Slashdot Mirror
War of the Worlds Remake Already Shot Overseas
AlphaJoe writes "In regards to remaking War of the Worlds, Steven Spielberg has apparently been beaten to the punch by an English rival, director Timothy Hines, as being reported by SF Crowsnest. Principal photography has already been completed, and a Spring 2005 release date is anticipated. The English version is staying true to the original story, which was set in the late 1800's, where as Spielburg's version will be drastically modified to a more modern version. Hines feels there will be room for both films to exist, as they will be drastically different in story and scope."
"Hines feels there will be room for both films to exist, as they will be drastically different in story and scope."
READ: Hines knows that he will be 0wn3d by Steven Spielberg and he is leaving himself wiggle room.
How to Download YouTube Videos
spielberg will probably make yet another blockbuster.
and that other dude will do a great movie without the overused hollywood cliches...
Hasn't War of the Worlds already been remade about 50,000 times? Independence Day? Signs? Heck, even the old 'V' mini-series was basically the same story. I am sure I am forgetting another million movies that were basically the same plot line.
Deep Impact and Armageddon?
Volcano and Dante's Peak?
You know the battle is lost when multiple movie makers are RE-making the same movie at the same time.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Why remake it? Why remake 2 versions?
Remember the Rocky series. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and will keep going till Sly Stone is 95 years old and can't do it anymore.
It's called milking a cash cow.
Free XBox, PS2
I mean, the original movie version. When was that made - 1960's, 1970's or so?
It is probably the quintessential sci-fi movie: the professor and the "cute girl" trying to survive a terrible horror, the place of faith and science, and then the classic ending - with a bit on the usefulness (or, uselessness) of atomic energy.
I need to get the DVD of that and show it to my kids. I don't think this is nostalgia talking (I hate nostalgia the way some people hate liver), but some of the sci-fi movies of the 60's-70's had more style, or at least made more sense and prompted deeper questions.
Look at "The Time Machine". The original left you wondering "You know, if I was going to rebuild civilization, what three books would you take?" I remember having discussions with people over this issue, the sheer philosophy and rational behind such a decision.
The modern version? You wondered how the hell those guys grew brains out of their spines, and how Weena learned English. Yeah. Lots of thought put in there.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
I don't disagree that Hollywood is producing crap and that remakes is just barrel scraping, but there's more to it than that.
The best films I've seen recently have all underperformed next to dross like 'The Day Before Yesterday' (or whatever it's called) and similar banal movies. Look at 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind', it got fantastic reviews, was an incredible achievement but just didn't perform as well as some big explosions and pretty effects. Similarly 'Spirited Away'.
Hollywood does what makes it money and lets it pay retarded sums of money to the actors. Until the audiences mature, and they probably never will, all we can do is get used to it. Guarenteed the Spielberg picture will make a lot of money on name recognition alone.
I dunno. I reckon that the Pendragon production with full on period setting could be awesome. The book ruled. The audio vesion (Jeff Wayne wasn't it?) was fantastic. It appears to be what I was hoping for from Speilberg, but maybe being an independent it'll have that extra integrity... and it will be set in England ;)
The Speilberg version will probably be flimsy and nice looking.
Which "original" ... the awful American version with the floating aliens and the nuclear bomb? That really didn't deserve to have that title, it was nothing like the book.
... or just as the Victorian fantasy it was.
So we're going to have one film that is close to the original book, and thus be a film of the book. This will probably mean that there will be issues of course, maybe portray the actions as something that happened and was covered up or something
And another one which will be a horrible tacky American version with "American" heroes defeating the Alien "Terrorists" who will probably now be from a different star system. I expect the only similarity will be in how the aliens finally die.
If you mean the 1950s version set in the USA, it is more or less true to the concept, but isn't a straight filming of the book as the Hines version appears to be.
An analogy might be that the Magnificent Seven to the Seven Samurai as the 1950s film is to the story of the book. Both good, but different. Hines film would be like the Seven Samurai in this analogy, whereas Spielberg's film would be another adaptation of the Seven Samurai concept.
The original WotW was a classic film, beloved by many (including me). Why remake it? Why remake 2 versions? They're out of ideas, folks. This is why we get craptacular stuff. They must not have an original bone/idea left.
....
....
The original Unix was a classic OS, beloved by many (including me). Why remake it? Why remake 234 versions? They're out of ideas, folks. This is why we get craptacular stuff. They must not have an original bone/idea left.
The original pickup truck was a classic vehicle
The original story of aliens invading the Earth was a classic
2004 - Gulf War2 (Fill in your own)
Igor Presnyakov stole my hat
The difference is that in ID4, humans created the virus. It's an important point in the book, and central to the American movie that the Martians were killed by something that humans did not create.
Spielberg used to be pretty dang good. However, his "updated" version of ET was laughable; I particularly like South Park's spoof about "Saving Private Ryan" with all guns replaced by walkie-talkies.
Let's take "I, Robot" for example. It didn't really capture the complexities of Asimov's short stories, but for what it was, it was an alright flick. It was a summer action flick with some parallels to the themes in Asimov's book, particularly the end. Yeh, it was obvious, dumbed down, and action-packed; but what else would you expect from a Summer movie with Will Smith?
Depending on how it looks, I might go see it, or at least wait until it's available "On-Demand." Will I expect the quality of story-telling from the original? No. Will I expect something visually stunning with perhaps some decent directing? Probably.
I'll have to wait and see, but I'm not going to put it down simply because Spielberg cannot possibly live up to the expectations of movie-buffs everywhere. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, for now.
Hey, at least Lucas isn't involved.
There are cases where modern Hollywood creates remakes that are VASTLY better movies (IMHO) than their predecessors. Oceans 11, for one; my appologies (ok maybe not) to all of you "rat pack" fans, but the original was just about the corniest thing I've ever seen. The Manchurian Candidate was also (again, IMO) a far better movie than the original.
I can't comment on this one, because I've never seen the original WOTW. However, I've listened to the original radio broadcast, which, even by today's standards, was well produced and executed, proving that Orson Wells was a man well ahead of his time.
But God demonstrates his love for us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us - (Romans 5:8)
Hines feels there will be room for both films to exist, as they will be drastically different in story and scope.
Spielberg's hacked version will suck but will make millions. Hine's version will be sweet, but will make far less (if anything).
Why does Hollywood think everything has to be brought into present day? Remember Godzilla 2K? (not if you're lucky).
I think such "remixes" are vital for culture.
:/
Culture isn't a static thing, it must grow and evolve to survive. You have to take the good with the bad. Sometimes changes can bear surprising improvements.
Of course, the problem nowadays is that normally only a very small handful of people are allowed to participate in this, as our cultural works have ceased falling into the public domain.
Peter Jackson was one of the lucky few permitted to license LotR, for example.
There's quite a lot of debate over whether or not he did a good job (I think he did, on balance) -- but wouldn't it be great if the cultural field were open to competition there, as between Spielburg and Hines?
That healthy competition of interpretations is only possible with WotW because it is in the public domain.
For real cultural development, once a work has been established in the popular consciousness for a few decades, artists at large need to be able to build on it.
That used to be how things worked throughout the entirety of human history, until the inhumanly long copyright regimes adopted in the 20th century.
Now free cultural development on top of existing works (like LotR) is impossible until the release of those works (and in most cases the works themselves) has already passed from living memory.
DNA just wants to be free...
I don't see any reason why a movie shouldn't be different from the book. As long as it it is a good movie. After all it is a different medium.
The real problem, is that Hollywood seems to be out of ideas. Fortunately, making movies is getting so cheap that we have other choices. The best films last year were from independents. I even enjoy the $10 budget films that are made for our town's ameteur film festival. They are not all good, but they are quirky. And they are filled with local humor.
That's great. One movie for the pretentious elitists, and one for normal people (Hint: if you know which is which, you are a pretentious elitist).
I can't stand people who demean others, just because they aren't FREAKING pretentious. The Artsy Fartsy crowd is just as bad as the Nascar Crowd.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
"Scenarii"?? I've seen some bad ones on Slashdot in my time, but some of you people aren't even trying to mimic the English language anymore.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Cue I Robot..
I'm not the devil.. just his advocate.
Gulf War2 started in 2003 and ended on May 1st, 2003
Wow. Someone really should have told the iraqis.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I find myself more excited about this version than the Hollywood version.
Of course you do. This is Slashdot and groupthinking by shooting for the little guy always gets you free karma.
The main character is witness to a Martian landing and the ensuing chaos of the attack, then wanders around a bit, seeing a lot of things happen but not really doing anything (heroic or otherwise). He encounters a succession of characters, most of whom are insane, then when all seems lost, we get to the film's finale and a chance for the hero to show his true colours... he wanders alone around London in a depressed funk, then discovers that the Martians have been defeated not by any human agent but by bacteria, in a deus ex machina ending unrelated to anything else in the movie.
I'd watch it... but come on, it would tank at the box office. To Joe Public it would be the worst film ever.
According to his website, Hines shot "Chrome" in Spring of 2002 in Tacoma, WA, but there is no indication anywhere that he has yet to get a legitimate distribution deal, for this or any of his other films. "Bug Wars" his last "feature" evidentally had some sort of a distribution deal with a company called Escape Entertainment, which I believe was some sort of an offshoot of Troma Films or run by former employees or something, and which by all indications has since gone belly up.
According to some quick Googling, at the time he was shooting "Chrome" he was touting "WoTW" as a "$40 million feature", and hinted that he was "in negotiations" with Sir Michael Caine and several other notable film professionals to star in it. According to sources in the industry, what actually happened was that Hines merely sent unsolicited scripts to various agents, and then used this extremely tenuous contact (his inquiries were never acknowledged) to promote himself to any SF geek with a self-published website (the kind of people who actually aspire to be the next Harry Knowles).
Again, according to a brief search, Hines has self-produced a number of films, most of the extremely low-budget "Grade Z" variety, and has been playing this "We'll beat Spielberg" angle with "WoTW" for several years now, even intimating along the way that he was open to some sort of "collaboration" between he and Spielberg (which is either hilariously naive, or sadly pathetic depending on how you look at it).
As to this current round of PR hot air, you'll notice there's nothing in any of the published stills that shows any specific location or setting, which makes the "European locales" angle highly questionable (hey, that's what stock footage is for, right?) and obviously none of the cast is anyone anybody has ever heard of, so don't hold your breath that this thing will either a.) ever see the light of day or b.) even if it does, that it will be of anything approaching professional quality -- unless you're the sort of person who considers crude, Adobe Photoshopped CGI effects, horrible acting, and obsessively delusional self-promotion "professional".
Truth is, all indications are this is a guy who personifies the definition of "huckster", and while self-promotion is fine so far at it goes, it's also pretty clear he has yet to produce a film that even remotely lives up to his own image of himself.
In short, he's Ed Wood trapped in Orson Welles ego.
"I hope the Peter Jackson philosophy continues to trickle through movie making."
Which philosophy is that?
The one where the director makes large changes to the story and characters, creating plot holes and needlesly destorying the way in which key characters work? The one where the director fucks up the editing and pacing so much that they have to delete an important encounter from the film for timing reasons? The one where the editor re-writes the story in a major way because he feels like it?
PJ's approach was already long-established within Hollywood. I'm just hoping his "philosophy" is not allowed to continue to spread and that instead we can have directors who can edit properly and who don't fuck about with characters for no reason and who do not drastically rewrite the story for their own purposes.
People should not be afraid of their governments - Governments should be afraid of their people.
Is is any wonder that the American education system is the laughingstock of the world when mere literacy is treated as elitism?
Proverbs 21:19
Peter Jackson may not have put together a 100% accurate tribute to LOTR but he treated it a lot gentler than any other Hollywood director would have. For God's sake man, what could a hack like Joel Schumacher have done to it!!! Imagine some Hollywood deal maker trying to get Chris Rock a bit part as a wisecracking Orc or something "So it will resonate better with the urban youth". Sweet jumping baby Christ, some people don't know when they got it good.
i was under the impression we still had troops there regularly battling "insurgents" or whatever theyre being called
Correct. What the US called a war is over. The occupation is ongoing and what you are referring to is what other people outside the US call resistance, perhaps even a revolution since Iraq has an interim government. If they are indeed fighting themselves it could possibly be referred to as a civil conflict. Only when the entire history can be observed in whole from the future it will perhaps be described as a singular war... if it ever achieves something resembling an end.
My crystal ball tells me that September 11th 2001 was the large step in the start of a global conflict over religious extremism and oil. Since the inappropriate word crusade is already taken, I can see the whole conflict labeled something romantically unoriginal like World War 4. Truthfully, I've been referring to it as the Arabic War because that's what it is.
BTW, is this thread off topic if the original article is titled "War of the Worlds Remake Already Shot Overseas"? Chilling, isn't it?
Speak truth to power.
It so happens that NASCAR requires a great deal of "literacy" to be successful. Physics, Chemistry, Engineering, all sorts of other technical skills.
The drivers aren't some dumb guy sitting behind a stearing wheel either. That is mearly your OPINION. I think most of the Artsy Fartsy crowd is illiterate in math and sciences. Sure, they may know art, literature and all the pretty shinies (debatable looking at what they consider "art").
The fact is, that they are pretentious, thinking that what they know is somehow more important than what the NASCAR crowd knows.
Personally, I think BOTH crowds can learn from each other. The Artsy Fartsy crowd can learn how to race their gas / electric Hybrids, and the NASCAR crowd can learn how to paint their bodies better.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.