War of the worlds!

Review: eh... 3/5

Positives:
Special Effects
Great Atmosphere
Little Girls acting really reflected terror in a child
Tom Cruise was actually pretty good (still felt like another character he did before)
Striders were cool

Negatives:
Alien technology was so ineffective
People were so ignorant
robbie
Repetive at some points
Came out of theater with headache
 
I enjoyed the movie...it was very average as to how much a liked it but it was great. The ending was very happy for such a dark movie however the rest of the movie made up for it. It was scary as hell and had goosbumps during many of the tense scenes. It truly showed the whole movie through the eyes of the one family trying to survive...it was great. Godamn I wish they went over the hill though....

I would give it 7-8/10

Personally I would have ended the movie a lot darker...because really that was a rather "convenient ending" for the humans. It was the deus ex machina of film...like the hero surrounded by a bunch of bad guys conveniently happened to have a weapon to help him get away from them all right next to him.
 
After waiting to see this movie since last December I finally got my chance. Yesterday I went to the 1:30 PM showing, then 45 minutes after the 1:30 show all my friends showed up and wanted to see it, so I ended up seeing the 4:15 PM showing also :p. I'm really tired, so I'm not going to post my review untill I sleep and have some time to comprehend the movie. :)
 
Loved it, the movie was a little more than 2 hour long, but they flew by like 15 min.
the action is great, and the way they showed how people reacted
(mass panic, guy killing other guy for a car)
great, great movie.
my score is 10/10
 
I don't think some of you were paying enough attention to the movie. The reason the aliens died is because they ingested bacteria that they had absolutely no immunity to. I thought it tied in nicely (if a little too forcibly) with the opening scene of the movie.
 
Did anyone else notice the CRAZY shot of the car driving down the freeway?

It was like 3 1/2 minutes long with tons of dialouge, zooming in + outside the van, going back up close, zooming away again for a wide shot, going in for close ups, etc.

Speilberg's still got it.
 
War of the Worlds was written in 1898. If anything, Half Life 2 got the idea for Striders from that, rather than the other way around.


Anyways. I guess I liked it, but
HOLY CRAP PLOT HOLES GALORE.

This is spoiler heavy so don't cry if you read it.

Ok, so they planted all those pods on the earth before we were around, and we never found ONE? After thousands of years of manipulating our environment, we never noticed giant alien machines underground?

but, ok, let's assume we're just idiots and whatever. So these machines have been planted around the world, and more densely in populated areas, of course. So, how did the aliens know where we would build our cities?

By the way, how funny that the remains of U.S. army never bothered to use a nuke on those alien tri-pods. They probably did and most likely failed but at least the film scriptors could have added that to a scene.
 
Combine Hybrid,

if they used a nuke, it would of exploded immaturelly and kill everything else.

Also, the machines could of been buried waaay beneath the earth. How would you know if it just a few miles underground anyway.

The same amount of machines could of been planted in the areas, you didn't see every tripod that there was.
 
Burn said:
If your going to post the ending, put it in spoiler tags! For hells sake stop being so elistist, who cares if someones not read the book.
Click to expand...

Done... Slowly.
 
Just saw the film.

Combine.. What Danimal said :p.

Anyways, I just got back from the film, it was FANTASTIC, I loved every second. The changes of the fighters was great (changes made over the old ones.. since they had to be updated), and unlike others I didnt think the ending an anti-climax. I loved the bit with the car, and the "Artiary man" from the book, talking about digging to the underground to rebuild earth (Thats somthing from the book)

Spoiler answering some peoples questions

The aliens attacked earth to feed off the humans, as Mars was dry. They planted there fighters in the earth before humans evoled, they knew there planet would die out, and given a million years the earth would be full enough to feed off the people living there. (Being human or animal).

The shields stoped working because the aliens inside where being attacked by the bactira in the air, so they couldnt man the fighters to put the shields on etc.

Hope that clears it up abit.
 
I loved this movie. Now I know this movie is based off the H.G. Wells novie from 1890 or whatever, but in the movie when the tripods appear, they make a loud noise that scares everyone, and it made me think "Strider"!!!!!!!
 
fluffhead said:
but in the movie when the tripods appear, they make a loud noise that scares everyone, and it made me think "Strider"!!!!!!!
Click to expand...
That's a exactly same thought I had.
 
Who knows, maybe some of the cg guys played Half-life 2 and got a little inspiration. Is the ending "incomplete"? I hear that you get a feeling of the movie being incomplete at the end.
 
That film was so great.

It irritated me how Spielberg actually seemed to kill of Robbie but then, right at the end, ZOMG! He's back! Despite being on a ridge that got napalmed! Hmmmmmmmm. But that's more of a personal opinion and not a problem with the film.

While the ending was quite good, and still the same as the book, I think it could have been handled better.

When Ogilvy talked about 'taking some down in Osaka' I thought for a minute that Spielberg was going to create a hybrid of the book and hollywood: some virus takes down a few of the aliens, humanity gets the idea to fight with biological warfare. If handled correctly, that might have worked and not seemed to 'heroic'.

But it was still an incredibly good film. Certainly good enough for me to want to buy on DVD (and I never buy films on DVD).
 
Robbie's survival is a slightly altered version of the tension in the book where the narrator realizes his wife must be dead, but later discovers her survival.
 
Direwolf, I was thinking the exact same thing when I watched the movie.



OK, my rating for War Of The Worlds is - 9.5/10

The movie is well paced and almost perfect IMO, except for a few things here and there that annoyed me.

Positives:
- Great atmosphere
- Good acting
- Some of the best CGI to date
- Awesome Tripod design
- Good humor
- Basically everything else :p

Negatives:
- I really don't think that Ray taking down the Tripod with the grenades fit into the rest of the movie's survival and terror atmosphere. IMO, it would have been better If the Tripod sorta just fell down on its own (for obvious reasons).
- I know the movie is PG-13, but I thought it looked a bit strange how people went *poof* into ash, with there clothes still intact, after being shot with a beam that can destroy buildings.
 
The beam should have an effect similar to Strider's anti-matter beam's effect on targets.
 
I loved the way the mashines killed, its very different to anything done before, the fighters screaming sound was awesome. Incase anyone is wondering that was from the book/musical. Loved the way Ray came home with the dust of bodys all over him and was freaked out, it makes sence.. No film I know of have had people freaked out, more just "Hey aliens are killing us, oh well lets get our gun!"

Sulkdodds I agree robbie should of stayed dead, but its nothing that Im going to yell at the film for.. Ogilvy talking about them taking one down was either just a rumor or that the aliens where dieing allready in some places. It wouldnt of worked that humans made somthing to stop them as that would ruin the whole point of the film. The point of the film is that humans earned there right to survive on earth with the billions of lives that have been killed by deseases.
 
To consume their biomass for the (biomechanical imo) war machine?
 
Combine Hybrid said:
By the way, how funny that the remains of U.S. army never bothered to use a nuke on those alien tri-pods. They probably did and most likely failed but at least the film scriptors could have added that to a scene.
Click to expand...

Cough*In the first movie the shields can repel an atomic blast*Cough
 
oh man i really want to see those spoilers...i need to see this movie.
 
Combine Hybrid said:
Why in the hell does the machines pull the humans inside of the machine?
Click to expand...

They feed off humans, Sulkdodds the fighters are not bio, there just craft the aliens use
 
If so, why is it all red and organic-y inside when Cruise gets dragged up into one? That looked pretty biomechanical to me...
 
Ritz, I agree when you said the tripods kill differently, I never expected them to litteraly poof into dust, when that women ran away and poof'd close up it makes you realise just how horrible it would be to happen to you.

Anyway, I did not expect Robbi to survive, when he got all "I love you sist0r!" I hated him =/.

The whole grenades inside the tripod was convenient... Too convenient if you ask me. Oh, and Ritz, thanks for explaining about the whole bacteria thing :)
 
Danimal said:
Ritz, I agree when you said the tripods kill differently, I never expected them to litteraly poof into dust, when that women ran away and poof'd close up it makes you realise just how horrible it would be to happen to you.
Click to expand...

The power of the "Heat-Ray" in action.
 
Sulkdodds said:
If so, why is it all red and organic-y inside when Cruise gets dragged up into one? That looked pretty biomechanical to me...
Click to expand...

Well, cant explain that, but in the books they where not biomechanical.
 
The sound the heat-rayed people made really freaked me out for some reason. Just the really low-pitch *boom* that they made as they exploded in a cloud of ash.

Man, that film freaked me a little

-Angry Lawyer
 
Agreed, one of the best things was the sound, the sound the aliens made from there fighters was freaky, and the heatray was freaky too.
 
Sulkdodds said:
If so, why is it all red and organic-y inside when Cruise gets dragged up into one? That looked pretty biomechanical to me...
Click to expand...

As the aliens spread over the surface of the earth, so does this insidious vegetation, hinting of the Martian desire to remove all traces of previous life from the planet's surface. While Speilberg's film characters may not say so in so many works, the gradual advance of the plants, their appearance in scenes symbolizes the touch of an alien presence.

Original book can be found here http://www.online-literature.com/wellshg/warworlds/
 
As the aliens spread over the surface of the earth, so does this insidious vegetation, hinting of the Martian desire to remove all traces of previous life from the planet's surface. While Speilberg's film characters may not say so in so many works, the gradual advance of the plants, their appearance in scenes symbolizes the touch of an alien presence.
Click to expand...

Err, yes. But:

My point is that when Tom Cruise gets dragged up into the war machine (near the end when he's in the basket) he's being sucked up by a giant, red, and obviously organic mouthy-type thing. Seeing as we actually see the aliens themselves, that's obviously not the mouth of the piloting alien. So it's part of the war machine. Which seems to suggest to me that they machines are, at least in Spielberg's film, biomechanical. And which has nothing to do with the (obvious) symbollism of the red weed.
 
While it looks biomechanical right there, its not necessarily. It could just be red and shiny. :D
 
Yeah, people pulled inside of the machine has nothing to do with red weeds. I think they make red weed by sucking the blood out of people. For example the scene when Cruise witnesses a person gets dropped by a machine tentacle then the spiky thing just impairs the guy and start sucking blood out of him.
 
The greatest movie i have ever seen, better then Empire Strikes Back...just.

Truely amazing film, if you haven't seen it, you must all go and see it immediately.

But the Tripods are exactly the same as Striders, lo. Everything, the noise the make, how they look, the weapons, etc...
 
ommfg that was soooo awsome Its scary as hell to.everybody go see it!
 
They dont look anything like striders to me. There legs are not soild mass of metal, there bendable plates of metal (or whatever), there weapons are hardly the same, they dont make people just vanish, I dont remember striders making ANY noise, and the sound they make are not the tripods, there the aliens inside speaking to the humans.
 
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