War Of The Worlds

Review by Richard Lee

Dreamworks Home Entertainment / 2005 / 117 Minutes / Rated PG-13
Street Date: November 22, 2005

Specifications:
-DVD-Video
-DVD-9
-Region 1

Aspect Ratio:
-1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen

Audio:
-English DTS 5.1 Digital Surround
-English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
-English Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
-French Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround

Subtitles:
-English
-French
-Spanish
-None

Main Menu:
-Play Movie
-Audio
-Subtitles
-Scene Index
-Designing The Enemy

Special Features:
-Located on bonus disc to be covered at end of review

After the success of teaming up with mega-star Tom Cruise on the sci-fi classic “Minority Report”, Steven Spielberg casts him again, this time as everyman Ray Ferrier in an updated adaptation of H.G. Wells’ timeless science fiction novel “War of the Worlds”. Filmed once before in 1953 by legendary producer George Pal and director Byron Haskin, Spielberg now brings his vision to this sci-fi staple and in the process makes it uniquely his own. The original story took place in Victorian England, understandably since it was the super-power of its day and dealt with a technologically superior alien intelligence wreaking havoc on a seemingly invulnerable society. The ‘53 movie version transplants the focus of the invasion to the United States, taking over the title of the world’s super-power and again shows the current military might as no match for the alien invaders. Though the thrust of the story veered somewhat from Wells’ turn-of-the-century novel, you can see the influences from the cold-war paranoia that existed at the time. With nuclear weapons a reality at the time, the aliens could easily have been represented by the looming foreign threat that kept the U.S. government at odds with the communist countries that were then rising in power. Spielberg, in his vision of the invasion, holds on to some of those elements and at the same time introduces some of his own, while at the same time actually retaining more plot points from the Wells novel than the ‘53 movie did. For example, instead of the alien ships raining down upon Earth from the skies, Spielberg turns the tables and has the transports buried beneath the ground for a millennium before the aliens zap themselves into them via lightning bolts; never done before in an alien invasion scenario. The transports themselves retain the tripod appearance that Wells described in his book also including the specimen baskets that held captive human prey which were ultimately used as fertilizer for the red weed vegetation that would dot the landscape transforming the once familiar surroundings into an other-worldly panorama. Also faithful to the novel is the main character’s first person perspective as he encounters the multitudes of people also affected by the holocaust but merely serve as a backdrop to Ray’s story of keeping his family together while he searches for other loved ones. In the original movie, Mars was the invader plain and simple; here, no race or planet is mentioned - intentionally creating a universal enemy. With “War of the Worlds”, Spielberg has come full circle in some respects having completed his trilogy of alien visitor movies - “Close Encounters” and “E.T.” coming before; only instead of benign aliens from the first two, we get the complete opposite here. Again, this may be a reflection of the current state of our planet now with terrorism at the forefront of the world’s concerns. 

Tom Cruise stars as Ray Ferrier, a dock worker by day, physicist by night. I’m of course kidding about the physics thing but the character of Ray seems to be able to point out keen observations that others are oblivious to; such as the wind direction of the storm, the intricate workings of a car engine, and the absence of the alien force field near the film’s conclusion, etc. Child actor wunderkind Dakota Fanning plays his daughter and as usual displays impressive acting chops not seen in children her age. Canadian actor Justin Chatwin is less effective as his son, Robbie, who immediately wants to enlist in the military after witnessing the aliens’ destruction and will put himself and his family in harms way to do it. Completing the main cast is Miranda Otto from “The Lord of the Rings” as Ray’s ex-wife who has little to do here and Tim Robbins as Ogilvey; a name taken from a character from the original novel but the similarity ends there. Here, Ogilvey is a survivor who witnessed the deaths of his entire family and provides Ray and his daughter sanctuary in the farmhouse sequence that introduces us to the aliens face to face. Naturally, as with any Spielberg project, the special effects are top-notch and here again the emphasis is on family with the alien invasion secondary to the proceedings. But this is definitely not family-fare; there are plenty of disturbing images to be seen here; namely the first scene with the heat ray which exacts instant cremation on its targets. This movie represents Spielberg’s darker, edgier side and is welcome entertainment that stands right beside his other sci-fi classics.

Picture Quality:

Spielberg regular Janusz Kaminski serves as director of photography and like “Minority Report”, the picture has a dark charcoal like texture; colors are subdued to convey the dreariness of the story except 95 minutes into the picture when Ray emerges from the farmhouse, it is a complete homage to “The Wizard of Oz” as he goes from the colorless interior of the house into the vivid redness of the exterior surroundings taken over by the aliens and their red weed. The movie is almost completely spread over the dual layers of disc one and it shows; detail is crisp and black levels are deep with excellent contrasting.

Audio Quality:

DTS! Spielberg is regarded as the founding father of this surround sound process having demanded theaters equip themselves with the system when he introduced it with “Jurassic Park”. Thankfully, his dvd’s reflect that devotion as well. The sound is incredible and totally envelops the listener. The tripods, their heat ray, and the lightening strikes emit thunderous bass that give the LFE channel one helluva workout. John Williams’ score is unlike much of his previous work (with musical themes blaring loudly overtaking what’s going on the screen); here, it is shifted into the background and provides a pulse-pounding beat that drives the momentum of the story. For the heat ray, he incorporates a women’s chorus of screams that add to the shock value when we first see humans disintegrated right before our eyes. The tripods emit a terrorizing horn blast that signals their impending attack; certainly not the cute 5-note motif used in “Close Encounters”.

Scenes for demonstration purposes:

1. (15:15) - Lightening strikes more than twice. 2. (21:00) - The tripod emerges and the heat ray. 3. (31:00) - Destruction of the bridge. 4. (38:46) - A crash in the night. 5. (62:30) - Attack on the ferry boat. 6. (103:50) - “Look at the God-damned birds!”

Special Features:

Disc Two comprises all the supplemental material of this movie if one should happen to purchase the 2-disc version. The single disc version contains “Designing the Enemy: Tripods and Aliens” which can be found on disc two.

“Revisiting The Invasion” (7:39) - covers the influence of H.G. Wells classic on science fiction films. Steven Spielberg relates how he was affected by the original film as a kid. Tom Cruise, producer Paula Wagner, and screenwriter David Koepp also relate how they brought about this version of the novel to the big screen and what they left in and left out.

“The H.G. Wells Legacy” (6:36) - has interviews with Wells grandson and great-grandson Simon Wells, who directed the recent “Time Machine” movie. They relate high points in their ancestor’s career and how his biology background was incorporated into his stories and the relevance that they still bear today.

“Steven Spielberg and the Original War of the Worlds” (8:01) - covers how Spielberg brought back the stars of the original movie, Gene Barry and Ann Robinson, and cast them as quick cameos at the end of his film. Gene and Ann are also interviewed and they relate how exciting it was to work again.

“Characters: The Family Unit” (13:23) - covers how important it was to convey the family bond in this movie. Spielberg and Cruise relate how wonderful it was to work together again after the successful “Minority Report” although this may be the last time as it was reported that Spielberg was less than thrilled with Cruise’s PR antics during the promotion of this film.

“Pre-visualization” (7:44) - Spielberg relates how computer story-boarding is relatively new to his film-making process and thanks to George Lucas, he uses many of ILM’s top previsualization people who had just finished working on Star Wars Episode III. Spielberg states how it helped his special effects scenes and how they were designed.

“Production Diaries” are separated into four sections “Beginning”, “Exile”, “Destruction”, and “War” totaling almost 90 minutes of everything dealing with the special effects, production design, art direction, set decoration, props, costuming, etc. Every major scene is meticulously deconstructed as to what went into its production. Here we get the notion that Spielberg is a devotee to the craftspeople who construct full-scale models of sets, a “lost art” as he puts it. He goes out of his way to say that he doesn’t believe in entirely using the green-screen method to re-create worlds, an obvious slight to certain film-makers who advocate this process.

“Designing The Enemy: Tripods and Aliens” (14:08) - is self-explanatory; Spielberg relates how important it was to make the tripods and aliens scary-looking; curiously, the aliens resemble the ones used in “Independence Day”. The designers state how they used zero-gravity and the tripod theme in their preliminary sketches of the aliens.

“Scoring War of the Worlds” (11:58) - relates the sound design of the movie and how John Williams had to conduct the score without seeing the last half of the picture; never done before in Spielberg’s case.

“We Are Not Alone” (3:16) - deals with the completion of Spielberg’s alien trilogy and how “E.T.” was originally supposed to be a much darker film instead of the family-friendly movie it turned out to be. With “War of the Worlds”, Spielberg finally gets to display the dark-side of aliens that he always had within him.

Lastly, “Production Notes” is a scripted version of pretty much what was covered in the preceding featurettes. “Galleries” gives us sketches and production stills made during the movie’s creation.