War of the worlds (BBC 3)

I quite liked the first half hour having not seen that bit before, but once the girl starts screaming and the boy starts acting like a plonker it got a bit much and so I went to bed.

I now have an urge to get the 50's movie on DVD, which I think is great. :o I just need to a find definitive special edition version. If such a thing exists.
 
We have to read this at school right now the book is so boring and my teacher said the film is too. Never watched it tho. Family are watching BB
 
The film differs greatly from the book. I guess that's always to be expected - obvious changes are the setting from London to America, the main characters moving from scientists, his wife and brother to Tom Cruise and his 2 children.
A big alteration is the arrival of the aliens. In the book they project themselves down to earth and assemble the machinery. In the film we are told the machines have been hidden below ground for millions of years. I'm not sure that is implied in the book, or if these machines are launched down to earth in the meteors?

The film is very good up to, I'd say, just after the plane crashes and they flee on the ferry, but the script is generally poor through out.
Dakota Fanning lacks a certain innocence and although her screaming is believable, the way she is calmed down by her brother and her slightly 'older then her years' vocab and expressions make her less likable.
The brother is simply unlikeable - perhaps purposely so as he's a representation of the younger generation who have been influenced by the 9/11 attacks and the belief of fighting war for your country. This is clearly shown by him asking if its terrorists causing the conflict and his admiration when the army pass by.

The red roots are never explained in the film, but in the book it's indicated that this is a martian weed that represents the martians taking control of everything on earth.

Again, the reasons why the aliens attack is never disclosed but the book reveals that human blood is a good food source for the Aliens and the roots -which is why we see them sucking the blood out of the humans and also spraying it over the lanRABcape to 'water' the red roots - which will also become a food source for them.

The ending of the film feels far too rushed, all of a sudden (within hours) the roots are seen to be dying and the aliens are struggling to keep their machines in control. I'm never sure what the birRAB were symbolising though?
They do explain why the attack was lost - basically human illness - colRAB, flu, various bacterias which through the years we've grown more immune to. The Aliens simply didn't have the same immunity and the more 'infected' blood they fed on the more ill they became and it killed them.

As others have said, the ending with the son running out was hollywood trash. They simply didn't need to include that - the audience could easily have decided his fate for themselves.

It's not a terrible movie visually but could easily have been much better.
 
*the machines and how they got there*

it's only a assumption that they were underground for an undetermineed number of years, as the female news reporter and ogilvy presume what's happened!

it could have indeed been transported ALONG with the aliens in their pod ALA the original story! remember when ray said that lightning couldn't strike twice in the same place ..... and then it did!!! that would been the aliens AND the tripod machinery being driven down into the ground! we don't know how many actually came down in the same spot (probably three)
 
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