Eve Of The War

I know this one may cause some fun in the forum!!<br /><br />FROM : <a href='http://www.newkerala.com/news-daily/news/features.php?action=fullnews&id=71141' target='_blank'>newkerala.com</a><br /><br />[Hollywood News]: Washington, Feb 12: Steven Spielberg, acclaimed for making movies on science fiction is currently filming "War of the Worlds" starring Tom Cruise. <br /><br />According to Zap2it, Spielberg revealed in an interview that the film's aliens would stay true to author H.G. Wells' vision by travelling around in large mechanical tripods. <br /><br />"I've read on the Internet that everybody assumes there'll be tripods anyway. That's one of my homages, certainly my respect to the forward-thinking H.G. Wells," he was quoted as saying. (ANI)

-_- They better had do ha ha(clenched teeth...followed by a growl)

hmm this one had slipped past me before now...<br /><br />well, if having tripods is considered to be some sort of extra special tribute to HG Wells it doesnt say much for the rest of the film following his story...

Judging by the reactions some people have already decided not to like this movie no matter what. :wacko: <br />Well, their loss, I for sure will enjoy what promises to be THE blockbuster of 2005, and with me many more, so it seems :smoking: <br /><br />Too bad for Pendragon the movies are being released in the same year

Curious, you seem to think this is some sort of our team vs your team thing with these two movies, it isnt. And as ive said before im mystified as to why youd mock a movie and a company thats taken a big risk to produce something nobody else has dared to.<br /><br />I havnt decided to hate Paramounts movie no matter what, thats your effort to put an unreasonable opinion in my mouth that is easy to argue against, but the Paramount production has given me precious little to look forward to. A "blockbuster" does not excuse the removal of the original story for me. Id like to look forward to this movie and believe i was going to get two War Of The Worlds movies this year but what its shaping up to be is one WOTW movie and one completely different story using WOTW as a brand name.<br /><br />If im wrong and lets face it at this stage i could be, then ill be very happy, but that doesnt mean ill ignore evidence that it will be a shallow imitation when it comes to light.

My own position in the Paramount vs Pendragon argument is this;<br /><br />Yes, I am looking forward to the Pendragon effort more than Spielberg's, but I'm also fully aware of the creative, financial & logistical problems and pitfalls that face a low budget filmmaker such as Geoffrey Hines. Therefore, I've not set my expectations too high. <br /><br />Regarding the Paramount version, if Spielberg manages to do a George Pal and delivers a movie that is respectful to Wells' novel and/or successfully pays homage to it, while being a good film in it's own right, then no-one will be more pleased than me.<br /><br />However, every year we look forward to a new wave of Hollywood blockbusters based on interesting concepts and with fabulous-looking trailers, only for the movies themselves to turn out to be extremely disappointing: noisy, dumbed down, appallingly scripted, and dominated by CGI.<br /><br />The argument that Spielberg is too good a filmmaker to fall into this trap doesn't wash with me. I can't stand the Indiana Jones trilogy or the Jurassic Park movies. Minority Report and AI raised intriguing ideas and then promptly ignored them to concentrate on a flurry of special effects.<br /><br />Therefore, I continue to have my doubts whether Paramount's WOTW, despite it's tripods, Red Weed, and apparently faithfully rendered Martians, will be anything more than Independence Day 2 disguised in HG Wells' clothes. I've no doubt that it will look stunning, but for the amount of money it's costing, it should do. I'm not impressed by special effects anymore, and it's a great shame that Hollywood still often considers them to be the main selling point of a movie (although that's not a charge I'm levelling at Spielberg here).<br />

they wont be faithfully rendered martians Fenris after all, theyre not martians at all <br /><br />but yeah Fenris' position is a sensible one and much like mine, however im a lot more judgemental of the evidence ive seen so far of Paramounts production. As for Pendragon, theyve taken on a big challenge, and whether they can deliver remains to be seen but theyve displayed superb resolve to make this a good film and taken a big risk to get to this stage so theyve got maximum respect from me regardless.

If he's being faithful then they better have sixteen tenticals in two bunches of eight.

<!--QuoteBegin-Leper Messiah+Feb 26 2005, 04:22 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Leper Messiah @ Feb 26 2005, 04:22 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->they wont be faithfully rendered martians Fenris after all, theyre not martians at all <br /><br /> As for Pendragon, theyve taken on a big challenge, and whether they can deliver remains to be seen but theyve displayed superb resolve to make this a good film and taken a big risk to get to this stage so theyve got maximum respect from me regardless.<br />[right][snapback]1517[/snapback][/right]<br />[/quote]<br /><br />But what's the point in making a movie that will not appear in many cinema's?<br /><br />I do believe that has to do with the material out so far,which really is not inviting to go watch the movie.<br />Movie magazines or TV hardly pay attention to it, so a majority of the cinema audience don't even know it exists.<br /><br />They go to movies that raise high expectations en get a lot of media coverage.<br />I don't see pendragon's version very much in either of those apects.<br /><br />They may very well please the Wells die hards, but it just doesn't appear to be a movie that will stay in theatres very long or will be seen by many people.<br /><br />And that's a shame for a movie that's been worked on pretty long. <br />

<!--QuoteBegin-Leper Messiah+Feb 26 2005, 05:22 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Leper Messiah @ Feb 26 2005, 05:22 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->they wont be faithfully rendered martians Fenris after all, theyre not martians at all. [/quote]<br /><br />Very true Leper, I was forgetting that.<br /><br /><br /><br />Of all the films made each year in the States, only a relative few obtain a large scale cinema release. These are the major studio pictures, plus a handful of independent productions and/or foreign movies that have been lucky enough to land a distribution deal. <br /><br />The vast majority of American movies go straight to cable (pay for view, if they're fortunate) or direct to video/DVD. Indeed, many are made with these markets in mind.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> <br />

<!--QuoteBegin-curious+Feb 26 2005, 05:36 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(curious @ Feb 26 2005, 05:36 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->But what's the point in making a movie that will not appear in many cinema's?<br /><br />I do believe that has to do with the material out so far,which really is not inviting to go watch the movie.<br />Movie magazines or TV hardly pay attention to it, so a majority of the cinema audience don't  even know it exists.<br /><br />They go to movies that raise high expectations en get a lot of media coverage.<br />I don't see pendragon's version very much in either of those apects.<br /><br />They may very well please the Wells die hards, but it just doesn't appear to be a movie that will stay in theatres very long or will be seen by many people.<br /><br />And that's a shame for a movie that's been worked on pretty long.<br />[right][snapback]1523[/snapback][/right]<br />[/quote]<br /><br /><br />Well, Pendragon have set out an aim to produce a to-the-book version of WOTW and to do it well. Thats their aim, and the point of making any movie is to try to acheive its aim. Nobody from Pendragon has put words like "blockbuster" around, nobody there is claiming that this is going to be a major movie of this or any other year, but what they are claiming is that fans of the book or the musical etc and maybe a few others will like it. Success isnt necessarily measured in how many glossy magazine covers you get on or necessarily how many cinema tickets you sell compared to other movies, its wether you do what you set out to do, so there is a very real point to Pendragon making their movie.

Peter Jacksson didnt turn Haradrim to Iraq and Gondor to America. Steven turns Britain to America. Just as big miss. They may play the same role, but Peter never changed era nor country. Steven does.<br /><br />Sorry, but a small changes are ok, too many are just silly.

<!--QuoteBegin-The Improved Trog+Feb 26 2005, 11:32 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(The Improved Trog @ Feb 26 2005, 11:32 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Peter Jacksson didnt turn Haradrim to Iraq and Gondor to America. Steven turns Britain to America. Just as big miss. They may play the same role, but Peter never changed era nor country. Steven does.<br /><br />Sorry, but a small changes are ok, too many are just silly.<br />[right][snapback]1531[/snapback][/right]<br />[/quote]<br /><br />actually Britain and Americas roles in their respective times as Superpowers are far different if you consider Britain was a globe spanning empire, the USA is different in todays world. Part of Wells' message in WOTW can be viewed as a comment on the way Britain went about its business expanding its empire, so thats one of the many things lost in translation across this adaptation.

Yeah, but we're doing the majority of invading places these days, so it's not too far off. America in the 21st century is as close as your going to get to the England of the late 19th century. You could argue that while we don't have as much of a literal empire, our economic exploitation of the third world is quite similar.<br /><br />I don't have a big problem with some of the basic changes. When Wells wrote WOTW I doubt he thought of it as a "Period piece", WOTW depicts world changing events that haven't happened yet. By adapting it in a Victorian setting, you do make the sacrifices that people may feel distanced from what's happening because you have the paradox of something set in the past that's showing things that haven't happened yet. Also, it makes it easier for people to feel less threatened, as they can comfort themselves that technological advances have risen us to a state where we could have sucessfully defeated the Martians. Seeing the Martians (Or non-Martians in this case) blow up the world we live in now has more immediate impact.<br /><br />I think Spielberg could make a modern relevant film that keeps a lot of the original storyline. With all this talk of 9/11, character like the Curate and the Artilleryman have direct connections to say, Jerry Falwell and the Patriot Act. (Unfortunately, I have a bad feeling that the much talked about 9/11 connection will amount to nothing more than people running around screaming.)<br /><br /><br /><br />

<!--QuoteBegin-Thunder Child+Feb 28 2005, 09:35 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Thunder Child @ Feb 28 2005, 09:35 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Yeah, but... America in the 21st century is  as close as your going to get to the England of the late 19th century...<br /><br />I don't have a big problem with some of the basic changes... it makes it easier for people to feel less threatened, as they can comfort themselves that technological advances have risen us to a state where we could have sucessfully defeated the Martians.  Seeing the Martians (Or non-Martians in this case) blow up the world we live in now has more immediate impact.<br /><br />[right][snapback]1571[/snapback][/right]<br />[/quote]<br /><br />This gets to the essentials of the story. While I plan to buy the Pendragon DVD, I can easily see it not appealing to 'modern' audiences very much. As you say, seeing Victorian Britons defeated won't seem especially frightening. They're not top-of-the-heap anymore. It'll be much harder for a modern viewer to feel the desperate elation (and latent gloom) at, say, the Thunder Child segment. <br /><br />We 'moderns' do not have our security 'eggs' in the naval power basket any longer. After seeing films of A-bombs wiping out a whole fleet of iron warships, the destruction of just one will, I suspect, fail to captivate.<br /><br />If you were a 1900 Briton, you'd see a member of your national savior institution (the navy) charging in to gallantly save its fellow citizens. (yea! for OUR side!) You'd see it achieve a small victory (yea again), but only as a suicidal sacrifice. (horror at the implication) Then, despite the small victory of your savior, the invaders just press on. (deep gloom)<br /><br />How much will even modern Britons feel like this at the loss of one old RN ironclad?<br /><br />Wells' tale was powerful because it was "modern", not because it was Victorian.<br /><br />-- cheers

<!--QuoteBegin-Thunder Child+Feb 28 2005, 02:35 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Thunder Child @ Feb 28 2005, 02:35 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Yeah, but we're doing the majority of invading places these days, so it's not too far off.  America in the 21st century is  as close as your going to get to the England of the late 19th century.  You could argue that while we don't have as much of a literal empire, our economic exploitation of the third world is quite similar.<br /><br />I don't have a big problem with some of the basic changes.  When Wells wrote WOTW I doubt he thought of it as a "Period piece",  WOTW depicts world changing events that haven't happened yet.  By adapting it in a Victorian setting, you do make the sacrifices that people may feel distanced from what's happening because you have the paradox of something set in the past that's showing things that haven't happened yet.  Also, it makes it easier for people to feel less threatened, as they can comfort themselves that technological advances have risen us to a state where we could have sucessfully defeated the Martians.  Seeing the Martians (Or non-Martians in this case) blow up the world we live in now has more immediate impact.<br /><br />I think Spielberg could make a modern relevant film that keeps a lot of the original storyline.  With all this talk of 9/11, character like the Curate and the Artilleryman have direct connections to say, Jerry Falwell and the Patriot Act.  (Unfortunately, I have a bad feeling that the much talked about 9/11 connection will amount to nothing more than people running around screaming.)<br />[right][snapback]1571[/snapback][/right]<br />[/quote]<br /><br /><br /><!--QuoteBegin-gypsywlf+Feb 28 2005, 03:16 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(gypsywlf @ Feb 28 2005, 03:16 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->This gets to the essentials of the story.  While I plan to buy the Pendragon DVD, I can easily see it not appealing to 'modern' audiences very much. As you say, seeing Victorian Britons defeated won't seem especially frightening. They're not top-of-the-heap anymore.  It'll be much harder for a modern viewer to feel the desperate elation (and latent gloom) at, say, the Thunder Child segment.  <br /><br />We 'moderns' do not have our security 'eggs' in the naval power basket any longer.  After seeing films of A-bombs wiping out a whole fleet of iron warships, the destruction of just one will, I suspect, fail to captivate.<br /><br />If you were a 1900 Briton, you'd see a member of your national savior institution (the navy) charging in to gallantly save its fellow citizens.  (yea! for OUR side!) You'd see it achieve a small victory (yea again), but only as a suicidal sacrifice. (horror at the implication) Then, despite the small victory of your savior, the invaders just press on.  (deep gloom)<br /><br />How much will even modern Britons feel like this at the loss of one old RN ironclad?<br /><br />Wells' tale was powerful because it was "modern", not because it was Victorian.<br /><br />-- cheers<br />[right][snapback]1572[/snapback][/right]<br />[/quote]<br /><br /><br />America doesnt equate directly to the British Empire, as Britain exerted direct control over its colonies and it was that that Wells' story had relevance to as Britain invaded such countries with severely overpowering technology. There is a loss of translation inevitable to transferring it to modern day America as although undoubtedly America does exert a lot of influence over many countries it hasnt invaded the majority of them, and the countries it has invaded are not as technically overmatched as many nations conquered by the British empire. Many conquered by Britain had no comprehension of the weaponry used against them, as Britain is to the Martians in WOTW.<br /><br />This is not to say you couldnt make an effective modern WOTW though, as the above is only one of the many messages conveyed by the book, ive covered in many posts before how the 1953 film of WOTW is a good adaptation, the issue is not can it be done at all, but will it. Or will Speilberg go for the big explosions and the high box office numbers and sacrifice large portions of the story to do it? What ive seen so far leads me to believe he's taken exactly that approach.<br /><br />Now then, the point that appears in both of the above posts seems to be that the original story has no relevance to todays world, and only an updated version will do. This clearly is not true, since plenty of people find the book and the musical quite dark, scary in places and quite profound. The statement that its just not that frightning anymore because its Victorian England just isnt true. The Thunder Child sequence particularly has come in for a battering above despite being one of the favorite sequences of many readers from the book (it appears even Speilberg plans to put it in to his movie its that popular). It would seem gypsywlf is trying to say that in todays world the Thunder Child sequence lacks impact because its not modern. I think a modern audience can recognise a last hope being destroyed which is what the Thunder Child is. I certainly have no difficulty feeling the impact of that and i shouldnt imagine many would.<br /><br />Modern adaptation is more than acceptable, its a good thing in my view if done properly, but to say that the original lacks impact now is demonstrably false by virtue of the massive amount of fans this book has.

I don't think the point is that the story lacks impact, just that the impact is likely diminished from what it was at the time it was written. This isn't meant as a knock on Wells' writing, just an acknowledgement that 100+ years have passed and the specifics of war and our daily lives have changed. The original book still gives me chills, but I certainly imagine someone who's trying to reinterpret the story into the film medium would prefer to set it in the present. Whether Spielberg will make a good go of it is hard to say. I'm less worried that there will be an overkill of explosions as I'm worried about his penchant for sentimentality. I imagine at the very least it will be interesting. <br /><br />Not that I'm opposed to the direction Pendragon is taking mind you. It will be interesting to compare.

<!--QuoteBegin-Leper Messiah+Feb 28 2005, 12:32 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Leper Messiah @ Feb 28 2005, 12:32 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin--><br />... It would seem gypsywlf is trying to say that in todays world the Thunder Child sequence lacks impact because its not modern.  I think a modern audience can recognise a last hope being destroyed which is what the Thunder Child is.  I certainly have no difficulty feeling the impact of that and i shouldnt imagine many would.<br /><br />[right][snapback]1579[/snapback][/right]<br />[/quote]<br /><br />Perhaps I am, after all, just about as pessimistic about the modern audience as others are about Mr. Spielberg. Keying from my own experience, when reading the book as a child and a teen, it was not the Thunder Child chapter that stood out to me. Rather, it was the Man on Putney Hill. But then, I was surrounded by Cold War angst in which bunker life resonated with Mr. Putney Hill. The Thunder Child chapter seemed minor -- a mere proof that man's weapons were of no avail -- but not much more.<br /><br />However, many years later, after much more history reading, especially of the early 1900s naval arms race, naval scares, etc., I came to much better appreciate the strong emotional baggage which 1900s Britons viewed their warships. (a sentiment which a later 20th century American kid didn't have) But equipped with a better understanding of the emotional weight, the Thunder Child chapter took on a much larger meaning. It was no longer so minor.<br /><br />I have to wonder if the mass of 21st cent. (American?) audiences would feel so emotionally tied to a warship. Or, would it be just another plastic tank to be crushed be a new Godzilla? <br /><br />Maybe this is a chicken-or-the-egg kind of thing. Who am I pessimistic about? Mr. Spielberg or the type of audience that has made him rich?<br /><br />(mr. gloom)

so what in all essence your saying is, is that the original story isnt good enough anymore?

<!--QuoteBegin-Leper Messiah+Mar 1 2005, 06:49 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Leper Messiah @ Mar 1 2005, 06:49 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->so what in all essence your saying is, is that the original story isnt good enough anymore?<br />[right][snapback]1595[/snapback][/right]<br />[/quote]<br /><br />Well, no. That's not what I'm saying.<br /><br />The original story is great, but that the greatness (to my thinking) comes from the essentials -- the story's situations and scenario. The particulars of Victorian England, (important to Wells' original audience) are not critical to the story's power. There are lots of stories full of Victorian English details, set in England, but they're not even close to WotW in power.<br /><br />Plenty of modern types fail to really 'get' things in Dickens, Austen, etc. (heck, even Twain), for lack of knowing what the particulars meant.<br /><br />Wells' original audience was Victorian England, so his world-beating aliens really had to come to England and whoop the (then) mightiest empire on the planet. The essential was in being a citizen of the top-dog power, and being powerless to stop having your own cultural mecca destroyed. (if Briton couldn't stop the martians, then no one could...) The details Wells used were up-to-date modern, (for 1898) not chosen for their quaintness, but for being 'right now.'<br /> <br />I'm thinking that modern movie-goers, 100 years after the Victorian era, may not have enough in common with Wells' original audience to 'feel' the particulars like the originals did. Now, maybe, if the modern viewer is British, with a good sense of his/her history...<br /><br />But 2005 Americans? Frenchmen? Japanese? I feel (pessimisticly) that a strict Victorian version (100 years later) may come across less powerfully to many. (remember "The 1900 House" TV program a few years back?)<br /><br />not trying to be confrontational or contrary, just opinionizing.

I think gypsywlf makes some very valid points especially about modern audiences possibly not relating to the victorian era technology or point of view but spielberg seems to be making changes to the very fabric of the story.<br />I have no problem with updating pieces of the story that will make it easier for people not familiar with the story to understand and enjoy but the story is to me perfect the way it is in all its imaginitive glory and if the changes are made to stamp a spielberg/cruise vision of how wotw should be and therefore change the way that people experiencing the story for the first time interpret it, then that to me just shows the size of the collective spielberg/cruise ego.

<!--QuoteBegin-gavv8+Mar 1 2005, 04:04 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(gavv8 @ Mar 1 2005, 04:04 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->...but spielberg seems to be making changes to the very fabric of the story.<br />[right][snapback]1611[/snapback][/right]<br />[/quote]<br /><br />Guess I've not heard enough of what the Paramount team is really doing, to know how much they're changing things. I know they've already altered the main character by giving him a child to flee with, but it remains to be seen if this really changes the story. I can see some "allowances" for screenplay in the 2005 era, not necessarily destroying the original story.<br /><br />I take, for example, the '53 Pal movie. Yes, he modernized it to be contemporary to the 50s, but kept a lot of the original theme and elements (like the wrecked house scene). He didn't keep it all (like The Man on Putney Hill), but I chocked that up to the time limit of a movie. He kept the ending too -- almost exactly as Wells' had it.<br /><br />Yes, he added the Silvia character which the book didn't have, which added some unWellsian romantic fluff. But, that said, it also added some "save the women!" elements which meshed rather well with the original theme.<br /><br />Could be (for benefit of the doubt) the added child character in Spielberg's film allows on-screen dialogue where the book could get away with first-person mental musing. First-person musing doesn't usually translate well to film.<br /><br />Have we heard more definative changes to the original (beyond being in 2005, America and with-child?)<br /><br /><br />

I think a lot of the trouble is film makers and the like are too eager to appear "PC". if they made Three men in a boat again, they would probably call it "Two men and a woman in a boat" and either one of the men or the woman would have to be black. don't get me wrong I'm not sexist or racist, far from it, but I feel we seem to be bending over backwards to try to please every one and end up pleasing no one.<br />Maybe the child is there because its "PC" nowadays?

Well as ive said ive got no problem with a (decent) modern adaptation but i just plain disagree with the statement that the original has lost any impact over time. Yes, it is all the more impressive to British readers because its in England but even when the book was released there would have been a bit less impact in America and other countries because it wasnt a place they could necessarily relate to. Independance Day had less impact than it could have done because what really do i care about the destruction of New York next to London suffering the same fate? I think the impact in foreign countries is the same now as it was at the books release. Its still there, just less personal.

Oh yes, its a great book and no matter what the film makers do with the story, there will always be the original book, they can't take that away from us.<br />I didn't read the book until Jeff Wayne's musical version came out. and I dare say many people hadn't read it untill the 53 film came out. I'm sure the same will happen again after the release of the 2005 films. this books got a lot more life left in it. even after all the films are forgotten.