Assuming this deleted scene exists (I have no idea one way or the other), given that this was Mr. Scott’s second feature it’s unlikely that he had final edit. Therefore, the decision to axe the scene may not have been his… which means the blame isn’t on him, either.
I am in love with this post and want to marry it.
In War of the Worlds it is NOT a plot hole that Robbie (the teenage son) did not die:
- Not everybody on a battlefield dies.
- Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning ran to the nearest farmhouse to the battle and they didn’t die.
So, why insist that Robbie should be dead? Didn’t we just see two characters hole-up (in a target, nonetheless!) about 150 yards away during the same battle… and live?
And it’s not a plot hole that the aliens rose up from the ground. Nothing in the film states that they’ve been there for years, decades, centuries… some characters speculate that this is so, but they have no more way of knowing the truth than the audience. And that’s the entire point of the film: the dislocation and confusion caused by war and how it effects one person (and, by extension, his family.)
And also Harry was being really stupid that whole book and not thinking of the best solutions
I kinda-sorta agree with you. You’re entirely correct about the aliens rising up from the ground; I never thought we were supposed to take the character’s word on how they got there as gospel, and anyway I took the lightning strikes as combination replicator rays/transporter beams. And it doesn’t even bother me that no one puts that together. H.G. Wells obviously never wrote his novel in this world (assuming he existed at all); science fiction is probably altogether different there (if it exists at all).
But I do have a problem with the son surviving. Not because it’s any less improbable that the Cruise character or his little girl surviving; it just feels like a cheat.
The one that comes to mind is from Kill Bill Vol. 1. IIRC a critic at the time mentioned that there was no way that Kiddo could have gotten that sword on the plane. He missed one of the best jokes in the movie - the airline let you bring them on board. Everyone had a samurai sword on the flight - there were hooks next to the seats where you were allowed to stow them.
IMHO, stated repeatedly on this board, the film would’ve been near-perfect if the following happened:
- Dakota Fanning died after Robbie left,
- Robbie still lived
Assume nothing about the setting for the ending had changed (Cruise approaching the brownstones), except that Cruise is carrying Fanning’s lifeless body to her mother. He looks up, tears in his eyes only to see Robbie appear from behind the door.
Cruise’s ex-wife runs to him, screaming curses as she tears the lifeless figure away from him. Cruise breaks down, slowly sinks to his knees, his immolation complete as he realizes: A horrible father his entire life, his kids had a better chance of surviving an alien invasion by running away from Dad than having him protect them.
The last shot before Morgan Freeman starts narrating is filmed from the POV of Robbie’s home. A distraught Cruise, still slumped in the middle of the street with Robbie reaching over and slowly closing the door on his father, Cruises broken form the last thing you see. (Think Kay in GF2)
Problem is, that’s a Fincher/Aronofsky ending, not a Spielberg one. 
If E.T. could fly at the end of the movie, why didn’t he fly at the beginning of the movie and save himself?
Ah, but E.T. can’t fly – he can levitate objects, such as kids’ bicycles, but he can’t make himself levitate, for whatever reason. So why didn’t he grab a tree branch or something and use that to levitate to the ship? I dunno…panic, maybe? We often make bad decisions in a desperate situation – for example, if I had only thought to use that bear spray, I’d have two arms now.
Picking plants in the middle of one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world wasn’t the greatest decision by ET’s captain either, especially if you need to avoid the natives. Why not go to the Amazon, or upper Canada, or Siberia… you know, anywhere that’s NOT LOS ANGELES?
Complaining about errors in KB1 shows me that you (the royal “you”, not you specifically, Morbo) really didn’t pay attention.
I remember somebody who said it was “unrealistic” that the Bride would be able to walk again merely by willing it, but didn’t seem to have a problem that she did this while sitting, for hours in the car of the man she just killed, in the last place he parked it. :rolleyes:
There’s a similar moment, though: Harry Dean Stanton, not long before he gets kacked, stumbles across what appears to be a shedded alien skin. If the alien is shedding its skin, that means it’s growing.
I don’t recall any deleted scene(s) supporting this, but I do recall it being mentioned in passing in the Alan Dean Foster novelization of the movie.
But since the crew is shown eating several meals, it’s not beyond reason that there’s food stores on the ship. Yes, it may have been nice to show some empty food packs to lead you directly to the realization that, yes, the Alien has been eating and thus growing, but it’s not really necessary beyond nit-picking to see it.
But Khan immediately recognized Chekov too. Someone told a story at a convention (it was one of the guests; I forget whom), that Khan was looking for a bathroom and having a really hard time doing so, and he really had to go. The only one he could find had Chekov in it. He said, “You! I will never forget your face!”
Can I subscribe to your newsletter? <squeak squeak squeak>
You forget that the car totally blended in with the other cars.
But as for learning to walk again by willing it – I don’t have a problem with that. She wasn’t learning to walk again. She was trying to wiggle her big toe. I always assumed that she regained control a little at a time, giving herself more and more physical therapy over the course of weeks or months.
Naw, it’s shown that she steps out of the truck to get in the front.
But yeah… I do have trouble finding my Pussy Wagon because it blends in with the other vehicles at church, so I guess my point is rather moot.
Not weeks. Decades. If not centuries.
They were travelling between solar systems parsecs (the unit of distance, not the closely related unit of time) apart, at speeds significantly slower than the speed of light. Even if the Falcon could move at 0.99C - and why would it? - it would still take them years. I’d say food was the least of their problems.
Yes she killed the guy in the hospital… does anyone else know that guy drives “the pussy wagon?” It could be hours before the police get to that point in an investigation. I don’t see what the problem is with that part.
I think they were using that special “Kessel run” technology Han boasted of in the first movie.
She pulls a keyring out of his pocket that says “Pussy Wagon.”
As she is wheeling herself through the parking lot, she sees a truck called “Pussy Wagon.”
Looking down at the keyring, “Pussy Wagon” is in the same font and color as what she sees on the truck.
Using the keys she pulled from the guy she just killed, she unlocks the door and crawls in the back.
I think that last bit is what tipped me off.