posted 07-02-2005 04:36 PM            

But please, a little consistency within whatever world you make. Don't be so blatantly obvious with your logical flaws. If I hadn't been surrounded by family members, I would have been sorely tempted to leave during the first 30 minutes, but there was one element of fascination: What will the next deep dumnidity be?

The special effects were excellent. The part of the 10 year old little girl was nicely acted. There was nothing else of merit.

As stupid as people can be in real life, especially in large groups, these people were movie-stupid. All of them would, in different circumstances, explore the dark basement - armed with a spapler - to see what the blood-curdling sound was. To begin this movie, as the ground is breaking up in front of them, the people are too stupid to get the idea that it might be good to give a little distance.

Also, massive EMPs were used in the story to cripple society, but while these EMPs took out simple electric motors and they selectively didn't take out such things as electronic cameras.

Later, a lunatic, shotgun waving survivalist is occupying a basement hideout with the two main characters. When the bad guys from outer space decide to explore this very basement ... looking for homemade jelly, I suppose ... that's when the lunatic decides to load the shotgun.

I wanted to throw things at the screen. If you care to see this movie, and want to actually enjoy it, I suggest that you drink yourself into near oblivion before going in. With all your brain cells functioning, it won't be fun.

posted 07-02-2005 08:35 PM            

I wish only to ask: are you certain of the spelling?

posted 07-02-2005 10:40 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by billholt:
It's with little doubt that I relay the opinion that the War of the Worlds is the stupidest movie I've sat through in a long, long time. Now, I'm not one who has a problem with suspending disbelief. Fantasy, sure, bring it on.

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Obviously you did not see Alone in the Dark.

posted 07-03-2005 12:14 AM            

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Obviously you did not see Alone in the Dark.

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Robert - dumnidity is my special word for something that doesn't live up to the minimum standard for stupidity.

Another example: Main character running from the invaders. Entire city electronically dead due to the EMP ... no cars running ... except for one car where the main character told the owner/mechanic to replace the solenoid. Miraculously, that worked but then, with the invaders routing the public in general, or vaporizing them when whim hit, the owner of the auto shop didn't want to let main character have the car because it wasn't his, and the real owner might say bad things that hurt his business.

The basic stupidity of the characters, their motivations and the physical situations would be evident even if the flick had been animated.

posted 07-03-2005 08:21 AM            

quote:

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I suggest that you drink yourself into near oblivion before going in

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posted 07-03-2005 10:55 AM            

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The Filmstaden biography ... It was a common practice to bring in own booze. ... after film one was appropriately loaded to enter bars.

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I can see this film as being appropriate fodder for such a club. The special effects are pretty good and the actors are pretty enough so that one can rather easily focus on the glaring stupidity of the characters. The house cheer would be "Hey! Look at that idiot! Give me beer!" At the rate of one beer per stupidity, all would be rolled out in wheelbarrows, way too drunk to crawl.

posted 07-03-2005 06:40 PM            

quote:

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Also, massive EMPs were used in the story to cripple society, but while these EMPs took out simple electric motors and they selectively didn't take out such things as electronic cameras.

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posted 07-03-2005 09:39 PM            

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Even though warned here, I was drug to this POS by SO. We walked out 20 minutes into the film.

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I don't know how it ended but IMDb posters note that the audience was laughhing at the ending. I would welcome spoilers.

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posted 07-04-2005 02:54 AM            

Warning! Warning! Warning! Spoiler included in the quote area that follows!

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In the previous WoTW, as in this one, the alien invaders die, as they're conquering the planet, because they have evolved no immunity to Earthly bacteria.

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posted 07-04-2005 05:26 AM            

My business idea would fit the era we live in; recycling is a top priority so wouldn't it be appropriate to recycle film garbage too. Right as well there is demand for experts in problem waste management, and why would problem waste produced by film industry be an exception.

posted 07-04-2005 02:52 PM            

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Originally posted by entropy:
Even though warned here, I was drug to this POS by SO.

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I have not yet seen it (and I will for the same reason you did) the SO discounts anything posted here just because. Don't marry a catholic-liberal.

posted 07-04-2005 09:15 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by billholt:
Later, a lunatic, shotgun waving survivalist is occupying a basement hideout

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posted 07-05-2005 09:56 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by billholt:
...
Another example: Main character running from the invaders. Entire city electronically dead due to the EMP ... no cars running ... except for one car where the main character told the owner/mechanic to replace the solenoid. Miraculously, that worked but then, with the invaders routing the public in general, or vaporizing them when whim hit, the owner of the auto shop didn't want to let main character have the car because it wasn't his, and the real owner might say bad things that hurt his business.
...

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Well, to be fair, I had the impression that the attack had started in another part of town and Cruise somehow got to the mechanic (Manny?) before the Tripod did. Manny simply didn't know that a ten-story tall three-legged killing machine from another planet was on its way yet. In fact, as I recall, as Cruise walked up to the mechanic's shop he even said something like "We have two minutes before it gets here."

Of course, there's no apparent explanation for why cars, phones, electrical power, and watches would stop working, but a digital camcorder seen in the hands of one victim continued to work. Maybe the owner was a slob who kept the gadget in his microwave or something. Or maybe the lightening EMP had a limited range.

posted 07-05-2005 11:16 AM            

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culture capable of reaching out across interplanetary distances doesn't have enough sense to come to a primitive planet like ours and not drink the water?!

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posted 07-05-2005 12:52 PM            

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Originally posted by gorgas:
...Any word on the "proper" WOTW movie made by Pendragon Pictures in England, set in the late 19th century as originally written? ...

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posted 07-05-2005 01:41 PM            

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But my biggest problem lies with the original story in the first place: no character does anything that amounts to a hill of beans, but the ultimate resolution comes from the actions of the tiniest of creatures put here by God in his wisdom. Talk about deus ex machina!

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SF short stories are replete with this kind of thing. For example, Larry Niven wrote a piece in the 60s titled "THe COldest Place" set in the frigid wastes of the dark side of Mercury. Great idea at the time, but shot to hell by subsequent developments (Mercury isn't tidally locked).

posted 07-05-2005 04:32 PM            

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nice plot twist to the book when it was written, but makes it look silly now

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From the point of wiev of estetics, it is difficult to make a scifi-classic, because the technology in the film reflects the real-world technology during the time film is shoot. Films made in 50's look like chrome and blinkers and look coarse now, but given how cars looked like back then it may very well be that they looked as a realistic guess back then. 2001 is a classic, but unfortunately many people cannot see beyond the primitive-looking computer technology in the film.

posted 07-11-2005 01:01 AM            

Rather, i'd have found a 20mm someplace or not bothered.

What kind of alien invader doesn't wear flak jackets to an invasion?

posted 07-11-2005 08:43 AM            

If the machines were buried, indicating that they had been plotting this "for millions of years," why didn 't they just take over the planet, oh, say, millions or years ago?

When [spoiler] Robbie [/spoiler] walks out of the parents' house at the end, I was provoked into saying, "oh, shut up" to the screen. I was aimilarly provoked every time Dakota Fanning emitted a high-pitch screetch.

On the good side, the tripods' "call to arms" trombone-blast, an obvious homage to Close Encounters, was creepy.

posted 07-11-2005 07:07 PM            

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Originally posted by Sam Mc Kee:
Where were the Minutemen?

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Hmmm, I think he was just a statue covered up by dying red martian vines at the end of the film; equivocating the minutemen of Old with the microbes that did in the martians, or some such... The creepy -shotgun guy is portrayed in this film as a dangerous,irresponsible wingnut, obviously an allusion to the contempt the liberal elites have for people who try to take care of themselves, and the intellectual descendants of the Minutemen, in the eyes of the film-maker. Hmmm, alos, it seems like I have seen this character before, oh maybe...Commodore Matt Decker in the original star-trek? He even looks a lot like William Windom in this film, and acts the part the same way. Of course, I would expect a lefty like this what's-his-name to play the part of "survivalist nutjob" to the hilt. Also, the notion that it is futile or even ignoble to resist or survive
seemed to be a pretty strong subtext in this film. And the part where the TV Journalist lady who was "attached to a National Guard Unit" is portrayed as a hero of some sort, pretty disgusting. They had time to "embed" journalists with guard units in such a fast-evolving national emergency? I wonder if the presence of such journalists with these units is what prevented the squad leader from giving the ill and dying alien a short burst of fire in its face just before it went Tango Uniform? That was the only potentially satisfying part of the film, and they blew it.