Thoughts About War of the Worlds

A few nights ago, I was in the video store, looking for something good to watch and I spotted War of the Worlds. When I saw it, I said to myself, “Oh good, I haven’t seen this — I wonder why?”

After I popped in the DVD and had watched about 5 minutes of the movie, I realized that I had actually seen it; both on DVD when it was first released and also in the movie theatre… *DOH*

Oh well. So I settled in to watch the movie and to see if I liked it or if there was a reason for my memory failing to remember that I’d already seen it twice.

I found it interesting that Steven Spielberg directed War of the Worlds; particularly when you consider that the alien encounters in this movie are on the opposite spectrum of what he did in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial. Although, there are elements of nasty alien encounters in his TV series, Taken (he was executive producer on that series). And speaking of Taken, Dakota Fanning was in both Taken and War of the Worlds.

Tom Cruise. Hmmm well, I guess it was a good movie for him. He was alright. I don’t think I’d go as far as saying that he was brilliant in it.

One thing that got me though was near the beginning when Tom Cruise and a crowd of people are crowding around the gaping hole in the street waiting for the buried alien tripod to emerge…There were two or three shots that were exactly the same. The ground rumbles, everyone darts away and then they go back to suddenly crowding around the hole again, exactly where they had been originally; and then the tripod emerges, they dart away and then they come back and then it fully emerges and everyone takes off in full flight… Strange and confusing editing in that scene.

I had another strange thought about this movie. And actually, its a thought that I’ve wondered about when it comes to real life alien encounters…

In the movie, the alien invasion is halted because the the aliens are dying from earth microbes or germs. I find it kind of convenient. OK, sure this is a movie and the aliens are bad guys, bent on destroying all human life and probably all life on this planet, and they have to die off quickly. But why haven’t humans died from alien germs, microbes and viruses. Doubly so, since their tripods that are stalking the earth have been buried here for quite sometime. Did we become immune from them?

Which brings me to my real life question: Are we immune to Extra-Terrestrial viruses and are Extra-Terrestrial’s immune to earth’s viruses? Are ET’s being wiped out when they come to visit us? Will we be wiped out? Or, have we been infected with alien viruses?

The things I come up with after watching a fictional movie.