Good movie. Not enough special effects. Heck, it took another 30 minutes to get to more tripods after the first showing. Too bad there are no deleted scenes.

I still don’t think the War of the Worlds is really ‘hard-core science fiction’ in the way that the Time Machine is. A funny position to take, but there you go….

As a work of satire, calculated horror and a brilliant evocation of the panic of a society overwhelmed by vastly superior firepower, Well’s classic is unsurpassed.

Spielberg drops the satire and adds in a bit of Lovecraftian cosmological alienation: as flies to wanton boys are we to the gods: they kill us for their sport, and so on. I liked the feeling of being utterly insignificant – prey to ancient intelligences.

This I feel was also true to some of Wells spirit: that side of the author that revelled in the gothic horror of the Martians and the Morlocks and the Island of Dr Moreau, as well as the more popular image of the rationalist writer of extrapolative fiction. Like George Lucas (only much much better) Speilberg has never really been a maker of science fiction movies because he is actually incapable of thinking logically. Rather he is a supreme dreamer, a myth maker.

A very haunting and frightening film.

The family stuff was irritating.

Has anyone visited http://www.tomcruiseisnuts.com?

I heard the radio show, then saw the movie the next night, and recalled Vincent Resh’s comments about the bridge behind Ray’s house, and his way off reference to one of the eastern bridges linking to Queens. They went north and had to cross the Hudson River to get to CT and then up to Boston, Ray had said, so I don’t know what Resh was thinking. Wikipedia mentions they were in Newark, but they used the Bayonne Bridge for that shot, and the first emerging alien craft came out of the streets of Newark. See [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Worlds_(2005_movie)]here[/url]. They also mention errors and gaffs. (BTW, Seth Shostak seems a cool guy).

I agree that it was a “fun” movie, but in no way did it feel anything like the 1953 movie, which was heavy on the religious overtones, and the obvious glaring errors regarding what electronics worked or didn’t work required the same suspension of belief that made you think, “Why are those people stupidly standing on the edge of cracking pavement when they should be running like hell?” Still, the alien tripods were menacing, and the suspense was about right. At least it was enough that afterwards driving in a convertible under the night sky, I was imagining these tripods hovering above, so it worked for me.

Otoh, the basement sequence with Tim Robbins dragged on a bit too long, and the aliens were too “cute” while spinning the bicycle wheel, and rummaging for snacks–it took away from the eeriness of the prior snake-like probe–a useless inclusion. Didn’t they eat some human food? How smart is that? I agree, less seen is better. The ending, too, was incredibly weak, and seemed slapped together, and the father/son/dysfunctional family wrap-up too sappy, and insulting to the viewer.

Two good creepy scenes: the flaming train, and the dead bodies floating down the Hudson River. The sort of “Night of the Living Dead” mob scene with the van was OK, too, in showing that people go stark raving mad in crises. All in all, it was entertaining enough, but Spielberg could have done much better. The FX were good, but I didn’t care about the characters.

As far as the Tom Cruise hoopla–if I based my movie going on actors’ personal opinions or ideologies, I’d see few films. There are too many hands in a movie, especially the FX people and editors, (the most important in this genre) that it would be cutting one’s nose to spite one’s face, and pointless, you’d just be punishing a whole lot of people for one person’s ideas apart from the film, and achieving little, unless your aim is to want Cruise to never get a job again…Cruise already got his cash. Besides, there are many people, scientists included, that we claim as “heroes” that were or are jerks in a variety of ways or supported immoral endeavors. Whatever.

HTTP://Gutenberg.org/etext/36

HTTP://WikiSource.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds

The machines are much closer to those of the book. Those 30-meter tall machines are scary. The book is the earliest example of directed energy-weapons and chemical warfare (the Martians wiped out all of London — over 5 million people — in less than an hour by gassing the city). The book also contains a message about hubris:

The Martians exterminate all disease, so did not even consider it — to their great chagrin. Many felt that antibiotics will eliminate all disease, but all of this Darwinian stress just lead to the Darwinian evolution of antibiotic resistant bacteria.

One can assume something about the evolution of the movie-aliens from their appearance in the movie (assume makes an ASS of yoU and ME). The Their distant ancestors appear to have been trilaterally symmetrical. Their ancestors evolved from trilaterally into bilaterally symmetrical creatures probably for locomotion; although they still have much trilateral symmetry. As a refreshing surprise, they do not appear to fit into any earthy phylum.

The movie was a good movie but could have been better.

☆☆☆

Yes, Tom Cruise is nuts for believing in Scientology. I wish he had my grounding in reality.