OT: WOTW
 

Ok, so, I am not a big fan of Tom Cruise or hollywood style sci fi usually...but War of the Worlds is a good movie.

that is all.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Alarik

Re: OT: WOTW
 

I really enjoyed the Alien Tripod units, especially all details like the noises they made and their heat rays.

The movie itself was quite exciting and for the most part I had no qualms about it.

Re: OT: WOTW
 

I thought it was good, however though the ending is true to the story, I had some difficulty with it.

SPOILER

Ok, when HG Wells wrote it the ending was revolutionary, but these days you'd expect highly advanced aliens to consider such things.

Re: OT: WOTW
 

i didn't read the book, and yes the movie was great but i expected another ending.... as Randallw said "you'd expect highly advanced aliens to consider such things", but yes the movie was great

Re: OT: WOTW
 

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I did see the 1950's version, and read the original. I say it usually enhances the experience of seeing movies based such classics if you've done the reading first. That is, unless the movie version stinks, in which case there is no help.

Re: OT: WOTW
 

I was talking to my father today about this movie, he was very suprised and disappointed by the ending of the movie. I read it when i was a kid and im glad they kept the ending. I have kids myself now so i cant wait till it comes out on DVD.

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Well, I kinda like keeping things the same in conversions. (Read the book)

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Well it's not really a sci-fi blockbuster, it's really supposed to be more of a character study of the man and what happens around him. Even with the original book the aliens really just exist as a force of nature to change the lives of the characters so we can see how they cope, so really at the end they just need a quick and easy way to finish it off. Still it makes more sense as a Deus Ex Machina than uploading a pc virus to a totally alien computer system (coughID4 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif)

Re: OT: WOTW
 

Yeah - But ID4 wasn't serious anyway.

Re: OT: WOTW
 

Yeah, the ending of ID4 was silly and not very believable. Nevertheless, it was a good movie. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: OT: WOTW
 

Wow, 10 whole posts in a book-to-film thread without mentio... never mind, I'm not gonna mention it.

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You don't know the half of how bad it was,

http://www.changingthetimes.co.uk/sa...nation_day.htm

Re: OT: WOTW
 

Yes, but my point was they weren't trying for realism - they were trying for a fun film. I don't mind a lack of realism if that's not what the films about.

(In other words - I don't care if nobody ever reloads in a John Woo film - John Woo films are about millions and millions of bullets and big explosions. ID4 was about millions and millions of aliens and big explosions)

Re: OT: WOTW
 

Randallw writes:

"...but these days you'd expect highly advanced aliens to consider such things."

As I recall, H. G. Wells himself explained this. His Martians were so old and so highly evolved that they had pretty much forgotten their primitive origin. Since they didn't have to deal with such things on their own world anymore, they couldn't even conceive of such things on other planets (specifically, Earth).

Re: OT: WOTW
 

Another point to consider is that with the plethora of things here on Earth it'd be quite near impossible to protect against all of them.

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For some reason I'm reminded of http://www.moviepunks.com/?id=43

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Well, the thing is, most people don't want a story where the aliens conquer us. Even though it's more logical, it's not a happy ending. People want happy endings.

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The ending to ID4 is perfectly plausable. I mean, mac's aren't compatible with any human technology, so why wouldn't whos to say they aren't designed to be complatble with alien technology?

On topic: Yah, WotW was freakin great. It could have been just another meh story, but the way the whole story ishandled, the character development and cinematography propel it into one of the greatest movies I have seen in recent years.

Re: OT: WOTW
 

I saw WOTW this evening and I have to say I was not impressed. The special effects were great, and the way in which the aliens was depicted was superb.

But the script flowed poorly, and the acting--except for Cruise--was pretty bad. Some of the dialogue was real junior high school stuff.

And I have a real problem with the whole "people in movies behave this way" thing.

If a giant crater opens up in an intersection in your city or town, and starts sending big cracks up the sides of nearby buildings, are you going to run like heck or just move back a few feet and stand and watch?

I usually like sci-fi, the stranger the better. And I even enjoy absurdist sci-fi like Men in Black, but this film did nothing for me. I wanted to like it, but...

Re: OT: WOTW
 

In regards to the cracks in the ground/buildings, it is the whole rubbernecking thing. Whenever something bad/unusuall/strange happens people look. It doesn't matter how potentially dangerous it is, there will always be people around watching it. In that way I think the movie actually captured some of the feeling of the originall book. I thought the acting was excellent, the main three were very convincing, most of the side people were ok, if not excellent. The initiall father son dialogue was a little weak, but other that I thought most of the character interactions were good.

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In the book, a lot of people just came and watched, even after the first bunch got killed. It seemed realistic to me.

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If I were the type to make shipsets, making a set based on the humans of WOTW would be neat...the human race, recovering from the Martian invasion, frantically learns their tech and adopts it, then sets off in a very paranoid way to explore the universe and take revenge on the martians...they'd have martian looking ships and troops, have biological tech (derived from backwards-engineering all the martian stuff and combining it with the obvious desire of the humans to have engineered bio-weapons since they worked so well), and they'd be paranoid fanatical humans with a bloodlust for aliens...that would be a neat race to play...if I were a shipset maker, it's one I would make (hint, hint...)

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


Alarik

Re: OT: WOTW
 

It might just be me, but every time I see a movie where the Human race is nearly defeated by aliens but in the end defeats them (such as ID4 or WotW), instead of thinking "Oh no, how will the human race recover" I always think "Now we can analyze the alien technology and then start expanding into space" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: OT: WOTW
 

I would want to watch when something unusual and dangerous occurs, especially if it's aliens attacking. I wouldn't want to be too close to it, but watch from a distance. It probably won't be safe even from a distance if it's close enough to see the destruction, but I'd be very curious.

Re: OT: WOTW
 

The only problem with that is you know we would only gain one level in each form of technology more advanced than our own.

=o)

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No, we'd gain one level per ship that we analyzed, more in techs that provide multiple components that the aliens use. We'd also get to skip all those expensive theoretical techs they had to research http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Re: OT: WOTW
 

Yeah, but given that we don't even have a colony on another empire, are you sure our culture isn't neutral?

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I hope we're not neutral. We'll have to wait for a space anomaly to randomly teleport our ships to another system. It's OK, we're probably not neutral because we still have another 395 years before we have to start expanding into space, so there's plenty of time.

Re: OT: WOTW
 

Well, could also be neutral happiness type.

I mean, pretty much anything will get some segment of the population angry. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif