posted 07-01-2005 01:43 PM                    

quote: Scott Norwood

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So, Brad, you would be opposed to intentionally shooting in Academy 1.33 (err, 1.37) as well? It should have nearly all the light efficiency advantages as scope and the format can be shown full-frame on television without butchering the original framing.

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posted 07-01-2005 07:04 PM                    

quote: Lyle Romer

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I thought it was more like a collection of scenes than a movie.

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I came away with the same impression. It's very disjoint. Still, the first hour or so was amazingly well done. I'm glad I saw it.

[SPOILERS!]

The first attack scene and the following getaway are terrific. I was particularly impressed by the use of long, unbroken shots:

1. The first shot of the tripod, looking over Tom Cruise's shoulder. First the ground breaks, and he and several other people run for cover. The shot continues without cutting away. Then a car comes flying out of the hole in the groud, obviously thrown by something BIG. The camera still doesn't look away. Then the tripod comes rising up out of the ground. You can see its huge shape, partially shrouded in smoke. It looked amazingly real and gave a great impression of size and scale. And the camera still hasn't cut away during all of this! It really immerses you in the scene, especially since it is all filmed from the eye-level of people on the street.

2. Another shot where Tom Cruise is running away, and people around him are getting zapped by the heat ray. The camera follows him into a building, a car crashes through the window, and he keeps running onto the next block. The whole thing is done in one unbroken steadicam shot.

3. During the getaway, there was an incredible shot which followed the van with Cruise and his kids in it, speeding down the highway as it moved through all the stalled cars blocking the road. The camera circled the van multiple times, moving in and out of windows, following it as it traveled. It was all so smoothly integrated I wonder if a lot of viewers didn't notice it. All the reflections, light, and shadows changed as they should, matching the camera movement and the movement of the van. I've seen movies attempt shots like this before, but this one was much more complex and so well done it looked utterly convincing. It was an amazing variation on the standard shot of characters conversing in a moving car. This one let you hear their conversation while still keeping you aware of the pandemonium around them. Again, this is the sort of thing that really immerses you in the movie.

However, all the above felt like a set-up. There was never really a payoff. I was expecting to see sequences of the tripods leveling cities and decimating human armies. Instead, we got tantalizing glimpses of massive numbers of tripods via a television monitor in the news van, and hints of a huge battle taking place just over a hill (but we never quite got to see what's going on up there). The film instead turned into a personal survival tale for its second half, and not a very good one at that. The scene with Tim Robbins, for example, goes on way too long. I did enjoy the bit with the grenades, but then the sappy ending came along (the stupid son should have died ) and brought it back down.

Overall, it was worth seeing, but the second half does not live up to the expectations raised by the first half. It should have gone more in the direction of the George Pal predecessor, and shown us events on a more global scale.

posted 07-02-2005 01:29 AM                    

quote: Brad Miller

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Seriously, you must work at one of those suck-o-matic "top masking" multiplexes. Properly set up, the scope image is exactly the same height as flat. You just get extra width (and resolution, and brightness, and steadiness, etc, etc, etc). Shooting in flat just makes it as if you have your hands up against the sides of your eyes, blocking out all peripheral vision. Artistic intent my ass. It's just being stupid.

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posted 07-02-2005 02:09 AM                    

quote: Aaron Garman

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Calling him stupid for shooting it a specific away isn't fair criticism. He aims, along with any artist, to achieve a specific effect with his work, and he uses the flat ratio to do it.

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posted 07-02-2005 06:59 PM                    

quote: Stephanie M. Brosche

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2. How come there was a tongue/mouth on the SPACE SHIP that the aliens were driving. It's like the entire crowd forgot that those tripods are not the actual aliens. We are reminded of this later when an alien comes sliding out of a craft, but by then every one seems to have forgotten that they tried to pass off a mouth on the damn things.

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quote: Lyle Romer

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Why do the tripods vaporize everything excep Tom Cruise when he is near everybody getting vaporized?

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Well, obviously some amount of people survived the attacks. If the story had followed somebody who was the first to die, it would have been a bit shorter

I do agree about the whole scope thing, though, it really would have added to the movie.

All in all, it wasn't without problems, but in terms of being a summer Spielberg spectacle, I was pleased.