Tripods around the farm house

[Tripod Bait]

While Ray and Ogilvy were trapped in the house we see the tripods (on two occasions) hunched close to the ground and feverishly pounding at the soil with their shorter appendages... I guess we could call them "arms" for a lack of a better term. Now since Speilberg had done away with the cylinders falling to earth there was no need for handling machines, or for the mar... err.. aliens to dig out and push dirt around. So this raises the question as to what they were doing.

My first thought was that the aliens were looking for something, but that really doesn't make any sense - they never had a problem locating small targets before, or spotting hapless fodder. So then what? After thinking a little further I began to wonder, and I apologize if this has been brought up before, if they were seeding the ground.... We don't begin to see the red weed until the following day, and we don't see them spraying until after the weed has started to grow. Which, combine this with Ogilvy's comment about spraying the weed, is a pretty strong argument for the spray being a form of fertilizer for the weed.

[Rocka]

I thought that's why they never invaded before. No humans about means no fertiliser.

[Lensman]

I don't think there's any question that the red spray was fertilizer for the red weed, is there?

No humans = no fertilizer? What, American bison ("buffalo") wouldn't work just as well?

[sunnyrabbiera]

well I am assuming that the aliens were turning up some of the ground for the red weed, makes sense if they have similar knowledge of growing plants to us...
only for them its on a far larger scale.
this indicates why both the book Martians and the aliens built the tripods...
for the book martians they had a lot of high terrain full of red weed and the tripods could have been farming machines when mars was far more fertile and this does allude that the martians might have grown the red weed on purpose.
the theory works the same for the aliens in the film, perhaps they too were originally farmers and the tripods were a tool for farming...
but its up for debate.

[<[Iron Man]>]

Well the Tripods, if i'm correct are referred to as 'warmachines' in the book. Although yes they're shown to do other things, such as spraying 'fertilizer' and planting the red weed, or whatever it is. So a Tripod is primarily a warmachine, but has other functions when not in combat. Which would save them splitting their attacking force into 'combat' divisions, engineering divisions, medical and so on.

[sunnyrabbiera]

well its all in theory, but yeh the tripods were capible of doing many things.
Well's did say that the tripods had a metal basket on them, but that was mainly for gathering humans as at the first part of the book they did not have the handling machines.
so if the martians had those metal baskets they must have had a reason for them on both the tripods and the handling machines.
we know that the martians had humanoids with them for thier trip as a meal to go, however on thier homeworld they could have used thier tripods and handling machines for harvesting both humanoids and red weed...
but its merely specculation

[<[Iron Man]>]

sunnyrabbiera said:

well its all in theory, but yeh the tripods were capible of doing many things.
Well's did say that the tripods had a metal basket on them, but that was mainly for gathering humans as at the first part of the book they did not have the handling machines.
so if the martians had those metal baskets they must have had a reason for them on both the tripods and the handling machines.
we know that the martians had humanoids with them for thier trip as a meal to go, however on thier homeworld they could have used thier tripods and handling machines for harvesting both humanoids and red weed...
but its merely specculation

Well the only reason they needed to carry humans was for 'fuel', so they had something to snack on and fertilise the red weed with. It's the same with some MBTs (Main Battle Tank) that carry extra fuel drums on the back, or Fighter Jets that carry external fuel tanks. So they can jettison them when empty.

As the saying goes, "an Army marches on its stomach". They need some 'sustenance' to carry on, otherwise they'll starve.

[sunnyrabbiera]

well thats in the movie, but the tripods in the books also had the same thing.
its all guesswork though as both Wells and Speilburg never gave us enough on how the Martians/ aliens behaved.

[Lensman]

Wells never says the Handling-Machines have the baskets on them. I get the impression the Handling-Machines were used only around their bases; the Tripods were what they sent out to explore, conquer and bring back human "cattle". It's certainly possible they used the Handling-Machines to prepare the "cattle" for blood draining, so possibly they would have needed some sort of cage... OTOH perhaps they just handled their victims one at a time, in which case they wouldn't need a cage or basket.

[Rocka]

Hang on, get back track here. I thought the reason they invade (in the movie) is to farm us for food and terraform the planet. To grow their weed, they need to feed it blood. Our blood, although you'd think they're being a bit picky if cattle blood doesn't do just as well.
In the novel, Wells showed 'em drinking our blood directly, as if to draw a parallel between taking a peoples land and that people selling it with their blood.
in the film, it's as if they build a land upon our blood. our lives are what builds their environment.
Yet, as Morgan Freeman points out, over thousand of years we've evolved immune systems. Our very blood makes us resistant to them, like they're a big external disease.
Can't talk any more now, I've been drinking for hours and i'm starting to rave...

[beecus]

What exactly is the significance of the red weed anyway?
Why are they growing it? What are they doing with it?

Didn't the book mention it as simply a plant from Mars that had taken root here?

So why is it so important to them that they have to farm humans for it? and if they need humans for it, how did they grow it before to know they needed humans to fertalize it?

[EvilNerfherder]

beecus said:

What exactly is the significance of the red weed anyway?
Why are they growing it? What are they doing with it?

Didn't the book mention it as simply a plant from Mars that had taken root here?

So why is it so important to them that they have to farm humans for it? and if they need humans for it, how did they grow it before to know they needed humans to fertalize it?

I've always thought of the Red Weed as an accident. Basically, stray spores got in to the cylinders and were brought to Earth with the Martians. As I've said before, it doesn't make much sense for the Martians to have brought it with them as some sort of weapon or terraforming device as I'm sure the they would at least have an inkling that the weed would have a detrimental effect on our ecosystem, which it surely would have done if it hadn't died like the Martians did. The book's narrator himself isn't sure as to whether it was brought on purpose or not, either.
In the SS film they seem to be pushing the Red Weed as some sort of terraforming material.. and feeding it blood. As we know so little about what long term effects the weed would have, and therefore the Martians reasoning for bringing it anyway (if that's what they did), the 'accident' theory makes more sense to me.
I guess SS and Co. are entitled to their opinion of what the Red Weed was about in the book, but I don't happen to agree with it.
Of course, it could just have been a vain attempt to make fans of the novel think that the scriptwriters had actually read the book rather than a review on Amazon or somewhere.

[Tripod Bait]

I agree with Nerf in that the red weed was most likely an accident in the book. When I first read the book as kid I got that impression as well. It seemed analigous to early traders or explorers accidently carrying vermon from port to port. The weed in the book seemed to grow independantly of the Martians and their activity - sprouting up where ever they had spent a lot of time, and then spreading, but the Martinas never tended it. I also thought the red weed was an interesting way of possiblly explaining the color of the the planet when viewed from space.

The change in direction in the film may have been a result of a few things: The aliens were much cuter and child-like compared to what Well's created, and in an attempt to further lessen the implied threat of the aliens Spielberg may have changed what the blood was used for - instead of feeding the aliens it was used to feed the weeds. This may have been to avoid MPAA issues. Also, by changing the aliens' motives (from a desire to conquer and subjugate to conquer with the intent of terrraforming) the need for humans changed. Spielberg's alien's may have been feeding on the humans to certain degree, but it's more clearly defined that they are using the humans for weed fodder. One thing that bugs me about the spray, however, is that is is vastly disproportinate to the humans being consumed. One human would not produce that much blood - unless it was added to a store which was released once it reached a specific volume.

And I'm assuming that the guy that Ray saw getting poked was caught on the run... because why else would he be drained like that if the aliens were able to pull captives directly out of the baskets.

[Lensman]

tripodbait said:

One thing that bugs me about the spray, however, is that is is vastly disproportinate to the humans being consumed. One human would not produce that much blood - unless it was added to a store which was released once it reached a specific volume.

A human body holds about 5 quarts of blood. But if you want to drain it all you need to cut off the head and hang the body upside down. Draining the body thru a tube stuck into his chest or abdomen would leave some of it behind... dunno how much. Maybe a lot.

So I think they were just "topping off the tank" by draining the one guy.

[Luperis]

nerfherder said:

Of course, it could just have been a vain attempt to make fans of the novel think that the scriptwriters had actually read the book rather than a review on Amazon or somewhere.

Sometimes I wonder if they thought that a review they found on Amazon was the novel...