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Post by Ashe Raven on May 18, 2006 20:26:03 GMT
Liek you told us Pendragon was going to be crap, I did warn you not to put too much faith in Spielberg. Don't get defensive I was kidding around. Surely you remember the "School renioun" episode of Doctor Who
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Post by RustiSwordz on May 18, 2006 20:38:56 GMT
yeah i did defend SS when it was in production. sadly id have better luck licking my own nuts.
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Post by Ashe Raven on May 18, 2006 20:52:58 GMT
So you like the dance though?
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Post by RustiSwordz on May 18, 2006 20:55:54 GMT
not seen it yet.
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Post by greenwalther on Sept 10, 2006 23:22:08 GMT
My problems with this movie have nothing to do with it being a modern-day version set in America. Since Jeff Wayne stonewalled Paramount from doing a period version, I see no reason to get mad at the filmmakers for resorting to the Orson Welles/George Pal Plan B approach. What I do object to is the following:
1. Not enough of the aliens. For the first time, we actually get good tripod deisgns worthy to stand alongside the Pal airships. Too bad we don't get to see them hardly at all. The 1953 film is loaded with money shots of the airships going around and shooting up the joint. What do we get here? Shots of the tripods' legs and foggy long-distance shots. They're not enough of a presence in the movie to have any impact.
2. The deadbeat dad is totally in the right. We're supposed to believe Ray Ferrier's a jerk for ignoring his kids. Sorry, but when his kids are such complete jerks, how can you blame him for staying out of their lives? Rachel's obnoxious and belligerent, Robby's ready and willing to abandon his sister (who makes it clear she needs him) for a blind grab at glory...Ray has every right to be an absentee dad! His kids deserve to die! How are we supposed to condemn him for his behavior when what we're seeing justifies it?
3. Annoying stock characters who don't shut up. I got real annoyed real fast when characters kept talking over each other for no reason, and it really got under my skin when Lenny Venito's character refused to listen to Ray's pleas for him to get in the car and kept yammering away at him. if someone tells you you're going to die if you don't listen, shouldn't that be something you might want to know about?
4. As a consequence of #2 and #3, the ONLY likable character is the deadbeat dad. Which kills the whole notion that the alien invasion is a nightmarish thing. If you don't care about people who are in danger, then what's the point?
5. Terrible sound effects. The 1953 heat-ray is what a heat-ray should sound like. Powerful. Dangerous. Memorable. What do we get here? A sound like hissing water. I'm not impressed.
6. Scope? What scope? The movie's far too small-scale for a story of this magnitude. The book was epic. The 1953 movie was epic. The Welles radio drama was epic, at least in the first half. We got a real sense of the disaster and how far-ranging it was. The movie is far too insular to carry any weight. We needed to see scenes of global chaos, TV and radio news reports of the fighting in progress, the whole shebang. Without that, the story as presented in the film is lifeless. We can't for one second believe it's really happening.
7. Tripods buried centuries in advance? Wouldn't they be so microbe-infested that the aliens would be dead within seconds of getting in? Granted, the book's aliens weren't the sharpest tools in the shed, but this is ridiculous.
8. Gene Barry and Ann Robinson getting nothing to do but stand in a doorway. Come on! They deserve better than this!
9. No defined theme music. I expected more of John Williams than this.
10. Not nearly enough Morgan Freeman. Hardwicke got to do tons of commentary in 1953. Welles wouldn't shut up in 1938. Why stiff Freeman?
I won't hold the movie accountable for stuff that was out of its hands. I will, however, hold it accountable for its failure to tell the story in a compelling way, to give us likable characters who make sense, to make the aliens sufficiently impressive, and to really run with the idea of a global extermination that only fails due to a freak of nature. As it stands, the 1953 movie walks all over Spielberg's film. And from the looks of things, it may well be the only good WOTW movie we get for the foreseeable future.
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Post by RustiSwordz on Sept 11, 2006 8:37:53 GMT
THANKEW greenwalther! See someone else with same thoughts as me. Nice one.
Yup the film was a cop out!
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Post by FALLINGSTAR on Sept 11, 2006 15:58:20 GMT
I think there's many with the same thoughts on it but did Jeff Wayne really stonewall Paramount from doing a period version? Spielberg stated that he wasn't going to do Victorian sci fi - so that's good evidence that at least while Spielberg had his hands on WOTW - it wouldn't be faithful to the book. I seem to remember in that Peter Briggs interview that he wanted to get together with Hallmark to make a supposedly book faithful version. All I can say is - thank god Hallmark never made it as most of their adaptations are crap. They made 20,000 leagues under the sea which was ok but other adaptations such as J.T.T.C.O.T.Earth were rubbish.
Also, I bet you all anything that in the end - no matter who was directing - Paramount would have resorted to the usual 'seen it all before' routine of transporting the story to modern day America.
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Post by Lensman on Sept 11, 2006 17:37:38 GMT
Greenwalther clearly has a rather large axe to grind with Jeff Wayne-- in fact an entire collection of axes, from what he recently posted over in the Pendragon section.
The recent Paramount movie was a modern-day version because and only because that's what Spielberg wanted to do. To blame Jeff Wayne for any part of Paramount's film is silly, just silly.
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Post by Ashe Raven on Sept 11, 2006 18:02:53 GMT
And quite how Hinesy was supposed to know about Jeff's dealings Paramount is beyond me, so again, there is little foundation for this save for the rantings of a poor excuse for a film maker.
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Post by wotwfan48 on Sept 13, 2006 4:02:17 GMT
Greenwalter, your are absolutly right. Good comments regarding WOTW 2005 SS. It could have been, far more scary, if it was more focused on the tripods. It could have been, Epic, but was not. SAD. Chantale.
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Post by Killraven on Sept 14, 2006 12:56:31 GMT
My problems with this movie have nothing to do with it being a modern-day version set in America. Since Jeff Wayne stonewalled Paramount from doing a period version, I see no reason to get mad at the filmmakers for resorting to the Orson Welles/George Pal Plan B approach. What I do object to is the following: 1. Not enough of the aliens. For the first time, we actually get good tripod deisgns worthy to stand alongside the Pal airships. Too bad we don't get to see them hardly at all. The 1953 film is loaded with money shots of the airships going around and shooting up the joint. What do we get here? Shots of the tripods' legs and foggy long-distance shots. They're not enough of a presence in the movie to have any impact. 2. The deadbeat dad is totally in the right. We're supposed to believe Ray Ferrier's a jerk for ignoring his kids. Sorry, but when his kids are such complete jerks, how can you blame him for staying out of their lives? Rachel's obnoxious and belligerent, Robby's ready and willing to abandon his sister (who makes it clear she needs him) for a blind grab at glory...Ray has every right to be an absentee dad! His kids deserve to die! How are we supposed to condemn him for his behavior when what we're seeing justifies it? 3. Annoying stock characters who don't shut up. I got real annoyed real fast when characters kept talking over each other for no reason, and it really got under my skin when Lenny Venito's character refused to listen to Ray's pleas for him to get in the car and kept yammering away at him. if someone tells you you're going to die if you don't listen, shouldn't that be something you might want to know about? 4. As a consequence of #2 and #3, the ONLY likable character is the deadbeat dad. Which kills the whole notion that the alien invasion is a nightmarish thing. If you don't care about people who are in danger, then what's the point? 5. Terrible sound effects. The 1953 heat-ray is what a heat-ray should sound like. Powerful. Dangerous. Memorable. What do we get here? A sound like hissing water. I'm not impressed. 6. Scope? What scope? The movie's far too small-scale for a story of this magnitude. The book was epic. The 1953 movie was epic. The Welles radio drama was epic, at least in the first half. We got a real sense of the disaster and how far-ranging it was. The movie is far too insular to carry any weight. We needed to see scenes of global chaos, TV and radio news reports of the fighting in progress, the whole shebang. Without that, the story as presented in the film is lifeless. We can't for one second believe it's really happening. 7. Tripods buried centuries in advance? Wouldn't they be so microbe-infested that the aliens would be dead within seconds of getting in? Granted, the book's aliens weren't the sharpest tools in the shed, but this is ridiculous. 8. Gene Barry and Ann Robinson getting nothing to do but stand in a doorway. Come on! They deserve better than this! 9. No defined theme music. I expected more of John Williams than this. 10. Not nearly enough Morgan Freeman. Hardwicke got to do tons of commentary in 1953. Welles wouldn't shut up in 1938. Why stiff Freeman? I won't hold the movie accountable for stuff that was out of its hands. I will, however, hold it accountable for its failure to tell the story in a compelling way, to give us likable characters who make sense, to make the aliens sufficiently impressive, and to really run with the idea of a global extermination that only fails due to a freak of nature. As it stands, the 1953 movie walks all over Spielberg's film. And from the looks of things, it may well be the only good WOTW movie we get for the foreseeable future. Interesting points GW... I didn't rave about the film myself. However, I think most of your issues are subjective as to your enjoyment of the film but didn't really make it into a 'bad' movie. I don't think it was a bad movie, just very mediocre. May I comment on each of your points in turn? 1) More presence of the tripods wouldn't be an issue if the core thrust of the movie, ie the human survival element, had been handled better. After all it is arguable that Wells' story centres around human behaviour and survival in the face of catastrophe as much as it is about alien invasion. The martians were just a catalyst for Wells exploring his theories about human nature. 2) Had you maybe thought that the reason his children were irritating and obnoxious (and I agree they both were, very!) might have something to do with his lack of attention and focus towards them? Far too many kids go off the rails these days because the parents can't be bothered and without any role models to look up to you're left with an ASBO waiting to happen 3) People do talk over each other all the time (I'm probably guilty of it myself). Annoying yes, but I don't see how that really impacted on the quality of the film. 4) True, this was a major let down of the film. Most of the characters were so annoying, not least ol' SuperTeeth, to the extent that you couldn't wait for them all to be killed off! 5) I personally had no problem with the sound effects. It was a Whoosh!...so what? It wasn't a heat ray anyway! There's no rule book to say that a fictional disintegrator gun doesn't Whoosh! ;D 6) I disagree - I found the film to be pretty epic. Well it is if you compare it to David Latt's version at any rate. I just took the lack of global focus to be another example of insular American Hollywood flag-waving...otherwise why choose to transfer the action from the UK to the US? 7) This was a key plot hole that I and others brought up when the film was released and may well be a contributor to the view that the screenplay was not properly thought through by Krap..sorry, Koepp... ;D 8) Yes they were wasted. And most viewers were probably far too young to even notice who they were. For all we know they had lines and they got cut. 9) I agree, the music was as mediocre as the movie. The music in Latt's film was better (even if more than a bit influenced by Morricone's score for Carpenter's "The Thing"). 10) Unfortunately another sign of people's increasing lack of patience and attention span. Spielberg probably took the view that any further narrative would be considered 'boring' and take away the immediacy of the live action. Overall, the movie was moderately compelling, it just wasn't War of the Worlds (the 1953 film at least giving a cursory nod to the story). KR
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Post by schmokes on Sept 28, 2006 7:45:10 GMT
I had boycotted this flick after my friends saw it and came back from the theatre enraged at Spielbergs complete annihilation of the story, but I saw it on cable TV, and holy crap, its way worse than I thought possible. He did not tell the story, he stole CONCEPTS from TWOTW and re-arranged them, POORLY, while completly contrived roles and characters were enacted. Who does he think he is? This is not some random script he picked up, this is THE classic sci-fi story of all time that he has dared to abominate and then capatalize upon the general public's willingness to eat any crap they are fed, as long as its got the Spielberg name on it... I have to agree that Spielberg really got himself on my sh*tlist with this one. This movie had NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING to do with The War Of The Worlds, except for the parts he incoherently alluded to, so he could steal the title for the movie and make a big media-hyped sensation about it. Then crudely staple it together with some vague voice-over by Morgan Freeman, and a brief scene showing Mars - WORTHLESS. This isnt supposed to be Disney, but Spielberg thinks he's got to make everything candy-assed. The heat ray selectively vaporizes human beings but not clothing - explain that one to me in scientific terms. REDICULOUSLY CHEESY. He made a generic piece of crap sci-fi movie starring one of the most over-rated actors in history. I'm not going to fall prey to, "welp, the title of the movie was TWOTW, and I'll like it regardless of the fact that it has nothing to do with TWOTW, and its a blatant PLAGERISM of TWOTW because it steals ideas without adhering to the story, but hey, its called TWOTW so it must be great". Wells is rolling in his grave. Jeff Wayne has a real chance here to do justice to the story and avenge Speilbergs idiocy, but its a shame because tons of ignorant people out there dont even realize the way they have been duped, or maybe they just have no integrity and dont care, because they'll eat it up regardless, as long as they are "ooooo-ed" and "aahhhh-ed' with special effects.
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Post by FALLINGSTAR on Sept 28, 2006 16:13:32 GMT
I had boycotted this flick after my friends saw it and came back from the theatre enraged at Spielbergs complete annihilation of the story, but I saw it on cable TV, and holy crap, its way worse than I thought possible. He did not tell the story, he stole CONCEPTS from TWOTW and re-arranged them, POORLY, while completly contrived roles and characters were enacted. Who does he think he is? This is not some random script he picked up, this is THE classic sci-fi story of all time that he has dared to abominate and then capatalize upon the general public's willingness to eat any crap they are fed, as long as its got the Spielberg name on it... I have to agree that Spielberg really got himself on my sh*tlist with this one. This movie had NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING to do with The War Of The Worlds, except for the parts he incoherently alluded to, so he could steal the title for the movie and make a big media-hyped sensation about it. Then crudely staple it together with some vague voice-over by Morgan Freeman, and a brief scene showing Mars - WORTHLESS. This isnt supposed to be Disney, but Spielberg thinks he's got to make everything candy-assed. The heat ray selectively vaporizes human beings but not clothing - explain that one to me in scientific terms. REDICULOUSLY CHEESY. He made a generic piece of crap sci-fi movie starring one of the most over-rated actors in history. I'm not going to fall prey to, "welp, the title of the movie was TWOTW, and I'll like it regardless of the fact that it has nothing to do with TWOTW, and its a blatant PLAGERISM of TWOTW because it steals ideas without adhering to the story, but hey, its called TWOTW so it must be great". Wells is rolling in his grave. Jeff Wayne has a real chance here to do justice to the story and avenge Speilbergs idiocy, but its a shame because tons of ignorant people out there dont even realize the way they have been duped, or maybe they just have no integrity and dont care, because they'll eat it up regardless, as long as they are "ooooo-ed" and "aahhhh-ed' with special effects. Predictably, I agree with every last word! Let's hope Jeff Wayne can reclaim the title WOTW from Spielberg - and give us THE WOTW.
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Post by RustiSwordz on Sept 29, 2006 6:49:33 GMT
because they'll eat it up regardless, as long as they are "ooooo-ed" and "aahhhh-ed' with special effects. yes and even then the Tripods were woefully underused. The only redeeming feature in the movie. And i agree with every word you said.
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Post by nervouspete on Sept 30, 2006 12:23:23 GMT
Since having loved the book since I was eight, I just have to say -
I STILL LIKE THE SPIELBERG VERSION. (Apart from the TV Anchor Van bit - if it had been Ron Burgendy on the trail of a hot story - maybe, but as it was, no. Bad concept)
BUT I STILL LIKE THE SPIELBERG VERSION.
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Post by richardburton on Oct 4, 2006 8:52:45 GMT
I have to say that despite not being happy with several elements of the film (including the rushed and far too tidy ending), I do think it is a good film overall. Some very good acting from Cruise and Robbins, a decent story (if flawed in areas), first class special effects and it was a closer film adaption than the 53 PAL version. Yes, we'd all have prefered it to be in the right timeframe and we would've all prefered it to be a closer adaption to the book, but such is life. It's still overall a decent movie.
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Post by Lensman on Oct 4, 2006 16:52:38 GMT
Well said, Richard. I think most of the bitterness and ranting about his movie comes from those who wanted it to actually *be* The War of the Worlds. That's certainly understandable, as that is the title that was tacked on it, but in fact that was *not* the story Spielberg was telling, it just swiped some (a lot) of ideas from that story.
Judged on its own, it's a very good movie. One that *could* have been a Great movie, if it weren't for the presence of some large flaws.
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Post by RustiSwordz on Oct 4, 2006 22:06:43 GMT
Pass the sander, somone just put SS WOTW on the DVD and i have an urge to sand down my testicles.
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Post by FALLINGSTAR on Oct 4, 2006 22:23:40 GMT
I have to say that despite not being happy with several elements of the film (including the rushed and far too tidy ending), I do think it is a good film overall. Some very good acting from Cruise and Robbins, a decent story (if flawed in areas), first class special effects and it was a closer film adaption than the 53 PAL version. Yes, we'd all have prefered it to be in the right timeframe and we would've all prefered it to be a closer adaption to the book, but such is life. It's still overall a decent movie. I wouldn't really say one's closer than the other. At least they came from Mars and landed in cylinders in Pals film.
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Post by FALLINGSTAR on Oct 4, 2006 22:26:01 GMT
Pass the sander, somone just put SS WOTW on the DVD and i have an urge to sand down my testicles. Ouch! I nearly stuck my head in the oven last time I watched it ;D
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