Beautiful summation of "War of the Worlds", Peter. LOL! You see, Hollywood figures it's impossible to get good attendance at a movie without putting some "family values" in the story. Just the kind of stuff you are objecting to.

Remember the idiotic love story in "Titanic"? Same deal. God, how I suffered through that...ARGHHH! But it sold tickets, didn't it?

The original H.G. Wells story has no "family values" stuff in it...it is a story fueled by much grander and more encompassing human issues than whether one daddy can bond with his kids. Sheesh! What do you want to bet that if they did the War of the Worlds faithfully to the original story it would bomb at the box office nowadays?

The old Titanic film "A Night To Remember" back in the 50's (quite a good movie) did NOT concoct some goofy love story to drive the plot. No. They figured that a plot about something as tragic and enormous as what happened on that night in 1912 didn't NEED some special "human interest" manipulations to make it work. They were so right. The main focus in the old movie was what happened to the SHIP itself...and the effect on everyone collectively.

Such a movie nowadays would, I suppose, be judged as a boring flop. Too dry. Too factual. Nothing in it for 20-somethings to relate to! (ha ha)

I think we are living in a decaying society that has lost touch with reality. Our "art" is like something that you would expect to buy in the action figure department at WalMart.

That said, the new King Kong movie has a lot of heart...I'll say that. Pretty good.