Rate Spielberg's War of the Worlds

[Viking Bastard]

SIXTY-FIVE MILLION YEARS AGO
"Sir, we have killed the last of the dinosaurs."
"Bugger! There went a good sport. Lets just bury the tripods and wait for something worthwhile to evolve here again."
"Excellent idea. Meanwhile we'll go back home and exterminate diseases."

SIXTY YEARS AGO
"Sir, they got nukes now."
"Lets wait for the internet."



It was allright. I liked Cruise's character (not common with Tom Cruise parts) and I
liked the Tim Robbins scenes. The ending was awful (the 'happy family' ending, not
the 'killed by germs' part). The rest was 'Meh'. Gave it a 6.

 

[D.Shaffer]

0. A random police officer is able to tell to tell everyone that there is nothing underneath the street and everyone believes him.
1. The man's camera worked but it was explained that nothing worked in the storm
2. When they go to the other house, and the next morning happens everything is blown up. Essentially a plane landed on the house. The van is not only completely undamaged but in good working order. HEy theres even a path/road created so they can get away.
3. The van of endless gas. Man I"m going to get one of those for my modern campaign. It just kept going and going and going and going.
4. The camera crews camara and electrical equipment worked great .
5. The overzealous mob attacking the van. It was just silly. They are all heading toward a river and their killng each other over a car.
6. A car lands on the family and all are in complete working order.
7. The national guard did not move the vehilces off the ferry. What idiot commander was in charge of this operation
8. Everyone travels in packs in this movie. Despite the fact that it seems the aliens always attack the packs. And the cruise family alwaysgoes back to the pack
8a. The burning train was a great scene. Now how the heck the train was traveling without either derailing or exploding is beyond my knowledge of physics.
9. Cruise kills an innocent man, because in the next scene they get caught anyway/???
10. Dakota runs up the stairs to the aliens. Also no one set up any kind of watch.
11. The force field protects from bullets, missles, rockets, possibly even nukes, but there is nothing like a trusty axe
12 Why did hte aliens get out of the ship
13 So they make it ot boston and find out everythings hunky dorry there. Apparently the large 100s of alien pods didnt make it there.
14 Millions of years of planning and no one remembered to bring the Off!! Man. Seriously these were the smartest dumbest aliens I"ve ever seen (and i saw Mars ATtack) They are smart enough to know all the major cities in the world millions of years previously, they are smart enough to hide these monsterous weapons deep into the core, They are smart enough to have weaponary that would destory beings that havnt even evolved yet, but they didn't bring ANY bio suits. Even us humans are smart enough to do that.
15 How the heck did the boy survive? Everyone on that hill was burned.
16. NO explanation to answer any of the inconsistincies. There was no payoff. It was so bad that MOrgan Freeman opted out this movie and only wanted to do the voiceover.

0: He's a police officer. Why wouldnt they believe him? More over, maybe he was trying to calm people down?
1: Which camera? The one the news crew had? They would only have been effected if the EMP blast happened in the area they were in.
2: That was a bit overly coincidentally lucky. But we dont know where the plane actually crashed. It wouldnt be the first time in a film a crash happened and stopped just before reaching the heroes.
3: Newark to Boston, via car, is about 250 miles according to Mapquest. My car could make it on a single tank of gas and a few miles to spare. (25 miles per gallon, 12 gallon tank) The parents house is likely somewhere in between so it's very feasible they could get there without having to refuel. Or you could just assume, like I did, that they just refueled off camera.
4: They were out of the initial EMP effect. Why wouldnt it?
5: Mobs do strange things. When people are in a mob, they ARENT thinking rationally.
6: Yeah, that was stupid.
7: Not that it stopped people from getting on anyways. If it is a flaw, I dont see it as a major one.
8: Contrary to what people like to think, humans are social animals. We feel better in a group, even if it's not always safest. Furthermore, we have a bunch of people trying to flee certain areas. There's still going to be bottlenecks where you more or less have to congregate, such as bridges or ferry crossings. If they were trying to escape NYC and were piled around one of the bridges, would you complain about the crowd there?
9: He killed a man who was borderline insane because he thought the man was turning into a danger to his daughter. He did not know that the very next scene would get them caught.
10: There was him and his daughter left at that point, and no means of keeping time apparent in the area. How are they going to keep a watch, especially when one of them is a traumatized 10 year old?
11: Why would the force field necessarily protect the probe? If the forcefield is just a 'bubble' around the main ship, it wouldnt protect it.
12: Because they did in the first movie? That scene, along with him chopping off the probe, were obvious tributes from the first movie. If you want a more 'in universe' reason, possibly they were curious? Or that races version of scientists? More to the point, why wouldnt they get out? They didnt spot anything dangerous in the place and were probably behind what they thought of as their 'rear lines'.
13: Except that they did make it there. We see them in the street, remember? They were just lucky enough the aliens succumbed to the virus by the time they reached.
14: Because if they didnt it WOULDNT BE War of the Worlds, and people would likely be complaining that they butchered the original ending.
15: Yeah, I wish we had a bit more explanation on that. I'm guessing it looked worse then it was and he survived along with a few others from the hill that made it to Boston. People have survived contact with the aliens (and not just Cruise)
16: That'd depend on what you saw as an inconsistancy, wouldnt it? I DO think the ending could have been played out a lot longer, much like in the first film.

 

[Nuclear Platypus]

Ok, I saw it earlier today and time for me to take a couple of kicks to the horse.

Dakota was probably the best actor of them. She played a terrified, health food guzzling kid that won 3rd Place quite well.

I was also doing the 'Huh?' thing about the Martians leaving their war machines buried underground for at least a few hundred years. I think in the book (and the War of the Worlds rts), the martians build more advanced war machines upon arriving here. Heck, they might've 'seeded' the planet with their dropships, killing the dinos, in the event they would have to make the eventual exodus from Mars (not exactly a hospitable place).

Sure they dusted humans first then harvested 'em later. They initially like insects, a nuisance to be squashed. Later on, it might've become like trying a new local cuisine. "Say, Klaatu, what's the human taste like?" "Tastes kinda like barada, Nikto, only gamier."

Why the martians were susceptible to our diseases? Easy. 'You are what you eat'. We know enough to cook our food (animal especially) thoroughly instead of eating 'em raw. However the outcome would've been the same if earth invaded Mars (dead invaders). We are a product of our own ecosystem, having built up immunities to most pathogens and other such nasties and surely the same could be said about the martians. Compare what happened to the New World when the Europeans arrived or any other event when alien plants or animals were introduced into a new environment. Heck, fire ants from South America run amok here in the South and rabbits are (or were) a problem in Australia I believe.

As for the Red Weed, I think it was to help terraform the planet into something like Mars or it could've been something that just tagged along that just spread like wildfire in anything containing water like the 'canals' of Mars.

Assuming they truly came from Mars. I would've preferred the dropship as a meteorite approach instead of them always being here.

 

[KenM]

I remember hearing that one of the other things Spelberg changed was that the aliens were not from Mars. But I don't remember anything in the movie saying one way or the other.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

A solid 9 from me.

Sure, there were a bunch of little logic inconsistencies, but I didn't think about a single one of them until reading this thread. Well, except for two. The burying of the tripods(though it doesn't bother me) and how the kid survived(which does kind of bother me, but I can see it being at least a possibility as we didn't see enough of what happened on the other side of that hill)

Definitely loved this movie, though. The sounds are really what drew me in. I like that the soundtrack was allowed to go away so you could really hear the Tripods and the heat rays and everything else. No problem with the acting, either.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

I remember hearing that one of the other things Spelberg changed was that the aliens were not from Mars. But I don't remember anything in the movie saying one way or the other.

The first space shot in the movie that pans to Earth starts at Mars, and I seem to remember the voice over mentioning Mars, or at least Red Planet.

 

[DonTadow]

0: He's a police officer. Why wouldnt they believe him? More over, maybe he was trying to calm people down?
1: Which camera? The one the news crew had? They would only have been effected if the EMP blast happened in the area they were in.
2: That was a bit overly coincidentally lucky. But we dont know where the plane actually crashed. It wouldnt be the first time in a film a crash happened and stopped just before reaching the heroes.
3: Newark to Boston, via car, is about 250 miles according to Mapquest. My car could make it on a single tank of gas and a few miles to spare. (25 miles per gallon, 12 gallon tank) The parents house is likely somewhere in between so it's very feasible they could get there without having to refuel. Or you could just assume, like I did, that they just refueled off camera.
4: They were out of the initial EMP effect. Why wouldnt it?
5: Mobs do strange things. When people are in a mob, they ARENT thinking rationally.
6: Yeah, that was stupid.
7: Not that it stopped people from getting on anyways. If it is a flaw, I dont see it as a major one.
8: Contrary to what people like to think, humans are social animals. We feel better in a group, even if it's not always safest. Furthermore, we have a bunch of people trying to flee certain areas. There's still going to be bottlenecks where you more or less have to congregate, such as bridges or ferry crossings. If they were trying to escape NYC and were piled around one of the bridges, would you complain about the crowd there?
9: He killed a man who was borderline insane because he thought the man was turning into a danger to his daughter. He did not know that the very next scene would get them caught.
10: There was him and his daughter left at that point, and no means of keeping time apparent in the area. How are they going to keep a watch, especially when one of them is a traumatized 10 year old?
11: Why would the force field necessarily protect the probe? If the forcefield is just a 'bubble' around the main ship, it wouldnt protect it.
12: Because they did in the first movie? That scene, along with him chopping off the probe, were obvious tributes from the first movie. If you want a more 'in universe' reason, possibly they were curious? Or that races version of scientists? More to the point, why wouldnt they get out? They didnt spot anything dangerous in the place and were probably behind what they thought of as their 'rear lines'.
13: Except that they did make it there. We see them in the street, remember? They were just lucky enough the aliens succumbed to the virus by the time they reached.
14: Because if they didnt it WOULDNT BE War of the Worlds, and people would likely be complaining that they butchered the original ending.
15: Yeah, I wish we had a bit more explanation on that. I'm guessing it looked worse then it was and he survived along with a few others from the hill that made it to Boston. People have survived contact with the aliens (and not just Cruise)
16: That'd depend on what you saw as an inconsistancy, wouldnt it? I DO think the ending could have been played out a lot longer, much like in the first film.

0 His role in the film, from viewing his expressions, shows that he "really knew" what he was talking about. He didn't appear to just have been calming the crowd down. His role appeared to be the person whom tells the crowd that "it is something not natural down there". HOnestly, if I am a police officer, and im trying to calm the crowd down, Im going to try to get the crowd to disperse especially if I really didn't know what was down there. I'm going to tell them that there could be a main or gas line and they need to vacate the area. I am not sure what kind of cops are in your town, but I don't expect cops in my town to lie about possible threats.

1.There were two cameras. The first camera, and what turned my girlfriend and our group off, was the one the man was using the first film the robots. It was so silly that minutes ago they explained how nothing worked and here he is taping everything. (I thought it was also silly that he grabbed batteries, but I thought he was going to use them for some "magyver type thing (they were never thought of again).

2. Oh my, There was a plane in the front yard. The house nearly blew apart after the crash. The van was untouched. Not even a mirror shattered. Not a tire flattened. That was VERY coincodental. That was probably the biggest piece of crap in this whole movie. The only reason the van survived was so speilberg could show off the crowd's lunicy in the following scene. Im sure with a bit of thought he could have done that a better way, but it shows how quick they wanted to "knock this movie out" to fit in with their schedules.

3. I hate when movies want me to assume things. HOnestly when you're assuming too much in a movie you're just making it up to try to get through it. If i want to assume in a movie, I'll pay my 10 bucks, close my eyes and make my own movie. Nah, I go to see the movie. First, they were in a van which holds less gas. I know that my cavelier gets excelent milage and won't make it 250 miles on a single tank. How lucky that the tank would have been full anyway. PLus the eom knocked out electricity for 100s of miles, another coincodence that they have enough gas to get to a station just outside of that area.

Speaking of the car, another inconsistency about the movie. The mechanic had enough time to install the "solar starter" while the large disturbance was going on. I don't know too many mechanics whom work outside in a storm, with earthquakes going on and people running and screaming for their life. That's dedication.

4. I didn't hear them say they were out of the radius. They would hae had to drive a long way to get to the airplane crash if they were out of the radius. Even so how did they manage to get a nice, wonderful path straight to the airplane scene.

5. True mobs do do crazy things when under pressure. I love in the detroit area, where we had the brawl. After thinking about it, after they probably walked 200 miles or so, they probably were delusional and upset and not thinking logically.

6. It would have made more sense for the son to disappear here and reappear later on.

7. Not a major flaw, but I would expect the military to make better decisions. Then again there is the whole Iraq "Weapons of Mass Destruction" War.

8. There is saftey in numbers. I'll give you that. Perhaps this is just adifferent philosphy from me and my family. Again, I just saw Land of the Dead and my expectiations for the characters were a bit higher based on this movie. I would use the crowd as a detour and go to a place far away from people. However, I see what speilberg was trying to say, humans need to band together in times of crisis.

9. I agree. This was not an inconsistency in the plot as much as the script writing. Speilberg wanted to show what a man does to save his family. Cruise's family is our conscious, the good guy. Cruise acting no better than the mob to save his family can be seen as justifying mob mentallity.

10. I"m not trying to bring d and d into my explanation, but there is little to know way I am going to leave my self completely unprotected and out in the open. I just wouldnt put my family in that danger Especially knowing the aliens are still out there, doing whatever they do. I know fatigue but I would have really made it pertinent that one of us is up at all times or that we are very, very, very well hidden if we are both going to sleep. It made no sense for them to be out there in the open.

11. I"m not sure why the forcefield would protect the orb, but it did when they showed the missles, bullets and projectile weapons hitting the thing. So I would expect it to remain consistant.

12. Again, that might have made sense 110 years ago, but it seemed very unsmart now. Again the smartest dumb aliens I've ever seen. They seemed to just be going down there to go down there. I would have liked to see them take samples, perhaps start converting the home into some kind of dwelling for them or something. This was a conveulted scene to show animosity between Cruise and Robbins.

13. The aliens made it there and didn't destroy a single thing, They stepped on the Boston boundary and the virus got them at that "exact" moment. Again, didn't make any sense. Plus none of the people in Boston seemed to be taking cover of any kind, they were all in there homes "cozy". Which brings up another point, where were the emergency sirens they test every first of the month in these series. Ahhh. LEt me stop, everytime my girlfriend and I think about that movie we come up with more inconsistencies.

14. Nah, you can do that ending and still be creative. Signs did it. It's about being creative with it. They could have hinted at it early in the movie. You can do bacteria and be smart with it. They also should have done a longer ending. Again this shows that they didn't have alot of time to film this movie and really was "knocking it out".

15. Sorry, I won't make crazy assumptions while watching my movies . You know that was crazy and silly.

The reason I didn't enjoy this movie was my own. I saw Batman, Sin City and Land of the Dead this summer. Three intelligent, action movies. This might have beena great mind numbing popcorn flick, but I was spoiled and wanted something a lot more. And watching the movie, like so many popcorn movies, I just saw so many areas where the movie could have been smart, but the creators opted for fluff over substance. Next year I'll watch the silly flicks first and rent the intelligent ones for later. IT's nota good idea to have lobster and then grab a hotdog.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

A lot of the things your pointing out are extremely minor.

There are better things to do than show the family pumping gas. And the cop didn't know what was going on anymore than the people. Being a cop doesn't mean he's suddenly not affected by curiosity/confusion/fear.

As for the military not moving the cars. How do you propose they move them with that huge mob of people in the way and cramming onto the boat? Mob mentality is extremely dangerous, and that wouldn't have done a thing of good.

There's nothing wrong with not liking the movie, but again, most of these you point out are either easily explained or should be inferred/assumed. That HAPPENS when you tell a story. Its why we can show a matter of days in two hours. We don't see every single minute, and we just assume that life continues on in that time, and mundane things(pumping gas, in this case) also go on.

 

[DonTadow]

A lot of the things your pointing out are extremely minor.

There are better things to do than show the family pumping gas. And the cop didn't know what was going on anymore than the people. Being a cop doesn't mean he's suddenly not affected by curiosity/confusion/fear.

As for the military not moving the cars. How do you propose they move them with that huge mob of people in the way and cramming onto the boat? Mob mentality is extremely dangerous, and that wouldn't have done a thing of good.

There's nothing wrong with not liking the movie, but again, most of these you point out are either easily explained or should be inferred/assumed. That HAPPENS when you tell a story. Its why we can show a matter of days in two hours. We don't see every single minute, and we just assume that life continues on in that time, and mundane things(pumping gas, in this case) also go on.

I don't think logic is minor, and though some things were minor over half of my list is major points in the plot that asks too much for us to suspend our belief. . If you're shooting for a movie that is going to be illogical then don't aim it at 13+ tone it down and make it PG. Again, cops are suppose to maintain order regardless of curiosity and it makes no sense for them to infer that they got gas when they just said that nothing electronical was working for miles.

I"m not going to make any escuses for illogical storytelling. A good writer/writers can write years into a 2 hour script and still make it believable. A good director can make nuances to direct things you are suppose to infer and understand. Honestly, a lot of the responses about the inconsistencies are more or less excuses asking the viewer to make convuluted things up on there own as they go to make the movie believable.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

If you're shooting for a movie that is going to be illogical then don't aim it at 13+ tone it down and make it PG.

Woah, woah, woah. Since when does the movie's rating have anything to do with it being logical or not? That doesn't make ANY sense at all...its very illogical to assume that rating has anything to do with internal logic of said movie.

Again, cops are suppose to maintain order regardless of curiosity and it makes no sense for them to infer that they got gas when they just said that nothing electronical was working for miles.

And, again, cops are still human. The cop was keeping order. He was doing just fine backing people off and gathering information(i.e. There's no water main here). Its AFTER the ground started shaking that the chaos started. Do you really expect the cop to stand around while all that's happening and try to tell people to stay calm when he's as lost and afraid as they are?

Who said we're infering they got gas when nothing electrical was working? Who says they even NEED gas for the distance they drove? We don't know how far they went. We don't know the gas mileage of the van. And it doesn't matter, either.

Honestly, a lot of the responses about the inconsistencies are more or less excuses asking the viewer to make convuluted things up on there own as they go to make the movie believable.

But some of us didn't even take notice of these inconsistencies while watching the movie, and so we're giving you OUR insight. We inferred while watching it. They aren't excuses.