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The epilogue mentions Venus, yes, but I don't believe it's definite that the Martians actually went there instead. It sounded like The Journalist was merely postulating whether they went there as well having seen the failed invasion of Earth. I'd have assessed the loss and then gone about working on antibiotics and immune therapies to counter Terran diseases and try again later.

The idea of the Martians somehow miraculously conquering all viral diseases and then completely forgetting that such a thing even exists, much less how to deal with it, is not really much of an excuse for the storyline. It's preposterous on its face. Did they also wipe out their collective memory and historical records while they were eliminating the viruses?

I chalk it off to hubris. They likely weighed up how well their machines would do in raping our armed forces and thought "Do what must be done..." without paying attention to the fact that there's more to a planet than monkeys with guns.

Though I never thought of it, their technology may not have been capable of creating antibiotics or anti-virals in time and only at the end did they see their invasion fucking up. I remember when I watched the Pal version on DVD again that the Martians there were very anaemic and while technologically advanced, had not evolved as well as us. Even if we become masters of microbiology, disease will always exist and new strains of virus or resistant bacteria push even our knowledge to the limit. There's not much you can do about bacteria if your drugs are on the resistant list.

Martian Defense Secretary, on why none of the invasion force had proper NBC equipment after word of the fiasco reaches Mars: "As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They’re not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time."

Just saw the film.

Spectacular mise en scene... it's a shame the characters kept getting in the way ...

Fairly intense, action-wise and emotionally.

A few too many times SoD was broken by nonsensical stuff (i.e. They just made a huge to-do about electrical stuff not working... and some guy's using a digital camcorder?)

I'd give it 3.5 - 4 stars (standard rating)

which comes to an (unofficial)SDN rating of about...
850,623 out of 1,000,000 banned trolls


On a side note, this movie screams HL2 mod (During the shots with the alien machines I half expected someone to run buy screaming "Strider!!!")

The digicam can be explained. The guy may have had the battery out and the device locked in a cupboard or something with a metal shell to act as a Faraday cage of sorts. EMP doesn't destroy everything outright, for instance, the car Manny was fixing wouldn't start like most others until he made a new solenoid for it. Newer cars would still be buggered because they have CPUs to control aspiration, gear ratios and so on. Military hardware would be hardened against such effects since nukes inevitably create them.

Admiral Valdemar wrote: 82nd Mountain Unit throw everything at the tripods and nothing touches them (I'd have preferred real good armour or point defences, but shields are okay).

I like the fact that the Tripods were actually well armored on top of being shielded. Not like ID4 where as soon as the invaders lose shields they can be engaged on an equal footing. That machine at the end took what, 4 or 5 Javelins and before falling down? (even then the damage didn't seem all that bad, the pilot could just as easily been too sick to keep it upright under the pounding).

Multiple Javelin shots and multiple Carl Gustav shots. I counted at least 3 impacts we see... Anyone have a clue what munitions the Carl Gustav would have been using based on timeframe, visuals etc?

HG Wells' idea for microbes killing the invaders was much better executed in the book. I liked a lot of what was in the movie, but I hated the little girl. She alone brought it down from about a three and a half star movie to a three star movie.

I just got back from watching the movie. Almost everything was great and well executed. It was frightening, dark, and realistic. There is absolutely no hope for humanity's survival, so it would seem. The Martian walkers are enormous, unstoppable, and don't even flinch at the best the US Army could throw at it. You could feel the hopelessness, the fear, and the frustration and anger. Seeing the walkers come out for the first time, I actually felt a sense of dread as people were evaporating left and right.

My most major gripe is with the two kids. The son is a selfish asshole prick who deserved to die for his stupidity. Instead of worrying about his father and sister, he cared more about seeing the aliens. His cavalier attitude was equally annoying. The girl: too much screaming and a giant pain in the ass. Yes I realize some kids are like that, but that doesn't mean this one had to be so.

The ending was too abrupt. I didn't mind the whole bacteria/virus thing but I left without a sense of resolution, closure. Just a short scene with the family talking about what will happen next would have been nice. And yes, as with many others, I would have thought that with all of their technology and millions of years of evolution ahead of our own, they would have better prepared themselves for an alien environment.

Overall, good movie. Would have been better with less of the girl and boy's attitude problems/lipping.

I agree with the armour, I counted at least 4 Javelins dead on at the cockpit/spotlight sections that should be weak as hell along with multiple M136 and Carl-Gustav hits. Had the pilot still been healthy, those shots wouldn't have landed given the heat-rays were charged and could easily have cremated the soldiers.

AV, your sig is awesome.

The ULLA! is referring to the noise the Walkers make in the musical, right? I've not got it confused with anything else, have I?

The tripods make that battlecry in the musical and original novel. They also shout "ALOO!" when the Narrator first meets a fighting machine in the storm at night.

Unfortunately, I've never read the original novel or seen any of the previous remakes so the ending was a pretty big issue for me. I suppose it could be explained away that the aliens are arrogant and eradicated pathogens where they're from, but the impression I got was that there was a fundamental incompatibility between our biologies at the cellular level. Not saying that they aren't carbon based or protein based but something about Terran life kills Martian stuff dead. Note that the red weed they were cultivating was dying too. The invaders were screwed before they ever began because our blood is like poison to Martian forms of life.

From the opening spiel I also got the impression that wherever these creatures are from (are they really from Mars?) was pretty much devoid of life altogether- possibly including microbial life. If the only survivors of their civilization lived in a sterile environment for millennia, it's not inconceivable that they were so enamored with the prospect of having a hospitable planet rich in life to work with that they overlooked something that was never an issue where they came from. Not necessarily because they eradicated disease themselves, but the very conditions they were trying to escape by colonizing Earth made them nonexistent.

But I should also mention that the aliens didn't just strike me as arrogant and short-sighted, but also as sadistic and impulsive. Why did they need human blood to use as fertilizer? Of course they thought of themselves as far superior, but they recognized our sapience and mistreated us anyway. Very little they do makes a lot of sense, such as dismounting to explore that basement. I can only reason this away as them deriving pleasure from wiping us out in the most heinous, degrading way possible. It didn't seem like amoral industry to me, it seemed like an interplanetary rape for the sake of rape.

All told, I thought it was an excellent movie. I can't remember the last time I was downright frightened by a monster movie. The dread and hopelessness was flawlessly executed. The Martian tripods are unstoppable death machines truly to be feared. More than the death rays and the impenetrable shields and the human-to-mulch mechanisms, I'd have to say the most frightening thing about them is that blaring horn. That literally made me squirm.

But I should also mention that the aliens didn't just strike me as arrogant and short-sighted, but also as sadistic and impulsive. Why did they need human blood to use as fertilizer?

I got the impression that they used non-human blood as well, judging by the dead cattle on Ogilvy's property.

Darth Raptor wrote: Very little they do makes a lot of sense, such as dismounting to explore that basement.

Makes perfect sense to me. They just conquered the area and checked the basement out with their probe before getting out to look around. Granted I'm thinking along human lines here but you can only keep a pilot stuffed away in his machine for so long before he needs to get out and stretch a bit.

Plus as soon as the ol' martian attack horn went off they beat it out of the basement for their fighting machines.

Yeah, that to me, looked like the same thing you see troops in any war doing. Once they have secured some enemy held territory, they take a moment and look around the often completely alien environs that they are now in - and sometimes even do some looting. The "martians" looked like they were just interested in discovering what kind of paraphenalia humans accumulate around their dwellings.

They weren't Martians in this new movie. Spielberg stated that because of all our probes to that planet it'd be hard to sell the idea that we missed them there, even if they existed in the deep canyons like you see in Mars Attacks of all films.

The behaviour of the aliens in some scenes is understandable if you've got an obvious advantage. They were untouchable, I doubt nukings would even hinder their machines and they full well knew this. So they could take their time exploring areas they just conquered, such as when they were laying Red Weed down next to Ogilvy's house and a trio of them explored. Know thy enemy.

It is quite obvious that they were not going to be humane given the sneak attack to put Pearl Harbor to shame and the massacring of non-combatants along with capture. Like Ogilvy said: "This isn't a war. It's an extermination!".

Admiral Valdemar wrote:You have to remember, when the book was written it was at a time when microbiology was still in its infancy as far as we're concerned. Wells was a pure scientist. You won't find anything there he didn't think through and see as plausible from the walking machines mechanism and ore refining process to laser and chemical weaponry. It was seen at the time that, one day, we may eradicate disease. That premise was used to highlight how advanced the Martians were over us (they needn't wipe out all microbes since we need them, just the pathogenic nasty ones).

Does this not just mean that the book (which I read a couple of years ago) has aged very badly?

I liked the portrayl of the Martians as brutal, amoral bastards. It heightened the sense of Humanity being FUBAR'd. They didn't give a damn about us, except that we were good fertilizer. It was clear there was no chance of diplomacy or negotiations pulling our asses out of Hades.

Peregrin Toker wrote: Does this not just mean that the book (which I read a couple of years ago) has aged very badly?

How has it aged badly? The message is still relevant, the technology involved is still far beyond us for the most part (even if the Martians are defeated easily now) and the book has never gone out of print. Ever. If it has aged badly, no one cares or notices.

Admiral Valdemar wrote:

Peregrin Toker wrote: Does this not just mean that the book (which I read a couple of years ago) has aged very badly?

How has it aged badly? The message is still relevant, the technology involved is still far beyond us for the most part (even if the Martians are defeated easily now) and the book has never gone out of print. Ever. If it has aged badly, no one cares or notices.

I mean that it has aged badly in that the ending was considered reasonable in 1895 but not today.

This film is only scoring 71% on the Tomatometer right now, and that's not a great score. Well below Star Wars Ep3, Cinderella Man, and Batman Begins. Perhaps the thread's title should be revised.

Darth Wong wrote:This film is only scoring 71% on the Tomatometer right now, and that's not a great score. Well below Star Wars Ep3, Cinderella Man, and Batman Begins. Perhaps the thread's title should be revised.

Perhaps people should stop saying this is one of the top films of the year because as awful as this year's crop has been this is not the cream of the crop.

I saw the film yesterday and I'm still having trouble in swallowing the end. I could see Tom Cruise and the girl surviving, possibly even only one of them, but the happy hollywood ending almost killed the movie for me. Fucking Idiotic. Instead of the happy family reunion they could have shown how Earth is rebuilding some 50 years in the future.