War of the Worlds (2005 film)

For other uses, see The War of the Worlds (film).

War of the Worlds
Directed by	Steven Spielberg
Written by	H. G. Wells (novel) Josh Friedman David Koepp
Produced by	Kathleen Kennedy
Starring	Tom Cruise Dakota Fanning Miranda Otto Justin Chatwin Tim Robbins
Narrated by	Morgan Freeman
Cinematography	Janusz Kaminski
Edited by	Michael Kahn
Music by	John Williams
Distributed by	USA Theatrical Non-USA DVD Any USA DVD reissues 2006- (see below): Paramount Pictures 2005 USA DVD: DreamWorks SKG Non-USA Theatrical: Paramount through United International Pictures
Release date	June 29 2005
Running time	118 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$132 million
Box office	$591.7 million

War of the Worlds is a 2005 science fiction disaster film based on H. G. Wells' original novel starring Dakota Fanning and Tom Cruise. It was directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Josh Friedman and David Koepp. It was released on June 29, 2005.

It is one of four film adaptations of the novel, preceded by two straight-to-video versions released in the same year and the original 1953 film version.

Background

War of the Worlds draws elements not only from the H. G. Wells novel, but also the 1938 radio play and the 1953 film. Hence, to place this film in proper historical context as an adaptation requires some knowledge of all three previous incarnations of Wells' story.

As in the original novel, which takes place in and around London, the narrative is told from the point of view of civilians caught up in the conflict. Whereas the novel portrayed the experience of a solitary British journalist late in the 19th century, War of the Worlds is, according to Spielberg, purported to show the war "through the eyes of one American family fighting to survive it". It is set in the early 21st century, and as in the radio play begins in New Jersey.

Plot

The film begins with the narrator (voice of Morgan Freeman) stating this opening line:

No one would have believed in the early years of the 21st century that our world was being watched by intelligences greater than our own.

That as men busied themselves about their various concerns, *they* observed and studied, the way a man with a microscope might scrutinize the creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.

With infinite complacency, men went to and fro about the globe, confident of our empire over this world.

Yet across the gulf of space, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic regarded our planet with envious eyes and slowly, and surely, drew their plans against us.

The story opens with Brooklyn dock worker Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise) finishing the third shift in the morning. His ex-wife Mary Anne (Miranda Otto) and her new wealthy husband Tim (David Alan Basche) drop off Ray's 10-year-old daughter Rachel (Dakota Fanning) and teenage son Robbie (Justin Chatwin) at Ray's house. They are staying with him in Bayonne, New Jersey, while Tim and Mary Anne visit her parents in Boston for the weekend. Later that day, Ray wakes up from a nap and Rachel tells him that Robbie has stolen his car and left.

File:Tripod in action.jpg

Ray and others flee as a tripod unleashes its destructive weapon, which vaporizes humans and is powerful enough to collapse buildings and move objects such as cars, yet it seems incapable of destroying clothing.

Ray sets out to find him, but is immediately distracted by a strange wall cloud. It begins to unleash EMPs repeatedly in the same area a short distance from Ray's house. The EMPs disable all of the working electronic devices in the area, including cars, leaving everyone stranded. Ray finds Robbie, and he tells him to take care of Rachel while he goes to investigate where the EMPs hit. He tells a fellow mechanic to change the solenoid of the car that he is repairing. Ray and many other people find a mysteriously cold hole from which a large tripod machine quickly emerges, and then begins to vaporize the human beings in its path. Ray runs from the scene back to his house. After packing food, Ray and his kids abandon their home and steal the only operating vehicle in town, due to his advice of changing the solenoid in the car.

They drive to Tim's large house, where they take refuge in the basement for the night. During the night, a tripod disables a large airplane that crashes into the development, demolishing all of the houses. In the morning Ray has a brief conversation with a small news team, who show video footage to Ray of the lightning in the previous "storm". The woman shows it in slow-motion and he sees what they believe to be a pod, with the aliens "riding" with the lightning into the ground where the tripod machines were buried. The woman believes the tripods were buried in the earth since before the rise of humanity. The news crew decides to leave after hearing a horn blast of a nearby Tripod. Ray takes Rachel in his hands and tells her to look only at his face and nowhere else in order not to see what happened during the night. Ray and his family drive towards Boston. At one point they stop in order for Rachel to go to the bathroom. She runs to the river, but there she sees bodies being brought by the river. Ray comes to her and closes her eyes in order not to see anything. When army passes nearby, Robbie wants them to take him with them but none of them listens to him. He has an argument with Ray. Later Ray asks Robbie to drive the car to sleep a little. In the evening their van is seized by a mob. Ray is able to escape by firing a small revolver that he brought from his house, but the vehicle is eventually stolen by another man who took Ray's revolver after it was dropped down and who kills the man attempting to drive the van and takes his place. Ray and his children surrender the vehicle and continue on foot. They reach a Hudson River ferry in Athens, New York, but three tripods appear over the horizon. The ferry moves off, but a tripod hiding underwater tips the ferry over and many on board fall victim to more tripods. Tripods are catching those in the water and taking them aboard. Ray, Robbie, and Rachel escape and swim to safety. Shivering, the trio witness refugees running over the hill across the Hudson a few miles away being attacked by three more tripods. They escape as they see the town of Athens being destroyed.

Later, they come across American military forces somewhere in Massachusetts, trying to keep more alien machines back but ultimately fruitless effort as the alien machines are protected by impenetrable shields. Although their weapons are ineffective, the Marine Corps delays its advance so the refugees can escape. Robbie wants to witness the battle and Ray reluctantly lets him go in order to save Rachel from being taken away by a married couple nearby.(Ray left her there and ordered to not go anywhere in order for him to reach Robbie.) The woman tries to convince her to come with them, telling her husband she can't leave her there alone. In the ensuing chaos an enormous firebomb erupts and the entire military platoon is wiped out. Robbie is separated from Ray and Rachel and they fear he is dead.

Immediately following the battle, Ray and Rachel are offered shelter in a basement by a man named Harlan Ogilvy (Tim Robbins) who lost his family to the aliens. The invaders settle close to the house where the trio is hiding and tensions start to emerge between Ogilvy, who wants to strike back at the alien invaders and Ray, who is preoccupied with his own safety and that of his daughter. Ray wants to hide until the invaders move off to a different area. Meanwhile the invaders begin spreading a strange "red weed", which appears to be a mysterious plant synthesized from the blood of harvested humans.

From the start Ogilvy exhibits signs of mental stress. Later that night a tripod probe invades the basement, where the three manage to escape detection. A small contingent of aliens then enters and explores the house, even examining photographs of their strange human prey while Ray struggles to stop Ogilvy from attacking the aliens, until a siren emitted by the tripod summons them to return. Ogilvy cracks mentally after witnessing one of the alien tripods harvesting blood and tissues from a helpless human victim. Ray, concerned that the commotion Ogilvy is creating might draw the attention of the invaders to himself and his daughter, murders Ogilvy as a means of silencing him. Ray and Rachel fall asleep, but are awakened as a probe enters the basement and sights Rachel. Ray attacks the probe with an axe and the probe retreats, while Rachel flees the house.

Ray attempts to find Rachel, but he is attacked by a tripod. He tries to find safety in a truck, but the truck is tossed upside-down by the tripod. While upside down, Ray sees Rachel standing on the ground harsh and screaming as the tripod heads toward her. As Ray escapes, he finds Rachel being pulled into a metal cage on the tripod along with other humans. The tripod seems to not care about Ray anymore and so Ray heads to a nearby HMMWV where he finds a pack of hand grenades. He throws a grenade at one of the tripod's legs, but its shield deflects the blast. Now the tripod has its attention on him, and Ray is then placed into the same cage with Rachel, where he finds her in shock. Ray is grabbed by a mechanism that attempts to pull him into the body of the tripod to certain death, when a soldier and others valiantly fight to keep him out of the clutches of the device. After the group successfully saves Ray, it is revealed that he left two grenades into the tripod. The grenades detonate, causing a multitude of explosions in the tripod, destroying it entirely. The cage lands on the ground and everyone in it escapes.

After they are freed, Ray and his daughter continue to move towards Boston. It is there that they find that all the "red weed" is dying, along with other tripods. He notices that the shields are not active when he realizes birds are flying near and landing on one still-living tripod, so he tells a soldier. The soldiers attack the tripod with Javelin missile launchers. The tripod topples to the ground, disgorges a revolting cargo of blood-colored liquid, and the alien invaders inside are found to be dying as well. With the threat over, Ray finally brings Rachel to Mary Anne and Tim at Mary Anne's parent's house, where she has been waiting for them - along with their son Robbie. Mary Anne tells Ray thank you while hugging Rachel, and she seems grateful to Ray for all he has done.

The narrator's voice returns with this closing statement:

From the moment the invaders arrived, breathed our air, ate and drank, they were doomed.

They were undone, destroyed, after all of man's weapons and devices had failed, by the tiniest creatures that God in his wisdom put upon this Earth.

By the toll of a billion deaths, man had earned his immunity, his right to survive among this planet's infinite organisms.

And that right is ours against all challenges. For neither do men live nor die in vain.

Characters

• Ray Ferrier: Knowing that the character was to be played by Tom Cruise, writer David Koepp intentionally wrote Ray as the opposite of the type of confident characters Tom has played. He is characterized by the inaccessive profanity used during the film. The back-story that Koepp designed is that Ray's life has not turned out as he had hoped (often citing Bruce Springsteen's "Glory Days" as a basis). Ray is divorced with two kids, who do not give him their respect as a father. Ray's self-absorbed personality is challenged when the aliens invade, as he has to put it aside to keep his children safe.
• Robbie Ferrier: Reynold's rebellious teenage son. He often scoffs at his father's attempts at parenting, which becomes a problem when Ray tries to take control when fleeing the alien menace, such as often remarking that they should help the Army.
• Rachel Ferrier: Reynold's 10-year-old daughter. She is intelligent and independent, but stubborn, claustrophobic and understandably terrified by the events depicted in the film.
• Harlan Ogilvy: Little is known about Ogilvy other than that he had a wife and child who were presumably killed by the invaders, which unhinged Ogilvy's mind. He seems to draw inspiration about life, especially during the alien occupation, from his time as a paramedic. He eventually is killed by Ray, because Ogilvy might attract the aliens due to his continual ranting about attacking the aliens. Harlan Ogilvy's surname is derived from the astronomer who first saw the Martians coming in their rocket-propelled space capsules in the original novel.
• Mary Ann: Ray's ex-wife and the mother of Robbie and Rachel. She has remarried, to Tim (whose baby she is expecting), and the kids respect Tim more than they do Ray. Mary Ann and Tim leave the kids in Ray's care while they visit her parents in Boston, and much of the movie's plot concerns Ray's attempts to reunite Robbie and Rachel with their mother.
• Tim: Mary Ann's new husband. He is wealthy, and Robbie and Rachel seem to consider him to be their father, not Ray.
• Manny: A mechanic who fixes a van after the electromagnetic pulse strike. Ray tries to convince Manny to escape with him in the van, but Manny is unconvinced of the impending danger. Moments later, Manny is killed by a Heat-Ray.
• Invaders: Extraterrestrials who invade Earth. Their physical appearance is trisymmetric, which is reflected in their technology. Beyond those obvious details, little is revealed about the aliens, including their world of origin, and most of the information concerning them in the film is speculative. While Koepp has provided some minor details of their back-story in the script and in interviews, they remain largely enigmatic. Among the details provided in voice-overs included with the DVD release of the film, are that they were intended to be percieved by the viewer as highly intelligent and curious.

Production

The film was produced by Cruise/Wagner Productions, Amblin Entertainment, DreamWorks SKG, and Paramount Pictures.

Quotes from Spielberg

Destroyed Boeing 747 used on the War of the Worlds set.

On the web site Dark Horizons, Spielberg described his preferences for long takes in special effect-heavy movies:

"I'm more interested in concept shots and money shots than I am in tons of MTV coverage, which certainly takes a lot of time. But if I can put something on the screen that is sustained where you get to study it and you get to say, 'How did they do that?' That's happening before my eyes and the shot's not over yet, it's still going and it's still going and my God, it's an effects shot and it's lasting seemingly forever. I enjoy that more than creating illusion with sixteen different camera angles, where no shot lasts longer than six seconds on the screen. To pull a rabbit out of a hat, because you are really a smart audience and you're in the fastest media, the fastest growing new media today and you know the difference between sleight of hand visually and the real thing. I think what makes War of the Worlds, at least the version that we're making, really exciting, is you get to really see what's happening. There's not a lot of visual tricks. We tell it like it is, we show it to you, and we put you inside the experience."

He described the story as follows:

"It's nothing you can really describe. The whole thing is very experiential. The point of view is very personal — everybody, I think, in the world will be able to relate to the point of view, because it's about a family trying to survive and stay together, and they're surrounded by the most epically horrendous events you could possibly imagine."

At the world premiere in Tokyo, Spielberg said he was proud to bring it to Japan, referring to Japanese monster movies including Gamera and Godzilla, and explained the first tripod is killed in Osaka because "Osaka has a lot of experience [with monsters]."

Budget

In August 2004, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the film was "poised to make history in Hollywood as the most expensive film ever made — surpassing Titanic's $198 million budget." The report stated that "so far rumors are pushing the Worlds budget well beyond that figure". The New York Times, the original source for this number, ran a correction a few days later that the budget is actually $132 million.

Cast

• Tom Cruise — Ray Ferrier
• Dakota Fanning — Rachel Ferrier
• Justin Chatwin — Robbie Ferrier
• Miranda Otto — Mary Ann
• Tim Robbins — Harlan Ogilvy
• Rick Gonzalez — Vincent
• Yul Vazquez — Julio
• Lenny Venito — Manny
• David Alan Basche — Tim
• Lisa Ann Walter — Bartender
• Ann Robinson — Grandmother
• Gene Barry — Grandfather
• Roz Abrams — Herself
• Morgan Freeman — The Narrator

Critical reaction

The film garnered a positive box office response, with reviews being generally positive. On (insert date) Rotten Tomatoes had the movie rated as 73% fresh. Overall reviews have praised the film for its special effects and the direction of Steven Spielberg, but have criticized the film for putative gaps in the logic, and holes and inconsistencies in the story line. Some critics such as Glenn Whip (LA Daily News) and Bruce Westbrook (Houston Chronicle) consider the film a near masterpiece.

Critic James Berardinelli gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, he wrote in his review: "…War of the Worlds may not stand up well to careful inspection and it may not be the smartest science fiction film brought to the screen (although, when considering movies such as the like-themed Independence Day, it's far from the dumbest), but it is an intense, visceral experience."

Some thought otherwise, Critic Roger Ebert gave the film 2 out of 4 stars and regarded it: "...a big, clunky movie containing some sensational sights but lacking the zest and joyous energy we expect from Steven Spielberg."

The film has been attacked by some literary experts, arguing that War of the Worlds has little in common with the original H.G. Wells novel and could be viewed as just a star vehicle for Tom Cruise. Some also suggest that the film (and many other interpretations of the novel) misunderstand the main event of the book as being the action sequences, when the climax is really the deterioration of the mental states of the priest, then the artilleryman, then the protagonist as he prepares to submit to the invaders. One of the important points of the book is the irony of the title, as it is clearly stated that it had never been a war, only a massacre, and it has been suggested that by the simple dropping of the initial "The" of the title, the filmmakers show that they have mistaken the story for being about a war, rather than the experiences of one man in a slaughter.

Criticism and controversy

Tom Cruise, Scientology and the film

Press coverage in May and June 2005 leading up to the film's release focused on Tom Cruise's proselytizing for Scientology. Around this time, Cruise had changed publicists, from Pat Kingsley to his sister, Lee Anne DeVette, and spoke to interviewers more frequently about Scientology — and his sudden engagement to actress Katie Holmes — than about the film itself. Some press coverage noted the similarity between the film's promotional poster and the front cover of The Invaders Plan (volume one of Mission Earth) by L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology. This similarity is not singular to the film, however, as the image of a hand grasping the Earth is a recurring one in science-fiction: it was used, for example, for the 1975 film Rollerball. Moreover, the image used to promote it is very similar to the image that was often used in advertising Paramount's War of the Worlds TV series during its first season.

Press coverage and anti-piracy controversy

The press preview of the film raised severe criticism, since every journalist who wanted to take a preview of War of the Worlds before it premiered had to sign a non-disclosure agreement. This NDA stated that the undersigned could not publish a review of the film before its world-wide release on June 29, 2005. Many people have argued that the film might not have been able to catch up with the great expectations that might have been postulated by such reviewers.

Furthermore, at the New York premiere of the film at the Ziegfeld Theatre, all members of the press were required to check all electronic equipment — including cellular phones — at the door, as part of a larger sweeping anti-piracy campaign by the film's producers hoping to keep the film from leaking on the Internet.

Among other efforts to curb piracy, the producers also prevented theaters from screening the film at midnight the night of June 29, despite the recent success of midnight screenings of such films as Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. The producers also chose not to screen the film in any DLP-equipped theaters.

Box office

Despite the controversies detailed above, War of the Worlds received positive reviews and made an impressive box-office performance. As of November 22, 2005, (the last day it was at the box office) it has earned $234.3 million domestically and $357.1 million overseas, making the total $591.4 million. It is the 4th highest grossing movie of 2005 (after Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire).

Spielberg has not seen such a massive success since Saving Private Ryan (1998) — another Paramount/DreamWorks co-production — and the $100-million Minority Report (2002) — his first collaboration with Cruise — earned a reasonable $132 million. In the case of Cruise (whose 43rd birthday coincided with the movie's release), War of the Worlds is the biggest blockbuster of his career, since the film opened its first weekend with $65 million (which is a record-high for Paramount Pictures), beating Mission: Impossible II's nearly $58 million (also from Paramount). By July 31, it had surpassed Mission: Impossible II in terms of total domestic box office receipts, a film that earned $215.4 million.

Awards and nominations

2006 Academy Awards

Three nominations:

• Achievement in Sound
• Achievement in Sound Editing
• Achievement in Visual Effects

Central Ohio Film Critics

• Best Sound Design

M.P.S.E. Golden Reel Awards

• Best Sound Editing in Feature Film - Sound Effects & Foley

2005 Visual Effects Society Awards

Three Wins:

• Best Single Visual Effect of the Year (Fleeing the neighborhood)
• Best Models and Miniatures in a Motion Picture
• Best Compositing in a Motion Picture

2005 Golden Raspberry Awards

One nomination:

• Worst Actor (Tom Cruise)

Source material

Novel

Differences

• The film's most obvious difference is that it takes place in the early 21st century northeastern United States rather than southern England "in the last years of the 19th century."
• Another significant difference is the change of the protagonist from a happily married middle-class intellectual without children to a divorced working-class father of two. The social background plays an important part in the plot. The protagonist's wife had left him for a richer and more successful man, her parents in Boston never approved of him, and — most important for him — his children treat him with open contempt. A significant sub-plot are the protagonist's efforts, not only to survive and save his children from the invasion, but also to win their respect. The embrace with his son in the final scene shows that he succeeded. All this, of course, has no parallel in the original novel.
• The film's aliens do not land on Earth in giant cylinders before unleashing their war machines. Instead, the machines have already been buried underground, and the aliens arrive in capsules transported via lightning bolts. The details of this are never clearly explained, although the aliens are mentioned to have been buried since far before human civilization and were most likely waiting for human population to burgeon (otherwise there would not be sufficient food to harvest). This seems to have been a modification of the story resulting from Mars's conclusively having been shown by American space probes to harbor absolutely no intelligent life, and hence no longer being a plausible origin for the invaders.
• The aliens' tripods are more formidable in combat than their in-the-novel counterparts: the latter, although deadly, are still susceptible to conventional weapons and can be defeated in combat. The movie's tripod counterparts are fitted with a "shield" that makes them nearly impervious to an attack. The idea of the force-field shields stems from the 1953 movie version of the story. (Lacking such shields, modern weapons would have made short work of the Martian machines that were envisioned by Wells in 1898, or even of the tripods in the film, which were easily knocked down by small Stingers and Javelins.)
• The film omits a prominent element from the novel: the Black Smoke, which was a part of the original Martians' deadly arsenal. Writer David Koepp has explained that this was dropped more or less due to lack of time and it didn't make it past his first draft, so any sightings of a similar substance are purely coincidence and can be attributed to other smoke sources. The film also does not include the Thunder Child, whose symbol of power but ultimate failure to stop the invaders was represented in the 1953 film by the failure of the atomic bomb attack; however, there is a vaguely similar scene taking place on land in which U.S. Army forces fight valiantly in an effort to hold back the tripods until refugees make it to safety.
• This movie's aliens are drastically different in design, featuring more humanoid mouths and also being tripedal, where Wells' Martians have lipless v-shaped mouths and tentacles. Also, the Martians of Wells' book, as well as in the movie, feast on the blood of humans (Wells described the clean skeletons of humans and other animals) but the aliens in the book apparently don't use human blood as fertilizer for their xenoforming project. In this movie, the invaders are also uninterested in animals (rats, birds, etc.). The aliens' design has been the subject of some criticism, considered too cute and humanlike, as opposed to the novel's entirely non-human and repulsive aliens.
• In the film, Tim Robbins's character, Harlan Ogilvy, plays a synthesized dual role of the curate and the artilleryman from the novel, while sharing the name of the novel's narrator's friend. The film's Ogilvy has the qualities of the novel's increasingly mad curate, who drives the narrator to fight with him frequently. In the book, the character named Ogilvy is one of the first people killed by the aliens' Heat-Ray. The film's Ogilvy has the qualities of the novel's artilleryman in that he is digging a tunnel for an underground city with the goal of resistance. The novel's curate is taken, and presumably "eaten", by the aliens after being struck in the head and left for dead by the narrator. In both versions, the story does not state outright that the main character killed the man, but the novel narrator does say "the killing of the curate" was "a thing done, a memory infinitely disagreeable but quite without the quality of remorse."
• The film never says where the aliens are from, unlike the book, where they are from Mars; in 1898, when the book was written, the possibility of life on Mars was considered realistic. This difference in origin shrouds the motive for the attacks on the Earth. In the book, the Martians are escaping from their dissipated planet, searching for a place to continue their civilization, rather than the "extermination" explanation given by a character in the film. The prologue makes a few visual references to Mars, once while an image of Earth shifts into that of a red stoplight and later when the camera leaves the edge of an outer neighboring planet of Earth. In Koepp's script, there is a brief shot in the prologue depicting the invader's home world. However, it remains unnamed, referred to only as a "barren planet."
• H.G. Wells never had the narrator play the hero. In fact, the story is told as a recount of the war, thus eliminating any doubts about the welfare of the narrator. In the film, the main character, Ray, succeeds in blowing up an alien tripod, creating the idea that heroes can be made in the face of an unbeatable foe, an idea Wells believed was inappropriate for the tone of his story, abandoning an early idea, similar to the film, in which the narrator plans to suicide bomb a tripod (though even in this early idea, the character is not allowed to carry it out). The narrator was not meant to be a hero, but merely a survivor. However, Ray's idea of giving himself over to the invaders is still similar to the novel's narrator after he had lost all hope.
• Much like in the 1953 film, the unnamed narrator and main character is not the same as he is in the novel. He is not divorced (although Ray shares a very similar goal of reuniting with his ex-wife), nor does he have a son or daughter to look after.
• While Ray has a brother much like the book's narrator, the film does not touch upon anything from this character's point-of-view, as the narrator recites some of what the brother witnessed during the invasion.
• In the novel, the narrator becomes trapped in an abandoned house when an alien cylinder lands close by. In the film, Ray, Rachel, and Ogilvy are trapped in the house because the tripods are still outside. However, the scene in which the airplane crashes into Mary-Anne's house is similar to the scene in the book when the cylinder lands.
• No matter the location, virtually every version of the story tells of an arrival and then assault by what are the first aliens to land on Earth. However, in this version, it is established that the invasion has already begun in other parts of the world, though the main character is oblivious to this until much later in the story. Additionally this scene also gives both the character and the audience their first image of the invaders, something that only happens later in both this and the 1953 film.
• The design of the tripods is not the same as their description in the novel. Wells describes the machines as "Walking engines of glittering metal... pieces of intricate rope dangling from it... green gas squirting from its joints... its motion was like a head moving about..." There are also no references to the invaders having any other machines than the tripods — in the novel, the Martians also had a Handling-Machine (a five-legged machine with three tentacles used to build the tripods), Digging Machine (an automatic excavator), and a Flying Machine.
• In the novel, the Martian machines make a kind of "Ulla! Ulla!" sound, whereas, in the film, the machines drone out a very low, loud, two-pitched sound as a sort of battle cry.

Similarities

Although there are very many differences from the book, there are also various similarities. Some are obvious, and others are noted by the naming of certain scenes in the DVD chapters.

• The aliens are ultimately defeated by terrestrial microorganisms.
• The lines spoken in the bookends of the film by the narrator are almost verbatim from those written in the novel.
• The fighting machines are tripods.
• The tripods are armed with Heat-Rays, however unlike the large funnels described in the original novel these heat rays fire large blue laser bursts instead of waves of heat and are held below the head of the tripod and not above it as in the novel. Also, in the novel, the Heat-Rays simply incinerate the tripods' victims, but in the film, the Heat-Rays disintegrate the humans entirely (leaving only their charred clothes behind).
• A speeding train runs by with every carriage aflame. The quality of this similarity remains unclear since in the book the train is described as with "every window lit up", which could also be a reference to a first class wagon with electric light inside. In fact, at the time the book character sees the train, the martians have not yet left their landing spot and started the destruction of England, so it's in fact unlikely that the train has been attacked.
• There is a scene in the movie where the main character and his daughter witness a mass of floating bodies going down a river, just like the narrator witnessed in the novel.
• Tripods are equipped with long tentacles that grab humans and put them into metal carriers or cages, just as in the book, where eventually these human prisoners will be drained of their blood for the use of food for the invaders.
• The red weed is spread everywhere the eye can see.
• There is a scene where the characters are trapped in a farmhouse because of the invaders being outside.
• Ray's van is taken from them just like in the novel, where the narrator's brother and his two female companion's horse is taken. Ray also uses a revolver just as Miss Elphinstone does to scare off robbers in the novel.
• There is a scene where refugees take a ferry to get to safety, only to be attacked by a tripod that followed under water. After the ferry was sunk, the main character escaped by swimming under water.
• Manny is similar to the Landlord of the Spotted Dog, from whom the main character takes a means of transportation and who is then later killed by the invaders. The difference being that Ray steals Manny's car while the narrator plans only to borrow the Landlord's.
• The storm in which the invaders arrive is based on the storm in the novel in which the narrator gets his first frightening image of the tripods.
• Throughout the film, a flock of birds seem to follow the invaders in their machines, and help give away their inoperative shields. In the novel, birds are seen picking and eating the remains of the dead Martians (birds can also be seen scavenging dying red weed in Boston as well).
• The unearthing of the first seen tripod mirrors the arrival of the first Martian cylinder, from the crowd forming around the "landing" spot to the rotation of the ground, as if to mimic an unscrewing.
• The police in the intersection say "something's down there, and it's movin'" just like in the novel when a person declares the Martian cylinder to be moving.
• Robbie is thought to be dead, only to return to the main character in the end, similar to the novel's narrator and his wife.
• Ray has a brother. However, as mentioned above, no account of what the brother witnesses is included in the film.
• The tripods are seen smashing aside pine trees before an attack, as they are seen doing in the novel in their first appearance.
• There is a reference to the original book when a couple of aliens explore the basement that Ferrier and Ogilvy are hiding in, and one of them pauses to spin the wheel of a bicycle hanging on the wall — as if wondering what it is. In H.G. Wells' novel, the narrator discovers that in the alien technology, "the wheel is absent; among all the things they brought to earth there is no trace or suggestion of their use of wheels." The alien's technology is based on elastic organic musculature.

1938 radio program

Several lines of dialogue, especially those spoken by Tim Robbins' character, are taken directly from Orson Welles's notable radio adaptation of the novel. In addition, the film is set primarily in New Jersey as is the radio play.

1953 movie

Although not considered a remake of the 1953 version of The War of the Worlds, there are several instances where Steven Spielberg pays homage to the original film.

• Gene Barry and Ann Robinson from the 1953 original film make a cameo appearance as the grandparents.

• After the initial storm, Tom Cruise checks several of his household electronic devices; he also glances at his frozen watch. In the original The War of the Worlds, when the Martian meteorite lands beyond sight, a character notes that his watch has stopped.

• In the cellar, note the multi-colored lights just prior to the probe entering. This references the red, blue and green lights from the probe in the 1953 version of the film, though no part of the probe in this film emits any of those colors.

• When Ray (Tom Cruise) first encounters the aliens, there is a street sign behind him displaying "Van Buren", the surname of one of the two major characters in the 1953 film.

• The news reporter's line, "Once the tripods begin to move, no more news comes out of that area," is taken from a similar line in the original film, "Once the martians begin to move, no more news comes out of that area."

• The scenes with the probe examining the basement followed by the inquisitive aliens. Tom Cruise chops the head off the probe with an axe just as Gene Barry did in the original film.

• The shot of the dying alien's arm coming down the ramp is a reference to a similar shot in the original film.

• The 1953 film ends with the characters taking refuge in a church just before the aliens' attack abruptly stops. In the 2005 film, a church is the first building seen destroyed as the tripod emerges.

Television series

• The film's posters feature a symbolic image of the aliens' three-fingered hand grasping planet Earth. This is very similar to images used for the series' first season, both in the opening and closing of the episodes, as well as promotional material.
• The plot device that the aliens had been to Earth before and left behind their tripods is reminiscent of a revelation in War of the Worlds TV series in which a tripod (an "older model" of the war machines in the 1953 film) is unearthed, having been left behind for hundreds to thousands of years.

Other movie references

There are several references to other movies, mostly movies directed or produced by Steven Spielberg. For example, the bicycle falling from a hook is similar to a scene in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. The movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind also uses a low reverberating note, although both movies may have gotten the idea originally from the novel. In The Day the Earth Stood Still there is also a universal electrical outage. Quatermass and the Pit features extraterrestrial machines buried underground since prehistoric times. Some also find that the diner scene, where Ferrier and the kids take refuge after the mob captures the minivan, evoke memories of the diner in the original The Blob. The use of the song Hushabye Mountain is also an homage to the 1968 film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Spielberg also provides a "visual quote" from Invaders From Mars recreating the scene set up of that film's "sandpit" set. Besides the general tone of the film, the extended shot following the family car explicitly evokes Jean-luc Godard's Week End, as does the motif of cannibalism.

DVD special features

• Revisiting the Invasion: Introduction with Steven Spielberg
• The H. G. Wells Legacy
• Production Diary: Part I — Filming on the East Coast
• Production Diary: Part II — Filming on the West Coast
• Pre-Visualization
• Designing the Enemy: Tripods and Aliens

See also

• Red weed
• Tripod
• Heat-Ray

External links

• Official Site
• The War of the Worlds Movie Site — Directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Cruise
• War Of The Worlds Invasion — Review and movie image gallery, plus many other War Of The Worlds movies.
• War of the Worlds at IMDb
• War of the Worlds at Rotten Tomatoes
• Guardian Unlimited: Spielberg and Cruise plan new War of Worlds
• First teaser trailer
• War of the Worlds Examined A study of the film's unusual uses of mirrors/that the machines are actually 'War Gods' humans inadvertently worship/centrality of Rachel's color patterns.
• Interview with Doug Chiang and Rick Carter, designers on the film
• Behind the scenes featurette on the film
• Fansite's new images from War of the Worlds
• War of the Worlds Movies.info
• Movie Review — Mark Sells, The Oregon Herald