War of the Worlds (2005)

Same reason he didn't realize how annoying Short Round screaming "Indie!" was in the second Indiana Jones movie.

"YOU CALL HIM DOCTA JONES!"

They should have muted the screaming in some scenes. If her screaming mouth doesn’t show on camera, just take the audio of the screaming out. Who’s going to know?

There were a lot of great scenes. When Dakota goes to pee and the bodies are floating silently down the river, when Cruise comes back from the first attack and is covered with ashes from the incinerated bodies of the dead and is in shock. The movie was shot three years after 911. The houses in Cruise’s Brooklyn neighborhood still fly flags. It was well cast too.

The grandparents at the end of the movie are the stars of the original War of the Worlds movie.

Dakota didn't kill that movie; When they ended up in the cellar with Tim Robbins, the movie died the death.

I do like the first half hour or so.

[quote] The grandparents at the end of the movie are the stars of the original War of the Worlds movie

Beginning with the 1953 movie Ann Robinson has played that same character several other times.

Midnight Movie Massacre (1988)

War of the Worlds (TV Series) (1988)

The Naked Monster (2005)

I loved this movie. I went to see it at the theater and thought it was very effective.

By the way, I also thought Cruise's ginormous ass looked hot af in those jeans.

Cruise is a burnout asshole in this movie. The scenes with him and the two kids really work in my opinion.

The movie fails the minute Cruise and Fanning arrive at Robbins' house. Utterly wrecks narrative flow and stops the film dead.

It never recovers.

Then Spielberg has to Spielberg, and the son has to "magically" survive the giant alien blast he ran into.

The end. Those two factors destroy some decent work in the first half.

I remember it being better than I thought it would be, but the son not being dead infuriated me.

Yes, I was trying to remember if this was the movie where the son miraculously appears at the end, that ruined the whole movie for me.

It would’ve been much more effective if the parents had exchanged a sad look, and maybe shaking their heads a bit, over the loss of their son, but instead it had some fairytale ending

I thought Minority Report was a notably better work from Spielberg/Cruise. Even the ending can work as a paranoic dream or fake reality in the PKD standard.

War of the Worlds simply falls into Spielberg's excessive schmalz tendencies, unfortunately.

OP, Probably because he was setting up his plan to fuck her. He never has had particularly good taste.

”We did hear a rumor that little Dakota Fanning entered rehab today, and we wish her the best.”

Yes, the whole scene with Tim Robbins was awful. He basically played a stock "crazy": crazy staring eyes, monotone, conspiracy talk etc.

Why did Spielberg cast Short Round in Temple of Doom?

And how is it humanly possible for Kate Capshaw to be more annoying?

Does Dakota approach that level of awful in WoW?

Spielberg’s “child in peril” trope is so annoying. I wanted to strangle Dakota from the beginning. The movie was OK until they arrived at the farmhouse...ugh.

The scenes with Robbins are a salute to the original story, a character called “the curate” who basically goes bonkers and is brained by the narrator.

The collection of humans by the aliens for some diabolical purpose is also from the original story.

I suggest reading it — sadly, it was ahead of its time in many ways. The massed civilians fleeing war that is being made directly upon them was a precursor of things that actually happened relentlessly later in the 20th, and now in the 21st, century.

I thought the son was good looking

Yeah, Robbins' character is from the book, as are some of the more objectively annoying details.

The initial attack is brilliant as is the flight up the Hudson River Valley. I also think Cruise is quite good. The plane crash is pretty stunning, as is the burning train.

I agree that the film stops dead at the farmhouse.

The 1940s film avoided that problem by parting ways with Wells at that moment.

Alternately you could just spare yourself two hours of having to look at Tom Cruise mouth breathing

Yeah, the son coming back was stupid. I would have preferred the unknown, wondering what happened to him.

And the Tim Robbins sequence was endless.

The film would be perfect if they had shortened the Tim Robbins section and had a bigger ending...yes, the Martians die because of our germs but we needed a bigger battle sequence (Boston in ruins!) leading up to it.

The 53 version is actually better IMO.

I can never get over arriving at the ex-wife’s house, where the children live, and trying to feed them with just the crap he grabbed from his dump. Open the fridge!

Also, the house had power. Turn on CNN. Knowing what was happening was more than a matter of idol curiosity. How could they not want any information?

What happened to the jet fuel in the passenger jet that crashed in their yard? They all be ashes.

The Spanish artist Jose Segrelles did a few illustrations for the story, probably in the 1930s.

The 1953 film is pretty much a masterpiece of science fiction of its era, and the evacuation and subsequent destruction of Los Angeles is one of the few such sequences of that time - or any other - that does not seem camp. Buildings crumble, facades dissolve and the relentless sound of the ever-approaching Martian machines and their ray guns suggest what it must have been like - in living memory when the film came out - for people living through bombing campaigns around the world in WWII. The last few seconds turn the experience into a religious parable that Wells himself suggested only ironically, but the filmmakers have earned it.

[quote]OP, Probably because he was setting up his plan to fuck her. He never has had particularly good taste.

Beat me to it. I was going to suggest Spielberg left so many of her screams in as mementos of their very special private rehearsals together.

So, since we've gone there: is Spielberg really a child molester?

Every so often when I come across railroad crossing I picture a flaming train crossing

I don’t remember ever reading one iota of a suggestion that Spielberg has ever been pervy with the kids in his cast. Why suggest that? It seems gratuitously shitty.

[quote] Every so often when I come across railroad crossing I picture a flaming train crossing

That's an image from the original HG Wells novel. It was very cool to bring it into the movie--it's one of the film's most unforgettable images.

The ending in the 1952 movie is much scarier than the ending in the 2005 film--in the 1952 film, the hero and heroine are trapped together in a church with other terrified parishioners as the Martians get closer and closer with their disintegrator beams... and then at the last moment the Martian floating ships crash because the bacteria has finally gotten to their systems.

The 1952 film is so great. I love how weird the Martians look with their triple-lensed cyclops giant eye. You never get a very good look at them, either.

Spielberg was drawing on his Schindler’s List research for the train scene, from the looks of it. There’s a lot of British Pathe newsreels showing European refugees cramming onto trains to get away from the Nazis. In London, kids were evacuated to the countryside on trains. The children traveled in large groups.

There’s a lot of WWII imagery in that brief scene. The Allies bombed Berlin train stations to stop troops and materiel from getting to the front. That’s why they were bombing trains that had Holocaust transport cars on them. They didn’t know.

The most authentic part of that scene was the exhaustion and numbness of the refugees. They saw a train on fire, knew it was full of corpses, and just stared, horrified for a moment. Then they brushed the idea of what it symbolized aside and continued on their way. They all had PTSD by then. The unshown part of that scene is every one of those people had already seen friends and family killed, houses destroyed. These were the few survivors of many deaths.

Spielberg is calling up many references to twentieth century world wars. The standard military procedure for invasion then was cut off supply lines, blow up bridges, trap people. Cut off utilities, demoralize civilians. Make it impossible to function.

He extrapolated that an alien invasion would follow the standard WWII battle plan, which we’re all familiar with to some extent, from watching movies. The difference is, most armies of earth feel some compassion for non-combatants, children especially, hospital ships. Not always, but it’s the acceptable standard of behavior armies are judged by.

These are aliens. They feel no compassion for what they see as an inferior race. They don’t care if they’re killing children or bombing hospitals. Every societal norm of earth isn’t in their vocabulary. They mean to exterminate everybody.

Forgot the link. Here’s German refugees in 1945, taking trains to look for shelter in the winter. Look how packed these trains are. Refugees often congregated at train stations, trying to get away, anywhere they could get to.

That’s how those fiery trains would have looked - people hanging on the sides of train cars, the tops, anywhere they could get on. And when the train arrived on fire at the station, all those people on the outside of the train were burned off the train and dead.

There’s a lot of implication in that scene, a lot of depth, that’s masterfully implied in just a few seconds. It’s a great scene.

The movie came out shortly after the London bombings in the underground and the bus bomb (7/7) so the train on fire was particularly horrendous.

Tom Cruise's weirdly alpha performance is so distracting in this movie. In fact, there is one scene right before the first attack, when the street is cracking apart and people start freaking out. You can quickly see Cruise laughing with that pneumatic grin of his. I swear it's a mistake. Also the movie star physics of the action sequences annoyed the shit out of me. The way during that first attack, everything was happening around Cruise and not to him - he just blithely sidesteps disintegration rays and exploding buildings at every turn. It came off as way too stunt-y and choreographed.

It came out three years after 9/11 in the U.S. There’s a scene at the beginning in the Brooklyn neighborhood with a lot of flags flying on people’s homes. That was very common in the U.S. after 9/11. Just seeing it dates the movie because it was so common then. And it reminds you that these are New Yorkers and they’re all a bit battle hardened already.

The scene where he comes back from the first attack, covered in ash from the cremated remains of his neighbors, is meant to remind you of this picture. Spielberg is really good at using visual symbolism as shorthand to the viewer.

This picture was taken on 9/11 after the collapse of the World Trade Center. This lady is covered in ash from the collapsed burning buildings and the cremains of her fellow office workers.

The lady in the picture, Marcy Borders , died of stomach cancer at age 42.

^^ Sorry, the movie came out four years later. It was probably made a year in advance, so around 2004.

[quote]The most authentic part of that scene was the exhaustion and numbness of the refugees. They saw a train on fire, knew it was full of corpses, and just stared, horrified for a moment. Then they brushed the idea of what it symbolized aside and continued on their way. They all had PTSD by then. The unshown part of that scene is every one of those people had already seen friends and family killed, houses destroyed. These were the few survivors of many deaths.

When Spielberg was promoting the movie in the UK he said he wanted Americans to see themselves as refugees, something they'd never experienced first hand.

Agree with the previous posters about the turn the film takes when Tim Robbins is introduced.

Tom Cruise is by no means miscast but having an average guy rather than an action hero would have improved the film. Tom Hanks would have been an obvious choice.

That poor woman, pictured above.

I remember not seeing this movie when it was out in theaters, because this was when public sentiment was turning against Cruise. There was the stuff about Scientology, the divorce from Kidman, etc. He may have fired his agent by then, and the cracks and craziness were showing.

the main thing and the actually the only thing I remember about that movie is the scene where Tom Cruise talks Dakota Fanning down from an extreme asthma attack. I thought that was pretty effective acting. Im sure he drew on his Scientology Super Powers as inspiration . Whatever, it was effective and I remember it.

[quote]I remember not seeing this movie when it was out in theaters, because this was when public sentiment was turning against Cruise. There was the stuff about Scientology, the divorce from Kidman, etc. He may have fired his agent by then, and the cracks and craziness were showing.

Spot on. The Oprah sofa jumping was as part of an appearance to promote this movie.

[quote] Knowing what was happening was more than a matter of idol curiosity.

Oh, dear.

Tom Hanks would have been great! I wish they’d used him. They could have written him as a good father rather than a bad one.

The point of Cruise’s asshole character was that he was selfish and immature. Loved his kids but they’d been gone so long he hadn’t raised them. He just saw them on weekends. Their real lives were somewhere else.

His mean streak served him well in keeping his kids alive. Stealing that car from the mechanic Manny. He brought his kids over there knowing that was the only car and he was leaving the owner to die. Didn’t care. My kids first. This is what a lot of parents would think, but he was aggressive enough to do what it took.

His ex-wife’s husband, a good guy, never would have done that and they all would have died. Interesting that Spielberg made that choice. He showed that a selfish asshole, putting his selfish assholiness to use to save his kids, had a good survival skill others didn’t have. Same with the scenes with Tim Robbins’ character. My kid first.

Extrapolate that to the scene at the ferry. Every person still alive in that scene did something similar. Walked over their neighbors and deserted family and friends to get there alive. Maybe they were nicer about it but they did it.

R39, are you thinking of Brad Pitt and his daughter in World War Z? They were in an RV after they escaped the zombies and the daughter forgot her asthma medication and had an asthma attack.

R13

I hope she doesn't go south. South Dakota!

Cable has been showing this movie alot lately (along with risky business)... i have noticed a few mistakes in War of the Worlds... for example

1) how is it that manny is still working in his shop, still working on cars, when everyone around him are screaming, crying, running for their lives right past him? laugh!... never mind he had to have heard the noise too!

2) when the 1st martian ship starts incinerating people into dust, you see the ray hit someone in a car, and then you see cruise running from it, looking back right afterwards running past the car, in actually, his character had ALREADY run past that car a few moments earlier... total continuity mistake..

looking at his movie, dakota character was suppose to be be wise and too smart of her own good, but she was annoying as hell, even without the screaming! i wanted to yell at the screen "leave her ass!" lol!....

This is a good discussion. I am amazed Dataloungers remember this film so well.

I think it worked well that the original novel took place in the UK but that the two big film updates have been placed in the US. Well said he wrote the novel after a discussion with his brother about how the English had wiped out the Tasmanians (they actually hadn't, entirely, but for decades it had been assumed they had been), and wanted to posit a thought experiment where the British were wiped out themselves by a stronger power. It made sense to make that happen in the films for Americans--both the 1952 and the 2005 films are filled with horrific imagery of Americans as refugees in their own country.

R45–what about the guy with the video camera when all electronics are dead?

R47....... good question... only electronics that are how should i say "solo" and by themselves not hooked up to any grid? even a car has a number of electronic parts that work together.?.. and how was it that the van that cruise stole had that 1 issue and it's that 1 issue that MADE the car work, instead of making it REALLY NOT WORK?..

I'm not much of a Cruise fan but I think he was the right choice for the dad in this film...the fact he's an asshole dad makes him realistic and relatable as opposed to the typical nice/super dad type which really isn't typical at all.

Hanks would have been too old and soft for this...you needed some muscle to make it believable when he goes inside the Martian Death Machine to rescue the daughter.

I agree that Hanks would have been too soft, but Cruise was too heroic--the main character is supposed to be an Everyman.

The rolling train on fire was frightening, as was the river flowing with corpses. The rest of it could be flushed.

I wished they shown more of the battle scene with the army and air force like they did on the 50's version and them setting off a nuclear bomb

It was New Jersey, R3.

Bayonne.

I liked the movie but was appalled when the son appeared at the end.

I can never get over the way the whole family comes out of the apartment at the end looking like they've just had a glam team working on them, especially the grandmother. They have just been through an alien invasion with no electricity or water, and yet they are impeccably dressed and nary a hair is out of place. The whole ending is a huge groan.

When they got to the mother’s house, they never even tried to make a phone call. Since the grandmother’s house in Boston was apparently unaffected, they probably could have reached her.

R57, who knows maybe she didn't have a "land line" and their cell phones were still not working?

The whole aliens-buried-for-centuries modification to the story sucked. Besides it being totally illogical, a good bit of the suspense of the original story was the slow-reveal of the cylinder from space opening in the pit.

Scientology crap

[quote]Spielberg’s “child in peril” trope is so annoying.

So many movies have been ruined by stupid kids, instead of concentrating on the adults.

There's a famous Howard Hawks quote that a good movie was "three good scenes and no bad ones." While there are several Spielberg movies that fit this criteria, "War of the Worlds" probably isn't one of them.

I think the movie definitely has three good scenes. The first tripod emerging from under the intersection, the ferry, and either the airplane or the burning train. But it does have some bad scenes, mostly the Ogilvy scene already mentioned. Also, I'm always amused when Spielberg "reuses" ideas: The basement sequence hiding from the alien probe and the aliens themselves is essentially the same scene as the raptors in the kitchen in "Jurassic Park."

Overall, I think "War of the Worlds" is just fine. Good but now great, it's a Spielberg movie that I very rarely re-watch.

The first half of the movie(up until the Tim Robbins scenes) is amazing. I could rewatch that first half a hundred times and still be entertained. I love the atmosphere of the movie.

R61 I agree. What's even worse is when a perfectly good, well written adult show or movie suddenly pivots to the bratty adolescent and their personal or dating problems. I don't understand why directors think that adults find teenagers problems so fascinating.

Agree, r64. And then you have the man who's looking for his wife (sometimes his estranged wife he still holds a torch for) that takes up half the damn movie. I hate it in movies such as this, you just want a good suspense/action story and not shit that appeals to fraus.

R62, that was actually in the original 1950s movie. It’s a guy and his girlfriend, they seek shelter in an abandoned, wrecked farmhouse, and an alien gets inside and finds them. A lot of details are similar. A version of that is in the original book I believe. It’s basically the same scene reworked except for Ogilvy, who is an original character. Here’s a clip of part of the scene.

I think the point of the Ogilivy scene is to show Ray was willing to kill to save his child. Later, he was willing to attract the attention of the alien ship that had his daughter, because he wanted to get on board where she was. At that point I think he was so tired and hysterical, he just wasn’t thinking of anything but getting her back before they killed her. Or being with her at the end. I think they were running those people through a wood chipper (or the equivalent) and then using them for fertilizer for their alien plants.

That’s why the plants were red, they were fed with blood and plants will take on the color of the water you feed them with. That’s how they make the burgundy sunflowers with burgundy stems that you buy at florists. They put dye in the water. Roses are fertilized in part with bone meal, for the calcium and other minerals. It makes them bloom. So grinding up people and using them for fertilizer to make their alien plants bloom and reproduce quickly makes sense.

The whole running theme of the movie is, Ray was an immature man when he was married and rubbed everyone the wrong way, so his wife divorced him. He had a pretty distant relationship with his kids and didn’t really know them. They kept showing Rachel relying on her brother, Robbie, not her father, for comfort. And Robbie was protective of her and obviously had spent a lot of years being the one to protect her. They felt they were fatherless. Then this emergency comes along and Ray bonds with them in a hurry. Robbie, who is older and more embittered, doesn’t trust him, until the scene where Ray lets him go. Ray realizes he doesn’t have a right to keep Robbie there because he hasn’t been a father to him. Robbie owes him nothing. Ray missed raising him through his childhood and can’t get it back.

Robbie probably told his mom and grandparents what they went through together before they parted ways, which was a lot and it probably surprised them how much Ray was willing to do for the kids. Robbie probably heard what the other adults thought about it and realized his dad had done a lot for them. And the Army wouldn’t take Robbie, so there was nothing for him to do but go to the grandparents. At his age, he could make much better time than Ray could, saddled with a kid and on foot. Maybe the Army gave him a ride.

Tim Robbins did a good job of playing Ogilvy as written. The character was too unlikable and annoying. Ogilvy just seemed like a child molester that wanted to get rid of Ray so he could rape his daughter. Too many issues to unpack with no time to do it.

Spielberg was trying to make it “okay” to kill him, by portraying him as a drunken degenerate. He overdid it and wasted screen time. They could have used that time at the end to show what Robbie, the grandparents and ex now thought of Ray’s sacrifices for the kids. No time.

They could have done every scene in the house the same without Ogilvy, and it would have worked. In the 1950s movie, the woman that panicked when confronted with the Martian was a likable character, not just a liability. Not some pervert that needed to die.

He was probably trying to re-capture the success of Drew Barrymore screaming in 𝐄.𝐓. 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐱𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐥 (1982), which audiences thought was adorable.