Lucas and Spielburg are friends and it was a co-partnership if I remember correctly.

Anyway this is getting very far off topic and should probably be moved to another thread.

Because he doesn't like directing. He would much rather be behind the scenes and away from the action.

Yeah, but even those bubos, all three strands, took a good 3 years to wipe out a third of Europe (not everyone) and the strains had popped up years earlier in the East (where they didn't kill everyone either). Its not like everyone dropped like flies in less than 24 hours. Regardless of how deadly the disease, even ebola took three days, and didn't affect a little spaceship over China at the same exact time it reached one over Alaska?

My two cents, anyways. That's why, from the sound of it, it could have been a great movie if Spielberg had taken the time to drop hints about the aliens getting sick throughout the entire movie, rather than just tacking it onto the end. The the discussion on biological warfare (sort of) could be quite intense.

I think the aliens would have made 100% sure they could survive. It would be stupid for this just to invade it without this knowledge!

Look at current military tactics though, they tried their best but it was the smallest thing that undid them. I honestly don't think it is all that unrealistic and I don't understand why everyone is making such a big deal.

Super powers never make mistakes. Now what do we do with Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction since we found it after invading Iraq as per plan?

:laugh:

Well these aliens obviously have superior technology so you can't really compare us (what is an M1A2 against a Tripod? Dust) to them.

I think Bush already knew he was lying, he just wanted to invade Iraq for oil.

The aliens would have to be omnipotent to do that. It's not possible to immunize against everything that exists, especially in regard to alien physiology which might be susceptible to parasitic illnesses that normally don't effect humans. It could be a bird illness that killed them. Or, a mosquito one. Or, a reptile one, etc. Plus, their ships were under ground for hundreds of years, perhaps thousands. Who knows what kind of mold, fungi, bacteria, etc. might have been growing, mutating on them.

Heck, there was even an article (which got the cover) on Discover Magazine years ago (8/00), called "Do Parasites Rule the World?".

Regardless of any tests (with safeguarding themselves) they could have done, invading the earth was a risk. They may have prepared for man-made threats, but mother nature is hard to predict.

Please. You don't believe that too do you? I don't like Bush any more then the next person but that was not his intention, else we would be profiting off of it currently. Last time I checked we were spending $98 billion there, or some exhorbitant amount.

Good points, but why the hell wouldn't they check their Tripods for fungi or anything? And wouldn't their shields protect themselves against bird illnesses or mosquito's? The shields are mechanical, right? So how come bacteria fucked those up so bad? But then again this DID happen right after the aliens went out of their tripods to investigate. So yeah it makes some sense but you'd think they have millions of years or whatever they would check 10000% they could survive. Even search for the littlest bug. We don't know what technology they have and I am sure they could've just scanned the whole earth with one computer and look at even the smallest organism.

It is irrelevant whether he was lying or not. Democrats, Republicans, CIA, everybody and their moms were certain that Saddam had WMD. Turns out he didn't.

lol I don't want to go off topic but if you want to continue this discussion is it okay if I PM you?

Sure

I cant be bothered to read the whole 6 pages, but from the first page it seems everybody hates it.

Not true, those of us who had problems with it still for hte most part gave it a B.

This is hard to rate. The begining(first 45-60min) is brilliant and you really think "Damn this is gonna be THE MOVIE". .But then it simply falls in a big whole. A lot stuff feels rushed and unfinished.(WTF with Tim Robbins. Show a guy who has fear ok. But that was a experimental "we have to shot another 10 min to get a runtime that dosent looks to short".) Im not talking about logic.This is an alien movie so thats ok.
I can live with the idea of the ending but not how it was showed in some way like "Sorry guys Mr Spielberg and his team were bored to finish the movie right and proberly. Here we have what we have. Take it".
WOM actually should be bad for this. Perhaps its not but it should.
Now sitting here at home i really think. Mr. Spielberg you failed. You had everything to do THE movie of the year and a classic. But you rushed it. Was the producing time really that short? If yes. Sorry you feel it when you watch the movie.
So I give a 6/10.
Damn what this could have been........... #-o

So, um... according to some, the best thing about the film was how it's scareness? WTF? Why wasn't I scared at any point? (although that tripod scream was pretty intimidating)

Meh that was dissapointing. I thought "Yes now the kickass tripods.Yes:yes." and then. It sounds like a ship at the harbor. You know one of that big ones :???:

I'm sorry, but anyone who gave it an F needs to reconsider their priorities.


As bad as this film is in some parts, there is no way it's anywhere as bad as a D or F film.

I do believe that was Star Wars who graded it prior to watching it.

Polls are pointless.

NO! I did not grade it before I watched it... it was a JOKE. I even stated it clear that it was a joke.

I think it is impossible to give it an F. You can be disappointed in it and give a C, but there is too much good for it to be an F.

Tense, suspenseful, shocking, and just plain awesome. And I really had no problem with the ending whatsoever. One of the best of 2005

A+

Box, you have totally redeemed yourself. Just so you know, I completely disagree with, but still respect your opinion on this film.

Anyways, to everyone in general who are talking about it, I think the ending was really good. I'm going to admit that it would have been nice if the son had died. It would have been a nice emotional punch, but that didn't hurt anything for me. The film was so great, that was hardly anything. But in regards to how the alien's died, I personally thought it was a great ending, and the way it was shot gave the whole film a real sense of symmetry, as it tied back to the opening scene. The theme being that the smallest thing imaginable can be the ultimate downfall of the aliens, a race so complex and ultimately superior. I'm glad to see for once that the humans were in fact useless. They couldn't do a thing to defend themselves. Not a thing. After countless alien invasion and alien war films where the humans just magically find some new medical or weapon discovery and save the planet, this ending was awesome. The humans lost about a billion of their planets population, a lot of the Earth is left in ruins, and the rest have managed to survive, but not because of anything they did. Because they got lucky that something so small, and so "insignificant" to them, saved them. Us humans for once, weren't at the top of everything. What I find even more awesome is that this is the ending in the book as well, and this was written so long ago. Kudos to Spielberg for not changing it to make the typical Hollywood ending.

Ha, I think I've written a paragraph of my official review now, lol. I'll have a full review up sometime soon. I believe I have decided to officially give this film an A-, and will be my favourite film of the year thus far. It certainly won't stay there. I find the second half of the year has much more quality films.

PEACE, Mike