I was astonished that no reviewer commented on what seemed to me to be obvious: This is a pacifist movie.

Item: Those who are inclined to resist the aliens are portrayed as endangering the safety of the rest of us.
Example: The survivalist..he was portrayed as basicly mad and his impulse to strike at the aliens was threatening to bring the aliens down upon the protagonsist and his little girl.
Example: When the protagonists son wanted to join the group of soldiers to strike at the aliens, this was portrayed as endangering the safety oif the protagonist and the young daughter as they attempted to find the son and keep him safe.

Item: The evil represented by the aliens was presented as self limiting. It was not necessary to fight this evil because it would expire on its own by a natural process as the germs in the environment worked upon them.

Item: The military was portrayed as ineffectual in that they had no ability to affect the alien craft until the alien inhabitants had already succrumbed to the disease. The movie was saying that the power of the military to confront evil and keep us safe is all an illusion.

Quite frankly, the movie wasn't that good. I think that's why reviewers didn't bother to comment on the movie.

Generally, I like anti-war/pacifist movies, but I honestly didn't think that War of The Worlds was that great.
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Online Art Education : Online Degrees : Biographies

My guess is that reviewers did not comment on the pacifist aspect of the movie because it is perfectly in accord with their own views. If the movie had been constructed to support militarism, the typically libral media puke would have found some basis to trash the movie. It was more cunning to say nothing about the pacifist construct of the storyline. Allowing the message to worm its way into the audience's brain in a subliminal way is much more influential. You don't resist ideas if they are presented in a manner that does not raise alarms in the viewer. This is what was so insidious about the movie.
Pacificism is, at its core, an emotional position. Those who hold to the philosophy have not seriously studied the problem of aggression. They hold to the strange notion that if you just don't threaten others that they will not threaten you.
World War 2 seemed to disprove this idea conclusivly to anyone studying the facts. But pacifism is really not about facts, its about wishing things could be another way.

Last edited by Winomaster on Sat Sep 24, 2005 1:22 pm; edited 1 time in total

Winomaster,

I appreciate you provided us great insight, but I honestly think that the movie plainly lacked quality. After all, reviewers are there to review movies, not to provide their political view point or philosophy. Without quality of the movie itself, they probably didn't have much to write about. That's my take.

Oh, by the way, welcome to the forum, Winomaster!
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Online Art Education : Online Degrees : Biographies

Thanks for the welcome "Kid"

Regarding the reviews on this movie, I went to Movies.com and they show no negative reviews of War of the Worlds. It got six positive and only four tht were mixed.

You say that reviewers are there to review movies, not to provide their political view point or philosophy. But it happens all the time. Liberal reviewers traditionally give a pass to any movie that treates traditional liberal causes. For example:
The suffering in Africa
Aids
Big corporations oppressing the little guy

Conversely, movies having a patriotic theme have to be academy award material before reviewers concede that maybe they are OK. Example: The recent movie "The Great Raid" was savaged by the reviewers. But I saw the movie. It wasn't "Saving Private Ryan" but it was not a bad movie.

I got your point, and perhaps you're right. This is partly because most reviewers are from New York, Chicago and LA?
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Online Art Education : Online Degrees : Biographies

I didn't like the movie ether. I never seen the original. I heard it was better.
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Originally posted by LucnetSolutions:
I didn't like the movie ether. I never seen the original. I heard it was better.

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Originally posted by Winomaster:
My guess is that reviewers did not comment on the pacifist aspect of the movie because it is perfectly in accord with their own views. If the movie had been constructed to support militarism, the typically libral media puke would have found some basis to trash the movie. It was more cunning to say nothing about the pacifist construct of the storyline. Allowing the message to worm its way into the audience's brain in a subliminal way is much more influential. You don't resist ideas if they are presented in a manner that does not raise alarms in the viewer. This is what was so insidious about the movie.
Pacificism is, at its core, an emotional position. Those who hold to the philosophy have not seriously studied the problem of aggression. They hold to the strange notion that if you just don't threaten others that they will not threaten you.
World War 2 seemed to disprove this idea conclusivly to anyone studying the facts. But pacifism is really not about facts, its about wishing things could be another way.

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Ghostman Posted: "As far as subliminal messages, I highly disagree with you. I actually thought this movie was promoting war, because the kid portrayed patriotism for his people and went off to fight the "war," regardless of his father's opinion. "

Winomaster Responds: Your confusing the overt and the subliminal messages. Overt messages are ones that come to the attention of the conscious mind. That was the seemingly pro-militant themes of the movie. But it is possible for a movie to contain subliminal messages that are completely opposite. And because subliminal messages are not processed by the conscious mind, they are more insidious, changing our attitudes without our even becoming aware that we are being influenced.

Ghostman Posted: I think you're taking a movie way too seriously. Every movie has its motives, hidden or revealed. At the end of the day, life goes on.

Winomaster Responds : I take this seriously because the director has been so clever about cloaking his real message. Reasonable people can come away from this movie with a surface impression that it was endorsing militant response to being attacked. But the message that was being slipped past the defenses of our reasoning mind was that even self defense is morally wrong. This movie is pure propaganda, a kind of brainwashing. I think we should take this sort of thing seriously.

Winomaster Adds:
You say that the movie was pro-war because the kid went off to fight and returned proud and unscathed. But you are missing that the movie constructs scenes that suggest the actions of the militarists are endangering them all. We see the little girl put at risk as she attempts to chase after her brother as he walks toward the front. We see the survivalist portrayed as putting the girl and her father at risk by his desire to strike at the aliens as the protagonist family hides in the basement.
Even though the aliens are killing humans by the millions, the movie portrays the responses of those who are inclined to fight back as the real danger to human society.
You could draw a parrallel here to the French during the WWII occupation of France who informed on fighters in the underground. The underground fighters were fighting a German enemy that had a boot on the throat of French society. But, the pacifists were of the opinion that if we all could just avoid angering the Germans, that their hearts would be softened...we could all live in peace.

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Originally posted by ghostman:

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Originally posted by Winomaster:
My guess is that reviewers did not comment on the pacifist aspect of the movie because it is perfectly in accord with their own views. If the movie had been constructed to support militarism, the typically libral media puke would have found some basis to trash the movie. It was more cunning to say nothing about the pacifist construct of the storyline. Allowing the message to worm its way into the audience's brain in a subliminal way is much more influential. You don't resist ideas if they are presented in a manner that does not raise alarms in the viewer. This is what was so insidious about the movie.
Pacificism is, at its core, an emotional position. Those who hold to the philosophy have not seriously studied the problem of aggression. They hold to the strange notion that if you just don't threaten others that they will not threaten you.
World War 2 seemed to disprove this idea conclusivly to anyone studying the facts. But pacifism is really not about facts, its about wishing things could be another way.

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I think you're taking a movie way too seriously. Every movie has its motives, hidden or revealed. At the end of the day, life goes on.

As far as subliminal messages, I highly disagree with you. I actually thought this movie was promoting war, because the kid portrayed patriotism for his people and went off to fight the "war," regardless of his father's opinion. Alas, the romanticism of Hollywood's typically glorified movies, was accurately illustrated, as the kid returns unscathed, proud of his courage and ultimately unscathed from the death-defying journey.

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Originally posted by Winomaster:
Ghostman Posted: "As far as subliminal messages, I highly disagree with you. I actually thought this movie was promoting war, because the kid portrayed patriotism for his people and went off to fight the "war," regardless of his father's opinion. "

Winomaster Responds: Your confusing the overt and the subliminal messages. Overt messages are ones that come to the attention of the conscious mind. That was the seemingly pro-militant themes of the movie. But it is possible for a movie to contain subliminal messages that are completely opposite. And because subliminal messages are not processed by the conscious mind, they are more insidious, changing our attitudes without our even becoming aware that we are being influenced.
You say that the movie was pro-war because the kid went off to fight and returned proud and unscathed. But you are missing that the movie constructs scenes that suggest the actions of the militarists are endangering them all. We see the little girl put at risk as she attempts to chase after her brother as he walks toward the front. We see the survivalist portrayed as putting the girl and her father at risk by his desire to strike at the aliens as the protagonist family hides in the basement.
Even though the aliens are killing humans by the millions, the movie portrays the responses of those who are inclined to fight back as the real danger to human society.
You could draw a parrallel here to the French during the WWII occupation of France who informed on fighters in the underground. The underground fighters were fighting a German enemy that had a boot on the throat of French society. But, the pacifists were of the opinion that if we all could just avoid angering the Germans, that their hearts would be softened...we could all live in peace.

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Originally posted by ghostman:

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Originally posted by Winomaster:
My guess is that reviewers did not comment on the pacifist aspect of the movie because it is perfectly in accord with their own views. If the movie had been constructed to support militarism, the typically libral media puke would have found some basis to trash the movie. It was more cunning to say nothing about the pacifist construct of the storyline. Allowing the message to worm its way into the audience's brain in a subliminal way is much more influential. You don't resist ideas if they are presented in a manner that does not raise alarms in the viewer. This is what was so insidious about the movie.
Pacificism is, at its core, an emotional position. Those who hold to the philosophy have not seriously studied the problem of aggression. They hold to the strange notion that if you just don't threaten others that they will not threaten you.
World War 2 seemed to disprove this idea conclusivly to anyone studying the facts. But pacifism is really not about facts, its about wishing things could be another way.

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I think you're taking a movie way too seriously. Every movie has its motives, hidden or revealed. At the end of the day, life goes on.

As far as subliminal messages, I highly disagree with you. I actually thought this movie was promoting war, because the kid portrayed patriotism for his people and went off to fight the "war," regardless of his father's opinion. Alas, the romanticism of Hollywood's typically glorified movies, was accurately illustrated, as the kid returns unscathed, proud of his courage and ultimately unscathed from the death-defying journey.

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I thought this movie was ok. The son on the movie was annoying. I didn't like the perfect ending. I mean seriously the son should of been dead or hurt badly.

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Originally posted by WiiLegendofZelda:
I thought this movie was ok. The son on the movie was annoying. I didn't like the perfect ending. I mean seriously the son should of been dead or hurt badly.

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Dakota Fanning is also often typecast as "the little girl who deserves a slap."

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