Spielberg is directing?
I predict he will add a pair of adorable children to the script, and they will scream every line of their dialogue while bouncing from one menace to the next.
[Note to Spielberg: Please. Please. Please. No adorable screaming kids.]
The deathrays from the tripods will probably be replaced by giant flashlights :smack:
They’ll be giant fingers with lightbulbs in them, and they’ll moan “owwwwwwwch” when somebody stubs a toe.
I’ve heard some vague rumor that Jeff Wayne is trying to make an animated film version of his musical album .
I’d actually be really interested in seeing that, if it’s true.
I’m gonna say it’ll be a suckfest. Why? Well, if the info and pics on this page are correct, then they’re not doing it as a period piece, it’s going to be present day or some time in the near future. :rolleyes:
Mars Attacks! was quite good. Thing is… my wife’s reaction to it, and mine, were very different, and I think our reactions kind of explain why a lot of people didn’t get it.
I thought it was hilarious; the archtypical 1950s Martian invasion as played out by Chuck Jones and Bob Clampett, complete with all the stereotypes and enough horror to make it stick.
My wife, on the other hand, didn’t have the background in cheesy old sci-fi movies and Tim Burton films, and didn’t realize it was a comedy at first. She didn’t know WHAT the hell to make of it. I suspect much of America shared her reaction.
I liked Independence Day. I thought it was a fine, mindless, exciting popcorn flick. Then again, I went in expecting just that. The one thing that bothered me is the scene where they try using a nuclear weapon on the saucer over Houston. The scene is damn near a shot-for-shot STEAL of the scene in George Pal’s WOTW where they try the Atom Bomb on the Martian manta-ray machines. Only thing missing was Les Tremayne.
Well, that, and the scene where the dog escapes being incinerated by a firestorm by simply leaping through a doorway.
I loved Sky Captain. I suspect, however, that the retro look is what sank it at the box office. That, and its underpublicization by the studio. Your teeners took one look at it, thought it looked like something off Turner Classic Movies, and didn’t show up in droves. Their loss. Even the reviews I read mentioned that the audiences in the theatres were skewing “over thirty.” I think it’ll do wonderfully on DVD.
Tom Cruise doesn’t bother me. Spielberg, on the other hand… well, he didn’t put any screaming children or cute aliens in *Saving Private Ryan * or Schindler’s List. Maybe he can treat this project with the respect and seriousness it deserves. Gonna withhold judgment on that.
The studio, now… the studio scares me. I agree completely with the idea that the backing studio’ll just want a mindless money-spawning blockbuster, and to hell with all the ideas and concepts that made the original any good at all. The novel does NOT flow at all like your typical Hollywood flick, and someone in the production line just isn’t going to like that at all… and the only way it’s going to stay anything like the book is if someone with plenty of clout like Spielberg demands that it is so.
It’s anyone’s guess. The off-the-set pix I’ve seen, though, would seem to indicate that this film is NOT a period piece; costumes appear to be modern.
Master Wang-Ka, I got that it was a comedy before I saw the film, but still didn’t find it funny. (And if you start in about it being satire, we’re going to the Pit. 
)
As for "no screaming kids in Saving Private Ryan are you forgetting the scene where Vin Diesel’s character gets killed? You know, the French family has tried to force the platoon to take their very young daughter, thinking that she’ll somehow be safer with them, and then Vin Diesel gets shot to hell.
In a word: We’re boned.
“Retro look”. Hmmm. There’s this stuff we use a lot in the lab called “parafim”. It’s a typical lab-school-geek stunt to take parafilm and stretch it over the lenses of your buddy’s glasses when he’s set them down and isn’t looking. Your buddy puts the glasses back on, sees everything through a milky haze, has a hilarious “wtf?” moment, and then proceeds to beat you about the head and neck when your sniggering implicates you.
I found watching Sky Captain a bit like being the guy with the waxy film on his glasses. What some people called nostalgic sepia-toned stylization I called “murky and washed-out blandness”. Drowning most of the otherwise-impressive CGI in ersatz Depression-era fog struck me as a bit self-defeating. IMO, the homage got in the way of the visuals more than it enhanced them in any aesthetic sense.
Well, this was one part of a movie, as opposed to, ghod help us, The Goonies, or ET. Cute kiddies in one or two scenes I can handle. Cute kiddies riding throughout the entire movie, now… eeyuch.
I can but hope that Spielberg resists the urge.
I see your point, but I also can’t help but think that once you get past that, it adds to the experience. I’ve spoken to several people who found the sepia-toned look distracting… and I’ve spoken to several who felt that it enhanced that retro-feeling, “alternate universe” experience. Hell, I’ve even spoken to a few who thought that the Indiana Jones movies – period pieces, all – suffered for being too “modern-looking.”
All a matter of perspective, I think.
Wow, such vitriol from an announcement. I may do something wacky and withold judgement until the movie is released.
Or could avoid the rush and start hating it now. . . .
According to on-set pics from aintitcool, its a modern day telling of the story, unless they had GAP fashion and Nike trainers in the early 1900’s. Apparently, cruise isnt trying to save the world, just his family, which looks to include (gag) Dakota Fanning. Theres Spielbergs cute kid in peril box checked, so. However, early production art does point toward huge plant-like creatures! Ace. You should also be aware of a second WOTW in production at the minute, although this version has “straight to rental” written all over it. But its full title is “H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds” and IS set in the early 1900’s, as early pictures of the cavalry firing cannons at ships in a field are available online. Sorry I cant post links, I’m new to all this. But its all there on AINTITCOOL, so…
It’s buried, but I found it. There’s two ways to post links. The first is to simply just paste them in like so: WOTWKEY - WAR OF THE WORLDS Official Movie Website
The second, and better way when you’ve got a really long url is to do this {url=“WOTWKEY - WAR OF THE WORLDS Official Movie Website”}hyperlink will appear here{/url} if you use brackets instead of braces. That one looks like it might be cool.
I guess it has much to do with Spielberg’s track record for smaltzly films and the fact he’s making a film a way that really doesn’t need to be remade. There was already a War of the Worlds remake made, set in Modern Times, and it was called Independence Day.
I wouldn’t be suprised at all if he replaced all the Heat Rays with walkie talkies.
A bump, because a new trailer for the time period authentic piece is due out on Jan. 6.
Damnit… the problem with setting the story in the modern day is that you have to change the Martians. Take the Martians exactly as described by Wells, have them arrive in 2005… and we win the war in two days.
