Right ive seen it....

[DarkElastic]

broton said:

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]

This reaction is wrong. He does not do it in the book, and shouldn't do it in the film. He has not had time to revert back to a savagery. I think he would be glad to meet another human, suffering the same disaster. What is he attempting to keep the Artilleryman away from, his house? I can see time taking it's toll and a man becoming more savage - like when he meets the Artilleryman at the end, many days of fending and surviving.

If anything, as you can see by recent events, men and women become closer in the face of a disaster, helping one another. Ok there are exceptions. But, the character of the writer is not a horrible man, he would help a fellow human. Not attack him on his door step.

[Hoela]

After seeing the Spielberg version I was really looking forward to this movie: it could not be worse! From what I read in this forum I should not take the trouble buying it?

Hoela!

[EvilNerfherder]

I think you get out of it what you put into it. If you don't look at it as a serious movie then you'll probably enjoy it more than if you sat down expecting something special.
Switch your brain off, suspend your disbelief and recall the days of ZX Spectrum gaming graphics and you may just get through it. It IS fun in it's way.. if it were shorter it wouldn't be such a slog though. That's why I'll be interested to see the re-edit.

[Mr Death Ray]

Yeah, now i've just come to look at it as some movie a bunch of guys made in their back yard. I just didn't like the way he made it out to be a huge epic movie, and another thing, how the hell did it get a DVD release?!!!!!!!!!

[Hoela]

Very well: I will order the movie and watch it with a good bottle of port wine and a piece of blue stilton.

When will the re-edit be released?

Hoela!

[EvilNerfherder]

hoela said:

When will the re-edit be released?

No idea.. We may find out when Charles does. I doubt we'll hear it from the horse's mouth.

[broton]

darkelastic said:

broton said:

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]

This reaction is wrong. He does not do it in the book, and shouldn't do it in the film. He has not had time to revert back to a savagery. I think he would be glad to meet another human, suffering the same disaster. What is he attempting to keep the Artilleryman away from, his house? I can see time taking it's toll and a man becoming more savage - like when he meets the Artilleryman at the end, many days of fending and surviving.

If anything, as you can see by recent events, men and women become closer in the face of a disaster, helping one another. Ok there are exceptions. But, the character of the writer is not a horrible man, he would help a fellow human. Not attack him on his door step.

Fair points. I was thinking from two angles:
1 - it foreshadows when the narrator hits the curate (sort of, it shows he is prepared to use violence)
2 - it was the best bit of acting up to that point

[Lensman]

amber14 said:

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.

Yes, Wells' story is deservedly a classic and in the opinion of many has stood up well over the years. The problem with this film is not Wells' story-- it's the way Hines presents it. Hines does not understand the most basic concept of film storytelling, which is that you let the camera tell a story.

To illustrate how Hines drops the ball on this, I need go no farther in the DVD than the observatory scene. The Narrator has a voice-over taken directly from Wells' text: "I still remember that vigil very distinctly: the black and silent observatory," as the camera shows the obvervatory's dim interior, "the shadowed lantern throwing a feeble glow..." as the camera shows a close-up of the lantern, "the steady ticking of the clockwork of the telescope" as the camera shows the end of the telescope and we hear the ticking.

This is 100% redundant. We are *shown* what the voice-over says; we certainly do not need to be told it at the same time! Furthermore, there's an axiom of storytelling: "Don't tell your audience what is happening-- show them!"

This applies not just to movie-making, but to story-telling in general. How can you "show" your readers in a written story instead of "telling" them? Let me quote from the advice to game-masters (in this context, the storyteller) given in the role-playing game Space: 1889 for Describing the World: "Don't just tell them they're tired; tell them what it feels like to be tired. Don't just tell them they fell in the bog; tell them what the bog tastes like when they swallow a mouthful of it."

In other words, the more vivid the experience you can give your audience, the better the storytelling is. A movie can give a more vivid experience with sight and sound than with dialogue, so film makers should use sight and non-verbal sound to tell the story as much as possible, and rely as little as possible on expository dialogue. Not only has Hines completely failed to grasp this concept, he goes so far as to redundantly and simultaneously tell his story twice: verbally and also with sight & sound in the same scene! And that's certainly not the only place in the movie this happens-- he does it repeatedly throughout the movie.

It seems clear to me that Hines is strictly an amateur when it comes to film-making; he doesn't understand the most fundamental concepts. (He also completely fails to understand editing, but that's a different rant.)

And I'm not beng snarky, but perfectly serious, when I say Pendragon's "War of the Worlds" would make an excellent case study for film class. There are many, many examples here of how *not* to make a film.

[mctoddridesagain]

lensman said:

amber14 said:

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.

Hines does not understand the most basic concept of film storytelling, which is that you let the camera tell a story.

To illustrate how Hines drops the ball on this, I need go no farther in the DVD than the observatory scene. The Narrator has a voice-over taken directly from Wells' text...

And even then he bungles the script, because he fails to understand the prose, he completely failed to understand that the novel purports to be written six years after the war. As I pointed out in my review:

'But there are inaccuracies – he [Ogilvy] speaks of Lavelle’s observation of a jet of flame bursting out from Mars ‘six years before’. But Lavelle’s observation took place mere days before Ogilvy’s vigil – there is a reference to ‘six years before’ in the book, but it means that the Narrator is writing his account of the War six years after the event. Ogilvy also mentions that Mars is ’40 million miles sunward’ of Earth – no, Earth is 40 million miles sunward of Mars [to which reference is made in the prose, but as usual Hines misinterpreted it]. The scriptwriter has attempted to shoehorn all this exposition into the characters’ speech without actually paying close attention to what some of it means.'

And to answer the point Lensman was responding to, many people have attacked Hines' film because it balls-up the story so much. The story doesn't stand up, if by 'stand up' you mean 'engage, thrill and provoke thought', precisely because the presentation is so abysmal, especially the script.

Lensman's explanation of why the script falls down is a model of clarity, but many people have been making similar points ever since the wretched thing appeared.

And I'll add to Lensman's point by saying that not only is the script amateurishly conceived, because Hines lacks any concept of how film-making works, but Hines also neuters the story by glossing over some of the most important scenes. The encounter with the Artilleryman on Putney Hill is vital, which is why Wells added it to the novel (it's absent from the serial, and the lack of it is noticeable). It's vital because it's the first time we see in Wells' popular fiction an explicit commitment to a specifically social Darwinist agenda. And yet Hines bowdlerises it, either because he simply doesn't understand it or because Lathrop's acting is so dire. And the Dead London chapter is of enormous importance, containing some of Wells most lyrical prose, as he describes the great city abandoned and dead. Simply showing a few shots of Anthony Piano wandering around some crappy field in Washington state is no substitute.

Sure, one can derive some form of enjoyment from the film, in an 'it's so bad it's compulsive' way. One can learn many lessons from it. But to try to argue or pretend that it possesses any artistic integrity whatsoever or displays any vestigial remnant of competence in its execution is delusional. A turd is a turd, no matter how much you may pretend otherwise.

[Lensman]

I said in my original review of this film that Hines added unnecessary expository dialogue to the film. So yeah, I'm not saying anything new, I'm just expounding on a point. We've dissected this movie so thoroughly that I doubt there are any new points to be made, or at least no major ones.

And I completely agree that unnecessary expository dialogue or voice-overs are far from the worst flaws in the film. Certainly the truncation of "Dead London" and especially the omission of the "Ulla, Ulla!" sequence are far more serious flaws. The often incoherent editing and awful pacing (especially the excessive and repetitive walking sequences) are also worse flaws, by far.

My post above was a response to various posts in this thread that basically said, or seemed to be saying, "Oh come on, people, this film isn't *that* bad."

My response is "Yes it *is* that bad." To support my claim I chose something I could explain very clearly and-- I hope-- hasn't already been discussed to death. But more importantly, I am arguing that the primary reason this film is so bad is a notable lack of ability on the part of the film-maker(s), and *not* because of the the low budget, the possibly rushed (at the last minute) production, or the basic story.

Now maybe I'm wrong about Hines being fundamentally lacking in film-making skill. Charles has recently reported a much improved new edit sent to him from Mr. Hines. Perhaps Hines has more skill than the version I have on DVD indicates. But at this point I'm gonna "be from Missouri": you have to show me. And even if that new edit is much improved, that doesn't necessarily mean I'm wrong about Hines' lack of skill; the film may have been re-edited by someone else.

[mctoddridesagain]

Don't get me wrong, I was agreeing completely with you, Lensman, and not in any way saying that you were just repeating what others have said - your post was a good concise argument. I simply wanted to add that as well as what you rightly said, just to compound his many offences, Hines actually misunderstood parts of the story. The Seattle-based goggle-eyed numpty.

[Spirit of Man]

After seeing this film:-

"I had my first inkling of the gulf between his dreams and his powers."

[broton]

lensman said:

My post above was a response to various posts in this thread that basically said, or seemed to be saying, "Oh come on, people, this film isn't *that* bad."

If you're referring to my posts then I would just like to clarify: I am not saying the film isn't bad, but that after reading many reviews of it, it wasn't as bad as I expected, or at least, I could enjoy the bad bits *because* they are bad. My brother and I particularly enjoyed the landlord of the Spotted Dog's exclamation of "Two pounds?!?!", and the amazingly variable accent of the artilleryman.

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

[Balrog]

I have finally acquired a copy today, in the UK, hoorar!

I need to be doing something constructive while its on cos I'd feel guilty wasting 3 hours of my life. I could drink or knit or something.

I could make a jumper that lists all Hines' qualities (so all blank then.)

Has anyone else been highly amused by all the 5 star reviews on amazon.com for the film that have been put up almost everyday or some other message board where people are being accused of calling Hines a Nazi?

Its totally bizarre but quite entertaining in a sick kind of way.
I almost pity the guy but he has brought a lot of this on himself.

Anyway I'll try and watch the film this week and give my 5 star review to Amazon every day after.

Can't wait for the Directors cut. Will the be an Extended Edition like LOTR, with an extra hour of walking footage? Sponsored by Timpsons shoes? No

[RustiSwordz]

The film has special effects that made Sesame Street look advanced.

"War of the Worlds brought to you by the letters 'S' 'H' 'I' and 'T' "

[Hoela]

If I see what kind of special effects are in the movie ......... you can do that on your apple at home!