Another big surprise today, well not really I knew it was coming, but the surprise was really in the lack of content and the shattering of an illusion.
The Spielberg (The Director with no first name) remake that is The War of the Worlds is coming soon, and the trailer has arrived, and an anti climax it certainly is, for me at least.
The problem for me is that I was brought up listening to Jeff Wayne’s audio version War of the Worlds, actually, when I say brought up I was dragged up and I didn’t really listen to it all the time, anyway! The moment the voice over kicks in on that record was awe inspiring, and I love that opening dialogue with the voice of the amazing Richard Burton in the lead role, and those terrifying words:
“No one would have believed, in the last years of the
nineteenth century, that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space.No one could have dreamed we were being scrutinized, as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. Few men even considered the possibility of life on other planets and yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely, they drew their plans against us.”
Those words, and the way that Burton (my namesake) said them was chilling. So as the trailer played I waited, and I heard the first word and thought “they’re doing the speech!” I was so excited, until about the second syllable. It lacks the power and gravitas, and for me that dropped the excitement and the opening thrill was lost.
Still, I am making an unfair comparison, so I kept watching, and there was little content to speak of, save a group of scared and confused neighbours looking at the strange lights in the sky and listening to the noises in the distance, and then, then the big titles. Cruise (The actor with no first name), Spielberg, big titles.
Oh, and what’s with the tagline? They’re already here? Yeah, I get it, but I don’t really get it. Never mind, it is only a trailer and a tag line, we all know it’s going to be stunning, and how can I expect a movie, made with someone elses imagination, to compare with an audio recording made real by my imagination? You just can’t. I’ll have to dump those thoughts and let myself go to the movie, something that I managed to do quite well before. So here’s to the War!
What do you think of it, and what are the chances of anything coming from Mars?
I loved The movie ” WAR OF THE WORLDS ” IT WAS THE BEST MOVIE IN THE WORLD , AND THE BEST ONE IVE EVER SEEN , I LOVE TOM CRUISE I MEAN THE WAY HE ACTS , ALSO DEKOTA SHE SO COOL AS AN ACTOR ,
Advice :::::::::::: Go Watch it and stop being jurks .,
Its the best movie in the WORLD.
” WAR OF THE WORLDS ”
I loved The movie ” WAR OF THE WORLDS ” IT WAS THE BEST MOVIE IN THE WORLD , AND THE BEST ONE IVE EVER SEEN , I LOVE TOM CRUISE I MEAN THE WAY HE ACTS , ALSO DEKOTA SHE SO COOL AS AN ACTOR ,
Advice :::::::::::: Go Watch it and stop being jurks .,
Its the best movie in the WORLD.
” WAR OF THE WORLDS “
I loved The movie ” WAR OF THE WORLDS ” IT WAS THE BEST MOVIE IN THE WORLD , AND THE BEST ONE IVE EVER SEEN , I LOVE TOM CRUISE I MEAN THE WAY HE ACTS , ALSO DEKOTA SHE SO COOL AS AN ACTOR ,
Advice :::::::::::: Go Watch it and stop being jurks .,
Its the best movie in the WORLD.
” WAR OF THE WORLDS “
I enjoyed the trailer/teaser. It worked exactly as it should have. Look at all the talk already generated.
Keep in mind that this is Sci-fi and not Shakespeare.
If you think you can do better then go ahead!
Dr Karlosi
Check out that site.
I thought it was a pretty frightening teaser. The voice didn’t terribly excite me, but it was the lights in the sky the really scared the shit out of me. I thought…God! GOD! I’m SO going to watch this movie when it comes out.
Philip, yes! Did you sing it while you typed?
I like to be teased, and this trailer succeeded.
Star Wars Episode III in May, then Batman in June now War of the Worlds in July? What the…
Whew, maybe all them Martians will all come down to Earth just to queue up in the cinemas mind you!
I would say that the chances of anything coming from mars, are about a million to one…
(I’m sorry I just had to do it…)
Boring, I guess I expect more out of Spielberg. This doesn’t make me interested in the movie at all. I was already interested when I found out he was making it. But this failed to pull me in more. When it was over I wasn’t all like “AAWWW FUCK I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE MORE OF THAT!!” THAT’s what a teaser is supposed to do.
The trailer is bombastic! I have high expectactions for this one. The dark side of E.T¬¥s…
Expectations should go to movies, not trailers *chuckle*. But visually (the voice is no problem, I haven¬¥t heard Burton¬¥s speech) is haunting, eerie and atmospheric. It has a real sense of menace as some “Encounters” moments had.
This is material Spielberg feels comfortable enough with. He is, among other things, a superior sci-fi moviemaker.
I agree about the voice though. The words are great but there wasn’t really an emotional boom to the way he “read the lines”
Nah, I think you’re mixing a lot of issues together here.
I’d rather have marketing material that gives hardly anything away about the movie, especially not the ending. I am one of those people (if you weren’t directing that towards me) who complain about trailers giving away too much, they do.
However, trailers are excellent for fuelling interest and getting the audience excited in a movie before it’s ready to be released.
Teasers are all too short and do nothing for me, except either change nothing in my levels of anticipation or reduce it. They could just as well do without it. I know who is in it, and I know the title, I don’t want or need to see that information again in big shiny lettering.
Studios have been releasing trailers and teasers with next to no content for ages, so I don’t think they’ve finally listened, they’re just employing this marketing tactic for this movie, for now.
There will definitely be a big trailer coming out later, but for me, for now, this one does nothing for the movie. In itself, it’s very disappointing, the film we still have to wait for.
I’d rather have a teaser than a trailer that gives away too much at this stage in the game. Those one got me interested in the film, let me know who’s behind it and when it’s coming out and it’s probably safe for me to assume there will be something with a bit more to it in the spring.
Movies based on popular books can get away with less in the trailer anyway. Am I less excited about The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy because there were no real screen shots in the teaser? No, because I know it’s a kickass story. After years of people bitching that too much is given away in trailers the studios are finally listening and now people complain about that too.
The War of the Worlds teaser piqued my interest in the movie which is all that I can ask more than 6 months before the release date, especially with other major releases scheduled for the same period.
No, both are designed to sell the film. They’ll show anything they can throw in, and many more trailers are being made during filming.
I still think this one is very disappointing considering what the movie is and who’s doing it.
Thus the difference between a teaser and a trailer. Teasers tease you, as this one did. Trailers show bits of the movie which is much easier to do when the movie has actually been made, which this one has not. It’s still in filming.
The teaser wasn’t anything special, but I’ve seen worse. I’m definitely eager to see this in theaters. With the full slate of genre films scheduled for Summer 2005, let’s hope that the movies are better than the fare that we got this year.
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