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In Reply to: Re: War of the Worlds------After thoughts. posted by RGA on July 8, 2005 at 20:54:07:
You are indeed correct in the first part of your analysis about Cruise's character and Robbin's. Where the wheels come off your tracks is in regard to: 1) the opinion that this film lacks emotional content, 2) the criticism of the alien tripods and effects as uninspired, and 3) placing it BELOW Independence Day on ANY scale!In my estimation, Independence Day is one of the worst SF films ever produced! No offense, but ID isn't even close to being "fun" unless one has a hard-on for stereotypes, corny dialogue and lame-arse cameos as is found in all of those obnoxious disaster films of the 70's & 80's produced by Irwin Allen, et. al. (Airport, Towering Inferno, Posseidon Adventure, Earthquake, etc.)!
Sorry about the rant, but I absolutely loathe the film Independence Day.
As for WoTW, I'll give it 3.5 stars (***1/2 of *****); I found it to be a good film, bordering on greatness, that still has problems inherent in many of Spielberg's high-powered action & FX movies. He managed to avoid the plotholes and continuity gaffs inherent in many of his fast paced action films and venture into new territory; for that reason WoTW should hold-up if not improve with multiple viewings. There's psychological chills and creepiness aplenty; he achieved this by directing more realistic, underplayed characters whose motivations make sense. Unfortunately, Steven still fell back on some of his trademark cliches to extend suspense in certain key sequences and, in the final analysis, that knocks it down a notch.
AuPh
Follow Ups:
First I gave Independance day *1/2 / ***** the same star rating. It is a monster movie with good effects cardboard cut-out characters and cheesey one-liner dialogue.I always take this over rehashed monster movies that try and take themselves seriously and end up being a dry bore. When you have idiotic written material or one note material espeicially in sci-fi it needs something, generally comic relief.
The Problem with War of the Worlds is that the Robbins character isn't really believable and seems to be the cameo you are complaining about in ID. Indeed, it's a Shawshank Redemption reunion of sorts which only made me long to be watching that film instead.
The aliens do not have a sense of wonder, nor are they particularly scary in any sort of Ridley Scott, James Cameron "Alien(s)" kind of way. Tom Cruise feels pride in his son rescuing people on the boat. The scene has almost zero weight since the son was not raised by Cruise which it made painfully obvious in the set-up that Cruise is a horrible father and more of a sperm doner dad.
Watching aliens flatten a city has been done to death and better by the Daleks in the TV series Dr.Who. (the longest running science fiction tv series in history). Indeed, Spielberg considered attaining the rights to making that into a film and it would have way more of an opportunity to get a nazi SS theme in there as the Daleks an alien race who want to cleanse the universe of inferior beings. It's a shame because Star Trek and the film matrix ripped so much off from that series it's quite funny.
The explanations provides in WotW are just idiotic and the sophistication of these aliens - well naturally they'd not consider bio warfare or germs viruses and diseases they could contract. Dumbest aliens in the world who only master mathematical concepts as a matter of course.
The biggest problem here is that this is non-existant science fiction. Aliens come, kill us, and lucky for us and presumably the plague they die. So what do we get instead? A father, son and daughter story. That Cruise learns to be a good dad? Well he does risk his life. Man Spielberg went to a lot of trouble for this message -- he could have achieved it in a serious film a lot better. But then it would not make a kabillion dollars.
This movie serves one purpose only -- to see aliens blow up some cities and towns and that is the ONLY purpose it serves.
The Towering Inferno I'll take you up on as first of all disaster films are at least credible. The Towering Infero had a solid idea and a commentary on greed and the American Fascination of phallic symbols. Bigger is better. The execution at that time was reasonably solid.
The funny thing is that depite the age and out of date effects I'd rather re-watch TI than WotW...and it isn't even a horserace.
Where's my copy of Aliens -- that's how Alien monster movies should be made -- or better yet, E.T. a movie that poured on the shmaltz but we let ourselves and Spielberg pour it on. In WotW itseems shallow and forced...and it is one time(and A.I) where I agree with Spielberg Detractors that this over-sentimental garbage.
You apparently missed the visual cues about why the aliens were here and what we were to them; we're no more significant to them as a potential threat than ants. Why would the aliens have more than a cursory sense of wonder about such inferior beings?The Tim Robbin's (Harlan Ogilvy) character was much more than a cameo and works quite well as a creepy kind of deranged fellow who seems to be helping but can't be trusted.
> > > "This movie serves one purpose only -- to see aliens blow up some cities and towns and that is the ONLY purpose it serves." < < <
You're completely off the mark here, blowing up cities and towns wasn't what the alien invasion was about, it was about terra-farming a planet, which you've apparently missed even though it was laid out quite graphically for you.
While I grant you the fact that the germs-killing-off-the-aliens irony seems to be a weak premise by today's standards, much more so than when the novel was first published late in the 19th century (environmental "hot" suits didn't exist back then), it's still serviceable.
This is all my opinion; no offense is intended & YMMV, of course.
Cheers,
AuPh
Well yes I left out living here. Big Deal! They come they kill us they try and terraform and then they die.The deranged paramedic who goes nuts seems like it's from another film to me tacked on to be creepy and to cause a threat to Cruise.
I think I'll go for my copy of V the five part miniseries.
I like Spielberg -- nobody's perfect for me this isone of his worst.
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