing at one point, and a couple scenes later it vacates that point by having something that contradicts it.  It's mindboggling.  

Are you asking that we not think about logical story's when seeing the movie?  Just stare at the destruction and like how the humans win overall?


----------



## Cutter XXIII (Jul 7, 2005)

DonTadow said:
			
		

> Are you asking that we not think about logical story's when seeing the movie? Just stare at the destruction and like how the humans win overall?




Yeah, pretty much.

I usually reserve my logical/analytical thinking for, say, a particularly engrossing book, or a so-called "thinking man's" movie (i.e. a movie that requires thought), or for figuring out the details of something I'm working on.

I don't look to a Spielberg flick for deep thoughts or, Eris forfend, "sense," any more than I look for it on network TV.

But for two hours of reasonably entertaining film? Yes. And that's what I got.


----------



## DonTadow (Jul 7, 2005)

Cutter XXIII said:
			
		

> Yeah, pretty much.
> 
> I usually reserve my logical/analytical thinking for, say, a particularly engrossing book, or a so-called "thinking man's" movie (i.e. a movie that requires thought), or for figuring out the details of something I'm working on.
> 
> ...



We agree up to a point.  I had no expectations going into the movie. The thing that upset me is, the first third of the movie tricked me and made me thinking I was watching an  intelligent film.  So As i watched for 20 minutes I prepared for what i thought was something logical, intelligent and action packed ala "I Robot".  What I got was an hour and 40 minutes of fluff and popcorn.  THe movie set me up for something big early on and it let me down. It's not fair to come off the first 20 minutes as the next blade runner and then start sinking into Mars Attacks.


----------



## Morrus (Jul 7, 2005)

DonTadow said:
			
		

> something logical, intelligent and action packed ala "I Robot".




Wow.  We certainly disagree when it comes to our opinions on movies!  _I Robot_ may have been action packed, but I've always considered it a long, long way from logical or intelligent!

Not that WotW was much better, of course.  It was, in my opinion, better - but not much better.


----------



## DonTadow (Jul 7, 2005)

Morrus said:
			
		

> Wow.  We certainly disagree when it comes to our opinions on movies!  _I Robot_ may have been action packed, but I've always considered it a long, long way from logical or intelligent!
> 
> Not that WotW was much better, of course.  It was, in my opinion, better - but not much better.



It contained the philosophy of Asimov which surprised me.  I had really low expectations when i went "I Robot" which is why it suprirsed me.  There were stupid actiony parts


----------



## maggot (Jul 9, 2005)

I just got back from seeing War of the Worlds, and this has to be the worst movie I've ever seen.  I shaking mad at having wasted money and two hours of time.  I wanted to walk out, but kept thinking Spielberg might pull it out.  But no, it was just really bad. Bad pacing, bad plotting, bad writing, bad science, bad scifi, bad ending, just plain awful.

I am warning everyone away from this movie.  I would see my previous worst movie twenty times before I would see this piece of trash again.  Ugh!

Absolute zero of a movie.  Whatever scale you use, it will always be at the bottom.  Not even worth watching for the sake of seeing how bad it is.  Stay away.  Far away.


----------



## Joker (Jul 9, 2005)

*Please pardon any spelling mistakes.  There are four vertical opaque bars going through my screen so I can't see all that I'm typing.*

I didn't read all the posts so I might be repeating what has been said.

I missed the gore.  Stomach churning gore.  Some scenes were pretty gripping and emotionally heavy but I just missed the gore.  I understand they wanted to get a low rating so they could get a larger audience, but those tripods reminded me too much of the Striders (HL-2) and the harvester robots (Animatrix, the Second Renaissance Pt.2) where people were impaled and torn apart respectively.  As most of the "action" was off screen the gore didn't even need to be shown directly.  Maybe just a scene where the camera follows someone being pulled out of sight and then the sound of that person being torn apart or squashed.  Maybe a shower of red.  But of course the aliens needed people for asscandy.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not someone who thinks a movie isn't complete unless it has a high gore level.  I just think it would have suited this movie.

Some other things:

"Oh, look at that, lightning just struck 26 times on the same spot.  Well, you know what they say, lightning doesn't strike 27 times on the same spot.  Let's all huddle around and see."  That wasn't the only scene where people huddled around for the stock run-away-in-a-chaotic-and-frantic-way-screaming.  Makes good cinema...if you're six.

Back to the gore, when the basket full of people fell on that tree wouldn't some of them have been impaled?

Supervan-Completely invulnerable to anything but an EMP (in case of EMP just replace the...the...euh...the thingy).  Also has SUPER GPS which allows it to find a perfectly manageable path through downed aircraft debri and traffic jams.

Do fighter planes need to fly that low to be effective?

I swear, I thought it was the birds that made the aliens go dead .

Some things I did like:

Unlike some other other posters, I liked Fanning's performance.

The action was good.  Not because it was so spectacular but because it wasn't in your face.  However, the rest of the movie overshadowed it.


----------



## Man in the Funny Hat (Jul 9, 2005)

Wanted to address a couple of things people have brought up.

First, fixing the van:
The car part that was replaced on the van is called the *solenoid*. It's part of the system that starts the car. I'm not a mechanic but as I have come to understand it, you turn the ignition key to "start", a small amount of electricity is passed to the solenoid from the battery. The solenoid puts that electricity through its wound copper wire coil creating a magnetic field, moving a metal contact into position so it can pass a much larger amount of electricity from the battery to actually turn the starter motor.

If the solenoid is subjected to EMP the idea being suggested in the movie is that it results in the solenoid being burned out. Solenoids burn out occasionally IRL anyway (I can recall at least once when the solenoid on one of my own cars burned out) and the result is - your car won't start.

Second, the Red Weed:
Now it's been a while since I've read WotW but as I recall the PURPOSE of the Red Weed was never explained and Wells never wrote as if it had a "purpose", It just was. When initially mentioned it was in the context that all the vegetation on Mars was probably in shades of red, rather than green like most of Earth. Also, it was briefly questioned whether the Martians had brought these seeds intentionally or they had simply been carried with them accidentally. It was further mentioned in this initial paragraph about the weed that there were a _number_ of red, martian plants that had sprung up but really only the one vine-like plant managed to take a solid hold and started to proliferate over large swaths of the countryside especially near water.

I can remember making the connection when I first read the book that the appearance of the Red Weed might have coincided with the use of the Black Smoke or Vapour (that goes unmentioned in either movie version even though in many ways I'd have thought it would be every bit as effective on film for being scary).  Reading it again later I realized that I had been mistaken and it was simply another weapon for the Martians to use, probably more efficient in many ways than the heat ray - but it was specifically a mortar-like weapon that fired cannisters of some kind so they would likely have limited ammunition for it.  The black smoke has always been the more prophetic element of the story by predicting the use of chemical agents in WWI although everyone only seems to remember the heat ray, probably because it's much a more sci-fi-ish weapon.


----------



## Chain Lightning (Jul 9, 2005)

Joker said:
			
		

> Do fighter planes need to fly that low to be effective?




No they don't. 

But since Spielberg wanted to show jets involve, he decided to make them fly low. You see, we're watching the film from the perspective of the main characters. If they don't see it, we don't see it. So, in real life, the characters would never see the jets at all. They would just see missiles coming in toward the battlefield. Then hear the jets overheard in the far distance. 

As a director, you gotta make a creative choice. Show the jets all flying close together really low and break realism. Or stick to realism and show the jets. I assume Spielberg decided to show the jets because he probably thought the dramatic 'cool' factor was more important in this case. That as well as also thinking that the audience would be confused if missiles came out of no where but you didn't see any jets launch them.  

The other unrealistic thing was the Apache helicopters. Unless on some airshow parade fly by, they don't fly in packs of 5 or 6 that close together. But again, a lot directors nowadays like cool over realistic.

I personally think you can be realistic and be cool at the same time. With proper planning, storyboarding, discussion, and so on, you can tell a scene realistically and still be dramatic.


----------



## Joker (Jul 10, 2005)

Chain Lightning said:
			
		

> I personally think you can be realistic and be cool at the same time. With proper planning, storyboarding, discussion, and so on, you can tell a scene realistically and still be dramatic.




I agree with you completely.  I thought most of the action in the movie had great impact because it wasn't shown directly.  That whole scene went into a completely different and IMNSHO unnecessary standard Hollywood direction.
I could easily see a scene where a couple of hell-fire missiles strike the aliens and then a hand-held camera swirvs around to look at a couple of hovering dots in the distance.


----------



## Vexed (Jul 11, 2005)

I gave it a 3.  Because of the effects.  (Great effects!) 
I thought the scene in the basement was Waaayyyy toooo lonnggg ZZzzzzzzzzzzz 
Boring! 

Also the fact the aliens had traveled all this way because they wanted earth and no one stopped to ask if the air/water posed a threat to their immune system... preservatives, co2, and burger king! j/k

The ending was just to anti climatic for me... like uh ok, they die now cause the environment is hostile... and then its over.

The littler girl did a good job though.  However, her screaming was really annoying...


----------



## Phaedrus (Jul 14, 2005)

6.

On the strength of the siren/horn/honk sound effect alone.

No one else has mentioned this?

Absolutely the best sound effect EVER!!!!!!!!

(The only inconsistency that drove me bonkers was the son surviving. Cut him from the entire movie and he wouldn't be missed at all)


----------



## Krug (Jul 15, 2005)

Little bit of trivia from Ebert:



Spoiler



Q. Are the couple standing on the mother's stoop in Boston, at the end of "War of the Worlds," Gene Barry and Ann Robinson, the leads from the 1953 version of the movie?

Tony McFadden, Singapore

A. Yes.


----------



## Banshee16 (Jul 16, 2005)

DonTadow said:
			
		

> SPOILER ALERT THROUGHOUT:::
> 
> The movie started off great, even up until the tripods, then the idoitic inconsistencies happened.
> 0. A random police officer is able to tell to tell everyone that there is nothing underneath the street and everyone believes him.
> ...




A few points....

Is it so foolish that a police officer could have been wrong?  He could have spoken up, not understanding what was actually happening.  

A mob of people killing each other over a car?  Have you seen a mob?  My brother was in *our* car on Canada Day downtown, and a mob of people, who are apparently harmless, trampled over it, with two of our friends inside it, and destroyed the vehicle, caved in the roof, shattered all the windows, and crushed the hood and trunk.  Again, this was *with* people in the car at the time, while it was moving.  Mobs are not harmless, and in groups, people are irrational and dangerous.  When they tried to get out and pull people off the car, they almost got the stuffing beaten out of them.

The movie wasn't perfect.....but some of the things, like aliens not having bio suits, falling victim to disease, etc.....that's part of the book.  It's the whole point.

I was wondering about the van.  That's a pretty efficient motor.  But I missed the beginning of the movie, so I'm not sure what city they were in to start with, or how far they actually drove.

Banshee


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## Banshee16 (Jul 16, 2005)

Ankh-Morpork Guard said:
			
		

> Hmm...I probably won't see this again so I'll have to take your word on that. Of course, it then raises the question of why were the clothes raining down in the forest later? I assumed it was a direct way of showing passengers in planes had been heat rayed.




Is there a reason why people were disintegrated, but their clothing remained?

Banshee


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## Krug (Jul 16, 2005)

Banshee16 said:
			
		

> Is there a reason why people were disintegrated, but their clothing remained?
> 
> Banshee




Coz it just looked so awesomely cool!


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## Banshee16 (Jul 16, 2005)

Krug said:
			
		

> Coz it just looked so awesomely cool!




Point to you   I was trying to figure out why, thinking that maybe it just vaporized organic matter, but unless they were all wearing polyester, that was unlikely.  Then I just decided it must be just for drama....it was pretty horrifying seeing all those clothes swirling around in the air.

I think there were some inconsistencies in the film, but not as many as some would claim.  If you've actually seen people in a panic, or been in a mob, and seen frightened people, it's a lot easier to accept some of the behavioural things in the movie.

Some of the stuff, like the working camera and TV crew and stuff I just figured it was because the people with that equipment weren't near the EMP when it affected everything.

Personally, I found the movie really intense.  Once it got going, it was like "run, run, run".  It was easy to imagine myself in a similar situation, and try to figure out what I'd do.

I think the main thing that disappointed me was the son surviving.  That just smacked too much of a happy ending.  Not when just about everything in the area got vaporized.

I gave the movie a pass.  High Theatre?  Not at all.  Enjoyable?  Definitely...much more than a lot of the crap coming out of Hollywood lately.

Banshee


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## Jdvn1 (Jul 16, 2005)

Banshee16 said:
			
		

> Is there a reason why people were disintegrated, but their clothing remained?
> 
> Banshee



 I'm not sure why they were disintigrated in the first place.  Weren't they collecting bodies for a _reason_?


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## DonTadow (Jul 16, 2005)

Banshee16 said:
			
		

> A few points....
> 
> Is it so foolish that a police officer could have been wrong?  He could have spoken up, not understanding what was actually happening.
> 
> ...



Speilberg didn't put the cop in the movie to be wrong.  Else there's no point for the cop to be in the movie.  

My thing is that the mob was inconsistant.  Why attack Cruise and his van but not the army jeeps and other men.  Mobs should be either really uncontrolbable or orderlly but not both.  If Speilberg wanted to stick to the book and make it make since he would have had to set it in the past.


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## Banshee16 (Jul 16, 2005)

DonTadow said:
			
		

> Speilberg didn't put the cop in the movie to be wrong.  Else there's no point for the cop to be in the movie.
> 
> My thing is that the mob was inconsistant.  Why attack Cruise and his van but not the army jeeps and other men.  Mobs should be either really uncontrolbable or orderlly but not both.  If Speilberg wanted to stick to the book and make it make since he would have had to set it in the past.




The cop was wrong for a reason......to display that people had no idea what was going on.  He was an authority figure who still had no clue.  I'm pretty sure that was done purposefully.

As to the mob not attacking the army, I'm pretty sure the racks of machine guns and rocket launchers had something to do with it.

Banshee


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## Hijinks (Jul 17, 2005)

> A reluctance to show us horror.




I thought the bodies floating down the river was pretty horrifying.  I don't particularly like gorefest horror films, and I especially don't like gorefest sci-fi films.  I don't need to see entrails and brains to know people died horribly.



> why were the clothes raining down in the forest later? I assumed it was a direct way of showing passengers in planes had been heat rayed.




Hmm.  I thought the force of being rayed on the nearby beach was blowing the clothes into the sky, to rain down a short distance away.  Could be from a plane though, that would have explained to me why I didn't see any bodies in the earlier plane crash debris and I would never have thought about it again.



> Weren't they collecting bodies for a reason?




I doubt they needed billions of people.  They took what they needed for food, and vaporized the rest.  Also, killing millions instantly is a darn good way of waging warfare - scare the poop out of your enemy and he'll show less resistance.

I gave it a 7.  I was very scared during the ferry scene, although I'm terrified of boats so that was part of it.  I agree that the basement scene is a little long, but I thought the blindfold + lullaby song while the dad killed Tim Robbins was emotionally effective.  I was unhappy that the jerk teenaged son survived, although when the mom hugged the little girl and didn't ask about the boy, I knew he was alive, and was disappointed.  I loved the scary foghorn sound - wow that was loud, but again effective.

The thing that bothered me the most was the people standing around wondering what was rising out of the ground.  Like they'd never seen a sci-fi film or something.  I would have been halfway to Poughkeepsie by the time the asphalt stopped cracking.  Then after people started getting vaporized, they would still run away half-heartedly, darting glances over their shoulders as they loped away.  'Scuse me, but I'm not looking back, I'm tucking my chin to my chest and running like hell.  That was a little over-the-top dramatic for my tastes.

I do agree about the mob mentality - the mob scenes were frightening because I know that's how people would act if this were to really happen.  Dumb, scared sheep, following the herd.


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## Jdvn1 (Jul 17, 2005)

Hijinks said:
			
		

> I doubt they needed billions of people.  They took what they needed for food, and vaporized the rest.



In the movie, they vaporized first. Regardless, why would you do something to limit your crop?


			
				Hijinks said:
			
		

> Also, killing millions instantly is a darn good way of waging warfare - scare the poop out of your enemy and he'll show less resistance.



Like they said, it wasn't warfare. It was extermination. The humans didn't have a chance.


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## DonTadow (Jul 17, 2005)

Banshee16 said:
			
		

> The cop was wrong for a reason......to display that people had no idea what was going on.  He was an authority figure who still had no clue.  I'm pretty sure that was done purposefully.
> 
> As to the mob not attacking the army, I'm pretty sure the racks of machine guns and rocket launchers had something to do with it.
> 
> Banshee



We obviously disagree on this part.  I really don't think, as a writer, I'd use a cop to show how know one knew what was going on.  Cops, lawyers and judges are traditionally used in fiction as authority figures.  When they have dialogue its usually to convey a message of the truth.  

The immediate questions in people mines when they see lightening hit a hole 21 times is, well aren't there sewer pipes, wires, gas lines, water mains and such down there.  Isn't this illogical. Notice he doesnt say anything until the ground starts rumbling.  Before we know anything about aliens, Speilberg needs us to know that it is not something natural.  The logical conclusion would have been it is a water main breaking or a gas line about to errupt. So Spielberg needs us to know that this is not natural, and he uses the cop to do that.  My beef is that the cop is the wrong figurehead to convey that knowledge as he's just a beat cop.


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## BiggusGeekus (Jul 17, 2005)

Very intense. As a father with a daughter, the most horrific scene



Spoiler



was when he was begging to pull his daughter out of the mini-van before the carjacker stole it.  To me that was the most intense part of the movie.



The aliens were backdrop in this flick.


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## Banshee16 (Jul 18, 2005)

DonTadow said:
			
		

> We obviously disagree on this part.  I really don't think, as a writer, I'd use a cop to show how know one knew what was going on.  Cops, lawyers and judges are traditionally used in fiction as authority figures.  When they have dialogue its usually to convey a message of the truth.
> 
> The immediate questions in people mines when they see lightening hit a hole 21 times is, well aren't there sewer pipes, wires, gas lines, water mains and such down there.  Isn't this illogical. Notice he doesnt say anything until the ground starts rumbling.  Before we know anything about aliens, Speilberg needs us to know that it is not something natural.  The logical conclusion would have been it is a water main breaking or a gas line about to errupt. So Spielberg needs us to know that this is not natural, and he uses the cop to do that.  My beef is that the cop is the wrong figurehead to convey that knowledge as he's just a beat cop.




I'm not sure if this is a regional/cultural difference or what, but I totally understood the sarcasm underlying the cop's being wrong about it.  He's an authority figure, and is saying that there's nothing underground.  And he's wrong about it.  In fact, nobody had a clue.

IMO, that's kind of the point.  It has more effect than having some schmoe who doesn't know anything say that there was nothing under the street.  Obviously, as viewers, we know it's not natural, and we know tripods are going to come out of the ground.  so Spielburg is simply having a laugh by having the cop make an incorrect statement.

Banshee


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## Queen_Dopplepopolis (Jul 18, 2005)

I found the film to be good, but that doesn't mean I liked it.

I thought it was horrifying.  I was very scared.  Additionally, I felt terrible for the woman that brought her middle school-aged daughters.


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## talien (Jul 18, 2005)

My review: http://members.toast.net/talien/tmb/movietv/waroftheworlds.html


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## iwatt (Jul 18, 2005)

BiggusGeekus said:
			
		

> Very intense. As a father with a daughter, the most horrific scene
> 
> 
> 
> ...




The other scene that's scary is 



Spoiler



when he wakes up and sees Tim Robbins talking to his daughter. That gave me the creeps.[/QUOTE]


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## Harmon (Jul 19, 2005)

Characters, special effects, direction (Steven rocks!), was all about 9 (I don't believe in perfect).

The problem I had was the lack of ass kicking the main characters got to do, the lack of involvement they had in doing things other then just surviving, but as Coyote6 said- it wasn't about anything but keeping the family alive (really paraphrasing here) and together.  The growth Ray goes through is extrodinary.

If you like a good character driven survival movie then you will like it, but if you like to see the hero kick but- don't bother.


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## Psionicist (Jul 21, 2005)

Ugh, poorly executed garbage. Have I seen this before? Icky down-the-throat family values, save-the-world characters, annoying kids, some kind of catastrophic event, travel around a country, lots of special effects? Sounds curiously familiar? Independence Day? Day after tomorrow? Armageddon? Hmm, why do I feel this is nothing new at all? No flag-waving though, at least something.

This movie was:
A very good way to get a headache.
Obviously market-researched.

This movie was NOT:
Entertaining.
Interesting.

2/10.


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