Blog: War of the Worlds Sucked
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War of the Worlds Sucked - Saturday, July 16, 2005
WARNING! War of the Worlds spoiler ahead. Stop reading if you intend to see the movie. But in my opinion, you shouldn't. It was bad. Very bad.
Spielberg's alien movies are too similar. War of the Worlds was too much like his movie Signs. The plot of both was as follows: aliens attack, family goes into hiding for 80% of the movie, aliens find them, and in the last 10 minutes the people find some silly way to kill them. In Signs it was water (it would burn through the aliens). In War of the Worlds the aliens were not able to cope with the bacteria in our environment.
Unfortunately, you wouldn't be able to tell until the postlude where the narrator explains it. So the aliens just start dropping dead without you really knowing why, the family is reunited, and the world is saved. Then we fade out and the narrator says it was because bacteria killed them. Umm... ok.
Furthermore, the idea that the aliens would die to bacteria is incredulous. Since they had been planning the attack for a LONG time (a million years, the old guy in the movie said), one would think that they would have hammered out every detail with the thorough meticulousness they seemed to demonstrate. If not, I'd expect them to at least make sure that the environment was habitable before launching an all-out attack. Think of it this way: if we decided to colonize Mars and bring thousands of people to settle there, wouldn't we want to make sure they'll be able to survive the environment?
But I'm guessing that's how Orwell wrote the book. So it's either an oversight on his part, or Spielberg modified the book so much that its plot is incongruous with the ending. Whatever the reason, my conclusion is that War of the Worlds was a poorly executed movie, lacking in both substance and believability. The special effects were spectacular, but the plot was just riddled with gaps and didn't explain itself very well. Spielberg, what have you done?
Spielberg's alien movies are too similar. War of the Worlds was too much like his movie Signs. The plot of both was as follows: aliens attack, family goes into hiding for 80% of the movie, aliens find them, and in the last 10 minutes the people find some silly way to kill them. In Signs it was water (it would burn through the aliens). In War of the Worlds the aliens were not able to cope with the bacteria in our environment.
Unfortunately, you wouldn't be able to tell until the postlude where the narrator explains it. So the aliens just start dropping dead without you really knowing why, the family is reunited, and the world is saved. Then we fade out and the narrator says it was because bacteria killed them. Umm... ok.
Furthermore, the idea that the aliens would die to bacteria is incredulous. Since they had been planning the attack for a LONG time (a million years, the old guy in the movie said), one would think that they would have hammered out every detail with the thorough meticulousness they seemed to demonstrate. If not, I'd expect them to at least make sure that the environment was habitable before launching an all-out attack. Think of it this way: if we decided to colonize Mars and bring thousands of people to settle there, wouldn't we want to make sure they'll be able to survive the environment?
But I'm guessing that's how Orwell wrote the book. So it's either an oversight on his part, or Spielberg modified the book so much that its plot is incongruous with the ending. Whatever the reason, my conclusion is that War of the Worlds was a poorly executed movie, lacking in both substance and believability. The special effects were spectacular, but the plot was just riddled with gaps and didn't explain itself very well. Spielberg, what have you done?