War Of The Worlds

John_Hudson said:
Can't you just sit back and be entertained?
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Yes.
John_Hudson said:
Haven't you ever seen broadway?
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No.
John_Hudson said:
Do you even know what it is like to be entertained?
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Yes.
John_Hudson said:
Have you ver sat back and listened to a live band and just felt entertained?
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No.
John_Hudson said:
Can you not even relate to a man's challenge to protect his family at all costs?
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Yes.
John_Hudson said:
Can you relate to having to kill a man to protect your family?
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Yes.

John_Hudson said:
What is so 'amazingly unrealistic' about it? What? I can remember like it was yesterday the Rodney King riots; people people pulled from their cars and pummeled by mobs of people; remember the trucker Reginald Denny (sp?) driving down the road and being caught inthe mobs? Rememeber him being pulled from his car and being beat to near death? And that was over a jury verdict. What ahppens when the end of the world is near?
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These people wanted to be violent to make an impact, they weren't afraid.
John_Hudson said:
How can you like Batman Begins but not this?
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Batman Begins was a great film.
John_Hudson said:
You need to get out of Wichita and experience life a little more. You're living in a vacuum with those statements
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You should try leaving California... talk about a skewed perspective.
 
John_Hudson said:
Coltrain always flames us; but at least it makes for spirited debates. I welcome Coltrain; it makes an otherwise ordinary evening of throwing darts and drinking pints into gab central.
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I try to bring people back down to reality.
 
Coltrain said:
ID4 is a great film compared to this crap.

It was entertaining.
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I disagree with ID4 i mean it just a bad commerical film and unentertaining. i mean its way to hopeful granted this could have been darker to me it was good for a family oreinent spielburg film. i mean if i t was R it could have been WAY different. ID4 is just ... i mean even FX is bored with it.
 
Now we're getting someplace.


First of all, Machardi. Great review and nie insight. You bring up some valid points; the Camcorder of course; ouch. Someon forgot the minor details. The bodies floating; same response in our theatre; but I remember laughing in a "Oh ****" kind of way, ya know? Can't recall anyone laughing during the Crusie is shocked stage. Nice review overalll.

Coltrain

You never have listended to live music and been just entertained? Just joyed beyond belief? That sucks.

You should try leaving California... talk about a skewed perspective.
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I've been around more than the average joe; Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, Philly, Alaska, Mexico and driving across the country from GA to Ca. I've lived on my own and was emancipated when I was 16. I've started my own company and have spent the last 8 years raising a family. I've experienced drugs and death and life when my son was born into my arms. I've skated, played guitar in a band and almost drowned in 20' big surf. I flipped a Jeep end over end in Mexico resulting in Concussion and spending 4 days 'lost' in 'La Mancha' if you will. I have walked the rails in Aluetian Storms in conplete darkness while lowering boats for a fishing trawler on fire and dead in the water. I've been arrested twice and have seen someone stabbed twice in my life in front of my very own eyes. I've had a 2 guns pointed at me while one being 2 inches from my temple while I took a car and the other while another person tried to take from me. I've been beat down in bootcamp and and have told more than one boss to take the job and stick it up their ass.

Not sure what a 'skewed perspective' implies but what have you been doing? Are you even old enough to drink?

And what is a skewed perspective? Explain this statement please?
 
just saw it and thought it was cool, but not so good of a movie.
There were some problems, 1. When the lightning stricks and the aliens come out and al that, all the people either star at it or run a little and then stare. 2. That when the ygot to Boston, their family was alive even almost no one ealse was and they were standing at the door waiting. Even the son was there after the huge explotion.
And last can someone explane the end to me, was it water?
 
Machardi, you make a good point. Robet McKee (great screenwriting teachery guy) writes that every plot (or subplot) has an "inciting incident" which not just leads to the climax and resolution, but promises it to the reader. You might link this to Joseph Cambell's "call to adventure" or whatever. Anyhow, I suppose my main problems are more with the script than with the direction, although I think the direction got far weaker as the script did, or at least Spielberg's weaknesses showed up much more clearly.

Anyhow, the movie had three real plots: the fight between aliens and humanity, Ray escaping to Boston, and Ray trying to get his family to care about him as he matures into a more capable parent in the face of danger. The inciting incident for the alien plot is the tripod coming out and killing a bunch of people, while the inciting incident for the other plot is the kids arriving at Ray's house. The main plot's inciting incident is when they leave in the car for Boston (yay Boston!!!). There's also Tim Robbin's subplot but that's kind of weird and not as important.

Anyhow, (spoiler warning) all the plots are going along nicely, things are getting complicated, and Ray loses his son. Wow! That's unexpected. I thought it was a great plot twist because you expected reconciliation but didn't get it. If the people getting evaporated didn't drive home the horrible situation these people are in, this definitely should have. It also makes Ray and his family seem less invincible than they did earlier in the movie, which was one of the main failures of the first act.

From then on, though, there are problems. The alien looking for them in the basement is one of them. It makes this incredibly strong, ultra-intelligent force seem...well...stupid. The eye thing reflects light, but it's tricked by a mirror. Huh? It knows what a shoe is. Why? It wastes 15 minutes looking through one building when there are thousands of others and millions of other people not to far away. What's up with that? Tim Robbins' character doesn't help. He's too one-dimensional, too convenient, and his motivation too arbitrary. Oh well.

But all of that would be forgivable if the ending payed off...but it doesn't. The inciting incident of the tripod killing people promises a showdown between the armies and the aliens. We get one, but the aliens lose because of a deus ex machina: germs on a planet that they're using to cultivate humans kill them. (This makes no sense, but it's an issue with the original book, too.) The showdown is totally anticlimactic and the aliens are no longer such a threat because Ray killed one, they are already weak, and because we know they're not that smart from the showdown in the basement. The Ray going to Boston plot promises Ray against an alien: either outrunning it or fighting it. We get this, but it's poorly executed. He happnes to find a grenade, and happens to be the one person who is able to survive. The family now feels invincible again, and this subplot is negated, since it's driven by the intense fear the movie (up until now) has generated, but ends up destroying. The family subplot ALMOST works. How much stronger would the movie be if Ray's son didn't make it and we were left to wonder if this is his failing, his son's failing, or a general inability for the two to be reconciled? But when he comes back arbitrarily at the ending, not only is this possiblity lost, the danger the family was in earlier in the movie is subverted for a happy ending, since this little kid apparently ran full force into the aliens to fight them, but ended up getting hundreds of miles away just fine--before Ray, action hero that he has become, is able to.

The third act is just very, very weak storytelling. The direction isn't bad, though. There are some beautiful, beautiful images, especially of Ray's daughter framed through broken glass and of the destruction the machines have caused. Still, the movie's last half really ruins the sense of chaos and fear built up in the first half. The invincible machines turn out to be stupid, then doomed to die because of microbes, then unable to kill a kid who runs at them, despite being able to vaporize anything in their path.

Basically, the first half of the movie creates an amazing atmosphere which is eventually dispelled by the second half. But the first half is so good, and there is so much that is good even beyond that, that I have to recommend the movie. But having the main plot and the two major sup-plots never add up is just too great a storytelling sin. I left the theater dissapointed.
 
Not without it's question's.

Did you see the people during 9/11? Staring up; mouth's agape? It's a train wreck. Easy for us to say "Why are they standing there?" when we know MAD ALIENS are coming out of the ground hell bent on destroying the world.

What I got out of the end was that it was our water, our oxygen, everything; microorganisms they were not immune to the second they came down.

I read a review that Roger Ebert gave that was comicaly bad; it's as if he wanted so bad for it to be Spielberg's Sugary Fantasy Stories that he just pans the hell out of the film. He even goes so far as to question the Aliens motives for invasion. What? You want them to explain it?

He asks about the sense of wonder created with Close Encounters. NEWSBREAK ROGER: This isn't Close Encounter's. It's War of the ****ing Worlds.

He even says he doesnt like the Tripods and the deisgn and is missing that it based on the novel by HG WELLS and that description....

Sigh....

He even says "we never believe..." . Who is he speaking for?
 
John_Hudson said:
You never have listended to live music and been just entertained? Just joyed beyond belief? That sucks.
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I don't listen to music. I know of it, but never listen to it.

John_Hudson said:
Not sure what a 'skewed perspective' implies but what have you been doing? Are you even old enough to drink?

And what is a skewed perspective? Explain this statement please?
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I am old enough to drink, but don't.

I think that my perspective, being from Wichita, Kansas (the largest city in the state), is more grounded than someone living on a coast. Things are simple here, allowing for reflection.
 
2 Replies here; the first to Coltrain and the second to Policars:

I don't listen to music. I know of it, but never listen to it.
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Is this for religious purposes? That is indeed the strangest thing I have ever heard someone say. Man your're losing me on that one.

I am old enough to drink, but don't.
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I know; I went to your site and saw the bite on the mini-bio after my post. That's kind of my point; not that you drink or not but your age. Your young. Naive. You have a ton of life yet to experience. You think you have the answers but you have no clue really. And you know what? I'm 35 and the dude who is 45 or 50 or 63 is saying the same thing to me. If I was anything today what I was like when I was 21; oh jesus. No way. You are going to change a thousand different ways by the mid 30's - 40's era.

This isn't a bag on anyone that is young; I'm just illustrating that I thought I knew it all at 21 and I (and everyone I know) goes through quite the metamorphasis from 20 to 40.

I think that my perspective, being from Wichita, Kansas (the largest city in the state), is more grounded than someone living on a coast. Things are simple here, allowing for reflection.
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How can one reflect on things they know nothing about? You havent even experienced life yet (sans your own experience which is limited I assure you); what are you reflecting on? High School? CNN stories? The term paper that is due?

Policar

You have some nice and thoughful takes on Cinema man. I dig it.

The alien looking for them in the basement is one of them. It makes this incredibly strong, ultra-intelligent force seem...well...stupid. The eye thing reflects light, but it's tricked by a mirror. Huh? It knows what a shoe is. Why? It wastes 15 minutes looking through one building when there are thousands of others and millions of other people not to far away. What's up with that? Tim Robbins' character doesn't help. He's too one-dimensional, too convenient, and his motivation too arbitrary. Oh well.
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Why assume the Alines would know any better? They're alien to our world. Why assume they would know what a shoe was or the physics of a mirror. The 'Alien Eye' was a camera probe of sorts wasn't it? How do we know what the other side is seeing? Infrared? High Def? Who ****ing know's? Tim Robbins character was what? What kind of character should he have been? His character leading up to him being offed by Tom was classic and memorable. Why worry about other buildings? Like troops in battle they ALiens get out to check out the destruction until they are called back. Asking these detailed questions are the kind that can never be answered and really dont need to be. Its just thinking too long and hard about something doesnt need to be so deep.

But all of that would be forgivable if the ending payed off...but it doesn't. The inciting incident of the tripod killing people promises a showdown between the armies and the aliens. We get one, but the aliens lose because of a deus ex machina: germs on a planet that they're using to cultivate humans kill them. (This makes no sense, but it's an issue with the original book, too.)
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Have to remember that point. People are still caught up in the end and the end is exactly like the source material. Should they use artistic liberty and change the end? I personaly prefer an end of the world ending but I'm not getting that either. Props for keeping in the spirit of HG WELLS>

How much stronger would the movie be if Ray's son didn't make it and we were left to wonder if this is his failing, his son's failing, or a general inability for the two to be reconciled?
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I completely agree that the son missing in action would have been perfect for me.

The third act is just very, very weak storytelling.
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I really enjoyed and was surprised at the part where Tim goes nuts and Tom has to take him down. Loved it.

This is good filmtalk.
 
like i said imagine the film if it were darker. go finchereque on it. now that would be something :-p
 
John_Hudson said:
Is this for religious purposes?
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No, I just don't. I say "I know of it" because I hear it, some of it I like, I have even created some of it for my films (though I wouldn't call it "music") but I don't ever just listen to it and I don't like any particular kind.


In my mind, being 22, I can't imagine any perspective I have changing much. I don't claim to know it all, but I wonder how I would change in 20 years?
 
Peace on the music issue. I was heavily into music during my Teen's and 20's (Played) and then kind of 'moved on' I guess. I still ove it and listen but do not follow the new stuff nor buy the new stuff; mainly burn my old school tunes.

The changes you go through in everyway from 20 to 40 are staggering. I am no where near the person I am was when I was 21 today at 35. Emotionally, politically, moralistically and yes even spiritually everything is different. Priorties are different, goals are different, tastes are different, friends are different.

Everything changes; I'm telling you. When you are 40 you will look back at 20 and be like "Whoa. I can't believe this, I can't believe that..."

In a good way this all is. It's growth; wisdom; maturity, evolvement.
 
I agree with the problems with the third act but wow what a great overall job of making a movie. The ending was anticlimatic and really the film lost me shortly after they lost track of the son BUT that may have been because thats when the power went out in the theatre where we were watching it(storm was passing thru how ironic). After a brief intermission the power came back on and they got it going again. I won't mention how many times I went outside during the break and watched the lightning. Good Movie, great special effects. I think the third act could have been better and if he would have ran it by the critics here at dvxuser he would have got it right.(well maybe). I watched Batman begins today as well and I enjoyed it too. So far the summer season has been interesting.
 
John_Hudson said:
The 'Alien Eye' was a camera probe of sorts wasn't it? How do we know what the other side is seeing? Infrared? High Def? Who ****ing know's?
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LOL!!!
 
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