Right ive seen it....

[RustiSwordz]

and yes its as painful to watch as i feared, the whole film is a total botch job from start to finish. This film makes Blair Witch look like a multi million dollar film. The acting is bloody dreadful, i was expecting widow twankey to gome leaping out at any time and shout... oh no it isnt!

But oh yes its is: film is sh*te a travesty of movie making and genuinley painful to watch. I actually felt ashamed on behalf of Tim Hinds who obviously hasnt got any, for this film to the fans and to Wells who not only must be turning in his grave but dig himself right out of it.

The Tripods look like puppets from Sesame street and Ive seen better creatures in the kiddies TV show the Trap Door.

A baad bad film and a chance to do a faithful version of WOTW totally wiped out.

1/10 and im generous.

[mctoddridesagain]

Don't mince your words, Rusti, tell us what you really think!

;D

[Poyks]

Aha!! I get my copy in a few days, looks like I'll have to consume several flaggons of tramp fuel before endulging in this three hour extravaganza!!

[FALLINGSTAR]

Sounds absolutely diabolical! I've been debating whether to buy a copy myself from Ebay but question is - can I be bothered.

Don't forget though Rusti, it's not just Pendragon who've messed up the chance of seeing a big budget live action - faithful adaptation called HG Wells The War of the Worlds. It's Asylum and Paramount too [ bet those two are linked together ]. They're just as bad.

All I can say is thank god for Jeff Wayne. At least we've got something to look forward too.

[RustiSwordz]

mctoddridesagain said:

Don't mince your words, Rusti, tell us what you really think!

;D

I was mincing my words!

The film is a boil on my ar*e, it was like having my eyes extracted with flaming petrol.

PS: @ Fallingstar, yup i agree, JW version looks the dogs nads right now, i cant wait it looks cool!

[Slick2097]

rather than starting a new thread i'll hijack rusti's because essentially I agree with what rusti has said about the film.

The effect .. holy jebus the effects ... I could not help but laugh every time I saw a CG'ed horse moving I mean come on, the horses in any current video game look 12 x's better.

The thunderchild scene! holy crapsticks batman! I put up with the terrible acting, the awful direction, the changing of colour filters every other shot, the hour of the journalist running and walking through the countryside (there is a lot of walking in this film) just incase the thunderchild scene could redeem the entire film .... boy was I made a chump.

Awful film, I did laugh out loud at some of the effects in sheer disbelief of them.

When my friend and I had finished watching it, we agreed it was crap. He also said "where are mystery science theater 3000 when you need them to rip the piss out of a movie", and I said "They'll probably come back specially to do this one" .. yes people, its that bad.

Yes it sticks relatively to the book but i'm sure if enough of us here put our minds to it, and about £11.25p (for costs) we could make a better film.

utter travesty of a film, asylums film, while in no way perfect, was so much better than this.

I'm glad I own both versions, as I can now demonstrate what a good director and actors can do on the asylum disc, and what a mediocre director and "so called" actors can do on the pendragon one.

if you think i'm being harsh, watch it yourself.

Ste.

[andy]

Hi all. I've been lurking on here for a while now, I'd heard about the possibility of a film based on the book and eventually ended up here. So for the past few months I've been awaiting the arival of the Pendragon version and I finally got it. Even after reading all what had been posted on here I was still hoping that I might find some redeemable aspect somewhere... how wrong could I possibly have been?! Me and my brother settled down on friday night wth a good supply of cans to keep us going. To be honest it was actually entertaining, but not for the right reasons! We were making fairly rapid progress through the drink so that might have helped as well but it was basically three hours of non stop laughter! The martians emerging from the cylinder and rather than being overcome by the Earth's gravity they just kind of floated around, the Narrator walking past the same white fence about 8 million times... and there's definitely something amiss when a scene in which someone is trodden on by a fighting machine seems like a top comedy moment! As for the Thunderchild scene, ditto what everyone else has said. I remember playing games on my old Atari ST that were more realisitc than that.

So, if you've got it, try rewatching t, preferably with a large supply of booze and down four or five cans before you actually press play. If you waiting for it to land through your letter box, go get the beers in now!

Andy.

[RustiSwordz]

andy said:

So, if you've got it, try rewatching t, preferably with a large supply of booze and down four or five cans before you actually press play. If you waiting for it to land through your letter box, go get the beers in now!

Andy.

and make sure they are ice cold

;D

[andy]

Oh yes! I'd also suggest taking careful precautions against spillages, both me and my bro knocked/spilt our cans on more than one occasion due to the constant merriment and I came really close to gobbing a mouthful of Stella all over the TV due to an outbreak of laughter. I think that might have been at the heatray victims still rolling around in agony when only their skeletons minus all flesh/muscle were left... Seriously, if you haven't seen this you've gotta see it! Best laugh I've had in ages!

[dalek]

Amazon DVD Sales Rank:

Pendragon DVD: 164
Ayslum:7388

Wha!!!

And it is an appalling film. My 11 year old watched it with me for 10 minutes and then walked out to do his home work instead!
dalek

[amber14]

Dunno mebbe my copy was different to the rest of you. sure the effects were bad but I didn't need to be p****d out of my head to watch it. It has it's problems, more than a lot of filums but the story held up which is the most important thing.
None of you have complained about this fact? why? because Wells' story is the original and best, and you can't argue with a good story. I've heard some bad comments about the story in Spielberg's which you won't hear in Hines' version since Hines used wells' original, and we didn't have ***king trucks sliding along on thier side ad infinitum! That kinda thing is so boring.
Nobody mentions that the scenes with the curate are good too, he's totally convincing as someone who has lost his mind.
So you lot sober up and watch it with fresh eyes.

[mctoddridesagain]

Au contraire, a lot of people have criticised the script (I do in my review: robk.proboards13.com/index.cgi?board=pendragon&action=display&thread=1118302121&page=2). Why? Because the scriptwriter has actually failed to understand the general thrust of themes that Wells was trying to put across. The script dwells far too much on incidentals at the expense of important thematic aspects, as well as getting some things plain wrong (see my review about mistakes in the script in the Observatory scene). We don’t need to see the Writer plodding back and forth between the Common and his house 93 times, visiting Lord Hilton etc.; we don’t need to see Ogilvy’s encounter with the yokel who tries to lock him up; we do need to see Dead London, the desertion of a great city in war – emptiness, the feeling of the end of the world is a great Wellsian trope; we do need the Artilleryman’s Putney Hill fantasy of forging a new civilisation underground and fighting the Martians – the first example of Wells’s preoccupation with social engineering in the here and now (as opposed to the depths of future time in The Time Machine); we do need the Writer’s ruminations on the post-war environment, the uncertainty of man’s future in a universe with demonstrably hostile neighbours – yet again, Wells cautioning man against complacency.

And in his own way, Hines is as much a sensationalist striving for cheap effects as Spielberg has been accused of being; the Voodoo Barbie is a case in point – a cheap, tacky, nasty scene thrown in for pure titillation, rather than the more low-key, and thus far creepier, feeding scenes alluded to, but never explicitly described, in the novel. The early death-by-heat-ray scenes on the Common are dragged out for maximum effect, clearly so Hines can throw in a bit of gore; of course, they’re so poorly done, and so misconceived, that they backfire and simply look absurd.

So no, I have to disagree, the story fails to hold up as well as it should because so many aspects, including the script, were botched.

It's still fun to watch (well, bits here and there) but it is in no way a good film, and given how many aspects were butchered, it's doubtful it ever could have been with Hines at the helm.

[maniacs]

The death of Olgilvy and the 'peace' party could have been so much better. Imagine it, viewed from the distance and very little noise each man running and undramatically falling dead one after the other, as Wells had described it in the book. Cost very little but would have been much better than what was actually shot.

Even the effects later on where the men burst into flame was more preferable to the first scenes.

Your right about the London in ruins bit. All that wandering in the film and yet we get nothing of the journey from the ruined house upto Putney Hill, no narration from the work of fifteen days, apart from some not needed dramatics. Scenes any descent CGI artist could have done. Pity.

And what about the exodus. All those pennies spent on the dissapointing destruction of London, when generally it was just smothered in the Black dust. A much more horrible weopon than the heatray and the real reason the martians so easily won. And no narration from the Exodus. Some of the most powerful narrative from any book and we dont get to hear any!!!

[amber14]

Yes the exodus was totally disappointing. I was hoping for the black dust too.

[Ulaaaa!]

rustiswordz said:

This film makes Blair Witch look like a multi million dollar film. Wells who not only must be turning in his grave but dig himself right out of it. The Tripods look like puppets from Sesame street and Ive seen better creatures in the kiddies TV show the Trap Door.


1/10 and im generous.

LOL, comedy genius. I can't stop laughing this guy is hilarious. Sorry I don't have much to add (cos it's all true and you've mand valid points) but I just found Rusti's review to tap my funny bone.

[Leatherhead]

crap man! now i wanna see it so my friends and i can MST3K the sucka!

[BrutalDeluxe]

andy said:

Oh yes! I'd also suggest taking careful precautions against spillages, both me and my bro knocked/spilt our cans on more than one occasion due to the constant merriment and I came really close to gobbing a mouthful of Stella all over the TV due to an outbreak of laughter. I think that might have been at the heatray victims still rolling around in agony when only their skeletons minus all flesh/muscle were left... Seriously, if you haven't seen this you've gotta see it! Best laugh I've had in ages!

No freakin way!! That really happens? Send that in to the journal of medical science because that is a first ;D

Sounds like this movie should be sponsored by "a brewery near you". Which isn't a bad thing

[broton]

My copy arrived yesterday...I decided to watch up until the Martians came out, just to see what they were like. I had read plenty of reviews, so I wasn't expecting much, but..I enjoyed it! Yes, I enjoyed it in the old "so bad it's good" way - pointing out Mars to his wife when they are clearly in a wood in the middle of a sunny summer's day! The dubbed speech of the yokel who thinks Ogilvy is insane! The incessant walking to and fro! The spritely stunt double for Ogilvy as he goes down into the pit! The accents for crying out loud! The incessant walking to and fro! And then - the 2d Martians!! The CGI - it's all terrible, from the views of London in the opening credits to the cylinder smoking in the pit. And I love the acting as people die in the heat ray!

If I hadn't read any reviews beforehand, I would be really disappointed with this film - as it is I love it, just not in the way it was intended. It looks like an amateur fan film.

[glow=orange,2,300]broton[/glow]

[broton]

I've watched a bit more now, up to when the narrator and artilleryman arrive at Shepperton. And I continue to find this film better than has been described. The fighting machines are an interesting design, I particularly like the "head" of the machine. OK they don't look like they're really there, but George Lucas is still struggling with that problem!
There are some good atmospheric touches too - the initial reaction of the narrator to the artilleryman shows the start of his descent into survival mode, also the ruined houses (complete with skeletons hanging out of windows, naturally!) and beginnings of the red weed.

The accents, though, get worse.

[glow=orange,2,300]broton[/glow]

[Zoe]

broton said:

OK they don't look like they're really there, but George Lucas is still struggling with that problem!
[glow=orange,2,300]broton[/glow]

Yes I don't believe that George Lucas is really there

Zoe