Comments on: War of the Worlds Just Sucked

By: mark pincus

mark pincus — Sat, 30 Jul 2005 21:45:39 +0000

funny. mo and i just saw it and laughed at how bad the acting and dialog was. and we couldnt figure out the plot either. why was the whole family waiting in boston unharmed? how did he start the car? why couldnt he then start more cars?

By: Fenton

Fenton — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 18:38:20 +0000

War of the Worlds is Spielberg’s perosnal rumination on the holocaust. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Right now people are comparing it to “summer blockbusters” which are judged on their thrill and suspense levels. This movie was made to get people to think about the opposite of both of those feelings.

The two feelings that it wants you to think about are what it would be like to both be in a hopeless situation (the opposite of suspense) and then to be in a situation where you become numb to the pain of the situation (the opposite of thrills).

When coupled with the imagery of death by disintegration and fire, the movie also becomes a metaphor for Spielberg’s favorite topic, The Holocaust.

In another 100 years, when people find the special effects of this movie to be outdated, they will come to take this film not as a summer blockbuster, but instead, as a rumination on humanity in the face of numbness and hopelessness.

Not exactly popcorn material.

By: Cameron Reilly

Cameron Reilly — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 13:50:29 +0000

you should be subscribing to our Movie Show podcast/blog! We could have saved you that two hours! We trashed WOTW weeks ago!

http://www.thepodcastnetwork.com/movie

By: michael parekh on IT

*michael parekh on IT* — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 17:58:07 +0000

ON OVER-ZEALOUS BLOG COMMENT FILTERING SYSTEMS

HALT, WHO GOES THERE? This has happened to me a few times and it’s been frustrating. But today it pushed me over the edge. I’m talking about the comment filtering systems used by some of the blogging platforms, to protect bloggers from spam and questio…

By: Michael Parekh

Michael Parekh — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 17:32:53 +0000

“I couldn’t agree more…it was such a bad execution of a classically great story, strained, safe ending and all. For my money, some of the better scifi these days can be found on the SciFi network, with shows like Stargate Atlantis and Battlestar Galactica. But given enough time, those will probably degrade to the lowest common denominator as well.”

By: a

Mon, 25 Jul 2005 08:43:54 +0000

It reminded me of AI. Same three act plot structure done in a remarkably poor Spielberg style. The movie dragged on just like AI. When Tom Cruise was stuck in the basement with Tim Robbins, I was fully expecting the Jude Law gigolo-like scene from AI. And when the aliens keeled over, it brought back memories of the robot being rewoken at the end of AI – fortunately it wasn’t that bad.

By: Bryan William Jones

Bryan William Jones — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 06:50:18 +0000

Predictable, likely because the plot line has been in the public domain for how many years now? Given that it was written in 1898, that gives us around 107 years. At any rate, I too had high hopes when it was announced that the remake was in the works. I too thought the special effects could greatly improve things and build upon the original story and I hoped for an interesting take. However, all hope was lost when Tom Cruise was cast. Is it just me or is anyone else incapable of watching a movie with Tom Cruise in it and experiencing suspension of disbelief? The only movie with Tom Cruise in it that I’ve had that experience in was Rain Man. All other movies that he has been in leave me wondering what he is doing in the movie. Good actors make you forget the actor and become involved in the character. Granted, part of this is the writing, but there have been truly thin plots throughout time with weak writing where a good actor has pulled it through. So, for me, War of the Worlds (2005) will be a DVD viewing at best, but more likely a pass as two hours of my life would be better spent on other tasks.