War of the Worlds : Spielberg and Wells on War, Revolutions, Occupations, and Christianity

War of the Worlds: Steven Spielberg and H.G. Wells on War, Revolutions, Occupations, and Christianity

The new Tom Cruise vehicle titled War of the Worlds is not only a tense portrayal of the terror and horror of war, particularly for those on the losing side of a modern one, but also a deeply political film. Director Steven Spielberg has gone to great lengths to "spin" this classic story with contemporary political allegories. What else should we expect from a film directed by Spielberg and co-starring Tim Robbins? Indeed, we should expect nothing less from a movie version of a book written in 1898 by H.G. Wells, who was a famous socialist (briefly Fabian Socialist), met with Lenin, rejected Stalinism, and was a vigorous proponent of a single world government. Wells’ original critiques of empire (British) and class warfare themes were set aside for the famous Americanized film version of 1953. Along with a more chilling sound effect for the alien tripods, Spielberg has updated that film by incorporating some of Wells’ original themes. We shall explore here if Spielberg is also reviving, in this age of the International Criminal Court (something Wells would have welcomed) and both environmental and "globalist" activism, Wells’ advocacy of a world government, attacks on nativism and conservative politics in general, and even Wells’ critique of Christianity. The following is only one man’s attempt to decipher the "back story" to this film.

First off, Tom Cruise’s character is clearly a representation of a working class guy from urbanized New Jersey. Cruise actually manages to pull off "average Joe" after a few scenes. He has an early scene in which he jokes he can’t meet the rich-kid demands of his children, who now live in comparative luxury with "Tim" and his ex-wife (and who are only being dropped off with their real "Dad" for the July 4 weekend [in a related critique of "American" social values in this age of "empire"]). The class rhetoric of the film doesn’t become wholly transparent until, after seeing the full impact of the war on his home and family, we see Tom Cruise walking with co-star Dakota Fanning towards a fancy townhouse of Boston (the mother’s house of his character’s ex-wife) that is the only building he’s seen since before the war that hasn’t been destroyed. The wealthy elites of Boston got to effectively sit it out, while the whole world collapsed around them, and Cruise and others had to walk through Hell (complete with alien blood-soaked weeds) and valleys of death. The only benefit to Cruise's character was that the war itself eliminated the corruptions of money and selfishness in his relationship with his children. It was Wells’ intent, reflected in this latest film as well, to illustrate that the costs of war and occupation are the burden of the working class – whose blood litters the soil of empires and fuels their spread of influence (like weeds), while the rich "capitalists" generally find ways to avoid the direct consequences of war and terror, and/or profit from them.

An early scene showing Cruise working on a dock seemed contrived towards that end, that is, until one sees the tripod machines and considers that Tom Cruise’s character was just shown driving a huge rig like that. The "alien" tripods are shaped like the aliens themselves (three-legged), and with a tricorner (Minuteman hat-like) head (and triangular command pod), with mechanical arms flailing about like so many slung/holstered weapons for a soldier. When viewed in the context of Dakota Fanning’s character talking about her body pushing out a splinter in due time, like the tripods emerging from the ground, it becomes clear very quickly that the viewer is being asked to consider that the tripods are a painful part of nature, much like the viruses we "earned the right" to live with through a billion deaths (reads narrator Morgan Freeman at the end), and an extension of something that is inside us – as Americans. The aliens force us to face the horror and terror of what a war between "men and maggots" (of the technologically superior vs. the occupied) feels like. That is, we are seemingly asked to consider what it must have felt like for those in Tasmania in the 19th century (in Wells’ original book), Poland in 1939 or Iraq in 1991-2005 – in hiding, with much of the war’s duration spent peering out through small slits in basements and bunkers. There is even a scene in a bombed out house with Tim Robbins, who plays a creepy man that Cruise’s character eventually has to kill, desperately trying to dig a spider-hole like the one Saddam Hussein was found in – all the while proclaiming that "occupations" always fail. Actually, he’s "dead set on" being wrong about that last claim, but that’s a history lesson for another time and place.

Herbert George Wells’ views on Christianity rear their ugly heads in this film – literally, in the form of a tripod that Cruise gets to watch coming up from a street right next to a church. While approaching the site of lightning strikes – the preferred method of travel for the occupiers, who appear out of the sky, Cruise’s character is approached by a local who immediately says (to paraphrase from recollection):"God is punishing the people of this neighborhood." Gee whiz, what happens next is that the machine comes up from the ground at the corner of "Merchant" (the aliens are good little capitalists, after all [how does that saying go?: it never hurts to be too thin, too tall, or too rich?]) and "New..." streets and topples the steeple of a Christian Church. In the 1953 film the director had the evil uncivilized aliens torch a priest. In this adaptation, the aliens appear transformed into symbols of the church – rising up from the roots upon which modern Christianity and the church were founded. One couldn’t help but notice that church steeple – the Old North Church? -- still standing behind the characters in the last scene in which Cruise appears on the streets of Boston. It was the only tall thing left standing in Boston after the tripods were finished.

The tripod itself is a symbol of what Wells argued was the primary fault in Christian faith – the adoption of the doctrine of the Trinity. This was a theme he was famous during his life for debating publicly, and addressing in God the Invisible King (1917) and his Outline of History. Wells’ take on faith was that God is an "Invisible King," whereby personal redemption or salvation with the help of any Church was not in the cards – so why bother? It was all in God’s "hidden" hands, and in particular via Darwinian natural selection (a theme central to Wells’ original War of the Worlds, where the aliens themselves are scrawny and come to represent what will become of man after eons of technological supremacy). Thus, the "tripod" is not some "natural" symbol or random "choice" for the aliens – it was a loud and booming critique of Christianity and all of "God’s creatures" affected or transformed by it through social Darwinism.

Here, in War of the Worlds, the theme is one of human "power" and nation-states being utterly powerless in the face of God’s hidden hands. Those hands come in the form of a superior race of tripods (with "legs" that operate like three-fingered hands), both living and machine, that have been here on Earth long before man ever built a road (to bury the machines a "million years" ago says Tim Robbins’ character). Those tripods, of course, symbolize Wells’ hatred for the Holy Trinity [Wells himself, the ardent socialist, later published a non-fiction work purporting Christian roots for modern totalitarian nightmares called "The Holy Terror" (1939)]. Little wonder they first pop up beneath a church. They are a "natural" power that can wipe out the greatest power and nation-state on earth in a couple of days. Hence, the U.S.A. seems to bear the brunt of the attacks in this film. Talk about what is going on in other parts of the world is purely speculative and contradictory, as shown in the march to the dock sequence.

Spielberg seems to be driving at a point here -- about American empire. First, the film is set on a July 4 weekend, released on a July 4 weekend, has Tom Cruise exclaim that the lightning, God’s Darwinian wrath we learn later, is like a July 4 fireworks show, has real U.S. military troops and equipment as extras in some spectacular battle sequences (probably on the debatable premise that the film is a patriotic one), and then ends in Boston around a statue of a Minuteman (not a real one, but one tailor-made for the film). The most important scene is the one involving the statue, covered in dying red weeds, which is the film’s climax, since it appears right next to the first fallen tripod. Cruise’s character tears away part of the dead weed strangling the statue and crushes it in a scene framed with the Minuteman statue behind him, while he proclaims that "they" are dying.

Who are "they?" THEY are destroyers in nature, part of God’s plan (but who face God’s wrath in a Darwinian turn of events at the end of the film), the spreaders of influence fueled by the spilled blood of man, technologically superior, but utterly without morality (showing no mercy or remorse as the aliens in one scene become curious about the photo of a woman in a bombed out house, that is, a photo of a creature they had either just drank the blood of or sprayed like fertilizer in a "war of extermination"). THEY are the aliens with heads like tricorner Minuteman hats. Perhaps "they" are metaphorical Christian American imperialists triggering a natural reaction in the form of devastation and chaos that mirrors the War on Terror (a standard radical Left-wing explanation of 9/11). Indeed, the reaction, like a rash of splinters being pushed out of God’s hand (His Earth), launched by the aliens comes in the form of an attack in which Cruise is covered with ash and soot, much like survivors of 9/11 in New York City, followed by another near-miss on "Tim’s" house by a crashed airliner.

So who or what is dying? A left-wing cinematic and Sci-Fi vision of American empire is dying. The same empire that former President Martin Van Buren slowed the spread of by blocking the annexation of Texas. In the opening "torch" sequence, Cruise is seen running past a street named "Van Buren," which is likely named after the famous New Yorker and President (1836-1840) Martin Van Buren. It’s the aliens (American imperialists) that want none of that, and blast through Van Buren street in the following sequences. Coincidence? It is the technologically superior Americans who have grown too comfortable with their supremacy, and who have lost sight of humility and humanity while spreading their weeds, tentacles, and empires to the loud boom and chorus of the Holy Trinity. As H.G. Wells wrote about often (in more than just World of the Worlds), it is at the very moment of an animal’s or empire’s supremacy that nature, God’s hidden hand, finds a way to ensure its complete overthrow. Rome, Britain, the Soviet Union, and many other empires have experienced that fate. The same thing could happen to our "empire," or is happening to our "empire," is the propaganda message of this film.

War of the Worlds has been broadcast and told in many variations, often in a very timely and prescient manner (from 1938’s radio broadcast on the eve of World War II to the 1953 Cold War version [with an anti-nuclear theme] for the theaters). Here, in this version, the "evil" is a Sci-Fi (a very "American" approach in its own right) spawn of American empire. Spielberg’s explicit allegory is France trying to civilize Algeria. In this film, Cruise’s character has a son with a school report due on the French experience in Algeria, which they repeat over and over in different contexts. We got the point already! Yes, our war in Iraq is like France’s attempt to subdue Islamic radicals in Algeria, and they failed. We know that. That is, most of us, with the apparent exception of Bill O’Reilly, who published a review of this film that tried to "spin" it as a rousing battle against alien al-Qaeda (a simplistic interpretation that ignores countless other allegories in the work, and Wells’ original intent). Let’s move on. When we see Tim Robbins exclaiming how occupations always fail, it becomes clear that the audience is supposed to be considering what it’s like to be on the receiving end of the wars in Iraq (with left-wing propaganda in the real world purporting that it is on the level of an "extermination").

So who really saves the day? In Spielberg’s version, the anti-imperialists are hardy revolutionaries coming up from the "Underground," from under houses and Tim Robbins’ "subways" for "resistance" (Cruise ends up taking a machine out after he finally gets the guts to fight back) to Cruise’s direction of a counter-attack from under an enclosed concrete walkway. They are the heirs to the spirit of the Minuteman statue breaking free of the strangling grasp of the red weed. In that respect it is a universalist, anti-imperialist and anti-war (left-wing) "patriotism" motivating the resistance. Breaking free, that is, to control their own blood, and not have it sacrificed for some destructive imperial force. Finally, the film ends with what appears to be a geographically impossible shot of a tree with a small green bud filled with our naturalist "allies" in the counter-attack against environmental destroyers -- the viruses (and the birds who spread them, like the flu, to the aliens and red weeds they feast on). Residents of Boston may have noticed that the final sequence, which shows the former Fleet Center and Bunker Hill Bridge in the distance, has a vantage point comparable to that of the top of the Bunker Hill Monument. That is, it is the view of Patriots who held the line and delivered a stunning blow to the British empire – and, here, its allegorical heirs.

Only this time, the anti-imperialists are out-matched. The great power of our nation is not enough. Even the intense desire of the son in this picture to "get back at them" is pointless. They cannot win the war alone. It is the globalists (one-worlders), our environmental friends (birds and viruses, and all of God’s creatures), who really save the day.

With all that having been said, this film was not entertaining in the least. It was enough to give nightmares to small kids and fits of apoplexy to adults sick and tired of Left-wing propaganda as "back stories" to Hollywood spectacles. I suppose if one just ignored the symbolism and allegories, it might seem like an "enjoyable" ride -- through Hell. Perhaps that explains why there was not a single clap after the end of the film (not even in victory) in the crowded and large theater that this reviewer saw it in: a theater located in a suburb of Boston roughly the distance from the city that you see the people marching towards down a highway in one scene.

I have my own interpretation. The aliens are Liberals and other anti-American revolutionaries wearing the camouflage of the Trinity and tri-cornered hats, and as cold-blooded as the creatures and weeds drinking the blood of patriots to keep warm. They wrap themselves around our country (and our patriotic monuments) like weeds. After all, it is the radical Left that made 9/11 possible with "open borders," political correctness in the FBI, and opposition to wars of preemptive extermination. Maybe it’s time to push those splinters out.

Good catch. It's still possible, since the premise is that they go on a long walk from circa Albany to Boston, with how many days in that house?, and other delays not shown to end up with the leaves just starting to fall in Boston (October). Perhaps the confusion by the author came from having so many flags flying on the porches of the rowhouses (and so many people with mixed clothing, some Fall-like, like the girl and mother, but many others with summer street clothes and no jackets in the early scenes).

You give Hollywood both too much and too little credit. Although the financing of movies is pretty much down to five companies (actually virtually ALL popular culture is created by those five companies) beneath the surface it's chaotic. Writers, directors, actors etc. fighting for projects, money, etc. Scripts being re-written at the las minute. Actors and directors being replace. For instance, the movie Pretty Woman was originally written as a very dark social commentary and then changed as they were shooting it to romantic comedy. So who knows how Starship Troopers, by that most American of Scifi writers, started out or how it was seen by a dutch guy who directed both action adventure and social commentary.

Who even knows how they edited it or re-cut it once it was shot? Body Heat, for instance, was re-cut (brilliantly) at the last minute with something like 20 minutes edited out of it. If you look closely, you can see conversations between two characters taking place while they are in different locations.

That said, there is no "Hollywood" as you think of it. No monolithic organization with a single vision -- at least not a vision that extends beyond keeping their jobs and making money. I've met a bunch of Hollywood producers, directors, etc. over the years through odd twists of fate and I can state without hesitation that they are the most frightened people you would ever hope to meet. They are in a highly competitive field that offers big money, but only if you "guess" right almost every time. It's pretty much like having a high paying job where the boss tells you to go into a casino and make three very large bets. If you bet right, then you get to keep your job. If you guess wrong, then you're fired.

You need to reaquaint yourself with Norman Rockwell. See, unlike Spielberg, Rockwell's iconic America was one of complete families, religious faith and enduring American ideals. Spielberg, OTOH, is just another touchy feely boomer, albiet a talented film maker. His philosophical content and the enduring messages of his films, however, will be like that of most of his g-g-generations artists and luminaries - a mirror reflection of a lost and self-absorbed generation without root or branch. He is a painter of pretty signs on a dead end road.

The thing that makes classics classic is that they speak for all time about the human condition. Better still are the cultural messages of Western civilization that uphold God, man and the artifice of government. There is no need other than the ego of directors to 'update' classic works or shed the dim rays of the time on the perfect work of past ages. This is the slight of hand artifice of those with nothing to say but with the technical means of crafting entertaining illusion. Spielberg does reflects his age - a vapid and self serving one.

The WOTW movie still sucks, but I believe we have made some progress in defining Spielberg and his 'message' for what they are - nothing.

Rockwell's wife was loony as hell and spent a good portion of their marriage in and out of institutions and under the care of various therapists. In later years he turned bitter and that fact is reflected in his paintings. The painting entitled "The Problem We All Live With" is dark in the extreme.

Norman Rockwell had neither a "Norman Rockwell Family" nor a particularly Norman Rockwell outlook on life.

Nobody likes Norman Rockwell for his personal story. Norman Rockwell captured America as many Americans knew it and, bigger still, he emphasized larger truths about God, man and family. In spite of whatever problems he may have suffered, his work is timeless and will endure. In many ways, that is one of the quintessential traits of generations past.

Spielberg, OTOH, is just another tedious boomer bringing his distorted views of God, humanity and family dysfunction to the screen. He doesn't lift anyone up through genuine morality or restate cultural truths that have guided Western civilization. No, other than wringing emotion wrought by screen stealing children or the physical relief at the end of hair raising escapades, he really doesn't have anything to say at all. In fact, if you discount the fantastic effects and the rehashing of stolen plots and proven genre, I don't know that much would be left of his work other than some Rod McKuen poetry.

Sure, the comment has already been posted that artists merely reflect their times, but that is just a tad too trite to be meaningful. We all know that 'artists' try like hell to influence people (hence the symbolism and commentary), but if they get caught in the wringer they weep like old women protesting their innocence. The truth is that in the wake of the tidal wave of social and familial disintegration (which is the true boomer legacy), the only religion, values, culture or bonding many dysfunctional people receive is through shared consumption of popular mediums. At the forefront are the best of the Pied Pipers. Spielberg is merely the reigning head clown in a circus of the bizarre.

Uh, Rockwell was an illustrator. The intent of his illustrations was to sell magazines, in this case The Saturday Evening Post. When he switched over to Look in the 1960s, his style changed to meet the needs of that magazine, which was probably closer to his own thinking. He was, afterall, NYC born and raised.

If artists don't reflect their times or if that is too trite, then what times should they reflect? Few artists of any talent set out by saying, "Hey, ya know what? I wanna do something morally uplifting. Yeah, that's the ticket!" What they do is look at the world around them and reflect it back through the lens of their own intellect.

I'm no Spielberg fan, but you really give him too much credit and power. Families fly apart because they can. Women are no longer bound to their husbands financially. Husbands are often unable to meet the financial obligations of raising a famiy. And both husbands and wives say, "I'm unwilling to spend the rest of my life in this situation. I refuse to accept that this is as good as my life is going to get." Whether that's morally right or not, it's not Spielberg's fault.

Rockwell was a classically trained fine artist. That he made part of his living doing illustrations is little or no consequence. That he is well known and loved by at least four generations of Americans is. He work goes well beyond the SEP. His patriotic themes and his loving portrayals of life, country, family and God brought him plenty of work and commissions from many different quarters not unlike the patrons of other historically enduring artists. I can assure you that his work will be recognized by everyman for a long, long time to come even though elite 'artists' will continue to snort and pander their shabby dreck in urban galleries to well-heeled sophisticates for as long as the exchange of legal tender for excrement remains popular.

If I may continue to paint with a broad brush, I'd also say that most modern artists will vanish because 1) modern art is a fraud; 2) many chic 'artists' of this age have no talent - technical or otherwise; 3) art consumers will always be the last to say that the Emperor has no clothes and 4) precisely because they don't say anything worth knowing or remembering. Like some children, decadent art simply screams about pain and flings excrement. This is a good laugh in itself since these 'artists' are 99.9% Western and priveledged. As another real artist once put it - "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Now, I know that you must actually believe what you say about 'artists' reflecting the world through their intellects, but I give no more credence to that text book answer anymore than I would trust 'journalists' to report the facts.

Finally, I guess I fail to see where you think I give Spielberg too much power. Personally, I don't give him, or Hollywood, a second thought and rarely any money. That he is one of a few in the film industry that can write his own ticket does say something about his power in that cloister and his ability to make a buck. No, for me, in the end, he is just another clueless boomer. The social disintegration I mention, however, IS the real legacy of the boomers. Spielberg just happens to be a pop-culture voice crooning the golden hits of that pop-culture g-g-generation.

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