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War of the Worlds

Discussion in 'Sensorium' started by Apeman, Jun 30, 2005.

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  1. Apeman Gems: 25/31
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    [​IMG] Saw it last night. Great movie.

    The special effects blew me away but what really did it for me was the sound effects. The sound effect created so much tension at points in the movie it felt *real*. Cruise was quite decent in his role.

    The only thing was the ending, I didn't mind the actual 'solving' of the problem in the end, but that typical american hollywood movie ending made me :sick:

    Overall very good.
     
    Apeman, Jun 30, 2005
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  2. Aikanaro Gems: 31/31
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    This movie looks far too much like a 'Oh, let's unnecessarilly butcher a classic book by modernising, Americanising, and Hollywoodising it' kind of movie for my tastes ... and I haven't even read the book...
     
    Aikanaro, Jun 30, 2005
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  3. khazadman Gems: 6/31
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    I can only imagine what Spielberg did to it. Just once I'd like to see someone do this one by the book. I suppose the closest we'll come is the album that was done by Jeff Wayne back in the 70's.
     
    khazadman, Jun 30, 2005
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  4. Cúchulainn Gems: 28/31
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    I heard it was good, but Spielberg is such an arrogant **** that it will surely not be as good as the book. I dread to see how he will ruin 'The Eye', which was a great Hong Kong horror. Why can't that bastard do something original these days?
     
    Cúchulainn, Jun 30, 2005
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  5. The Kilted Crusader

    The Kilted Crusader The Famous Last words "Hey guys, watch THIS!" Veteran

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    I'd heard that when they broadcasted the book on radio, America started evacuating cities because they thought it was real ;)

    Almost completely untrue I would think, but you never know. :D

    The movie looks pretty good (Lot's of funky explosions are always good), but I'll have to go see it to give you a proper opinion on it.
     
    The Kilted Crusader, Jun 30, 2005
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  6. khazadman Gems: 6/31
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    I'm just glad they chose not to let him direct any of the Harry Potter films.
     
    khazadman, Jun 30, 2005
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  7. Apeman Gems: 25/31
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    5 people bashing it without having seen it. Well....an insightful thread this will be :rolleyes: :mad:
     
    Apeman, Jun 30, 2005
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  8. Sir Goulum Gems: 3/31
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    Saw it at midnight on Tuesday, and I thought it was ok. The ending absolutely killed it, though. I don't care if it was how the book ended or whatever, I thought it was just stupid.
     
    Sir Goulum, Jul 1, 2005
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  9. Harbourboy

    Harbourboy Take thy form from off my door! Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    I'm only going to see it if it has Thunderchild, a handful of men starting over again, and someone saying "the chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one". Some red weed is also essential, as is Ogilvy the astronomer.
     
    Harbourboy, Jul 1, 2005
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  10. Cúchulainn Gems: 28/31
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    Dont' know if this is true or not, but someone on IMBD message board for WoTWs says that Stevie wanted Harry Potter to be set in a US highschool complete with cheerleaders etc(!) and use that awful boy actor from the 6th Sense as Harry.

    Thank goodness Rowling has some sense and integrity.

    A guy at work told me he seen it last night (opening night here) and it was shallow on plot but excessive on action sequences. Unfortunately I have to watch it tonight, but at least if my hopes are not too high, I may get some enjoyment out of it :D
     
    Cúchulainn, Jul 1, 2005
    #10
  11. Daie d'Malkin

    Daie d'Malkin Shoulda gone to Specsavers

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    @The Kilted Crusader- Yes they did. People thought it was actually happening.
     
    Daie d'Malkin, Jul 2, 2005
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  12. nior Gems: 24/31
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    Saw it over the weekend. It's all eye-candy showing incredible special effects of destruction... that's all folks. Story is flat, plots are stupid, too much loopholes, actings are irritating (even if you can say they are good), pointless characters, too much coincidence or was the an incredible slew of luck that keep them alive, and best of all, **** SPOILERS **** The invasion was a split-second decision by the aliens, no advance party to breath the air and drink the water... I'm being sarcastic here and you'll understand what I mean if you have watch it. Btw, I haven't read the book.

    [ July 04, 2005, 05:22: Message edited by: nior ]
     
    nior, Jul 4, 2005
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  13. Cúchulainn Gems: 28/31
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    I seen it and it was all special effects - a great movie if you like that sort of thing, but I prefer good acting, good plot and original ideas. I shall stick to the 1950's version, and better still the book.

    Do you have a link to prove this?
     
    Cúchulainn, Jul 4, 2005
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  14. Foradasthar Gems: 21/31
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    A good one-time watch for the special effects, as they were really nice and you don't have too many movies out there where you really see parts of the world & cities etc blown apart. Not something I'll want to see again though. And the plot? Well I've never read the book but I sure hope it wasn't this stupid.

    I've seen a lot of illogical and dumb plots in my life but this hits the jackpot in being the most dumb one I remember. It's not the type made in crakhaze or somesuch, it's just plain stupid.

    Here are the few main points I'll bother to sum up:

    ** SPOIL **







    First, army isn't that stupid. If they can't hurt it, they won't just put in more and more and more of the same until they have nothing left. If people running the show were that retarded, I'd be controlling the world by now. They'd retreat to come up with an alternate plan. And if nothing worked, they'd store up the warfare and try other methods until they found a working one. Or keep forever hidden and trying until something would work or they'd be dragged out to die. No modern military will use suicide tactics like that.

    If they'd observed people for so long, how come they never realised even humans had come up with a thing called "thermal vision". The alien ability to be completely oblivious to people (especially Tom Cruise and the crew) around them in the dark was just amazing. A damn russian tank would have outsmarted them there easily. What was that stupid horn thing there for anyway? To instill panic? How about to warn everyone that they better hide or the evil alien is going to kill them. Which was kinda exactly opposite to what the evil alien would have wanted. Not to mention the obvious stupidity in not understanding that the mirror and the boot that hadn't been in the house where Cruise and the kids had gone to, hadn't been there a few seconds before. Hardly takes a genious to figure out that a rat didn't move them there either.

    And then the worst, the thing that made this plot the most ridiculously crappy one I've ever seen before (I think, can't remember them all, sometimes your defenses go up in denial). They have prepared for a million years. What's the first thing they do when they come down? They drink water that contains cellular life-forms (don't know what "Tohvelieläin" is in English) that've been present everywhere for those millions of years, which is 100% lethal to them. That's just incredible, totally unbelievable. Ridiculously laughable. The first thing a human will come up with when speaking of alien environments is to make sure it's safe for you. And then we have an alien lifeform, that over a million years ago already had technology far far far more advanced than ours now. And over those millions of years and the development they must've gone through during it, they never thought to check if this place was even habitable by them?

    That one thing completely destroyed the movie for me. Do the masses really not care? Is it just "oo a glowing little butterfly!" for them, with at least some measure of realism and logic playing no role in anything at all? Or was the script writer / director just too dumb to notice or not care? Honestly, if you can't make a movie without a plot that's so dumb that a dog will laugh out in mental superiority, don't make one at all. Please.

    All effects, nothing of anything else. Tom Cruise did a good job acting, but sadly no acting could've made things any better.
     
    Foradasthar, Jul 4, 2005
    #14
  15. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    [​IMG] Cesard, it's a well-known fact and a rather funny piece of history...

    This is from Wikipedia:

    Public reaction

    Many people missed or ignored the opening credits of the program, and in the atmosphere of growing tension and anxiety in the days leading up to World War II, took it to be an actual news broadcast. Panic ensued, with people fleeing the area, and others thinking they could smell the poison gas or could see the flashes of the fighting in the distance.

    There has been speculation that many panicked listeners missed these warnings because the Mercury Theatre ran opposite the very popular Edgar Bergen show. About twelve minutes into Bergen's program a musical number began, and many listeners presumably tired of the song and "changed the channel, and came upon reporter 'Carl Philips' in the field near Grover's Mill, New Jersey. By the time the break came, with the announcement that this was just a play, most of them had already gone off screaming." [1] According to the documentary, The Battle over Citizen Kane the Carl Philips segment was intentionally timed to occur at the moment many listeners were expected to be "channel surfing" (although that term was decades away from being widely used) during Bergen's musical interlude which occurred at the same time in every episode.

    Several people rushed to the "scene" of the events in New Jersey to see if they could catch a glimpse of the unfolding events, including a few astronomers from Princeton University who went looking for the "meteorite" that had supposedly fallen near their school. Some people, who had brought firearms, reportedly mistook a local farmer's water tower for an alien spaceship and shot the tower.

    Initially Grover's Mill was deserted, but eventually crowds developed as more and more people rushed to the area. Eventually police were sent to the area to help control the panicked crowds. To people arriving later in the evening, the scene really did look like the events being narrated on the radio broadcast, with panicked crowds and flashing police lights streaming across the masses.

    Many people called CBS, newspapers or the police in confusion over the realism of the simulated news bulletins. There were instances of panic scattered throughout the US as a result of the broadcast, especially in New York and New Jersey.

    Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, who were broadcasting at the same time on NBC are often credited with "saving the world". It is said many startled listeners were reassured by hearing their familiar tones on a neighboring channel. Less kindly it is said that few people listened to Welles compared to the incredibly popular Bergen and McCarthy.

    Aftermath

    In the aftermath of the panic, a large public outcry arose, but CBS informed officials that listeners were reminded throughout the broadcast that it was only a performance. Welles and the Mercury Theatre escaped punishment, but not censure, and CBS had to promise never again to use the "we interrupt this program" device for dramatic purposes.

    A study by the Radio Project discovered that most of the people who panicked did not think that it was an invasion by Martians, but by the Germans. Other studies have suggested that the extent of the panic was exaggerated by contemporary media, but it remains clear that many people were fooled.

    When a meeting between H.G. Wells and Orson Welles was broadcast on Radio KTSA San Antonio on October 28, 1940 the former expressed a lack of understanding of the apparent panic and suggested that it was, perhaps, only pretense put on, like the American version of Halloween, for fun. The two men and their radio interviewer joked politely about the matter, though clearly with some embarrassment.

    But the saying Only in America... doesn't really apply, because:

    Influence

    It is sometimes said that the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was first received in skepticism by the American public, as a consequence of the radio performance.

    Amazingly enough, the drama has been rewritten to apply to other locations and rebroadcast, with similar results.

    In 1944, a broadcast in Santiago, Chile resulted in panic, including the mobilization of troops by the governor.

    On February 12, 1949, in Quito, Ecuador, a similar broadcast panicked tens of thousands. Listeners who were enraged at the deception set fire to the radio station and the offices of El Comercio, the capital's leading newspaper, killing twenty people. The property damage was estimated at $350,000. Three officials charged with responsibility for the broadcast were arrested.

    Because of the panic caused in the 1930s and 1940s by this radio play, TV networks have deemed it necessary to post bulletins to their viewing audience to inform them some TV stories were in fact fictional drama, and not really happening. Disclaimers of this sort were shown during broadcasts of the 1983 television movie Special Bulletin and again during the 1994 telefilm, Without Warning, both of which were dramas disguised as realistic news broadcasts (Without Warning, presenting an alien attack on earth, acknowledged that it was a tribute to War of the Worlds and was also broadcast at Halloween). NBC placed disclaimers in an October 1999 TV movie dramatizing the possible disastrous effects of the Y2K bug even though it was obviously drama and was unlikely to be confused with reality.

    In the 1984 movie The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, the plot hinges around an alien race of Red Lectroids which arrives on earth in Grover's Mill, New Jersey during Orson Welles' The War of the Worlds radio broadcast, their cover being that of employees of a fictional defense contracting company called Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems.

    I can't link directly to the article because it has the url in a format that's not allowed here, but if you go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds and click on "The War of the Worlds, the infamous Orson Welles radio play", you can read it there in full.
     
    Taluntain, Jul 4, 2005
    #15

  16. Cúchulainn Gems: 28/31
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    Wow thats amazing, I thought it surely had to be a myth like the coffee table woman :D
     
    Cúchulainn, Jul 4, 2005
    #16
  17. Harbourboy

    Harbourboy Take thy form from off my door! Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Yeah, this is true and it's a pretty famous event that has been spoofed many times since.

    The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one.
     
    Harbourboy, Jul 4, 2005
    #17

  18. Lynadin Gems: 11/31
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    I just watched the original. It's much better :D
     
    Lynadin, Jul 5, 2005
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  19. Enagonios Gems: 31/31
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    the trailer didn't look too good so i don't know if i'll see it. got mixed reviews from my friends. unfortunately, the friend of mine that's defending it the loudest is the same guy that said batman begins was crap, so I guess you can all tell that his opinion regarding movies means jack**** to me :D

    i must protest! while the current harry potter actor is definitely more suited for the role, that kid is a good actor. the 6th sense was incredible.
     
    Enagonios, Jul 5, 2005
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  20. Sydax Gems: 19/31
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    ***SPOIL***
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    I agree with Foradasthar, this 'aliens' were too dumb and so the army too; when Cruise 'killed' the giant robot, I thought that he would 'teach' how to kill them: just let people grab by the robots and drop granades in them...
     
    Sydax, Jul 8, 2005
    #20
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