Well with the big hype over the movie and Tom Cruise's deeper dissent into insanity, I thought I might bring up this little jewel of a website which details the book covers used for H.G. Wells' novel throughout history. I really like the different interpretations of the Martians "war machines" yet several covers caught my eye:
From those covers you'd think that this book was about tentacle porn, yet I read the book and was sorely disappointed that there was none
Anyways here's the site Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
I like how most of the German one is just a tracing of the English one...
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
I also found this cover which reminds me of an AT-AT. Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Looks like a giant cricket.
We've been debating this to death over at SSM. The Speilberg version looks slick but does not seem to follow the book closely and both Speilberg and Cruise have said that the movie is "more about family values and relationships than interplanetary war".
What the fuck are they thinking?
Also, it seems the Martians do not arrive from Mars, bur rather were buried for millions of years and re-awakened to reclaim their (yawn) world and...ZZzzzz...
Pendragon Films just released their (really close to the book- which I bought) version on DVD but it's laughably bad acting and CGI in places.... Really good renditoin of the Martians and the Flying Machine looks very nice buuut it would serve best as a teaching tool for schools and not as a feature film.
Just read the fucking book!
Posted by Zefram (Member # 1568) on :
quote:Also, it seems the Martians do not arrive from Mars, bur rather were buried for millions of years and re-awakened to reclaim their (yawn) world and...ZZzzzz...
Wasn't that the basic idea behind the X-Files movie?
My favorite War of the Worlds cover is the one on the copy of the book I bought when I was in the fifth grade:
The image of the cold metal war machines stomping relentlessly through the burning city and terrified crowds always seemed to best sum up the story for me.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
"The Speilberg version looks slick but does not seem to follow the book closely and both Speilberg and Cruise have said that the movie is 'more about family values and relationships than interplanetary war.'"
Well, have you read the book lately? It isn't exactly a rousing war story. Everyone is ruthlessly slaughtered until the aliens get sick and die. We're not talking The Longest Day with rayguns here. (Though I was sort of surprised the last time I took a look at it to see that the military had managed to destroy more tripods than I remembered.)
I'm kind of looking forward to the movie.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
I read the book two weeks ago actually: it's all about one man's flight both away from the martians and into desperation as his proud society crumbles in a few short days time.
It's also a parable for English colonialism of the day- Wells was showing how his society would react to it's own overseas policies.
If Speilberg used those themes, it would be amazing.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
A little off topic, I always thought that War of the Worlds was one of those stories that is essentially unfilmable for a mass audience. (Aliens destroy stuff and start taking over the world...and then die of a cold) Yes, I know it has been filmed before, but it always seemed odd to me. Foundation is another one of those seemingly unfilmable stories (Loop, People talk about stuff for a long time, stuff happens offscreen, people analyse the results, end loop), but someone seems to have plans for that too. There was also Alexander (Man conquers much of the known world with thrilling battles! And then *cough* dies of malaria *cough*), but that got filmed.
Don't really know what my point is...
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Alexander sucked ass and was grossly miscast though....
Foundation will probably have many "re-imagineing" done to it (adding sex and violence for certain) to get HOllywood to buy into it.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Is there some severe shortage of story writers in Hollywood these days? When someone wants to make amovie about family values, why can they no longer have someone write a story about family values? Why do they have to find some utterly unrelated story, steal its name, and mess around with it until it manages to neither convey the original intent, nor the filmmaker's?
Posted by WizArtist II (Member # 1425) on :
Everyone is caught in the nostalgia of early days of TV crap. Since those stories were being visualized for the first time, the newness and sense of awe and wonder was there. The Movie Mafia in order to turn the quick buck can simply cash in on the average person's comfort and familiarity with the old stuff by doing a cheap rewrite and throwing a CGI blow job in the mix. Result = instant $ and no creativity has had to be expended.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
That's why I skipped I Robot. The classics are all up for sale and all the intrested parties are only after their titles.
Everyone's heard of War Of the Worlds already so half the marketing is already finished before the movie is ever filmed.
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
Now if they had done War of the Worlds in a Sky Captain-esque way, that would be really cool.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"The Movie Mafia in order to turn the quick buck can simply cash in on the average person's comfort and familiarity with the old stuff by doing a cheap rewrite and throwing a CGI blow job in the mix."
But, Spielberg? Shouldn't he already have enough money that he can concentrate on quality instead of marketing? And does he really want to be "that guy who used to do some pretty neat movies, but now he does crappy knock-offs"?
Posted by machf (Member # 1233) on :
I once posted WotW illustrations on a similar thread on another forum, some time ago: link
(scroll down all the way to the bottom, those are my posts)
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
You're kidding, right?
Posted by machf (Member # 1233) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: Looks like a giant cricket.
We've been debating this to death over at SSM. The Speilberg version looks slick but does not seem to follow the book closely and both Speilberg and Cruise have said that the movie is "more about family values and relationships than interplanetary war".
What the fuck are they thinking?
Possibly, something along the lines of "Hey, Steven, I want you to direct me the super-star in a movie with lots of explosions and action and a kid or two and a big title people will recognize!" "Well, how about 'War of the Worlds'? I'm sure we can turn that into something that will do."
From what I had seen so far, it looked like Spielberg and Cruise had watched that horrible TV series from some years ago and thought that was the original source... even the movie poster looks a lot like the title screen from the series opening.
Of course, it could be argued that the series was based on the 1953 movie, which in turn was based on the book, so that there wouls still be a connection between this movie and the original story, but...
quote: Looks like a giant cricket.
Also, it seems the Martians do not arrive from Mars, bur rather were buried for millions of years and re-awakened to reclaim their (yawn) world and...ZZzzzz...
Then it's worse than I had thought. Wouldn't H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu stories have been better suited for such a story?
quote: Looks like a giant cricket.
Pendragon Films just released their (really close to the book- which I bought) version on DVD but it's laughably bad acting and CGI in places.... Really good renditoin of the Martians and the Flying Machine looks very nice buuut it would serve best as a teaching tool for schools and not as a feature film.
Just read the fucking book!
So, they had to release it directly to DVD? I was hoping someone would bring that one to local theatres to counteract the effects of the Spielberg/Cruise one...
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Honestly, I was really looking forward to the Pendragon version for a year and their press releases always indicated that it would be a theatrical release....untill Speilberg's version was slated for summer. THen they announced the direct to DVD format, but I still expected a theactrical quality movie. It's not.
There is also another direct to DVD version to be released in July (starring C. Thomas Howell) but the cover for that looks exactlt like Independence Day- complete with the beam destroying the White House from above). The War Machines in that version look like giant crabs- I shit you not- giant crabs.
Good comparison between the crappy TV series logo and the new poster- looks like nothing is too original in Speilberg's version.
Another strange comment from Speiberg on the new movie (regarding the Redweed the martians accidentally brought with them)
quote:"I wanted to explore the environmental aspect of the martians arrival- the book deals a lot with the environmental consequences of the invasion".
Er...what book is that?
Still, I hope for an enjoyable (if not accurate) movie.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
The War of the Worlds could never be accurately portrayed because in my opinion the book was not such much an action story but more of a slaughterfest that symbolized the evils of colonialism. At the movie's premiere many actors stated that Spielberg's version was more like the book, obviously showing they did not read the book (sparknotes anyone). To me the movie is a "mixture" of the book, the 1950's movie, and the TV series (which I just discovered existed, but it sounds pretty shitty).
Anyways I think I found a site this dedicated to the show.
Posted by machf (Member # 1233) on :
Well, I thought that site was dedicated to everything WotW to a certain degree or another, but now that you mention it, it seems to be primarily focused on the TV series...
Posted by Vice-Admiral Michael T. Colorge (Member # 144) on :
Oh this should be interesting...
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
$$$SPOILERS$$$$
Okay, I just saw it.
Er....It's visually stunning, the tripod WAr Machines look great but I dont think anyone involved with the movie read the book.
Biiig flaws: -The aliens are not from Mars (at least no mention is ever made one way or another). -The War Machines have been buried underground (somehow without ever being discovered) for millions of years. Why? Who the fuck knows....no reason is ever given why the aliens would have come here, left their shit underground (somehow knowing they would need it long before humans were alive) or why they chose now to come back and start making trouble. -The aliens arrive in a biig spooky cloud (sound familliar?), though their ship is never seen, it emits powerful electromagnetic pulses that knock all electronics (even cars) out- the cloud fires lightening strikes over and over exactly where their buried tripods are... That's not so bad, but the aliens get to their deeply buried tripods via lightening. No shit. They have dart-shaped capsules (chock full of aliens) that shoot into the ground...on...a bolt of lightening. Yeah. Metalica should have done the theme song. -The tripods have force-fields that stop any projectiles/missiles before they can get close. -The tripods use a fog-horn...just for kicks mainly. -The aliens themselves are nothing like Wells described but instead look a LOT like the aliens from Independence day from the neck up- their bodies are a torso, two arms and a central leg. They move kind of like monkeys. They have no tenticles. -The aliens do not use the Black Smoke chemical weapon and do not have any flying machines. -The Heat Ray is not hot: somehow it turns the person in their clothes to dust but the clothes float away on the wind- what wind? Who knows, but it's an effect used over a dozen times- so many floating jeans, I thought Levis was a sponsor. Each tripod has two heat rays that it fires from the hips- like a three legged gunslinger from space. -The aliens drain people of their blood- aparantly to spray it all over the redweed as fertilizer or something- they are never shown ingesting it and the tripods spray it all over. Why? Who the fuck knows: in the book, the aliens ingest blood because they are just big brains and need fresh blood to live. At the end a tripod opens up and about 50 gallons of blood-looking stuff spills out- Mabye they just had a big punch-bowl full of blood or something: I cant see these guys floating around in blood. -Tom Cruise is SUPER-DIVORCED-DAD! Only Tom Cruise manages to destroy a tripod! Goooooo Tom! -You foreign types should be prepared for a visual assualt of american flags in Tom's all-american-blue-collar niighborhood. There's a "are we being attacked by terrorists" line from Tom's son. -Tom's kids are so annoying, I wanted them dead for the entire movie- his daughter screams endlessly in the shrillest voice imagineable and his rebelling dickweed teenage son goes out of his way to get killed because he "needs to see this". After all is said and done, Tom's family is re-united with NO INJURIES or personal loss at all- fuck, even the windows on his ex-wife's brownstone are spotlessly clean, although the rest of Boston is in smoking rubble.
It sounds like I'm bashing, but I'm only relating the major issues.
The GOOD things: Tom Cruise delivers a great performance and I think he did an amazing job with the script given to him. Tim Robbins is very good as well (taking on the role of the Curate in the farmhouse- though he's a paramedic). The acting is good throughout- Speilberg really pulls on the "hate" and "outrage" emotional strings but there is not much real suspense (at least not among the group I went with). Again, visually it's incredible and the desctuction is on a grand scale. These aliens could teach Godzilla a thing or two. Morgan Freeman narrates the very start and ending of the movie with (updated) exerpts from the book- a nice touch. -They used the same "alien arm falling out of the war-machine" scene as the George Pal version (unfortunately followed by a closeup of a petrified-looking alien's face).
Overall, I'd give it a five out of ten. Worth warching but not worth buying on DVD.
[ June 29, 2005, 10:40 PM: Message edited by: Jason Abbadon ]
Posted by Zefram (Member # 1568) on :
quote:-The tripods have force-fields that stop any projectiles/missiles before they can get close.
I know that an advanced species capable of interstellar travel probably could develop such a device, but it sure seems like a cop-out. I'd rather that they use hyper-advanced armor or something.
quote:-The tripods use a fog-horn...just for kicks mainly.
The famous WWII German dive bomber, the Stuka, had a siren mounted on its side in order to produce a screaming sound when it went into a dive. Apparently it was intended to have some sort of psychological effect on the people below. Perhaps the aliens had the same idea (as if giant tripod machines with disintegration beams wasn't enough).
quote:-The aliens drain people of their blood- aparantly to spray it all over the redweed as fertilizer or something- they are never shown ingesting it and the tripods spray it all over.
That seems like an odd change to make. I'm sure that the idea that the martians ingested blood was somewhat shocking in the late 1800s, so it's odd that in an era in which people are a bit harder to shock, Spielberg decided not to show alien consumption of human blood. Perhaps that would have pushed his movie out of the more box-office friendly PG-13 category.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Mabye- they dont actually show the person being drained either (probably another concession to the ratings board)- the gut in question get's impaled by a tenticle behind acar and you see the blood shoot up the (embedded in the tenticle) clear tube to the tripod...then it's sprayed out over the landscape from another port in the tripod.
The siren thing is (aparantly) used to call a pair of investigating aliens back to the ship but that cant be it's function, as it's blared randomly as the tripods are destroying stuff.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
So, I'm moderately excited about this movie, and I also apparently approach adaptations in a crazy freewheeling manner compared to others here, but all that aside: Why should aliens make noise only in situations humans would?
(And also, I sure like bizarre noises in general, is I guess my bias in this case. Like, in Lost, when the security system is honking and rattling and screeching in the forest? It is the best, and makes me want to get better speakers before the DVDs come out.)
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Dammit, I'm not bothered about being spoiled over WotW since I'll never get a chance to see it, but Lost is being shown here later in the year and I'd sooner not get spoiled, thank you very much.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I did not consider the international implications, and I apologize. I mention as some small consolation that my comments probably mean a lot less than you might fear.
Posted by machf (Member # 1233) on :
You know, this description of the tripods makes me think, in the first place, of the force fields aroudn the ships in ID4, and second, of an essay by Jacques Bergier I read several years ago in which the he explores the "what-if" of the U.S. returning to Vietnam with special equipment which included "war tripods" equipped with ultrasound generators on their legs that would prevent anyone to get close enough to detonate an explosive...
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