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War of the worlds quality - Page 2

post #31 of 59
2/22/12 at 7:43am
It is. Unfortunately everytime Cruise is brought up someone has to lecture on why he is evil and no one should watch his movies.
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post #32 of 59
2/22/12 at 8:02am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnny Angell View Post

Ditto here.
As for the AMC HD telecast, they've cropped it top and bottom to fit the HD screen. The transfer seems soft. I was noting early on when we see Clayton Forester with a day-old beard stubble. Even in closeups, you don't see the hairs. Just that his face is colored by the beard. Was the DVD like that? I don't remember.

I have the 2nd DVD, and recorded the HD version last night. I hope to have time this weekend to compare the two, and will report back.

Doug
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post #33 of 59
2/22/12 at 11:03am
Quote:
Originally Posted by TonyD View Post

Well I said I don't understand it and I find it curious. Didn't say I wanted to know why.

Why proclaim in a discussion forum that you don't understand something, if you don't actually want to discuss the subject or even hear about it?

I don't agree with Richard 100% (I am a fan of Spielberg' s War of the Worlds and own the Blu-ray), but the idea that some people don't want to financially support people whose worldview is in deep conflict with their own is hardly some kind of huge mystery. Scientology's crimes and abuses are well-documented and widely-known. What kind of response did you expect?
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post #34 of 59
2/22/12 at 1:08pm
I disagree about keeping the original ending in the remake -- it wasn't appropriate for the updated setting and story. (IMO a better twist on the ending would have involved the aliens being defeated by *intentional* biological warfare. Not only would it have made for a better story, it would have opened the door to interesting ethical questions.)
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post #35 of 59
2/22/12 at 6:12pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rick Thompson View Post

Just be glad he stuck with Wells' ending, a decision that got him ripped by a lot of reviewers. Otherwise, you'd have had Independence Day, which is War of the Worlds with a stupid ending.

Love it!

I was very pleased with the Blu-ray presentation of War of the Worlds; it actually looked better to me than the 35mm print I saw in initial release. And the sound--wow!!

My only gripe is that is has all of the extras from the 2-disc DVD except for the production notes (text). So I still have to hang onto that set. (Wait a minute, I do have another gripe: the packaging for the 2-disc DVD was gorgeous; the packaging for the Blu-ray is very blah.)
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post #36 of 59
2/22/12 at 7:08pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by KMR View Post

Love it!
I was very pleased with the Blu-ray presentation of War of the Worlds; it actually looked better to me than the 35mm print I saw in initial release. And the sound--wow!!
My only gripe is that is has all of the extras from the 2-disc DVD except for the production notes (text). So I still have to hang onto that set. (Wait a minute, I do have another gripe: the packaging for the 2-disc DVD was gorgeous; the packaging for the Blu-ray is very blah.)

Aw, come on. Production notes? For production notes you have to keep the DVD? Is there really info there not covered elsewhere? Photograph them and print them out, if you've gotta have them.
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post #37 of 59
2/23/12 at 6:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aaron Silverman View Post

I disagree about keeping the original ending in the remake -- it wasn't appropriate for the updated setting and story. (IMO a better twist on the ending would have involved the aliens being defeated by *intentional* biological warfare. Not only would it have made for a better story, it would have opened the door to interesting ethical questions.)

Now you really ARE ripping the guts out of Wells' book. Wells' point was that man is not as all-powerful as he thinks he is. What's more, using some super-bug makes it yet another Vietnam allegory. Never mind that we had to kill thousands or millions of humans who also have no resistance to this new bug: We had to destroy the village to save it.

P.S. I don't watch sci-fi to ponder "interesting ethical questions."
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post #38 of 59
2/23/12 at 7:57am
Aside from having alien invaders and the title, what did the movie have to do with the book at all? Having germs kill all the invaders is fine for the 19th Century; in the 21st, it's kind of anachronistic. Man *does* have that power now.

I'm sorry if you don't like movies that contain interesting things to think about. I don't like movies that resolve their plots via deus ex machina.

And. . .Vietnam allegory? Really? Where did you pull that out of?
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post #39 of 59
2/23/12 at 2:53pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aaron Silverman View Post

Aside from having alien invaders and the title, what did the movie have to do with the book at all? Having germs kill all the invaders is fine for the 19th Century; in the 21st, it's kind of anachronistic. Man *does* have that power now.
I'm sorry if you don't like movies that contain interesting things to think about. I don't like movies that resolve their plots via deus ex machina.
And. . .Vietnam allegory? Really? Where did you pull that out of?

Unless you're ready to say that thousands or millions wouldn't die from this super bug -- and how would THAT happen? -- what is it but "we had to destroy the village in order to save it"?

If you're going to go by specific plotlines, neither Spielberg's nor Pal/Haskins has much to do with the book. Wells had the aliens take everything out on Britain alone; people escaped to the European continent (remember the Thunder Child incident?), where no aliens were present. There were no aircraft and no atomic bombs. Not much in the way of generals or world coordination, either.

Wells did have human blood as the plant food, which Pal/Haskins does not and Spielberg does. Spielberg also follows closely the blood harvesting process (to state it somewhat antiseptically) in the book. Pal/Haskins ignores the "red weed" of Wells' book; Spielberg doesn't.

This could go on and on. The point is that neither film was true to the book's plot details. They were true to its spirit and theme. They were very different, though equally valid, approaches to the material. To suddenly have man defeat the aliens by using some technology or super man-made germ that somehow won't affect anyone but the aliens, goes against the whole theme of Wells' book: "Martians -- dead -- slain, after all man's devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth."

Worse, it turns War of the Worlds into Independence Day.
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post #40 of 59
2/23/12 at 5:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnny Angell View Post

Aw, come on. Production notes? For production notes you have to keep the DVD? Is there really info there not covered elsewhere? Photograph them and print them out, if you've gotta have them.

Well, thank YOU.
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post #41 of 59
2/24/12 at 1:08am
The Cruise version is NOT true to the spirit and theme of the novel.

"the humblest things God put on this Earth" is tacked on to the end as an afterthought so that people would leave the theater thinking they'd just seen H.G. Wells. It isn't planted or foreshadowed earlier on so that it emerges logically out of the story like in the 1953 version, perhaps because it has nothing to do with the new revisionist story being told:
Quote:
An alien attack forces a divorced
dead-beat Dad to learn how to take
responsibility for his children.

H.G. Wells did not write that. The male characters in his novel were protective, caring, self-sacrificing, and very responsible without making a point of it. This revisionist storyline works against the very concept and premise of the novel and of the film because it's more important to the film than anything else.

You can see this storyline in 30 films per year; it does not belong in War of the Worlds.

Nothing is right and everything goes wrong with this idiotic and condescending storyline in place.

How anyone can sit in front of the screen and accept this storyline as War of the Worlds even for a microsecond is beyond me.
Edited by Richard--W - 2/24/12 at 4:52am
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post #42 of 59
2/24/12 at 2:43am
Richard thank goodness we have you to keep our sensibilities in check.

Anyway, I suppose people watch this movie for the same reason I do, they get enjoyment from it.
Do you think many people who saw it have ever even read the original book or even care that it isn't a word for word retelling of it?

I read it 25 years ago and thought it was great but I don't care if it isn't exactly the same in the movie.

I don't expect a movie to be exactly the same as a book it's based on and I don't care if it isn't.

Two different realms of entertainment they don't need to match.

Are there any other movies that we should be aware of that aren't true to the book?
Maybe that could be a good topic and a public service.
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post #43 of 59
2/24/12 at 8:12am
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnny Angell View Post

Ditto here.
As for the AMC HD telecast, they've cropped it top and bottom to fit the HD screen. The transfer seems soft. I was noting early on when we see Clayton Forester with a day-old beard stubble. Even in closeups, you don't see the hairs. Just that his face is colored by the beard. Was the DVD like that? I don't remember.

I tried to watch the HD version last night. The cropping ruined it. I only made it a few minutes before I turned it off in disgust. When we first see the machine plummeting through the sky, it's partly cut off due to the cropping. I didn't even compare the picture or sound quality to the DVD.

I sure hope any future BD release is not cropped.

Doug
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post #44 of 59
2/24/12 at 12:35pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard--W View Post

The Cruise version is NOT true to the spirit and theme of the novel.
"the humblest things God put on this Earth" is tacked on to the end as an afterthought so that people would leave the theater thinking they'd just seen H.G. Wells. It isn't planted or foreshadowed earlier on so that it emerges logically out of the story like in the 1953 version, perhaps because it has nothing to do with the new revisionist story being told.

Didn't you see the beginning of the film? The one with all the microorganisms and the pull back into the large-scale world we inhabit? That's why the long zoom back to the micro world at the end. Those two shots bookend the film. If you didn't see the opening, no wonder the ending doesn't work for you!
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post #45 of 59
2/24/12 at 1:57pm
The opening and closing are the only parts of the remake that work for me.

In between, we get a story about a dead-beat Dad who has to learn responsibility. Good thing the aliens invaded or he might never have learned his lesson. Good thing, too, that the aliens decided to leave Boston alone or his wife and in-laws might not have approved.
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post #46 of 59
2/26/12 at 11:00am
When Speilberg originally announced that he would be producing a remake of War of the Worlds with Cruise, he said it would be a period piece, occuring in the same time frame as HG's book. I was very excited to hear this, as I thought this would look spectacular to contrast the Tripod machines, the primitive weapons of turn of the century England, and the red dust/vines. When Spielberg then back pedaled and said it would be in a contemporary setting, I was greatly disappointed and figured it would be War of the Cocktails or War of the Risky Business or War of the Jerry McGuires, or some such Cruise vehicle. I was mostly right.
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post #47 of 59
2/26/12 at 11:39am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard V View Post

When Speilberg originally announced that he would be producing a remake of War of the Worlds with Cruise, he said it would be a period piece, occuring in the same time frame as HG's book. I was very excited to hear this, as I thought this would look spectacular to contrast the Tripod machines, the primitive weapons of turn of the century England, and the red dust/vines. When Spielberg then back pedaled and said it would be in a contemporary setting, I was greatly disappointed and figured it would be War of the Cocktails or War of the Risky Business or War of the Jerry McGuires, or some such Cruise vehicle. I was mostly right.

Yea you really nailed it.
Since because he was a smart Aleck bartender who also happens to be a sports agent who hires hookers to earn money in War of the Worlds.

You forgot Top gun.
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post #48 of 59
2/26/12 at 11:55am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard V View Post

When Speilberg originally announced that he would be producing a remake of War of the Worlds with Cruise, he said it would be a period piece, occuring in the same time frame as HG's book. I was very excited to hear this, as I thought this would look spectacular to contrast the Tripod machines, the primitive weapons of turn of the century England, and the red dust/vines. When Spielberg then back pedaled and said it would be in a contemporary setting, I was greatly disappointed and figured it would be War of the Cocktails or War of the Risky Business or War of the Jerry McGuires, or some such Cruise vehicle. I was mostly right.

Yeah, even when a dramatic range is offered on the page, Tom Cruise reduces it to narcissism and trivializes every character he plays.

Every character he plays, no matter who it is or what time period, is still Tom Cruise.
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post #49 of 59
2/26/12 at 1:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard--W View Post

Every character he plays, no matter who it is or what time period, is still Tom Cruise.

I'd agree with that on some of his work (especially when he first became a star) but his performances in Born On The Fourth Of July, Magnolia or Eyes Wide Shut show that he is capable of more than just smiling and putting on the public Tom Cruise persona.
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post #50 of 59
2/26/12 at 1:10pm
No, neither Born On the Fourth of July nor Magnolia prove anything.
I can name two dozen bankable actors who could have done an infinitely better job in either role.

More than any other film, Eyes Wide Shut demonstrates and proves Tom Cruise's inadequacy.
He is a narcissistic presence, and his performance fails internally at every level.
He simply did not have the range or the insight to pull it off.
The lights are on, but nobody is home.
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post #51 of 59
2/26/12 at 1:18pm
Richard so much negativity in nearly every post you make, over and over again.
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post #52 of 59
2/26/12 at 1:48pm
Rubbish.
Look to your own attitude before you start criticizing members.

I'll say what I want about movies, and I have sufficient experience to do so.
We may criticize films, but not each other.
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post #53 of 59
2/26/12 at 1:54pm
I didn't criticize you but I did your posts.

You find something that bugs you then pound it to the ground. How many times are you going to tell us you hate Tom cruise and this version of War?

I already saw that you edited that post with the giant font telling people to wake up. You hate it. That's fine and we get it already. It gets boring after a point.
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post #54 of 59
2/26/12 at 3:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard--W View Post

No, neither Born On the Fourth of July nor Magnolia prove anything.
I can name two dozen bankable actors who could have done an infinitely better job in either role.
More than any other film, Eyes Wide Shut demonstrates and proves Tom Cruise's inadequacy.
He is a narcissistic presence, and his performance fails internally at every level.
He simply did not have the range or the insight to pull it off.
The lights are on, but nobody is home.

For the sake of argument, let's say you're right but my point wasn't that Cruise was (or wasn't) the best man for those parts or that he's an amazing actor. It was that, as an actor, he's shown that he is capable of playing more than just 'Tom Cruise- perpetually grinning movie star'.
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post #55 of 59
2/26/12 at 3:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by TonyD View Post

Yea you really nailed it.
Since because he was a smart Aleck bartender who also happens to be a sports agent who hires hookers to earn money in War of the Worlds.
You forgot Top gun.

Thanks, War of the Top Guns.
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post #56 of 59
2/26/12 at 3:37pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by TonyD View Post

]I didn't criticize you but I did your posts.
You find something that bugs you then pound it to the ground. How many times are you going to tell us you hate Tom cruise and this version of War?
I already saw that you edited that post with the giant font telling people to wake up. You hate it. That's fine and we get it already. It gets boring after a point.

You separate one from the other? I think he's free to say it as many times as he wants, just as it is your right to defend the movie as many times as you want.
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post #57 of 59
2/26/12 at 4:46pm
Since this thread has gotten into a Tom Cruise bash-athon, I'm bailing. I liked Spielberg's version as much as I did the Pal/Haskins (and, for that matter, the Orson Wells radio broadcast on CD). They're all equally valid approaches to the material.

Whether you like it or not, every actor/actress plays himself/herself to some extent in every role. Clint Eastwood doesn't do Tootsie and Dustin Hoffman doesn't do Dirty Harry. John Wayne doesn't play Rocky and Sylvester Stallone doesn't do Rooster Cogburn -- so don't expect Tom Cruise to play something that's not at least part Tom Cruise.

As for his religion, when did you become America's religion sheriff? And what religions are approved? Is Islam okay? Buddhism? Confucianism? We know you want to stamp out Scientology; pray tell, what else?

Anyway, like I said, I'm bailing on this. Go with whatever God you approve, and bash away.
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post #58 of 59
2/27/12 at 9:32am
Orson Welles's radio play is still the best adaptation of this material. Pal's version comes second. Spielberg's version is dead last and, in my case, it has nothing to do with Cruise's acting ability or his "religion". The film was just dull. I mean it is a film about an alien invasion and Spielberg manages to make it boring, uninspired and plain stupid. Aliens riding lightning bolts into previously buried machines? It is bad and lazy writing. A guy needs the slaughter of an alien invasion in order to connect with his kids? That is just bad and borders on the laughable.
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post #59 of 59
2/27/12 at 10:07am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Edwin-S View Post

Orson Welles's radio play is still the best adaptation of this material. Pal's version comes second. Spielberg's version is dead last and, in my case, it has nothing to do with Cruise's acting ability or his "religion". The film was just dull. I mean it is a film about an alien invasion and Spielberg manages to make it boring, uninspired and plain stupid. Aliens riding lightning bolts into previously buried machines? It is bad and lazy writing. A guy needs the slaughter of an alien invasion in order to connect with his kids? That is just bad and borders on the laughable.

I would agree. I have nothing against Tom Cruise being in the Spielberg version, but I wanted it to be story driven and the alien invasion to be the focus of the story. Instead the cataclysmic destruction of the human race is just "background" to Cruise's story of "redemption". I think Cruise can be perfectly fine as a character in the story. He was fine in Valkyrie where the plot to assassinate Hitler is given center stage, not so much about Cruise's character, Von Stauffenberg. If Cruise's role in the remake had been given similar treatment, I would have no problem with the movie. I don't agree with Cruise's religious beliefs, but I have never allowed that to prevent me from seeing his movies. I have enjoyed him in many of his movies including the aforementioned Valkyrie, as well as the Mission Impossible movies, Collateral, Magnolia, Tropic Thunder (in which he was brilliant IMHO), and many others. My criticism of War of the Worlds is with the presentation, not Cruise.
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