Derivative?
Do you realize how much of sci-fi is derived from WOTW originally?
I don't see how anyone who considers himself a film buff (and this isn't pointed at anyone in particular) can watch this movie and not understand how masterful Spielberg's touch (and the work of the people working for him) is. The changing in the pace of the action and exposition were really well-timed and when the audience thinks it's getting a break from the panic and terror of the Tripod onslaught, you start to feel claustrophic and paranoid, because you just KNOW that they haven't gone away. The single long take with the van as they're running from NJ is brilliant...the camera swoops in and out and around the moving vehicle, from closeups of faces to far enough from the van to get most of it in the shot (or more). I want to see the movie again just to see this scene. And writing/staging the screenplay so that you never know more about what's going on than Ray knows makes it such a personal experience; I was more tense watching this than I've been in a movie in a LONG time.
It's just...interesting to me, I've been reading comments about the movie on IMDB and elsewhere and I think it's mindbending how some people just don't get it.
