Two wars of the worlds

I bought the special collector's edition of The War of the Worlds (1953), even though I really don't like the movie that much. But as it had the radio play by Orson Welles as an extra I had to get it. Which by the way is quite brilliant and must have been some influence to the fake documentaries that try to add realism to their story with the format. So then I ended up watching the movie and even the remake too. I apologize as I must spoil both of the movies a bit on how the invasion ended, as that makes quite a bit of difference between the versions.



The War of the Worlds (1953)

There had already been some alien invasion movies, but none at this scale and the movie ended up becoming quite a hit. Even more so than the H. G. Wells' novel it's based on. Martians are running out of habitable space so they decide to invade earth for some more space. They come down with meteors carrying these hovercrafts which spit out laser beams vaporizing human flesh and blowing up the buildings. Humans try every weapon in their arsenal but seem to be unable to harm the machines and an imminent extinction awaits. That's the basic story and we follow it with a scientist so we get all the info we need and of course there's a woman in there as well to get some romance going. And there's also a narrator that keeps us on track during the movie. Like most of the 40's and 50's sci-fi movies this also over explains everything to a point where it becomes quite ridiculous to watch it now in this time and age. The thing is that this movie is not so goofy that it's fun, but it's still too goofy for you to get into the mood. I mean there's a good setup which is followed by some completely hilarious outcome or the other way around. Meaning it's a bit hard to get into the movie. If you can look past the effects and technology there is however a nice story underneath. But I really hated the ending with all of it's god saved us crap which actually missed the whole point of the book. Even though the book has the same fate for the aliens that they die of a bacteria or a virus, it's not god that killed them, it's the human evolution. The book actually questions the whole existence of god and as it has that natural selection theme of survival of the fittest it ranks religious people on the weak side. But then again I understand why they didn't include it into the movie as at that time it was blasphemy to make fun of religion and Hollywood wouldn't have any of that. So the movie has it's moments but I've never liked it and this another viewing didn't really help the matter in any way.
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War of the Worlds (2005)

I know I bash remakes quite hard, but I do believe there are some movies that could be remade by the right people to make them better suited for the modern way of life. Old sci-fi movies for example sometimes suffer from their goofy effects and if the story itself is still relevant that would be a good genre for a remake. I mean some old sci-fi movies should be left alone for example if the effects are not essential to the movie and they work just as great with whatever they have or if they simply don't have a good story worth telling again. I really thought this could have been a great movie for a remake and in the hands of Steven Spielberg it could actually work. But it really doesn't. The movie has tons of great stuff in it but it also has an equal amount of utter garbage too. First of all the greatest thing, the aliens aren't Martians anymore, which of course could have been a bit hard to digest nowadays. I really liked the idea that the movie focuses on this one family in middle of it all as it enables a lot more dramatic depth to the story, but at the same time I didn't like the fact that they seem to be the only people on the planet who know what it's all about as in their journey just so happens to have all the climatic events of the whole situation. Better aproach than the original's wider view of things, but still it kind of tells us all the same things in the end. People criticize the movie for not having sympathetic characters, but I actually liked it, it's a bit twisted that the aliens feel more sympathetic with their big friendly eyes than Tom Cruise with his one expression performance. But that also backfires as the drama the story actually sets up is kind of lost as you just don't feel for the characters. There are tons of examples of great scenes that follow or are followed by a bad one. For example the airplane crash which was quite brilliant, but it just so happened to destroy the whole street but somehow managed to miss the car and leave a nice path for it to drive through. The scene in the hill where the son fights the father to get a chance to see USA kick alien ass would have been quite brilliant in all of it's dramatic content, but too bad it wasn't set up at all and the scene ends up being cheesy as hell. One of the best scenes of the movie is where the father blindfolds his daughter and tells her to close her ears and sing a lullaby while he goes to kill a man. Devastating scene, but again the whole setup was too silly for it to work properly. The effects do look quite great and were surely worth the update. I thought it was a great idea that the alien machines were buried underground all along. Even though people usually don't like that idea, I see it that they were here millions of years ago, killed the ruling population back then (dinosaurs?) buried their machines and moved to the next planet. Of course they were smart enough to bury them deep enough and nowhere near any gas, oil or water resources underground. Yes, I understand it's a bit far fetched, but it didn't bother me at all. Most people seem to also criticize the ending that it was germs that killed the aliens, I think it's great. I mean germs evolve just like humans did and since the aliens used human blood to feed from what better way to spread a disease. I don't see that they died of a common cold like many people suggest, I see that they got some nasty virus that hasn't been on this planet for long, like some variation of HIV for example. I mean a flu virus most likely was already on the planet when they last visited and buried their machines. That actually brings me to another idiotic part of the movie, the whole god saved us nonsense in the end. Even though it was way more subtle than it was in the original movie, it still misses the book's point. I mean if the movie really wanted to say that this was all part of "god's" plan, then he must be one sick bastard, first sending the aliens to kill millions of humans and then finishing it off with a total genocide of the alien race with a virus. Yay, now that I think of it, I kinda like god, maybe I should become a religious nutcase as well as they seem to have all the fun. Anyway the movie is quite hypocritic also with it's god saved us nonsense as it also says that the alien machines have been under the ground for millions of years, yet the bible says the earth is no more than 10.000 years old. Did god plant the machines under the ground? Oh my god, could there be an error in the bible? Go figure, all I know it's utter nonsense. But anyway, the movie has it's good moments but unfortunately there's an equal amount of bad moments so in the end it's just another brainless effect flick. And yes, call me crazy but I think this is better than the original, though of course not as good as the book is.
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