"War of the Worlds" Steven Spielberg

deadmaker7 · Tar Sands Joined: Apr 11, 2005 Posts: 33

Went to see the movie "War of the Worlds". Even though it's obviously not about peak oil, there was one scene that made me think. All the cars were damaged by the invader's EMP attack, but Tom Cruise's charater had a working minivan. He and his kids start driving north. He reaches an area where there is a crowd of people, and they all gather around the van, begging him to take them. Finally, the crowd turns violent and Cruise and his 2 kids are forced from the van at gunpoint. This immediately made me think, Peak Oil Shantytown! Shocked

Anyone else see this movie yet?

JB2 · Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 3:38 pm Post subject:

* Spoilers Ahead (but go see the movie).

All in all, one of Spielberg's best. Unsurprisingly, he does a great job with the invasion scenes and the special effects; the aliens and the death machines are indeed, very scary. The biggest weakness was, as usual with Spielberg, the irritating and distracting detour into "daddy" issues.

For the purposes of this forum, though, the most interesting part of the film was the depiction of total societal collapse. At one point, life is normal, then none of the cars work; by the next day, thousands of people are roaming the countryside looking for food and shelter and trying to avoid extermination.

Probably not a "realistic" take on how things will fall apart after TSHTF, but very powerful and resonant. I would cite, not only the sequence mentioned by deadmaker7, but the flaming train a little bit later - one of the most disturbing things ever put in a movie. It's also pretty creepy when Cruise is apparently forced to kill Tim Robbins in cold blood.

meekoil · Heavy Crude Joined: Jul 11, 2005 Posts: 120

LOL!!

(I am a long time lurker who finally registered to repsond to this. )

I just saw War of the Worlds yesterday, and when the scene you reffered to happened, I actually turned to my wife in the theater and whispered "That's what it will be like when we run out of oil".

Elfstrom · Tar Sands Joined: Mar 09, 2005 Posts: 53 Location: Toronto

Just before the seizure of the minivan, there is a sequence where the family is looking out the window of the vehicle and you see in the twilight:

- people with carts filled with encyclopedias
- a young person riding a horse

I immediately thought "peak oil survivalists!"

Omaronim · Coal Joined: Mar 28, 2005 Posts: 4

I remember saying to my brother in law, "Look how cheap gas is." Near the minivan scene there is one of those gas station flipbook type signs that had gas at 1.95 or so.

DomusAlbion · Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 10:39 am Post subject:

Every scene in War of the Worlds made me think what a crappy movie it was and left me wishing that Dakota Fanning would get zapped by the aliens and just quit shrieking. Twisted Evil

Mr. Spielberg, you’ve made some very excellent movies. What went wrong? Mad

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Kingcoal · Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 1:09 pm Post subject:

What made me feel old when listening to people review the movie is the reaction from the younger crowd. Not only did most of them not know that the movie had a predecessor, but they didn't even know that it was based on a book from 1895!

I thought the movie was great, very suspenseful and sometimes even scary. The alien machines where very realistic and were kind a cross between the book and the 50's version.

DomusAlbion · Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 1:38 pm Post subject:

JB2 · Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 3:34 pm Post subject:

Fatherof4 · Tar Sands Joined: Aug 18, 2004 Posts: 79

I saw the movie over a week ago and I still get chills when I drive by a water tower.

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avo · Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2005 1:48 am Post subject:

Doly · Expert Joined: Dec 03, 2004 Posts: 4031

avo · Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2005 11:48 am Post subject:

pstarr · Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2005 12:39 pm Post subject: