I actually like it. It is by far the most faithful H.G.Wells adaptation.
But it looks like Steven assumed kids these days read the original novel. He fails to explain most of the stuffs in there, I can see why my friend who went to see the movie with me thought the ending was rushed and confusing.
I watched the movie today. I give it a 6/10, because of the special effects.
[spoiler]
It's never revealed how long Ray and his wife have been divorced, but it would appear to be <b>after</b> the two children were born. Yet later, we learn he knows nothing of the allergies of the children. Was he this carefree all the time? Did Ray's wife figure she was going to "fix" him or something?
But that's not really important: what matters more is that Ray is introduced as a poor father in the first place. Just like so many other disaster films, the directors seem to think the film can't stand on its own without a love interest or some interpersonal problem that needs to be repaired by the end of the feature. This method is so formulaic it's transparent now. Please, <i>somebody</i>, present a film without a throwaway love interest or family issue. In the case of <i>Worlds</i>, we're distracted from the real dilemma in the film, that being the whole aliens destroying Earth thing.
The thunderstorms were great: actually, the first contact with the aliens up to making it to the divorced wife's home was superb. Granted, there were many instances where Tom Cruise somehow escaped disaster when nobody else could, but this <b>is</b> an action film, after all.
But once the trip to the house is complete, things start getting frustrating. The interpersonal conflict with the family is unwelcome: are the kids <b>that</b> shallow that they'll bring up parental issues when aliens are attacking? Perhaps, but it's not good for this movie.
I think my favorite scene, aside from the original storms, has to be the burning train. That was a haunting scene. It was done very well, and gave a better scope of the damage done.
Unfortunately, once Tim Robbins enters the scene,things begin to fall apart fast. The basement act was far too long and slow paced: and while it did make for some tense scenes, overall it was too low to be worth the time.
The family issue reappears in the final moments of the film to totally ruin the poignancy of killing off the aliens. Robby lived? No. Way. I kept waiting for either father or daughter to blink and see the destroyed house where the mother was supposed to be waiting. Why did she have to live, too? The sacrifices Ray had to make to keep his daughter alive would have been far more important if he wasn't delegated back to father without a family. The stepdad didn't die, and he's certainly not going to say to Ray "Oh, you're back, I'll be leaving", so Ray did all he could for... nothing.
And what a way to eclipse the alien invasion! FAMILY IS REUNITED oh and the aliens die. Eh, no biggy, they're all dead. Okay. BUT THE FAMILY IS BACK TOGETHER AND EVERYONE LIVED.
And what they survived throughout the film was quite impressive. It would have been believable had the movie shown other people surviving as well. By the time I got to the ferry scene, I was groaning inwardly in seeing every extra employed being slaughtered while Ray and family made it to safety. At least show a couple people aside from Ray and family making it to shore...
But what nags me even more was the whole point of the film. What were the aliens doing? I've tried to figure out their plan, but I still don't fully grasp it. A million or more years ago, they plant these "tripods" in the ground, and run away to hide wherever they are and watch Earth. Then, once Earth has reached a point where there is a chance it could be a threat, the alien finally decide to attack. Makes sense, right? So, after a million years of watching, they can control the skies. Not to use flooding and whatnot to kill, but to mask the aliens dropping into the tripods. Why? It's not like the tripods are going to be invisible for much longer. And how did those tripods go undetected, anyway? Even stranger, if the whole point of the lightning was to hide the aliens, what was the point of burying the tripods? The aliens had to be over the planet to drop the aliens!
But anyway, back to the plan. The tripods awaken, and start frying everyone into popcorn. It would appear they want to take over the world by killing everyone on Earth. Makes sense. But then later we see them capturing people alive to sap away the blood from their bodies in order to grow the vines that cover the land. So now the point is to harvest the people to grow the vines. Why then kill so many? If it was for population growth, why didn't they visit earlier, when there weren't such powerful weapons, and not zap anybody?
Signs was more believable because it showed much more organic aliens, and it too had problems being convincing. But this movie really makes the aliens look dense, as they had over a million years of observing done before attacking, and they missed that whole "screening" step.
Was the whole point of attacking Earth just for the sake of attacking it, or was it for terraforming? Either way, the aliens don't really seem to be all that intelligent.
I thought it was funny that poor Tim Robbins got killed to protect Ray and daughter, yet the very next day they leave the house to get captured. Smart move, Ray.
Overall I graded this lower than I expected because the movie seemed to lose sight of what it was supposed to be. It was first and foremost a movie about aliens attacking, yet it constantly downplayed it for the family issues. It was a bad move, as it made the aliens seem unbelievable, and of a different reality than what was "really" going on, that being the family problems.
my friend and I saw this, both of us never read the book.
I'm not sure why the aliens would have just planted crap in the ground, then left. Wouldn’t you think they'd wanna just take over the planet then? I find it hard to believe that they were on this planet once before and never learned of mold, bacteria, etc. They have mastered almost everything - and seem like they have a monopoly on the galaxy - but yet they're too dumb to figure out that airborne diseases will stop their entire invasion?
Not to mention that Earth isn't really saved at all. The eqiupment the aliens were using was 1,000,000 years old to them. Just try to think of what kind of crap they have now...
It's a stupid cop-out - much like signs. In Signs these super advanced aliens, who have mastered space travel, are too dumb to figure out that the Earth's most abundant substance will kill them. Smooth.
Also - what did the birds have to do with anything again? Did they spread the bacteria, etc all over the aliens vechiles?
My friend thinks that it was maybe the bird **** that stopped the aliens - since we all know bird **** drys quick and is hard to get rid of. Plus, it covers a whole lot of ground really quickly...
In other forms of media the invasion of earth was a hasty decision and was not planned thousands of years in advance. Mars for whatever reason was rapidly becoming inhospitable, and they needed somewhere to go fast.
The red weed seemed to be an attempt to terraform earth closer to their norms. It was not, as was shown in the movie, fertilized by blood. Human blood in the books was used as source of food, and was injected directly into the Martians. They had 'evolved' past eating, and almost all physical activity, and we unable to consume food or sustains themselves normally. This was the most plausible cause for the spread of earthbound diseases within them. Though it would seem necessary that the Martians had some type of animal they farmed for food before coming to earth, so why did they try to 'eat' the humans. The Martians in the movie were small and rather agile, quite unlike how they are pictured elsewhere.
Despite this, it all comes back to the question, "what were they thinking?" Why did such an advanced race, one that had mastered space travel and the construction of their massive tripods have to conception of microorganisms or their potential impact?
Did any of you ever think, that this is a movie, <i>based</i> on War of the Worlds?
It's a movie, applyed to modern times. The book was written 1n 1898, scientific advances have been made since then. We know Mars isn't covered in a red weed thingy. Who says the invaders are from Mars? I surley don't care where they were from.
Maybe wherever they were from, disease had been eliminated a very long time ago, and they forgot about it, and didn't know of it's existance.
Seriously, movies != books. If I wanted to read a book, I'd do it instead of seeing a movie.
That aside, I enjoyed the movie. Thought it was well done. Good acting, special effects, etc...
The family love intrest btw, made it far better than just "lets run away from aliens for our own self intrest! yay!". It shows that humanity at least in part cares about other people.
True they don't say the invaders are from Mars, but I thought at the start when you see the earth turn red (and then into a traffic light <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> ) it was a subtle hint at our favourite Red Planet.
Did anyone else catch the video camera that just happened to be working while every other form of electronics was broken? That part really nagged me because they even zoomed in on the video camera when it fell. You'd expect <i>someone</i> who had worked on the movie would have noticed that plothole before/during the filming.
I think thats a little too "leap of faith"ish for the general public in my opinion. Most likely they wouldn't know something like that (thats just assuming they have the same knowledge base on EMPs that i do). I did a quick google search to look for something along the lines of what you said but i couldn't find anything that said anything about the removal of the battery before the actual blast.
They were arguing about the EMP for ages on HLFallout....check the Off Topic forum, www.hlfallout.com, for links and stuff to EMP if you are interested.
It didnt seem a big issue to me - there were lots of things like that. A camcorder, a camera, etc. How about the second lightning storm when they're at Cruise's ex-wife's house? Why doesn't it kill the car a second time, destroy the solenoid or whatever was supposed to have happened?
And what the chances of the car surviving the plane crash too <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
But its just a film, most films have mistakes or unlikely events <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-Chrono+Jul 1 2005, 09:06 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Chrono @ Jul 1 2005, 09:06 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> i dont think it was a lightning storm near cruises wifes house i thought it was the tripods being attack by artillary <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Another mystery solved <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Actually now I think about it, Cruise says "No, this is something else" when asked if its the same thing...
I've seen the film twice now and I still forget things <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-MedHead+Jul 1 2005, 10:00 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (MedHead @ Jul 1 2005, 10:00 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> If the electronic device had to be "on" to be affected by the EMP blast, then not every car on the street would be having problems. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The pulse is powerful enough to cause long metal objects (such as cables) to act as antennas and generate high voltages when the pulse passes. These voltages, and the associated high currents, can destroy unshielded electronics and even many wires<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Basically EMPs destoy electronic devices, because they overheat all wires inside it (via the conducted current), this burning the device from the inside. Its not necessary that it is pluged in or turned on. The only thing necessary is that it contains magnetic metals as conductors or important parts.
<!--QuoteBegin-AlienCow+Jul 1 2005, 02:07 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (AlienCow @ Jul 1 2005, 02:07 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-Chrono+Jul 1 2005, 09:06 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Chrono @ Jul 1 2005, 09:06 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> i dont think it was a lightning storm near cruises wifes house i thought it was the tripods being attack by artillary <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Another mystery solved <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Actually now I think about it, Cruise says "No, this is something else" when asked if its the same thing...
I've seen the film twice now and I still forget things <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> yeah at first i thought it was lightning then with all the flames and the guy going deaf cuz a shell hit near him i figured the flashs we thought were lightning were lasers from the tripods and the flames were from the shells hitting them
<!--QuoteBegin-MedHead+Jun 30 2005, 05:59 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (MedHead @ Jun 30 2005, 05:59 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> It's never revealed how long Ray and his wife have been divorced, but it would appear to be <b>after</b> the two children were born. Yet later, we learn he knows nothing of the allergies of the children. Was he this carefree all the time? Did Ray's wife figure she was going to "fix" him or something? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> you have no idea how important this is to the general public <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> my girlfriend is an ivy league graduate with a major in English, and at the end of this movie she was still saying how she wished the wife's new husband died so tom cruise and she could get back together -_-
anyway I enjoyed the movie a lot. Spielberg is very consistant with his movies. They're all a little shallow but engrossing and atmospheric anyway.
I'm not sure a movie has ever scared me as much as this one, and it wasn't even a horror film. it just started out with minutia to adjust you to the feel of the characters, and then the bad things start happening, and it felt so real, because of the special effects, acting, camera angles, everything... I could feel the mob mentality, the shock and disbelief as people were vaporized... when the aliens were terraforming Earth and it was becoming all red, it made me very patriotic to be human =P it was just so horrible on a large scale to see earth become something it's not, made me think about how lucky we are to have our planet...
ok, I'm done with the sappiness. I give it a B+ =P
<!--QuoteBegin-MedHead+Jul 1 2005, 09:44 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (MedHead @ Jul 1 2005, 09:44 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Isn't the "no, this is different" scene the crashing of the airplane? Perhaps it was just being shot down. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> That was part of it, but there were a hell of a lot of flashes and explosions and colours for it to be just that, I think anyway.
I swear they used the same lightning "noise" as at the start too though, which is getting to me.
Oh yeh and aside from that little camcorder everyone mentions, what about the film crew recording AS the lightning is striking again and again? Can't use no batteries excuse there <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
So maybe it isn't the lightning. Who's read the book? Does this all happen in the book?
None of this with emps and lightening was in the book. It was set in 1900 and in England though. Instead of all these new high-tec disintegration stuff they used heat rays and poison gas.
Was anyone else dissapointed that the Black Smoke didnt make it into the movie?
Comments
[edit] You're a jerk! Why would you do that? It's ridiculous! Don't run away! You're a jerk!
But it looks like Steven assumed kids these days read the original novel. He fails to explain most of the stuffs in there, I can see why my friend who went to see the movie with me thought the ending was rushed and confusing.
[spoiler]
It's never revealed how long Ray and his wife have been divorced, but it would appear to be <b>after</b> the two children were born. Yet later, we learn he knows nothing of the allergies of the children. Was he this carefree all the time? Did Ray's wife figure she was going to "fix" him or something?
But that's not really important: what matters more is that Ray is introduced as a poor father in the first place. Just like so many other disaster films, the directors seem to think the film can't stand on its own without a love interest or some interpersonal problem that needs to be repaired by the end of the feature. This method is so formulaic it's transparent now. Please, <i>somebody</i>, present a film without a throwaway love interest or family issue. In the case of <i>Worlds</i>, we're distracted from the real dilemma in the film, that being the whole aliens destroying Earth thing.
The thunderstorms were great: actually, the first contact with the aliens up to making it to the divorced wife's home was superb. Granted, there were many instances where Tom Cruise somehow escaped disaster when nobody else could, but this <b>is</b> an action film, after all.
But once the trip to the house is complete, things start getting frustrating. The interpersonal conflict with the family is unwelcome: are the kids <b>that</b> shallow that they'll bring up parental issues when aliens are attacking? Perhaps, but it's not good for this movie.
I think my favorite scene, aside from the original storms, has to be the burning train. That was a haunting scene. It was done very well, and gave a better scope of the damage done.
Unfortunately, once Tim Robbins enters the scene,things begin to fall apart fast. The basement act was far too long and slow paced: and while it did make for some tense scenes, overall it was too low to be worth the time.
The family issue reappears in the final moments of the film to totally ruin the poignancy of killing off the aliens. Robby lived? No. Way. I kept waiting for either father or daughter to blink and see the destroyed house where the mother was supposed to be waiting. Why did she have to live, too? The sacrifices Ray had to make to keep his daughter alive would have been far more important if he wasn't delegated back to father without a family. The stepdad didn't die, and he's certainly not going to say to Ray "Oh, you're back, I'll be leaving", so Ray did all he could for... nothing.
And what a way to eclipse the alien invasion! FAMILY IS REUNITED oh and the aliens die. Eh, no biggy, they're all dead. Okay. BUT THE FAMILY IS BACK TOGETHER AND EVERYONE LIVED.
And what they survived throughout the film was quite impressive. It would have been believable had the movie shown other people surviving as well. By the time I got to the ferry scene, I was groaning inwardly in seeing every extra employed being slaughtered while Ray and family made it to safety. At least show a couple people aside from Ray and family making it to shore...
But what nags me even more was the whole point of the film. What were the aliens doing? I've tried to figure out their plan, but I still don't fully grasp it. A million or more years ago, they plant these "tripods" in the ground, and run away to hide wherever they are and watch Earth. Then, once Earth has reached a point where there is a chance it could be a threat, the alien finally decide to attack. Makes sense, right? So, after a million years of watching, they can control the skies. Not to use flooding and whatnot to kill, but to mask the aliens dropping into the tripods. Why? It's not like the tripods are going to be invisible for much longer. And how did those tripods go undetected, anyway? Even stranger, if the whole point of the lightning was to hide the aliens, what was the point of burying the tripods? The aliens had to be over the planet to drop the aliens!
But anyway, back to the plan. The tripods awaken, and start frying everyone into popcorn. It would appear they want to take over the world by killing everyone on Earth. Makes sense. But then later we see them capturing people alive to sap away the blood from their bodies in order to grow the vines that cover the land. So now the point is to harvest the people to grow the vines. Why then kill so many? If it was for population growth, why didn't they visit earlier, when there weren't such powerful weapons, and not zap anybody?
Signs was more believable because it showed much more organic aliens, and it too had problems being convincing. But this movie really makes the aliens look dense, as they had over a million years of observing done before attacking, and they missed that whole "screening" step.
Was the whole point of attacking Earth just for the sake of attacking it, or was it for terraforming? Either way, the aliens don't really seem to be all that intelligent.
I thought it was funny that poor Tim Robbins got killed to protect Ray and daughter, yet the very next day they leave the house to get captured. Smart move, Ray.
Overall I graded this lower than I expected because the movie seemed to lose sight of what it was supposed to be. It was first and foremost a movie about aliens attacking, yet it constantly downplayed it for the family issues. It was a bad move, as it made the aliens seem unbelievable, and of a different reality than what was "really" going on, that being the family problems.
[/spoiler]
edit **
I'm not sure why the aliens would have just planted crap in the ground, then left. Wouldn’t you think they'd wanna just take over the planet then? I find it hard to believe that they were on this planet once before and never learned of mold, bacteria, etc. They have mastered almost everything - and seem like they have a monopoly on the galaxy - but yet they're too dumb to figure out that airborne diseases will stop their entire invasion?
Not to mention that Earth isn't really saved at all. The eqiupment the aliens were using was 1,000,000 years old to them. Just try to think of what kind of crap they have now...
It's a stupid cop-out - much like signs. In Signs these super advanced aliens, who have mastered space travel, are too dumb to figure out that the Earth's most abundant substance will kill them. Smooth.
Also - what did the birds have to do with anything again? Did they spread the bacteria, etc all over the aliens vechiles?
My friend thinks that it was maybe the bird **** that stopped the aliens - since we all know bird **** drys quick and is hard to get rid of. Plus, it covers a whole lot of ground really quickly...
Remember?
*peck peck peck*
"LOOK AT THE GODDAMN BIRDS!"
"what?"
"THE BIRDS!"
"what?"
"THE SHIELDS ARE DOWN!!"
"what?"
"THE SHIELDS GODDAMNIT!"
"wha...? MEN! THE SHIELDS ARE DOWN! SHOOT 'EM!"
"Good work, Sarge."
The red weed seemed to be an attempt to terraform earth closer to their norms. It was not, as was shown in the movie, fertilized by blood. Human blood in the books was used as source of food, and was injected directly into the Martians. They had 'evolved' past eating, and almost all physical activity, and we unable to consume food or sustains themselves normally. This was the most plausible cause for the spread of earthbound diseases within them. Though it would seem necessary that the Martians had some type of animal they farmed for food before coming to earth, so why did they try to 'eat' the humans. The Martians in the movie were small and rather agile, quite unlike how they are pictured elsewhere.
Despite this, it all comes back to the question, "what were they thinking?" Why did such an advanced race, one that had mastered space travel and the construction of their massive tripods have to conception of microorganisms or their potential impact?
It's a movie, applyed to modern times. The book was written 1n 1898, scientific advances have been made since then. We know Mars isn't covered in a red weed thingy. Who says the invaders are from Mars? I surley don't care where they were from.
Maybe wherever they were from, disease had been eliminated a very long time ago, and they forgot about it, and didn't know of it's existance.
Seriously, movies != books. If I wanted to read a book, I'd do it instead of seeing a movie.
That aside, I enjoyed the movie. Thought it was well done. Good acting, special effects, etc...
The family love intrest btw, made it far better than just "lets run away from aliens for our own self intrest! yay!". It shows that humanity at least in part cares about other people.
It didnt seem a big issue to me - there were lots of things like that. A camcorder, a camera, etc. How about the second lightning storm when they're at Cruise's ex-wife's house? Why doesn't it kill the car a second time, destroy the solenoid or whatever was supposed to have happened?
And what the chances of the car surviving the plane crash too <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
But its just a film, most films have mistakes or unlikely events <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Another mystery solved <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Actually now I think about it, Cruise says "No, this is something else" when asked if its the same thing...
I've seen the film twice now and I still forget things <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The pulse is powerful enough to cause long metal objects (such as cables) to act as antennas and generate high voltages when the pulse passes. These voltages, and the associated high currents, can destroy unshielded electronics and even many wires<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Basically EMPs destoy electronic devices, because they overheat all wires inside it (via the conducted current), this burning the device from the inside. Its not necessary that it is pluged in or turned on.
The only thing necessary is that it contains magnetic metals as conductors or important parts.
Another mystery solved <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Actually now I think about it, Cruise says "No, this is something else" when asked if its the same thing...
I've seen the film twice now and I still forget things <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
yeah at first i thought it was lightning then with all the flames and the guy going deaf cuz a shell hit near him i figured the flashs we thought were lightning were lasers from the tripods and the flames were from the shells hitting them
you have no idea how important this is to the general public <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> my girlfriend is an ivy league graduate with a major in English, and at the end of this movie she was still saying how she wished the wife's new husband died so tom cruise and she could get back together -_-
anyway I enjoyed the movie a lot. Spielberg is very consistant with his movies. They're all a little shallow but engrossing and atmospheric anyway.
I'm not sure a movie has ever scared me as much as this one, and it wasn't even a horror film. it just started out with minutia to adjust you to the feel of the characters, and then the bad things start happening, and it felt so real, because of the special effects, acting, camera angles, everything... I could feel the mob mentality, the shock and disbelief as people were vaporized... when the aliens were terraforming Earth and it was becoming all red, it made me very patriotic to be human =P it was just so horrible on a large scale to see earth become something it's not, made me think about how lucky we are to have our planet...
ok, I'm done with the sappiness. I give it a B+ =P
That was part of it, but there were a hell of a lot of flashes and explosions and colours for it to be just that, I think anyway.
I swear they used the same lightning "noise" as at the start too though, which is getting to me.
Also, so I guess it has to be possible to produce emp resistance devices, the tripods still function fine afterward.
So maybe it isn't the lightning. Who's read the book? Does this all happen in the book?
Was anyone else dissapointed that the Black Smoke didnt make it into the movie?
That would´ve been the best scene ever!
Tim Robbins made a pretty good artilleryman, but for some reason his characters name was Ogilvy, which was the astronomer in the book.