War of The Worlds - Steven Spielberg

[Zerohero]

i agree. there were a lot of things thats really bothered me about his film, what you just said being one of them. i also hated most of the camera work. my gf commented as soon as the aliens showed about the saving private ryan shaky cam work. really annoying. then they had so many overly long camera shots with no cuts just for the sake of doing it. the highway scene being the worst offender. wow now were in the back seat, pan around to the front seat.....then pan outside to the front fender......the FRONT FUCKING FENDER! WHY!? just to go back into the van. really dumb and unnecessary. then the whole basement scene was just the same. and then the whole blood fertilizer thing. the aliens just kind of do it with no explanation. it was purely there for shock value. and then of course my theatre has to make every big release a 10 on the volume scale, so i was ready to leave every couple minutes when something loud would happen.

The only camra angle that got annoying was in the Van, the rest was just fine especially the first apreance of the tripod.

I find it strange when people need to be spoon feed every single thing about a movie. How about These are Aliens from another planet and we might not know every single reason why they do things!!! Thats what makes sci fi movies intresting especially this one.

The only thing I'll grip about is the ending and I think the basement part of the movie was a little to long now that i've seen it a 2nd time. Besides that it was a good movie.

Oh, and if the sound is cranked way the fuck down like the 2nd time I saw it. It takes away the movie "feeling". This movie must be experienced with the sound up or it just doesn't sound right. It will sound like mono instead of suround sound.

[Dyne]

I find it strange when people need to be spoon feed every single thing about a movie.

so what did i need spoonfed? why they made the fields bloody? well explain it then because it really had little to no impact on the movie/invasion.

Oh, and if the sound is cranked way the fuck down like the 2nd time I saw it. It takes away the movie "feeling". This movie must be experienced with the sound up or it just doesn't sound right. It will sound like mono instead of suround sound.

theres a difference between loud and being so fucking cranked that you cant even enjoy the subtleties of the surround sound. it just hits you hard and its not fun.

[Rumpy]

I liked all of the direction. I loved the van cam going down the highway. Holla at modern filming techniques.

[FirstBlood]

I saw this today, and for the most part it was a fun ride, but I have two major complaints (spoilers ahead)

1. Robbie should have died, no questions asked. Cruise finally letting his son make his own decisions was his resolution, and there's no reason they had to be reunited in the end. It actually cheapens the scene where Cruise lets him go, which was actually nice and emotional.

2. I have no problem with the "Aliens lose due to bacteria etc." I have a problem with how it was handled in the film, it felt like a really simple deus ex machina, where a solution is pulled out of thin air to wrap up the film. It felt like the end went "Oh shit we're all dead! ... Oh look, they're vulnerable now, we've won." And that was that. There needed to be some lead up to the malfunctions, or some indication to the viewer that it was nature causing the ships to malfunction. It just seemed far to abrupt.

[MechDeus]

I wish the kids had died. I really wish Robbie had died, the sooner the better, but that's mostly just my hatred of retarded teenagers as opposed to anything he specifically did in the flick. God I wanted to hit him so badly.

I also thought they showed too much of the aliens, only the dying one at the end should've been in there. I didn't like the scene with them wandering around the house, it was too much.

I liked all of the direction. I loved the van cam going down the highway. Holla at modern filming techniques.

Agreed. I also loved a lot of the contrasting old-school shots, like where Tom Cruise would walk up a hill and the camera was panning up behind him and it looked like he was on a sound stage maybe 20 feet deep. Added with the rubber-legged tripods a lot of it felt very 60s to me which I enjoyed.

[...] or some indication to the viewer that it was nature causing the ships to malfunction.

If you've got a better way to display a microscopic, invisible-to-our-eyes air-borne infection from the POV of regular people I'm all ears.

I thought it was fine because the whole thing was being shown from the viewpoint of a regular person trying to get from one city to another, my major complaint in that regard was his heroic attempted sacrifice at taking down a tripod. During the second half of the flick I was scared they were going to do something retarded like have the girl catch a cold which she would then directly pass on to the aliens or something dumb like that. The way the aliens had problems in ways which didn't relate at all to the main characters gave it a greater feel of the invasion being widespread, as opposed to the normal everything-important-in-the-world-involves-one-set-of-people sort of claustrophic design philosophy. It really helped the "these are everyday people" feel to me.

p.s. Watching this made me side with the attack design of the ID4 aliens. Bombard Earth from the skies with city-demolishing lasers, that's the way to handle it.

I think the basement part of the movie was a little to long now that i've seen it a 2nd time.

I thought the basement thing was too long the first time. Blah to that, makes me not want to go back and see the movie because I know I'll have to go through all that nonsense again.

[1CCOSA]

Thanks dolemite, will try to check out march of penguins.

OK, finally got to see the movie with friends Friday night. Loved it. 4/5 stars. It is the darkest, most serious "B movie" ever made if that makes sense. Finally, a modern alien invasion flick done right. Spoilers all over in here.

Tom Cruise comes off nicely for the most part as a deadbeat dad at least trying to be a better father for a few days. The scene where he is trying to get their minds off the invasion by making them sandwiches and gets frustrated was nicely acted. When they are sitting watching the but job mob tear apart their van and Ray breaks down crying because of the fear they all feel...awesome.

All of his scenes with Dakota Fanning were wonderfully acted, you could feel how intensely he wanted to protect her, even going so far as killing Ogilvy who just would not shut up and shielding her with his whole body (when the tripod recepticle is trying to suck more people up to grind into fertilizer). Loved it when Ray grenades the tripod, nicely reminiscent of Luke taking down the AT-AT as someone else said.

Very cool when he comes home with the ash of dead people all over his face and head and shakes it off in front of the mirror in horror and disgust. On that note, the disintegration animation was incredible.

Dakota Fanning: Not annoying at all IMHO. Of course she about split my ears when she was screaming in the van but could you blame her? Fanning was overall haunting as Ray's daughter. Very likeable kid and glad she lived.

Robbie: Too lazy to look up the actor's name but good job overall of portraying a smug, difficult teenage boy. I agree, when he races into that fiery field which is being melee'd by the army and tripods he should have at least have been maimed and lost a limb. Imagine what a powerful image it would have been if Ray hugged Robbie at the end and he'd been misisng an arm? Oh well. Otherwise it was nice to see he and Ray reconciled at the end. But I still wanted to smack him in the face.

EDIT: Also, did anyone notice that they changed the audio a bit in the part where Ray is begging Robbie not to join the battle? In the trailer you can clearly hear him say "I know it seems like sometimes you have to fight, but you don't! You don't!" Maybe it was my theater but when I saw it, he says the same thing but the audio is really muffled and I could barely make it out.

The basement. Overall, very good, one of my favorite parts int he movie actually just for how atmospheric it was. Robbins does a good job at portraying...a very ANNOYING crazy man. Well acted, but annoying. It was almost gratifying when Ray offed him after basically warning Ogilvy that "If I start to think that your yapping is endangering my daughter's life I am gonna ice you cold and fast." Then after a few rounds of "Not my blood! Not my blood!" the door closes shut and it is time to wave bye-bye to Ogilvy. Brilliant and dark.

Loved the mechanical eye, the CGI on that thing was very life-like and moved very fluidly.

The aliens themselves, very weird. I am mixed on them. I like that they were evil but had a weird child-like curiosity, looking at Ogilvy's family pictures. I also thought it was a nice visual cue that one of the aliens is seen drinking some water trickling down the basement wall since later on Freeman mentions later in the epilogue narration "From they moment they breathed or air and drank our water they were doomed...."

The aliens themselves, i liked their faces but i did not like the back of their heads, they had these pointy, hooded cowls on their heads which was just a little bit reminiscent of the aliens' heads from ID4. Bah.

Best part of all: the tripods. They just ooze personality and pure evil. The introduction of the tripod in the city street was brilliantly shot. As others have said their "death noise" is amazing! I got goosebumps when I saw the tripod make its evil noise above the forested valley as it looked down at the screaming crowd below.

The wide shot of a crowd running down the hill next to the river as some tripods mercilessly vaporize them was beyond creepy.

Ferry scene: awesome

Red weed: disgustingly awesome, love the wide shot of Ray looking at a city on the evening horizon which is blood red.

The scene of the alien's arm hanging out of the dead tripod was a brilliant homage to the ending of the '53 film.

And very neat to see Gene Barry and the actress from the '53 film as Miranda Otto's parents.

I could go on quite a bit on a ton of other scenes/shots I loved but will leave it at that.

Morgan Freeman's reading of Well's opening and epilogue are simply wonderful. "Evil aliens: eat micrscopic death from god. Signed, Morgan."

A must buy on my DVD list for the fall and a new classic from Spielberg.

[animegirl]

so what did i need spoonfed? why they made the fields bloody? well explain it then because it really had little to no impact on the movie/invasion.

Maybe they were making it more like their home planet?

[1CCOSA]

Originally Posted by Dragonmaster Dyne
so what did i need spoonfed? why they made the fields bloody? well explain it then because it really had little to no impact on the movie/invasion.

Maybe they were making it more like their home planet?

No kidding. I fail to see what is so hard to grasp about that. Aliens grinding up humans and spraying their chunks into the ground = fertilizer for terraforming. Duhhhh. It wasn't spoon feeding exposition. It was disgusting, old school B movie greatness and also a nice way to visually show what the aliens were trying to do with the earth.

But if Spielberg hadn't shown the reason for the red weed people would whine that the red weed was "pointless" and further say the movie showed "no reason as to why the aliens invaded." Oh well.

[animegirl]

basement scene

The basement scene was there to bring the story back it's human element. I thought the coolest shot was when Tom Cruise was fighting the guy for the shotgun and right next to them were the aliens searching for them. The man not the aliens was the real danger.

[1CCOSA]

The basement scene was there to bring the story back it's human element. I thought the coolest shot was when Tom Cruise was fighting the guy for the shotgun and right next to them were the aliens searching for them. The man not the aliens was the real danger.

So true.

Yeah, see the movie and then try to say it's not lame. I don't need everyone to die, but in a movie where either you are dying or losing loved ones it was really weak that nothing happened to their family, including the boy wonder Robbie. It's like they had some super gay ass happy ending sheild and nothing could hurt them.

Yay, that'll be fun to watch again. Never having to worry about any of them dying. I don't know about you guys, but even when I know a charachter I like is going to die I still hope, although impossible, that he or she somehow lives. Someday Robert Deniro will shoot Al Pacino at the end of Heat, or so I hope.

Surprise. I saw the movie and it was not lame. It was the best attempt at a serious alien invasion flick I have ever seen. Plus I fail to see how a movie which floats hundreds of bloated dead bodies past Dakota Fanning's eyes is a "super happy gay ass movie." I agree Robbie should have at least have lost a limb but overall the dark tone of the movie was not affected IMHO.