| (1953) |
| (2005) |
VS.
The War of the Worlds will perhaps forever remain famous not because of any film adaptation, but because of the classic novel on which it is based and the infamous 1938 radio broadcast. It is difficult to say which one of these two films is better as they are both a product of their respective times, and they both have serious issues that need to be addressed when evaluating them. As a classic sci-fi film, the original War of the Worlds is perhaps one of the best ones out there given the period in which it was released. It may be unfair to call Steven Spielberg's 2005 go at the classic novel a remake as they took their cues most likely from the original source material as opposed to the 1953 classic, but the original 1953 film is considered by so many to be the ultimate H. G. Wells adaptation, that it has become the standard for which all others must be measured.
The 1953 version has been showing its age for quite some time now. While it did win the Academy Awards for special effects, that was in another time. I'm not suggesting that the award was unmerited, neither am I saying one can't appreciate practical effects in our world of CGI. Far from it, I'm merely acknowledging a barrier that modern audiences would have for enjoying this classic masterpiece. The effects were state-of-the-art for its time and compared to other films of its era, it holds up quite well. No one can take that away from the 1953 version, it was the best they could offer, and the decision to change the tri-pods to saucers due to their inability to realistically create them was ingenious and innovative.
This brings us to the 2005 version, which, after a mere ten years, already seems ancient. Worse than that, the movie as a whole is entirely underwhelming in scope. The biggest disappointment of this is that we have Steven Spielberg at the helm, and, being one of the greatest directors of our age, failed to capture the essence of the story and failed to take advantage of the resources available to him. In 1953, although to us the effects seem cheap, they were the best they had to offer. Camera tricks to add awe and suspense were a necessity as they weren't able to create the kind of effects we can today. The novel is one of the most detailed pieces ever written and no description is spared, so to avoid showing details in this day and age just for suspense is cheap and lazy. Jurassic Park proved that we can have suspense without sacrificing detail, and with a story of this magnitude, Spielberg should definitely had gone the path of Jurassic Park as opposed to Jaws, when there was no technology and they had to rely on camera shots to create suspense.
Aside from the lack of details that were absent from the 2005 version, I think what bothers me most about this version is how they totally screwed up the climax of the story, and I do mean TOTALLY! If you remember the movie, you remember that what killed the alien invaders after all our technology failed, was the littlest creatures that "God in his wisdom" placed on Earth. That's all fine dandy and holds true to the source material. Where I take issue, however, is how they portray the aliens as idiotic. In the 2005 version, the one thing that is different from any other version, novel included, is that the aliens had buried their giant machines millions of years ago and waited for the peak of civilization to attack. The problem with this, is that if they had indeed mastered interplanetary travel millions of years ago, it only stands to logic that they would be a little bit familiar with the concept of contamination and biological exchange between two separate societies. They had already come to Earth before and were planning this for so long, I think it would be a safe bet that they would have noticed that the composition on Earth was different and anticipated the different bacteria that existed on an alien planet. They wouldn't just come in and start eating us without even thinking about it. In the novel, Mars is dying, and the invasion is a desperate attempt to ensure their survival, something of a last ditch effort, not planned for hundreds of millenia.
I usually address casting and screenplay in these types of reviews and while the 2005 version has a decent one with a great cast, it wasn't really memorable, with the exception of Tim Robbins' performance, and the original didn't have much going for it in this field anyway. I would, however, like to talk a bit more on the failed opportunity that was Spielberg's endeavor. As I mentioned, the novel is extremely detailed and leaves very little to the imagination, so it is a little insulting to not show the audiences all the details of the aliens. I'll concede that Spielberg did a fantastic job on detail in showing the destruction and havoc the aliens wreak, but it fell short on telling the audiences about the aliens themselves. the novel goes into great detail about this, everything from anatomy, eating habits, and their history. All of this is absent in the movie. I think people who had never read the book would be interested to know that the aliens suck blood because their digestive systems are evolved and more sophisticated, and that they were once humanoids.
In conclusion, I think the 1953 version clearly wins, if for no other reason than they gave it their best. It seems like they were playing it safe with the 2005 remake and I can't imagine why. Spielberg had everything at his disposal, but I really think he failed to read the novel and relied on a summary of the action without the science. We expected science fiction, but what he gave us instead was a horror movie, and one with multiple plot holes at that. I can now, having later read the novel, appreciate the 2005 version because the details that were left out remain in the back of my mind, allowing me to ignore their omission from the film, but if you rely on the 2005 version of the story as your sole exposre to Wells' classic, you are truly missing out, because Spielberg filed to deliver. You can't build your fame as director who knows how to balance visual with suspense and drama and then give the audience something like War of the Worlds in the way Steven Spielberg did. It was not only a slap in the face of the fans of H. G. Wells' classic novel, but Spielberg's own fans as well. In hindsight, everyone still loves Jaws and appreciates the director's wisdom of acknowledging his limitations and relying on suspense instead of effects for that film. But in 2005, there was no excuse for not showing us details and the fact that it was directed by Spielberg, only makes it worse, because it could have been so much better, especially given the fact that this movie was released just three short years after his amazing Minority Report. But there was something good that came out from that movie, it inspired me to read the book. Having watched 2002's The Time Machine a few years earlier and loving it, I was expecting the science in War of the Worlds to be on par with that film. I remember leaving the theater a puzzled teenager saying to myself "I can't believe someone who wrote something as brilliant as The Time Machine writing such garbage!" When I finally read the book a couple of years later I knew where to put the blame, and it wasn't H. G. Wells. As it turns out, the greatest Science Fiction director of the 20th and 21st century has nothing on the greatest Science Fiction author of the 19th century. What's funny is you would think that given our advanced knowledge it would be a no-brainer to come up with a well thought out science fiction story on par with those of 120 years ago. Steven Spielberg proved that this is not (always) the case...
The 1953 version has been showing its age for quite some time now. While it did win the Academy Awards for special effects, that was in another time. I'm not suggesting that the award was unmerited, neither am I saying one can't appreciate practical effects in our world of CGI. Far from it, I'm merely acknowledging a barrier that modern audiences would have for enjoying this classic masterpiece. The effects were state-of-the-art for its time and compared to other films of its era, it holds up quite well. No one can take that away from the 1953 version, it was the best they could offer, and the decision to change the tri-pods to saucers due to their inability to realistically create them was ingenious and innovative.
This brings us to the 2005 version, which, after a mere ten years, already seems ancient. Worse than that, the movie as a whole is entirely underwhelming in scope. The biggest disappointment of this is that we have Steven Spielberg at the helm, and, being one of the greatest directors of our age, failed to capture the essence of the story and failed to take advantage of the resources available to him. In 1953, although to us the effects seem cheap, they were the best they had to offer. Camera tricks to add awe and suspense were a necessity as they weren't able to create the kind of effects we can today. The novel is one of the most detailed pieces ever written and no description is spared, so to avoid showing details in this day and age just for suspense is cheap and lazy. Jurassic Park proved that we can have suspense without sacrificing detail, and with a story of this magnitude, Spielberg should definitely had gone the path of Jurassic Park as opposed to Jaws, when there was no technology and they had to rely on camera shots to create suspense.
Aside from the lack of details that were absent from the 2005 version, I think what bothers me most about this version is how they totally screwed up the climax of the story, and I do mean TOTALLY! If you remember the movie, you remember that what killed the alien invaders after all our technology failed, was the littlest creatures that "God in his wisdom" placed on Earth. That's all fine dandy and holds true to the source material. Where I take issue, however, is how they portray the aliens as idiotic. In the 2005 version, the one thing that is different from any other version, novel included, is that the aliens had buried their giant machines millions of years ago and waited for the peak of civilization to attack. The problem with this, is that if they had indeed mastered interplanetary travel millions of years ago, it only stands to logic that they would be a little bit familiar with the concept of contamination and biological exchange between two separate societies. They had already come to Earth before and were planning this for so long, I think it would be a safe bet that they would have noticed that the composition on Earth was different and anticipated the different bacteria that existed on an alien planet. They wouldn't just come in and start eating us without even thinking about it. In the novel, Mars is dying, and the invasion is a desperate attempt to ensure their survival, something of a last ditch effort, not planned for hundreds of millenia.
I usually address casting and screenplay in these types of reviews and while the 2005 version has a decent one with a great cast, it wasn't really memorable, with the exception of Tim Robbins' performance, and the original didn't have much going for it in this field anyway. I would, however, like to talk a bit more on the failed opportunity that was Spielberg's endeavor. As I mentioned, the novel is extremely detailed and leaves very little to the imagination, so it is a little insulting to not show the audiences all the details of the aliens. I'll concede that Spielberg did a fantastic job on detail in showing the destruction and havoc the aliens wreak, but it fell short on telling the audiences about the aliens themselves. the novel goes into great detail about this, everything from anatomy, eating habits, and their history. All of this is absent in the movie. I think people who had never read the book would be interested to know that the aliens suck blood because their digestive systems are evolved and more sophisticated, and that they were once humanoids.
In conclusion, I think the 1953 version clearly wins, if for no other reason than they gave it their best. It seems like they were playing it safe with the 2005 remake and I can't imagine why. Spielberg had everything at his disposal, but I really think he failed to read the novel and relied on a summary of the action without the science. We expected science fiction, but what he gave us instead was a horror movie, and one with multiple plot holes at that. I can now, having later read the novel, appreciate the 2005 version because the details that were left out remain in the back of my mind, allowing me to ignore their omission from the film, but if you rely on the 2005 version of the story as your sole exposre to Wells' classic, you are truly missing out, because Spielberg filed to deliver. You can't build your fame as director who knows how to balance visual with suspense and drama and then give the audience something like War of the Worlds in the way Steven Spielberg did. It was not only a slap in the face of the fans of H. G. Wells' classic novel, but Spielberg's own fans as well. In hindsight, everyone still loves Jaws and appreciates the director's wisdom of acknowledging his limitations and relying on suspense instead of effects for that film. But in 2005, there was no excuse for not showing us details and the fact that it was directed by Spielberg, only makes it worse, because it could have been so much better, especially given the fact that this movie was released just three short years after his amazing Minority Report. But there was something good that came out from that movie, it inspired me to read the book. Having watched 2002's The Time Machine a few years earlier and loving it, I was expecting the science in War of the Worlds to be on par with that film. I remember leaving the theater a puzzled teenager saying to myself "I can't believe someone who wrote something as brilliant as The Time Machine writing such garbage!" When I finally read the book a couple of years later I knew where to put the blame, and it wasn't H. G. Wells. As it turns out, the greatest Science Fiction director of the 20th and 21st century has nothing on the greatest Science Fiction author of the 19th century. What's funny is you would think that given our advanced knowledge it would be a no-brainer to come up with a well thought out science fiction story on par with those of 120 years ago. Steven Spielberg proved that this is not (always) the case...
No comments:
Post a Comment