oneirophrenia: (Mr. Stay Puft)
[personal profile] oneirophrenia
Roger Ebert is one of my favorite film critics. Sure, I frequently disagree with a lot of his reviews--but they're always thoughful, well-written, and consistently reasonable. But, man, his review of War of the Worlds is so far off the fucking mark it's unbelievable. The man literally didn't get the film at all.

Mainly, in his review, he complains about how "unexciting" the alien invasion is, and how improbably the invaders are. Why would they just start vaporizing humans without provocation? Why would they use some as fertilizer? Why would they attack now? Why would they bury their machines here and then teleport into them when the Allmighty Tallest give them the OK? Why would they do this? Why would they do that?

WHO THE FUCK CARES?!?!

Yes, the Martians in Wells' novel had a reason for invading--a very good one: their planet was dying, and they wanted to capture this one from us. Fine. But remember, folks: this film is an adaptation, not a literal filming of the book, and in that light...aren't the invaders that much more terrifying if their motives are completely alien and inscrutable? Desperate, dying Martians are one thing--they're still frightening, but you almost pity them at the same time (which was Wells' ideal in the first place)--but what's more terrifying to a contemporary American audience than a surprise attack from terror--I mean, aliens--who just spring up from nowhere and start destroying? The film is about the people trying to survive the aliens' extermination, not about the politics of alien invasion.

Think about it, Rog. I can't believe you missed something so frickin' obvious. DANG!

Date: 2005-07-05 04:38 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] theantidj.livejournal.com
While I think that Mr. Ebert is too hung up on not liking the tripods, I do think that he does have some points. I tend to think that films that explore motivation of the parties involved are a lot more intersting in there just being a one sided big bad evil force. I think that mr. s was clearly going for the aliens as terrorists route.. under the assumption that those terrorists that menace the U.S. now are also just big bad and purely evil with out any motivation for attacking us. And that's just lame.

Some degree of criticism of the tripod thing is also fair. You have to suspend a considerable amount of disbelief with any science fiction film, but a film maker probably should not go out of his or her way to make this more difficult. The idea of the things being burried on the planet already just makes no sense in any way.

All of this said, I did enjoy the movie dispite all of this stuff. Overall it's interesting enough to be OK, but not really good by my standards. There was a chance here to make a really good adaptation of the original book that did justice to the source in big ways, unlike previous adaptations of the story. I would have been much happier with a film that did this.

Date: 2005-07-05 12:26 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] laerm.livejournal.com
I can't believe you missed something so frickin' obvious.

how can a motivation of, well, no motivation be obvious? [scratches head]

Date: 2005-07-05 04:38 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] z0mb1e.livejournal.com
I have to say that I agree with Ebert COMPLETELY.

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