they are martians in my eyes

[RustiSwordz]

well they never suggested where they were from

may as well be martians for all anyone knows

[EvilNerfherder]

Too true Rusti.
Colin 'where did that f*cking probe go?' Pillinger was on 'The Late Review' t'other night and he said that there are indications there COULD well be life on Mars (only he said something scientific which I forgot).
They're sending another in 2009.
I think they're Martians too.

[smugster2000]

There's a moment during the opening prologue 'No one would have believed' etc, where the camera pans past the Earth and settles for a moment on a red Planet (presumably Mars) before 'morphing' into a red traffic light...

Seems a suggestive thing to do in light of the claims that they're not from Mars?

Dave

[<[Iron Man]>]

I think it's a lot more scarier if they come from Mars, we've scanned, probed and explored Mars as much as we can. Yet these Aliens have avoided detection yet live so close to us. Kind of instills that fear of what else lives within our Solar System?

[Slick2097]

True, if the civilisation is older than ours by even 1000 years, imagine the technology they would have to stop people snooping in on them .. if we can fool radar only 50 years after inventing the darn thing ...

Ste.

[ClaytonForrester]

Good points.I would like to think that after all the dust has settled{heh,heh,}this version of the story satisfied more people than it offended after all.I was one of the most vocal opponents,and there are still pieces of the film that I would alter for the better.Namely the aliens themselves {either an utter lack of creativity or total sloth on the part of the concept design team}and the duration of the film.I did not particularly like TC's character of Ray,since I could not really feel any real sympathy for him as a deadbeat dad.however,his motivation in keeping his kids safe was compelling.Overall the guy could have been written better.the kids were alright,I suppose.The mixture of Wellsian elements and 1953 Film was surpisingly pleasant,as were the Tripods themselves.Masterfully done visualizations.I kept wanting to see more of these in action,and longer sequences of them fragging stuff left and right.but I wish they hadn' t used that stupid beaming-down stuff and the Tripods being already here,buried for millions of years.That to me is just literary laziness.''Oh we don't want to use the original ideas,so we come up with something that is simply untenable,''and to many viewers,like me, shoddy writing and sloppy filmmaking.Overall however,to me the film was worth sitting through because it was shall we say,90% faithfull to the parent materials,with ten percent for the Hollyweird types to screw with and make a mess of.Not bad.Most films can't boast that kind of a success ratio.My apologies to my fellow forum posters.I was only 10 percent right.And they still should have used the words Martians and Mars.since they did show the bloody planet.

[Tripod]

In one of the first shots from the movie you can see a mysterious planet which is being bypassed by the camera behind this mysterie planet we get a clear look on Earth. So there's much room for discussion.

Tripod

[ClaytonForrester]

Yes,LOTS of room.

[ClaytonForrester]

emyr said:

I think it's a lot more scarier if they come from Mars, we've scanned, probed and explored Mars as much as we can. Yet these Aliens have avoided detection yet live so close to us. Kind of instills that fear of what else lives within our Solar System?

I agree.So far all we have managed to ''find'' up there are the ruins of some pre-human culture,Or as the revisionists would say''piles of rocks that look like ruins''.Universal history is not as cut and dried as traditional theorists would have you believe.This solar system probably went through several huge
catastophies in it's existence,at least 2 of them caused by intelligent sources,if you believe the Biblical accounts,not to mention them being interrelated to the overthrow of several mega-cultures on THIS planet.Who can say who or what used to live up there,and might still be there in those remnant pyramids,waiting for the time to make itself known again.Mankind really does not have that much knowledge of his past on this world,and a lot of it has been covered up by the revisionists,because more evidence of an Earth very different from the approved timeline keeps coming to light.Martians are possible,it's just that they might embarrass our''scientific elite''by having the temerity to exist despite theory and our own arrogance.

[FALLINGSTAR]

I've got to take issue with you Clayton when you say this film was 90% faithful to the parent materials. I take it you mean the book there. Well I didn't think it was faithful at all to the book. It was just a typical Hollywood re-imagining and yes I suppose as they didn't mention where the aliens were from they could have been from Mars or anywhere else but Mars was a BIG part of the original story and the point is - it WASN'T mentioned. That red planet at the beginning could be Planet X for all we know.

If people want to say it's a good film then fair enough but let's not pretend this was in any way a faithful adaptation. It was more about Cruise and his kids than WOTWorlds!