Except for they dying off part.
I’ll bite.
Let’s say they arrived with the lightning. The reporter confidently declares that it’s just the pilots “riding the lightning” down to the tripods, based on a few frames of NTSC video. WTF does she know?
The aliens have some kind of c-razy technology that they’ve developed for interstellar conquest. What’s the single most daunting problem they face? Getting thousands and thousands of tons of invasion hardware out of the gravity well of their own planet and to the target planet.
They avoid this problem by sending mechanical “seeds.” The tripods didn’t appear to have any terran-like tunnelling gear. How’d they get through all that rock? Where did the displaced material go?
I suggest that the aliens sent the smallest possible machines that were equipped with advanced tech that allowed them to self-assemble into the tripods, drawing raw material and energy for the process from the Earth itself. This would explain how they got out without months of excavation crews, and possibly also why the earth around the site was freezing cold.
That, or a wizard did it.
And Canadians have found the Wal*Martians’ fatal weakness – collective bargaining. You get unionized workers into one of those behemoths and it’s like it was never there. 
Larry Mudd, I like the way you think. Except that they would have to assemble that stuff by magic for it to work in the time frame show in the movie, I think you’ve got a good idea.
But wait – this is a Hollywood science fiction movie. Why are we looking for logic and believability??? <smacks forehead>
Saw the movie this weekend, but I’m too lazy to re-read the entire thread, so pardon any repeating of previous points…
I went into this movie “cold” – didn’t know anything about it other than it was a remake of the Wells’ play. I was expecting a sci-fi action movie, but WOTW seemed more like a horror flick to me. Pity, since I don’t care for horror.
My suspension of disbelief got derailed when Tom Cruise and the kids left his ex-wife’s house and continued driving to Boston. It made no sense whatsoever for them to leave – they had shelter, they were in a relatively overlooked area, they had a working vehicle. They could have easily hunkered down for the interm, emerging at night to forage, but they wanted to move on instead. Why? “Because then Spielberg could show us the other nifty scenes in the flick,” duh. :smack: Other moments of stupidity, such as everyone going for the brightly lit and highly visible ferry (read: target) and the aliens come a-knockin’ like Amway salesmen, just reinforced the contrived nature of the film.
Yeah, it was a fun popcorn spooky fright-fest, but realizing that the story was just an excuse to roll out the various set-pieces ruined it for me. In the end, I wish I had seen Batman Begins instead.
I, too, am of the two movies persuasion. I mean the movie I saw had the same actors and director, the same title, the same events as the one being praised here. How come the one I saw sucked so bad? There were some good scenes, the train and the bodies in the river were excellent for really setting the scene, but the rest… Since other have done it, open spoilers follow:
I think the funniest part was the sphincter that SS stole from Evolution, how lame is it to steal from a movie that bad?
The tripods could not be hurt because of the shields, but the shields go down when the the driver dies? Odd, that.
The purpose of the tripods was to harvest humans. While it may be true to the original story to have them drained individually, it sure is inefficent. And in the one sceen we see the guy drained on the ground (so Tom can get a look), but later they are sucked into the tripod, for apparently the same purpose.
Where did the drivers come from? They rode the lightning Down but from what? Was that an intergalactic transporter we saw?
Not only was the 9/11 imagery pervasive, it was sure manipulative, too. SS is the master of manipulation, and I guess it’s OK if you go for it, but it struck me as very heavy handed.
Other have addressed the behavior of the kids and the oh so sappy ending, as well as the miracle tires on the van, and the stupid decision to push toward Boston. Those comments were “spot on” as they say where the original was written.
Speaking of the original, it was noted that this telling was true to the 1898 original. I would have been much more accepting of the paper thin plot had the movie been set then. But it was made as a 2005 movie, and it needed 2005 sensibilities to be addressed to work. Additionally, to accept the ending is to accept that humanity will never be able to colonize another planet.
This would have been the first movie I ever walked out of had I not caught it with my brother-in-law, who drove.
"It is a time of uncertainty. The
empire’s ambiguous tariff statutes
mandate close reexamination of
galactic import quotas. Interim
Princess Agoomba has co-chaired
a subcommittee to draft amendments
to existing trade policies
Meanwhile, regulatory agencies
are being heavily lobbied by a
consortium of mercantile interest
groups and their suppliers to
streamline loading restrictions for
class C cargo vessels. The shipping…"
I tend to lean towards the “tripod seeds” theory myself. There are simply too many ways a buried machine, even one buried thousands of feet down, could’ve been found before it could’ve been activated. Nanotech sounds like a good solution- the lightning was some sort of tunnelling effect, or a power beam, and the pod was a nanotech seed.
Also, I got really excited when we saw the red vines dying in Boston… because it was on a statue. A statue made of copper. I thought, “Hey! They’re changing the ending! It’s COPPER that’s poisonous to the aliens!” A shame I was wrong. While the book’s ending is a good ending… in the movie, it just seemed anticlimactic.
About halfway through the movie, Mrs. Lightin’ leaned over and said, “Can’t the whole family just DIE already?”
Not a great movie. I don’t want my money back, 'cause the tripods sure were purty… but I have no desire to see it again.
Ummm…because a fucking JETLINER had just crashed into the neighborhood and demolished the whole fucking house? Did you forget that part? And just before the news crew left, they heard the foghorn of one of the tripods approaching. Did you hit the bathroom in the middle of the scene or something?
Sounds like the Mrs. is a wise woman indeed, i was thinking the same thing throughout the film, it would make it a much stronger (and darker) film if it would’ve slowly killed off the main characters…
i’m so sick and tired of this frelling “happy ending” crap, talk about pandering to the lowest common denominator, this is a disaster movie ferchrissakes, it shouldn’t have a reset-buton happy ending, it strains the credibility of the film…
here’s how i’d rewrite key scenes in the film…
[spoiler]
start off by having the son join up with the army as it drives past their parked minivan, and hear nothing more about him for the rest of the movie…
the daughter gets slurped up by the tripod sensor thingy in Crazy Shotgun Guy’s basement after she screams, stupidly revealing their position, we don’t hear from her again…
Cruise can either get shot by CSG, or sucked into the Sphincter of Doom with the grenades, tripod go BOOM, Cruise dies a warrior’s death in battle and therefore is allowed to join his fellow warriors, the Honored Dead, in Sto-Vo-Kor (oops, sorry, my Klingon is showing…)
once the Cruise-Crew 
is gone, switch to the Boston family listening to the reports on the news, intersposed with final battle footage/mopup/aftermath, perhaps a short funeral scene to bring closure to the family (as a stinger after the credits perhaps?)
this would reinforce the whole “no happy ending/reset button” plotline and make the film far stronger, it takes guts to kill off established characters the audience identifies with, [/spoiler] the feel-good ending ruined the film for me…
that said, the film wasn’t totally dissapointing, it was a decent, mindless, “turn your brain off and enjoy” film, up until the “hollywood” ending
You get very emotional when people disagree with you about movies. You do know that movies don’t love you back, right?
Don’t make me bust out Clarke’s third law on ya. 
And you get very snarkish. So much so that you assume I am emotional and in what way.
Precisely the point I was making before. Sure, people stare at weird or incredible things, but not if there’s clear and imminent danger. The 100+ foot monstrosity with tentacles that erupted from the ground can only be interpreted as “not good”. People who were staring at the burning 9-11 towers (at least the first one) had no idea that they were going to collapse, and people who stood and watched the tsunami come in had no idea of the danger they were in until it was too late. So I don’t think that the mob behavior at the initial appearance of the tripods was realistic. Their behavior later when the danger was obvious was believable, as was their behavavior when they jumped on Cruise when he stupidly tried to drive through the crowd. But who says movies need to be completely realistic; sometimes credibility is stretched for dramatic effect. And that’s what Spielberg did at times.
Considering their basement survived the crash intact, I would think it’d make a great place to hide. Who’s going to expect survivors under a wrecked airliner?
I don’t remember that part; I think the lack of concern from Tom Cruise in that scene didn’t help any.
I still think the “keep moving towards Boston” plan made no sense. Unless you’ve got a Big-Ass Anti-Tripod MegaNuke[sup]TM[/sup] cannon in your back pocket, the smart thing to do would be to stay hidden and hunkered down.
You should see him on politics.
I’m about to demonstrate the shallowness and materialism of me, but I was jarred out of it right at the beginning when Ray is tapping his watch–close up of watch–and it’s a damn Omega. I’m sorry but I find it highly doubtful he’d have a 9K to 20K watch (estimate–I don’t really remember which particular model it was). Wasn’t he complaining about his lack of money at one point? The way his character is written it doesn’t ring true that he’d have that watch. Maybe an Armitron or a Timex. I can see him spending a whole bunch of money on an engine, but not a watch. Maybe it was a gift from a loved one. Who knows. But it kind of bugged me. It seemed out of character.
Geez, I’m shallow.
Well, Cruise’s poor decision-making was the whole point, I thought. Some of the characters make idiotic decisions simply because they don’t have the slightest clue what to do in the face of aliens laying waste to everything in sight, and I thought this aspect of the film rang true.
In the Cruise character’s case, he has no idea how to adopt a survivalist mode, and although he’s not so cold as to abandon his kids outright, pretty much his only instincts are to get them back to their Mom so that he doesn’t have to deal with them (there is an exchange of dialogue that states this explicitly) while he, presumably, runs away as fast as he can.
Great thread. And hey — a pretty good movie too.
Saw the movie a few days ago with the wife, and it’s still fairly fresh in my memory. Fresh enough that I think I can dispute some of the “goofs” and “trivia” listed on the film’s IMDB pages — but which I hope people here will help confirm or deny…
I don’t think that’s what we saw, but I’m not sure. I think, from the outside shot, we see the peanut butter side of the bread as it slides down the inside surface of the window. Does anyone remember better?
As others have pointed out, that’s Morgan Freeman talking. He’s also listed in the credits (at the IMDB, no less!) as the narrator.
Don’t think so. It’s “Little Deuce Coup” by the Beach Boys.
So … am I right?
Tom sings Duece Coup but later Dakota sings Hushabye Mountain as Tom goes after Tim Robbins.
As to the “Why go to Boston” question, remember that Dakota wanted her mom. They could have put a more sympathetic twist to Tom and have his motivation be that he still loved his ex and he had to find her but really he just wanted to take Dakota back to her mom. I though he should have said at the end “I thought you were going to pick up the kids on Sunday night! Where the hell have you been!”
I didn’t say I know this. I’m speculating, and trying to have fun doing so without having snide smilies and sarcasm thrown my way.
A planet seems rather important to a civilization. It has all the goodies we’ve all come to love–stuff like life support, for one. If I realize my planet’s deteriorating and overcrowding is becoming an issue, and I should happen to find a nice blue one over yonder unoccupied by any intelligent lifeforms, I would sure as hell get there fast. Even if my planet’s not yet that bad, I know I would eventually need one in the future. And it’s hard to turn down all that free resources and real estate.
And oh, remotely assembling nanobots are AWESOME. And Baine’s theory about sending the mechanical parts before the pilots because of technological limitations makes sense too.