I understand that Spielberg will be remaking "War of the Worlds"

[CatWoman]

in 2006.

This is one remake that I look forward to.

What say you?

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. Oh, God, please NO!!!

Bloody hell, why don't these people leave well enough alone?

I can't imagine Spielberg doing anything but babyfying the story and making it stupid.

[libbygurl]

3. Second that. Schmaltzy Spielberg Stuff. n/t

[Rabrrrrrr]

6. "We showed the aliens love, and that's what killed them,

that's how truly evil they were."

[tridim]

17. Tell me you didn't like ET?

Sure it was a touchy-feely and played on the viewer's emotions, but it was damn entertaining! I never understood why people diss Spielberg for making movies that are entertaining. What's wrong with that? Just because they aren't "deep" doesn't mean they're bad.

Spielberg humanizes movies, Lucas "babyfies" movies.

Now, as far as WOTW is concerned. I agree, he shouldn't remake it, but not because he'd "make it stupid". I just don't think Spielberg has the heart to make a movie about aliens that want to kill us.

[BigMcLargehuge]

19. I didn't like ET

saw it when I was 11, in the theater. Even then I thought it was manipulative and smarmy. I haven't liked much of Spielberg's work since them. I don't know why he took such a non-threatening turn after Jaws, but the few times he rises above the sickening sweetness he shows that creative gleam that made me like him with Duel and Jaws. Hell, I even liked 1941.

I am convinced that if 1941 had been a hit all of Spielberg's following films would have been in that screwball ensemble comedy style.

His films that I did like:

Dual
Jaws
1941
Minority Report

[Rabrrrrrr]

23. Pfagh, and that's just the problem with Spielberg

Too manipulative.

I have nothing against entertaining movies, or movies that aren't deep.

Spielberg is too heavy handed in his "serious" movies and I find it a real turn off since it's so obviously overdone. Really bothers me.

And as you say in your last sentences, Spielberg DOESN'T have it in his heart - or possibly in his skill set - to make a movie about aliens who want to kill us. But contrary to what you say, this is precisely why he WOULD "make it stupid".

He has no right filming this story; and since it's already been done once, anyway, why not do something new?

What's up with remaking old movies all the time? Jeez.

And I don't Spielberg humanizes movies - I think he TRIES to, but because he's so manipulative it never works.

[EstimatedProphet]

25. I think you're right

Wanna know who COULD do it? Ridley Scott.

[Rabrrrrrr]

26. Yeah! He'd be awesome!

Even james Cameron could probably do a good job. Or M. Night Shamalayan (however it's spelled) would do a very interesting interpretation, true to the book and the philosophy in it.

I was also just thinking perhaps Kevin Smith - Jay and Silent Bob would end up driving the aliens insane until their brains explode. :-)

[DIKB]

2. What about ?

ID4

if you watch it, Independence Day was a remake of it. Using ineffective Nukes, eventually taking the aliens down WITH A VIRUS. ummm hello.

[CatWoman]

4. hmmmmmmmmmmmmm

you are so right, DIKB.

Complete with ugly aliens that did everything in threes :D

[NightTrain]

7. "Independence Day" sucked.

Whch doesn't bode well for the upcoming Spielberg film.... :(

[terrya]

5. I don't think much of the idea. What's the point?

The orignial "War of the Worlds" was and is a scary movie. It's a classic sci-fi film.

I don't like the idea of remaking this.

Terry

[frylock]

8. because these people don't have one single original idea in their head

I can't wait till they start doing remakes of all the movies they've remade. :crazy:

[terrya]

9. LOL! You may not believe this, but...

I read where Gus Van Sant is thinking of remaking his remake of "Psycho".

Seriously. :-)

Terry

[CatWoman]

10. noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

not again!!!!!!

I hope Hitchcock rises from the grave to haunt them all!!!!

[demsrule4life]

16. because these people don't have one single original idea in their head

The truth has been spoken.

[Deja Q]

11. Well, he obviously can't create anything original anymore that's

worth the money, so what the hell - let's have EVERYBODY remake old films because nobody wants to take a freakin' risk with NEW ideas anymore!
x( x( x( x( x( x( x( x( x( x( x( x( x( x( x( x( x( x( x( x( x( x( x( x( x( x( x(

All he wants to do is show off the latest technology he's been able to buy thanks to revenue from other movies that he doesn't deserve a penny for... Didn't his newest and equally tacky star wars movies satisfy his techno-libido? x(

Maybe he wants to add Jar Jar Binks to it...

Maybe he wants to update the effects (why, they look damn good already)

[DIKB]

14. no more Jar Jar

as a Star Wars devotee, I can happily assure everyone the Gungans were wiped out en masse on the moon of Naboo, during the Clone Wars. we can only hope and pray Jar Jar (their hero) was among them. If he does return I hope he is downcast, bitter, quiet and seething with fury.

[tridim]

18. Wait, are we talking about Lucas or Spielberg?

Spielberg didn't make Star Wars.

[ablbodyed]

12. Wait and see....

It may be OK. But....
the original was the scariest movie that I ever saw. About 8 years old, saw it at the drive-in. Just after the nuke failed to hurt them I puked up all that popcorn and orange soda (luckily it had rubber mats, LOL) and we left. I had nightmares for years, with the Martians pushing dirt up around my house. Since I never saw the ending, I was left with the impression that they won. A really effective film.

[BigMcLargehuge]

13. If he uses the book as the template

and ignores Pal's film then it could be pretty cool. Wells' book is one of the few pieces of literature that truly frightened me as I read. Pal's film, as wonderful as it is, takes some serious liberties with the source material with regard to Wells' take on religion.

Rather than have the Curate be a self absorbed man unable to deal with the event irrespective of his faith, and this forcing the narrator to kill him with the blunt end of a knife, Pal presents the priest as a martyr walking across the field, bible in hand, to confront/convert the martians.

from the online version:

The fact is that we had absolutely incompatible dispositions and habits of thought and action, and our danger and isolation only accentuated the incompatibility. At Halliford I had already come to hate the curate's trick of helpless exclamation, his stupid rigidity of mind. His endless muttering monologue vitiated every effort I made to think out a line of action, and drove me at times, thus pent up and intensified, almost to the verge of craziness. He was as lacking in restraint as a silly woman. He would weep for hours together, and I verily believe that to the very end this spoiled child of life thought his weak tears in some way efficacious. And I would sit in the darkness unable to keep my mind off him by reason of his importunities. He ate more than I did, and it was in vain I pointed out that our only chance of life was to stop in the house until the Martians had done with their pit, that in that long patience a time might presently come when we should need food. He ate and drank impulsively in heavy meals at long intervals. He slept little.

As the days wore on, his utter carelessness of any consideration so intensified our distress and danger that I had, much as I loathed doing it, to resort to threats, and at last to blows. That brought him to reason for a time. But he was one of those weak creatures, void of pride, timorous, anaemic, hateful souls, full of shifty cunning, who face neither God nor man, who face not even themselves.

The full text of the novel is available here:

http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/warworlds/warw.html

[jus_the_facts]

15. I think he'll do it justice.....and I look forward to it too....

....he sure didn't babyfy JAWS...the mans a f'n genius and I've enjoyed all his work! HEH! :eyes:

:hi: Midori...thanks for the info!! :pals:

[Jeebo]

20. NO WAY Spielberg can improve on the 1953 film...

CatWoman, have you SEEN that wonderful 1953 movie with Gene Barry? It is not possible for Spielberg or anybody else to improve on that TERRIFIC film! Well, maybe God could, but nobody who's merely human. One thing I would LOVE for Spielberg to try is a sequel -- not a remake, but a SEQUEL -- to the 1956 film "Forbidden Planet," which in my humble opinion is the BEST science fiction film ever made. There's lots of potential there for a sequel. It's 50 years later, the Krell home planet is gone, destroyed at the end of the original film, but then somebody finds some more Krell artifacts on another newly-discovered planet somewhere, and it all starts again. Leslie Nielsen and Ann Francis are still alive; Spielberg could recruit them to play the parts of United Federation of Planets consultants to assist with the explorations of the newly-discovered Krell artifacts. I've never tried to write a screenplay, but if I ever do, this is one of the first ones I'll try.

Ron

P.S. -- I think the best decade for science fiction films was the 1950s. War of the Worlds, Forbidden Planet, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Thing From Another World ... these and many more brilliant films from that decade. And even the BAD ones are wonderfully campy and fun, whereas the bad movies nowadays are merely bad.

[mac1000a]

21. I look forward to it

Independence Day sucked because it was basically a big gung ho wet dream of American military propaganda. The original WOTW was a fairly deep movie, as was the book. I trust Spielberg to know the line between making a movie entertaining without making it propaganda. I thought Saving Private Ryan did it relatively well. Should be pretty cool.

On the other hand, I do kind of miss the kid-like Spielberg that created films like E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. It seems like Spielberg gets darker every year. Maybe the Bush presidency is having a negative effect on him.

[President Jesus]

22. Spielberg is a BIGTIME Dem...list of contributions

The movie might suck, but at least a portion of the ticket price goes back to Democratic causes...
http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?st=CA&last=Spielberg&first=Steven

[DrWeird]

24. The original was horrible.

It was probably the worst movie ever made from a book.

The book was a very defeatist, nihilistic peace. And completely atheistic. A preist, the protagonist, and another man are trapped in a collapsed house and forced to watch as the aliens rampage through the country side and build enormous blasphemous constructs of an indeterminable nature. The priest realizes the nonexistance of God and ends up crushing in the other mans skull for sustinence. In the end all of humanity and God fail to halt the alien invasion. It's lowly bacteria that destroy the aliens.

In the movie the scientists suggest using biological weapons. After the nukes fail to destroy the aliens the survivors huddle in a church to pray. Sure enough all the aliens die. And the victorious christians look up to see there church is surrounded by a halo. In the movie the germs are elevated to christian soldiers sent by God to destroy the ungodly aliens. I believe the last quote is, "God works in mysterious ways."

Hopefully Speilberg will stick to the original.

[Deja Q]

27. Look to the source... the movie, while entertaining, is propaganda.

McCarthyism and the time the 1953 movie was made (1953)...

What you say makes sense, though the movie itself does have a charm, even if it reeks of somebody's idea of religion.

[DrWeird]

28. Well sure, the ships were cool.

I've got a pleasant childhood memory of watching it on my grandmother's black and white TV. Still, as a film it stinks.