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War of the Worlds is a 2005 Academy Award-nominated science fiction film based on H. G. Wells' original novel of the same name. It was directed by Steven Spielberg from a script by Josh Friedman and David Koepp and stars Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, and Justin Chatwin. It is one of four film adaptations of the novel, preceded by two straight-to-video versions released in the same year, as well as the original 1953 film version, The War of the Worlds.
Background This film draws elements not only from the H. G. Wells novel, but also the 1938 radio play and the 1953 film. Hence, to place this film in proper historical context as an adaptation requires some knowledge of all three previous incarnations of Wells' story. As in the original novel, which takes place in and around London, the narrative is told from the point of view of civilians caught up in the conflict. Whereas the novel portrayed the experience of a solitary British journalist early in the twentieth century, this film is, according to Spielberg, purported to show the war "through the eyes of one American family fighting to survive it". It is set in the early twenty-first century, and as in the radio play, begins the action in New Jersey. Plot The invaders arrive The film opens with the voice of an unnamed narrator (voiced by Morgan Freeman) who informs us, retrospectively, that Earth was being observed by extraterrestrials with immense intelligence and no compassion. As man dominated the world without doubt, much in the way microorganisms swarm in a drop of water, these beings plotted to take it from us. The story begins on any other average day in New Jersey. Ray Ferrier comes home from a shift at the docks, where he is left to take care of his young daughter Rachel and teenage son Robbie while his ex-wife Mary Anne visits her parents in Boston. It isn't long before Robbie undermines Ray's authority by taking his car. However, Ray's attention is soon occupied by the presence of a large storm cloud, so dark that the streetlights turn on. Following its arrival is a strong wind blowing towards the ambiguous storm, which then suddenly and inexplicably ceases. Then, without the accompaniment of rain nor thunder, the cloud begins unleashing lightning. The earth is struck again and again in the same location, seemingly relentlessly. It then simply stops. Assessing the aftermath, Ray finds that the power is out; lights, the phone, and even his watch are all dead. He goes outside to see that vehicles are also paralyzed. Not too far from his house, he finds Robbie. Telling him where he saw the lightning strike, Ray has him stay with Rachel and leaves to investigate. The first strike Ray comes to a crowd surrounding a small hole in the middle of an intersection, punched by the repeated lightning strikes, though the rubble at ground zero is mysteriously freezing cold to the touch. Everyone is then taken aback when they hear a rumbling below their feet. They are forced to move back as the street cracks open. Buildings are then torn apart, and a round portion of the ground begins to shift in a circular motion. This selected patch of concrete heaves and then sinks, making a vast pit in its absence. Then something mammoth emerges, a large tripod machine. The towering giant simply stands where it rose, before letting out a monstrous trumpet, followed by the furnishing of two appendages, the ends glowing a bluish-white. From them, multicolor rays of heat are emitted and target the crowd. Everyone runs for safety, many in futility. As people are turned to ash and buildings are blown to rubble around him, Ray dashes and maneuvers to avoid being struck down himself. Finally, he finds sanctuary off the path of this now moving tripod. When Ray returns home he has Robbie box food and Rachel pack her things while he takes a flashlight and a revolver. His children, still oblivious as to what is going on, are taken from the seeming safety of the house and to a parked minivan. Earlier, the minivan's electrical systems were broken and Ray suggested to Manny the mechanic to replace the solenoid. Ray can only hope it works. Ray tries to get Manny to join them, but he is too stubborn to listen and as the tripod nears their block, Ray has no choice but to leave him to die. They speed off as the block and everyone in it is laid to waste. Flight from destruction Racing down the highway, they are clear of the danger, but Ray refuses to stop until they are assuredly out of harm's path. By nightfall they come to Mary Anne's empty suburban home, completely unaffected by everything that happened in Ray's neighborhood. Ray has them all take shelter in the basement for the night, but something happens while they sleep, and they are awakened by flashes of light and strange noises. As the house shakes and an unearthly screeching sound drops down on them, they take further refuge in a sub-basement room. In the morning, Ray ventures upstairs to find the scattered remains of a Boeing 747 that has destroyed most everything in sight. Scavenging its food and water are three members of a news crew. From them Ray learns that there is not one but many machines all over the world, each being piloted by whatever came down in the lightning storms. They are also equipped with an impenetrable shield, leaving military forces to fight a losing battle. The family drive on in the direction of Boston. Approaching the Hudson River, they pass countless refugees, many pleading to be taken along, but Ray can't stop. Inevitably, it turns into a mob, and Ray is forced to give up the minivan. Trekking now on foot, they come to the Hudson docks, which while crowded, are relatively under control. However, when tripods appear, a panicked stampede erupts. With the stampede getting out of control and tripods approaching, the captain orders the ramp up and stations soldiers to keep more people from getting on, though there is still space. Ray and his children sneak onboard before the ferry is pulled recklessly out of the docks. But soon it is no longer a haven, as another machine rises from the river, overturning the vessel and dropping everyone into the cold water. After escaping the tripods and the boat's propellers, the three reach a nearby shore as they watch tripods harvest survivors out of the water. Continuing onward among more refugees, they come across military forces fighting an unseen battle just over a hill, and Robbie, instead of fleeing with the other refugees, is determined to fight the machines. Ray pleads with him to come back, but Robbie refuses and Ray relents to save Rachel who is being taken by an over caring person, reluctantly leaving his son behind. The military are unrelenting in their assault, but even their might isn't strong enough to hold back the invaders, and soon the fighting-machines, clad in flames, come up over the hill and descend on the remaining refugees in their path, Robbie seeming to be sucked into the fire. Days of imprisonment Fleeing for safety, Ray and Rachel are called over to a nearby cellar by a man wielding a shotgun. Having taken them in, the stranger introduces himself as Harlan Ogilvy, and shows Ray what's going on just outside: tripods are settling down, making an encampment. It is then that Ogilvy reveals his true agenda for bringing them in. He plots to build a new world, one that will one day strike back at the invaders when they least expect it, right from under their own feet. Ray realizes that he is trapped with a maniac. Outside there is a constant sound of work emanating from the invaders and their machines. Coinciding with this is the presence of foreign crimson coloured vines that begin growing from outside. Without notice, the machines silence their sounds, and those made recklessly by Ogilvy are a call to their presence. Following on this, a probe is sent into the basement, a snake-like device with an electronic eye that scans its surroundings. They all elude it as it sweeps the cellar. But once it is retracted, a few of the invaders enter. These tripedal creatures begin studying various things before the trumpet of the tripods calls them back outside. They are safe for the time being, but Ogilvy comes dangerously close to attempting to shoot them, almost letting the invaders know they exist. The alien red plant continues to grow rapidly, and soon Ray and Ogilvy learn the horrifying origin of this strange vegetation; the machines are draining the blood of captured human beings, and spraying it over the land like fertiliser for the red weed. Soon Ogilvy madly begins digging a hole he had begun in the root cellar, planning to tunnel into the city to house an army in the subways and begin anew. When Ray tries to get him to be quiet, Ogilvy strikes him with the shovel. Ogilvy is now clearly too unbalanced, and Ray must protect his daughter. He has Rachel blindfolded, covering her ears and singing "Hushabye Mountain" aloud while he proceeds into the root cellar and shuts the door behind him. After an audible struggle, Ray presumably kills Ogilvy and emerges and slumps down on the stairs. Rachel sits in his lap and wraps his arms around her. Captured Sometime later, the probe comes back while they are asleep, catching them off-guard. As Ray assaults the electronic eye, Rachel runs out of the basement. Looking for her outside, Ray sees that the earth is red as far as his eyes can see. But the machines have not left and one abducts Rachel before Ray can get to her. Taking a belt of grenades from an abandoned Humvee, he throws one at the machine to get its attention. It turns and takes Ray, reuniting him with Rachel in one of two baskets it carries full of other victims. Though the Earth belongs now to the invaders, they still need human blood. And when a tendril reaches in, Ray covers Rachel to protect her, but it grabs him and attempts to pull him into an orifice-like opening over the basket. He resists, but then surrenders, taking the grenade belt with him. A soldier, however, grabs Ray and with the help of other captives, he is pulled back, with the grenades set to blow inside the tripod. The explosion rips through the machine, dropping at least one of the baskets, freeing Ray and Rachel before it collapses to the ground. Defeat With only one possible aim and direction, Ray and Rachel continue to move on into Boston. The city is also covered in the red weed, but stopping to take a closer look, they see that it's dying. They stray only a few steps before they see one of the mighty machines, immobile, smashed against a building. It seems to be dead as well, but the nearby soldiers admit to no help in its demise. Moving onward, they happen upon more soldiers ushering the refugees past an open area with another machine, noticeably weak, but alive. Noticing several birds landing on its head, Ray realises that its shield is down and informs the soldiers. Soldiers quickly take advantage of this and shoot the machine down. Once it's crashed, a hatch opens and one of the creatures inside weakly crawls partly out. It goes limp and visibly dies. The torment now over, Ray brings Rachel further into an abandoned but otherwise intact Boston neighborhood. There to greet them is Mary Anne, Tim, and her parents, and in her company is none other than Robbie. He and the man he now calls dad share a relieved hug. Displayed now before us is the destruction brought on by the invaders, their once powerful machines, now among the ruins. We are then taken back to the sight of swarming microorganisms. It was not any weapon of man, the narrator tells us, that defeated the menace; it was instead these small things in nature that God created that were their undoing. The very bacteria that have plagued man, and to which he had long since been immune, attacked the invaders upon their arrival, sealing their inevitable doom. Quotes from Spielberg On the web site Dark Horizons, Spielberg described his preferences for long takes in special effect-heavy movies: "I'm more interested in concept shots and money shots than I am in tons of MTV coverage, which certainly takes a lot of time. But if I can put something on the screen that is sustained where you get to study it and you get to say, 'How did they do that?' That's happening before my eyes and the shot's not over yet, it's still going and it's still going and my God, it's an effects shot and it's lasting seemingly forever. I enjoy that more than creating illusion with sixteen different camera angles, where no shot lasts longer than six seconds on the screen. To pull a rabbit out of a hat, because you are really a smart audience and you're in the fastest media, the fastest growing new media today and you know the difference between sleight of hand visually and the real thing. I think what makes War of the Worlds, at least the version that we're making, really exciting, is you get to really see what's happening. There's not a lot of visual tricks. We tell it like it is, we show it to you, and we put you inside the experience." He described the story as follows: "It's nothing you can really describe. The whole thing is very experiential. The point of view is very personal — everybody, I think, in the world will be able to relate to the point of view, because it's about a family trying to survive and stay together, and they're surrounded by the most epically horrendous events you could possibly imagine." Box office Despite the controversies detailed below, the movie received positive reviews and made an impressive box-office performance. As of November 22, 2005, (the last day it was at the box office) it has earned $234.3 million domestically and $357.1 million overseas, making the total $591.4 million. It is the 4th highest grossing movie of 2005 (after Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire). This is considered to be good news for both Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise. First of all, Spielberg has not seen such a massive success since Saving Private Ryan (1998) — another Paramount/DreamWorks co-production — and the $100-million Minority Report (2002) — his first collaboration with Cruise — earned a reasonable $132 million. In the case of Cruise (whose 43rd birthday coincided with the movie's release), this movie is the biggest blockbuster of his career, since the movie opened its first weekend with $65 million (which is a record-high for Paramount Pictures), beating Mission: Impossible IIs nearly $58 million (also from Paramount). By July 31, it had surpassed Mission: Impossible II in terms of total domestic box office receipts, a movie that earned $215.4 million. Budget In August of 2004, the Internet Movie Database reported that the film was "poised to make history in Hollywood as the most expensive film ever made — surpassing Titanic Critical reaction The film garnered a positive box office response, with reviews being generally positive. Rotten Tomatoes currently has the movie rated at 73% fresh. Overall reviews have praised the film for its special effects and the direction of Steven Spielberg, but have criticized the film for gaps in logic and holes and inconsistencies in the storyline. Some critics such as Glenn Whip (LA Daily News) and Bruce Westbrook (Houston Chronicle) consider the film a near masterpiece. Critic James Berardinelli gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, he wrote in his review: "…War of the Worlds may not stand up well to careful inspection and it may not be the smartest science fiction film brought to the screen (although, when considering movies such as the like-themed Independence Day, it's far from the dumbest), but it is an intense, visceral experience." Some thought otherwise, Critic Roger Ebert gave the film 2 out of 4 stars and regarded it: "...a big, clunky movie containing some sensational sights but lacking the zest and joyous energy we expect from Steven Spielberg." The film has been attacked by some literary experts, arguing that the film has little in common with the original H.G. Wells novel and could be viewed as just a star vehicle for Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise, Scientology and the film Press coverage in May and June 2005 leading up to the film's release focused on Tom Cruise's proselytizing for Scientology. Around this time, Cruise had changed publicists, from Pat Kingsley to his sister, Lee Anne DeVette, and spoke to interviewers more frequently about Scientology — and his sudden engagement to actress Katie Holmes — than about the film itself. Some press coverage noted* the similarity between the film's promotional poster and the front cover of The Invaders Plan (volume one of Mission Earth) by L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology. This similarity is not singular to the film, however, as the image of a hand grasping the Earth is a recurring one in science-fiction: it was used, for example, for the 1975 movie Rollerball. Moreover, the image used to promote the 2005 film is very similar to the image that was often used in advertising Paramount's War of the Worlds TV-series during its first season. Press coverage and anti-piracy controversy The press preview of the movie raised severe criticism, as every journalist who wanted to take a look at the movie before it premiered had to sign a non-disclosure agreement. This NDA stated that the undersigned could not publish a review of the movie before its world-wide release on 29 June 2005. Many people have argued that the movie might not be able to catch up with the great expectations that might have been postulated by such reviewers. Furthermore, at the New York premiere of the film at the Ziegfeld Theatre, all members of the press were required to check all electronic equipment — including cell phones — at the door, as part of a larger sweeping anti-piracy campaign by the film's producers hoping to keep the film from leaking on the Internet. Among other efforts to curb piracy, the producers also prevented theatres from screening the movie at midnight the night of June 29, despite the recent success of midnight screenings of such films as Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. The producers also chose not to screen the film in any DLP-equipped theatres. Some viewers saw these efforts as overreactions, especially the movie fans who enjoy seeing blockbusters such as War of the Worlds as early as possible. 2006 Academy Awards Three nominations: Central Ohio Film Critics M.P.S.E. Golden Reel Awards 2005 Golden Raspberry Awards One nomination: Trivia Differences Similarities Although there are very many differences from the book, there are also various similarities. Some are obvious, and others are noted by the naming of certain scenes in the DVD chapters. 1938 radio program Several lines of dialogue, especially those spoken by Tim Robbins' character, are taken directly from Orson Welles' infamous radio adaptation of the novel. In addition, the film is set primarily in New Jersey as is the radio play. 1953 movie Although not considered a remake of the 1953 version of The War of the Worlds, there are several instances where Steven Spielberg makes homage to the original film. Television series Other possible sources Ray's successful destroying of a tripod by using grenades, might have been taken from The White Mountains, the first book of The Tripods trilogy of science-fiction novels, which were inspired from H.G. Wells' original novel. Cast DVD info See also Notes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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