WAR OF THE WORLDS Discussion - Page 2

You don't want to make an enemy of me. Or Vin. Or the duck.

For the first time I have fears for this movie. I hope Speilberg doesn't get too fuzzy with this one.

Not sure why but I have a bad feeling about this one now.

Actually I think I know why perhaps because Cruise is producing and Spielberg's last flick (The Terminal) was so bad. Still i'm curious about this one as I liked Minority Report.

I'm curious as to how they're going to end the movie, as the notion of the invaders being killed off by Earth-bound bacteria is central to the message that Wells wanted to get across - that even the mightiest conquering force can be stopped in its tracks if they succumb to arrogance and force of arms alone. It was Wells' comment on the British Empire.

In the George Pal 1950s version, they kept the germ ending but played heavily (very heavily) on God's hand in the alien's demise. Point missed.

In Independence Day they made the germs into a computer virus, which is a halfway-clever way of updating it but once again misses the point.

It's not God, or the sheer pluck of the human spirit, that saves the day. It's Martian complacency. We don't save ourselves, which is the antithesis of how American movies like to end.

I wonder if Spielberg is bold enough to cast Tom Cruise as the lead in an alien invasion flick and then have the common cold as the hero?

I think he does, i dont think he will deviate to much from the end of the book. I think he has reached the stage of his carreer where he can do whatever he likes and the studio execs will go "sure here is some more money".

I agree. I don't expect Mr. Speilberg to try and throw a new twist onto the ending of the original. Although it certainly seems like he is messing around the aliens somewhat. The whole reason this thread was started was to figure out the meaning of "They're alrady here." So he is obviously adding something to the story.

"they're already here" could mean nothing more than that he is skipping the first act of most alien invasion movies.
the first scene could be everyone waking up to find the aliens are already fortified, rather than 30 odd minutes of normality while things very slowly become strange. that would speed things up a bit. characters would be introduced while already under duress rather than reading the morning paper.

that's probably just wishful thinking. So 'no-one knows' is probably the answer, or perhaps 'it's just marketing'.

Don't you think aliens intelligent enough to come to earth would be intelligent enough to protect themselves against earthly microorganisms?

Do you think we would just go to another, life-sustaining, planet and assume that everything is a-ok?

That ending may have been ok for Wells, way back when the story was originally written, I do not think it would be ok today; unless, of course, there's more to it than that.

Because we are smarter now than we were back then?

ummm, because it was published in 1898, and I think it stands to reason that our knowledge of microorganisms has substantially increased since then.

People are stupid. Look at Iraq. We're supposed to be the smartest animals on this planet, yet we've let all of that go to shit. We're also dead arrogant.

I don't think it's too much of a stretch.

I mean, that's the whole point. It's not whether they are intelligent to check. It's whether they bother. As in 'WE'RE SO STRONG, THE HUMANS ARE ON THE RUN, LET'S GET OUT AND BREATH THE FRESH AIR OF VIC-ARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!

NEED LOCKETS.'

Since I keep hearing they have no ending yet, I think Spielberg is struggling with just this question.

Why, oh why did he have to rush this one?

I still think trees are involved somehow.

"BTW I heard a rumor the other day that because Pendragon Pictures got the rights to War of the worlds first and started making a film based on the book, that, thats the reason that Spielberg & co had to set the film in a different era with different characters..... still that sounds like total BS to me but I thought I'd mention it incase it turns out to be true one day...."

That is pure bullshit and exceptionally stupid bullshit at that.. The book is in the public domain, has been for a bout 50 years, it's has no copyright protection anymore, and anybody who wants can make a film of it. People really should do a little research before they start dumbass rumors like that. Any knowledge of copyright laws would have told you that WOTW is no longer protected. Btw this is not aimed at the poster, but at the people who started the rumor he mentions.


" think it looks...interesting, and you've got to admire their sheer big shiny brass balls for even attempting it."
I do admire Pendragon's balls, but from the clips the film looks like a low grade TV movie..the acting in particular.
And "Gorgo" has a must better destruction of Westminster Hall then the clip from the Pendragon WOTW.....

But I really have problems with what Speilberg can do with a modern day Alien Invasion film that has no already been done a dozen times before.

BTW the Grasping Alien hand in the poster looks just like the hands of the Martians in the 1953 George Pal WOTW.

Red vines....red vines....I remember something about red vines and martian invasions....


Ah yes, not just candy. Red weed.

Google search revealed:
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/asullivan00/worlds21.html

(Contains minor spoilers about The Red Weed)

Super Bowl Teaser!!!

SUPER BOWL TEASER!!!

http://www.latinoreview.com/films_20...30tvsbspot.htm

EDIT: For some reason that link isn't working. Go to LatinoReview.com and you can find it from there. MovieBox also has it.

Am I the only here getting a feeling of the 'War of the Worlds' musical by Jeff Wayne.... I don't know why I just can't get some of the songs out of my head whenever I read information about this movie.

Nice to see they are sticking to the original story, it will be cool if the martians still have their tripods of death as well.

So what's the addy to moviebox? www.moviebox.com takes you somewhere else.


Right now, if you go to www.latinoreview.com, it's at the top.

No sound at work, but the visuals of the interstate flying up into the air are pretty spectacular.

Here's a direct link to the page:

Here ya go

I got it loaded with no lag, but who knows how many people have found this link since then.

No Longer Available!?!?!

Here's a yousendit link for those who want to see it bad enough to download it:

Click-click

I agree. Awesome effects. Although I bet those aren't finished - The way the bridge was braking apart makes me thing in the final movie we'll see some explosions or alien ships there.

I don't know why, but I don't think we will be seeing alien ships. Possibly more explosions, but an unseen enemy can be just a frightening.

Perhaps not. It looks like the bridge is being torn apart by an invisible force, and not explosions per-se. I'd like to see alien weapons that aren't big lasers. Perhaps something sonic, magnetic, or gravity based would be an interesting change from the standard destructive visuals. Sure, there'd be explosions as gas lines or tanker trucks went up, but I think the destruction looks pretty convincing as it is...

Any, more recent links?

Perhaps this is one of the ways Spielberg is going to distinguish this film from ID4. the giant fireball of destruction is now a cliche. if it's invisible, then we don't know what's going to get destroyed next and it will instill a sense of terror again.
like in Saving Private Ryan, when death could happen to anyone at anytime.

might be good.

the trailer did have the old cliche of the 'hero' being the only one who knows what's happening and the only one doing the sensible thing. do we know who Cruise's character is that he would be ahead of everyone else.
I saw die hard 2 recently (mistake!) and EVERYONE else is a giant moron and Bruce Willis seems to know almost supernaturally exactly what the terrorists are going to do next. Let's hope this film isn't as dumb.

After doing a bit of reading, it seems Cruises character is very middle class. He's living a very ordinary, perhaps lower middle-class life, dealing with all his regular shit, when aliens invade. This is another distinct variation from ID4, where are principal cast is made up of fighter pilots, the president, and scientists. People who seeming can impact what's happening. In the scenario Spielberg seems to be presenting, Cruises character wouldnt seem to have any control over this worldwide disaster. Making his role mostly reactionary; trying to keep his family just ahead the clutches of evil alien death! Very cool.

Oh the destruction looks great, but it doesn't seem to be coming from anywhere. I thought of the teaser for ID4 when the White House gets blasted. If you remember, the teaser didn't have the helicopter. But in the movie, one of the helicopters.....blah blah blah, you've all seen it...

JUDDL - no, all the links have been taken down. Latino Review and The Movie Box were the only ones I knew of that had it. It'll probably be up late Sunday or Monday morning everywhere, though.

Doug Graham put up a working link in the "Superbowl TV spot" thread, so I finally caught it.

Decent looking special effects aside, this teaser does not have me pumped. Mini-van outrunning a trail of explosions is kind of over the top in my book, and why does that guy care if Cruise stays or not?

I like that idea. If a battleship out at sea were to have fired at the bridge, there wouldn't be any kind of warning- the bridge would just explode out of nowhere. Sound may play some part here, but who knows...

You know JUDDL I thought about that too. It was kind of stupid. The only thing I could think - and it really doesn't matter, is that they got in his truck as an act of simply trying to get away and the dude came out of the store or something and, not knowing what's going on yet - hence Tom's "get in or you're going to die" speech, thought they were trying to steal it.

You all keep hoping that there's going to be some new twist to the alien invasion thing with sound waves, magnetic fields, or whatever. While that is cool (and I still think trees are involved) it wouldn't be the summer movie it will be without some big fucking explosions. Besides, lasers or whatever is so much simpler to exlpain to the John/Jane Doe audience than having to add dialogue explaining that the aliens are using "an advanced weapon capable of narrowing the magnetic field and directing it" or some shit like that.

Oh, I know..they'll have Tom running down the street and his daughter will look at him and say "how are they doing this daddy?" and he'll say "I don't know honey, they must be using sound waves or something." End of explanation.

I don't think anyone knows for sure yet what they look like but I came across this a while back - it's only concept art but it's still pretty cool lookin.

The Martians fingers look like they have suction cups on them. How can I be scared of something that I may see stuck to the back of someone's windshield next to Garfield?

I repeat that the poster hands are too much like the Martian hands in the 1953 Pal Film to be a coincidence.
I fully expect Grover's Mill, New Jersey to make an apppreance or get a mention in the film as well.

It seems as though Speilberg is trying to combine the Everyman during the Alien Invasion viewpoint a la "Signs" with the spectacular/massive destruction appeal of ID4. How well he suceeds in combining these two remains to be seen.
BTW, I think that Jeff Wayne is postponing his Animated version of his musical WOTW until 2007...

That Superbowl trailer was badly edited or something, maybe it was the music badly edited, or something, but it just felt very rushed together. The music itself was awesome, from Immediate Music I think. Anyway, point of this post: You think a few effects were rubbed out from this teaser or they're still not completed? Because I couldnt tell why that freeway was being destroyed, I went frame by frame and saw tiny bits of light shining on the surface before they erupted, but thats not good enough is it!?

I saw those too. They must be reference points for FX people, so they can later add the cause of the destruction - laser, ship, whatever.

So we have two teaser trailers both showing destruction happening by surprise, with no visual precursor, with no warning. yet you still believe that it's only because they have yet to add some whizzy laser death rays to the shots?

I guess we will all find out in a few months, but do you not think that having the souce of destruction be invisible might be an interesting cinematic conceit? And do you not think that, since AI and his dalliance with Kubrick, Spielberg has very self-consciously been trying to do different things with the thriller and sci-fi genre? Do you not think that this would be a very Speilbergian way to mix the visual language of Sci-fi destruction up a little bit - that taking away stuff might actually give us more? Specifically taking away the audience's safety of knowing what's going to get hit next?

Just an idea. We don't have that long to wait.

Nope, lol. Honestly, you can see shiny light before each hit, so thats not really invisible is it?

I agree that Speilberg's been trying new things, I'm in the minority that actually liked A.I, but I think this movie is inevitabely going to draw (admittedly lazy) comparisons with ID4, even though that was more or less a remake or riff of the original War of the Worlds too.

I'm digging the tree theory, but we'll see like you say.

I think you're giving him too much credit. He's not going to try and "mix it up a bit" in an effort to be like the late great Kubrick. (I don't remember AI being a huge hit, do you?) You think he'd fuck around with your standard invasion story with a huge star like Tom Cruise for a "new idea"? Doubt it. This movie was made to make a ton of money, and that's what it's going to do. It's a summer movie; a tent pole popcorn picture and that's what he's going to deliver.

I first heard about this movie at the end of last summer. Then over Christmas we hear filming is completed. Then a teaer. Now this. And the movie comes out in a few months? That's pretty fuckin fast. Especially for one as big as this. That's why I figured we're getting these unfinished shots.

But who knows?! Maybe he's not going to show an alien at all until the movie comes out. How's that for original? All we see from now until summer is destruction and Tom Cruise looking at something. We have to go see the movie to see what's different about these aliens. That would be an interesting cinematic conceit.

Well we'll find out in a few months. Then one of us can come back here and gloat immaturely.

I don't know about the rest of you, but a seemingly invisible, insanely powerful force capable of tossing an entire interstate into the air without warning is far more disturbing to me than a giant explosion. It's the same sort of fear that pervaded the first teaser... foreboding followed by a powerful and unexplainable destruction.

Someone is making sure this things have some consistency. I guess it could be the trailer editors, but its an unusally risky and effective concept, and that makes me think Spielberg.

This is just silly. It's Steven Spielberg. Say what you will about the man, but if he has an idea for something that's a little unusual, he, probably more than anyone on the planet, can afford to pursue that idea. Yes, even in a summer Tom Cruise vehicle.

After seeing the super trailer, with it's wave of destruction, My though was "Did'nt we see this film a few years ago but it was called Independence Day?"
Sorry, but whether the cause of the wave of destruction is visible or not is really quibbling. We saw it in ID4, and my hopes of a halfway original take on an Alien Invasion has just got down.Just too similiar, Steve, just too similiar.

Disagree. Considering the main character will be approached much differently.

You are probably right, and I will still go to see it.
But from a marketing standpoint, you do not want this film to look like ID4 redux, and and I am afrad that the effects in the Superbowl ad did just that. I think they have to emphasize what is different about this WOTW from all the other Alien Invasion ficks if they want this one to become a really big blockbuster, perticually since the competition will be stiff this summer.