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PostPosted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 10:00 am 
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Hello. New here, but I've been reading on and off for awhile.<br />Anyway...this Spielberg WOTW...I'm sure this has come up elsewhere, but is anyone else rather worried by the typically "post 9-11" feel of this film.<br />I'm a book fan first and foremost, and HG's book was criticising imperialism - at the time, British imperialism. But everything I've seen and heard about this film so far suggests that this message has been horribly subverted. <br /><br />The film seeks to capture the tension and terror of a surprise attack on the USA.<br />The "aliens" are already here (in hidden cells waiting to attack - perhaps even literally "underground")<br /><br />And yet, in my opinion, the 9-11 attacks were used as the justification for the aggressive pre emptive striking of the "new" American imperialism, the attacks on Iraq and I'm sure, many more unfortunate countries in due course. <br /><br />This is not "just a film", it is playing into a collective American consciousness which actually endorses and promotes imperialism, and that is a far worse crime than there not being any cylinders or martians. Plus...talk about missing the point!<br /><br />So there you are. I don't always go on like this you know. <br /><br />


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 10:11 am 
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Martian War Lord

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kipps wrote:
So there you are. I don't always go on like this you know.


I believe you :D

Welcome to the forum Kipps and I'm sure my forum members will be posting some comments on your topic shortly....


Lee
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Last edited by eveofthewar on Wed Apr 20, 2005 7:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 10:12 am 
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to make a real modern day WotW style movie itd have to be about America invading a monkey colony or something...and they die because they eat posionous bananas >_>


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 3:29 pm 
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Film's final plot:<br /><br />The aliens are a sub-species of humans who has evolved from talibans because they worshipped the wrong god. They come from the underworld like Saddam (talibans and Saddam has nothing to do with eachother, but anyways,some twits think so).<br /><br />Hopefully this is just my wierd joke... Hopefully... :wacko:<br /><br />Haha Gerkinman, you should make a flash movie about that (tripods with flag stickers and helicopter-like cockpits). :D


How to make a tripod:
1. Take a small wooden toy wheel (cheap in hobby stores)
2. Take three nails.
3. Figure the rest out yourself.

Pretty crazy.


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 1:45 pm 
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I think you COULD theoretically make some relevant connections to 9/11 and the ensuing fallout that relates to themes in the book, though it's hard to see a big budget Hollywood movie having the guts to do so.<br /><br />F'rinstance, in the wake of 9/11 religious conservative types like Jerry Fallwell tried to cast the tragedy as God's wrath intended to punish America for everything from abortion to civil unions. This is not too far from Wells' Curate. Also, there was a wave of armchair survivalist sentiment along the lines of The Artilleryman. You could make some really timely connections to how segments of society react to overwhelming events.<br /><br />The direct connection with colonialism is tricky to pull off without narration. If I was writing/ directing, I might be tempted to include a brief scene before the invasion kicks in with TV news in the background reporting on abuses of the third world. (Iraq might not work, but how about a report on Indian reservations?)<br /><br />But yeah, It's probably going to be "How we all come together to triumph over adversity" or the like.


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 3:24 pm 
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I'm beginning to understand why many people fled this board and gardly post here anymore :P


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 4:41 pm 
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Thunder Child wrote:
I think you COULD theoretically make some relevant connections to 9/11 and the ensuing fallout that relates to themes in the book, though it's hard to see a big budget Hollywood movie having the guts to do so. F'rinstance, in the wake of 9/11 religious conservative types like Jerry Fallwell tried to cast the tragedy as God's wrath intended to punish America for everything from abortion to civil unions.  This is not too far from Wells' Curate.  Also, there was a wave of armchair survivalist sentiment along the lines of The Artilleryman.  You could make some really timely connections to how segments of society react to overwhelming events.The direct connection with colonialism is tricky to pull off without narration.  If I was writing/ directing, I might be tempted to include a brief scene before the invasion kicks in with TV news in the background reporting on abuses of the third world.  (Iraq might not work, but how about a report on Indian reservations?) But yeah, It's probably going to be "How we all come together to triumph over adversity" or the like.


Some interesting points there, TC. I've always seen the Artilleryman as a forerunner of the Survivalists, and I like the idea of casting Christian thugs like Falwell as the Curate. I doubt that will happen though - deriding Christian fundamentalists in 21st century America is less popular than in 19th century Britain. My, how we've progressed.

I think the 'WotW as critique of imperialism' argument is a little overstated, though. The book is somewhat ambiguous in that regard. Yes, there is an element of 'see how you like it' comparing the British under the Martians to the Tasmanians under the British. But it's not certain to what extent Wells condemns it, and to what extent Wells accepts it as simply part of the Darwinian struggle for survival. Wells seems to condemn Man for complacency and ill-preparedness more than he condemns the Martians for doing what they had to do to survive.

An updated WotW has to address very different concerns from Wells' when he wrote it. His concerns were sociological, and wrapped up with evolution and Darwin. He wrote at a time when Europe had not been involved in a really big, devastating war since Napoleon (I don't count the Crimean War, which was too distant, or the German Wars of Unification, which were too short and sharp). His time and society were complacent, and he warned against that. His time saw people just starting to think about the implications of science and technology turned to warfare, and the Martians represent that development. We live in very uncertain times, in a world that has seen two global wars. We have ourselves developed the weapons of global destruction Wells feared and have lived under their threat for decades. There is nothing that aliens could do to us that we couldn't do ourselves.

Spielberg's film won't, I suspect, have much of a message to it, apart from 'See nasty aliens and spend money on popcorn!' It will be just another alien invasion movie, no matter how spectacular. Why? Because we've seen it all already. Enjoyable? Almost certainly. WotW? No.


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 4:44 pm 
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curious wrote:
I'm beginning to understand why many  people fled this board and gardly post here anymore  :P


Because we discuss ideas, rather than indulge in fruitless and interminable discussion of 'What will the martians look like in Spielberg's film'?

Yes, you may be right. Their loss, not ours.


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 7:36 pm 
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McTodd wrote:
Spielberg's film won't, I suspect, have much of a message to it, apart from 'See nasty aliens and spend money on popcorn!' It will be just another alien invasion movie, no matter how spectacular. Why? Because we've seen it all already. Enjoyable? Almost certainly. WotW? No.


McTodd, Interesting post. I see you've been thinking about this, rather deeply. :-) Spielberg could still create a sort of modern parallel to Wells' critique of colonialism. True, our era, a hundred years later, is not so much embroiled in old-style territory-centered colonialism/imperialism, but (as others have said) we DO have our equivalent in economic/military hegemony, etc. An aspect Wells certainly struck at, was the smug complacency of the 'super power' citizens feeling like they were immune to attack and domination -- but get their collective smug butts kicked. That self-assured mindset of "There's ME, and none else anywhere near me stature" was a feature of imperial Britain culture, and is certainly a feature of contemporary American culture.

I think Spielberg would have to tread carefully on any moral or message that said: "Citizens, don't be so smug! How'd you like it if you got YOUR butt kicked?" (as Wells had) It would be too easy for that to spiral down into some sort of Moore-esque political commentary. I'd rather hate to see WotW recast as political propaganda for either US party (as movies like Red Dawn, had clearly done)

Spielberg himself said he wanted to avoid the by-our-own-bootstraps sort of ending as in ID4. That seems to eliminate (if he was being honest) several ways for the movie to go bad. Question would be whether he could let the Americans get their butts thoroughly kicked, but have some lowly thing save them at the last minute -- w/o drifting into any political agendas.

What do you think?


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 10:47 pm 
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Because we discuss ideas, rather than indulge in fruitless and interminable discussion of 'What will the martians look like in Spielberg's film'?<br />
<br /><br />Nah, because many people here blast if before even have seen it, and at the same time smart over pendraphony :rolleyes:


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PostPosted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 1:55 am 
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Well I have to say that going by what I've read so far (which is no more and no less than what the Spielberg champions have read ) I'm not optimistic that what Cruiseberg will present us with will resemble WotW in any substantive way. However, I am sure that they will produce an exciting film. That is not to day that it will be a good interpretation of WotW though.<br /><br />As for Pendraphony, I have long maintained that Hines has been talking out of his ar*se, despite the fact that I would like to see a resonably faithful (i.e. at least period) version of WotW. Hines is a charlatan, I've said it for ages, and the sooner people see that, the better. As for any other points I should address now, I can't, because I am very very drunk.


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PostPosted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 1:36 pm 
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Curious: I'm not knocking the film, just expressing skepticism that a big budget action film getting released on the 4th of July is going to tackle controversial topics.<br /><br />McTodd: I suppose on some level the book goes beyond imperialism as an issue. It seems like Wells is trying to create a humbling portrait of man's universe calculated to inspire empathy towards the less powerful...including animals (Wells was a vegetarian.)<br /><br />Maybe the film could flirt with the topic by showing someone squoshing ants.


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PostPosted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 2:41 pm 
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Thunder Child wrote:
Curious: I'm not knocking the film, just expressing skepticism that a big budget action film getting released on the 4th of July is going to tackle controversial topics.<


Agreed. for-profit Hollywood has little to gain from getting embroiled in politics. Action/adventure/romance is profitable and safe. But, I think Spielberg could let his movie hint at the same sorts of hintings that Wells did, and much like Wells, just leave them there, un-moralized. In that way, Spielberg could maintain some of the novel's flavor. He really needs to avoid anything akin to the gung-ho saved-ourselves ending as in ID4, or Signs.

Only thing worse, would be for the Cruise character to wake up in the end, and say, Oh, it was all just a dream. :D


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PostPosted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 3:03 pm 
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