Just bought a copy from Walmart myself

[timeship2]

I just went out this lunchtime to my local Walmart supercenter and sure enough there it was. So for the sum of $8.42+tax I now have a copy in my hands which I shall view tonight with my wife (as an unbiased viewer!) to see what we can make of it.

[neuronomad]

Picked up my copy too.

www.whittfamily.us/photogallery/thumbnails.php?album=22

timeship2 said:

I just went out this lunchtime to my local Walmart supercenter and sure enough there it was. So for the sum of $8.42+tax I now have a copy in my hands which I shall view tonight with my wife (as an unbiased viewer!) to see what we can make of it.

[MikeH]

You look very pleased with your purchase!

[timeship2]

Well I just viewed it last night and to be brutally honest it wasn't quite as bad as I thought it was going to be. Ok my expectations have probably been lowered to the floor by now, but my wife and I did find it fun to watch. It must have been as we were up gone midnight watching it, due to the length of it.

I also have to comment about the jerkiness that has been reported. What is up with that? If I hadn't have read others commenting about this, I would have thought either I had a faulty DVD disc or that my player was acting up. It is very annoying. Also the music in my opinion seemed to overpower the dialog quite often.

Yes it is bad, but I wouldn't rate it as a waste of money. I mean I am certainly not mourning over the loss of $9 or so, wishing I'd have spent it on a couple of lunches for instance. Do I wish it was better? Of course, but I guess I am tending to view it as a very cheap made-for-tv live action companion to the book.

The actual Martians themselves were a bit comical I have to say. Even though they had tentacles, they reminded me more of giant spiders than an octupus.

As was mentioned before in another review, they do seemed to have used the bluescreen a lot, giving the characters a weird ethereal look to them at times. Also there do seem to be parts where the graphics look like they had simply got bored and never finished them. Big ben being the most famous and various buildings in London. In my opinion, it is the copious use of bluescreening (and that jerkiness) that makes this look unprofessional rather than the CGI. Poor CGI effects I can cope with although I have to say that the thunderchild scene was pretty pathetic. It didn't have a whole lot of detail either and looked like a toy floating in a bathtub rather than a majestic battleship.

The acting, while not great, wasn't too terrible really although a bit forced at times. It's certainly not a trait unique to this movie.

My conclusion is that if you are looking for the ultimate period movie with awesome production values then maybe you should leave it on the shelf. If like me, you are curious and don't view spending $9 on curiosity as a waste then I think it's still worth buying. Let's be honest, I bet there are many times you have wasted far more than $9 before.

So, as this was never going to be what we had hoped for, let's roll on now with the Spielberg movie...

[Jacko]

The 'jerkiness' is probably due to really poor mpeg encoding, remember that this film was made on the cheap so i doubt that much care was taken to encode it.

[recumbentrider]

neuronomad said:

Picked up my copy too.

Neuronomad, my brother, in those pictures you look almost like your sitting on an electric chair, and your waiting for someone to pull the switch...

I can just hear the judge's voice.."You have been found guilty. The law gives me no choice. You will be taken henceforce to a place where you will be force to watch Tim Hines' War of the Worlds for a period of three hours.."

[seniorfalcon]

I just read Timeship's review of the movie, and he pretty much sums up the way I feel about it. This is not a great movie, but I don't think it's as bad as most of the extremely negative reviews would have you believe. I think that much of the reason for the negativity is the gap between expectations and the reality of the movie. We all wanted it to be something as extravagant as Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings, but how could you have looked at (for example) the publicity shots of the house that gets hit by the cylinder and not notice the obvious joints where the house is going to break apart. When I saw that picture I knew this was low budget and adjusted my expectations accordingly.

I found the movie a couple of days ago and watched it last night and the night before. I actually enjoyed it! I understand that most of the actors are theatrical actors rather than movie actors. I decided to view the movie as a film of a theatrical production, rather than as a big budget movie. Viewed that way the special effects worked fine for me. There are a lot of obvious flaws, some of which are inexplicable to me - looking at stars in the daylight for example. Why didn't Tim Hines darken that shot so that it looked like night? The movie was somewhat slow paced, certainly by today's hollywood standards. (It moves along at a right spritely pace compared to some of the Iranian movies I've been watching recently) As others have pointed out there is a lot of walking, some of which could have been edited out. The infamous Thunderchild scene clearly needs a lot of additional work.

Some positive aspects: I liked the score very much, in fact if a CD becomes available I'll probably get it. The acting for the most part was acceptible. Ogilvey was very exagerated in his delivery, which sounded funny at first. In thinking about it, I had a chemistry professor who spoke exactly like him!! I did like Piana's role as the writer and the obvious anguish he went through at being separated from his wife. In particular I thought the ending of the movie was very well done. I love the ending of the book and expected to be disappointed by how the movie ended. For me the ending of the movie was just as touching as the ending of the book!

In short, if you adjust your expectations and attitude a bit, you may find much to like about the movie. I'm looking forward to watching it this weekend with my 14 year old son. It'll be interesting to get his reaction. In the next couple of days I hope to post a more complete review.

SeniorFalcon

[Gnorn]

Hello SeniorFalcon, welcome tho these boards! Thanks for your positive review of the movie and balancing the scales somewhat. Even after all the negative comments, I'm still gonna order it next week when it becomes available at Amazon. Cheers all!

-Gnorn

[FALLINGSTAR]

The point is though we were all misled from the start into thinking Hines had something special and spectacular up his sleeve. I think the end result is unforgivable and it just shows what a bunch of slippery customers they are.

[theredweed]

Are there still some left at walmart florida. I really can't wait!

[timeship2]

Welcome seniorfalcon.

Yes my wife picked up on the viewing of the stars before I did. I was too immersed in the story before I realised myself. I think my brain had already decided it was supposed to be night until she brought it up, then it hit me! LOL

I get the feeling with this movie that had he made the effort to finish it properly and not attempted to compete with Spielberg or whatever he was trying to do, then it would have been a great companion DVD to the novell.

So did you notice the jerkiness too? The reason I ask, is to see if this is affecting everyone. If so then their quality control is poor since there really is no excuse for poor encoding.

[mctoddridesagain]

timeship2 said:

I get the feeling with this movie that had he made the effort to finish it properly and not attempted to compete with Spielberg or whatever he was trying to do, then it would have been a great companion DVD to the novell.

And as my old dad says, "Had my auntie had balls, she'd have been my uncle." That's the problem with ifs, they can be stretched to make any point. If Tim Hines had talent and money, then maybe he'd have made a decent fist of this film.

But he had neither, hence it's a pile of poo.

I apologise if this post becomes grumpy, but I am astonished at the proliferating number of posts along the lines of 'If only he'd had more time or money, maybe it would have been better.' This is accompanied by a (small) subset of posts along the lines of 'Maybe he'll do more work on the effects and release a better 'director's cut' version later.'

I suspect people would be better off coming to terms with the fact that this film is bobbins, was always going to bobbins, and will remain bobbins, because Tim Hines is a hack who has made a pig's ear of one of the seminal works of science fiction because of his lack of talent.

By all means decry his lack of money. But don't complain that he 'rushed it' - by his own admission he's been working on it for years. How long should he have had, then? Another five years? Ten? Fifteen?

Just get over it people.

[tinckelly]

I agree McTodd. Worrying isn't it.
I wondered how long it would be before we had, "The dog ate my homework, Sir!" excuses trotted out.

[timeship2]

tinckelly said:

I agree McTodd. Worrying isn't it.
I wondered how long it would be before we had, "The dog ate my homework, Sir!" excuses trotted out.

Oh come on, I am not making excuses for Tim himself. We already know how he operates. I was just commenting on the DVD itself and the fact that had the effects been properly finished, it would have been an acceptable companion to the novel and I stand by that comment. The way some people have been carrying on, you'd get the impression it just had a jumble of scenes randomly put together into a video, when it isn't like that. I can understand the anger over this and I don't like what has become of this project anymore than anyone else, but I am not going to simply post that it's a piece of **** simply because everyone else is. I would be willing to bet that buyers who have no idea of the drama behind the production of this DVD will not be so critical and just assume it's another of those el cheapo movies made for the chainstores.

I am sure some are thinking that those who buy the DVD are just fueling the fire by giving him a stream of income, but then how can we make comments on something unseen? I believe in seeing things for myself.

I am also not a dreamer in thinking a finished version will come out. This is it and all there ever will be. You can see this, by the fact that he never finished the big ben scene. It's over and done with. I think we all need to move on now and forget about a quality period production since it's probably isn't never gonna happen in most of our lifetimes now.

[EvilNerfherder]

I don't even see whats so 'worrying' about it.
Ok so TH proved to be inept and made a balls up of it. Even the staunchest of TH's former allies here have recognised that fact. But some people seem to be taking this far too personally.
Instead of moaning interminably on about it why not do something. Approach film companies.. directors.. even raise the money yourself and YOU do it properly.
Isn't that better than droning on and on as if TH has had this seemingly personal vendetta against you and ruined your lives by making a crap film? This enormous self pity over this whole thing is getting old.
In the words of McTodd..
'Just get over it people'

[jeffwaynefan]

People of the DVD world, those of you that have bought this DVD and are clearly distrought by it, do good, send your unwanted DVDs to WOWTOnline moderators.

Let us bare the brunt of your pains, let us take those pains away from you.

Thats it, open up the envolope and place the box inside. Now seal the envolope and contact us for our postal details.

Bless you my child.

[timeship2]

EvilNerherder,

You just summed it up for me.

[Baron of SG-12]

Well, I've seen alot of movies in my time. And this is one of them.

Baron

[recumbentrider]

mctoddridesagain said:

And as my old dad says, "Had my auntie had balls, she'd have been my uncle." That's the problem with ifs, they can be stretched to make any point. If Tim Hines had talent and money, then maybe he'd have made a decent fist of this film.

I think those of us that have bemoaned the film with statements such as 'too bad it wasn't finished' are the fans that thought this film might still be halfway decent, despite all of what we saw in trailers, etc., beforehand. I know that before I saw the film, I was very hopeful that it would end up being a good, albeit low budget, version of the novel. This may have been a huge amount of self-delusion on my part, but I have to admit that is how I felt.

I am still looking forward to the reviews of this movie from the British and other European fans. I suspect even those who realised beforehand how bad this movie was going to be will feel more disappointment than vindication when they see it. The one thing I believe everyone on this board has in common is that we all desperately wanted this film to succeed; even after having seen it, it is still difficult to accept the fact that this film failed so badly.

[seniorfalcon]

First off, to answer Timeship's question. Yes my copy of the DVD has the same jerkiness everyone has commented on. I don't know much about how data is encoded on DVD's, but it seems to me that long movies such as this one usually come on 2 dvd's. (Lord of the Rings comes to mind) Is it possible that to fit 3 hours onto a single DVD the only way is to accept some jerkiness? Does someone know enough technical information to enlighten us?

My 14 year old son and I watched the first half of the movie last night. He seems quite interested in it. (I think one of his comments was "This is an OK movie" or something like that. I had to hide it from him so we could watch the rest together tonight. I'll keep you posted on his reactions.