Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds is a pretty tense affair. The director knows how to lay on the suspense and he certainly applies that knowledge liberally in the film. It’s a good thing too, because when he allows a short breather, your mind immediately starts asking questions that can only have embarrassingly illogical answers.
Luckily, Spielberg’s version of the infamous H.G. Wells novel focuses on one character, not the big picture of the story. This relegates the aliens in the film to a MacGuffin, a mostly unexplained excuse to place pressure on the protagonist Ray Ferrier (played competently by Tom Cruise). In this respect, it resembles M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs more than other recent big budget disaster films like Independence Day. Its pacing and relentless tension make the film feel more like horror than science fiction. Unfortunately, there’s enough pseudo-explanations and speculations about the aliens to strain the suspension of disbelief that is required for this film to work. I’ve found that I generally have more movie-going goodwill than others (i.e. letting art be art), so I didn’t mind the lack of details and even some of the odd quirky logic that seems to drive the plot, which really focuses on the aforementioned Ray’s relationship with his kids (and not the aliens). Ultimately, there’s nothing special about the story, but in the hands of someone as proficient as Speilberg, it works well enough for me. It’s visually impressive and quite intense.
Besides, it’s not like the concept itself makes all that much sense. In 1898, Wells’ novel was probably seen as somewhat realistic, though the Martians-as-metaphor themes didn’t escape anyone. In 1938, Orson Welles’s infamous radio broadcast of the story scared the hell out of listeners who thought that an actual invasion was occurring. Today, the concept of an advanced alien civilization invading earth has lost much of its edge, perhaps because we understand the science of such a scenario much better than we used to. If you’re able to put aside the nagging questions, it still holds a certain metaphorical value, but even that is starting to get a little old.
No explicit motivation is attributed to the aliens in Spielberg’s film, but in other stories it generally comes down to the aliens’ lust for resources (“They’re like locusts. They’re moving from planet to planet… their whole civilization. After they’ve consumed every natural resource they move on…”). This, of course, makes no sense.
Space is big. Huge. From what we know of life in the universe, it appears to be quite rare and extremely spread out. Travel between civilizations may be possible due to something exotic like a wormhole or faster-than-light travel, but even if that were possible (and that’s a big if), traversing the distances involved in the usually huge and powerful alien craft is still bound to expend massive amounts of energy. And for what? Resources? What kinds of resources? Usually “resources” is code for energy, but that doesn’t make much sense to me. They’d have to have found something workable (perhaps fusion) just to make the trip to Earth, right? In the miniseries V the aliens are after water, which is an impressively ignorant motivation (hydrogen and oxygen are among the universe’s most abundant elements and water itself has been observed all over our galaxy). Perhaps the combination of water, mineral resources, a temperate climate, a protective and varied atmosphere, animal and plant life, and relatively stable ecosystems would make Earth a little more attractive.
What else makes Earth so special? There would have to be some sort of resource we have that most other planets don’t. Again, Earth is one of the rare planets capable of supporting life, but we can infer that they’re not looking for life itself (their first acts invariably include an attempt to exterminate all life they come accross. In War of the Worlds, the Alien tripods start by vaporizing every human they see. Later in the film, we see them sort of “eating” humans. This is a somewhat muddled message, to say the least). And whatever this resource is, it would have to justify risking a war with an indigenous intelligent life form. Granted, we probably wouldn’t stand much of a chance against their superior technology, but at the very least, our extermination would require the expenditure of yet more energy (further discrediting the notion that what the aliens are after is an energy source). Plus, it’s not like we’ve left the planet alone – we’re busy using up the resources ourselves. Also, while our weapons may be no match for alien defenses, they’d be quite sufficent to destroy much of the planet’s surface out of spite, rendering the alien invasion moot.
The only thing that even approaches making any sort of sense is that they want Earth as a new home for themselves. As one of the few planets capable of supporting life, I suppose it could be valuable in that respect. Indeed, in Wells’ novel, the Martians attacked earth because their planet was dying. Spielberg’s film seems determined to kinda-sorta keep true to the novel, except that the aliens appear to have planned this countless years ago, which makes it seem less likely. But again, why risk invading an already inhabited planet? Some stories have emphasized that the aliens were doing their equivalent of terraforming (this is implied in War of the Worlds when Ray looks out over a bizarrely changed landscape filled with red weeds), which is a good idea, but it still doesn’t explain why Earth would be a target. From all appearances, there are plenty of empty planets out there…
So the concept itself is a bit tired to start with. Movies that aren’t explicit invasions involving a civilization like our own fare a little better. Alien & Aliens do a good job of this, as have several other films.
In any case, War of the Worlds is still a reasonably good watch, so long as you don’t mind the lack of scientific rigor. It’s a visually impressive film, with a number of sequences that stand out. And he really doesn’t give you all that much time to think about all the flaws…
In that case, I won’t see it. I don’t want a bunch of action and suspense covered in crapping scientific explanations shoved down my throat. I would feel cheated.
Most reviews of this movie I’ve read went something like this: Great action and special effects. Tom Cruise is okay but not great. The little girl is better. So much suspense that you don’t have time to think, which is good because there’s nothing to think about.
Why are people applauding great special effects these days, especially in a movie with big name actors and director? Yeah, some movies still don’t do the effects right, but when a production has lots of money and experienced people, like War of the Worlds, I don’t see the big deal.
Well, to be clear, there’s not much in the way of explanation, scientific or otherwise, provided in War of the Worlds. As I said, it focuses on the fatherly angle – a family basically running for their lives. The problem is that it still doesn’t make sense because the concept itself is scientifically flawed. In 1898, it might have been conceivable, and Wells’ original novel sounds to be pretty conscientious. They’ve updated the story to match current times, but this presents a number of problems (which I tried to discuss).
Special effects are difficult to really do right. There’s no doubt that Lucas’ Star Wars prequels utilize technically proficient special effects, but they’re a spectacle unto themselves, not really something employed in service of the story (well, not with any consistency, anyway). Spielberg’s special effects are much more effective than Lucas’, despite both being about equal in technical and visual aspects. They’ve both created some visually arresting pieces, but Spielberg’s stay with you much more than Lucas’.
Perhaps it’s also that Spielberg didn’t overdo the special effects and also relied upon traditional film trickery to pull some punches. One of the most evocative visuals (minor SPOILER) simply concerns a body floating in the water.
Lots of people go to see movies because of the spectacles created in special effects and are satisfied so long as the story behind it isn’t too intrusively stupid. Sadly, a film like WotW is to be applauded for being something more than just a specacle (despite the liberal use of special effects and a flawed MacGuffin to provide the motivation…)
Did you see Signs? If you didn’t mind the galactic-sized gaps in logic in that film (much the same as listed in this post), you might enjoy WotW.
I think your review hit the nail on the haed, tallman. I really enjoyed WotW for exactly what it was, which I thought was an updated version of a piece of early suspense/sci-fi. To me, the film hit the right high points: the characters were rough and not highly developed, and the plot was fairly thin in places, but then, so was the original novel.
I thought that this was in pretty good keeping with the novel, despite some pretty well done updating. I enjoyed that it kept the suspense, indeed, often coming to almost a horror feel to parts of the movie. I was frankly relieved to see that it was not “Tom Cruise defeats the Aliens,” which would have been terrible. Cruise has taken some shots for his acting, but I thought it was pretty decent, really. Maybe nothing to write home about, but as much as the story demanded, to be sure.
There were some faults: a major one to me was: how did the camara and video camara keep working after the EMP knocked out all electronics, and why didn’t the EMP knock out everything electronic in the van, rather than just the solenoids in the starter? Spielberg is usually pretty good about catching stuff like that, so it was kind of surprising to see that left in.
But so what? It was fun, it stayed close enough to the original, and delivered a tight, suspenseful story, where special effects and “action cliches” never really overrode H.G. Wells (except maybe in one spot, with the grenades) original story, which was much the same to begin with…suspenseful science fiction, that doesn’t get too hung up in the details, while remaining grounded enough in the “that could maybe happen” to be enjoyable to me, and other nitpicky viewers.
Overall, a fun, suspenseful summer movie that isn’t too heavy on the science, but is enjoyable nonetheless.