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Post by I own a cylinder on Jun 8, 2005 22:24:48 GMT
I intend to buy this film because:
1.) It is a film of War of the Worlds 2.) I wanna make films so ive been following this film and it shows how not to do it. 3.) I like Indie films (well some indie films. Others i'd rather look at the box art) 4.) I like War of the Worlds
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Post by quaderni on Jun 8, 2005 22:43:38 GMT
For me the most egregious aspect of the film isn't the bad effects or acting (though both are truly godawful). For me, it's the horrid camera work and the bad editing. Truly unforgiveable.
I should have guessed these problems when I read that the film was shot on video. The editing on the first trailer, which of course was poor on so many levels, didn't even give a clue to the depth of the problem.
As I've said, this whole thing is sad, sad, sad.
There should be an article: 'The War of the War of the Worlds'.
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Post by Lensman on Jun 8, 2005 22:56:27 GMT
I should have guessed these problems when I read that the film was shot on video. Huh? I don't understand what that has to do with it. HD video is the wave of the future, especially now that the cameras have settings which can make the video look like film. I'd say within 15 years, nearly all "films" will be shot on video. Anyone trying to make a low-budget film these days who actually uses film is an idiot. HD video is much cheaper, is finished the moment it's shot (does not have to be developed in a lab), and is more convenient. That allows money and time to be spent elsewhere on the production. Oh I know, the high-profile film festival crowd look down their noses at anything that "isn't real film". That attitude will change-- it will *have* to change because they are gonna get fewer and fewer submissions made with "real film."
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Post by malfunkshun on Jun 9, 2005 2:29:58 GMT
greetings all. its Malfunkshun. remember me? i left of my own accord because i disagreed with the mod practices here. however, after seeing Hines' movie, i feel i must make one last statement.
I am truly, amazingly, sorrowfully dissappointed. I was one of the big optimists back with the Hines wars were going on several months ago. I was always looking on the bright side and trying to find the good points as opposed to the bad. I did understand that this movie was going to be lacking in a lot of areas because of the low budget, but I was prepared to accept this because I was of the faith that possibly a good movie could be created anyway with a great screenplay, great direction, great editing, and great cast and score. I was sorely dissapointed in almost every regard. Let me expound.
1. First off... the only thing I can say about this movie that was halfway ok was the acting. I know that most people will disagree with me, but I found the narrator, the parson, and the artilleryman sufficient with their acting capabilities. Miss Elphinstone (Jamie Sease) was horrid. A couple of other small roles were less than talented. But for the most part, the acting was acceptable... the scenes under the house were actually quite good. If the rest of the movie had been done at this level of quality, editing, acting and directing-wise, this movie might have been saved.
2. The special effects were... on a scale of 1 to 10... a 3 1/2. The only decent scenes were during the artillerymans account, when the fighting machine was walking forward, with the camera facing it. Another scene, which was in the trailer, of the fighting machine marchine towards the artillery cannon, was decent. One other ok scene was at the battle of Weybridge, when three Martians were striding along the edge of town shown with a wide shot. The rest of the tripod scenes pretty much sucked. The heat ray at the beginning, turning humans into skeletons, was pitifully pathetic. Hilarious actually, in a sad way. The Thunderchild scene made me want to cry with frustration. There was NO sense of dread, of tension, of euphoria when the Martians were killed. NOTHING. It sucked. Ass. Balls. BAD. Compositing shots all through the movie were less than sub par. It seems as though almost every shot, even simple shots of people talking in front of a building, were bluescreened and compositited. Why? Even interior shots, simple ones, were edited with CG. Badly. Again, why? Why spend all of the money shooting this damn thing on location in London, and there is absolutely nothing in the movie that makes this apparent.
3. Editing. It sucked. A lot of scenes seemed to be thrown together, one after another after another, with no apparent connection. Dialogue was spotty and non-linear. Conversations seemed to end before they even got started, with the scene changing inexplicably to something else. Lots of walking occured with no particular reason... the artilleryman and the narrator for instance, inspecting burning and ruined buildings on their way to Shepperton. Why? Just to fill space? The scenes where the Martians were destroying London were not dramatic at all, partly due to poor editing... switching from intense shots to boring shots in another locale with no real warning (not to mention that the effects didn't really lend themselves well to creating a dramatic atmosphere anyway). And finally, the end seemed to be just stuck on and generally ignored. Brave New World was basically skipped with only a cursory nod, and Dead London was completely forgotten. And what happened to the Martian howls? Nothing apparently... they aren't there. The end of the movie stinks of RUSH RUSH RUSH. We don't have time to film Brave New World and Dead London, so lets just skip those parts and ship this movie in June. It sucks anyway, so who cares? I can imagine words like these floating across the table at a Pendragon board meeting.
I want to cry (not really... I want to wring Hines' neck actually). I have never been more dissappointed before in my life. I was hoping that we would at least get a movie that was quality in other areas, like editing, screenplay, photography, storyboarding, etc. Instead we get handed a piece of garbage that is even WORSE than the sub par special effects in just about every other respect. Again... the one scene that I actually liked was the struggling between the narrator and the parson. I though the acting in these scenes was very good and the sense of dread was conveyed well. That is the only good thing, aside from the few scenes where the special effects were merely ok, that I found in this movie.
Mr. Hines, you have failed us.
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Post by FALLINGSTAR on Jun 9, 2005 2:36:57 GMT
I picked this movie up at Walmart yesterday and tried to get my wife to watch it with me. She was too tired. I'm glad she didn't watch it, I would have been so embarrased! I am a long time WOTW fan. The first sci-fi book I read (and probably one of the first books I read at all) was WOTW. I re-read it at least every other year. I liked Pal's movie version and I'm looking forward to June 29th but had hopes for a period piece that was just like the book. One of the most chilling parts of the book for me was when the young man comes running up to the narrator and says something like, "It's a screwing and a screwing out. I'm going home!" To me that shows the pure terror the martians were capable of. And the terror would only get worse. With this scene missing from the movie my hopes of "just like the book" were already dashed. I won't go into more detail since I would just be repeating what others said. My daughter was making Kraft Macaroni and Cheese last night when I started to watch the movie. The box proudly claims it's the cheesiest. Sorry, that claim can now be put on a DVD box. Mike Bloody hell! Where are all you new or nearly new members coming from all of a sudden.
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Post by FALLINGSTAR on Jun 9, 2005 2:55:55 GMT
greetings all. its Malfunkshun. remember me? i left of my own accord because i disagreed with the mod practices here. however, after seeing Hines' movie, i feel i must make one last statement. I am truly, amazingly, sorrowfully dissappointed. I was one of the big optimists back with the Hines wars were going on several months ago. I was always looking on the bright side and trying to find the good points as opposed to the bad. I did understand that this movie was going to be lacking in a lot of areas because of the low budget, but I was prepared to accept this because I was of the faith that possibly a good movie could be created anyway with a great screenplay, great direction, great editing, and great cast and score. I was sorely dissapointed in almost every regard. Let me expound. 1. First off... the only thing I can say about this movie that was halfway ok was the acting. I know that most people will disagree with me, but I found the narrator, the parson, and the artilleryman sufficient with their acting capabilities. Miss Elphinstone (Jamie Sease) was horrid. A couple of other small roles were less than talented. But for the most part, the acting was acceptable... the scenes under the house were actually quite good. If the rest of the movie had been done at this level of quality, editing, acting and directing-wise, this movie might have been saved. 2. The special effects were... on a scale of 1 to 10... a 3 1/2. The only decent scenes were during the artillerymans account, when the fighting machine was walking forward, with the camera facing it. Another scene, which was in the trailer, of the fighting machine marchine towards the artillery cannon, was decent. One other ok scene was at the battle of Weybridge, when three Martians were striding along the edge of town shown with a wide shot. The rest of the tripod scenes pretty much sucked. The heat ray at the beginning, turning humans into skeletons, was pitifully pathetic. Hilarious actually, in a sad way. The Thunderchild scene made me want to cry with frustration. There was NO sense of dread, of tension, of euphoria when the Martians were killed. NOTHING. It sucked. Ass. Balls. BAD. Compositing shots all through the movie were less than sub par. It seems as though almost every shot, even simple shots of people talking in front of a building, were bluescreened and compositited. Why? Even interior shots, simple ones, were edited with CG. Badly. Again, why? Why spend all of the money shooting this damn thing on location in London, and there is absolutely nothing in the movie that makes this apparent. 3. Editing. It sucked. A lot of scenes seemed to be thrown together, one after another after another, with no apparent connection. Dialogue was spotty and non-linear. Conversations seemed to end before they even got started, with the scene changing inexplicably to something else. Lots of walking occured with no particular reason... the artilleryman and the narrator for instance, inspecting burning and ruined buildings on their way to Shepperton. Why? Just to fill space? The scenes where the Martians were destroying London were not dramatic at all, partly due to poor editing... switching from intense shots to boring shots in another locale with no real warning (not to mention that the effects didn't really lend themselves well to creating a dramatic atmosphere anyway). And finally, the end seemed to be just stuck on and generally ignored. Brave New World was basically skipped with only a cursory nod, and Dead London was completely forgotten. And what happened to the Martian howls? Nothing apparently... they aren't there. The end of the movie stinks of RUSH RUSH RUSH. We don't have time to film Brave New World and Dead London, so lets just skip those parts and ship this movie in June. It sucks anyway, so who cares? I can imagine words like these floating across the table at a Pendragon board meeting. I want to cry (not really... I want to wring Hines' neck actually). I have never been more dissappointed before in my life. I was hoping that we would at least get a movie that was quality in other areas, like editing, screenplay, photography, storyboarding, etc. Instead we get handed a piece of garbage that is even WORSE than the sub par special effects in just about every other respect. Again... the one scene that I actually liked was the struggling between the narrator and the parson. I though the acting in these scenes was very good and the sense of dread was conveyed well. That is the only good thing, aside from the few scenes where the special effects were merely ok, that I found in this movie. Mr. Hines, you have failed us. Welcome back malfunkshun! Shame it's not on a better note though and your review has depressed me even more. As you said why? Why did Hines bother. Well if we were to be slightly sceptical it would be just to cash in on Spielbergs equally crap excuse for a WOTW flick and it looks as if they rushed this out to do just that. I think there's many a WOTW fan who could strangle the git at the moment. I honestly think the guys a bit nuts. Then again maybe he ain't so nuts as he knows fans will go and buy it out of curiosity. What a missed opportunity!
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Post by Lensman on Jun 9, 2005 2:57:47 GMT
Thanks for the review, Malfunkshun. I'm amazed at the near-total agreement between most of the various reviews posted to this forum. In my experience, people tend to have different reactions to movies. This one seems to be an exception.
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Post by mfortuna on Jun 9, 2005 13:25:35 GMT
Falling star wrote: Bloody hell! Where are all you new or nearly new members coming from all of a sudden.
Lurked for months, registered to ask a question about Pal movie, lurked, posted some thoughts on Hine's movie.
I would expect you will see a lot of new members with 3 movies coming out.
Mike
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Scottabot
Junior Member
"There are Angels in the spray, Wizards in the Palm trees and Elves in the Seashells."
Posts: 34
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Post by Scottabot on Jun 9, 2005 14:17:24 GMT
Just a thought. It occured to me last night that as bad as this "movie" is, it would still make an excellent addition to High School Libraries. It seems to me that it very faithfully followed the novel, at some points even quoting line for line. There are also little subtleties in it like the wavy effect when viewing the superheated cylinder. I think Tim Hines purposefuly did the sepia tone for a Halcyon Days feel. There is also a Red Hue for that "weird and lurid landscape of another planet" effect. And the green effect for an alien feel during the collapsed house scenes. Your opinions, Please. Did anyone else notice the "present day T.V. or Radio tower in the scene when he was returning from Leatherhead?
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amber14
Full Member
Welsh Bunny
Posts: 72
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Post by amber14 on Jun 9, 2005 14:59:59 GMT
Oh well. Mind you I think the cruise independeceasteroiddayafterwar looks just as horrid...all those cars being dumped around and sliding everywhere my god it nearly spoilt my viewing of Revenge of the Sith..now that was a film worth waiting for..needless to say I won't be bothering with anything now..excpet wait for Jeff Waynes version....so good by all I'd like to say it was fun here most of the time...
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Post by FALLINGSTAR on Jun 9, 2005 15:50:36 GMT
Oh well. Mind you I think the cruise independeceasteroiddayafterwar looks just as horrid...all those cars being dumped around and sliding everywhere my god it nearly spoilt my viewing of Revenge of the Sith..now that was a film worth waiting for..needless to say I won't be bothering with anything now..excpet wait for Jeff Waynes version....so good by all I'd like to say it was fun here most of the time... Couldn't agree more!
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Post by quaderni on Jun 9, 2005 17:10:30 GMT
greetings all. its Malfunkshun. remember me? Hey, Malfunkshun! Glad to see you again!
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Post by quaderni on Jun 9, 2005 17:14:31 GMT
I should have guessed these problems when I read that the film was shot on video. Huh? I don't understand what that has to do with it. HD video is the wave of the future, especially now that the cameras have settings which can make the video look like film. Oh I know, the high-profile film festival crowd look down their noses at anything that "isn't real film". That attitude will change-- it will *have* to change because they are gonna get fewer and fewer submissions made with "real film." Lensman, with good cheer and no malevolence I say: Damn straight. I won't apologise for my film snobbery at all! (But I won't take any pot shots at your love of musicals. Promise!)
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Post by nervouspete on Jun 9, 2005 18:16:13 GMT
Oh well. Mind you I think the cruise independeceasteroiddayafterwar looks just as horrid...all those cars being dumped around and sliding everywhere my god it nearly spoilt my viewing of Revenge of the Sith..now that was a film worth waiting for..needless to say I won't be bothering with anything now..excpet wait for Jeff Waynes version....so good by all I'd like to say it was fun here most of the time... Couldn't agree less!
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Post by dudalb on Jun 9, 2005 18:33:51 GMT
"Did anyone else notice the "present day T.V. or Radio tower in the scene when he was returning from Leatherhead? " Nope, but I noticied the modern Diesal locomotive pulling the train in the scene were the Narrator is fleeing from Horsell Common. Anarchronisms aboud in this movie....
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