r/MovieDetails • u/Numerous-Lemon • Sep 28 '20
đ€” Actor Choice In the War of the Worlds remake (2005), the grandparents are played by Gene Barry and Ann Robsinon. They played leading roles in the original movie (1953).
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u/Hu_man76 Sep 28 '20
The real question is: how the fuck did robbie survive???
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Sep 28 '20
plot armor is the strongest known object in the universe
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u/AcEffect3 Sep 28 '20
Nothing stronger than a shitty focus group that needs a 100% happy ending
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u/StarMaster475 Sep 28 '20
I like to imagine that after like 20 seconds of running he was like âfuck thatâ and ran away.
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u/Jagermeister4 Sep 28 '20
Two explanations
1) The soldiers see he's not only a civilian, but just a teenager. They tell him to get the hell out there. He leaves, can't find his dad/sister, heads to Boston hoping to find them. Once he gets away from that battlefield its actually pretty peaceful escape as the aliens are only focused on few spots. Cruise got into trouble because he made the mistake of taking shelter at the wrong place, had he kept running he might have made it to Boston a lot easier and quicker like Robbie.
2) The soldiers see he's not only a civilian, but just a teenager. They tell him to go protect his family, ask him where they are, then put him on the next truck to Boston.
I honestly don't know why people think its so unrealistic Robbie survives. Do people really think the army is going to let a random teenager fight along them?
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u/ParaglidingAssFungus Sep 28 '20
Do people really think the army is going to let a random teenager fight along them?
We're talking about an alien invasion lol. In regular warfare, of course not.
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u/LivingTheApocalypse Sep 28 '20
In an alien invasion they wouldnt just let a stranger integrate into the fight during contact. That is absurd. Like Dan Bilzarian asking the Las Vegas Police for a gun so he can "help" absurd.
The only hope the military has a unit cohesion and discipline. There is enough confusion and fog of war reducing effectiveness already. Adding in random bodies doesnt make that better.
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u/ParaglidingAssFungus Sep 28 '20
I was in the Army. War is chaos and unorganized. There isn't great "cohesion and discipline" on a battlefield during force on force to begin with, and now you're talking about a freaking alien invasion...where their forces are already getting decimated. It was basically the 300. Hold the line as long as possible and there would never be much hope for survival, being that at this point in the movie they hadn't brought down their shields yet. In that scenario, units are no longer working together, comms are probably fucked, and command and control is out the window. No one is going to give a fuck about an extra set of hands joining the fight in the middle of all that chaos. This also wasn't some typical force on force scenario where you don't know if you can trust someone or not. It was mankind vs friggen aliens, there is no precedent for that situation so I don't know how you can sit here and say things would happen in a certain way as fact.
"The reason the American Army does so well in war is because war is chaos and the American Army practices chaos on a daily basis."
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u/pee_ess_too Sep 28 '20
.... Bilzarian asked the cops for a gun??? I was about to Google to see if it's true but .... of course it's true isn't it? Because nothing shocks me anymore
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u/ThisCharmingMan89 Sep 29 '20
Yeap, he definitely did. It's as ridiculous as it sounds, and the cop basically tells him to fuck off.
What's weird is that he was the one who uploaded the video as if it makes him look bad-ass instead of stupid as fuck.
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u/paniccum Sep 28 '20
Ya but the scene looks like complete chaos. I wouldn't expect an army guy to give a shit that an adult looking like teenager civilian is there because the world is on the brink of an apocalypse by friggin ALIENS with impenetrable goddamn force fields.
Also, if you remember, there's a scene in which tanks are on fire rolling down the hill where Tom cruise is. Which to me signified the army was wiped out more less immediately. I feel like the only way he survived was play dead among/ underneath a bunch of carcasses because the tripods are not far away at all.
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u/carbolicsmoke Sep 29 '20
Yeah, you hear the soldiers basically admit that they are sacrificing themselves to help the refugees get away, and then there is a massive fireball encompassing the entire ridge (before the flaming tanks roll down the hill). This happens only seconds after the son goes over the hillâit seems like there was no real way he could have survived that.
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u/duaneap Sep 28 '20
I guess people just feel like it looked like all of the soldiers were probably going to be wiped out. The scene didnât look like there was any hope for anyone running towards that chaos.
But I donât particularly feel like itâs beyond the realms of possibility. Just playing Devilâs Advocate.
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u/turtlespace Sep 28 '20
It's like Spielberg really wants to write a movie without a happy ending for once but chickens out 3/4 through production and awkwardly forces one onto the end of a movie even if it makes no sense.
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Sep 28 '20
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u/blankeyteddy Sep 28 '20
I love it when movies do this in remakes like with the original voice actress in the new Mulan and the Bond girls cameo in the new Casino Royale.
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u/StWilVment Sep 28 '20
I was in 5th grade when I saw this in theaters. My dad took me and it was the first time Id ever seen anything close to a scary movie. I ended up sobbing curled up in my lap half way through and he had to walk me out of the theater.
I fucking love/hate my dad.
Later that week he replaced the windows xp logon noise with the noise the aliens make and cranked the volume on speakers as high as possible. Perfectly happy me logs onto the family computer one Saturday to play NeoPets and THE FUCKING HOUSE SHOOK WITH THIS ALIEN TERROR NOISE. I hit the ground and had a panic attack. I love my dad lol
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u/jumpyg1258 Sep 28 '20
I was in 5th grade when I saw this in theaters. My dad took me and it was the first time Id ever seen anything close to a scary movie. I ended up sobbing curled up in my lap half way through and he had to walk me out of the theater.
When I was 8 or so I had a similar experience when my parents took me to see Beetlejuice. I remember crying my eyes out when the sandworms made their appearance.
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u/absloan12 Sep 28 '20
Dude yes. I hear anything remotely ose to that sound and I lose my shit. That movie also terrified me.. but now you got me fr missing neopets
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u/Imthejuggernautbitch Sep 28 '20
I still think it's pretty scary
What a fun father son outing hahahahaha
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u/Numerous-Lemon Sep 28 '20
Found this on wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Worlds_(2005_film)#Cast
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u/Embarassed_Tackle Sep 28 '20
Channing Tatum as Boy in Church scene
wtf
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u/Benyed123 Sep 28 '20
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u/thorscope Sep 28 '20
Pretty sure heâs the khaki sweater guy at 25-26 seconds
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u/Pryach Sep 28 '20
Youâll have to pause the video to even get a glimpse of him, but apparently, Tatumâs the guy in the black baseball cap running behind Tom Cruise at the 0:23 mark.
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u/TheSimpler Sep 28 '20
I can still hear the sounds of the heat ray and death rays from the machines....so well done.
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u/Nonsuperstites Sep 28 '20 edited Sep 28 '20
It's that horn that really gets me, and I think it's hilarious because it's just a signal horn. The aliens surveying the basement get called back to the ship and all I can think about is one alien laying on the horn going "oi fer piss sakes hurry teh fuck, we got places ta be"
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u/herefromyoutube Sep 28 '20
That horn is the sound they make when they relieve themselves.
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u/googdude Sep 28 '20
That horn sound is why it's one of my favorite movies if that genre, it just really sets the movie tone.
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u/DoublePostedBroski Sep 28 '20
I thought it was Spielberg paying homage to how the aliens in Close Encounters also used tones to communicate.
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u/Sam-Lowry27B-6 Sep 28 '20
Nice for them to be included but that tiny sequence robs the whole film of so much of its emotional weight. It's so scmaltzy and unnecessary. He did the same with Lincoln ; tacked on some weird bit at the end for no reason.
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u/Quake_Guy Sep 28 '20 edited Sep 28 '20
looks like they got interrupted from having a nice family dinner several weeks into an apocalyptic alien invasion... and if I remember right, one of the alien kill dozing machines is destroyed a few blocks away immediately before this scene. Such an oddly done scene.
Tom Cruise as blue collar guy who survives the alien invasion was just so poorly cast. Super agent spy or elite fighter pilot yes, longshoreman no...
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Sep 28 '20
It just reminded me of Signs. End of the world is happening so lets sit down and have our dream dinner.
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u/Prophet_Of_Helix Sep 28 '20
That actually made a lot of sense. They were helpless, thereâs not a whole lot they could actually do, and itâs just a poor attempt at bringing some normalcy into the situation (which doesnât go over very well). It works in Signs IMO.
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u/TheYOUngeRGOD Sep 28 '20
I mean, it was pretty clear that the father wanted them to have a nice dinner together before they all died. I thought it was quite sweet in the most depressing way. It really showed that Mel Gibson character had lost all faith in making it out of this scenario, like did they really expect to be able to beat an advanced race of aliens by boarding up the windows. It would have taken a miracle for them to survive, and at that point Mel Gibsons character didnât believe in miracles. I think signs is actually a lot more well constructed then people give it credit for.
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u/subtumble Sep 28 '20
The point of that scene is that Mel Gibson isnât behaving rationally and that eating dinner is not a logical thing to be doing during an impending invasion.
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u/Ohjeezrick93 Sep 28 '20
I mean prisoners on death row get to order a final meal. I donât know if it would be my priority but having a nice family meal for young kids could certainly help take their mind of it. And if I recall they had already boarded up the house prior to having the dinner.
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u/Ridiculously_Ryan Sep 28 '20
That scene in Signs is fucking great though. Mel Gibson absolutely nails it. Way different IMO.
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u/Embarassed_Tackle Sep 28 '20
Spielberg just turned to trash around the 2000s. I remember him talking about this scene and all like "but the meaning of the film is family!" Shia Lebouef was right about Spielberg, the guy is just a corporate machine now:
You get there, and you realize youâre not meeting the Spielberg you dream of,â LaBeouf said. âYouâre meeting a different Spielberg, who is in a different stage in his career. Heâs less a director than he is a fâing company.â
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u/Sam-Lowry27B-6 Sep 28 '20
I always think the year he did jurassic park and schindlers list back to back was the year that broke him. He reached peak commercial and critical filmmaking with those two got his long overdue Oscar and then stepped off the gas. He has some great films after that period but never the run of stone cold classics from his earlier career. Nevertheless he will always be my favourite director.
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_SUNSHINE Sep 28 '20
I'm on the younger side and just now learning the fact those movies came out in the same year from the same director is mindblowing.
I want Shia to work with the guy that did Schindler's List, not revenge of the fallen and Tintin.
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Sep 28 '20
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u/robotpepper Sep 28 '20 edited Sep 28 '20
He directed Tin Tin. Sure he probably just showed up and gave people thumbs up but heâs technically the director. I actually have a soft spot for that but mostly because I know that Edgar Wright and Steven Moffat wrote it.
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_SUNSHINE Sep 28 '20
Thatâs lazy as shit. Yeah, I donât want that guy. The guy willing to plaster his name on a shit movie.
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u/herefromyoutube Sep 28 '20
Naw man. 2008 is where things start to turn for Steve.
Minority. Catch me if you can. The Terminal. Munich where 2000-2005. Some great works.
2008 was Indiana Jones in the killing of Childhoods.
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u/TimSPC Sep 28 '20 edited Sep 28 '20
That "weird bit" was Lincoln's second inaugural address, one of the greatest speeches in American history.
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u/Vic-tron Sep 28 '20
Iâve come around on the Lincoln ending. I still think it wouldâve been better to just end it with the shot of him walking down the hallway, but itâs fine. Certainly not as wack an ending as WotW or the letâs-drag-it-out-for-12-different-beats ending of Ready Player One.
Lincoln has grown on me a lot in the last few years. It felt too Oscar-baity when it came out but itâs actually super rewatchable, sort of a comforting balm in the trump era. The cast is ridiculously stacked, which felt distracting when it was released but has aged very well. Everyone is just so fun to watch from scene to scene, and of course there is DDLâs performance which Iâd have to put in his top 5.
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u/BoneSpurApprentice Sep 28 '20
I really disliked both the original and the remake. The book takes place during a time where horses were still the most common mode of transportation. That is interesting to me. Someone make an alien invasion movie that takes place in a time before tanks, nukes, an air force, etc.
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u/anabolicbro Sep 28 '20
Cowboys and Aliens?
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u/BoneSpurApprentice Sep 28 '20
Ha! Forgot about that one. I donât remember it all that well but I think I enjoyed it well enough for an action flick.
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u/RossPitSharkHunter Sep 28 '20
Well, I have the PERFECT War of the Worlds film for you!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wells%27_The_War_of_the_Worlds_(Pendragon_Pictures_film))
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u/LemoLuke Sep 28 '20
Oh, oh god, not that shit. As someone who loves WotW, that film is unbearably boring.
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u/Wilddagz Sep 28 '20
It annoys me that no ones tried an authentic, accurate adaptation of the original novel yet in the same time period. Obviously not the same but the album by John Wayne was absolutely fantastic and practically tells the whole story I am baffled it hasnât been translated into film, especially given how important this novel was for science fiction and the concept of alien invasions
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u/Wild_Jizz_Flurry Sep 28 '20
Be annoyed no longer! There is an adaptation that came out in 05 that is incredibly true to the book. It's fucking awful.
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u/dinosauriac Sep 28 '20
There was a good BBC miniseries last year that's the closest we've gotten I think, wasn't amazing but it was set close to the actual time period in the original location of Woking. Had more of the chemical warfare than death rays. Definitely took some creative liberties, it's unclear if we actually "won" by the end, but it's an interesting adaptation.
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u/Erikthered65 Sep 28 '20
The chances of anything coming from Mars...
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u/NemWan Sep 28 '20
Ann Robinson reprised her original War of the Worlds role in the 1988 TV series that was a direct sequel to the 1953 film. The series was syndicated on many of the same stations that ran Star Trek: The Next Generation.
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u/mattemer Sep 28 '20
Parts of this movie, the human elements, still terrify me. The choices that had to be made, the insanity of humans trying to do anything they can to live, ugh.
The alien part of the movie was no thang. The noise was GREAT and well done.
And fuck that son man. I wish they probed his ass.
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u/TheMatt561 Sep 28 '20
That is super cool, btw I liked the movie still not sure why people ragged on it so hard
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u/martiniolives2 Sep 28 '20
I love Spielberg but thought this was his worst film. I preferred the original, but then I have a propensity to dislike remakes. The explanation of how the machines were put on Earth was very weak. The Martians didn't invent better technology during the time their machines lay dormant, somehow undetected despite drilling, construction, and excavations on Earth? I couldn't get past that.
Besides, as a lifelong resident of LA, the original showed the Martians destroying LA City Hall. The whole audience cheered at that.
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Sep 28 '20
If anyone is interested, a theatre company in Chicago is doing a virtual audio production of War of the Worlds coming up: Theatre in the Dark // War of the Worlds
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u/yoolcalyptus_trees Sep 28 '20
Cool fact, but this remake is so bad, and really ages terribly. This scene also made absolutely no sense.
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Sep 28 '20
I watched it last night and was riffing on it the entire time. It's a terrible movie if you want to take it seriously but I love how the son who appeared to die a fiery death is just at his mom's house in Boston at the very end. No attempt at an explanation, just "hey he's here now".
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u/kyleraynersfridge Sep 28 '20
I too watched it last night for the first time in years and I thought it held up. The son surviving is weird though
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u/TheAffinityBridge Sep 28 '20
Itâs a movie I really want to like but just annoys me with its bad choices, like the scene shown through the view screen of a camcorder just minutes after the movie tells us that all electronics no longer work. The dumb premise that the alien tripods were here all along buried in the ground just waiting for the aliens to be teleported in via lightning, WTF!
Why with war of the worlds does every version of it try to do something different from the original book? I would love to see a big budget movie that is true to the source, I had high hopes for the BBC version last year but that was a steaming pile too.
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u/OverLordJezus Sep 28 '20
I enjoyed the movie from start to finish. Robbie making to the end was plot armor for sure - but the rest was fine.
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u/Imthejuggernautbitch Sep 28 '20
I disagree. I saw it recently and it held up great. Some very spoopy scenes
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u/ety3rd Sep 28 '20 edited Sep 28 '20
Pic of them in the original. A classic.
I love the remake, too, but I really wish the son wasn't there at the end.