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Post by Topaz on Feb 12, 2005 6:24:02 GMT
I just had a horrid thought. Would it not be a VERY Spielberg ending to have the aliens die of their own environmental pollution? "Very relevant to... today's news," he said. Gotta stop thinking like this.
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Post by nervouspete on Feb 12, 2005 13:28:52 GMT
Perhaps the invaders are done in by our lawyers that 'swarm and multiply in a drop of water'.
That's certainly more contemporary, and will introduce even more bloodsucking elements to the mix.
Pete
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Post by themotile on Feb 12, 2005 13:30:35 GMT
OMG, mental leap, theyre already here!!! The aliens are already in our solar system, not light years away, but on mars, ready to attack, could this be the Teaser lines meaning? You know you could be right, Ogilvy in the park with some guy having a secret meeting Ogilvy hands the other a sheet of paper Ogilvy: "this signal came from deep space, out side our solarsysytem. We have only partialy decoded it. It mentions Earth, and we think this part mentions an offensive..." Other Guy: "My god does it give an idea of time? How long do we have to prepare, I mean they have to travel light years dont they?" Ogilvy: "Thats the thing..." Ogilvy hands the other guy a new sheet of paper "We lost all comunication with the rovers on mars, observation of the planet mars indicates some activity, huge plumes of luminous green gas have been seen every night......Sir, they're already here. After cylinder lands/crashes Ogilvy is one of the first on the scene hence one of the first to taste the heat ray.
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Post by Necronmaniac on Feb 12, 2005 17:16:35 GMT
The premise of the book is, at its core, about an invasion of earth by aliens, the fact that he tells us they are from mars has very little if any bearing on the story as a whole. They could have come from venus, saturn or mercury or where ever he wanted them to, but he chose mars for reasons which i have stated else where. Anyway my point is this, the UNDERLYING theme of the book is that colonialism (or anti colonialism) and imperialism and for that theme to work all you really need is a race of aliens, be they martians or demonic vacuum cleaners from the planet zogg. I have said all along, for a film to be considered "War of the Worlds" it MUST have certain elements in it, the tri pods, the heat ray, the red weed etc and it must stay true to the main themes of the book, everything else, such as the time frame in which it is set, and where exactly the invaders come from, is interchangeable without stopping it from being war of the worlds. To get so hung up over sumthing which has so little impact on the story or its themes seems to me to be just extreme nit picking.
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Post by themotile on Feb 12, 2005 17:24:49 GMT
"Demonic vacuum cleaners from the planet zogg." You might have something there!
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Post by malfunkshun on Feb 12, 2005 17:44:05 GMT
The premise of the book is, at its core, about an invasion of earth by aliens, the fact that he tells us they are from mars has very little if any bearing on the story as a whole. They could have come from venus, saturn or mercury or where ever he wanted them to, but he chose mars for reasons which i have stated else where. Anyway my point is this, the UNDERLYING theme of the book is that colonialism (or anti colonialism) and imperialism and for that theme to work all you really need is a race of aliens, be they martians or demonic vacuum cleaners from the planet zogg. I have said all along, for a film to be considered "War of the Worlds" it MUST have certain elements in it, the tri pods, the heat ray, the red weed etc and it must stay true to the main themes of the book, everything else, such as the time frame in which it is set, and where exactly the invaders come from, is interchangeable without stopping it from being war of the worlds. To get so hung up over sumthing which has so little impact on the story or its themes seems to me to be just extreme nit picking. using that logic, i guess we could uproot tolkiens LOTR, set it in modern times, replace orcs with nazis, magic with technology, and still call it Lord of the Rings. after all, its the underlying message, right? the spirit of the original story has nothing to do with it.
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Post by themotile on Feb 12, 2005 18:00:21 GMT
using that logic, i guess we could uproot tolkiens LOTR, set it in modern times, replace orcs with nazis, magic with technology, and still call it Lord of the Rings. after all, its the underlying message, right? the spirit of the original story has nothing to do with it. Now thats just being silly. War Of The Worlds works in the new setting, as it did in 1953 as it based in our Earth, our universe with places we all know. LOTR exists in its own little universe so would not work out side middle earth. Its in a realm of fantasy where magic happens and every place has some magical mystery and history, totaly made up by Tolkien. WOTW has London, without martians London is boring, so whats the difference if its Beyonne, New Jersey? Yeah Yeah I know...the book says...I've heard that before but it doesnt stop me watching boomerangs in 1953 and enjoying it.
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Post by malfunkshun on Feb 12, 2005 18:07:57 GMT
you do realize that middle earth is supposed to be europe, far harad africa, etc? tolkien set middle earth in earths own remote past. so, whats wrong with just tweaking the time setting a little? thats what SS is doing. put LOTR ahead a few eons, the time of man is in full swing, and just replace orcs with robots or something. hell, any suffiiciently advanced technology is indistiguishable from magic, so there's your solution to 'tech vs magic'. nobody will care anyway, just the tolkien purists. as long as the core message remains the same... good vs evil, the meek overcoming overwhelming odds, right? just keep enough about it the same so it will still be LOTR.
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Post by themotile on Feb 12, 2005 18:12:59 GMT
That might work malf, you need to go pitch it to some holywood guys....
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Post by malfunkshun on Feb 12, 2005 18:14:16 GMT
yup, i'm sure it would work, just mention to SS... hey we can rape another book, but since the movie has already been done fairly well, we can do the sequel, you can butcher it all you want, and we can call it LOTR 2
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Post by Necronmaniac on Feb 12, 2005 20:42:18 GMT
Motile got it spot on, you could never get away with moving LOTR to a modern day setting because it was not set in our universe it was set in its own mythological world. Anyway your comparison is not logical, removing the story of lord of the rings from middle earth is a HUGE fundamental change to the story, calling the aliens "aliens" instead of martians is not
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Post by malfunkshun on Feb 12, 2005 20:49:01 GMT
Motile got it spot on, you could never get away with moving LOTR to a modern day setting because it was not set in our universe it was set in its own mythological world. Anyway your comparison is not logical, removing the story of lord of the rings from middle earth is a HUGE fundamental change to the story, calling the aliens "aliens" instead of martians is not yes it is a huge departure, allow me to explain. when the book was written, any speculation about life in the universe was naturally going to be centered around what we knew and understood, which was the planets in our own solar system. the fact that other stars were just like the sun was only just then being discovered. mars was the logical choice. wells' original point was to compare the martians to humans, in the way that we have a habit of killing other people with no regard to their rights, for the sake of our own benefit. the martians, viewed in this way, are extensions of ourselves, what we might become. born in our own solar system. evolved from creatures like us. not from some far away planet that has nothing to do whatsoever with humanity. thats why its important to keep the martians as MARTIANS, not some anonymous aliens.
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Post by themotile on Feb 12, 2005 21:03:52 GMT
Surely it doesnt matter who has the mask of imperialism, martians, aliens the English, it doesnt matter the message is the same.
LOTR is not the same because it was good against evil, one dictator who wanted middle earth for himself, WOTW was about faceless imperialism, the martians are not evil they just had no emotions, they didnt feel guilty about wiping us out or using us for food, just like we are not evil for eating chicken or fumigating a house. Its survival not sadism.
The only real reason in my view that they should have been martians is because the images Wells bestowes were so iconic and had such an impact on all of us that I dont see the need to change them, besides 'martian' is a better word than 'alien'.
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Post by malfunkshun on Feb 12, 2005 21:07:17 GMT
it really is pointless to compare the two stories, my point was that if you can change the core elements of WOTW and be satisfied with it, then why not LOTR? core elements are core elements. i would be just as horrified if LOTR was bastardized as I am now that its being done to WOTW.
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Post by Necronmaniac on Feb 12, 2005 21:11:28 GMT
Mlf, the aliens in the film can STILL be shown as extensions of ourselves and can still be given all the backstory and detail that they have in the book to make them appear this way the fact that they come from mars and are called martians is not what is important though.
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Post by malfunkshun on Feb 12, 2005 21:14:03 GMT
its important to me, ok?
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Post by Necronmaniac on Feb 12, 2005 21:19:00 GMT
Yeah but thats different, it being important to you nd it being important to the story are not the same thing at all.
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Post by themotile on Feb 12, 2005 21:25:29 GMT
Put yer dummy back in malf ;D im sure they are martians all the evidence points to mars, the web site has mars on it, the first poster had mars on it, the first trailer had mars on it, both Spielberg and cruise are both quoted as calling the aliens 'martians' so relax.
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Post by malfunkshun on Feb 12, 2005 21:27:36 GMT
well, if they actually are martians, then that makes it a little less dire. like i said a few days ago... just as i was warming up to this movie, SS announces that the martians aren't martians at all. changing the martians into just aliens was just too much for me. the most recent straw if you will... probably not the last. i can only handle so much bs sp_oon (why the hell is sp_oon edited? ) fed to me before i have to regurgitate it. Yeah but thats different, it being important to you nd it being important to the story are not the same thing at all. thats pretty pretentious there... of course, when i said that its important to me, i thought it was obvious that i consider it important to the story. so to me, it IS important to the story.
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Post by themotile on Feb 12, 2005 21:32:27 GMT
think about it, its been mars mars mars from the start, why would they do that if they were not to be martians. If you read both interviews whatsername says the exact same thing in regards to the martians word for word what Cruise and SS say, now that stinks of scription and they do that for a number of reasons, mainly secrecy and publicity.
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