What is amazing is that The War of the Worlds novel was written by H.G. Wells in 1897. That was in the 19th century (!) And he imagined the extraterrestrials will have light beam guns that burn their targets, in other words, LASER guns.
The BBC did an adaption for TV that was really cool -- it was set in the time. It was cool to see that time period with horses, lanterns, and long dresses, and then this massive Tripod rises up over a tower. Made it so much more bleak!
In H.G. Wells' version the alien beams were "heat rays" which emitted infrared radiation strong enough to fry anything. In the afterward it was revealed that all attempts to study the heat ray had ended with the device exploding, and that such research had been forbidden.
The scene with the bodies in the river was filmed where I'm from in Connecticut, some of the mannequins got loose and floated downstream scaring the crap out of people who didn't know what was happening lol.
@@MandoWookie in a week, lol. so no. no way. language, programming language, alien logic and apparently no virusscanner... it was utterly rediculous. if that movie happened irl, we lose. 100%
In case nobody else remembers ... Tom Cruise and Tim Robbins were co-stars in TOP GUN ... Tom Cruise was "Maverick" and Tim Robbins was "Merlin" -- they were teamed up at the end as Pilot and RIO (Radar Intercept Operator) during the final dogfight scene with the F14 Tomcats going up against the six "MIG-fighters" (painted Northrup F-5 fighters)
I always find that darkly hilarious, considering what happens in the movie...guess Merlin was never quite the same after what Mav put him through in that final fight.
Was in the army: the technique is to pull the pin one way and the grenade itself the other way. You need a lot of force to pull the pin. You'd lose teeth trying to pull the pin with your teeth.
I know you guys don't do music reactions, but Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of the War of the Worlds from 1978 is amazing. Pure prog disco sci-fi insanity!
The movie actually tracks the book pretty closely once the alien stuff gets going, the red weed and so on. The book was written in 1898 so it takes place in a horse and carriage world, which is kind of a head trip to read and would be very cool to see on screen but those who have tried adapting it that way have concluded that it would be too expensive to stage a big alien invasion as a period piece. Orson Welles restructured the whole story as a fake radio broadcast when he did it which was awesome, but again transposed the story to the time he was making it. My Dad always got a laugh when he saw the grenade teeth thing in a movie. He said every bunch of new recruits in Korea would have one nerk who would try that in the heat of battle and end up yanking all his teeth out. As others have said, grenade pins are NOT easy to extract by design. Regarding the science question, how would we know if our bacteria would have an impact on aliens or not until it happened? We don’t know that’s absurdly wrong based on available facts. We haven’t met any aliens yet and confirmed (or not) any compatibility in how our biologies work so I figure it’s fair game. Jeff Goldblum uploading a virus off a Mac into the aliens’ mother ship in “Independence Day” seems like a bit of a stretch though, but it’s all good clean clean fun.
Here in Ecuador, in 1949 a local radio did the same broadcast, but with an active war conflict with another county, the things escalated too quickly that caused mas hysteria in the city of Quito, where the broadcast was made, churches opened and some started to give give open air mass absolution of sins to the people. Later, an angry mob formed and torched the building where the radio was. Most of the occupants could escape, but between 6 to 20 people died because of this.
32:10 Depends on the model and manufacture of grenade, I guess, but the ones I knew would have pulled your teeth out. Our instructors were *very* explicit about never attempting to do the "movie toothy thing."
There's one deleted scene in this movie that was unfortunately taken out weeks before the release back in June 2005. As soon as the trio made it across Hudson River, the trio enters the town called Camelot. While they ventured into Camelot and a whole bunch of Tripods came passing by. Some even went to grab some people across the townhouse buildings in Camelot as using their tentacles. (This is the part where they began harvesting people) The trio makes it through the overrun town of [Camelot] and they came really, really close to a Tripod as it walk right over (The trio are hiding in an abandoned SUV) After all of that ruckus, they moved out of Camelot and while they make it out they witness and saw the "Red Weed" for the first time. (Chronologically this was suppose to be the first encounter of the Red Weed than later in the movie when they are at the basement) Next they took another route by going with the refugees, that's leading to the next scene where the hill-battle fighting takes place. Also fun fact. There are only two Tripods in the film. 3 lights indicates they are normal fighting machines acting like NCOs/non-commissioned officers. The 5 lights indicates they are the generals acting like their COs/commanding officers. And they are packing huge firepower than the average normal fighting machine.
I wish they'd left that scene in there, cos it'd correspond to the scenes in the book of people escaping the black smoke by climbing onto roofs, only to get yoinked by the tripods.
7:38 The way the whole intersection slowly rotates is a reference to original War of the Worlds novel where the top of the alien cylinder unscrews open like a jar lid.
When I first saw this, It reminded me of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds. Although Harlen's character was the Artillery Man, talking about building large underground cities. To the cries of the tripods when they started getting sick. Then the alien hand dropping from the tripod at the end was a callback to the 1953 version of War of the Worlds.
This is definitely one of those films you don’t want to examine too closely. It’s not a realistic scenario. For one thing, tall buildings require a deep foundation. It’s not possible for them to have buried these machines and never be discovered. It’s best to watch a film like this while suspending all logic. Suspension of disbelief.
The War of the Worlds (1953) movie is less gruesome, but much more accessible. Fantastic special effects for the 1950s, and kids can watch it as well. They will get less nightmares . The 1953 movie had a Canadian made syndicated TV show (1988) that ran for two seasons. It was a direct to the film..
The nonsensical behaviour of the aliens makes perfect sense when you realise it's secretly a live-action Invader Zim movie. "Why did you bury yourselves where we ought to have found you long ago, and come down in lightning when you could have just landed in ships? And why weren't you prepared for germs?" "Silence! You can never understand our amazing brains!"
What I like about this movie is that Tom is not a hero. He’s just a guy trying to survive. His son is the “hero” in that he goes out of his way to help and is drawn to help others.
The concept from HG Wells’s original book was that the Martians had never been exposed to Earth’s bacteria and had no immunity to it. They were therefore doomed upon arrival. Similarly, in history, when explorers and soldiers first arrived in the New World from Europe, the germs and bacteria they were carrying and had long been immune to killed off thousands of natives that had never been exposed to them before.
Viruses have very, very specific targets, only affecting certain species or closely-related clusters of species. But bacteria are just little machines that like to eat and multiply. They don't care what species you are as long as you are made of something tasty. They have a much wider variety of organisms they can attack and consume. Generally they are kept away by some kind of pH value specific bacteria don't like to live in, or by the presence of some kind of chemical that causes a rapid pressure change and makes their cell membranes burst. The only reason everything on Earth isn't completely consumed by bacteria is that larger species have entered into a sort of symbiotic relationship with certain bacterial species, that can live on us without trying to eat us (they have a preference for other things), and they take up all the space so that more hostile bacteria can't get a foothold. Our bodies have other active defenses in case this passive defense fails, and one would think aliens would have something similar, but the very different chemistry and resulting ecosystem on an alien planet might make them much more (or much less) vulnerable to our local bacteria. It's very possible that aliens would have their own bacteria living on them, that ends up being tasty to Earth bacteria, which eats all of that alien bacteria and then keep going into the alien's skin. Or, the various chemical make-up of alien respiratory systems is quite comfy for many Earth bacteria to live in, being within a certain pH range, not too salty, etc.
To get a good idea about the grenade, the safety pin on a fire extinguisher is the most resembling thing, and yes it is hard to pull, unless you deliberately unbend the pin, for a booby trapped or something
I watched this around July 4th, 2005 in the theater. When I left the theater, fireworks were going off a bit away. I had to do a double take as I did a bit of a jog to my car that night. Haha.
If you haven't already, have a listen to Jeff Waynes version of War of The Worlds, it maps the original story with to amazing musical arrangement. Richard Burton is the narrator... stunning! Plus David Essex and Justin Heywood of the Moody Blues! 👏
If it sees a different spectrum it might see through the mirror or not see it, rather than see a reflection. Regular glass is a mirror to infrared. Things look different with different wavelengths of light.
This is the most faithful adaptation I've seen. It captures what Wells wanted to convey -- the terror of societies under attack by a technology they can barely comprehend.
Yeah, that’s kinda why I prefer it to even the 50s movie (which I DO like a lot!) because it’s so much closer to the tone of the book. No scientists, no generals, no world leaders and rational minds; just absolute terror and shock and all our protags can do is run.
Re: George’s question about our germs affecting the aliens: given that the aliens can breathe our air, drink our water, and survive in our air pressure, it’s fair to assume that they evolved similarly enough to Earthlings for there to be cross-contamination from our germs. Sort of like how some types of germs can affect both humans and other animals, despite our various biological differences.
32:01 - Grenade pin-pulling with your teeth~ As per TV Tropes on the subject: >> _The human jaw and teeth are just about the the strongest part of the whole body, while the force required to pull the pin on a grenade, while not trivial, is easily within the margin of error unless someone has particularly bad teeth._ >> _Over the years, the pull needed to arm a grenade has ramped up considerably for safety reasons - American troops in Vietnam were paranoid of grenades snagging in the jungle, and part of the initiation of newbies was the instruction to bend and tape the pins of their grenades to prevent this._ >> _The (relatively modern) American M67 grenade needs approximately 3-5 kilograms (approximately 6.6 to 11 pounds) of force to pull (for comparison a gallon of milk weights 4.5kg/9.9 pounds). The Russian F1 grenade takes the considerably higher 8kg (17.6 pounds) of force._ >> _Partly because of this increase in strength, and partly because it is simply contrary to prescribed technique, teeth-pulling is highly discouraged in training; as a result, the myth has grown up that it is impossible, and a great many sources online claim this without citing any examples of attempted failures._ >> _While it is not true that teeth-pulling is impossible, or that you will inevitably injure yourself, there are very good reasons for discouraging it: repeated sideways strain on the teeth is not advisable in the long term, someone with bad teeth very likely will injure themselves attempting a teeth-pull, and while you are unlikely to pull your teeth out, biting down on a metal ring might well chip one or several teeth._
The original story helped popularize germ theory in a world where it was still not commonly accepted by the masses. The kid being an idiot in this movie was there to reflect American sentiments after 9/11, which is why there's so many references of vague terrorists in this movie. It does kind of miss the mark of the original story though, which was about advanced western civilizations' imperialism and committing genocide on native peoples. Since this was during the Iraq war which was founded on actual presidential lies about WMDs as an excuse to invade, Spielberg took the advanced civilization Welles characterized as the Martians and made them the victims and the "terrorists" the overwhelming force that would destroy the innocent peoples. I think that's where most of the criticism of this film comes from, that and it being much more a blockbuster than people wanted.
5 месяцев назад
No George, lightning doesn't strike twice the same place. A lightning is an voltaic arc that happens when positively charged cloud and a negatively charged piece of ground get too close. The discharge evens the electric charge of both making them neutral for the time being, thus preventing any other voltaic arc from happening. Lightning rods are desing to always generate a negative charge so that's why it can discharge multiple times, but it does still needs a small amount of time to loose that positive charge it gets from the lightning.
I like this one as it feels truer to the novel than the 1953 version. The farmhouse scene in both are great, and the guy was definitely broken and had to be silenced. Fortunately he isn’t stuck with kids in the novel. As for the virology, I suspect Wells was reusing historic info. That they affected the martians was dumb luck.
Regarding the bacteria question. It's not necessary that the bacteria did attack/infect the alien-cells directly, in a lot of cases its not the bacteria itself what's harmful, but the by-product the produce metabolising stuff. So they might simply have "poisoned" the aliens by metabolising the fluid the swam in their tripods.
24:56 Tim Robbins-"They somehow killed a few of this things in Osaka" George -"Yeah, but they have Gundams!!" LMAO... i mean that is an anime mecha fight that i would watch the shit out
You have got to see the original black and white version. Also great are The Day The Earth Stood Still, THEM!, and The Time Machine. Most of those have been remade as well, but none of the remakes are as good as their older versions in my opinion.
Most disease and infections don't kill the host, the body kills the host while trying to kill the disease and infection. For instance you get a fever when your sick not because of the bug, but because our body is raising its temperature to make the body uninhabitable to the bug. Sometimes the immune system just goes to far. remember, even today if I went from Canada to South America, or somewhere in Africa I'm likely to need a shot or 2 to prevent catching a something that isn't in Canada, worse if I played around in the water (as the aliens did in the house) I have a significantly improved chance of catching some bug or something parasitic. This happens to us on our own planet, how do you think an alien race would fare whose immune system isn't even from this blue dot. Also, even if they planted the ships many many years ago and the aliens created immunities to the bugs then, we know that every day we're seeing mutated versions of the same bugs that a year ago we could stop but now have to create a whole new way to stop this variant; they wouldn't have this updated immunity.
Great reactions, as always from Simone and George. Fun Movie Fact: The Grandparents at the end of the movie are played by Gene Barry and Ann Robsinon, who were the leads in the 1953 original movie version of War Of The Worlds. Now George and Simone MUST watch Scary Movie 4! :)
There was certainly hummus 20 years ago in the USA, but depending on where you lived, and your general eating habits, there were definitely lots of people who hadn't ever had it. Thinking of the guys in my family, dad and uncles, they are NOT adventurous with new foods. I can see any of them reacting just like Tom Cruise did if they didn't know what they just ate, lol.
For George's question at the end re: Earth bacteria vs Martians/aliens. You're not wrong, it would basically boil down to one of two outcomes, either the bacteria would have no effect because the alien biology is too different/incompatible or it would be catastrophically effective. The analogy Welles & all others creating their own adaptations of his work, were going for was the success or failure of colonisation, for either the invaders or natives, with either side being introduced to "new" bacteria. Where that analogy stumbles, is that all historical cases of this occuring, still involve _both_ sides being human. Even known cases of interspecies infections like mad cow disease, bird & swine flu etc, can't help give an answer to how the biology of life from another planet would react to the biology of life on this planet or vice versa.
Actually he is wrong. the vast majority of bacteria do well with many diffrent enviroments. As long as the Aliens are made from the same elements as us they should be fine (And there are only a handful of elements you could base a biology off). Unlike Viruses which couldn't jump to a species which doesn't have DNA.
Years after watching this I read the book. I was actually impressed with how much the film takes from the source. However, would love to see a close, period reaction. H G Wells was inspired by thinking how European troops were superior in arms to the colonies they conquered. He wanted to consider how Europe would cope if invaded by a similar advanced civilisation.
you can absolutely pull a grenade pin with your teeth, but its not adviseable when you want to make sure the pin comes out, so its better to just use your fingers.
Interesting thing about this story is it gets more one-sided with every adaptation; in the original the army were able to fell some tripods with cannons, and in one memorable scene a warship managed to destroy three. The martians just brought in new weapons and tactics and had an overwhelming advantage, as opposed to being invincible. There was a bit more foreshadowing about the bacteria resolution as well, although even in the original story it was arguably even more anticlimactic.
I think HG Wells when he wrote the original book was trying to make a point about colonialism. At the time the original book was written, a story about super technologically advanced invaders coming to Britain and quickly overpowering the navy and military was a pretty powerful metaphor, that is fairly on the nose now, but would have been less so at the time.
32:01There are verified historical accounts of WW1 and WW2 troops pulling pins of grenades with teeth, but modern grenades have a far stiffer pins to prevent accidents, and even in the ww1 and 2 accounts, they damaged their teeth doing it and sometimes failed in the attempt. it's not a good idea.
This movie was so GRIM by summer blockbuster standards, even 19 years later I’m surprised how dark they went with an already pretty scary story. The scene in the flooded basement haunts me still….
I love this movie so much, it's what got me into the whole war of the worlds franchise I've been a big war of the worlds fan since I was a little kid :D (and am currently also making my own comic book adaptation of the story)
I always find it a bit odd when Tom's character comes across the news people who's dragging that little food crate out of the downed jet, and they dive into the water and food like they are dying of thirst and hunger. OK, first off, the aliens attacked mere hours ago. That means they could go get bottled water and food at just about any residential house, grocery store, or convenience store around. The aliens are destroying stuff, but by no means is the destruction total at that point. There's still plenty of structures still standing and undamaged.
I love that today we are making bipedal robots because we have two legs for walking and the alien machines have 3 legs because the alien creatures have 3 limbs for moving around.
You guys should watch a really good drama with Tim Robbin’s that has an incredible ending. Arlington Road. Also stars Jeff Bridges and Joan Cusack. Nobody reacts to it and I don’t know why. Maybe it’s hard to find a copy but if you can- definitely do it.
"The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one" he said "The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one" But still they come!
Bacteria question: Asteroids impacting the Earth throw out ejecta into space, some of which randomly impacts Mars (And vice-versa... We have examples of mars rocks that have fallen here). [That said, we didn't know that when this was written]
Ah yes, that pulse that knocks out all electronics except some magically shielded camcorder which survives just for some overly artful shot that draws attention to itself... (9:05) I love the book that the title comes from, and the 78 Prog Rock adaptation, but this film just leaves me cold. It's almost all spectacle and very little heart and charm
Sigh. And still no Thunderchild. As far as SC2, tripods have gotten borrowed for a lot of sci-fi projects. Half Life 2 had Striders, Command and Conquer 3 had tripods in it. There was a British book series/TV show literally called "The Tripods." They're all basically inspired by Wells. (And there's some great art of tripods over the years, even back in the era when the book was first published. ) Now, watch the 50s version. It's still quite effective.
the scary part... the neighbours all had the same laundry on the same day at the same time...scary neighbours or a randy window cleaner the day after the aliens dropped dead from the earth viruses all the humans dropped dead from the alien viruses...they never show that ending though
I remember this movie being one of the first that actually annoyed me, the son runs off to go help fight but somehow survives. It still aggravates me! I was enjoying the movie until then lol.
This is crazy weird timing! I just finished watching this movie last night then this shows up in my recommended. Absolutely love your other reactions can't wait to watch this reaction! You are both so wholesome, genuinely crazy this movie was only PG-13!
I love how you only find out what's going on as Ray finds out. No Presidential conference. No Joint Chiefs. No Pentagon. No power. No cellphones... Just a regular guy, stuck in the middle with no info. Such a great take on a very big sci-fi movie.
That's the book. The whole tale is told from the protagonist's perspective, and he's just some schmo who's not in the know about anything. And just like the film, the book's end is beyond anticlimactic; it's frustrating as hell. But that's how life is. The universe is not a story about us.
I mean that is true in the book too but in the book the main character finds out a lot more. mainly because human society puts upa much better fight there. It's about an actual war between worlds, this is just a catastrophe movie.
@@Serai3 I don't recall it at all like that, he's pretty invovled early on and finds out stuff as he travels. Also the british put up a way better fight than the americans do in the movie.
From the book, it is revealed that the martians were so advanced that they destroyed all bacteria and microorganisms on their planet. Over their immune systems were destroyed, but they didn't need one since all disease causing bacteria and microorganisms where wiped out. So much time had passed, they no longer thought about it.
Oh my god for real! That’s honestly my favorite thing about the movie. I love when a movie leaves a lasting impression because of a specific sound. Especially sci fi and or horror which those genres are perfect for wild sound designs. The “pulse rifle” from “Aliens”is one of my personal favorite examples 🙌💯🖤
George! Grenade question! Grenade pins are designed to NOT fall out accidentally, they do take a lot of force to actually remove and normally you have to twist or rotate them before they will come out. It is incredibly unlikely that you can pull it out with your teeth, you are far more likely to just pull your tooth out. You can pull a pin from a grenade and put it back in again as long as you keep the arming handle in place (the lever thingy) so it would be technically possible to pull the pin and then re-insert it and loosen it so you could pull it with your teeth, but then you're just carrying around a grenade with a loose pin and that's just a really really bad idea.
Can you put the pin back in if you were to release the handle, squeeze the handle again, and try to re-insert the pin? Or can you not release the handle without an explosion?
@@marquisdesade3025 The handle is holding a spring-loaded striker in place. Once you release the handle, the striker impacts a primer which ignites the fuze. There is no way back from there.
@@marquisdesade3025 Once you let go of the handle, it flies off (as designed) and then you have however long the fuse is before it goes off. Some grenades don't have the handle at all and the fuse starts as soon as the pin comes out.
I can buy an invasion of alien tripods with laser guns attacking the planet, but my disbelief cannot be suspended for Tom Cruise taking out an insane shovel-wielding Tim Robbins in a one on one brawl.
4:46 That dialogue explains what happens to the aliens in the movie. Rachel's body will push out the splinter when it is ready, the same goes for the aliens: Earth's bacteria and microbes will "push them out" when the time comes. One of Steven Spielberg's most underrated films.
Thing is, and people tend to forget this, but we humans are also part of the Earths Immune system... while the bacteria was more effective given the aliens caught us off guard big time, we'd be the second wave of defense in the future or the more effective clean up crew should the aliens learn how to counter the bacteria... also if you consider things like asteroids and other space born forms of destruction, bacteria cant protect the planet from those sorts of things, Humans can.
Being an avid fan of the movies and especially the book, I do have to say that War of the Worlds has to be the most influential in regards to invasion stories, particularly alien invasion. From what I remember, when H.G. Wells wrote this book in the late 19th century there was a wave of books popular that were known as just invasion books. Whether it was Germany, Belgium, or France, there was always a story about the home country fighting against the "alien" foreigner. Wells, from what i remember, (could be misremembering) wanted to do something different but also wanted to do a critique of the invasion stories, since it feed into the general idea that imperialism was a good thing. Hence, the martians where created as a sort of expy for europeans with humans as the indigenous peoples. Since malaria was such a huge killer for the colonizing armies rampaging in Africa (which was being divided amongst the european empires at the time of writing), having the martians be defeated by disease seemed very poignant. Granted, the author did make the martians very vampiric and very eldritch sounding in his physical description of them, so some liberties were taken! Sorry for the lengthy repy, whenever i see War of the Worlds mentioned, no one describes why in the context of the book and story it was written. As i have probably forgotten about a few details, please let me know if I forgot anything!
It always seemed a bit improbable to me that the aliens would have advanced enough technology to travel space and nearly conquer our planet... but not have, like, discovered MEDICINE yet...? But... it's a story. so... whatever.
@@zammmerjammer they're not that advanced in the book, it's suggested that they may have run out of resources on mars and the forces they sent to earth didn't win every fight the way they do in this movie.
