WOTW DVD REVIEW THREAD

[jeffwaynefan]

Released on Monday 14th November (U.K) as both 1 disc and 2 disc editions, use this thread to leave your reviews on Steven Spielbergs DVD release of Paramount Pictures War Of The Worlds.

[Anthony]

War of the Worlds DVD Review Disc 2

Revisiting the Invasion

An interesting short documentary that delves into why it was time again to revisit War of the Worlds again, after many past adaptations. Steven Spielberg talks about why he has always being excited by the notion of Earth being invading by extra terrestrial life forms. Also many David Koepp explains how their War of the Worlds wanted to challenge the conventions of the invasion genre.

Running in at just under 8 minutes I would not look at this a single documentary, but just the first part in a super long documentary which is of course all of the special features.



Steven Spielberg and the Original War of the Worlds

Steven Spielberg talks about the 1953 George Pal/Bryan Haskin ‘The War of the Worlds’ movie adaptation, and the homage’s he makes to the movie in his own. This part also includes interviews with the 2 main stars of the 53 film, Ann Robinson and Gene Barry in which they discuss how they got the parts in both the original movie, and the Spielberg movie.

H. G. Wells’ The Legacy

Martin Wells’ grandson, and Simon Wells’ great grandson of H. G. Wells’ join Steven Spielberg on the set of War of the Worlds. The feature includes primary and secondary accounts from the family of Wells’ and Steven Spielberg in a very interesting and compelling short documentary about the late great H. G. Wells’, and the original The War of the Worlds novel.



Martin Wells’ also shares his warm opinions of Steven Spielberg’s tripods.

Characters: The Family Unit

Another interesting documentary, this time about the four main family characters of Ray (Tom Cruise), Rachel (Dakota Fanning), Robby (Justin Chatwin), and Mary Anne (Miranda Otto). Spielberg, Cruise and Koepp discuss how they created the characters and the family dynamic. The cast also share there views on how they prepared for the roles, and what they thought of their characters and their place in the family.

Previsualization

This part examines the use of previz in War of the Worlds, and showcases many of the scenes in the original digitalised storyboard state. Steven Spielberg talks about why he decided to take storyboarding to the next level and how George Lucas inspired him to use previsualization for all the FX scenes from the movie.

Production Diaries
PRODUCTION DAIRIES: EAST COAST – BEGINNING
EAST COAST – EXILE
WEST COAST – DESTRUCTION
WEST COAST – WAR

Four documentaries recording basically the whole filming production of War of the Worlds, from the east coast of the United States in the last months of 2004, to filming on the West Coast in the studios in the early months on 2005. All four features clock in overall at around 100 minutes, so you get all you need and more to know about the filming production of War of the Worlds.

Designing the Enemy: Tripods and Aliens

A great little documentary in which the artists behind War of the Worlds talk about how they created the tripods and the aliens. How the tripods moved, looked, and a brief history on the aliens are included in the feature. Also included are original ideas for the fighting machines that never made it into the final theatrical release of the film. With tons of new artwork featured, this is definitely one of the most exciting parts of the special features disc.





Scoring War of the Worlds

John Williams talks about how he went about scoring War of the Worlds. It was the first movie that Williams had done with Spielberg in which he did not have the whole film to look at to refer to when scoring the movie. John William had only seen the first 60 minutes of War of the Worlds when he scored the film, but from that he knew he wanted the music to be different from his usual epic score, but more of a personal, terrifying sound of the musical soundtrack.

“We are not alone”

Steven Spielberg talks about his long history of a fascination of “the mystery of what’s out there” in the universe, in the short concluding part to the special feature disc.

Overall

The War of the Worlds special features add up to one massive documentary about Spielberg’s War of the Worlds and the history to it. Of what is included on the dvd is what I would call top notch in the way of DVD documentary style features, but as for archived features such as trailers, TV spots, galleries or of course deleted scenes there are none whatsoever. Maybe there will be an even bigger DVD in the future, fingers crossed on that. Even though there is a lack of archived special features, what is there on the DVD is good stuff, so I would highly recommend the 2 disc special edition of War of the Worlds to anyone.



Special Features Rating: 8/10
Movie Rating: 8.5/10
Picture Quality: 8/10
Sound Quality: 10/10
Overall: 8/10

Anthony

[jeffwaynefan]

Cheers Anthony, nice review there.

After watching the whole of the "Special Edition" last night I am giving it - 7/10 due to the fact the set should have been better presented. Though formating a film onto DVD is a easy process compared to 7 years ago, but still time consuming this set should have been what the title suggests it to be - "Special Edition", this sadly fell short of being that. It should have just been called a "2 disc set" as "Special Edition" it was not!.

The film was still amazing to watch and listening to the Fighting Machines awesome ULLA sounding out on 5.1 is louder, better and as chilling as ever - incidently Spielberg does refere to that horn sound as a ULLA during the extras on the 2nd disc.

The 2nd disc as Anthony has already pointed out is a mish mash of mini documentarys which if were spliced together would make a good feature, but could be a bit long winded in my opinion. The main lengthy sections were the "on-location" shoots, each just being over 20 minutes apiece and with the smaller features running just a little short of 8 minutes each.

The highlights of this was the "Desinging The Enemy" and at 8 mins was far to short for my liking. Some excellent shots of pre-viz concepts of the machines going through there paces, walks and movements and some teeth grinding pre-viz's of machine rampaging across the town, removed from the film.

The let down to the set was the fact the package was completely missing - trailors, image gallerys and most importantly deleated scenes.

Some may disagree with me, but the final look of the set was the appearance is was thrown together for pre-christmas sales. . . . And it was this why I give it a fair 7/10. If your a fan of anything War Of The Worlds then this DVD should be sitting on your shelf either now or for christmas. But after viewing the DVD contents I was left wanting more - but when will that be?.

[jeffwaynefan]

Incidently, did anyone catch that design of what appears to be a Handling Machine on the 2nd disc. It lacked claws, but certainly had a large array of legs and a hood with the alien inside.

[David Faltskog]

Pretty much agree with what Horsell said and i hope they're will be a better version in the near future.

But the movie it's self is simply stunning, a sheer classic that is in my personnal top 5 of all time fave movies.

Just my opinion of course.

D.F.

[Poyks]

Yep, again I agree, and Anthony's review is a work of art!! When all said and done I'm very chuffed to own it and still have a silly grin on my face! ;D

[David Faltskog]

Cheer's Poykies the cheque is in the post

D.F.

[FALLINGSTAR]

Well I managed to borrow a copy last night [ I wouldn't waste my money paying for it ] and needless to say - it's still the Hollywood mediocrity that I saw in the cinema. Great special effects, some good scenes such as when the tripod first appears and the bodies in the river but that's about it. I like it even less now. The thing with the tripods being underground is also pretty stupid and lazy film making in the extreme. They've been underground for ages and .....hey our modern technology doesn't pick them up even though vast swathes of the earth have been mapped by satellites. They're also an obvious reference to 'sleeper cells' - another piece of 'war on terror' propaganda from messrs Spielberg and Cruise.

This film is full of ridiculous plot holes like - why would an advanced alien species bury thousands of tripods, wait for a reasonably advanced civilization to appear then decide to take over the world. Why the hell didn't they colonise the planet when they first came here thousands of years ago.

And a jumbo jet crashes in to the neighbourhood and you would think that would cause a major fire with all the jet fuel but hey - it just scatters some debris which conveniently misses their car in the driveway. Again lazy Hollywood filmmaking.


One thing you'd think filmmakers like Spielberg would have learned by now - with a film like this is not to cast A list stars. I just couldn't accept Tom Cruise as an ordinary blue collar worker and he stands out like a sore thumb.
Cruise is totally miscast in this movie and his Ray character is the usual cliched divorced dad who gradually gains the respect of his kids routine and as usual Cruise doesn't act - he just plays himself on screen. What we see of the tripods is good and they are an interesting design but they are totally wasted in this average at best summer popcorn flick - that desperately wants to be a masterpiece but ends up being nothing of the sort.

It's obvious from the start that this film revolves around Cruise not out of respect for the book but so he can be on screen for as much of the film as possible. In fact this film should have been called CRUISE.....OH YEAH.....AND SOME NASTY ALIENS IN THE BACKGROUND. The bit with Cruise [ I'm such a hero ], the tripod and the grenade is even more laughable second time round.
Dakota Fanning might well be a good child actor in some things but in this she's just plain annoying and pretty much screams throughout most of the film. The terrorism references are in poor taste and I still question Spielbergs motives for making this film. His next film surprise surprise is also about terrorism.

I can easily understand some people being at first taken in by all the hype and special effects - but when you look back on it you realise that it's nothing special at all - in fact quite the opposite - especially when you think of what it could have been . The aliens aren't menacing at all to look at. In fact they look quite cute in some ways and the resemblance to the ones in INDEPENDENCE DAY is uncanny. The film is also nowhere near as scary or frightening as it should have been.

This movie has virtually nothing to do with HG Wells original story apart from tripods and a bit of red weed and I think most Wells fans will be really annoyed that Spielberg has thrown most of the book on to the scrapheap and instead given us a story that's more about family strife than anything else. Absolutely pathetic.

It's as if Spielberg and co have sat around a table and said to themselves - "How can we avoid the usual alien invasion cliches" [ which is extremely contrived in itself ] and instead they've come up with a cliched family drama about divorced dads and their offspring instead.

Just think of all the great scenes from the book which aren't in this film such as the Thunderchild sequence, the cylinders landing, Horsell common etc, etc and you'll realise that this film misses the mark by a long shot. The old saying "he would turn in his grave" certainly applies to this film and I'm pretty sure HG Wells would turn in his grave at this typical Hollywoodised shallow excuse for a film 'supposedly' based on his book.

The usually fantastic John Williams provides another thing which lets this film down - the musical score or should I say non musical score. In this it's just forgettable for the most part and is only marginally successful as mood setting music. The ending is also pure sappy Hollywood cheese.

I haven't watched the documentaries yet but all in all if you're a HG Wells fan give this pathetic Hollywood re-imagining a wide berth. If you like lame, cliched summer popcorn flicks you might just like it.

[David Faltskog]

So did you like it or not?.

D.F.

[amigang]

My War of the Worlds DVD Review

Disk 1
The Film 9/10 - As good as it was in the cinema, but still ended to quickly, and no big Army VS the tripod scene, which the extra feature do show test scenes that would of been perfect! Which make it even more annoying!

The Picture 9/10 - On a Sony 30" Widescreen TV it looks fine, I’m not the best at noticing qty differences, (I only found out a few months ago that I didn’t activate RGB on my DVD that should improve the picture) So it was good enough for me.

The Sound 9/10 - On a Philips 5.1 system, I watched the film in what ever the default was when you press play (I'm guessing that’s just normal Dolby Digital) It sounded fine there was a few scenes where the volume goes very high suddenly like the lighting, and Tripod horn. The voice was fine to listen to, (which I find always a big problem with some films where the action drown out the voices) but it was fine, could of been a bit louder in places, but ok for the most part.

MISC 8/10 - The menus are quite good and simple, chapters are in good places in the film, get right to the action easily, never notice the DVD changing layers (which I have in many other top films), all the usual subtitles are here. However no commentary makes it miss out on 10 point and no alternate audio track (which I really enjoy on some DVD when they showed what other music might of worked in certain scene, this should be in more films.) And no 6.1 DTS which I started to notice appearing so there loads of room for improvements even a HD version.

Disk 2
Revisiting the Invasion 8/10- Nice simple introduction to the rest of the special features, Spielberg explains the reason on why he wanted to make WOTW.

Steven Spielberg and the Original War of the Worlds / H. G. Wells’ The Legacy 8/10 - Similar features both looking back at what made the original and the 1954 movie work. Quite a lot of clips from the 1954 movie in these features. Also looks at what Wells Family thinks of the update. I felt this could of been a bit longer and gone a bit more in to the other adaptation of War of the Worlds and the rip offs, interestingly Independence Day & Jeff Wayne’s WOTW is never mentioned in any of the features.

Characters: The Family Unit 10/10 -this was a much more interesting feature than I thought it would be, about the main charters of the films. Cant fault it so 10 points.

Previsualization 8/10 - This is very good showing pretty impressive virtual story boards of key moments in the film, it would of got 10 out of 10 if you could of selected each one to compare and seen some of the unused virtual story boards, but as it is we just get the odd clip of it, which is good and usually long clips but would of been nice to been able to select each scene, like a Storyboard Comparison you some time see on DVDs.

Production Diaries - 10/10 - EAST COAST BEGINNING / EAST COAST EXILE / WEST COAST DESTRUCTION / WEST COAST WAR
Each one is very impressive and informative on how each effect at each location was filmed. However we must be missing one for the deleted scenes, which is oddly never brought up really.

However the best bit of the whole DVD for me is in EAST COAST EXILE at about 13mins into it shows what the hill battel should of been like, and looked well cool. Spielberg why did'nt you leave this in it!

Designing the Enemy: Tripods and Aliens - 9/10 - The feature I was most looking forward to, it was very good, looking at the research that was done, I have a new appreciation for the alien design, but would of liked to of seen more tripod footage especially fully finished skinned (Coloured) versions. And also in the production notes it says a real tripod model was made, but we never got to see it. But other wise was very pleased with what I saw.

Scoring War of the Worlds 9/10 - This explains how some of the strange music was made, but we never get to hear any test music, (unless John Willams hit the mark first time for every track) Also never explains why Spielberg picked Morgan Freeman to say the narrated.

“We are not alone” - 6/10 - feel like this was a last minute extra, on what Spielberg likes about sci fi films and that he think some one could be up there.

Picture/Editing Qty- 9/10 - All the extra bit are in full screen, the qty is very good, the documentary are put together very well, as I said it would of been nice to have a story board comparison feature, but other wise no complaints.

Sound Qty - 10/10 - Fine on all fronts, again would of been nice to hear some of the changes that might have been done to the music, but I cant really complain. This was all in stereo.

Misc - 8/10 - Again the menu system is simple and effective. It offers subtitles to all the features, I am yet to find any eater eggs (But I don’t think they are any), there no gallery, no trailers/tv spots and no deleted scenes, but on the whole I felt the features where very good.

DVD Case+extras - 4/10 - After seeing Region 1 version of the case and Japan having the option to get a box set version, I have to say its very poor over here, we didn’t even get an inlay card with the scenes listed. Also the box art was not my favourite from the options. Needs a bit of work here.

Overall Out of 160 it could of got it gets 134.
I think this is not a bad release, but kind of feel it could of been so much better with a bit work, exactly like I felt with the film it self, with just a bit more time and bit more features added it would of easily got a higher score, I kind of feel that paramount also have held back some stuff for a possible future edition, the deleted scenes obviously, the trailers, storyboard compassion, there enough stuff out there to fill another disk me thinks. But as it is, its a great film, the features we do get are of high qty and for the price its not a bad buy.

[Buccaneer]

A reasonable film, with the standard "Hollywood holes" in it - how did that car survive the plane crash? I did come into it with no illusions that it would be anything like the image I have in my head from reading the book, which helped.

I liked the tripods and the aliens wern't too bad.

Can't say I felt anything for any of the characters.

Best bit - only having to pay £5 for the two disk special edition at ASDA Walmart!

[tripodcory]

i saw it 3 4 times already I can't stop watching it. I love the movie.

[Killraven]

tripodcory said:

i saw it 3 4 times already I can't stop watching it. I love the movie.

Welcome to the board Tom! lol ;D

[ArmoredTrackLayer]

I must say, I am impressed with the picture of the alien with the tenticles, looks much MUCH more like a wellsian martian. A shame they didnt keep that in the movie.

Also, can anyone post more pics of the hill battle previs for those of us not fortunate enough to have the special edition