You know, I wasn’t all that excited about seeing ‘War of the Worlds’ anyway…and that was before the screenwriter explained that the invading Martians in the film were really a metaphor for invading U.S. troops (no, really…).
now that I read that, all sorts of stuff that just seemed to be thrown in the film make sense:
the creepy resistance fighter
suicide bomber as hero
blindfold on daughter
killing own people as a way to fight the occupier
and of course the line – occupations never work.
I wish they would make up their fregin minds already, are we Nazis or are we Martians? I’m really beginning to form a personal identity crisis here folks… someone… anyone… am I a Martian or a Nazi? Take deep breaths, big deep breaths. I’m okay, really.
I think that David Koepp is fishing for publicity with those commenst; they just don’t jibe with the film I saw. What I saw was a holocaust film, no doubt about it. If this was allegorical, it was of Tom Cruise & family being Jews in Poland in 1939 as the Wehrmacht advanced. The scenes showing Cruise covered with the ashes of the dead, the clothes of the “harvested” people falling from the sky, all seemed to evoke the extermination campaign of the Nazis.
Thanks AL, you know I save so much money by not going to the movies* or having cable these days that I can pretty much just buy any DVD for a show or movie that I really want to watch. Most movies at the theater cost about the same as a gently used DVD which I can watch it as often as I like at my own convenience and resell it when I no longer want it.
* Although I did go see the Star Wars prequel and Lord of the Rings in the theater.
I don’t know, lots of stuff I thought meaningless make sense if you read it a certain way:
Tom Cruise is an attempted suicide bomber using one of his army’s abanded explosive devices.
He blindfolds an innocent person and kills another innocent person; of course driven by the alien kiling machines.
The aliens want human blood to feed their plants (Halliburton wants oil for plants and factories).
The invaders are killed by the invaded peoples own pathologies – our pathological microorganisms, some say terror, suicide bombing, tribalism will destroy anyone who tries to occupy.
The movie was too scatterbrained to follow any particular political line. The writer was an idiot regardless of his political views. Stupid movie with a few good visual effects. A waste of money and time.
Did the screenwriter bother to include metaphors for the UN Resolutions? Which character was the metaphorical Saddam? Uday?Baghdad Bob? Zarqawi? Where were the metaphorical mass graves? If Tom and the US were metaphorical deadender Sunnis, who were the metaphorical Kurds and Shia? Does this mean that 80% of the metaphorical planet was in favor of the Martian intervention?
Hey we could sell them our blood, and they wouldn’t have any left after they fry everybody anyway. Does the Red Cross play the same role in both real and metaphorical worlds-that might explain the blood shortage? Was L. Ron Hubbard on any one of those spacecrafts? Why didn’t they write Katie Holmes into the movie as one of Tom’s kids? So many questions, so little time.
OK, I can see that everyone thinks I am a dope. My last comment.
The movie followed Wells except when there was some reason to introduce a change. In Wells the Martains drank human blood, in the movie they sprayed it over a landscape of red plants. I found the scene confusing and was not sure what was going on.
My question is why the change from the book in this instance? How does it forward the story or increase the drama? What is the purpose?
The screenwriter has said that his work can be viewed as a metaphore for the invasion of Iraq. I think he made a nice play on words, consistant with his statement, in the movie it is blood to feed plants, in Iraq it is blood for oil and oil to feed factories and plants.
I don’t think you’re a dope. I think the screenwriter is a dope.
I haven’t seen the movie, but your analysis sounds consistent with what the screenwriter is saying. My comments are aimed at his lame attempts to be profound.
In the Soviet Union, people couldn’t read directly and honestly about what was going on, what was most important and on everyone’s minds, because of censorship. So they read all kinds of meanings into books and plays, looking for the hidden message that might or might not really be there. That tale of a village, and the fire – was that really a story of rural Russia and the purges? Maybe.
Now, we are at war, and have been for years. This is really the one big issue. But we can’t see movies that address it directly and honestly. Hollywood is against us, big time, but wisely afraid (for good financial reasons) to put out movies that say directly: you had it (9/11-3/11-7/7 etc.) coming – take your medicine, admit your guilt, you’ll never win by fighting! So we look all the time, like Soviet readers, for hidden messages about things that our culturally primary medium never honestly and directly addresses, even though they’re glaringly out-there in the real world.
When someone is even aware that the towers fell, like the prejudiced gun shop guy in Crash, it’s a shock. (Of course, Crash let people be aware of all sorts of things we’re not allowed to notice normally, that was partly what the film was about). I see pictures of New York in Hollywood movies – are the towers still there, or gone and if so how? – does the shot chosen hide whether they’re there or not? What would that mean, if so?
Sometimes the hidden message is there. Maybe it was in the Kingdom of Heaven. And sometimes it isn’t really there, or is so disguised it’s lost.
But much more interesting than whether the hidden message is there in any one case is that we’ve been reduced to this.
Movies are such a culturally important way our society talks to itself. It’s very strange, the way we see them now.
On the contrary, Spielberg told that the 1938 version by Orson Welles had such a deep impact on people because it was clear then that the world was going into a new war. Was he trying to get the same effect? Aren’t such harsh scenes a psychological preparation for terrorist attacks? The plane, the burning train, the ferry… aren’t they terror attacks? and in the middle of everything a fallible person taking care of his son and daughter… it seems to me that it was a preparation for the worst.
I liked the movie. It’s not a photocopied script (copy with permission may not be a crime, but it is still boring) buried under an overdose of digital visual and sound effects, as are so many films today, but still is someway close to the book.
Well it could be worse…he could have said they were meant to be zionists. I haven’t seen the movie and have no plans to do so because Cruise is a rubbish actor and a nitwit.
I’ve seen this movie and I consider it to be excellent.
It helps that I’m a Tom Cruise fan and this is one of his best and plainest performances. The kids are first rate. The bit parts are consistently solid. The only actor I didn’t like was Tim Robbins, who I never like. Even he wasn’t bad, it’s just that some actors rub some viewers the wrong way, not necessarily implying any fault on either side.
The direction is outstanding. The visuals are amazing, the sound is even more so. (I mean – wow! You like good movie sound? I like good movie music and sound. This sound is a feast.) The dialogue is good, or the actors make it sound good. The story has only the weaknesses that come with H.G. Wells’ original concept, now new and offensive Hollywood weaknesses have been added.
There were things about the subtext of the movie I didn’t like at all. I’m not going to refer to the scenes that displeased me most, because I abhor spoilers, but … I felt, during the movie, that there was stuff that was neither nice nor true, and implied things I am not in agreement to say the least, and it put me off.
But outstanding work remains what it is. You should never refrain from calling good work good, for political reasons, because you fear you’ll sound uncool if you praise without slights and without taking a superior attitude, or for any other reason. If it’s good, it’s good, and this is a good film.
It’s hard for me to reconcile’s Koepp’s comments with the basic modus operandi of the quasi-Martians in the new WotW (which I liked, for the record):
What is the analogue between US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan versus the alien forces, which had been in place, hidden, for presumably eons, undiscovered by our modern modes of excavating and building?
I guess I’m referring to the question of physical direction. If Koepp wanted to make a point of aliens=US in the Middle East, it would be much more comprehensible if he had the invaders, well, invading (as opposed to infiltrating and subverting). What’s more, those invading would concentrate on taking out millitary command structures (and, later, fighting humans who are willing to indiscriminantly slaughter other humans if it meant discrediting/defeating the aliens).
All this while at the same time trying to establish (or impose, if you like) a different system of governance, and selectively improving certain aspects of human infrastructure with their superior alien technology.
OK, then. That’s clearly not what happens in the movie. In the movie, you have these ancient mechanisms with either incomprehensible or else utterly simple motivations (that is, destroy everything human-related); these mechanisms have been hidden away until such time that they are given the signal to act and commence to sowing as much chaos and destruction as possible against either civilian or military targets, doesn’t matter.
I know how I interpret the latter. Koepp sounds like a guy trying to “rescue” his debatable message. I think it must suck for “artists” to see their works appropriated for uses not much related to their original intent.
I think the writer is blowing smoke. The script seems to be a fairly straight forward adaptation of Wells’ novel with the addition of Tom Cruise and family in order that the audience has a sympathetic group of characters to relate to.
I do not doubt that the writer is probably a barking moonbat who used the opportunity of the interview to express his political views, but other than sneaking the snide, historically incorrect line about “occupations never work” into the dialogue, I don’t see it that the movie is allegorical to the current war in either Iraq or Afghanistan.
I was watching a promo for the movie on an Indian channel – it actually had an interview with Spielberg in which he claimed that this somehow has a lesson for the American imperialism and that no one can be powerful all the time or some such clap-trap. I wonder if this was broadcast only outside of America.
now that I read that, all sorts of stuff that just seemed to be thrown in the film make sense:
the creepy resistance fighter
suicide bomber as hero
blindfold on daughter
killing own people as a way to fight the occupier
and of course the line – occupations never work.
Hey, I’m proud to be a Martian cowboy!!!
Such fatuousness is almost unbelievable.
I wish they would make up their fregin minds already, are we Nazis or are we Martians? I’m really beginning to form a personal identity crisis here folks… someone… anyone… am I a Martian or a Nazi? Take deep breaths, big deep breaths. I’m okay, really.
Does this mean I can have one of those death-ray thingies? The DMV would never be the same again.
wedding crashers was totally amazing!!
Does anybody want to guess what Spielberg’s 1972 Munich Olympics movie will be a metaphor for?
I think that David Koepp is fishing for publicity with those commenst; they just don’t jibe with the film I saw. What I saw was a holocaust film, no doubt about it. If this was allegorical, it was of Tom Cruise & family being Jews in Poland in 1939 as the Wehrmacht advanced. The scenes showing Cruise covered with the ashes of the dead, the clothes of the “harvested” people falling from the sky, all seemed to evoke the extermination campaign of the Nazis.
Thanks AL, you know I save so much money by not going to the movies* or having cable these days that I can pretty much just buy any DVD for a show or movie that I really want to watch. Most movies at the theater cost about the same as a gently used DVD which I can watch it as often as I like at my own convenience and resell it when I no longer want it.
* Although I did go see the Star Wars prequel and Lord of the Rings in the theater.
The screenwriter was putting a political scree on the script that does not make sense–call it political masturbation.
The aliens were autocthonous demons, not invaders.
If the wars in Afganistan and Iraq are implied, it is erroneous; there were no large refugee streams in these wars.
There is a more intelligent reading of the movie–mine. Here: http://shroudedindoubt.typepad.com/bodyparts/movies/index.html
Mickey Kaus: “How can dissent survive when a major-studio anti-imperialist statement only brings in $192 million? It’s the New McCarthyism!”
I don’t know, lots of stuff I thought meaningless make sense if you read it a certain way:
Tom Cruise is an attempted suicide bomber using one of his army’s abanded explosive devices.
He blindfolds an innocent person and kills another innocent person; of course driven by the alien kiling machines.
The aliens want human blood to feed their plants (Halliburton wants oil for plants and factories).
The invaders are killed by the invaded peoples own pathologies – our pathological microorganisms, some say terror, suicide bombing, tribalism will destroy anyone who tries to occupy.
It seemed very apolitical to me. It was about a dad. Spielberg told a good spiel. No need to Speelunk further.
He is good that way, taking the risky idea, but steering clear of obvious dangers.
The movie was too scatterbrained to follow any particular political line. The writer was an idiot regardless of his political views. Stupid movie with a few good visual effects. A waste of money and time.
Did the screenwriter bother to include metaphors for the UN Resolutions? Which character was the metaphorical Saddam? Uday?Baghdad Bob? Zarqawi? Where were the metaphorical mass graves? If Tom and the US were metaphorical deadender Sunnis, who were the metaphorical Kurds and Shia? Does this mean that 80% of the metaphorical planet was in favor of the Martian intervention?
Hey we could sell them our blood, and they wouldn’t have any left after they fry everybody anyway. Does the Red Cross play the same role in both real and metaphorical worlds-that might explain the blood shortage? Was L. Ron Hubbard on any one of those spacecrafts? Why didn’t they write Katie Holmes into the movie as one of Tom’s kids? So many questions, so little time.
OK, I can see that everyone thinks I am a dope. My last comment.
The movie followed Wells except when there was some reason to introduce a change. In Wells the Martains drank human blood, in the movie they sprayed it over a landscape of red plants. I found the scene confusing and was not sure what was going on.
My question is why the change from the book in this instance? How does it forward the story or increase the drama? What is the purpose?
The screenwriter has said that his work can be viewed as a metaphore for the invasion of Iraq. I think he made a nice play on words, consistant with his statement, in the movie it is blood to feed plants, in Iraq it is blood for oil and oil to feed factories and plants.
Doug,
I don’t think you’re a dope. I think the screenwriter is a dope.
I haven’t seen the movie, but your analysis sounds consistent with what the screenwriter is saying. My comments are aimed at his lame attempts to be profound.
Our interpretation of movies has become Soviet.
In the Soviet Union, people couldn’t read directly and honestly about what was going on, what was most important and on everyone’s minds, because of censorship. So they read all kinds of meanings into books and plays, looking for the hidden message that might or might not really be there. That tale of a village, and the fire – was that really a story of rural Russia and the purges? Maybe.
Now, we are at war, and have been for years. This is really the one big issue. But we can’t see movies that address it directly and honestly. Hollywood is against us, big time, but wisely afraid (for good financial reasons) to put out movies that say directly: you had it (9/11-3/11-7/7 etc.) coming – take your medicine, admit your guilt, you’ll never win by fighting! So we look all the time, like Soviet readers, for hidden messages about things that our culturally primary medium never honestly and directly addresses, even though they’re glaringly out-there in the real world.
When someone is even aware that the towers fell, like the prejudiced gun shop guy in Crash, it’s a shock. (Of course, Crash let people be aware of all sorts of things we’re not allowed to notice normally, that was partly what the film was about). I see pictures of New York in Hollywood movies – are the towers still there, or gone and if so how? – does the shot chosen hide whether they’re there or not? What would that mean, if so?
Sometimes the hidden message is there. Maybe it was in the Kingdom of Heaven. And sometimes it isn’t really there, or is so disguised it’s lost.
But much more interesting than whether the hidden message is there in any one case is that we’ve been reduced to this.
Movies are such a culturally important way our society talks to itself. It’s very strange, the way we see them now.
On the contrary, Spielberg told that the 1938 version by Orson Welles had such a deep impact on people because it was clear then that the world was going into a new war. Was he trying to get the same effect? Aren’t such harsh scenes a psychological preparation for terrorist attacks? The plane, the burning train, the ferry… aren’t they terror attacks? and in the middle of everything a fallible person taking care of his son and daughter… it seems to me that it was a preparation for the worst.
I liked the movie. It’s not a photocopied script (copy with permission may not be a crime, but it is still boring) buried under an overdose of digital visual and sound effects, as are so many films today, but still is someway close to the book.
Well it could be worse…he could have said they were meant to be zionists. I haven’t seen the movie and have no plans to do so because Cruise is a rubbish actor and a nitwit.
I’ve seen this movie and I consider it to be excellent.
It helps that I’m a Tom Cruise fan and this is one of his best and plainest performances. The kids are first rate. The bit parts are consistently solid. The only actor I didn’t like was Tim Robbins, who I never like. Even he wasn’t bad, it’s just that some actors rub some viewers the wrong way, not necessarily implying any fault on either side.
The direction is outstanding. The visuals are amazing, the sound is even more so. (I mean – wow! You like good movie sound? I like good movie music and sound. This sound is a feast.) The dialogue is good, or the actors make it sound good. The story has only the weaknesses that come with H.G. Wells’ original concept, now new and offensive Hollywood weaknesses have been added.
There were things about the subtext of the movie I didn’t like at all. I’m not going to refer to the scenes that displeased me most, because I abhor spoilers, but … I felt, during the movie, that there was stuff that was neither nice nor true, and implied things I am not in agreement to say the least, and it put me off.
But outstanding work remains what it is. You should never refrain from calling good work good, for political reasons, because you fear you’ll sound uncool if you praise without slights and without taking a superior attitude, or for any other reason. If it’s good, it’s good, and this is a good film.
It’s hard for me to reconcile’s Koepp’s comments with the basic modus operandi of the quasi-Martians in the new WotW (which I liked, for the record):
What is the analogue between US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan versus the alien forces, which had been in place, hidden, for presumably eons, undiscovered by our modern modes of excavating and building?
I guess I’m referring to the question of physical direction. If Koepp wanted to make a point of aliens=US in the Middle East, it would be much more comprehensible if he had the invaders, well, invading (as opposed to infiltrating and subverting). What’s more, those invading would concentrate on taking out millitary command structures (and, later, fighting humans who are willing to indiscriminantly slaughter other humans if it meant discrediting/defeating the aliens).
All this while at the same time trying to establish (or impose, if you like) a different system of governance, and selectively improving certain aspects of human infrastructure with their superior alien technology.
OK, then. That’s clearly not what happens in the movie. In the movie, you have these ancient mechanisms with either incomprehensible or else utterly simple motivations (that is, destroy everything human-related); these mechanisms have been hidden away until such time that they are given the signal to act and commence to sowing as much chaos and destruction as possible against either civilian or military targets, doesn’t matter.
I know how I interpret the latter. Koepp sounds like a guy trying to “rescue” his debatable message. I think it must suck for “artists” to see their works appropriated for uses not much related to their original intent.
I think the writer is blowing smoke. The script seems to be a fairly straight forward adaptation of Wells’ novel with the addition of Tom Cruise and family in order that the audience has a sympathetic group of characters to relate to.
I do not doubt that the writer is probably a barking moonbat who used the opportunity of the interview to express his political views, but other than sneaking the snide, historically incorrect line about “occupations never work” into the dialogue, I don’t see it that the movie is allegorical to the current war in either Iraq or Afghanistan.
I was watching a promo for the movie on an Indian channel – it actually had an interview with Spielberg in which he claimed that this somehow has a lesson for the American imperialism and that no one can be powerful all the time or some such clap-trap. I wonder if this was broadcast only outside of America.
In the end… wouldn’t it all be a marketing issue?