Sabtu, 29 Desember 2012

War of the Worlds


An alien hand holds Earth, that is engulfed in flame. A red weed surrounds the hand. Above the image is the film's title, WAR OF THE WORLDS and the main actor, TOM CRUISE. Below is the release date, JUNE 29, and the cast and crew credits.
Theatrical poster
Directed bySteven Spielberg
Produced byKathleen Kennedy
Colin Wilson
Screenplay byJosh Friedman
David Koepp
Based onThe War of the Worlds by
H.G. Wells
Narrated byMorgan Freeman
StarringTom Cruise
Dakota Fanning
Justin Chatwin
Miranda Otto
Tim Robbins
Morgan Freeman
Music byJohn Williams
CinematographyJanusz Kamiński
Editing byMichael Kahn
StudioAmblin Entertainment
Cruise/Wagner
Distributed byParamount Pictures
DreamWorks Pictures
Release date(s)
  • June 28, 2005 (Kuwait)
  • June 29, 2005(United States)
Running time116 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$132 million[1]
Box office$591,745,550



War of the Worlds is a 2005 American science fiction disaster film and a loose adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel of the same name, directed bySteven Spielberg and written by Josh Friedman and David Koepp. It stars Tom Cruise as Ray Ferrier, a divorced dock worker estranged from his children (Dakota Fanning and Justin Chatwin) and living separately from them. As his ex-wife drops their children off for him to look after for a few days, the planet is invaded by aliens (loosely based on H. G. Wells' Martians) driving Tripods and as earth's armies are defeated, Ray tries to protect his children and flee to Boston to rejoin his ex-wife.
War of the Worlds marks Spielberg and Cruise's second collaboration, after the 2002 film Minority Report. The film was shot in 73 days, using five different sound stages as well as locations at California, Connecticut, New Jersey, Staten Island, and Virginia. The film was surrounded by a secrecy campaign so few details would be leaked before its release. Tie-in promotions were made with several companies, including Hitachi. The film was released in United States on 29 June and in United Kingdom on 1 July. War of the Worlds was a box office success, and became 2005's fourth most successful film both domestically, with $234 million in North America, and worldwide, with $591 million overall. At time of its release it was the highest grossing film starring Tom Cruise until Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.

Plot

Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise) is a container crane operator at a New Jersey port and is estranged from his children. He is visited by his ex-wife, Mary Ann (Miranda Otto), who drops off the children, Rachel (Dakota Fanning) and Robbie (Justin Chatwin), as she is going to visit her parents in Boston, Massachusetts. Robbie takes Ray's car out without his permission, so Ray starts to search for him. Ray notices a strange wall cloud, which starts to send out powerful lightning strikes, disabling all electronic devices in the area, including cars, forcing Robbie to come back. Ray heads down the street to investigate. He stops at a garage and tells Manny the local mechanic, to replace the solenoid on a dead car.
Ray reaches the place where multiple lighting bolts struck the ground and witnesses the ground heaving up as a massive machine with three long legs climbs out. The Tripod gives off a loud blaring sound before opening fire with heat-rays, vaporizing bystanders and destroying everything in its path. Ray manages to barely escape; he packs up his kids and leaves in the vehicle Manny repaired as the Tripod destroys the town. He drives to Mary Ann's house to take refuge that night. Loud explosions occur all night. The next morning he discovers a crashed Boeing 747 in the street outside the house. He meets a news team stealing the flight's meals and surveying the wreckage. The reporter shows him footage of Tripods all over the Earth, with the unknown pilots entering the machines through the lightning strikes. She speculates that the machines were in place for thousands of years meaning the invasion was being planned for a long time.
Ray decides to take the kids to Boston to be with their mother. Robbie, trying to join the fight against the aliens, tries to leave with the U.S. military, but Ray and Rachel stop him. They are forced to leave their car after a mob surrounds them and takes the vehicle by force. They later survive a Tripod attack which causes the sinking of a Hudson River ferry. The family then ends up in the middle of a battle between the military and the Tripods. Forced to choose between being separated from Rachel and preventing Robbie from joining the fight, Ray lets him go with the soldiers. Immediately afterwards the Tripods destroy all military resistance, presumably also killing Robbie. The Tripods are shown to be protected by an energy shield that makes them invulnerable. While escaping, Ray and Rachel are offered shelter by Harlan Ogilvy (Tim Robbins), who vows revenge on the aliens after his family was killed by them.
While hiding in Harlan's basement, they witness the Tripods spreading a strange red weed substance everywhere. They all hide from a snake-like probe and a group of four aliens who explore the basement. The next morning, Ogilvy suffers a mental breakdown while witnessing a Tripod harvesting blood and tissue from a human. Concerned that Ogilvy's yelling and ranting will attract the Tripods, Ray reluctantly kills Ogilvy to silence him. The basement hideout is exposed when a second probe catches them sleeping. Ray cripples the probe using an axe, but Rachel runs outside and is caught by the Tripod. As he chases after the Tripod and Rachel, Ray finds a grenade bandolier with several hand grenades in a destroyed Humvee and detonates one of them to attract the Tripod's attention. He is captured as he planned and placed in the same basket with Rachel and several other prisoners. Ray discovers Rachel is in shock after she witnesses a captive being sucked up into the ship to be harvested. As Ray finally calms her down, the aliens select Ray to pull him inside for harvesting, but the other prisoners manage to pull him back. The bandolier he was wearing was left inside the Tripod and Ray was able to pull all of the pins, causing a massive internal explosion, destroying the Tripod and freeing the captives.
Ray and Rachel arrive in a devastated Boston, where the red weeds are dying and the Tripods have been behaving erratically and crashing, apparently infected by Earth pathogens. Ray notices that force fields are down on a Tripod, prompting nearby soldiers to attack and destroy it. As a crowd approaches the downed machine, a hatch opens, revealing an alien that lets out a final growl before it dies. Ray and Rachel reach Mary Ann's parents' house, where Rachel is reunited with her mother and find to their surprise, Robbie, who has somehow survived the hilltop massacre.

[edit]Cast

[edit]Production

[edit]Development

After collaborating in 2002's Minority Report, Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise were interested in working together again. Spielberg stated about Cruise, "He's such an intelligent, creative partner, and brings such great ideas to the set that we just spark each other. I love working with Tom Cruise."[2] Cruise met with Spielberg during the filming of Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can (2002) and gave three options of films to create together, one of them being an adaptation of The War of the Worlds.[2] Spielberg chose The War of the Worlds and stated, "We looked at each other and the lights went on. As soon as I heard it, I said `Oh my God! War of the Worlds – absolutely.' That was it."[2]
The film is Spielberg's third on the subject of alien visitation, along with Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Producer and longtime collaborator Kathleen Kennedynotes that with War of the Worlds, Spielberg had the opportunity to explore the antithesis of the characters brought to life in E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. "When we first started developing E.T., it was a much edgier, darker story and it actually evolved into something that was more benign. I think that the edgier, darker story has always been somewhere inside him. Now, he's telling that story."[2] Spielberg stated that he just thought it would be fun to make a "really scary film with really scary aliens", something which he had never done before.[2][3] Spielberg was intent on telling a contemporary story, with Kennedy stating the story was created as a fantasy, but depicted in a hyper-realistic way.

Josh Friedman delivered a screenplay, which was then rewritten by David Koepp.[5][6] After re-reading the novel, Koepp decided to do the script following a single narrator, "a very limited point of view, from someone on the very periphery of events rather than someone involved in events", and created a list of elements he would not use due to being "cliché", such as the destruction of landmark buildings. Some aspects of the book were heavily adapted and condensed: Tim Robbins' character was an amalgalm of two characters in the book, with the name borrowed from a third. While changing the setting from 19th century to present day, Koepp also tried to "take the modern world back to the 1800s", with the characters being devoid of electricity and modern techniques of communication.[7]
Spielberg accepted the script after finding it had several similarities to his personal life, including the divorce of his parents (Ray and Mary Ann's divorce), and because the plight of the fictional survivors reflects his own uncertainty after the devastation of the 11 September attacks.[3] For Spielberg, the characters' stories of survival needed to be the main focus, as they featured theAmerican mindset of never giving up.[3] Spielberg described War of the Worlds as "a polar opposite" to Close Encounters, with that movie featuring a man leaving family to travel with aliens, whileWar of the Worlds focused on keeping the family together.[3] At the same time, the aliens and their motivations would not be much explored, as "we just experience the results of these nefarious plans to replace us with themselves".[8]
Although accepting the script, Spielberg asked for several changes. Spielberg had been against the idea of the aliens arriving in spaceships, since every alien invasion movie used such a vehicle.[6] The original Martian cylinders were discarded, where Spielberg replaced the origins of the Tripods with stating they were buried underground in the Earth long ago.

Filming

Destroyed Boeing 747 used on the War of the Worlds set. Currently, visitors can view the destroyed airliner set during the Universal Studios's back-lot-tour.
Filming took place in Virginia, Connecticut, New Jersey, California, and New York. The film shooting lasted an estimated 72 days.[9]Spielberg originally intended to shoot War of the Worlds after Munich, but Tom Cruise liked David Koepp's script so much that he suggested Spielberg postpone the former while he would do the same with Mission: Impossible III. Most of Munich's crew was brought in to work on War of the Worlds as well.[4] In 2004, the production crews quickly were set up on both coasts to prepare for the start date, scouting locations up and down the Eastern Seaboard and preparing stages and sets which would be used when the company returned to Los Angeles after the winter holiday. Pre-production took place in only three months, essentially half the amount of time normally allotted for a film of similar size and scope. Spielberg notes, however, "This wasn't a cram course for War of the Worlds. This was my longest schedule in about 12 years. We took our time."[2] Spielberg collaborated with crews at the beginning of pre-production with the use of previsualization, considering the tight schedule.[9]
The scene depicting the first appearance of the Tripods was filmed in Newark, New Jersey.[10] Later, Spielberg filmed several scenes in Virginia.[11] The continuous scene was filmed in California.[12]
The ferry scene was filmed in the New York town of Athens, and Mary Ann's parents house was located in Brooklyn (but was featured in the film in Boston).[2] For the scene involving a crashedBoeing 747, the production crew bought an out-of-use airplane, with transportation costs of $2 million,[13] destroyed it into pieces, and built houses around them.[2] The destroyed plane was kept for the Universal Studios back-lot tour.[13] Ray's house was filmed in Bayonne, New Jersey (with a soundstage doubling the interior); meanwhile, the valley war sequence was filmed in Lexington, Virginia and Mystery Mesa in California. The scene where the tripod is shot down and crashes through a factory was filmed in Naugatuck, Connecticut. The scene of the bodies floating down the river was filmed on the Farmington River in Windsor, Connecticut by a second unit using a stand in for Dakota Fanning (the back of her character) with the portion showing the faces of the credited actors cut in later. Some filming was shot on the Korean War Veterans Parkway in Staten Island, NY. [2][14] The film used six sound stages, spread over three studio lots.[2]

[edit]Design and visual effects

Industrial Light & Magic was the main special effects company for the movie.[15] While Spielberg had used computers to help visualize sequences in pre-production before, Spielberg said, "This is the first film I really tackled using the computer to animate all the storyboards."[2] He decided to employ the technique extensively after a visit to his friend George Lucas.[2][15] In order to keep the realism, the usage of computer-generated imagery shots and bluescreen was limited, with most of the digital effects being blended with miniature and live-action footage.[16]
The design of the Tripods was described by Spielberg as "graceful," with artist Doug Chiang replicating aquatic lifeforms,[16] At the same time, the director wanted a design that would be iconic while still providing a tribute to the original Tripods, as well as intimidating so the audience would not be more interested about the aliens inside than on the vehicle itself.[8] The visual effects crew tried to blend organic and mechanical elements in the Tripods depiction, and made extensive studies for the movements of the vehicle to be believable, considering the "contradiction" of having a large tank-like head being carried by thin and flexible legs.[17] Animator Randal M. Dutra considered the movements themselves to have a "terrestrial buoyance", in that they were walking on land but had an aquatic flow, and Spielberg described the Tripods as moving like "scary ballet dancers". Most of the alien elements revolved around the number three – the Tripod had three eyes, and both the vehicle and the aliens had three main limbs with three fingers each.[8] Visual effects supervisor Pablo Helman considered depicting the scale of the Tripod as challenging, considering "Steven wanted to make sure that these creatures were 150 feet tall",[16] as it was the height described by Wells in the novel.[8] The aliens themselves had designs based on jellyfish, with movements inspired by red-eyed tree frogs,[17] and an amphibian quality particularly on the wet skin. A styrofoam alien was used as a stand-in to guide the actors in the basement scene.[8]Spielberg did not want any blood or gore during the Heat-Ray deaths; in the words of Helman, "this was going to be a horror movie for kids". So the effects crew came up with the vaporization of the bodies, and considering it could not be fully digital due to both the complexity of the effect and the schedule, live-action dust was used alongside the CGI ray assimilation and particles.[16]Digital birds followed the Tripods in most scenes to symbolize the presence of death, which Chiang compared to vultures and added that "you don't know if these birds are going to the danger or away from it, if you should follow them or run away."[8]
During the scene where Ray's minivan is attacked by a mob, Janusz Kaminski and Spielberg wanted a lot of interactive lights, so they added different kinds of lights, including Coleman lamps, oil lanterns, flashlights and Maglights.[2] The IL&M crew admitted that the destruction of the Bayonne Bridge was the toughest scene to be made with heavy usage mix of CGI effects and live action elements,[18] and a four-week deadline so the shot could be used in a Super Bowl trailer.[16] The scene originally had only a gas station exploding, but then Spielberg suggested blowing up the bridge as well.[16] The scene involved Tripods shooting a Heat-Ray towards the minivan and minivan escapes from it involved a lot of CGI layers to work out. Over 500 CGI effects were used in the film.[19]
Costume designer Joanna Johnston created 60 different versions of Ray's leather jacket, to illustrate the degrees to which he is weathered from the beginning of the journey to the end. "He begins with the jacket, a hoodie, and two t-shirts," explains Johnston. One piece of Dakota Fanning's costume that takes on a special importance is her lavender horse purse: "I wanted her to have something that made her feel safe, some little thing that she could sleep with and put over her face," Johnston notes. "That was the lavender horse purse. We tied it up on a ribbon and Dakota hung it on her body, so it was with her at all times." Johnston dressed Robbie for an unconscious emulation of his father, "They're more alike than they realize, with great tension on the surface," Johnston says.

Themes

The film was described as an anti-war film, as civilians run and only try to save themselves and their family instead of fighting back the alien Tripods.[27] Debra J. Saunders of San Francisco Chronicle described the film as "If aliens invade, don't fight back. Run." Saunders compared the film to Independence Day, where the civilians do run, but they support the military efforts.[27] Many reviewers considered the film tried to recreate theatmosphere of the September 11 attacks, with bystanders struggling to survive and the usage of missing-persons displays.[28] Spielberg declared toReader's Digest that beside the work being a fantasy, the threat represented was real: "They are a wake-up call to face our fears as we confront a force intent on destroying our way of life."[29]Screenwriter David Koepp stated that he tried not to put explicit references to September 11 or the Iraq War, but said that the inspiration for the scene where Robbie joins the army were teenagers fighting at the Gaza Strip – "I was thinking of teenagers in Gaza throwing bottles and rocks at tanks, and I think that when you're that age you don't fully consider the ramifications of what you're doing and you're very much caught up in the moment and passion, whether that's a good idea or not."[7] Retained from the novel is the aliens being defeated, not by men's weapons, but the planet's smallest creatures, bacteria, which Koepp described as "nature, in a way, knowing a whole more than we do".[8]
Even so, the troops who fought the evening engagement against the aliens, while employing the most powerful weaponry they possessed, fought them not to defeat them, but to buy what time they could for the refugees' retreat as revealed by conversations among the troops during the battle. Their willingness to face inevitable death for the sake of the civilians remained a constant theme throughout the film, where soldiers were not portrayed deserting or running away.

[edit]Release

War of the Worlds premiered at the Ziegfeld Theatre on 23 June 2005. There, Tom Cruise revealed his relationship with Katie Holmes.[30] Six days later, on 29 June, the film was released in approximately 3,908 theaters across America.[1]

[edit]Secrecy

Spielberg kept most of the parts secret in the filmmaking, as the cast and crew were left confused about how the aliens looked.[31] When asked about the secrecy of the screenplay, David Koepp answered, "[Spielberg] wouldn't give [the screenplay] to anybody". Koepp explained he would e-mail it to him, and he would give a section of the script that was relating to whatever somebody was doing.[31] Miranda Otto thought of not even discussing the story with her family and friends. Otto said, "I know some people who always say, 'Oh, everything's so secret.' I think it's good. In the old days people didn't get to know much about movies before they came out and nowadays there's just so much information. I think a bit of mystery is always really good. You don't want to blow all of your cards beforehand."[32]
Spielberg admitted after keeping things secret for so long, there is in the end the temptation to reveal too much to the detriment of the story at the press conference of War of the Worlds. So, Spielberg only revealed the hill scene, where Ray tries to stop his son from leaving, stating "to say more would reveal too much."[33] The secrecy caused The Sun to claim the film would surpassTitanic's 200 million budget, which at the time held the record for the most expensive film ever made.[34] The actual budget of the film was US $132 million.[1][35]

[edit]Marketing and home media releases

Paramount Pictures Interactive Marketing debuted a human survival online game on its official website, waroftheworlds.com, on 14 April to promote the film.[36] Hitachi collaborated with Paramount Pictures for a worldwide promotional campaign, under the title of “The Ultimate Visual Experience”. The agreement was announced by Kazuhiro Tachibana, general manager of Hitachi’s Consumer Business Group.[37] Kazuhiro stated, "Our ‘The Ultimate Visual Experience’ campaign is a perfect match between Spielberg and Cruise’s pursuit of the world’s best in film entertainment and Hitachi’s commitment to the highest picture quality through its digital consumer electronic products."[37]
The film was released on VHS and DVD on 22 November 2005, with both a single-disc edition and a two-disc special edition featured production featurettes, documentaries and trailers.[38] The film grossed $113,000,000 in DVD sales, bringing its total film gross to $704,745,540, ranking tenth place in the 2005 DVD sales chart.[39]
Although Paramount had the worldwide theatrical rights, the US DVD rights were with DreamWorks, while Paramount had international DVD rights. War of the Worlds was one of the last DreamWorks DVD releases to be distributed by Universal Studios Home Entertainment, since Paramount would announce its acquisition of DreamWorks a few weeks after the DVD release (it was completed in February 2006, though DreamWorks would later become independent again). Because of the Paramount/DreamWorks merger, Paramount now has inherited the rights originally with DreamWorks, and future re-releases on any media will be distributed by Paramount (which had produced the 1953 version alone). Paramount released the film on Blu-Ray on 1 June 2010.

[edit]Reception

[edit]Box office

On 29 June 2005, the film grossed approximately US$21 million worldwide,[40] and earned the thirty-eighth biggest opening week gross with grossing $98,826,764 in 3,908 theatres, averaging $25,288 in each theater.[41] Meanwhile, on Independence Day weekend, War of the Worlds grossed $64,878,725 in 3908 theatres also, giving an average of $16,601.[42] This is the third-biggest film opening on Independence Day weekend.[43] The film earned $200 million in 24 days, ranking thirty-seventh place in the list of fastest films to gross $200 million.[44] The film has grossed $591,745,550 worldwide,[1] making it the fourth highest grossing film of 2005, and the sixty-sixth highest grossing film worldwide.[45][46]

[edit]Reviews

The movie gained positive critical consensus. Review aggregator website Metacritic gave it an average score of 73 based on 40 reviews.[47] On another website, Rotten Tomatoes, War of the Worlds currently garners a 74% "fresh" rating based on 250 reviews and the critical consensus stating [that] "Steven Spielberg's adaptation of War of the Worlds delivers on the thrill and paranoia of H.G. Wells' classic novel while impressively updating the action and effects for modern audiences."[48] Among Rotten Tomatoes' Top Critics, which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs, the film's reception was more ambivalent with a score of 67% based on 42 reviews.[49]
James Berardinelli praised the acting and considered that focusing the narrative on the struggle of one character made the film more effective, but described the ending as weak, even though Spielberg "does the best he can to make it cinematically dramatic".[50] Total Film's review gave War of the Worlds 4 out of 5 stars, considering that "Spielberg finds fresh juice in a tale already adapted for film, TV, stage, radio and record", and describing the film as having many "startling images", comparing the first Tripod attack to the Omaha Beach landing from Saving Private Ryan.[51]
Los Angeles Times' Kenneth Turan, who felt the special effects were unusual, stated that Spielberg may actually have done his job in War of the Worlds "better than he realizes", showing how fragile the world is. Turan claimed Spielberg raised a most provocative question: "Is the ultimate fantasy an invasion from outer space, or is it the survival of the human race?"[52] However,Broomfield Enterprise's Dan Marcucci and Nancy Serougi did not share Berardinelli and Turan's opinion. They felt that Morgan Freeman's narration was unnecessary, and that the first half was "great" but the second half "became filled with clichés, riddled with holes, and tainted by Tim Robbins".[53]
Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune gave the film three and a half stars (out of four), saying "War of the Worlds definitely wins its battle, but not the war." Wilmington stated the film brought the viewers on a wild journey through two sides of Spielberg: the dark and the light. He also said the film contained a core sentiment similar to that of Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.[54] About.com's Rebecca Murray gave a positive review, stating, "Spielberg almost succeeds in creating the perfect alien movie", with criticism only for the ending.[55] Jonathan Rosenbaum of Chicago Reader praised the special effects and Cruise's performance.[56] Roger Ebert criticized the "retro design" and considered that despite the big budget, the alien invasion was "rudimentary" and "not very interesting", regarding the best scenes as Ray walking among the airliner wreckage and a train running in flames, declaring that "such scenes seem to come from a kind of reality different from that of the tripods."[57]
The French film magazine Cahiers du cinéma ranked the film as 8th place in its list of best films of the 2000s.[58] Japanese film director Kiyoshi Kurosawa listed the film as the best film of 2000-2009.[59]

[edit]Awards

War of the Worlds was nominated for three Academy Awards, Visual Effects, Sound Mixing (Andy Nelson, Anna Behlmer and Ron Judkins), and Sound Editing, losing all to King Kong.[60] The film was nominated for six Saturn Awards,[61] and won Best Performance by a Younger Actor (Dakota Fanning).[62] The film won a Golden Reel Award for Sound Effects & Foley,[63] an World Soundtrack Award for Best Original Soundtrack,[64] and three VES Awards for its special effects,[65] and was nominated for three Empire Awards, three Satellite Awards, and an MTV Movie Award. In a less positive light, Cruise's performance was nominated for Worst Actor at the Razzie Awards.




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