Originally posted by v6contourse:
Originally posted by Christian:
Originally posted by tropictour:
Didnt the aliens die from the "common cold" in the book?
-tropictour



Yup, which is pretty lame anwyay



Thats all I was trying to say. I have not read the book or watched the old movie so this is probably why the new movie ending ticked me off. Sorry for ruining the movie for anyone...



HG Wells' ending is significant, in that the idea is that no human intervention is able to defeat the aliens, but a tiny microbe does the job. It's an attack on imperialistic arrogance.

The story is an allegory for colonialism, which in 1898 was still the rage. The alien invaders represented British Imperialists, and the humans "natives." It was easy to dominate the local populace with advanced technology, but the "sin" of colonialism would not go unpunished, or something like that.

Ebert also criticized the movie for being "episodic." Well, guess what? So's the book. It describes, in 1st person, the various accounts of the book's hero, and at one point switches to a story about the hero's brother-in-law, or some such, as told by the main character. This was a device to allow Wells to describe what was happening in London, as well as in the basement of the crushed house.

That the scene in the basement is similar to something out of Jurassic Park should be attributed to the influence of the 1953 movie, as well as the book, on Jurassic Park.

Furthermore, Wells describes the aliens in detail, as the hero is able to observe them from his basement hideout. So, if they don't look scary enough for you, Mr Ebert, blame old HG himself.

Ebert also doesn't understand why we never get to know "why" the aliens are attacking and eating us. Well, what else do you need to know? Wells never explained it, either, except that it seemed as if Mars was having some trouble with dwindling resources, so they came to earth to suck the blood of it's inhabitants. Oops! More colonialist allegory!

My conclusion is that Roger Ebert needs to read more books, and stop watching movies all the time.

Otherwise, it sounds like there are some valid criticisms of this movie, such as:
1) The outlandish premise of machines buried underground "a million years ago."
2) The tired cliche of the dysfunctional family unit and the deadbeat dad, and
3) The typically one-dimensional characters moving through a fairly typical big-disaster formula movie.

Not typical Spielberg fair, it sounds like, although I'll probably still try to see this movie when it comes out on DVD.


Function before fashion. '96 Contour SE "Toss the Contour into a corner, and it's as easy to catch as a softball thrown by a preschooler." -Edmunds, 1998