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'Tis the season to be buzzing about ghostly kinds of things but I want to ask anyway, being a sci-fi lunkhead (not to mention a WotW goon of annoying proportions):
Admittedly recent, mine would have to be the tripod(s) from War of the Worlds (2005).
For my explanation, I thought I'd include an excerpt on the machines from a review I did on the film a while back (if you'll indulge me
):
So what's your favorite alien craft and what sets it apart from the others?(I did a search and didn't find anything like this thread topic I'm starting, so if you know I overlooked something, tell me...)
Admittedly recent, mine would have to be the tripod(s) from War of the Worlds (2005).
For my explanation, I thought I'd include an excerpt on the machines from a review I did on the film a while back (if you'll indulge me
):The initial appearance sequence of the insect-y machine-- erect and eclipsing the sun-- is as riveting and ghastly a scenario as one could dare imagine and it may have left its inimitably-cratered place in science-fiction cinematic history. This scene is one reason why I would finally determine to come and see the film again.
Camera angles are layered, revelatory, creative and playful as you would expect from Spielberg. Composer John Williams hones a score that cloaks and adorns the tripods to perfecting and horrific proportions. So portentous are the droning, repetitive and anticipatory tones, trills and movements that you could almost envision an alien conductor orchestrating the musical story alongside the visual if you didn’t know better.
It isn’t enough that the human characters progress throughout the movie. Concurrent with the earthly family is the story of the development of the tripods. In each of their featured sequences, they appear with progressively varying and dastardly objectives, carrying them out with horrendous purpose. The machines are afforded various indiosyncrasies, traits and physical characteristics as to be actual creatures in and of themselves and not just vehicles for tinier alien drivers. The machines creak, pump and grind as one would expect from other-worldly mechanical processes but they also spew fluids and gases in very “bodily” ways.
In the eerie and seminal intersection scene early on, a stunned crowd and a towering two-hundred foot tripod behold one another for the first time in a nervous silence until the tripod finally bellows forth a “greeting” in an ominously deafening two-toned “honk.” This honk-progression occurs in a musical minor-third, which cleverly creates the atmosphere from which horrible portents will flow. Spielberg has the music tell the story again, when Tony Bennett’s "If I Ruled The World" echoes from the Hudson Ferry between the grotesque train of flames and the triple tripod threat from over the hills to the ferry itself.
Giving the machine such a persona is deft and very Spielbergian, a la Close Encounters, but with bloody fangs. This attention to fine detail makes the experience of the machines quite palpable. Overall, the viewer must definitely pay attention to even the most fleeting of details in the auditory and visual imagery because the tripod's story is ongoing in the seemingly mundane elements that could be overlooked.
Last edited by Tatanka; 10-30-07 at 05:17 AM.
