Second Viewing....

[keltiksylk]

So, I bought this movie at Walmart. It was right there in the latest releases section. It took me longer to get through the automated check out than it did to find the movie. Of course, this was the third or forth Walmart I had searched. All the others were still restocking the shelves.

Anyway, I took it home and after running some other errands threw it in the DVD player and let it rip...

Words fail me...I think the best summation I can come up with is "The Shining Time Station Version of War of the Worlds". The effects and acting were nearly at that level (but not quite that well done). I've seen better CGI on the Teletubbies...There are all kinds of things I could say, but perhaps the most telling is that I am grateful that H.G. Wells is not around to see this travesty.

Having said all that, I am now rewatching the thing, this time on my computer. Curiously, some of the annoying jerkiness to the film is gone, almost as if it was meant to be viewed this way. With that out of the way, the beginning is much more dramatic. The music, the opening paragraphs of the narration, all have a powerful affect.

I'm hoping that this second look will reveal some merit to this film. I'm out 8 dollars and need some vindication for not waiting a week for the dollar bin. I'm hoping that a story that has remained timely for over a century won't suffer an excruciating death.

[Lensman]

keltiksylk said:

Curiously, some of the annoying jerkiness to the film is gone, almost as if it was meant to be viewed this way.

That's interesting. When I watched it-- and I never watch DVDs on my computer-- I wondered if the "jerkiness" was a deliberate attempt to make it look like a period film. They used a lower frame rate in the silent era, an average of 18 frames per second, as opposed to the 24 fps of todays' films.

I found it annoying as it was yet another thing, along with the sepia tone of some scenes, which made it hard for me to immerse myself in the picture. OTOH my opinion was that if Hines did that deliberately, that was a valid artistic choice so I wasn't gonna complain about it. And just like the sepia tone, it comes and goes in different scenes.

But you may be right-- the jerkiness may be a production problem. Considering the other technical problems with this film, I wouldn't be surprised.

[alabaster]

I think it has to do with the fact that many films these days are edited on a computer screen. I noticed the same phenomenon with a number of Michael Bay's movies; in theatres, they gave me a migraine, but on video, the effect disappeared. Give Spielberg credit, he still edits the old fashioned way, and, after Martin Scorsese, his movies are the best edited in the business.

[mfortuna]

I thought there was something wrong with our new bigscreen TV. I noticed the jerkyness on almost every live scene that involved walking/running but the special effect scenes seemed to be much more fluid.

I tried the movie on my 7" portable DVD player and it looked better. I'm going to try it on out old 25" TV.

But the jerkyness made a questionable movie even more hard to enjoy.

Mike

[Lensman]

Speaking of second viewing, I just watched the Thunder Child sequence again. Actually the ship is more detailed than I remembered from the first viewing, and there is a hint of someone aboard; at one point during a close-up of the ship we see a couple of pairs of legs run by on deck.

So perhaps I overstated just slightly how bad the sequence is. OTOH it seems this scene is what many reviewers have zeroed in on as being the worst-- or at least the most disappointing-- thing in the movie. So if I overstated the case I don't think it was by much.

[BrutalDeluxe]

Yeah the TC is sacrosanct, mess with it and you incur the wrath of the fans!