War of the Worlds

Strong Bad · November 2005

<<<HOLES -
1) The beginning... yep - they effed up at the beginning... according to the movie - aliens planted machines here MILLIONS of years ago to take over (you know...when nothing lived here) - question - Why would an obviously... more intelligent life form plant advanced machined here... to take over when the world is populated beyond belief? Yeah I think they messed up here.>

My take on this supposed hole is this...

The Aliens used humans as fuel and food for the alien plant life they were spreading all over. If they tried to take over a million years ago, there were no humans around, thus no food or fuel. They used what they needed and fried the rest.

Now, that theory opens even more. How would they have known that humans would even be around if we've only been here like a 100,000 years (give or take) and they plopped the ships here a Million years ago?

Why not take over when there were just enough humans and not have to go through frying half of them?

Oh Jesus Christ, I'm starting to analyze movies like Micah!!! Stop me someone, please stop me!!!

I enjoyed the movie though. Fun popcorn flick!

John

Rich64 · November 2005

You are all luckier than me,, took wife and daughter to the theater when it first came out. Three admissions, three lg popcorns, three lg Cokes...doesn't leave me much to buy Rolaids!!! What a way to upset your stomach! Should have realized why they did not let any "Reviewers" audition this before it went to screen. Great sound, but what a POS movie..

begbie · November 2005

This is one of those rare movies that shot up at the box office and fell flat and out of memory just as quickly.

BIZILL · November 2005

okay, perhaps i'm a glutton for punishment and as well will eat my words. i did nothing but speak out against this movie. i borrowed it for a day and just gave it back. for some reason i want to watch it again. i do believe a trip to the nearest mental institution is slated for my immediate future.

Early B. · November 2005

BIZILL wrote:

okay, perhaps i'm a glutton for punishment and as well will eat my words. i did nothing but speak out against this movie. i borrowed it for a day and just gave it back. for some reason i want to watch it again. i do believe a trip to the nearest mental institution is slated for my immediate future.

With your system, I can certainly see why you'd want to watch, ugh hear, it again. However, don't cancel your reservations at the local asylum yet.

ohskigod · November 2005

I liked the movie. yeah, there were gaps, big gaps. what was with the red weeds, and why cover them with human blood. yada yada.

I agree, the buried weapons thing didnt hit me right either, but if something like this hapenned, nothing would make sence, and I think that is what they were going for.

I know there is ways to shield from EMP, I just dont know what they are. I guess thats subject to interpretation for the movie. there was a level of realism to everything that made the movie a little scary for me. pulled me into it, despite some believability gaps

and of course, the sound, was stunning. this is my new demo disc for my theater. there were times I thought and paniced that my subs would bottom, but they didnt. It was the best and most impressive my subs ever sounded. My wife, My friend, as well as I were stunned at the bass output and how well it blended with the movie. cannonfire during the battle scenes made it sound like there was a war going on right in my house.

ohskigod · November 2005

oh, and in regards to the end, in all the aliens advanced technology, none of them had Hepa filters, or a friggin antibiotic?!?!?!

anyway, I still enjoyed the movie, in a brainless sort of way

kberg · November 2005

ohskigod wrote:

oh, and in regards to the end, in all the aliens advanced technology, none of them had Hepa filters, or a friggin antibiotic?!?!?!

I think this is what got me the most - waiting around for "millions of years" just to get wiped out because they forgot to run some environmental tests!

BIZILL · November 2005

what drew me in in the beginning was when the alien wasted absolutely no time killing everyone in sight. if it were to really happen, i'm sure they'd waste no time at all. kinda scary knowing that the huge machine/organism is impervious to anything you have to counter-act its rampage.

BIZILL · November 2005

people hated the fact that regular water (h2o) defeated the aliens in the movie 'signs'. i thought it was cool. but the aliens knew it was their only weakness. these aliens didn't even fathom little parasites could kill them. uh...........

gregure · November 2005

I agree with most of what's been said. The film, overall, is inferior because of a stupid script and many holes in the plot. It does, however, carry a certain level quality due to the staging of many of the action sequences by Spielberg. The first appearance of the Tripod and the ensuing attack was one of the most thrilling scenes I've seen in a very long time, and it was one of the longest scenes I can remember that didn't seem to cut away, but just kept going. That, and a few more scenes, plus the sound experience, make it worth seeing at least once.

In terms of dissecting the plot holes, here's another for you:
If the son thinks his father is such a son of a **** lousy father, then why is he overcome by such a desire to witness the war, that he abandons his little sister to the care of said loser father? That whole thing with the son "needing to see" was just totally ridiculous.

And here's another idea for the reason the aliens planted **** here millions of years ago. Maybe, like the ID4 aliens, they were parasites, who just feed off the natural resources of a given planet and then move on. Perhaps they found several worlds across the galaxy, and just came back when they needed the resources.

Who knows? It's all pretty stupid. The screenwriter obviously didn't give it too much thought, why should we? David Koepp gets far too much work in my opinion. The guy is mediocre at best, yet Spielberg keeps using him to write scripts.

begbie · November 2005

BIZILL wrote:

people hated the fact that regular water (h2o) defeated the aliens in the movie 'signs'. i thought it was cool. but the aliens knew it was their only weakness. these aliens didn't even fathom little parasites could kill them. uh...........

I believe that the disease/virus downfall of the aliens was in reference to the original War of the Worlds.

Either case, Shyamalan's movie "Signs" and his aliens "water demise" is still the worse cop-out of the two. In War of the Worlds, it at least lended itself to discussion of how these aliens could possible die to disease. In Signs, everyone just rolled their eyes :rolleyes: and ended up ridiculing the flick as the aliens raced home from Earth's water.

shack · November 2005

Just out of curiosity...how many of you critiquing the plot and various aspects of the movie have actually read the book? (I know Ted has). You do realize this book was written in 1898? I haven't seen the movie (this time of year I never buy new movies or CDs so my family has something to buy me for Christmas and Bday) so I can't say how much it is or is not faithful to the book. I do know that the original movie deviated quite a bit, but the basic premise was still true to the original book. For this movie to be titled "The War of The Worlds" the plot should remain close to the original, even if it doesn't make much sense in our enlightened age.

THE ORIGINAL 1898 BOOK COVER

1913 REPRINT COVER

I know this will never be done, but I would like to see all of Wells and Jules Verne's books done as period pieces with the visuals as they would have been depicted in the time they were written. They probably wouldnt be popular to anyone else, but I think it would be cool to see these books that prodded my imagination thorough the writers eyes.

At any rate, I will be getting this movie since I am a fan of Wells and if for no other reason than to compare it to the book and original movie.

BIZILL · November 2005

another flaw that went unnoticed by me was when the family went to the kids' mom's house and the tripods turned that neighborhood upside-down, the family re-emerged from the basement and had a running caravan, STILL, though there was a plane littering the neighborhood and destruction everywhere. still worth seeing at least once, though.

Skynut · November 2005

Watched it last night with the kids and I thought it was pretty good. It got the kids all curled up with us so we could protect them.
The sound was beyond good and was way better than the small plots that made all the holes obvious.
I agree the EMP would have knocked out the computer and not the selonoid and I do not believe Tom Cruise would even know what a solenoid was even in a movie.

The big T.E. (technical error) for me was the birds. The birds and all the other animals would have been hauling **** away from all the action and terror but speilberg had them go straight into the fight like they were interested in the aliens. B.S.

When thay showed the birds flying even our kids said "follow the birds they know where to go" but we all would have followed them to death.

There were a couple of other flaws, but nothing I could not look past to just enjoy the hollywood hoopla.

wingnut4772 · November 2005

I just saw this tonight and man oh man what a DTS showpiece! It just sounded freakin' incredible. I was a little confused though about the red stuff and what was up with the birds at the end? Was it only just becase they were not flying away???? Anyway....a flawed film but a Demo Gem for sure!

bobman1235 · November 2005

Agree with everyone about the sound. My sub sucks, and this flick was still rockin my house. Can't believe my neighbor / landlord didn't call and complain, co nsidering it's 10PM

As for the film itself... wasn't bad. Way too many holes and goofy things, but if you look past that, the visual effects were amazing, and I don't just mean from a special effects standpoint. Just for setting a mood , the way everything was staged and colored, I thought it was fantastically done.

BIZILL · November 2005

i slit my wrists and bit the bullet. just returned from target and guess what i purchased? even paid friggin' retail price. nuthouse, hope you've got a vacancy. i guess i wanted a really good bass demo disc. i have others, but this one did rock.

ohskigod · November 2005

wingnut4772 wrote:

I was a little confused though about the red stuff and what was up with the birds at the end? Was it only just becase they were not flying away????

the birds were able to land right on the tripod, hence the shields were down, hence vulnerable to shoulder launched missile asskickery

VR3 · November 2005

SPOILER -

The aliens caught a DISEASE. See, the Aliens drank us up and sprayed us out to make an atmosphere of sorts... a fertilizer...

Well they were breathing in human blood... and we have all kinds of weird diseases they probally couldnt imagine... they were destined to be whiped out! Period.

The red stuff at the end was blood.

BIZILL · November 2005

wonderful. aliens can't hang with our aids-ridden sicklies.

spoiler. millions of years ago they 'stategically' placed pods exactly where we would end up populating the land.

uhm, caravan survived first emp blast. what about the second one that brought down the airplane at the mother's house?

son wanted to fight the aliens but ran home to mommy.

biggest spoilers....kids didn't die.

wingnut4772 · November 2005

Oh yeah.... I forgot about that force field crap. I guess you can see how much attention I was paying. Seems like they wasted a pretty good rocket though since he was going to keel over anyway.

BIZILL · December 2005

i was driving home from work yesterday and hear a very loud sound that was exactly like the horn from the tripods! i got skeered and looked all around and then realized, duh, it's a train's horn. :rolleyes:

BIZILL · December 2005

also, like i posted in the wotw blew my center thread, i notice that the dts track of the dvd itself is recorded much louder than any other dvd i've ever owned.

Ron-P · December 2005

This would be a serious contender for one of the best demo disc's todate if Spielberg didn't use so much grain in the image. It does nothing to enhance the viewing experience but more-so is a distraction. What a shame.

Skynut · December 2005

Ron-P wrote:

This would be a serious contender for one of the best demo disc's todate if Spielberg didn't use so much grain in the image. It does nothing to enhance the viewing experience but more-so is a distraction. What a shame.

Agreed, I watched a burned copy and thought it was just a poor copy. :mad:

reeltrouble1 · December 2005

The buried in the ground thing was Spielberg's idea, not original to the book.

RT1

begbie · December 2005

BIZILL wrote:

spoiler. millions of years ago they 'stategically' placed pods exactly where we would end up populating the land.

I just thought they were placed many at random throughout the land?

BIZILL · December 2005

if that were the case, i'd hate to be the lonely alien that was placed in no-man's land and have to travel a great distance to destroy. seems like they can only walk. if i were one of them, i'd just love to obliterate mankind right away and not have to wait.

gregure · December 2005

Exactly how many millions of years ago were these things "stregically placed?" I mean, first of all, there were no cities, the areas could have been under water or attached to different continents and there was probably a lot more vegetation over the areas. Not to mention the fact that those things would probably have been up to a mile or more under ground due to many years of sediment. It all makes for a very stupid premise. But the lightning storms were really cool!

War of the Worlds

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