War of the Worlds - Spoilers

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War of the Worlds - Spoilers

Post by Fairweather Pure »

It's being released today and I'm seeing an afternoon showing. Review to follow. I'll be including spoilers, hidden of course, once I get around to sharing my opinion.

EDIT: Well, I was off by a week. Guess I'll go see Land of The Dead instead... Man, I'm dissappointed :(
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Post by masteen »

I heard that the Martians lose.
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Post by Fash »

[Show]
This movie will suck massive amounts of martian cock.

any movie that won't allow movie reviews to be published prior to it's release (i dont give a shit if Paramount does it for 'all' of them...yeah right) is not worth seeing in the theater.
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Post by Midnyte_Ragebringer »

Any movie that requires Tom Cruise, a gay man, go public about falling head over heels *puke* in love with some famous actress, in order to get publicity, is probably not a great movie.

But, I will definitely be downloading it off the internet a few days after release and watching it for free.
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Post by Fairweather Pure »

Land of the Dead sucked. That is all I have to say about that.
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Post by Aabidano »

Any movie than contains Tom Cruise, doesn't have me watching it.

Can't stand the looney little jerk.
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Post by Winnow »

Does this movie rival Battlefield Earth on the bad scale?
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Post by Kwonryu DragonFist »

Why not a movie with Travolta, Cruise , Hubbard and some aliens! :D
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Post by Drinsic Darkwood »

Saw it tonight - I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The special effects were well done, of course, and the acting was excellent. What I really liked about the movie was the way it captured the sense of hopelessness (something more action-based movies such as Independence Day failed to do for me). So often it seemed like the humans were so expendable, just objects being used by the aliens, and there was absolutely nothing they could do about it. While following the survival attempts of one family, this perspective was illustrated masterfully. Maybe I'm overglorifying it since I just saw it and I'll look back later and think it wasn't nearly as good as I'm saying... I just really enjoyed the way Spielberg presented the movie and created that aura of doubt, hopelessness, helplessness, etc.

If nothing else, I'd consider it worth seeing on the big screen.
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Post by Tegellan »

I agree with Drincis in his observations about the good points of the movie, acting was good and the feeling of hopelesness well done too.
[Show]
But I thought the movie sucked, the story could have used some work, for example after the first attacks where the aliens knock out all power so no machines work, not even cars, a man is running around with a working video camera, bad form!

Also, it just lacked some meaning to me, the aliens had apparently been vurying machines in the earth for hundreds of years, so why did they wait til now?

Also, you would think that a space faring race that advanced, would know about bacteria, i mean, come on that is just thin. I do realize it is the original story but it just doesn't stack up today if you ask me.
Sorry, fixed
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Post by Drinsic Darkwood »

I'd suggest using spoiler tags~

As for your points... I'm pretty much in agreement with the flaws you noticed.

[hide]When you say why did the camera work... who knows? Why did the car they drove work? The one-in-whatever chance something might not be affected by the EMPs, maybe? Fuck if I know.

Also, it just lacked some meaning to me, the aliens had apparently been vurying machines in the earth for hundreds of years, so why did they wait til now?

This was actually bothering me during the movie. The tripods... to be buried under our noses it would've had to been hundreds of years ago before the areas they arose in were populated. This long ago we wouldn't been using anything beyond swords and bows at the most.

Furthermore, when they buried the tripods so long ago, wouldn't they have discovered the diseases and effects of the microscopic organisms on our world? Fuck, why didn't they take us out when they were originally burying the damn things?

Based on the movie, I'm assuming their agenda was to take over the world for the natural resources, not the humans. They were exterminating humans like no tomorrow, only "harvesting" them in minimal numbers to power the tripods occasionally. Why wait hundreds of years for us to use up shitloads of the resources, etc.?

There are some rather large gaping plotholes. As predicted, when I look back and rethink, it wasn't spectacular. Still though, I enjoyed watching it and I believe it was worth admission.[/hide]
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Post by Tegellan »

[hide]
Well, the car they drove has the magnetic summat or other replaced and that made it work again, so there is an explanation for that. i just really found the plot to be lacking a lot. You could argue they stayed true to the original story, but today it just doesn't stack up, I need some meaning goddamnit!
[/hide]
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Post by Mawafu »

I had some of the same thoughts on the EMP thing so did some searching. Apparently electronic equipment that is off is less likely to be damaged. I figured you needed an electrical current to be going through an item to damage it and the guy with the video camera just happened to have the batteries out when the strikes hit.

Anyway, I enjoyed the movie. Why try to read into something that is just meant to be brainless entertainment :)
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Post by Farrel »

I read the (first few chapters of the) novel several years back and enjoyed it about as much as I did the movie. I dont recall why I didnt finish it, but the same thing happened with Dracula, only I still aced a book report on that (go, public schooling).

[hide]
I love the feeling of helplessness and how the survivors play up the darwinistic(sp) mentality. unlike with most invasion films, this one follows just a handful of characters in one location, rather than several across the globe. the only problems I have with the story are the irresponsible son's survival, the lack of explanation behind their waiting 1M years, and the bird scene in boston - theyre attempting to land on moving, hostile mechanism?[/hide]

cruise's later work has put him in my modern top 5 (male) actors.

9/10
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Post by Moonwynd »

Mawafu wrote:I had some of the same thoughts on the EMP thing so did some searching. Apparently electronic equipment that is off is less likely to be damaged. I figured you needed an electrical current to be going through an item to damage it and the guy with the video camera just happened to have the batteries out when the strikes hit.

Anyway, I enjoyed the movie. Why try to read into something that is just meant to be brainless entertainment :)
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Post by Mawafu »

Thread title says spoilers :shock:
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Post by Drinsic Darkwood »

Out of curiosity...
[Show]
Was the "Occupations never work" bit from the mentally unstable (Tim Robbins) guy actually from the book in some way or was it social commentary?
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Post by Burke »

cruise's later work has put him in my modern top 5 (male) actors
Different strokes, for me he just has no range. He is always Tom Cruise, angry young upstart. Now he has no range and his crazy Scientological Mr. Hyde is out of the closet. I will not fund that.
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Post by Fairweather Pure »

I don't associate a person's outside agenda with his or her acting ability. There are plenty of crazy actors and actresses out there. What matters to me is what they bring to the film, and Tom Cruise definately brings a level of charisma and confidence that very few actors can match.
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Post by valryte »

the irresponsible son's survival
I agree, that was completely stupid.
the lack of explanation behind their waiting 1M years
So who exactly do you think would have been able to um, ask the Aliens why they waited 1M years to attack...
theyre attempting to land on moving, hostile mechanism?
I thought they were crows which sensed the shit was dieing, like the ones eating that red crap that was all over.
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Post by Leonaerd »

Does this movie rival Battlefield Earth on the bad scale?
Gawd no. It was fairly bad, though.
Any movie than contains Tom Cruise, doesn't have me watching it.
Did you see The Last Samurai? That movie's pretty damn good, if I may say so.
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Post by Sueven »

[Show]
The special effects were cool, the aliens were pretty badass, and the movie had some pretty solid emotional impact.

However, the plot was retarded. I agree with all the people who have been complaining here. These aliens are so technologically advanced that they've been studying us for years, learned enough about our chemistry to design a death ray that dissolves our bodies but not our clothes, prepared these tripods... and they never even considered micro-organisms?

The aliens losing the war was just very contrived. First Tom Cruise manages to grenade one of them down (ok), then they start behaving erratically and crashing (hmm) and then their shields are just suddenly gone (what) and then the humans have won the war.

The movie should have ended with Rachel and Ray getting killed. They could have just been killed when they were scooped up by the tripod, or they could have killed that tripod and then been taken out by others coming to investigate or something. I refuse to believe that these things don't have advanced communications systems.

Robbie should have stayed dead. It was pretty badass when he ran over the hill and then the whole thing just fucking exploded. Having Robbie live cheapened that scene and cheapened the power and impact of the movie. This thing is supposed to be an apocalypse.
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Post by Fairweather Pure »

The ending was rather abrupt in my opinion. It wasn't as good as I was hoping for, but it definately stands up as a great summer movie.

I would say 8 out of 10.
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Post by Canelek »

Midnyte_Ragebringer wrote:Any movie that requires Tom Cruise, a gay man, go public about falling head over heels *puke* in love with some famous actress, in order to get publicity, is probably not a great movie.
Anyone have the decoder for this?






....................................back to topic...............


I just saw the movie. It was not bad, even though it was directed by Spielberg. However, it was a bit better than much of the hollywood drivel that has been thrown around over the last couple years.
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Post by Xzion »

Midnyte, whys it matter if tom cruise is gay or not, hell why would it matter if he likes to fuck baby goats in his spare time, hes a great actor, but it seems that no one likes him because of those godamn tabloids and jealousy that hes fucking angelina jolie or whoever it is…but I agree with sueven, the ending was godamn horrible on so many levels…
[Show]
An alien race with enough technology to obliterate most of earths superpowers and travel such an immense distance after millions of years of planning totally overlooked micro organisms, but I guess making a ray that instantly vaporizes humans is so much easier then developing a vaccine…at least it wasn’t as bad as m nights steaming pile of trash that involved aliens that only knew melee combat coming to a planet who’s primary resource there allergic to...Bringing the son back and leaving the entire family alive also ruined any possible redeeming factors…this movie could have been great if they had the aliens win and the humans loose for a change, to many predictable happy endings in Hollywood, the bad guys need to win sometimes to keep the audience on there feet
i do have to give tim robbins credit for playing his role well though, the little girl also did a great job
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Post by Mr Bacon »

I'm sort of bothered by some of your responses..

[hide]If you've read the book you'll find that the movie follows it extremely closely. Excluding the fact that the book is set in England and "Ray" has no kids, he still meets all these crazy characters (Tim Robbins etc).

My level of respect for Tom Cruise's acting has gone up quite a bit, and I too would put him up on my modern actor list. He and the kids did a great job of freaking out (holy shit.. the car scene with the guns in the rain (outside the diner), and also Tom being stunned as hell after he gets back to his house with all the people's ashes on him).

Anyway as I was saying, the movie follows the book very closely. So don't blame the movie for the lack of a meaningful ending because the book ends abruptly like that too. [/hide]

9/10
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Post by Fairweather Pure »

I talk about both the book and the movie here, so I just spoilered it all.
[Show]
Yes, the movie does take some of the more memorable scenes from the book and place them in a modern setting. That includes the ordeal with the ferry, the meeting with Ogilvy in the farmhouse, the whole tripod concept, the heat ray, the red weeds, and also the whole micororginism concept.

However, Speilberg took too many liberties to try and make the story his own. It should have been an INVASION picture. The whole idea of them being buried underground was just weak sauce and really detracted from the overall concept. The book delt with the aliens falling to earth in groups of 3. They were tripods, they worked in a triangular grid pattern when they stalked across the land, thier vision was limited to 3 colors, they had 3 finger and 3 limbs, ect. That aspect and cohesion was lost to Speilberg for some reason. They also left an eerie green streak in the sky when they fell. In the book, even as the main character witnessed the destruction of earth over several days, he was still seeing the green streaks throughout his days as more martians continued to join the ones already here. It just added more and more to the defeated feeling of the book.

The aliens would suck out our blood and inject it into themsleves for food, not feed thier machines and help grow the weeds as Speilberg made it out to be. Also, the red weeds have an intersting story behind them. Back when WotW was written, we didn't know as much about Mars as we do now. HG Wells had the attackers come from Mars, of course. In his vision, Mars was covered with the red weeds, hence the planet's color. When the aliens landed, they brought thier fauna with them to change the earth's climate and oxygen levels to be more in line with thier homeworld. It was a reverse process of what many scientists today believe may be possible with the "greening of Mars" by adding micro orginisims to Mars and slowly teraforming the planet to be compatible with humans. Anyway, that was never explained in the movie, probably due in great part to the fact the aliens didn't come from Mars and we know better than to say Mars is covered with plants...

Lastely, once again the martians most fearful weapon was ignored in this latest rendition. You see, in the book, the tripods would work thier way into a central city and then discharge a thick, heavy, poisonous black smog from the bottom of thier tripods. This black smog was heavier than air and would slowly roll out and settle into all the lower nooks and crannies, soffocating any and all living things. Imagine a scene with tripods standing next to skyscrappers and everything below it's knees is covered in the black smog. It would be eerie silence with everything still and quiet. The audience would just know that everything below that fog is dead. No basement, no tunnels, and no hiding out until it's safe. The visual itself is enough to make me wonder why Speilberg chose to leave it out. Furthermore, the black smog was such a weapon of terror, in many cases it would throw the fleeing people into such a frenzy that they crushed each other trying to get away from it.

Those were my problems with the film. My positives remain the strong cast, including Tom Cruise. He would go from wide-eyed panic to trying to remain calm for his kids in the blink of an eye. He did the emotional rollercoaster very well. Truley, his entire plan was "get the kids to mom", as his son pointed out. I thought he was very realistic in all of his emotional range. If he hadn't had any kids to protect, I think his character would've lost it in the very beginning.
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Post by Farrel »

valryte wrote:
the lack of explanation behind their waiting 1M years
So who exactly do you think would have been able to um, ask the Aliens why they waited 1M years to attack...
theyre attempting to land on moving, hostile mechanism?
I thought they were crows which sensed the shit was dieing, like the ones eating that red crap that was all over.
actually, I was hoping ET would make a cameo appearance and play translator, but it looks like that isnt the case. regardless of whether or not we're capable of communicating with the martians, Id like to have had the slightest bit of reasoning behind the timing. granted, for them, theres no better time than the present, but Im just curious as to why they didnt attack in the past.

I see your point with the crows, but I missed the part where they were eating the red-plant crap. I was probably too focused on the stale sourpatch kids I was going to shit out in 10 minutes.
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Post by Winnow »

5/10 (being generous)

[hide]I thought the movie itself was horrible. Here's a summary:

-earth invaded by aliens
-humans get the shit kicked out of them from start to finish of the movie
-at the very end, all of the sudden, the aliens die due to bacteria and nothing the humans have done knowingly to save themselves.

What kind of story is that? I thought the best part of the movie was Tom Cruise throwing the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches up against the window.

The little girl was a good character but the son of Tom Cruise really had no use in the movie. I thought the initial part of the movie where you're supposed to develop the main characteres was poorly done.

It was a movie about a hopeless cause and then lucking out in the end. The aliens looked too much like the ones from Independence Day.

Overall, horrible when considering the characters and plot. The special effects were ok but that's not enough these days. Watching it, I felt like I saw the main character race around doing nothing useful while the aliens wreaked havok, finally he does one heroic thing that seemed out of place at the end with the grenades when absolutely forced to do so due to his daughter being taken, and then an incredibly abrupt ending with a quick explanation about bacteria...the only lead in to that was the daughter, at the beginning of the movie, having the splinter in her hand and babbling about how nature would take care of it.

This movie stank worse than Signs which is in the same mold as WoW.[/hide]
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Post by Mr Bacon »

I completely disagree with 90% of what you say there Winnow .. sorry.
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Post by Winnow »

Rellix wrote:I completely disagree with 90% of what you say there Winnow .. sorry.
Reviews are just personal opinions. I can't name one film critic that I always agree with 100 percent of the time.
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Post by Mr Bacon »

Winnow wrote:
Rellix wrote:I completely disagree with 90% of what you say there Winnow .. sorry.
Reviews are just personal opinions. I can't name one film critic that I always agree with 100 percent of the time.
Now that, I agree with you on, but I believe you're judging this movie a bit harshly. Did you give LOTR a 6?
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Post by Bubba Grizz »

I found myself half way through the movie asking myself if I was enjoying the movie and I had to say yes. The movie made run through a number of emotions. I was freaked when they were freaked. I was sad when they were sad. And I was relieved when they were safe. I found myself wondering how I would have done trying to keep my family together and alive. Then imagine losing some of them. I feel this was portrayed extremely well. This was more about the testimony of the will to survive in incredible and extreme circumstances.

I doubt anyone would be able to "Enjoy" a movie if they spend the entire time nit picking it to death. It is almost as if some of the posters here went into the movie hating it. I admit that there were a lot of things to pick on like being able to drive on a highway as far as they need when all the other cars are dead or why they had to eat peanut butter sandwiches when they were in the kids house where they have a stocked fridge and cupboards. These things didn't make me enjoy the movie any less.

When trying to determine Why the aliens weren't smarter about how they did the invasion or why they waited, any answer would be pure speculation. How are we supposed to know Why? Maybe they had a political fall out or this was some other faction or some crap like that. The point is, we don't know and have to deal with the situation that is in front of us.

I give it a 8.5/10.
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Post by Winnow »

Rellix wrote: Now that, I agree with you on, but I believe you're judging this movie a bit harshly. Did you give LOTR a 6?
LOTR = 9.5/10

I didn't care for War of the Worlds. My comments were less nitpicky than expressing disappointment in major parts of the movie. It felt like a blitz of chaos with not much information and then an abrupt ending. The lead character's journey really did nothing to add anything more to the movie....the drive...the stay at the house...the mob scene...the boat scene...tim robbins scene was even odd.
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Post by Funkmasterr »

im going to make a more detailed post on this when im not so tired, but im curious. I have been downloading a lot of movies lately, generally pretty shortly after they are out in the theatre. I have not been able to find this yet, and have been told by some people that they heard theatres were searching people to stop them from filming it... this didn't happen to me or anyone i saw when I went to see the movie.. just curious if anyone has found this for download yet.
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Post by Winnow »

Yep, it was out a day or two after it was released. Crappy camcorder version though.

If you want to find stuff like this, get a one of the newsreaders that has a search feature (like Newsleecher) and you'll find them pretty quick.
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Post by Ransure »

ISOHunt has been pretty good to me for getting screener versions... which are generally high quality. I been too lazy to get a newsgroup account.

Course, I still see 3 or 4 movies a month in the theaters...
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Post by Leonaerd »

Winnow, I entirely agree:
[Show]
What kind of story is that? I thought the best part of the movie was Tom Cruise throwing the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches up against the window.
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Post by Aslanna »

There's a good Telecine version floating around now. Fullscreen though but still good quality.

Anyway... Wasn't too impressed with this movie. And I don't know why people say other people are nitpicking just because they don't like something.

The acting and effects were ok. I just didn't like how everything was put together. So.. I'll give it a 7/10.
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Post by kyoukan »

I disliked this movie almost to the point of hating it. First off, Tom Cruise is way too established in his pretty boy can-do-no-wrong archetype to play the role of such an irresponsible failure. I don't particularly like him or dislike him much (but he was great in collateral) but he is way too limited of an actor to pull the role off. Thus he was tremendously unbelievable.

The ending was completely unsatisfying. Even ID4's lame brained computer virus was a better payoff than watching them just all over and die. Yeah I know that's how Well's story goes, but I don't really care. Change it, or just make your own original alien invasion movie, because plot devices that worked a 80 years ago don't neccesarily work now.

Once, just fucking once I wish Hollywood would make an alien invasion movie that is more than just us getting our fucking asses kicked until some lame deus ex machina kicks in and earth "wins." I want to see aliens come down in big fucking space ships and vehicles and we fight them conventionally and actually have a fucking chance. Is that so hard? I was so stoked in ID4 when the air force was flying an attack run on one of the ships with hundreds of jets only to get completely massacred in 20 seconds. How is that in any way interesting as an action movie? War of the Worlds is nothing but 90 minutes of watching people get exterminated. It was totally uninsteresting after 2 minutes. It was exciting to see the trucks full of soldiers and F-18's fly by and attack but there was no payoff because they all got blown up in one shot.

I think there is a huge market to see an alien invasion type movie where the fighting is somewhat fair. The only thing I can think of that remotely resembles that is Starship Troopers but that was mostly on another planet (and was totally entertaining regardless). I'm so sick of these kinds of films. They are like disaster movies that don't involve nature.

Plus the son was retarded and making him live at the end was cheap and lame. The entire point of the film was if you don't run you don't survive. Dumbass runs right into them and not only survives, but gets to his destination first. What the hell?

It's also getting to the point where special effects don't make me dislike or like a movie any more. CGI has pretty much hit it's peak and it really can't get any more realistic than it is now. I didn't see anything in War of the Worlds that wasn't done in ID4. In fact other than the scene with the military taking the hill, I thought ID4's effects were better.
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Post by Fairweather Pure »

think there is a huge market to see an alien invasion type movie where the fighting is somewhat fair.
There was a rumor several years ago about an ID4 sequel where the aliens come back for another shot. Only this time, we've examined and integrated thier technology from the prior engagement with our own, and we're waiting for them with prepared defenses. We meet them around the moon or in orbit (something like that), we kick some ass, they kick some ass, and it eventually evolved to a ground war which included land/sea/air battles. I thought the whole concept sounded like a lot of fun and something I would pay to see.
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Post by nobody »

Fairweather Pure wrote:
think there is a huge market to see an alien invasion type movie where the fighting is somewhat fair.
There was a rumor several years ago about an ID4 sequel where the aliens come back for another shot. Only this time, we've examined and integrated thier technology from the prior engagement with our own, and we're waiting for them with prepared defenses. We meet them around the moon or in orbit (something like that), we kick some ass, they kick some ass, and it eventually evolved to a ground war which included land/sea/air battles. I thought the whole concept sounded like a lot of fun and something I would pay to see.
i'd say hell ya to that
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Post by Fash »

I did not hate this movie as much as I thought I would.

the characters were pretty ridiculous... tom cruise played a really bad father, who wants his kids to be 'safe'.. but that's about it. his daughter acts like a teenager, a mid-20's, a psychologist, and a 2-year old throughout the movie. his son is probably the most realistic character in the movie.. he knows his dad is a total douchebag, hates him and hates dealing with him.. the attack hits him and he wants to do his part in helping people or fending it off, as he sees how major it is... and they were all invulnerable.

saw this at the drive-in... and the girl who most wanted to see the movie, right after the movie said, 'how did they all die?' and i think that's a negative for the movie, when i hafta explain, "well supposedly even though they've been planning this for a million years and studying us as long as we've been here, they somehow overlooked the fact that they can't survive the microorganisms on this planet."... 'Oh'... she still gives it a thumbs up.

After watching herbie fully loaded first, I give it a thumbs up too. 8)
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Post by Neziroth »

I saw this last night and absolutely loved it

[hide]It's possible that on whatever planet these aliens come from (mars from what I'm hearing?) there are no micro organisms. A little far fetched maybe, but if they have never had to deal with bacteria and whatever else then it would be rather easy to overlook such a detail.
[/hide]

Anybody can sit there and pick out every single flaw and point and laugh at every single small gap in the story.

Good luck enjoying any movie ever, though, if you do that all the time.

10/10 - highly entertaining[/hide]
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Post by Aslanna »

Anybody can sit there and pick out every single flaw and point and laugh at every single small gap in the story.
People are just pointing out things they didn't like. That doesn't mean those are the only things or that they are nitpicking.

Taken as a whole I just didn't find War of the Worlds that enjoyable of a movie.


(Btw, there are lots of other movies with flaws that I DO enjoy. So much for your theory!)
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Post by Winnow »

Neziroth wrote:
Anybody can sit there and pick out every single flaw and point and laugh at every single small gap in the story.

Good luck enjoying any movie ever, though, if you do that all the time.
Small gaps? War of the Worlds had bigger gaps than a fashion show full of waif models.
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Post by Fash »

Neziroth wrote:I saw this last night and absolutely loved it

[hide]It's possible that on whatever planet these aliens come from (mars from what I'm hearing?) there are no micro organisms. A little far fetched maybe, but if they have never had to deal with bacteria and whatever else then it would be rather easy to overlook such a detail.
[/hide]

Anybody can sit there and pick out every single flaw and point and laugh at every single small gap in the story.

Good luck enjoying any movie ever, though, if you do that all the time.

10/10 - highly entertaining
you're missing a change from the book to the movie.....

[hide]it makes sense in the book... they came here, they attacked us. they were vulnerable to the microorganisms and died. however, in the movie, they buried stuff here millions of years ago and have been watching us all along. it no longer makes any sense, that they could have such an eye on us, and yet miss the guy in the giant gorilla suit.[/hide]

I'm glad YOU enjoyed it.... but do not try and be a movie nazi.

I think it was an amazing production... it is rife with problems, but was still an interesting 1-time view..
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