SYLVIA!!! (War of the Worlds movie)
Just got back from seeing the new War of the Worlds movie. It was awesome!
I expected to like it less than I did because I'm such a huge fan of the 1953 version, but it was excellent despite the updates.
From the moment the voiceover read the immortal lines (slightly altered, of course) "No one would have believed in the first years of the twentieth twenty-first century that..." I was a bouncing-in-my-seat giddy fangirl. ^_^ Not only was the original prologue intact, the matching epilogue about the "tinest creatures that God in His wisdom put upon this earth" was there, too!
Other bits of coolness that were right from the '53 version: the alien camera probe in the farmhouse, the hatch hissing open to reveal the last twitches of a dying alien's arm, and one line spoken here by a female reporter that's approximately "Once the cylinders(tripods) reach an area, no more news gets out."
The absolute coolest thing, though, was the cameo appearance of both Gene Barry and Ann Robinson (stars of the 1953 film). They're older than dirt now but I still recognized them. (Granted, I knew to look for them since I'd read about their parts before seeing the film, but they were only onscreen about three seconds so it's a good thing I was prepared.) Even cooler, they played Tom Cruise's character's ex-wife's parents--i.e. an old married couple. Squee! Clayton/Sylvia = OTP!!!OMGWTFLOL!!1 ;D
Ann Robinson has now been in all three movie/TV versions of WotW: the 1953 film, the 1988 TV series and now the 2005 movie. That's just awesome.
I did really miss the swan-necked warships from the '53 version, but the tripods are more canonical, straight out of Wells. (And John Christopher's Tripods trilogy, which also roxxorz my soxxorz, but that's another story.) They were very well done, special-effects wise, and quite threatening as they loomed over the horizon and buildings.
The ticking, clicking sound effects of the '53 heat ray were also missing, replaced by a foghorn/train whistle sort of call, which was okay but not as effective as the old ones. Actually, that sound effect reminded me more of the sound the tripods in Christopher's trilogy are described as making. But with less ululating. Love that word...
Anyway, there was lots and lots of action and suspense and danger and things blowing up. ;) I loved one early scene in particular, as the aliens are blowing out section after section of an overpass, and as it topples a tanker trunk flips off the road and crushes two houses! O_O Eeeep! A later scene of a capsizing ferry was incredible, too.
Dakota Fanning is a GREAT little actress. Her eyes alone emote more than some adult actresses. And I was able to get past the media circus over Tom "I'm a Crazy Scientologist Who Thinks Psychiatry Is a Pseudoscience And OMG I'm So In Love!!1" Cruise and just look at him as a character. And regardless of how I feel about him as a person, he's a good actor.
The red plants taking over everything like the Bloody Kudzu From Space were gross, but canon! H.G. Wells canon, that is. They were left out of the other versions. It's been awhile since I read the original, but I don't think Wells had the aliens using humans as fertilizer. Heh. And eeeew.
The aliens themselves were sort of...meh. They looked a tiny but like the aliens from Independence Day, and a tiny bit like a greyhound on crack. Not much at all like the 1953 version. That's not necessarily a bad thing, since they were ugly and hokey, but I wish they had stuck with the same general prototype and just made it cooler, like they did with the camera probe that went into the farmhouse. Ah well, can't have everything. And they're only on screen for a couple of scenes, anyway.
So of course I have to find a few things to nitpick, but overall I really had a great time and enjoyed it.
The rest of this post is going to be a bit of a tangent, so if all you're looking for is a movie review you can leave now. ;)
I had read some reviews that harped about the 9/11 overtones, either praising Spielberg for effectively capturing the zeitgeist or scolding him for trying to profit from it. I certainly didn't feel that the film was trying to leech interest or popcorn money off 9/11, and in fact I didn't really think about the parallels that much at all.
The obvious connection is when Dakota Fanning's character asks, "Is it the terrorists?" after seeing the first wave of destruction. A perfectly reasonable question in this day and age. Nothing sensationalistic about that.
Other reviews pointed out the walls of homemade posters and photographs erected by people looking for loved ones lost in the carnage. Yes, that's a powerful visual reminder of the days post-9/11, but what I think some people are forgetting is that this phenomenon did not spring into existance in 2001. It had been around for a lot longer than that, with "Have you seen...?" boards going up after lots of different disasters. Earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, you name it. It's a practical way for desperate people to spread information. Pointing to that as an exploitation of 9/11 is like saying "OMG Spielberg has people crying and buildings being destroyed! That's using 9/11!" Because no one was ever cried and no buildings have ever been destroyed before. Planes crash in the movie? Yes. Into skyscrapers? No! Brought down by hijackers? No, alien energy waves that render useless any and all mechanical machinery.
It's true that Tom Cruise walks away from his first encounter with the aliens and their Heat Ray with dust all over him--dust that's made up of vaporized humans and building materials. Yes, that sadly, gruesomely, did happen on 9/11. But WotW canon says the aliens have Heat Rays that vaporize people. Canon that's been around since 1898! o_0 I highly doubt H.G. Wells was having a moment of prophecy when he came up with that one. Or that George Pal was seeing the future when he filmed similar effects in 1953. (He was drawing on the zeitgest of his own time, however, by playing on the audience's nervousness about the burgeoning Cold War.)
What makes the WotW plot so timeless and enduring is that it can be tweaked and rewritten to speak to the deepest of human insecurities, hopes and fears without changing the power of the story. Set the action in Britain, New Jersey, California or anywhere on Earth, in any century you want. Center the story on a lone man, a pair of young lovers, a father and his children. Make the aliens Martians, Morthren or from an unidentified planet. Toy the audience's jitters about the Industrial Age, Hitler's Germany, the Cold War or the War on Terror. The heart of the story remains, and that heart is a classic.
I expected to like it less than I did because I'm such a huge fan of the 1953 version, but it was excellent despite the updates.
From the moment the voiceover read the immortal lines (slightly altered, of course) "No one would have believed in the first years of the twentieth twenty-first century that..." I was a bouncing-in-my-seat giddy fangirl. ^_^ Not only was the original prologue intact, the matching epilogue about the "tinest creatures that God in His wisdom put upon this earth" was there, too!
Other bits of coolness that were right from the '53 version: the alien camera probe in the farmhouse, the hatch hissing open to reveal the last twitches of a dying alien's arm, and one line spoken here by a female reporter that's approximately "Once the cylinders(tripods) reach an area, no more news gets out."
The absolute coolest thing, though, was the cameo appearance of both Gene Barry and Ann Robinson (stars of the 1953 film). They're older than dirt now but I still recognized them. (Granted, I knew to look for them since I'd read about their parts before seeing the film, but they were only onscreen about three seconds so it's a good thing I was prepared.) Even cooler, they played Tom Cruise's character's ex-wife's parents--i.e. an old married couple. Squee! Clayton/Sylvia = OTP!!!OMGWTFLOL!!1 ;D
Ann Robinson has now been in all three movie/TV versions of WotW: the 1953 film, the 1988 TV series and now the 2005 movie. That's just awesome.
I did really miss the swan-necked warships from the '53 version, but the tripods are more canonical, straight out of Wells. (And John Christopher's Tripods trilogy, which also roxxorz my soxxorz, but that's another story.) They were very well done, special-effects wise, and quite threatening as they loomed over the horizon and buildings.
The ticking, clicking sound effects of the '53 heat ray were also missing, replaced by a foghorn/train whistle sort of call, which was okay but not as effective as the old ones. Actually, that sound effect reminded me more of the sound the tripods in Christopher's trilogy are described as making. But with less ululating. Love that word...
Anyway, there was lots and lots of action and suspense and danger and things blowing up. ;) I loved one early scene in particular, as the aliens are blowing out section after section of an overpass, and as it topples a tanker trunk flips off the road and crushes two houses! O_O Eeeep! A later scene of a capsizing ferry was incredible, too.
Dakota Fanning is a GREAT little actress. Her eyes alone emote more than some adult actresses. And I was able to get past the media circus over Tom "I'm a Crazy Scientologist Who Thinks Psychiatry Is a Pseudoscience And OMG I'm So In Love!!1" Cruise and just look at him as a character. And regardless of how I feel about him as a person, he's a good actor.
The red plants taking over everything like the Bloody Kudzu From Space were gross, but canon! H.G. Wells canon, that is. They were left out of the other versions. It's been awhile since I read the original, but I don't think Wells had the aliens using humans as fertilizer. Heh. And eeeew.
The aliens themselves were sort of...meh. They looked a tiny but like the aliens from Independence Day, and a tiny bit like a greyhound on crack. Not much at all like the 1953 version. That's not necessarily a bad thing, since they were ugly and hokey, but I wish they had stuck with the same general prototype and just made it cooler, like they did with the camera probe that went into the farmhouse. Ah well, can't have everything. And they're only on screen for a couple of scenes, anyway.
So of course I have to find a few things to nitpick, but overall I really had a great time and enjoyed it.
The rest of this post is going to be a bit of a tangent, so if all you're looking for is a movie review you can leave now. ;)
I had read some reviews that harped about the 9/11 overtones, either praising Spielberg for effectively capturing the zeitgeist or scolding him for trying to profit from it. I certainly didn't feel that the film was trying to leech interest or popcorn money off 9/11, and in fact I didn't really think about the parallels that much at all.
The obvious connection is when Dakota Fanning's character asks, "Is it the terrorists?" after seeing the first wave of destruction. A perfectly reasonable question in this day and age. Nothing sensationalistic about that.
Other reviews pointed out the walls of homemade posters and photographs erected by people looking for loved ones lost in the carnage. Yes, that's a powerful visual reminder of the days post-9/11, but what I think some people are forgetting is that this phenomenon did not spring into existance in 2001. It had been around for a lot longer than that, with "Have you seen...?" boards going up after lots of different disasters. Earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, you name it. It's a practical way for desperate people to spread information. Pointing to that as an exploitation of 9/11 is like saying "OMG Spielberg has people crying and buildings being destroyed! That's using 9/11!" Because no one was ever cried and no buildings have ever been destroyed before. Planes crash in the movie? Yes. Into skyscrapers? No! Brought down by hijackers? No, alien energy waves that render useless any and all mechanical machinery.
It's true that Tom Cruise walks away from his first encounter with the aliens and their Heat Ray with dust all over him--dust that's made up of vaporized humans and building materials. Yes, that sadly, gruesomely, did happen on 9/11. But WotW canon says the aliens have Heat Rays that vaporize people. Canon that's been around since 1898! o_0 I highly doubt H.G. Wells was having a moment of prophecy when he came up with that one. Or that George Pal was seeing the future when he filmed similar effects in 1953. (He was drawing on the zeitgest of his own time, however, by playing on the audience's nervousness about the burgeoning Cold War.)
What makes the WotW plot so timeless and enduring is that it can be tweaked and rewritten to speak to the deepest of human insecurities, hopes and fears without changing the power of the story. Set the action in Britain, New Jersey, California or anywhere on Earth, in any century you want. Center the story on a lone man, a pair of young lovers, a father and his children. Make the aliens Martians, Morthren or from an unidentified planet. Toy the audience's jitters about the Industrial Age, Hitler's Germany, the Cold War or the War on Terror. The heart of the story remains, and that heart is a classic.