Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Liberator on December 14, 2004, 01:20:45 pm
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http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/waroftheworlds/index.html
The first trailer is out.
It says it based on the HG Wells book, but it sound and looks more like a remake of the 1950's film. In other words, my friends, it's yet another hollywoodized, effects-laden rape of a classic piece of fiction.
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Isn't there already an enourmous thread on this?
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Yes, but it was old, and I have a link for the trailer. This is more of an update.
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The thread was bumped when the trailer came out, and updated with a link to it.
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Originally posted by Liberator
http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/waroftheworlds/index.html
The first trailer is out.
It says it based on the HG Wells book, but it sound and looks more like a remake of the 1950's film. In other words, my friends, it's yet another hollywoodized, effects-laden rape of a classic piece of fiction.
Hardly surprising. I'll probably download it...
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H.G. Wells' stories were goofy. They could do with some special-effects-laiden updating-- the recent version of The Time Machine being a case in point.
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Updating the effects is different to turning the story inside out and just keeping the name.
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My point is that sometimes even the story itself is ripe for updating.
If we were talking about a deep piece of literature, I would be rather outraged with it being fluffed up, but H.G. Wells' books are about an inch away from being comic books.
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LOL That's pretty much a matter of opinion, you could say the same for Asimov, since that's where the Foundation series first started appearing, in Sci-Fi weekly.
As for the story needing revamping, not really, when you consider they are not simply changing the context of the story, but changing the whole 'story' of the story, including the ending from the sounds of things, to make it so that Man kills the Martians instead of luck.
It sort of, at least in my opinon, takes away the entire point that HG Wells was trying to make in the book in the first place :(
Edit : That point being 'Nature defends it's own'.....
'From the moment the Martians landed, our invisible allies had already sealed their fate......'
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I would say the same about Asimov.
My logic is that since the book is not particularly weighty to begin with, I may as well just view this movie in the context of what will be viscerally entertaining.
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I depends on how it its made...you could get a good movie if they stick at least to the general theme of the book(i.e. humans suck compared to martians and almost biting the big one) with a new setting.
But there's a chance that it will be an Inedendence day(which is a remake of the '50ies movie, just with a different name) and end up a wet flagwaving jingoistic wank fantasy.
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Ford: Yeah, it'll be a typical spectacular action flick. Rather shallow, but fun to watch - big explosions and all. But that could've been done with any generic "alien-invasion-all-Merrycan-hero-saves-the-day" plot. This film is using the title of a classic and very famous piece of sci-fi writing to promote itself, when the plot bears very little resemblance to the story in the book. Not good.
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The thing is that a book does not have to be weighty to contain a good story, add waffle to a good idea, and you get a film that goes on for too long.
Asimov was published in a comic at first, but I personally would not call the Foundation series or the Millenium Man a comic. Even Lord of the Rings was largely considered a 'comic book' by reviewers when Tolkein released it.
If Lord of the Rings had ended with some sword-wielding Conan lookalike with an American accent taking the ring off of Frodo and throwing it into Mt Doom, you'd be a little irked? It's the same thing, the ending is a parody, Frodo failed, and Gollum accidentally suceeded. Take that away, you destroy the story.
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It doesn't have to be deep to be entertaining, no, but the fact remains that it is fluffy. I enjoy fluff, but I don't hold it in the same esteem as that which I consider to be intellectually complex art.
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Meh. The trailer doesn't look so great...
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Thing is, I like a good 'Fun' movie as much as any other, but if he wanted to make a movie like that, why not just go ahead and make it and call it 'War of Survival' or 'lots of CG stuff here', it's a Spielberg movie, it's not as if it will need much more pimping than that.
It's no-one fault, but I personally find it mildly offensive that someone of the esteem of Spielberg feels the need to piggyback on what is, in this country, one of the cornerstones of Sci-Fi literature.
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Bah. Independence Day is a good rendition of War of the Worlds. I like it, its cooky, effect driven, and still loads of fun to watch. It doesent take itself too seriously. I'm afraid War of the Worlds is gonna be Minority Report meets Mars Attacks. Hopefully not, but when we finally get to see those aliens dishing out the pain and good ol' Cruise doing his "suffering hero" thing, I'm afraid it might go south. But hell, who knows. Just a trailer, its Spielberg, and loads of cash is going into it. It might be good. But Star Wars is coming out that year too, so...
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Cornerstones? Bah. Depends on what you think science fiction ought to be.
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Well, yes, I'm not saying it's the best book ever written by a long shot, but the impact that book had on the whole genre cannot be ignored.
If you didn't like the original book, then of course you wouldn't want the movie to go in the same direction, but that is the story of War of the Worlds, as told by HG Wells.
Sci-Fi is due a wake up call, but if anything what Speilberg is doing is moving the story closer to the mainstream sci-fi 'zap-boom-hurrah we win again' garbage we seem to be fed so much of these days :(
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Tis unfortunate but true, that Sci-fi will always be a genre that will lean towards "zap zap" movies. There few but excelent examples of what the sci-fi genre is truly capable of.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Abre los ojos (original Vanilla Sky)
Blade Runner
Alien
Donnie Darko
The Thing
All scifi movies without the "blam blam zap zap".
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Then there's also 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, 12 Monkeys, and AI: Artificial Intelligence.
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Actually, it's funny you should mention Alien, I was just thinking of Alien 3 as a wonderful example of how sci-fi movies can be made 'Gritty' whilst still remaining fixed in the future. No lasers, practically no spaceships, just a group of convicts and Ripley with nothing more than whatever weapons that come to hand in a prison.
That film, to me, shows human ingenuity to a far higher degree than being able to write a virus (in ID4) that the most basic version of McAfee would have kicked in the head ;)
I suppose that's why I want WOTW to stay as it was written, the fact the journalist managed to survive a war where it was literally cannons vs lasers, is a testament to humanity in itself. For me, it also has an environmental significance, the Earth protects it's own.
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A clockwork orange is a bit iffy. Not really sci-fi per se, than a introspective thriller and ultraviolence flick. But alas, I forgot 12 Monkeys! Its a brilliant movie. :yes:
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2001 was original in the same way as Dark Star was though, as in, you had to watch it several times because you were convinced you must have missed a large chunk of the movie somewhere ;)
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Hehehehe. Dark Star. gotta love that beach ball. Hmm. Talking about Beach balls, I guess you could call "The Prisoner" a sci-fi achievement as well, although it was a TV series.