Psst - This section will contain some inside trivia about the film.
Quotes - Good one liners from the movie.
Oops - Goofs From the movie.
Director – Steven Spielberg
Screenplay – H.G.Wells, John Friedman and David Koepp
Modern day adaptation of a Science Fiction Classic written over 100 years ago by HG Wells. Ray Ferrier(Tom Cruise) is a divorced crane operator who is looking forward to spending the weekend with his kids, Robbie(Justin Chatwin) and Rachel Ferrier(The ever loving Dakota Fanning). Everything goes haywire when there are sudden lightning and storms in the town and out of no where Giant Tripods appear from beneath the grounds and start killing everyone and destroying everything in sight. All electronic and electric items stops functioning mysteriously wherever these giant tripods appear. Ray has just one thing in mind. To get the kids away from the town to Boston where their mom is situated. Though relatively different from the original book the theme of the movie remains the same. A man’s survival for existence when everything seems to go against him and he has no control. Although it offers nothing new in terms of story as the man vs alien has been made in to countless movies (The day the earth stood still, Alien, Aliens, Independence Day, The War Of The Worlds made in 1953) the special effects are out of the world. The score is awesome(Another winner for the pair of Spielberg and John Williams). The Cinematography by Janusz Kaminski (watch out for some superb steadycam sequences)and Editing By Michael Kahn is awesome. But the show belongs to Tom Cruise for fabulous acting and the God of All directors Steven Spielberg for yet again proving that why he is simply the best film maker alive today. Watch out for the start scene when the attack begins.
Psst –
1) Originally the movie was to be released in 2007 but when other projects for Pielberg and Tom Cruise got stalled, the movie started in Mid August 2004 and got a simultaneous world wide release on 1st July 2005.
2) Filming took only 7 months.
3) The Original Orson Welles Radio Script of The War of the World is owned by Steven Speilberg. He wanted to make the film ages back but had to set back due to the blockbuster hit Independence Day. The success of Minority Report made Spielberg work with Tom Cruise and he chose The War of the Worlds as the story.
4) In the original book it’s the martians who invade the world. Here, neither is the word Martian or Aliens used through out the movie, This is primarily because Spielberg didn’t want to make a cliché alien/martians vs Earthling Movies. Let me correct my self, martian is used only once in the entire movie and that too during the final narration.
5) The movie grossed $34.5 million on the opening day itself worldwide. $21 million being in USA alone. Budget of the movie was $128 million.
Quotes.
1) “They’re not from around here; You mean they’re, like, from Europe?
No, Robbie, they’re not from Europe. Somewhere else is Not Europe.”
2) “I am allergic to peanut butter; Since when? Since birth.”
3) “No one would have believed in the early years of the twenty-first 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. With infinite complacency, men went to and fro about the globe, confident of their 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.”
4)
Oops
1) In one scene when the tripods are attacking once person is shown using camcorder when all electronic devices had stopped working.
PS – I would like to thank Imdb.com for providing valuable inputs towards the trivia section.