Posted on 01/13/2005 1:41:37 PM PST by pabianice
OK, movie fans. First, there was the Wells novel, written in 1898 and astonishingly ahead of its time. Then, there was the first movie in 1953 -- also ahead of its time and very watchable for its effects, although Gene Barry was arguably not the best guy for the lead role. Now, we have the Speilberg remake, due out this summer.
The good news is that the film appears to try and recreate as much of the novel as possible, updating it from 1898 to 2005. The trailer looks like fun. And of course, CGI now lets a producer create visual effects undreamed of 50 years ago.
The bad news is varied. First, we have Speilberg, one of the great visual movie makers around but crippled with a political correctness that has turned most of his recent movies into dinner theater for the DNC. Tom Cruise takes the lead again, but he, too, is hot and cold and often seems unclear about a character's motivation. The, there is the tortured history of this remake, apparently set to have begun filming in 2001 but since re-re-re-written and had cast and crew changes. Such a history is, in Hollywood, usually a predictor of a really bad final product. Usually.
As noted in another thread, the recent remake of "Flight of the Phoenix" is notable only because it crashed and burned at the box office, returning just under $ 20 million on a $ 70 million+ investment to date.
We'll have to see what happens with "War."
Production sketch from remake of "WOTW."
Bad mufflers?
We won't go see it. I'll not give a penny to that anti-American POS.
There's a rumor that Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise are going to do an "Ishtar"! ;)
oh cool...i didn't know that one actually. I'll check IMDB when i get home to see what his role is, as well as the trailer. as for the spaceships...well i dunno really :) i don't wanna ruin the movie by saying what the book did.
I betcha the church is destroyed but it turns out it's not a church at all, but a converted mosque and all the muslims die and the aliens turn out to christians, wearing Kellogg, Brown Root ID tags on their shirt pockets. The main alien ship is commanded by a VP Cheney look-alike.
LOTR was kinda sorta a remake.
I especially thought ET was awful. Also noted that PC seems to permeate his films.
Also don't like HG Wells. He has great ideas but his books are a little hard to get into. Jules Verne is far better.
Keepin' an eye out for this one
You wouldn't ruin anything. I've read all of the books by Welles. But War of the Worlds is my favorite. My comment about the spaceships was more about Spielberg and other movies. The clouds are a cool effect though.
In the remake, all alien heat rays will be replaced by walkie-talkies.
I agree. I am looking forward to Spielberg's vision/version of WOTW.
Now if we could just get someone big to pick up Niven's "Ringworld" for the major motion picture treatment....
well in the book the the baddies use a gas that kills stuff, so that might be the clouds? I had a pretty good mental picture what that'd look like so we'll see how the movie turns out
Huh?? Wasn't Rip Taylor available?
I'm sorry. A "man's man" need to carry this role, not 'Blue Boy.'
For one thing, Spielberg has developed a crush on Fidel Castro.
Independence Day was, of course, a remake of the 1953 version, updated to incorporate the world view of Hollywood at the time
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