War of the Worlds (2005 film)

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War of the Worlds is a 2005 science fiction film based on H. G. Wells' original novel of the same name. It was directed by Steven Spielberg from a script by Josh Friedman and David Koepp and stars Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, and Justin Chatwin. The budget for the film was $132 million (US).

Tagline: They're already here.

Contents

Background

This film draws elements not only from the H. G. Wells novel, but also the 1938 radio play and the 1953 film. Hence, to place this film in proper historical context as an adaptation requires some knowledge of all three previous incarnations of Wells' story.

As in the original novel, the narrative is told from the point of view of civilians caught up in the conflict. Whereas the novel portrayed the experience of a solitary British journalist early in the twentieth century, this film is, according to Spielberg, purported to show the war "through the eyes of one American family fighting to survive it". It is set in the early twenty-first century, and as in the radio play, begins the action in New Jersey.

Plot

The aliens arrive

The film opens with narrator Morgan Freeman (in voice-over only) paraphrasing the classic opening paragraph of H. G. Wells' novel. Onscreen, we witness a long, slow zoom-out from the cells of a microorganism to the drop of water in which it apparently resides. The narration is further accompanied by scenes of the world's great cities and cultures.

The action then switches to the New York waterfront docks at the Brooklyn Army Terminal. Ray Ferrier (Cruise) is a crane operator living in Bayonne, New Jersey. He is initially shown in the cab of a tall crane (that resembles and foreshadows the tripods he will soon encounter). He has agreed with his ex-wife, Mary-Anne (Miranda Otto), to watch their kids, teenager Robbie (Justin Chatwin) and preadolescent Rachel (Dakota Fanning), for the weekend while she and her new husband (Tim) go to visit her parents in Boston. While Rachel seems almost too mature for her age, Ray's son repeatedly acts out against him, eventually taking Ray's prized Shelby GT350 out for a joyride.

Meanwhile, in background shots, news networks have been reporting EMPs and freak lightning storms in the Ukraine which leave all electronic equipment in the affected areas incapacitated, followed afterward by seismic activity. Ray goes out to look for Robbie when he notices a massive cloud appearing over the city, so thick that the streetlights turn on. He calls Rachel out to get a look at it when lightning beings striking the ground, decreasing its distance to Ray's house. As he is reassuring Rachel about the lightning, 26 bolts of lightning, unaccompanied by thunder, hit the same spot just a few blocks away. The entire area is then left with no power whatsoever. All motor vehicles in the vicinity have apparently also stopped working. Ray leaves Rachel alone, and goes to investigate. Before he does, he finds Robbie and tells him to stay with Rachel.

When he arrives, Ray discovers that the lightning has punched a small hole in the middle of an intersection. Suddenly, the ground caves in, taking a Nissan Pickup and a Jeep Grand Cherokee with them, then spitting them back out onto a Ford Taurus. Just then, a huge robotic leg comes out and smashes a Saturn Twin Cam, which Ray was hiding behind. Shortly afterwards, a massive tripod battle machine rises from beneath the surface and lets out a noise which sounds like a deafening foghorn [1]. The tripod then opens fire with two Heat-Rays on fleeing civilians, vaporizing them on contact: when hit, people seem to turn to ash and disintegrate instantly. Interestingly, their clothes are completely unaffected — soon it is quite literally raining pants and shirts. When buildings are hit by the Heat-Ray, they catch fire and collapse. Within minutes, the entire area around the intersection is flattened and the machine begins to move out. Ray hurries home, shaken and covered with the ashy remains of his neighborhood and neighbors. He gets his kids together, brings food and his revolver, finds and steals a newly-repaired 1994 Plymouth Voyager, which appears to be the only working motor vehicle in the vicinity, and escapes the city just as the tripod reaches their block and blows up the Bayonne Bridge.

Flight from destruction

The family hits the highway, trying to get to away from the assault. They spend a night in the basement of Mary-Anne and Tim's empty house in suburban New Jersey. While they are sleeping, a strange noise wakes them up. The house begins to shake and they run into a room on the side of the basement just as a streak of flame breaks through the windows. Ray goes upstairs to survey the damage, and he discovers that a plane crash has completely destroyed the neighbourhood around the house (and the house itself). He learns from the crew of a CBS TV news mobile unit that countless tripods have appeared near every major city of the world, wreaking havoc everywhere. The news team also shows Ray a video of a lightning strike from one of the mysterious lightning storms. The video shows one alien "riding" the lightning in a capsule to a tripod below, thus explaining how the aliens arrived. The news team also tells Ray that they watched a battle between the tripods and a National Guard unit at the Pine Barrens. All weapons were ineffective as each tripod is equipped with an invisible deflector shield that protects it from damage. When Robbie sees the plane crash, he is infuriated by the sight.

Pushing on in the minivan, they drive through Upstate New York, trying to stay off the highways (in fear of people that might take their car) until they can make it to Boston, where Mary-Anne and Tim are staying with her parents. They witness further signs of the destruction: dozens of bodies floating down a river. Robbie runs after a passing National Guard convoy, hoping to "get back at" the tripods, but Rachel pleads with him to stay. The family continues heading along the Hudson, only to encounter a mob of people in Athens, New York converging on a ferry-boat landing. The minivan is taken from them at gunpoint, and they take refuge in a deserted diner. They trek from there to the ferry on foot, interrupted by a railroad crossing where a burning train rushes past. They arrive at the ferry dock (where they are briefly united with one of Ray's neighbors), just as three tripods appear on a hill behind them. At the sight of the tripods, the crowd at the ferry dock goes into a complete panic. The mob rushes toward the ferry. Ray, Rachel, and Robbie slip past National Guard troops who have ordered the ferry to cast off, although it could take more passengers, even as the tripods begin attacking the frenzied, stranded mob. Another tripod appears from under water, and capsizes the ferry. Tentacles from the alien machine whip into the water, abducting the survivors of the sinking vessel.

Ray and his kids swim safely to the opposite shore after the ferry is sunk, but they see hundreds of people getting attacked by three tripods on their side of the Hudson. They hide behind a bush just as a tripod walks by, and it starts to rain clothing (like it did at Ray's neighbourhood when the tripod first appeared). They move away from the tripods and set out on foot. They join a group of refugees, trying to get to Boston, only to find their way blocked by a horrific battle between tripods and the US Army, the US Marine Corps and the US Air Force, using tanks, helicopters, jet aircraft, and artillery to try and hold back the tripods. Robbie runs to the crest of the hill to watch the battle, but when the tripods swarm over the soldiers, he appears to be killed. Ray and Rachel take refuge in the cellar of an abandoned farmhouse at the invitation of a man who has taken shelter in the house, an EMT from New York City, named Harlan Oglivy (Tim Robbins), who lost his entire family during the invasion. Ray discovers that he is also madly plotting a one-man assault on the aliens.

In hiding

Not long after Ray and Rachel have entered the basement, some kind of red weed begins appearing in the windows. Ray warns Ogilvy to not talk to Rachel, at which point the noise the tripods are making ceases. Shortly afterwards, an alien probe appears, searching the basement for signs of life. Ogilvy is about to launch a surprise attack on the probe, using an axe, but Ray convinces him not to, fearing it will attract the aliens. After they successfully elude the probe, several aliens subsequently appear and examine the basement, fascinated with the human artifacts. Ogilvy finds his shotgun and takes aim at the aliens, but Ray silently (so not to alert the aliens to their presence) wrestles the gun away and the two struggle before the aliens are called back outside.

The aliens' plan

More of the red weed appears in the basement. While two tripods spray the ground with what appears to be fertilizer (Ray discovers that it is made up of human blood), Ray and Ogilvy watch as another tripod lowers a human to the ground before stabbing him with a syringe, draining him of all his blood. Ogilvy is thrown into madness by the sight, and begins raving loudly, "Not my blood! Not my blood!", after assaulting Ray. Ray has no choice but to kill Ogilvy in a tunnel he had been digging (he hoped to dig the tunnel all the way to New York City, planning to organize a Resistance, launching sneak attacks at night from the city's numerous subway tunnels) to silence him to avoid attracting attention from the aliens and to protect his daughter. A horrified Ray then falls asleep with his daughter.

Captured

Moments later, however, Rachel awakens to one of the aliens' scanner mechanisms staring right at her. Rachel runs away screaming, and, after Ray had hacked apart the alien probe with a hatchet, he goes outside searching for her. When he leaves the house, he discovers that the red weed has covered everything in sight. He is still looking for Rachel when a tripod appears out of nowhere. Ray hides in an abandoned Jeep Comanche, which the tripod flips over. While laying in the Comanche, he sees Rachel about 30 feet away from him. The tripod then starts to move toward her, and Ray leaves the Comanche and he also runs toward her. But he is too late and Rachel is captured by the Tripod. Ray finds a belt of hand grenades from an abandoned Humvee military vehicle, and throws one of the grenades at the tripod. The tripod isn't affected (because of its shield), but it is enough for the tripod to notice him, and he is also captured.

He is placed in one of the two metal 'nets' or baskets underneath the 'belly' of the tripods along with many other humans. Ray finds Rachel in the basket, and she is apparently in some sort of shock. As he reaches her, a horn is blown; a hatch opens above the basket and a 'tentacle' reaches into the basket, pulling a human into the machine. When he gets her to talk, the tentacle wraps around Ray's legs and starts to pull him into the tripod to be the next victim to be drained of blood. However, a captured soldier, followed by the rest of the captured people, snatches Ray's arm, and prevents him from being entirely sucked in through an orifice-like opening. Ray manages to pull the pins on the grenades inside the tripod, then he is pulled out by others in the basket just before the grenades explode. As the tripod begins to shake out of control, the baskets are ejected and the machine collapses to the ground.

Defeat

Ray and Rachel, and most of the other civilians and soldiers in the baskets survive the explosion (though some are seen impaled on branches or lying motionless), fall off the tripod, and Ray and Rachel make their way to Boston, where they find that the red weed has begun dying and the alien machines have begun collapsing. As they are being guided with a group of civilians away from a malfunctioning tripod by soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division, Ray sees that the machine's shields are defunct (by noticing that birds were landing on the still walking tripod), leaving it open to attack, and takedown, from Javelin anti-tank missile attacks by the soldiers. After the tripod falls to the ground (taking out a large factory and several civilians with it), a hatch opens up, and gallons of an orange liquid substance pours out - this is quite possibly the tripods' fuel, as the same substance is seen spurting out from the probe when Ray hits it with the hatchet at the farmhouse, and is also released when Ray destroys the other tripod with the grenades. As the troops surround the hatch, a sickly looking alien slides one arm and part of its body out of the hatch, and dies.

Ray arrives with Rachel at Mary-Anne's parents' house in Boston, where Mary-Anne, her parents, and Tim are all together and safe. They discover that Robbie, too, has survived and made his way to the house, and happily reunites with his real "Dad".

As in the original novel, over the final shot of the collapsed and immobile tripods, a narrator (Morgan Freeman) reveals that the aliens were defeated by exposure to Earth's native bacteria and other microorganisms, to which they were not immune.

Quotes from Spielberg

On the web site Dark Horizons, Spielberg described his preferences for long takes in special effect-heavy movies:

"I'm more interested in concept shots and money shots than I am in tons of MTV coverage, which certainly takes a lot of time. But if I can put something on the screen that is sustained where you get to study it and you get to say, 'How did they do that?' That's happening before my eyes and the shot's not over yet, it's still going and it's still going and my God, it's an effects shot and it's lasting seemingly forever. I enjoy that more than creating illusion with sixteen different camera angles, where no shot lasts longer than six seconds on the screen. To pull a rabbit out of a hat, because you are really a smart audience and you're in the fastest media, the fastest growing new media today and you know the difference between sleight of hand visually and the real thing. I think what makes War of the Worlds, at least the version that we're making, really exciting, is you get to really see what's happening. There's not a lot of visual tricks. We tell it like it is, we show it to you, and we put you inside the experience."

He described the story as follows:

"It's nothing you can really describe. The whole thing is very experiential. The point of view is very personal — everybody, I think, in the world will be able to relate to the point of view, because it's about a family trying to survive and stay together, and they're surrounded by the most epically horrendous events you could possibly imagine."

Box office

Despite the controversies detailed below, the movie received positive reviews and made an impressive box-office performance. As of November 22, 2005, (the last day it was at the box office) it has earned $234.3 million domestically and $357.1 million overseas, making the total $591.4 million. It is the 4th highest grossing movie of 2005 (next to Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire).

This is considered to be good news for both Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise. First of all, Spielberg has not seen such a massive success since Saving Private Ryan (1998), and the $100-million Minority Report (2002) — his first collaboration with Cruise — earned a reasonable $132 million. In the case of Cruise (whose 43rd birthday coincided with the movie's release), this movie is the biggest blockbuster of his career, since the movie opened its first weekend with $65 million (which is a record-high for Paramount Pictures), beating Mission: Impossible II's nearly $58 million (also from Paramount). By July 31, it had surpassed Mission: Impossible II in terms of total domestic box office receipts, a movie that earned $215.4 million.

Budget

In August of 2004, The Internet Movie Database reported that the film was "poised to make history in Hollywood as the most expensive film ever made — surpassing Titanic's $198 million budget." The report quoted an unnamed source that said, "No expense will be spared. Spielberg wants to make it the film of the decade." The New York Times, the original source for this number, ran a correction a few days later that the budget is actually $128 million. The final budget, however, has been confirmed to be $132 million.

References to 9/11

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Spielberg stated that the events of September 11, 2001 had a significant effect on how he approached making this film. Many images in the film harken to the images and iconography of the 9/11 attacks.

  • The film starts with a shot of Lower Manhattan.
  • Nearly every house in Ray's neighborhood has an American flag out front, mirroring the patriotism expressed after the terrorist attacks.
  • Police officers tell civilians in danger to "Clear the intersection!" This was ordered by police officers in the Manhattan area on 9/11.
  • Large crowds on the street staring in disbelief or running in panic at a rising tripod, similar to the reactions of New Yorkers watching the attacks unfold.
  • The dust that covers Ray after the initial attack, mirroring the clouds of dust that covered New York after the WTC's collpase.
  • The clothes of heat-ray victims float through the air, similar to how office papers floated from the World Trade towers after the planes' impact.
  • Rachel and Robbie asking Ray during the attack, "Is it the terrorists?"
  • Upon entering Ray's ex-wife's house, a photo is shown on the table. In it, the family is pictured in front of the Brooklyn Bridge, with the World Trade Center site slightly visible in the background.
  • A civilian aircraft crashes next to the same house.
  • In the small town where the family's minivan is stolen, walls of posters are shown with pictures of missing people, as happened after 9/11 around the WTC.
  • Civilians use a river ferry to move away from danger areas.
  • The main characters watch horrific destruction unfold from the safety of the other side of the Hudson River.
  • When Ray and Rachael are walking to Boston with the crowd of people, the camera pans out and shows smoke hanging over the city, a reference to the smoke that hung over New York after the attack.
  • When Ray and Rachel arrive to the grandparents' house in Boston, everything is covered in a layer of dust. This is a reference when after the 9/11 atack, certain areas of New York were covered in dust from the clouds of dust.

Criticism and controversy

Tom Cruise, Scientology and the film

Though there is no apparent Scientological ideology represented in the film — which was not written, produced or directed by anyone associated with the Scientology movement — press coverage in May and June 2005 leading up to the film's release focused on Tom Cruise's proselytizings for Scientology. Around this time, Cruise had changed publicists, from Pat Kingsley to his sister, Lee Anne DeVette, and spoke to interviewers more frequently about Scientology — and his sudden engagement to actress Katie Holmes — than about the film itself. Some press coverage noted[2] the similarity between the film's promotional poster and the front cover of The Invaders Plan (volume one of Mission Earth) by L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology. This similarity is not singular to the film, however, as the image of a hand grasping the Earth is a recurring one in science-fiction: it was used, for example, for the 1975 movie Rollerball. Moreover, the image used to promote the 2005 film is very similar to the image that was often used in advertising Paramount's War of the Worlds during its first season.

Critical reaction

Though the film garnered a positive box office response, reviews were mixed. Critic Roger Ebert regarded it: "...a big, clunky movie containing some sensational sights but lacking the zest and joyous energy we expect from Steven Spielberg."

Still, as is typical with Spielberg's 21st century output, reactions to the movie have been heavily polarized, with other critics declaring it a near masterpiece. Writing for The Coast, critic Mark Palermo says of the film, "Imagine Jurassic Park handled with the sorrow and doom of Schindler's List. It's the most terrifying movie in ages."

Most reviews have praised the movie for spectacular sound and special effects, as well as Spielberg's direction. But some opt to dwell on inconsistencies in the film's logic and unlikely coincidences in the storyline. Other critics felt the movie's characters, such as Tom Cruise's Ray Ferrier, Justin Chatwin's Robbie Ferrier and Dakota Fanning's Rachel Ferrier, were simply not likable characters.

Many reviews praise the portrayal of human reaction to disaster, especially during the first hour, but say the pace of the film bogs down when Ray, Rachel, and Ogilvy are trapped in the basement playing a cat-and-mouse game with a Tripod's camera.

Reviews by some literary experts gave the film a negative view as it had almost no resemblance to the original novel by H. G. Wells. It is said that "There are exactly 38 flaws in [Spielberg's] film in comparison to the novel, and that is just the first scene alone."

Press coverage and anti-piracy controversy

The press preview of the movie raised severe criticism, as every journalist who wanted to take a look at the movie before it premiered had to sign a non-disclosure agreement. This NDA stated that the undersigned could not publish a review of the movie before its world-wide release on 29 June 2005. Many people have argued that the movie might not be able to catch up with the great expectations that might have been postulated by such reviewers.

Furthermore, at the New York premiere of the film at the Ziegfeld Theatre, all members of the press were required to check all electronic equipment — including cell phones — at the door, as part of a larger sweeping anti-piracy campaign by the film's producers hoping to keep the film from leaking on the Internet.

Among other efforts to curb piracy, the producers also prevented theatres from screening the movie at midnight the night of June 29, despite the recent success of midnight screenings of such films as Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. The producers also chose not to screen the film in any DLP-equipped theatres. Some viewers saw these efforts as overreactions, especially the movie fans who enjoy seeing blockbusters such as War of the Worlds as early as possible.

Awards and nominations

2006 Academy Awards

Three nominations:

Central Ohio Film Critics

  • Best Sound Design

M.P.S.E. Golden Reel Awards

  • Best Sound Editing in Feature Film - Sound Effects & Foley

2005 Golden Raspberry Awards

One nomination:

  • Worst Actor (Tom Cruise)

Trivia

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

  • There are a few references to the original 1953 film and the later television series. There is a scene with an alien camera searching the house which Ray destroys with an axe, and one at the end with one of the aliens sliding an arm and part of his body out of his tripod and then dying, just as at the end of the 1953 film; there is also a street sign, behind Ray just before the Heat-Ray assault that says Van Buren, named after Ann Robinson's character from that film; several lines of dialogue, especially those spoken by Tim Robbins' character, are taken directly from Orson Welles' infamous radio adaptation of the novel; the plot device that the aliens had been to Earth before and left behind their tripods is based on a revelation in War of the Worlds TV series in which a tripod (an "older model" of the war machines in the 1953 film) is unearthed, having been left behind for hundreds to thousands of years.
  • The sound which the Tripods emit to signal each other and induce fear in the humans is actually, in musical terms, a tritone - also known as a diminished fifth. The tritone was used because it is known for causing distress to the human ear, being only a half-step away from a perfect fifth chord.
  • The line "Once the Tripods start to move, no more news comes out of that area." was used in the 1953 film, symbolizing the power the aliens use and the swiftness they employ.
  • Actors Gene Barry and Ann Robinson, stars of the original film version, make a cameo together at the film's end, playing Mary-Anne's parents.
  • The 1953 film ends with the characters taken refuge in a church just before the aliens' attack abruptly stops. In the new film, a church is the first building seen wrecked as the tripod emerges.
  • This movie featured Dakota Fanning's first stunt.
  • The movie contains several subtle references to the original novel. An example is the boat scene, which is somewhat similar to the Thunder Child chapter in the novel.
  • There are also references to earlier films about alien contact with Earth E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (in the basement scene, the aliens cause a bicycle suspended on hooks to crash to the floor) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (the synthesizer "note" sounded by the alien tripods [3] NOTE: This 'sound' from the tripods is in the original H.G. Wells novel, and should not be considered a rip-off of Close Encounters), as well as The Day the Earth Stood Still (the mass stoppage of electrical power) and Quatermass and the Pit (Extraterrestrial machines buried underground since prehistoric times). Some find also that shots in the diner, where Ferrier and the kids take refuge after the mob captures the minivan, evoke memories of the diner in the original The Blob.
  • The plane in the crash scene is an All Nippon Airways (Japan) Boeing 747. The plane-crash set was built on the Universal Studios backlot, right next to the famous Bates house from Psycho. Despite great demand for the location, the studio has decided to keep the crash set intact as a permanent installation on the backlot tour.
  • At the hill scene in the middle of the movie, when Ray Ferrier and his two kids are walking on a deserted farm with other refugees, U.S Air Force and Navy jets streak overhead firing at a nearby tripod. If you watch closely, the first jet that flies over is an F/A-22 Raptor stealth fighter, followed by one F/A-18 Hornet, two F-16 Falcons and an A-10 Thunderbolt II. The tanks that mount a ground offensive in that scene are M1A1 Abrams utilizing depleted uranium armor that was introduced in 1980 but not equipped until after 2001. The helicopters that bombard the tripod are AH-64 Longbow Apache attack helicopters and AH-1 Cobra Light Attack helicopters. They are both missing landing equipment: landing wheels on the Apache and landing struts on the Cobras. The AH-1 Cobra was introduced in the 1970s but has remained a faithful part of the U.S Army and several other select armies around the world. The shoulder-portable anti-tank missile launchers seen in both the hill scene and at the end of the movie are FGM-148 Javelin missiles, first used by the U.S. military in 2003, the SRAW and the Carl Gustav recoilless rifle.
  • In the movie, Ray Ferrier's house is located in Bayonne, New Jersey right near the Bayonne Bridge. The shot of the first tripod coming out of the ground was filmed in the Five corners intersection in the Ironbound neighborhood of Newark, New Jersey. The two places are about 25 miles (50 km) away but in the movie they are a couple of blocks away from each other (it appears that in the movie five corners was used to play a random intersection in Bayonne and not supposed to be the five corners located in Newark).
  • In the movie, Mary-Anne's house is supposed to be in suburban New Jersey. The neighborhood was filmed in a resedential development in Howell, New Jersey. When Tom Cruise was signing autographs, he said if anyone pushed, he would stop signing autographs. A lady pushed through the crowd, and he stopped.
  • There is a poster advertising Jaws in Ray's house.
  • Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg had three films in mind to collaborate on after they had finished Minority Report. When Steven mentioned War of the Worlds to Tom, Tom said "Definitely War of the Worlds, Steven!"
  • Pre-production started in August 2004, and filming began in New Jersey in October 2004. The producers made sure to shoot the scene where the bridge behind Ray Ferrier's house is blown up, as soon as possible so that it was ready as a teaser trailer during the Super Bowl in January 2005. The film did not wrap until March 2005, and the post production crew had only 100 days to get the film ready (special effects, editing, music, etc.) for release on June 29 2005. Finishing touches were literally being finalized at the last minute, but Steven Spielberg made his proposed release date.
  • There is a subtle reference to the book when a couple of aliens, descended from their tripods, explore the basement that Ferrier and Ogilvy are hiding in. One of them pauses to spin the wheel of a bicycle hanging on the wall. In the Wells' novel, the narrator explains the Martians did not use wheels in any of their technology. The moment is also intended to be both a reference and a contrast to the alien creature in E.T.
  • Many have noticed that the aliens in the movie appear to be similar to the aliens in the 1996 movie Independence Day. Their head shapes are exactly alike, but the aliens in the movie are smaller than the ones in Independence Day. The design is interesting as Spielberg more or less denounced Independence Day in comparison to War of the Worlds.
  • There is a widespread agreement in Japan that Spielberg has made a kaiju movie, in which, unlike American monster movies, indestructible giant monsters beyond understanding kill people mercilessly. At the world premiere in Tokyo, Spielberg said, "Well, certainly the first tripod was taken down in Osaka, because Osaka has so much experience with Gamera and Godzilla." This could explain why in the movie the tripods appear from under earth after a million years of hibernation, they are as tall as Godzilla, and they roar. In fact, one scene in the movie with a tripod looming over a hill crest almost parallels a scene in the original 1954 Godzilla movie where the monster's enormous visage is seen emerging from behind a hillside as people flee in terror.
  • Spielberg made adjustments to the film to add a touch of realism. First, it shows no coverage of Washington, D.C. or New York City (going with the fact that most likely, if aliens invaded the earth, they would randomly kill everything that moved, and not know the specific people to target). Unlike other movies, badges were not taken off cars and labels were not taken off food products, and a well known network was used to show coverage of the alien attacks.
  • The scene in which Ray, Rachel and Robbie are escaping New Jersey in the van they acquire via the highway is presented as one continuous shot.
  • There is a similarity to a novel in The Tripods series, which draws heavy inspiration from the original War of the Worlds. In the novel The White Mountains, the main character is picked up by a tentacle and drawn towards an opening in a Tripod; using a grenade he and his friends salvaged, he kills the machine. In the movie, Ray is similarly grabbed by a tentacle and is drawn into an opening in the alien machine, leaving hand grenades inside when he is pulled out.
  • The last scene in the film is similar to the famous last scene of the classic Western The Searchers.
  • When Ray, Robbie and Rachel are walking to the ferry, you can see Steven Spielberg, walking somewhere behind them.
  • During the very same scene, you can hear through the speakers on the pier the song "If I Ruled The World" by Tony Bennett.
  • During the filming of the underwater scenes, Steven Spielberg played a prank on Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning by playing the dramatic music from Jaws through the massive underwater speakers on the sound stage.
  • In an early scene where Rachel is channel surfing, she hits briefly upon a shot of a car being demolished by a speeding locomotive. This is a scene from The Greatest Show on Earth, which Steven Spielberg has reported as the first movie he ever saw. Also, while channel surfing, she flips to an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants, "The Secret Box". The scenes in the episode and the sound is spliced out of order. At the very beginning of the scene, there is also a very short shot of the anime Sailor Moon, in its English Version.
  • Although hard to discern, in the background of the image above where Ray finds the red weed, a black tarp is visible in the black background of the image. This is the edge of the soundstage and can be seen in the enlarged view of the image.

Differences from the book

  • The film's most obvious difference is that it takes place in the early 21st century northeastern United States rather than early 20th century southern England.
  • The film's aliens do not land on Earth in giant cylinders before unleashing their war machines. Instead, the tripods have already been buried underground, and the alien beings arrive in capsules transported via lightning bolts.
  • The aliens' tripods are more formidable in combat than their novel counterparts: the latter, although deadly, are still susceptible to conventional weapons and can be defeated in combat. The film counterparts are fitted with a 'shield' that makes them impervious to attack. The idea of the shields stems from the 1953 film version.
  • The film omits a prominent element from the novel: the Black Smoke, which was a part of the Martians' deadly arsenal. Writer David Koepp has explained that this was dropped more or less due to lack of time and didn't make it past his first draft, so any sightings of a similar substance are purely coincidence and can be attributed to other sources. The film also does not include the Thunder Child, whose symbol of power but ultimate failure to stop the invaders was represented in the 1953 film by the atomic bomb; however, there is a vaguely similar scene taking place on land in which military forces fight valiantly in an effort to hold back the tripods until refugees make it to safety.
  • The film's aliens are drastically different in design, featuring more humanoid mouths and also being tripedal, where Wells' Martians have lipless v-shaped mouths and tentacles. Also, the Martians of Wells' book, as well as in the movie, feast on the blood of humans (Wells described the clean skeletons of humans and other animals) but the aliens in the book apparently don't use human blood as fertilizer for their xenoforming project. In the movie the invaders also are uninterested in animals (rats, birds).
  • In the film, Tim Robbins's character, Harlan Ogilvy, plays a synthesized dual role of curate and artilleryman from the novel, while sharing the name of the novel's narrator's friend. The film's Ogilvy has the qualities of the novel's increasingly mad curate, who drives the narrator to fight with him frequently. In the book, the character named Ogilvy is one of the first people killed by the alien's Heat-Ray. The film's Ogilvy has the qualities of the novel's artilleryman in that he is digging a tunnel for an underground city with the goal of resistance. The novel's curate is taken, and presumably "eaten", by the aliens after being struck in the head and left for dead by the narrator. In both versions, the story does not state outright that the main character killed the man, but the novel narrator does say "the killing of the curate" was "a thing done, a memory infinitely disagreeable but quite without the quality of remorse."
  • The film never says where the aliens are from, unlike the book, where they are from Mars; in 1898, when the book was written, the possibility of life on Mars was considered realistic. This difference in origin shrouds the motive for the attacks on the Earth. In the book, the Martians are escaping from their dissipated planet, searching for a place to continue their civilization, rather than the "extermination" explanation given by a character in the film. It may or may not be coincidence that the red weed produced by the invaders would, if multipled on a large scale, duplicate an environment of much the same red hue of Mars.
  • H.G. Wells never had the narrator play the hero. In fact, the story is told as a recount of the war, thus eliminating any doubts about the welfare of the narrator. In the film, the main character, Ray, succeeds in blowing up an alien tripod, creating the idea that heroes can be made in the face of an unbeatable foe, an idea Wells passed by.
  • Much like in the 1953 film, the unnamed narrator and main character is not the same as he is in the novel. He is not divorced (although Ray shares a very similar goal of reuniting with his (ex-)wife), nor does he have a son or daughter to look after.
  • While Ray has a brother much like the book's narrator, the film does not touch upon anything from this character's point-of-view, as the narrator recites some of what the brother witnessed during the invasion.
  • In the novel, the narrator becomes trapped in an abandoned house when an alien cylinder lands close by. In the film, Ray, Rachel and Ogilvy are trapped in the house because the tripods are still outside. However, the scene in which the airplane crashes into Mary-Anne's house is similar to the scene in the book when the cylinder lands.
  • No matter the location, virtually every version of the story tells of an arrival and then assault by what are the first aliens to land on Earth. However, in this version, it is established that the invasion has already begun in other parts of the world, though the main character is oblivious to this until much later in the story.
  • The design of the tripods is not the same as their description in the novel. Wells describes the machines as "Walking engines of glittering metal...pieces of intricate rope dangling from it...green gas squirting from its joints...its motion was like a head moving about..." There are also no references to the invaders having any other machines than the tripods - in the novel, the Martians also had a Handling-Machine (a five-legged machine with three tentacles used to build the tripods), Digging Machine (an automated tripod-excavator) and a Flying Machine.

Cast

DVD info

  • Revisiting the Invasion: Introduction with Steven Spielberg
  • The H. G. Wells Legacy
  • Production Diary: Part I — Filming on the East Coast
  • Production Diary: Part II — Filming on the West Coast
  • Pre-Visualization
  • Designing the Enemy: Tripods and Aliens

Notes

Josh Friedman's name is absent in early trailers, and his credit is most likely for legal reasons. In an interview with Creative Screenwriting magazine, David Koepp says that Friedman wrote a draft before Spielberg brought Koepp on board and that he wrote his script from scratch.

External links

Copyright

"Original data received from Wikipedia on April 10, 2006. Credit given to original authors can be seen Here."

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