Hey, not looking for an argument but I am really curious as to why this movie got quite a bit of hate?
I have not read the novel and would like to know what was changed or how they differ? Regardless, I stand by that the acting was top, whether the story was up to scratch or not. Thanks :)
I think you'd have to be brain dead to truly hate this movie.
The opening scene where the tripods emerge and begin attacking is spine tinglingly fantastic. One of the best things Spielbergs ever done. Movie deserves a 7/10 for that sequence alone.
Limit of the Willing Suspension of Disbelief: directly proportional to it's awesomeness.
I didnt like the movie because it wasnt quite scifi, it focused to heavily on the family but it isnt really a family movie either. It seems to be in a niche all its own that noone cares about. Id like it if the movie was more scifi.
START THE REVOLUTION! SHRED THE GOVERNMENT! My favorite movie is V for Vendetta.
BridgetTheFish
I didn't hate it. I rather enjoyed it for what it was. There were some things that could have been better handled plot wise. And the kids were just annoying as hell after a while. But putting all that aside I enjoyed it for what it was. The attack scenes were intense. The noise that the tripods made right before they attacked is classic as far as I am concerned. I think that people were expecting better from a team like Spielberg and Cruise. But like I stated I enjoyed it.
share[deleted]
The acting is OK, but no Oscars. The worst thing about it is what is typical of many modern movies. They just don't know how to tell a story. The action meanders seemingly at random until a resolution falls out of the sky. In the 1953 version the resolution was just as disconnected, as it was in the book, but along the way there is a story. In this version every scene is disconnected.
shareThe acting is OK, but no Oscars. The worst thing about it is what is typical of many modern movies. They just don't know how to tell a story. The action meanders seemingly at random until a resolution falls out of the sky. In the 1953 version the resolution was just as disconnected, as it was in the book, but along the way there is a story. In this version every scene is disconnected.I think you may have misunderstood the movie. The main story of the movie wasn't the alien invasion, but the emotional bonding between Ray and his daughter (and son). In that respect, this movie was similar to Signs (2002).
Hey, not looking for an argument but I am really curious as to why this movie got quite a bit of hate?
I have not read the novel and would like to know what was changed or how they differ? Regardless, I stand by that the acting was top, whether the story was up to scratch or not. Thanks :)
Your Reply:
Because the original Hg Wells story is so vastly superior to this awful film. i hated it when it first came out and I hate it probably even more now.
(Spoilers below from 1958 version)
I just really think there was a lot of disconnect throughout the story. And there was some things that just really didn't make any sense. In a good story, I would think you would simplify it a little. For example, in the George Pal version, the main characters were the scientist and his girlfriend -that's it. They met at a dance, and experienced the horror of the alien attack together. And events seemed to flow better. The alien tripods come down as meteors, and that's what everyone is misled to believe in the beginning - for more plausible for the audience. And the main theme of technology trying to overpower and defeat the aliens was central. Towards the end of the film, you find that everyone is simply overwhelmed, exhausted and hopeless. You see them praying, and then - all the fighting ceases. You find out it's because of the bacterial infection.
In this current version, you have the family dynamic, military, isolation, and then everything suddenly resolves itelf. It's too much. And yes, the annoying kids, and Robbie just showing up at the end without an explanation is way too farfetched. A very disjointed film, but, it does have great atmosphere, set design and special effects.
The acting was top? If by that you mean, you liked the acting, then I can't imagine what you consider bad acting. Tom's performance was horrible. And/or his performance was horribly directed. He spouted off lines throughout, sounded completely disjointed and disengaged from the other characters. Worst T.C. performance I've ever seen and most of the time I don't mind his acting. The movie was not very entertaining, left a lot of unexplained plot points and sorry but the ending was a huge let down. The aliens just die? Well ok, but the movie doesn't explain that! I'm sure the book was far better.
shareWatch the movie again. It's explained at the very end.
shareThe way I saw it,
1 - The kids were incredibly annoying characters, and weren't even in the book either. They were an unnecessary and totally unrealistic addition. (Look up scenarios involving civilian children in a war-zone scenario. They will indeed shut up and remain silent when they need to be. It's called survival instinct).
2 - Why name a movie after a book if you are not even remotely going to follow it. The opening lines, and the ending, are the only things the movie has in common with the book. They used none of the original characters, they made ridiculous and illogical changes to the Martians (green lightning, buried underground for millennia, invincible forcefields, none of that crap was in the book).
3 - The kids. Seriously, I'm a father, and even I don't believe anyone has the patience to put up with either of those two. Kids have a tendency to grow up very quickly in an urgent situation, not throw tempter tantrums (again: survival instinct).
The technical aspects of the film were great. And while I'm no fan of Tom Cruise, he is a tolerable actor. It wasn't his fault Ray Ferrier was such a twit. Also, the kids were loathesome brats. When a screenplay that is trying to tell a meaningful story fails to create characters the audience can relate to, the show's over. My reaction was closer to anger in that a great chance to revive a classic tale had been so expensively squandered.
shareDespite the annoying characters the film is a decently faithful interpretation of the book with some aspects from the 21st century, narrated in first person.
The daughter at the beginning of the film was shown to be more adult than her father and brother. The problem is that after the first scene in the car where she screams it becomes impossible to tolerate her anymore. My idea is that someone forgot to read up on child psychology in crisis situations, so they thought that making her scream in every *beep* situation will make for an awesome movie. Well, it didn't.
"a decently faithful interpretation of the book...."
Seriously, dude, what book are you reading? Because the beginning narration, red weed, a random guy named Ogilvy, and the ending are similar, you call that a decently faithful adaption??
Faithful interpretation is not the same as faithful adaptation. The first implies that the general atmosphere and most/many aspects that do not relate to individual characters in the book are preserved as seen by the director/producer/writer, the second implies that you just adapt the book to make a movie out of it, like what they did with the Harry Potter books.
shareYes, I do agree that adaption and interpretation are different and I would define them as you did. Nice! No arguing that!
I still don't consider this movie a faithful interpretation either. I honestly feel that the entire novel, through out, showed that mankind was in trouble. Nothing could stop them. With the movie, I only felt that the family was in trouble. No true sense of impeding doom on mankind. The book express how we as man felt on top and even threw the greatest weapon we had at the martians and lost. That was lost in the film, giving it a lesser feel of doom and hopelessness. I just don't feel it to be a good adaptation or interpretation, which ever way you fry it.
Maybe one day, someone will capture both the atmosphere and the non character aspects, while still keeping it in the same setting with the same characters.