Peace, I think the remake of "War of the Worlds" had some good points and some bad points. Overall, I'd sort of give it about a '5' or possibly a weak '6' out of 10. Dissappointing, in other words, but it had its moments here and there.

I could say the same of the original "War of the Worlds" with Gene Barry in the 50's. As a genuine recreation of the brilliant H.G. Wells story, however...it sucked!

What is the use of Martian machines that are totally frikkin' invulnerable to all forms of modern Earthy weaponry because they have a force field around them? It provides no real suspense, no sense of heroism on the part of the human defenders, no possibility of any awe or wonder...just an endless trail of destruction with no relief whatsoever.

Contrast that with the incredibly moving scenes in Wells' book where the British artillery men manage to destroy one Martian machine in the assault on a town before they are wiped out....or the heartbreaking last stand of the armoured ram "Thunder Child" at the coast which takes down two Martian machines in its last suicidal charge, as it sacrifices itself bravely on behalf of the thousands of people escaping in merchant ships.

That, by God, is high drama...and think of what a scene it would make in a properly made movie.

The "War of the Worlds" has never been done properly as a movie. It needs to be set in the original setting...the 1890's in England...and then you would have a confrontation with real dramatic possibilities. There's no way you can transplant that story into a modern world where we have jet planes and nuclear weapons and make it anything like as moving and magnificent and tragic as Wells' original story was.

We just aren't idealistic enough anymore as a civilization...and our weapons have passed all sense of human proportion, leaving us dwarfed now in their terrible shadows. Our weapons are as evil as the Martians that Wells depicted in his book. There is no nobility left in modern war. There was some nobility still in the 1890s. Think of the stand that a few British troops made at Rorke's Drift, for example, against many thousands of Zulus. That's drama, by God...and the heroism shown on both sides in that battle was just magnificent.

That's what I want to see in a movie, not smart bombs, missiles, nukes, and the other high tech horrors of modern war.