# War of the worlds - biggest crap ever !!!



## Waywyn (Jul 3, 2005)

wooow,

i went to the cinema last night to see "war of the worlds" and i really have to say that this was definitely the biggest crap i have ever seen.

why is such a shit coming to cinemas ???
i really don't get it. i am really a person which can be soaked in real quick into the story and sometimes like movies every other people don't really like but hell ... this crap was so bad that i was pissed and angry two hours after the movie was finished that i spend 9 Euros to see it.

please tell or convince me, what was good on that movie, besides the music which was mixed so soft against the sound fx.

steven spielberg went down a good range on my list of favourite filmmakers.

let me reconstruct this.
these aliens come to earth no matter where from, then attack the world, no matter which reason and big chaos breaks out and after two hours of fighting they die by itself because some little bacterias managed to kill them ... uhuh .. great.

the actors: tom cruise played some scene really good, also the little girl, but she was screaming for two hours, ... the son of cruise was just mad and wanted to see how aliens kill humans and followed every military vehicle like in trance.

so until the middle i really thought something should happen now because i really didn't see the original and only know that the world is going down there. but ....


SPOILER ALARM - please don't read on, if you want to see the movie!!!







... after the last robot was killed and they all met back at this house of their parents and also the son was alive and came back the whole cinema started to laugh.



SPOILER ALARM END -

how can something like this be released and shown in cinemas. please tell me, what is good on this movie - it was just a big joke and was just an order of pasted pictures and scenes.

really i have to say, that this was the biggest crap i have ever seen. if you didn't see the movie until now, please don't go and save your money or really drink a lot of beer or smoke pot and then watch it and really laugh.

poor world!


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## Frederick Russ (Jul 3, 2005)

I take it you didn't like it Alex 

Haven't seen it - I have the music from iTunes which has a few brilliant sections mixed in virtually atonal work which is quite different for JW. I like the soundtrack, but then again perhaps that's because I can actually hear it. 

Is it me or does it seem that the music mix on many of the movies lately is so far back behind the special sound FX (big hits) and dialogue as to be nearly imperceptible :?:


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## Waywyn (Jul 3, 2005)

hehe, yes frederick, i may overreacted a little, but i really did't find enough words for that silly story. it almost seems like spielberg had no clue how to end the film so he just choose the good happy hollyweird ending 

to be honest it is the first time that i realized that the music is almost not hearable in the movie, only at some certain points it seems like to swell out.

i also went to the undubbed version, so it wasn't an additinal "mistake" of the dub-crew.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Jul 3, 2005)

Frederick Russ said:


> Is it me or does it seem that the music mix on many of the movies lately is so far back behind the special sound FX (big hits) and dialogue as to be nearly imperceptible :?:



It's not just you! And the thing with that is that, as we know, sound fx alone cannot match the range of emotions/feelings that music can evoke. So more movies that could do well will tank. And the studios will scratch their heads, wondering what happened...


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## choc0thrax (Jul 3, 2005)

Hey thanks for telling me how they die at the end and not putting a spoiler alert in front of it, bozo face. 8)


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## TheoKrueger (Jul 3, 2005)

Just got back from the movies now, really dissapointed as well.

That girl was squeeking through half the movie, crying in 1/4 and singing in 1/4.


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## TheoKrueger (Jul 3, 2005)

Aliens? there weren't any. Just the girl 

Well to be fair, the music was very good and coloured the movie in a strange way. The story was the same as the original. It's just all that protective-father stuff i can't stand, just like signs.


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## Evan Gamble (Jul 3, 2005)

i liked it, you have toi understand that spielberg was being pretty true to the book. Its not like he went and had his own robots designed specifically for this movie. The concept has been around for decades.

Sure i think the kid should have died too, but Spielberg likes happy endings..I actually think Dakota fanning should have died (how emotional that would have been)

But i really liked it, i just think if your not in the right mindset it can be weird, because they put you in a comfortable surrounding with the family situation. Then just throw you into this invasion, just like it would happen had aliens attacked in this form. I thought that was pretty neat.


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## choc0thrax (Jul 3, 2005)

The aliens are ripoffs of the striders in HL2. :shock:


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## Waywyn (Jul 3, 2005)

well, i think at the original story everyone dies at the end ... or not?

true, the first thing i thought when i saw those big machines, that they look like the HL2 striders 

i think the movie was just bad. what was the reason of tim robbins playing that mad guy. also that really cheesy ending, which was even more cheesy then on a really cheap b ... z-movie


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## Scott Rogers (Jul 3, 2005)

..........


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## TheoKrueger (Jul 3, 2005)

aaaah, i loved the sfx big time! So fat and big sounds, great stuff....


You guys should listen to War of the Worlds from Jeff Wayne

http://www.thewaroftheworlds.com/

I really like it. 2 cd concept album, i dare to say it was better than the movie.


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## José Herring (Jul 3, 2005)

Was it really that bad? I was kind of looking forward to it. But, if it can wait for the DVD release I'll save my money.

I was kind of thinking that this would be a must see movie.

Jose


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## fictionmusic (Jul 3, 2005)

Frederick Russ said:


> I take it you didn't like it Alex
> 
> 
> Is it me or does it seem that the music mix on many of the movies lately is so far back behind the special sound FX (big hits) and dialogue as to be nearly imperceptible :?:



I have always found that the sfx drown out music, but recently I have found that the music interferes with the dialog. I don't know how many times I have had to replay a scene because my family misses important dialog. In some cases it is because the backing tracks are so lead-line driven they demand too much attention, in others because the dialog is poorly recorded and mixed, but mostly it is because of the new trend to use licenced pop and rock tunes with vocals (with lyrics that somehow suit the scene). I find those the worst of all because they always fight the dialog.


In my books dialog is king...it is the reason the movie is there in the first place. The music may be the emotional impact, and confirmation of the sub-text, but the moment it intrudes on the dialog, it ceases to work.

I listen to North by Northwest when I want to re-affirm my view of proper mix. In the opening credits, and 1st scene you see a city-scape with a few light traffic sounds. It works beautifully to convey the image and bustle of a city. By todays standards, that scen is incredibly bare and if re-mixed today would probably be a cacophony of sfx ambiences, where the sfx team would be finding the real and accurate representation of every visible (and off-screen car) car. "'52 Chevy? Got one here...is that a 4 door or a 2 door". 

The music in NxNW is also one the most gorgeous scores (although I have it on CD I find it doesn't really stand on its own...but I am lately coming to the conclusion that really good film music shouldn't). There is a theme that serves as "logo" or leitmotive, and is transformed from scene to scene subtly. The good part is the theme is very melody driven, but is given enough room to state itself, so that it has lots of elements to re-use (without having the same sub-phrase being used to death...like in Lawrence of Arabia). The music is always audible and never buried, yet the dialog plays on top of it perfectly. There is never any interference. 

Oddly I blame a lot of the problems on modern sound systems. Having multi-channel audio, and surround sound, often means there is more room for error from system to system. Volumes are radically affected by frequency response and positions. In the good old mono world, the mix is the mix regardless. 

Ahh but I complain too much too I guess, but like Waywyn, I find very little works for me these days. Movies seem to be getting more and more one-dimensional and similar.(with some noticeable exceptions)


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## jamriding (Jul 3, 2005)

Waywyn said:


> the actors: tom cruise played some scene really good, also the little girl, but she was screaming for two hours


Isn't that similar to Fay Wray in the original "King Kong" movie?

John.


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## Alex W (Jul 4, 2005)

what are you on about mate?? It was a bloody excellent film! :D

I'm not a major Spielberg fan, but I think this is one of his best movies.

Very realistic, believable human reactions and very scary - the aliens are like an unstoppable force.

Music is effectively suspenseful (yes I agree it does get too drowned out).

Action scenes and overall FX are awesome - adding to the realism.

Tom cruise is a dick in real life, but he's quite a decent actor. The little girl (Dakota Fanning) does an amazing job where so many other kid actors would have fucked it up.

The ending was a slight let down, I agree - but this was more for reasons of credibility than anything else. Besides, what would you prefer? An Independance Day style ending? Obviously not, but you get my point.


A couple of points of interest:

I think Spielberg wanted to reference the horrible things humans do to each other already. Words like "extermination of our entire race" are symbolic of the holocaust. Also, this is very clearly a post 9/11 movie. There were many references to America under attack, people shouting "who's attacking us? Is it terrorists?"

Any thoughts?


PS - see this movie, it's not a let down by any stretch of the imagination.


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## Evan Gamble (Jul 4, 2005)

Alex W said:


> what are you on about mate?? It was a bloody excellent film! :D
> 
> I'm not a major Spielberg fan, but I think this is one of his best movies.
> 
> ...



I concur..also can anyone think of a metaphor for when Dakota Fanning gets a splinter in her hand, and she doesnt want her dad to take it out. I think it symbolizes how we shouldnt have fought the aliens but just let the earths bacteria "push em out"...or maybe im reading into it too much :roll:


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## Waywyn (Jul 5, 2005)

hmm funny how the opinions split.

i think cruise didn't really comvince as a harbor-worker. he does some scenes well but all in all he didn't fit. it would be like denzel washington would play the role of matrix neo.

the little girl really played some scenes also well, but most of the time she was just screaming so damn loud and stressy, it was not really that screaming to support scenes, but to just make you aggressive and leave the cinema - terrible!


i have seen a post somewhere before that somebody, i dont remeber who it was, mentioned, that most of the scenes could have been more catchy:

i had the feeling that it seemed that the camera guy was just a guy running around and all this would happen right away around him (thats definitely a plus point), but it also seemed that he was missing the best scenes all the time and sucked holding his camera and get in the right places at the right times. in times where you can definitely decide which scene, point of view or angle looks best it was a pretty sad pile of uncool scenes and pictures.


BUT, was bugged me most ...

what is that story about? i assume that spielberg wants to bring a message with that movie without having seen the original movie, book or audiobook.

but all i got from that movie, is some alien race trying to take over the world and kill everything and at the end ... i really have to control myself to not fall into uncoordinated laughter ... was some little bacteria thingy stopped well protected and metalish creatures from taking the world after 2 or 3 days ???

this is so damn unlogic and not even realistic for a scifi movie. ok, sometimes it makes sense that something is unlogic is to happen and seriously, i mean the film is unlogic because no alien robots ever attacked the earth, thats fiction of course, but this special ending of that movie was laughable.

don't get me wrong i am really not that guy running around and trying to analyze every little piece of logical structure during a movie, but it was just laughable, because the end was so flat.

alex, you say the end was a "slight let down". personally i think it was so damn cheesy, bad and typical hollywood like that the whole cinema started to laugh out at the end - how i mentioned earlier it was not a typical "we are stiff and unsmiling germans"-cinema  i went to see the original version and we had quite some variies of races 

i basically want to say that i was not the only one who laughed about that ending and yes i want to say, it already was a hollywood ending like independence day to me. no matter whats happning, no matter how stupid the humans are (questions about terrorists, the shooting of that guy only eh wanted a car, all the symbols etc.) it was just a cheesy good ending which didnt fit to me.

in this movie- world where everything is ruined and damaged, there is one little house where all family members, incl. the lost son who was horny about to see some military action, are standing in the doorway, clean, completely dressed as never has happened something on this little spot ... and then the hug of cruise and his son at the end. it was so bad and cheesy the whole cinema really started to laugh out loud.

or to really make it short :
i had that feeling while watching the movie, that someone starts to tell me a really interesting and catchy, awesome story and after 1 hour of telling he starts to dither and gets anxious on his chair.
then he goes on with the story but talks like he is really somewhere else in his thoughts and after 10 minutes he jumps up and runs to the restroom because of diarrhea and never comes back 

the movie just goes nowhere ...


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## Trev Parks (Jul 5, 2005)

It had me on the edge of my seat all the way through. Suspend your disbelief and just let it carry you - its the best way to watch these sort of movies.

I've literally just finished reading Roger Ebert's review and I do agree that maybe it would have had more weight if it had been set back when the book was written and village idiots were aplenty. But I think it was still brilliantly done.


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## lux (Jul 10, 2005)

Ned Bouhalassa said:


> Frederick Russ said:
> 
> 
> > Is it me or does it seem that the music mix on many of the movies lately is so far back behind the special sound FX (big hits) and dialogue as to be nearly imperceptible :?:
> ...



I think it is because you cannot use a complex counterpoint cue as music for commercials. Film music is choosen as commercial music those days imho, as "easy to remember", "understandable to all" and with some well known flavour in it as ethnic or stuff like that. It is what I call "new relativity" of taste, that means that if 200.000 people like a crap, it is good, even if is a crap.

This dont applies to everything fortunately, but I can see it more and more each day.

Luca


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## Waywyn (Jul 10, 2005)

lux said:


> Ned Bouhalassa said:
> 
> 
> > Frederick Russ said:
> ...



totally sign this


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## Simon Ravn (Jul 10, 2005)

I'm a big Spielberg fan and this is one of his most disappointing movies. Only very few traces of the genius Spielberg used to be. I wonder if we'll ever see him again - but I have high hopes for his next couple of movies. This one... David Koepp is just a terrible writer - can't believe Spielberg repeatedly uses him. It could have been great, but ended up mediocre.


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## José Herring (Jul 10, 2005)

lux said:


> I think it is because you cannot use a complex counterpoint cue as music for commercials. Film music is choosen as commercial music those days imho, as "easy to remember", "understandable to all" and with some well known flavour in it as ethnic or stuff like that. It is what I call "new relativity" of taste, that means that if 200.000 people like a crap, it is good, even if is a crap.
> 
> This dont applies to everything fortunately, but I can see it more and more each day.
> 
> Luca



Very interesting point Luca. Thanks for sharing. Helps clear up a confusion for me.

Jose


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## jc5 (Jul 10, 2005)

A very true point - the mooks will frequently opt not for what is 'the best', but for what is _least_ offensive to the largest number of people. And generally, the things that fall into that category are not... good... No one (or at least few) really enjoys them, but they are not offended by them - hence no sales lost. What a wonderful world...


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## Evan Gamble (Jul 10, 2005)

dcoscina said:


> I'm also hyped for Kong....



ewwwwwwwwwwww :shock:


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## choc0thrax (Jul 10, 2005)

King kong looks like Krap.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Jul 11, 2005)

After you see "Sarabande" - which I insist everyone do - I recommend "Me and You and Everyone We Know." It's much lighter fare than Bergmann, but very funny.


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