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War of the Worlds (spoilers)
Sanfam
I like clocks.
in Zocalo v2.0
Thanks to a very generous friend, I was able to attend the first showing of the night of War of the Worlds, a movie I had been anticipating since I first heard about it. Traditionally, Hollywood stuff scares me, but my experience with Minority Report shoed me thatthe pairing of Spielberg/Cruise was a verybeneficial one.
I came into the movie with some very high expectations, perhaps too much so for a mainstream film, but without getting into much detail...most were met, and some were outright blown away! I had an amazing time watching it, and was surprised that I did *not*have to turn off my brain as is the trend with blockbusters. The effects were unbeliefable and the small bits keep bouncing around in my head.
In terms of pacing, I was completely absorbed in the utterly fantastic first hour of the movie. It's just so truly incredible, blindsiding me with the dark perspective on humanity it presented. On top of this, much of the drama came sight-unseen, with an uncharacteristically low number of shots outright (or hell, even vaguely) showing the invaders or what was going on. In fact, for the first half of the initial "invasion" sequence, I noticed a distinct trend of keeping the cameras on the reactions of the characters to what they saw, leaving our imaginations to run with the small pieces of the alien craft we were exposed to.
Though, not all is perfectly rosy. The second ending was genuinely awful. And I'm not referring to the part where the aliens die because of illness. No, I'm talking about the Spielberg ending, where against all odds, Ray, his daughter, his son, his ex-wife, and her family are all re-united in a clearly abandoned Boston. True, the book did do quite a similar deal, but it pulled it off a lot more elegantlyu instead of just tossing everyone together in the last two minutes. While I allowed the film to stretch some credbility when it came to a number of couple of events, this was just unbelievable and ruined an otherwise perfect ending. Again. He did it with AI, he did it with Minority Report, and he did it with War of the Worlds. I don't understand why he has to do it, but he does it. And this continues to bother me so damned much beacause it so drastically alters the mood of the departing audience, leaving not the imagery of the completely ravished cityscape, but the nagging question of how the hell his son survived, and how his ex survived, and how they all miraculously came out well in a world where potentially one sixth of the population was slaughtered, potentially more left to die without homes or shelter of any kind.
As I mentioned above, credibility is the biggest problem I see with this movie. Often times, the main characters will have events of such intense magnitude occur to them that it just doesn't seem plausible that they would survive or be able to escape so easily. Example: EMP blasts come onto the scene in Ray's Ex's Boyfriend's house, and a plane [b]crash lands on it[/b]. While certainly a perfect example of the suspense and drama generated from letting your imagination do the work, it somehow left the van Ray&Co. stole completely intact (actually, giving them a nice clean path to drive through, too. And driving...don't get me started on how in a world of non-functioning cars, somehow fixing a starter solenoid makes a van work? There's got to be hundreds of other mechanics who fixed the same stuff and left a couple decent cars around, though I was really hoping the Mustang would come back, somehow working due to its primitive "carbureted engine" and basic, old fashioned ignition system).
But don't let that massive paragraph fool you, the problems are trivial compared to the majority of the content and can be easily overlooked. How? By things like the Incredible design of the tripod, which I must note, share a number of small similarities to the tripods featured on the cover of another book (set) I truly want made into an epic trilogy, the Tripod Trilogy ([url=http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/0020425716/ref=dp_image_0/103-6831626-8076631?%5Fencoding=UTF8&n=283155&s=books]cover[/url]). These lumbering giants are both beautiful and terrifying to look at. Appearing to be a combination of organics and mechanical components, they share the form of their tripod creators (who are equally interesting to watch as they move around on all three llegs). The sheer power of just one tripod is more than enough to make the viewer nervous, but as time passes, we keep on seeing the extent of the situation...two...three...five...ten! They're everywhere, and this is just off of the hudson by mass. It leaves us with so much that we can think about, how truly large the martian invasion was, which leads me into another area (sort of) mentioned: The graphic violence, and offscreen (implied) violence. This often blew me away at times, coming right at me when I never expected it (it'sa good thing), and the simple thoroughness of the alien extermination was unbelievable at times. We saw them toss over cars, boats, trains, and then kill the survivors or pick them up for purposes then-unknown (this made worse later when we find out (and see) that they are being ground up into some sort of chum and redistributed as fertilizer of some sort). Some of it is just brutal.
So, on that pleasant note, I leave you to reply. Enjoy! :D
In related topics...
Popcorn: Too fucking expensive. I cannot afford $6.75 for a large! Gah!
Soda: Also too fucking expensive for a disgusting post-mixed syrup product. UGH! Once again, water prevails.
And non-bulk candy...ugh. $3.75 for a vending machine sized bag of M&Ms? God damnit, no!
I came into the movie with some very high expectations, perhaps too much so for a mainstream film, but without getting into much detail...most were met, and some were outright blown away! I had an amazing time watching it, and was surprised that I did *not*have to turn off my brain as is the trend with blockbusters. The effects were unbeliefable and the small bits keep bouncing around in my head.
In terms of pacing, I was completely absorbed in the utterly fantastic first hour of the movie. It's just so truly incredible, blindsiding me with the dark perspective on humanity it presented. On top of this, much of the drama came sight-unseen, with an uncharacteristically low number of shots outright (or hell, even vaguely) showing the invaders or what was going on. In fact, for the first half of the initial "invasion" sequence, I noticed a distinct trend of keeping the cameras on the reactions of the characters to what they saw, leaving our imaginations to run with the small pieces of the alien craft we were exposed to.
Though, not all is perfectly rosy. The second ending was genuinely awful. And I'm not referring to the part where the aliens die because of illness. No, I'm talking about the Spielberg ending, where against all odds, Ray, his daughter, his son, his ex-wife, and her family are all re-united in a clearly abandoned Boston. True, the book did do quite a similar deal, but it pulled it off a lot more elegantlyu instead of just tossing everyone together in the last two minutes. While I allowed the film to stretch some credbility when it came to a number of couple of events, this was just unbelievable and ruined an otherwise perfect ending. Again. He did it with AI, he did it with Minority Report, and he did it with War of the Worlds. I don't understand why he has to do it, but he does it. And this continues to bother me so damned much beacause it so drastically alters the mood of the departing audience, leaving not the imagery of the completely ravished cityscape, but the nagging question of how the hell his son survived, and how his ex survived, and how they all miraculously came out well in a world where potentially one sixth of the population was slaughtered, potentially more left to die without homes or shelter of any kind.
As I mentioned above, credibility is the biggest problem I see with this movie. Often times, the main characters will have events of such intense magnitude occur to them that it just doesn't seem plausible that they would survive or be able to escape so easily. Example: EMP blasts come onto the scene in Ray's Ex's Boyfriend's house, and a plane [b]crash lands on it[/b]. While certainly a perfect example of the suspense and drama generated from letting your imagination do the work, it somehow left the van Ray&Co. stole completely intact (actually, giving them a nice clean path to drive through, too. And driving...don't get me started on how in a world of non-functioning cars, somehow fixing a starter solenoid makes a van work? There's got to be hundreds of other mechanics who fixed the same stuff and left a couple decent cars around, though I was really hoping the Mustang would come back, somehow working due to its primitive "carbureted engine" and basic, old fashioned ignition system).
But don't let that massive paragraph fool you, the problems are trivial compared to the majority of the content and can be easily overlooked. How? By things like the Incredible design of the tripod, which I must note, share a number of small similarities to the tripods featured on the cover of another book (set) I truly want made into an epic trilogy, the Tripod Trilogy ([url=http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/0020425716/ref=dp_image_0/103-6831626-8076631?%5Fencoding=UTF8&n=283155&s=books]cover[/url]). These lumbering giants are both beautiful and terrifying to look at. Appearing to be a combination of organics and mechanical components, they share the form of their tripod creators (who are equally interesting to watch as they move around on all three llegs). The sheer power of just one tripod is more than enough to make the viewer nervous, but as time passes, we keep on seeing the extent of the situation...two...three...five...ten! They're everywhere, and this is just off of the hudson by mass. It leaves us with so much that we can think about, how truly large the martian invasion was, which leads me into another area (sort of) mentioned: The graphic violence, and offscreen (implied) violence. This often blew me away at times, coming right at me when I never expected it (it'sa good thing), and the simple thoroughness of the alien extermination was unbelievable at times. We saw them toss over cars, boats, trains, and then kill the survivors or pick them up for purposes then-unknown (this made worse later when we find out (and see) that they are being ground up into some sort of chum and redistributed as fertilizer of some sort). Some of it is just brutal.
So, on that pleasant note, I leave you to reply. Enjoy! :D
In related topics...
Popcorn: Too fucking expensive. I cannot afford $6.75 for a large! Gah!
Soda: Also too fucking expensive for a disgusting post-mixed syrup product. UGH! Once again, water prevails.
And non-bulk candy...ugh. $3.75 for a vending machine sized bag of M&Ms? God damnit, no!
Comments
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Sanfam [/i]
[B]As I mentioned above, credibility is the biggest problem I see with this movie...[/B][/QUOTE]So also you lack that braindead-mode switch required for watching some movies without getting feeling to go to bang head to wall. :D
Edit: ooh! I remembered something else I liked a lot: The part where Ray, the hero really doesn't achieve much of anything in terms of killing the actual aliens. Yes, he somehow figured he could blow one of the tripods up by feeding it three or four grenades, but the most important part is that outside of killing that one war machine (and then later pointing out that another seemed to be vulnerable...though how he found the shield was down I don't know) he did jack shit! Go you trivial, average human!
Edit: wandering around rottentomatoes, I found [url=http://www.juicycerebellum.com/200521.htm]this review[/url] that sums up (almost) perfectly what I feel about the ending. Horray for wasted writing!
[QUOTE]credibility is the biggest problem I see with this movie[/QUOTE]
Credibility? It's a movie about an alien takeover of earth. It's a movie with Tom Cruise, and your worried about credibility?
Summer Blockbusters usually require that mandatory suspension of belief dont they?
DVD at home already Purchased ~ 0.00
Popcorn Popped at Home ~ 0.33
Snubbing Full of Self movie media ~ Priceless
Maybe I'll go rewatch Batman...
[quote]TOM CRUISE:
No, you see. Here's the problem. You don't know the history of psychiatry. I do.//
MATT LAUER:
//aren't there examples, and might not Brooke Shields be an example, of someone who benefited from one of those drugs? TOM CRUISE:
all it does is mask the problem, Matt. And if you understand the history of it, it masks the problem. That's what it does. That's all it does. You're not getting to the reason why. There is no such thing as a chemical imbalance.[/quote]
The rest of the interview transcript is on [URL=http://www.drudgereportarchives.com/data/2005/06/24/20050624_194000_flash3tc.htm]Drudge[/URL]
Jake
I do remember the Tripod Trilogy..read the books and actually have the 2 seasons from the 80's on VHS; I think it was Austrailin?. It was based on an alternate universe where the tripods conquer Earth. They definitly similar too the ones in the new movie.
Ray is able to see that the Tripod is vulnerable because of the birds. The birds were swarming around it (possibly attacking it). If you notice from earlier in the fim, the shield wall protrudes a good 30-60 ft. from the Tripod itself. The birds were well within this bubble.
:D
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but at some point weren't the humans enslaved by the aliens, making some serve as house servants. Also if I remember correctly the aliens couldn't breath the earth atmosphere.
Jake
[B]Sanfam:
Ray is able to see that the Tripod is vulnerable because of the birds. The birds were swarming around it (possibly attacking it). If you notice from earlier in the fim, the shield wall protrudes a good 30-60 ft. from the Tripod itself. The birds were well within this bubble.
:D [/B][/QUOTE]
Well, I had noticed that the shield seemed to let stuff through in the past..I mean he was able to be nearly stomped on a couple of times, and the Tripods in the water certainly seemed to have no issues with letting themselves get wet for a nice little swim in the river... :D They also were able to smoothly clip the edges of mountains and stomp through the city with ease, again with no shield bubble popping up. Having the birds fly around and gobble down the hunks of humanchum probably stuck to the exterior of the tripods in massive quantities just doesn't seem to float well with me :D
The only thing that seemed to cause any visible effect to indicate that the shields existed was weapons fire (such as the whole freakin' army's munitions being tossed into the buggers, or ray's futile attempt at tossing a grenade at one from a small distance). The most obvious thing I'd suspect as having any practial value in identifying the notworkingness (a technical term) of the tripods would probably have to be the flickering "headlights" (which I thought was very nice touch) or the drunken stumbling some of them seemed to be doing.
[B]Actually I believe the Tripod books produced in graphic novel from for the back of Boys's Life magazine for several years...if I'm remembering correctly.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but at some point weren't the humans enslaved by the aliens, making some serve as house servants. Also if I remember correctly the aliens couldn't breath the earth atmosphere.
Jake [/B][/QUOTE]
Rather than typing out a long paragraph myself, I direct your attention to the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripods]wiki page[/url]. Note that it contains significant spoilers after the table of contents.
[b]"A film adaptation was announced by Touchstone Pictures, to be directed by Gregor Jordan slated for release in 2007."[/b]
EXPRESS GLEE!
only complaint (Aside from the ending) is the sheilds, I suppose I could argue that they only stopped things not touching the craft itself, but dunno....
I loved the design of the aliens, the DESTRUCTION, etc.
[B]And at the very end...
[b]"A film adaptation was announced by Touchstone Pictures, to be directed by Gregor Jordan slated for release in 2007."[/b]
EXPRESS GLEE! [/B][/QUOTE]
More like "express uncertainty." Who knows who they've got directing, or writing the screenplay, or how much they'll butcher it?
[B]whow....just saw it, not many movies leave me shellshocked, in fact, only three in the past have (Saving Private Ryan, [u]The Passion of the Christ[/u], and Shindlers list), but this one does. Whats more incredible is that it was FICTION that left me shellshocked, of which NO other film has done![/B][/QUOTE]I'd contest the point, but I know what happens when religion is mentioned on Firstones. ;)
Anyhooo...
If so, crappy love story aside, excellent film, and one of the main reasons I snipe in most games. :D
MAn those things ate the Germans whole forget snipers n tanks!