Was there a reason?

[Lensman]

commandingtripod said:

Was there a reason that in this movie, there was little if no scenes of Human Vs Alien conflicts?

I find it quite odd you'd say that, because when I saw the movie a second time I was struck by just how *many* scenes had, for instance, a brief shot of a Tripod striding thru, or something else (like the burning train) to remind us of the terrible danger the survivors were under at almost every moment.

[Commandingtripod]

Oh I see what your saying there Lensman.
Perhaps I should have made myself more clearer.

I meant huge battles.
Like 100 Artillery Pieces lined up taking on three advancing tripods or something.
And then we get to see them all (The artillery) get destroyed by the heat ray and all mans devices fail etc.
Also a naval battle that pitchs the invaders against some warships would have been nice.
Stuff like that though there were quite a few battle scenes yes I agree with you in that respect.

(Infact, I forgot I even started this thread it's been that long)

[Lensman]

Well in the original novel the closest thing we got to a pitched battle was some units of the army which had some artillery lined up on a ridge. After that, it was just pockets of artillery here and there. The closest thing we got to a naval battle was one warship versus IIRC three tripods.

So why would you expect Spielberg to give us some huge battles? Were you really expecting a war movie? That's not what "War of the Worlds" is about, in any version. It's about the devastation of human civilization by a force more powerful than us, and how individuals react to that.

[Commandingtripod]

True.

But seeing one's army get smashed into a million pieces would impact on you pretty hard though.
Anyway, I'm losing footing for my argument so I don't think there's much else to say other than agree with you Lensman.
Your right though, War of the Worlds isn't just about the fighting that took place.