Battlefield Earth: Part Duh
 

War of the Worlds is a vomitous dog turd of a movie. I haven't been this livid about spending money on a movie since the last crazy with a religious agenda, Mel what's-his-name. Literally acres of blood and guts. Imagery that deliberately evoked 9/11. Plot holes beyond belief. WTF is wrong with Spielberg? I was really looking forward to this movie. :( I need to review H.G. Wells book to see if ANY of this crap is actually from the original. I read it years ago, and I don't think it is.

Please don't spend your money on this piece of sht.

TY! I am glad you posted your opinion. So far it has been panned by critics, but since I don't listen to critics...

I'm just put off that there is yet another remake of this film - Doesn't Spielberg have an original idea to contribute?

Out of a possible five "toots", Gn2Dlnd gives it half a "toot."

I guess I'll wait until it comes out on video.

I just watched, Saw, and that was pretty bad, too.

Tom Cruise is still alive? WTF?

It gets an "un-toot."

The more time I've had after seeing it now, the more hateful I find the use of 9/11 imagery.

I need something to rinse out my brain, when does Charlie and the Chocolate Factory open?

July 15th, The Ultimate Geek Weekend.

Rofl
 

I have no desire to see this movie but this....

...is killing me. haha! :D

I find it intesting that Rotten Tomatoes has this at a 72% fresh rating. I have heard nothing from anyone I know that's seen it except how bad it is.

The key was my local reviewer. I never agree with him, and he gave it an A. Must suck badly.

Read Roger Ebert's review. He gave it 2 stars, and from his explanation of why he didn't like it, I'm reconsidering seeing it in the theater.

Ebert mentions the flaming train. This is, in fact, one of exactly three scenes that only Spielberg could have come up with. All three scenes are silent, last about 30 seconds, and do not advance the plot or involve the actor's participation. They are simply for the audience, and they are beautiful and elegant. And the ENTIRE REST OF THE MOVIE IS STOMACH-TURNING IN ITS SUCKINESS!

Yay! I don't have to see this and be horribly disappointed! :happy dance:

You know, I have to admit that I really enjoyed it as plot-riddled-with-problems-and-writers-conveniences-yet-visually-fun-to-watch cinema fare. Not a fan of Tom Cruise either, and the relationship-writing (and acting, for that matter, though I think Dakota Fanning is OK) is TV-MOW at best.

I don't mean to undermine all the reasons cited by people (critics and viewers alike) who don't like it. In fact, I agree with most of it. And yet, I'll still say that a good time was had by all in a darkened theatre. In Tom's words, "this is great fun cinema, isn't it?"

I would stop short of the glowing (and at times cloying OpEd piece about Spielbergian career introspective) L.A. Times review , but I agree with the sentiment of "good fun cinema."

Guess this is a bit of a thread-derail, by POV if not topic. So... back to the reguarly-scheduled program. As you were... :)

My thoughts:

The film is pure popcorn. It's a loving remake of the classic 50s George Pal production (and the book, radio show, tv series, rock opera, etc) and Spielberg hits hard, whether it's action, destuction or cloying sentimentality. Heavy handed? Sure. Clumsy? At times. Poetic? Dark and relentless? Yes. Lame-ass ending? You bet.

If you like simple, to the point sci fi disaster movies, then go. Run. Enjoy without shame. It's dark and it's fun and the martians are very destructive, and it's fun to watch stuff blow up.

Cruise is great in the picture, as is Dakota Fanning.

As far as the 9/11 references, that tragedy gave us a new visual lexicon to draw upon in order to accurately telegraph what the aftermath of a disaster would look like, at least to us in the USA. Flyers of missing people? Why not? That scene would most likely play out the same.

I went with a group of industry types who were mildly entertained. I really enjoyed the film, except for the maudlin ending. My friend David Hughes, who is a Fangoria writer, loved the film so much he would marry it if he could. I guess it all depends on your expectations.

I also like Blacula, so take my review with a grain of salt.

So maybe it's a good thing that when we got to the theater it was sold out.

Could it be so bad that it's entertaining?

Now I'm intrigued. I love a good crappy shoot-em-up as much as anyone.

Sounds like a rental for me, when GD is out of town or something. :D

That's all anyone needs to know. ;)

So what you're saying Commodore is that you didn't like the movie?

The Commodore gives "War of the Worlds" two thumbs up!

MY ASS!

Hello to the Commodore. Long time listener, first time caller. I have a question: were there any references to Orson Welles in WotW? Spielberg has been known to throw in the occasional classic film homage in his movies (see, Report, Minority). Recognise any? I'll take my answer off the air.

Ok, first of all, apologies to Gn2 for my very subjective movie tastes. ;)

We ended up seeing this today with my sister-in-law. They wanted to see it so Greg and I acquiesced.....and I enjoyed nearly all of it.

Things I liked:

• The characters. Much more believable than in most of these kinds of movies. Dialogue, acting, backstory, interaction, all good in my book.
• The effects. Pretty damn seamless. Saw some stuff that was pretty amazing, shocking, surprising. Alien crafts, carnage, whathaveyou, all well done and entertaining.
• Believability. Yeah, aliens fantasy blah blah, but the way that the mob reacted to everything was very well done. People don't just run screaming from something that amazing - they stop and look and it ends up getting them killed. One scene in particular involving a mob had me in tears.

Things I didn't like:

• THE ENDING. WTF is with Spielberg and endings now? I won't give it away (although it is the same as the original story) but it's so poorly done that the audience was laughing. The last 15 min sucked all the good feeling out of the movie.

Yeah, there were some cheesy moments, but I enjoy that to a point, and this movie didn't cross that point. I really, really enjoyed this as a popcorn movie up until the basement scene went on too long, and it was downhill from there.

My thoughts exactly. Although it's annoying that, once again, it's mostly in New York. I'm so sick of New York in movies like this. It's like nothing ever happens elsewhere. :rolleyes:

So yeah, sorry Gn2, but I'd recommend this to action movie fans with a caveat about the ending. If you like this sort of thing it's worth seeing in the theater for the eye-popping effects and great sound.

Thanks for taking your answer off the air, Terf. Always nice when a longtime listener calls in. I recognized no references to Orson Welles or the Mecury Theatre. Unless you consider the constant eating of people to be an homage to Orson's corpulence.

You honestly weren't offended by the 9/11 imagery? I'm saddened to think that people have become inured to this sort of manipulative filmmaking. I find it ironic that the same filmmaker who made "Schindler's List," self-servingly uses imagery in "War of the Worlds" that should remain sacred.

Haven't seen the film yet, but I'm responding to this:
 

I almost want the word "sacred" stripped from language altogether unless someone spits inside Notre Dame and must then be told that it's impolite to spit on sacred ground. Actually, they should be told that it's horribly rude and disgusting to spit anywhere in public, even if they come from a country where it's *okay* to spit in public, because it should *never* be okay to spit in public. I've seen an exhibit on infectious diseases and the final word on that seemed to be, "NO SPITTING IN PUBLIC! DO YOU WANT CHOLERA?!?!?!"

Of course, the mucus and sound alone are enough to make ME against spitting anywhere I have to see you spit, but far be it...........Ah, I'm turning into a farbe.

Anyway, one man's sacred space is another person's sacred space, No it's MY sacred space and I want you out, But I tell you it's MY sacred space and I will stand my ground and fight, Well so will I then because this is the sacred ground of MY people, who have been here for thousands of years, Don't you talk to ME about thousands of years......

Same goes with a nation's history and iconography. Is the flag a symbol or should it be considered a sacred symbol? Should The Last Temptation of Christ never have been written, just because someone told my pal Niko he had no right to reinterpret the dogma of a faith he himself believed in?

Team America could not have been made pre-9/11. No doubt many found that film to be hugely offensive but I thought it was a really fun, rollicking, and decent satire of a post-9/11 world.

We saw people in the United States react to a tragedy on a massive scale a few years back. It will no doubt have altered our perceptions about such an event, and those perceptions will sometimes creep into film, literature, art of all kinds, etc., sometimes in minute ways, extreme ways, "tasteful" or "untasteful" ways. And they may not be to your liking, but I don't think anything that happened that day is sacrosanct.

Granted, until I'm being chased by a pack of vampires into a church they cannot enter because it's hallowed ground, I'm not sure I'll ever look at a church and think "sacred". In fact, in Los Angeles, I usually look at churches and think, "Did a giant child in possession of cinder block legos build this horror?!" However, out of reverence to those who do believe in sacred spaces, I don't stomp around swearing, etc. I do not, however, control my lusty thoughts. That's my business, even in God's house, and if he feels like looking in, hey - who wouldn't enjoy free porn? I half suspect that kind of "free cable" justifies our entire existence.

Spielberg used the image of Nazis in Indiana Jones to manipulate you into having an emotional connection to the hero as a good guy.

What EH said. I'm not one who gets easily offended over the mere mention of tragic events. It's not like he made a mockery of it, and I didn't even find it particularly overt. I'm not sure why you keep contrasting it with Schindler's List. Didn't Spielberg make money off of that too? If you have an issue with it, why would profiteering off of tragedy be okay in one package, but not another?

The movie was alright, far more entertaining than I expected going in. It wasn't fantastic, and I haven't seen an ending that abrupt since reading a Michael Chriton book, but I've seen much worse.

Sacred = semantics. I originally wrote "untouchable," but it felt a bit - Indian.

Yes we have a new "visual lexicon." But it shouldn't include Tom Cruise covered in the dust of people vaporized around him - analogous to people covered in the dust of those vaporized around them on 9/11. That is the exact point in the film when my stomach started to turn. Hogan's Heroes used Nazis, Mel Brooks uses Nazis. Nazis did horrifying things and we like turning them into buffoons. However, we don't use the ovens in our summer blockbuster monster movies.

Schindler's List, The Pianist, The Diary of Anne Frank (and yes, I thought the parody on South Park was hilarious and offensive), are ways for us to document the atrocities visited upon the Jews during World War II. They serve to elevate the audience. War of the Worlds is a summer blockbuster monster movie. The various documentaries and remembrances, Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" (which was shocking in its non-use of images from the actual impact of the planes), even the kind of dumb episode of "Third Watch" that interviewed cast members about their experiences on that day, serve to document and help us wrap our brains around what happened on September 11, 2001.

I've got a bug up my ass when it comes to 9/11. I can't be the only person who wasn't turned into a flag waving xenophobe, stayed gay, didn't figure out how to make billions off the "war," or buy an SUV who considers 9/11 to be the most horrifying day of my life thus far.

So, I agree with Miss Eliza on everything except the idea that nothing from 9/11 should be sacrosanct. Some images should. And "the mere mention of tragic events" do not send me into a swoon, but Crazy Tom covered in people dust does piss me off.

There were plenty of non-9/11 thing in the film that I disliked, but by the time I was deciding that it was a lousy movie, I had already been pissed off. Every bad director choice that came after that point was being seen through a filter of "well, fvck you too!," and "what's the next disgusting thing you're going to show me?"

All in all, I can't say I disliked the film, so much as I hated it.

If I, who has never owned one, know that you're not supposed to put meat into a composter, why doesn't Speilberg?

How is it that any of these people are able to breathe in a landscape covered in rotting blood and guts?

Why do the aliens constantly have to be dumping some sort of liquid (urine? bile? alien diarrhea?) everywhere?

If you've departed from the source material enough to have your aliens be "sleeper cells," and you've demonstrated their ability to zap you with their evapo-ray, why do they need to send the snake-eye down into the basement to find more meat? As one poster on another board put it, "They suddenly start going door-to-door like Jehova's Witnesses."

The dust people were covered with on 9/11 was that of the buildings, not of vaporized people.

I read in the trade rag that some industry folks are dubbing this a replay of 1993, with Spielberg's popcorn-friendly Jurassic Park in the summer, followed by Schindler's List later towards the end of that year.

Working title for the movie starring Eric Bana (Hulk, Troy) and Geoffrey Rush (Shine) about the murder of the Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists is "Untitled 1972 Munich Olympics Project," and is due for release around Christmas later this year.

I've not seen War Of the Worlds yet, but I did see Spielberg on TV once. In the interview he told a story about when he was making Jaws. Apparently Francis Copula told him the ending was trite and unbelievable. Spielberg’s response was that by the final sequence in the movie "the audience is mine and I can do whatever I want". Seems like that philosophy worked for Jaws but perhaps not so well for War of The Worlds.

Is it also true that there is no mention of in the story?

Moonliner, no references at all to *** in the movie. The prologue & epilogue (narrated by Morgan Freeman) are almost word-for-word from H.G. Well's though.

The content of the ending was straight from the book. However, though I've not read the book, I can't help but think a little more effort was put into building the ending up. The word I'd use to describe the ending is "abrupt". Anyone who has seen the Lord of the Flies episode of the Simpsons will leave the theater thinking, "And the aliens were killed by, oooh, let's saaaay....Moe." (Just replace James Earl Jones with Morgan Freeman).

Copula.

Larf!

Movies have always used current fears to move audiences. Radiation is my favorite. There are plenty of popcorn movies that showed images of towns destroyed by the effects of nuclear weapons...or more "abstractly", destroyed by creatures created by radiation...and all after the absolute horror of Nagasaki/Hiroshima. Were they immoral in playing towards what people wanted to be frightened/thrilled by?

If you're going to condemn anyone making money off of tragedy, you better make a trip to Staples for some more pencils and paper. If you're going to say "I'll decide what's an appropriate way to make money off of tragedy" then that's your prerogative, but I can't possibly understand where the line can be drawn.

You know who I hated after 9/11? Those that made music ABOUT 9/11, ABOUT New York. Those that sold flags and bumper stickers that said "We will never forget." Those in the media that.......ok, I always hate the media. Making money by pointing directly AT the event is a sad thing in my book. But hey, we wanted to buy flags, so someone has to sell them, right? So I hold no grudges against them either.

There are plenty of people who think it's horrible that we have movies that depict people dying in any way, because we're capitalizing on fears, making death seem trivial, blah blah. Dude, people are always going to want to be thrilled/frightened, and death is IT. I feel the same way about 9/11 fears.

Because it's gross and cool.

As for other plot-holes etc, um, yeah. Long live the silly popcorn movie. :cheers:

Which I dug. The whole movie is from the perspective of Tom Cruise's Joe Shmoe character - no stupid President, Generals, etc. No knowing what's going on except what he's told and what he sees. I thought that was awesome.

Yeah, which is why it was lame. :eek: Sorry guys, I'm a fan of old sci-fi, but you can't use that old language in an updated movie. It sounded silly and people laughed, including me. Should have been integrated with the style of this 2005 film.

Ahh, yes I see. Well congaratulation on spotting that. I ment "Coppola" of course. I am so embarassed by my grammar. Perhaps I should have a roomate spell-check all my documents for me in the future so I can avoid these situatons. Thank you so very much for pointing out the inherent fallibility that is my nature. You are making me a better me. :snap: :snap:

Tom Hank's character in "Castaway" was the same way. I really liked the way they did not explain things like why the plane crashed or what the lights he saw out in the ocean were.

Mine are boring, yours was dirty. Dirty dirty dirty!

Made me laugh.


How long did that take, anyhow?

Too damn long, you spell way to good... ;)

I'll try unharder to spell good.

Too easy.

OK, just for you GD:

This has turned into a thread about Spelling/Grammar and my apparent deficiencies in this area.

Posting "to good" was part of the game. "to" rather than "too" and "good" rather than "well".

You will notice the "unharder to spell good" comment from Gn2Dlnd who gets the concept.

Please try and keep up. Thanks. :)

I can't mojo Moonliner for ALL the wicked burns he's inflicting here...:evil:

So I saw the movie and I was very offended by how it kept me in a bored and relentless stupor after the first 15 minutes. The only time I felt my heart accelerate after those first fifteen minutes was when I left the theater as fast as humanly possible without knocking down any Dakota Fanning look-a-likes in my desire to be away and not bored anymore.

Seamless, beautiful CGI, but the acting! The horrible acting!!!!! Wide-eyed eyes full of TEARS acting from everyone! And, my God, I loved Bob Roberts, Bull Durham and The Shawshank Redemption, so will someone please tell me when Tim Robbins lost his ability to act well, because I thought he was crap in Mystic River, as well. All he does these days is open his eyes wide and look insane. Good actor gone BAD. My favorite part was the abrupt ending. Oh, that made me smile and laugh, partially because it was campy and like the old movie I remember, and partly because I was just so GLAD my ordeal had ended.

Miranda Otto, YOU deserve better. WHAT were you thinking? Working with Spielberg could NOT have been worth it. For shame, Miranda. FOR SHAME!

To the young beautiful gentleman playing Tom Cruise's son, SHUT YOU PIE HOLE AND JUST STAND THERE LOOKING BEAUTIFUL. "I have to see. Let me go. I have to see." See WHAT? Fiery Napalm Death Part Deaux? A Machine As It Stomps Your Stupid Face Dead? Then again, Cutie Pie, I'm with you. If *I* were stuck in a craptacularly boring spectacle, I too would be begging to leave, "I have to see a better movie. Please, I can go see Howl's Moving Castle again, even if it was a poor adaptation of a wonderful novel. Please. Anything....but this....Let me go."

Also:

Dear Tom Cruise,

Stop wearing your teenager's jeans. Or maybe those belonged to Katie.

Love,
Audra, who still loves you in Magnolia, no matter HOW insano you've become.

Pluses?

I did get to see the trailers for Elizabethtown and, even better, King Kong, which looks awesome.

You see, that was some brilliant editing, that was originally an out take, until they saw how naturally he was acting, so they just seamlessly cut out the rest after "I have to see," in the original outtake the dialogue was "I have to see about getting a part in another movie. Let me go. I have to see about this other offer." Brilliant editing Mr. Spielberg and company.

More like another tv show. He's *clearly* meant for a WB show. Let me suggest Everwood so I can see him again with fewer expectations. He can date Amy. She's very pretty. Their children would be stunning.

Didn't you keep expecting him and Crazy Tom to start making out?

No. But I would have liked the movie a lot more if that had happened.

Do you know what gang? I liked WotW. I liked it quite a bit. It had some flaws and some things I would have liked to see done differently, butwhatareyougoingtodo? The first forty five minutes were as intense as anything I have seen lately. Tell you what -- I even liked the ending. How about them apples?

Tref says, check it out.

Start yer own dam thred Pollyanna.

Mercy!

And yet another misspelling!

This thread is just falling apart I tell ya!

yer dam *tootin*!

Sorry 'bout that. It must be the chili.