Forget Cruise's WAR OF THE WORLDS being bad...

[Sean Walsh]

C. Thomas Howell's WAR OF THE WORLDS is INFINITELY WORSE!!!!!!!!!!!!

The tripods are giant CRABS?!

I can't believe I wanted to see this movie.

It's on Sci-Fi Channel, so it's your basic Sci-Fi Channel B-movie crap......but still!

[Scorpion13]

I especially liked the soliloquy from the guy who was blown in half.

And I dont just mean a sentence or two, this went on for like 5 minutes.

[EZMOHR]

Are you sure a movie with a guy bi-sected is bad? :confused:

[Scorpion13]

Oh yes. Bad, bad, bad.

[Ontir]

That's the one version of War of the Worlds from last year that I didn't see! Have you checked out the low-low-low budget British "faithful to the book" adaptation? Bad direction, bad acting, and the film might've been under 3 hours if they'd cut 90% of the footage of the main character walking back and forth through the fields!

[CaptainAwesome]

Tom Cruise's WotW wasnt bad. Why do people say it is?

[Ontir]

Many do. I'm among the few who thought it was OK, at least in my extended circle of friends. At this point Cruise's mouth/pseudo-religion has gotten in the way of his self-limited acting range, and I think that's affected people's perception of the film.

[Ravenheart]

I can't stand Cruise but I liked his version of War of the Worlds.

[Sean Walsh]

Tom Cruise's WotW wasnt bad. Why do people say it is?

Because they hate Tom Cruise.

I don't normally blame them -- but in this case all that hate clouds a pretty damn good WotW movie.

[EZMOHR]

Because they hate Tom Cruise.

I don't normally blame them -- but in this case all that hate clouds a pretty damn good WotW movie.


Nah, I actually kind of like Tom Cruise. It's just, WotW was boring, Cruise just is not a blue collar dad, Tim Robbins is not a nutty ambulance driver, and the Alien ships looked like an anus. I mean, Tom Cruise went in a butt hole in that movie.

[Steve]

I was going to tape the Sci-Fi version to see what's the deal, but luckily passed on it.

As for Cruise's WotW. I thought it was pretty good.

[Gargus]

Tom Cruise's WotW wasnt bad. Why do people say it is?

Because aside from the basic plotline of aliens coming to take over our planet it had hardly anything to do with the original storyline. How we went from aliens landing on the planet and killing everyone to alien ships buried underground before mankind and being awakened by lighting strikes so they could popup and kill us all later. And I dont ever recall people used as fuel for the alien warships.

And way to many scenes were obviously just spieldberg trying to a emotional angle and to have political based overtones from the real world that had absolutely nothing to do with the advance of the movie. Like the whole scene with tim robbins in his basement and going crazy and shit. Not only did it not have a thing to do with the movie really, it also made no sense and the dialouge was horrible. He basically repeated himself 4 or 5 times in different ways.

You can only see the same "high tension filled" scene so many times before it get repetitive. By the 13th time I was done seeing tom cruise sitting in a basement with flashing lights coming in the windows and him trying to look horrified.

His underlying ideas of the war in iraq he sprinkled in here and there also did nothing to heighten my interest, I hate it when directors put real world personal views into films.

The acting wasnt very good. Even that little girl wasnt to hot in it, she had the same expression most of the entire film. Not that she is bad but she is like that osmeth boy, after so long you realize they can only act one way.

Much like his minority report all the action was incredibly boring. I was watching it thinking "oh boy....another space ship blowing bridges up...../yawn and /stretch". I kept thinking that it should be more fun to watch but it wasnt. Visually speaking his camera use was bad, he had some interesting angles in there to be sure but overall the directing felt to generic considering who it was behind the camera.

He tried to turn a purely science fiction story into this big human interest drama about surviving and failed misreably.

So in closing and a nutshell. The movie sucked for those reasons.

[Peter]

Plus, it was boring.

We had this discussion when the movie came out.

Aliens wandering around causing untold death and destruction for two hours, then suddenly dropping dead for no reason. Thematically, it works (it fits the themes of the narrative). Dramatically, it doesn't. You pump all that energy and excitement into the film at the start, and at the end, they just die. Boring.

(the version that came out in the 70s or 60s or whenever -- followed the same storyline, but the protagonist was more important to the dramatic climax, and wasn't just an observer like Cruises's character. It was much more interesting)

[Scorpion13]

Ah yes, the Geroge Pal version.

It managed to make the "aliens die from common cold" thing work dramatically.

[Peter]

Ah yes, the Geroge Pal version.

It managed to make the "aliens die from common cold" thing work dramatically.

Exactly. There were ways to do it, and Spielburg's version just didn't.