I agree with the dragging on in parts thing... spent a little too much time in tim robbins' cellar. But I thought the modernizing of the actual attack was awesome. The tripods were perfect, and the ray guns really made you cringe, especially coming so close to cruise in parts. The sounds the things made were creepy as hell too... so I'll say that, it was great for the creepiness factor, it wasn't Independence Day style. Although I would consider the latter to be more realistic of an attack from aliens if it were to happen.
As a sidenote, don't get me wrong on saying ID4 was more realistic, in fact I can't stand it when I heard people talking about War as if it was a brand spanking new story and there is no HG Wells book, no Orson Welles broadcast, and no original movie. My friends were complaining about the ending... for Christ's sake I KNEW the ending! It's no secret! They weren't going to change the original ending! I was happy they didn't change it... if they did the only similarity would have been the tripods and ray guns.
As for the aliens... first off, I kinda wish they didn't show them, or if they did only fleeting images, maybe like an arm or a face in the shadows, something like that. They spent too much time showing them. They didn't look all that great... a little bit too CGI obvious. I would have preferred, as I said, something more animatronic in the shadows or whatever. And... to bring ID4 into it again, they looked too much like Mr. Emmerich's version of our not-so-friendly EBE invaders.
With all that said, I THOROUGHLY enjoyed it. I can nitpick some stupid things, but overall it was damned entertaining and I knew I would... I've never seen anything bad by spielberg, straight up. Can't think of anything. Excellent update on an old story... and yes, HG Wells is awesome.
As a sidenote, don't get me wrong on saying ID4 was more realistic, in fact I can't stand it when I heard people talking about War as if it was a brand spanking new story and there is no HG Wells book, no Orson Welles broadcast, and no original movie. My friends were complaining about the ending... for Christ's sake I KNEW the ending! It's no secret! They weren't going to change the original ending! I was happy they didn't change it... if they did the only similarity would have been the tripods and ray guns.
As for the aliens... first off, I kinda wish they didn't show them, or if they did only fleeting images, maybe like an arm or a face in the shadows, something like that. They spent too much time showing them. They didn't look all that great... a little bit too CGI obvious. I would have preferred, as I said, something more animatronic in the shadows or whatever. And... to bring ID4 into it again, they looked too much like Mr. Emmerich's version of our not-so-friendly EBE invaders.
With all that said, I THOROUGHLY enjoyed it. I can nitpick some stupid things, but overall it was damned entertaining and I knew I would... I've never seen anything bad by spielberg, straight up. Can't think of anything. Excellent update on an old story... and yes, HG Wells is awesome.