The Franco-Prussian war was a conflict between
the second French empire and the Northern German confederation led by the kingdom of
Prussia, which owing to the Germansā superior strength and numbers, quickly led to the capitulation
of the French Empire and the capture of the Emperor, Napoleon III. The conflict culminated with the Seige of
Paris in the winter of 1871 in which the German troops invading the french capital. Months later the German states unified into
a German Empire shifting the balance
of power in Europe towards a now unified, powerful Germany. Britain, who mostly stayed out of it, of course
kept a close eye on the conflict, and all the major newspapers, journals, and magazines
reported at length on the course of the War of 1870 and on the prospects for the British
in the changed Europe of 1871. Out of this national obsession with the conflict
in Europe emerged a short story written by ex-soldier George Tomkyns Chesney - "Battle
of Dorking"āin 1871. The Battle of Dorking recounts the final days
before and during a fictionalized devastating invasion of Britain by a German-speaking enemy,
retold 50 years after the fact by a nameless narrator to his grandchildren, who have grown
up in a contested Britain that is now a heavily-taxed annex of The Enemy. The German-speaking invaders are never named,
and are instead referred to obliquely as The Other Power, or The Enemy. āBattle of Dorkingā was not only an overnight
national sensation and controversy - Most readers saw the idea that the greatest imperial
power in the world could be invaded, let alone could cease to exist was ludicrous - but for
many it was an indictment for nationalistic hubris; for even more it was an outrage,
unmerited judgment and a betrayal of Great Britain. But āBattle of Dorkingā would set off
a trend of its own - one that literary historians would eventually call āinvasion literatureā
- fiction that spoke to the taboo and the thrill of the obviously ludicrous idea that
the sovereign empire of britain could ever fall to a foreign power ahahaha - but what
if? Between 1871 and 1914, over 60 works of fiction
for adult readers describing hypothetical invasions of Great Britain were published. During that time, British writer HG Wells
combined the popularity of invasion literature with the widespread interest in the idea of
life on mars to pioneer a whole new genre, one that has endured in popularity in some
form ever since - the alien invasion. Here's an idea: Aliens in fiction are never just aliens Just as monsters in fiction are never just
monsters There is the literal function within the narrative, of course, but then there is that layer of metaphor, of significance to the culture that the work is being presented to, a significance that may not even be obvious to either the author or the audience until some time later. So while I think itās not very interesting
to reduce a text to a one to one allegory, it is important to be open to textual metaphor,
especially where aliens come in, be they sympathetic, threatening, beyond comprehension, or total
gibberish. guys it's me, let me out of this frankenstein box Aliens as a narrative device can reflect a
historically colonized people, they can be the innocence of childhood, they can be some
sort of spiritual revelation, they can be hey can be a class oppressed by poverty, or the ravages of poverty itself, or they can DUMB AS ROCKS Welcome to Earth Author and professor of English Frank McConnell
describes Wellsā Martians as "what you fear most , what your culture and environment have
taught you is the worst thing that could happen to you, the situation over which you would
have the least degree of controlā Wells was writing for an audience of Victorian
Britons, whom he describes in the opening of the novel, āsecure in their Empire over
this Earth.ā Wells was writing for an audience for whom
the very idea that intelligent beings from another planet could be capable of launching
an attack on the most powerful nation on Earth was a most bizarre and outlandish notion. But the invasion narrative is a manifest of
different cultural anxieties in different eras - Invasion of the Body Snatchers came
at the height of the McCarthy era - and is just one of a ton of invasion narratives that
came out during the beginning of the Cold War. HOWEVER when I say an alien is never just
an alien, I donāt mean that an alien is a one to one metaphor for something else - and
that is a trap a lot of people fall into. yes and no, Dakota Fanning. Interpreting Animal Farm as a metaphor for
totalitarian communism is great for your 8th grade English class, but metaphor is rarely that simple Invasion narratives capture the ecosystem of the culture in which they were made, what that culture fears most With that in mind, we are going to compare invasion narratives from two wildly different cultures. America in the 1990's And America in 2005 We're going to live on, we're going to survive Today we celebrate our Independence Day! Independence Day is 1996 film directed by
Roland Emmerich, starring Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum and Bill Pullman, each playing characters
experiencing different perspectives during an alien invasion: that of a soldier, a scientist,
and the president of the united states, respectively. Over the course of the film, the invading
alien horde wipes out most major cities on the planet, and all hope seems lost until
the scientist devises a computer virus, which, with the help of the soldier, he is able to
upload into the mothership, disabling all subordinate ships. This enables the American military not only
to destroy the local ship threatening them, but also to instruct the rest of the world
on how to do the same. The invasion is thwarted, and the remnants
of humanity celebrate. Didn't I promise you fireworks? It is dumb as a bag of rocks and it is one
of my favorite movies. I love it. War of the Worlds is a 2005 film directed
by Steven Spielberg, starring Tom Cruise. The film follows dock worker and inadequate
father Ray Ferrier on the rare weekend when he has custody of his two children as he tries
to protect them during an alien invasion. As their circumstances become increasingly
desperate, they narrowly escaped certain death several times until Ray is eventually separated
from his oldest child. The film concludes when all family members
are reunited, and the aliens die from their lack of immunity to the planetās pathogens. It is a stone cold bummer and I also kind
of love it. Despite taking place over a century after
the novel takes place, the bones of Wellsā story remain in tact - the invasion is seen
the perspective of one character, it is more an episodic survival narrative
than anything else, the tripods are fairly faithful, the narrator is tested by another
character driven to madness whom he must kill in order to survive, and the invasion is stopped
not by human ingenuity but by a lack of immunity They were undone destroyed, after all of man's weapons and devices had failed, by the tiniest creatures that god in his wisdom had put upon this Earth In this way Spielberg's adaptation is perhaps the most faithful But War of the Worlds isn't like Les Miserables,
where it's the same characters and basically the same story each time. War of the Worlds is not a classic STORY,
per se--itās more of a classic premise, and the characters themselves are totally
different in each iteration. Spielberg himself has pointed out that adaptations
of War of the Worlds tend to come about in times of cultural stress - with the two most
well-known adaptations besides the ā05 version being Orson Wellesā radio drama from 1938
and the film adaptation from 1953. And of course there was the original - a twist
on a trend in invasion literature, released during a period of growing international tension
in Europe where everyone kind of sensed that a Great War was on the horizon. So while the 1890ās was technically a time
of peace in the UK, it was peace squished between recent violence and the massive sense
of tension growing throughout Europe. But War of the Worlds is also read as a biting
critique of British imperialism, encouraging the reader consider the world from the perspective
of a people being invaded by colonizers. Wells states this explicitly in the first
chapter of the novel: And before we judge them [the Martians] too
harshly, we must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought,
not only upon animals, ... but upon its own inferior races. The Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness,
were entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European immigrants,
in the space of fifty years. Are we such apostles of mercy as to complain
if the Martians warred in the same spirit? I bring this up because the context in which
War of the Worlds the novel became a success, and the context in which Independence Day
became a success, are perhaps more analogous to each other than the 2005 adaptation. Both Independence Day and Wellās novel came
about during times of relative peace and prosperity, for and by people living in a dominating world
power of the day. And both preceded violent upheavals that would
completely change those cultures forever. Of course the huge difference between Independence
Day and Wellsā original novel is that Wells encourages the reader to reflect on their
own position as citizens of an imperial power built on the exploitation of other people--Independence
Day, not so much. Welcome to Earth Dumb. As. Rocks. In Independence Day - the aliens less reflect
a broad cultural anxiety so much as arrogance - yes, this incomprehensible technological
force is impressive, but it cannot withstand the might of american ingenuity and hegemony
- a bizarre and outlandish notion So what do the war of the worlds aliens reflect? wellā¦. kyind of? The America of 1996 and the America of 2005
may as well exist in different dimensions. Here is 90ās batman Never leave the cave without it vs. 2000ās batman SWEAR TO ME The 90ās had a very different, shall we
say, mouthfeel. The white middle class filmgoing public of
1996 didnāt have much to worry about! Cold Warās over, economyās booming, every
middle school dance is getting jiggy with a charming little ditty called the Macarena,
and hollywood is spending a lot of time in thought exercises of āwhat if x disaster?ā We got tornadoes, we got volcanoes, we got
sharks, we got asteroids, we got more asteroids - just destroy everything, itās fun! somebody dial 911! Here was an ecosystem in which both a movie
like Mars Attacks, released the same year as Independence Day, can just blow up congress
willy nilly and hey itās funny! They blew up congress hahaha! Americans were bored and disconnected from
any kind of real social anxieties, and disaster movies were an effective outlet to get some
quick, easy thrills and enjoy some blameless conflict. I'm BAAAAAACK Itās a FUN-pocalypse! So compare this to the genuine, visceral terror
we see in War of the Worlds. There isnāt really any horror in seeing
these symbols of American hegemony destroyed in the most complete and terrible way. Even now itās not framed to be an uncomfortable
thing to watch. In fact itāsā¦ kind of awesome. Here was a film where little children stare
upon the smouldering ruins of the only home they've ever known and say things like "What
happened, Mommy?" Here is a film in which tens of MILLIONS of
people have died, and this man whose family is missing, presumed dead responds with: ājust
want to whoop ETās assā The 90ās was a time in which it made sense for Aliens to ominously show up over major cities and a lot of people are like āYeah they come in peace!ā people dancing on top of that skyscraper like weeeeew, itās the 90ās did you catch seinfeld last night Aliens show up ominously and our dingbat president doesnāt evacuate the cities, but itās okay because he heroically plays a saxopho--I MEAN flies
a plane and shoots the aliens and America saves the day I'm a combat pilot, WIll. I belong in the air. And itās dumb in ways that arenāt immediately obvious - like the sheer amount of time people spend on the phone in this movie, but never allow any time for information to be conveyed it's the secretary of defense Yes? Mr. President, there are aliens outside. Can you say that again? Aliens, sir. So playing on this idea of movie monsters,
and invading aliens in particular, embodying cultural anxieties, why is the tone of the
invasion narrative so different in 2005ā¦ as it is from 1996? This is yet another entry into my ongoing
series called: 9/11 ruins everything! Ignoring the seriousness of the massive loss
of life and scar to the national psyche, Another pop culture casualty of the most destructive
act of terrorism in history, at least for a time - the disaster movie. Gone were the days of goofy action movies
like Independence Day and Godzilla and Wild Wild West. No more disaster movies for these jaded masses--The
few stragglers that were in production before 9/11 and crept in afterward were released,
ignored and forgotten just as quickly. According the Los Angeles Times in 2002, āthe
public appetite for plots involving disasters and terrorism has vanished.ā Obviously this did not stick, but for a while,
filmmakers did not know how to approach mass destruction in film so they justā¦ didnāt. When Big, Destructive action movies DID eventually
begin to edge their way back into the theatersā¦ things were different. A movie like Independence Day no longer makes
sense in a post-9/11 world in which audiences have actually lived through watching the destruction
of familiar landmarks and mass casualties on live television. So Spielberg wanted to create an invasion
narrative that worked in a post 9/11 world. But thereās a problem - see, War of the Worlds is, in many ways, a response
to, if not refutation of, Independence Day. This (lets light the fires big daddy) evolves
into this (we gotta get back at them) This (what happened mommy?) evolves into this
(AAAHHHH) (Rachel Screaming) And this, my favorite subtle dig - (itās
like the fourth of july) No it isn't. Oh, say can you - One of the biggest differences is the focus
on what is being destroyed, in independence day, itās landmarks, buildings, cities. In war of the worlds, there is much more focus
on the loss of human life - the closest thing we get to a landmark is the bayonne bridge
- the horror comes not from mass destruction,
but from individuals - we see their faces as they are zapped out of existence. We see crowds as they are vaporized en masse. Rolandās extermination is one of symbols
- spielbergs, of human life. The most obvious refutation is the tone, which
turns big optimistic 90ās bombast into a low-saturation death march. Where, as with all of Rolandās movies, the
fall of civilization brings people together, in War of the Worldās the fall of civilization
turns people into self-serving animals. Which becomes a problem with the film in and
of itself - weāll get to that. But at the same time, Independence Day established
a lot of generic staples and shorthand, which War of the Worlds certainly borrows For instance thereās this - Followed by the powering up sounds of the primary weapon (revving up sound effect) And of course, there is the design of the
invaders. *deep, beleaguered sigh* This is not to imply that the independence
day aliens are the most original design ever. Again, theyāre basically just Roswell aliens
only a little slimey - in part because itās implied in Independence Day that the Roswell
aliens inspired our pop cultural ideas of what aliens look like. But in War of the Worlds, thereās no in-universe
reason for them to look the way they do. Only the real world context of coming out
after Independence Day, and of Independence Day setting a standard. So they look pretty identical, only these
guys have mouths. So they can go blaah The aliens themselves also show up a little
too late in the film to be anything really unfamiliar-looking. This is a balancing act in any visual medium
when you have a non-human creature--the more alien they look, the more time the audience
has to spend getting used to them, for them to feel tangible, believable. In War of the Worlds they donāt show up
until act 3, so they pretty much have to look like our preconceived idea of alien, or it's just going to be confusing. But this comes after
an hour of the sheer unadulterated terrifying eldritch horror that is the tripods You spend hours building this up and then we get... this. A scene which is the second scene in a row which is a cut rate ripoff from the raptor scene from jurassic park now letās do this scene again, but worse! Iād personally rather not have seen them,
maybe a hand at the end of the movie the end and thatās it. But showing them at all contradicts the horror slant that War of the Worlds is going for It's going for a more stylistically real invasion where indepedence day was big and cartoonish from the get-go Is that glass bulletproof?
No, sir. So seeing these big-eyed cute aliens feels incongruently silly. It's like if Schumacher's Riddler showed up in a Chris Nolan Batman movie You're as blind as a bat DO I LOOK LIKE A COP But we saw em in Independence Day soā¦ guess
we better do it here too. So War of the Worlds already has the problem
of existing in the shadow of Independence Day - now it has to walk the tightrope of
thatā¦ and also existing in a post-9/11 hellscape. CAN HE DO IT? THE ANSWER IS YES! ā¦. For the first half. In a time as complicated and confusing as
the mid-Bush administration years, itās not as simple as saying the War of the Worlds
aliens are really embodiments of terrorism. Spielbergās intent here is less to say that
terrorists are literally invading aliens than to tap into that sense of helplessness and
impotent desire for retaliation americans felt after 9/11. Now we'll be the ones coming up from underground Of trying to capture that feeling through genre fiction Thereās the misguided impulse to get back
at any enemy you donāt understand or even know how to fight. We catch up with these soldiers, and we get back at them! We get back at them! The rage and terror that something could threaten
all the power and security that you never really had to begin with. And in terms of sheer imagery there is a LOT
in here. Even the very first shot of the film, we swoop
in on the backdrop of the place where the World Trade Center isnāt any more. Taking it a step furtherā¦. Well, this image of Cruise covered in gray
dust ā¦ is umā¦ loaded. The top floors collapsed down I saw it blow and then ran like hell. Thank God... As is this scene It's not that aliens = terrorists Itās Spielbergās ultimate statement on
living in an America that no longer feels secure. We canāt mindlessly enjoy the destruction
of a major city or landmark as large movie crowds gape up in wordless horror, because
we had just gone through the same thing in real life. But none of these things are the deal breaker. Obviously mass destruction of cities made
their way back into movies eventually, and a dark tone in a monster movie is a totally
valid creative decision. With War of the Worlds, I think most people
agree that it sours in the second half. People like to complain about the illogic
of aliens burying tripods underground or wouldnāt they have known about the common cold, that
sort of thing, but I can forgive that in Independence Day I can definitely forgive it here No, where War of the Worlds goes wrong is
honestly a little simpler than that. One clear example of the problem with the
structure of the story is the inconsistent theming - in direct contrast to Rolandās
optimism of disaster bringing humanity together, - I'm not Jewish
- Nobody's perfect. here disaster turns humans into animals. Put down the gun, I'm taking the car. Throughout the film we keep seeing increasing
intensity of this thing - Ray must protect his children from other humans as much as
he does the aliens. Before the end, he must kill another man to
protect his daughter. I can't let my daughter die because of you Buhhhhht then we work together when the plot
needs us to. Suddenly at the end of the movie, with no
change in circumstance, humans arenāt barbarous animals. Suddenly itās teamwork! Everybody down! So are humans monsters or arenāt they? So War of the Worlds is about this one guyās
relationship to his children and how that is tested byā¦ apocalyptic alien invasion. This is relevant because the aliens are, at
the emotional core of the film, what tests the strength of the family unit. Ray, the inadequate father, is forced for
the first time in his life to take responsibility for his family. Can he do it? You're an asshole. I hate coming here. Itās a solid conceit, and for the first
half of the film, it executes this question fairly wellā¦ but unfortunately, the screenplay
didnāt have an answer. Look at that ending. And no, I donāt mean how the aliens went
down. Although Iām not a stickler for faithful
adaptations, thatās not the problem - the resolution for the characters is the problem. So unlike Rolandās trademark cast of thousands, War of the Worlds features a cast ofā¦ four. Well, I take that back. You had two A-listers, one ā¦ this kid, and Tim Robbins, whose introduction brings the filmās momentum to a screeching halt to which it never recovers. We didnāt need humanity to save the day,
we just needed a satisfactory arc for these three characters we spend the entire movie
with - and that, and not how the aliens are defeated, is the core of the narrative. Andā¦ itās kind of a hot mess. For instance, with Rachel, dear rachel - She said she can get it
-it's heavy
-She said she can get it - mom clearly thinks
she's incapable, dad says she can get it- almost like we're setting up a character arc
here. Like Rachelās gonna realize that she could,
indeed, get it even though mom and therapists coddle her to the point of being a complete
deer in the he-- nope. (Rachel screaming) Rachel canāt get the bag. A realistic kid and well rounded character
in the first half, sheās relegated to little more than macguffin in act 2 and basically
a doe-eye trauma figurine in what passes for act 3 in this movie. Kind of a problem for the second biggest
character in your movie. And here is the one spot where Independence
Day is the superior film - despite having the trademark roland cast of thousands, all
of the character arcs are complete andā¦ work! Theyāre silly, donāt get me wrong, but
they are complete. Roland managed to give all of them a starting
point and a culminating moment. President Clintmore is faced with a country
beginning to doubt his adequacy (i.e, āelected a warrior and got a wimpā) and through a
series of trial and error, including the use of nuclear weapons May our children forgive us whoopsie daisy, he self-actualizes by firing his secretary of defense and he becomes the warrior the country needs- literally Eagle 1, Fox 3 Captain Hiller aspires to fly the space shuttle,
despite political crap, and after a series of conflicts arguably becomes the most qualified
person on the planet to fly the alien shuttle. I've been waiting for this my whole life And Jeff Goldblum starts with his father and
his ex wife berating him for being a lazy genius if you're so smart, why did you spend eight years at MIT to become a cable repairman? but in the end not only does he rise above his inadequacy, but his genius saves the world. Know how I'm always trying to save the planet? Here's my chance. There are three separate and distinguishable
arcs here, and they are all set up really well so the audience is very clear about whoās
accomplishing what based on whose skill set by the time act 3 rolls around. Hell, even the randy quaid subplot, which
seems genuinely pointless for most of the film, ends up being one of the most important
elements in the movie. His motivation by way of his kids, why heās
drunk all the time, his skill as a pilot, seems years back our boy was kidnapped by aliens, they did all kinds of experiments on him. Tell em bout it, Russ! all of it--we see all of it for a reason,
so when it culminates, weāre likeā¦ oh, ALRIGHT YOU ALIEN ASSHOLES! OH. YEAH! sure. HELLO, BOYS. I'M BAAAACK Wheeeeeeeeeee!!! War of the Worlds, for all its masterful tension-building,
beautiful cinematography, genius sound design and pretty good first half of a screenplay,
does not have the same level of buildup and payoff as independence day. So compared to these plots, each cheesy but
complete in its own little world, To the one protagonist arc in War of the Worlds What is Rayās culminating moment? He is set up as an inadequate father, a blue
collar kinda guy who doesnāt know how to take care of his children and only endures
his custody weekends out of obligation. And when the aliens invade, he is forced into
a situation where he MUST care for his children, all the while said children--a teenage boy
on the verge of manhood and a confused neurotic pre-teen---are actually acting their age. Rachel, shut up, Rachel!
(Rachel screaming) Ray does not know how to take responsibility
for them, but through this situation he is forced to. Annndā¦. the screenwriters didnāt seem
to know where to go with that. And this is where the movie falls apart. Robbie is constantly wanting to get out and
break free and ā¦ be a man, but break free from what? You only chose Boston because you hope mom is there and you can dump us on her Rayās not an overbearing father--he doesnāt
even give Robbie a slap on the wrist when he steals his car. Why I might just slap my own hand Nor is Robbie is given any motivation to find
some kind of greater calling in Act 1. He doesnāt lose anyone or see the initial
carnage Ray saw--so this? We catch up with these soldiers, hook up with whoever else isn't dead and We get back at them, we get back at them! is the idiotic macho blathering of
a teenage boy who has no idea what heās talking about. So by the time the movie starts to fall apart,
Robbie has shown no maturation. Then this happens. Robbie no, Robbie come back, Robbie youāre
going to ruin the movie. Get back here! What are you going to be the randy quaid of
this movie? This isnāt 1996 anymore, Robbie! Please let me go, you need to let me go! So then Robbie is basically out of the movie,
and despite idiotically running into a fireball, donāt worry, everyone makes it to grandmaās
house. He's fine. Itās not even that Robbie needed to die
in the fireball--itās that he needed a different story arc altogether. If they wanted it to be āRay realizes Robbieās
a manā, they should have built to that - because Robbie as writ IS A COMPLETE DIPSHIT. If we had any balls we'd go back and find one of those things and kill it. Every action he takes is immature, spiteful
and wrong-headed. Let's try one that doesn't involve your ten-year-old sister joining the army! The movie begins with him stealing Rayās
car, and he does not mature past that. He never once earns the trust that Ray deigns
to give him, thereās never a moment where Robbie and Ray learn to respect each other
as men. So this? Please let me go, you need to let me go! it's like ā¦.where the hell did that come from? Letās draw a comparison to cinemaās most
famous āyou need to let goā moment When marlin and dory are trapped in a whale
and marlin has to make a metaphorical leap of faith. He says, you have to let go, everything is gonna be alright! This is a culminating moment for marlinās
character. Marlin is an overprotective father. Heās overbearing, heās overcompensating,
heās neurotic, heās already endured the horrible loss of his wife, which makes the
loss of Nemo his greatest fear, and literally the worst thing that could happen to him. How do you know something bad isn't going to happen? I don't! So Marlin letting go in the face of uncertainty
is a signifier of character growth Ray on the other hand is the polar opposite
of that. Heās a bad father, he makes no room in his
life for his children, he is a poor caretaker, and takes no interest in their lives. I'm allergic to peanut butter. Yeah, since when? Birth. So what sense does this make for it to be
any kind of culminating moment? itās this kid trying to break free from a dad whoā¦
never really was there for him in the first place. And eventually Rayās likeā¦ okay. Do whatever you want You can see the movie trying to push that
itās Building Up that this is ā¦ robbie crossing into manhood and ray learning to
respect him as a man, but this doesn't work given how obviously wrong headed his moves have been and continue to be Please let me go, you need to let me go! NOPE If we had any balls we'd go back and find one of those things and kill it. So here we trade in Robbie for Tim Robbins
and spend the next forty minutes in a basement. He slides into the role of Robbie in the narrative
as the party who wants to fight back, - Why did you bring us here? -To fight em. Together. against the wishes of ray who is just trying to not
die, and it is the worst thing. Now we'll be the ones coming up from underground Only we have no emotional attachment to this
guy. He is crazy and ā¦ just showed up. Here now. In the movie. YAaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyy So rather than making it a story about how
Robbie and Ray reconcile these two approaches to, you know, alien invasion, all the while
trying to keep the helpless girlchild safe from the barbarousness of humanity, we got
tim robbins We're under their feet, Ray. Right here, under their feet. So pretty much no matter what happens after
this, itās not going to be satisfying to the audience as a story, even if it is tense,
because the payoff does not work, either logically, thematically or emotionally, with what was
built up. So this isnāt the real problem - itās
this. Iām not saying it would have been better
if Robbie never came back- well it would have, shown Ray that his inadequacy actually has
a consequence - but rather that Ray steps up and is the goddamn dad, like then maybe later
when this happens Robbie plays some integral role and helps Ray out, and then later when this happens maybe it was Robbie Who pulls him back out instead of this random guy we've never met and then they realize that yeah we did need each other something something and father and son
develop a sense of something something mutual respect, you know, SOMETHING that pays off
the setup. And itās not a bad setup. But it needs to find some sense of organic
resolution or your audience is gonna be pissed that they spent the last two hours with these
people. Which is more or less what happened. The problem of invasion narratives in general
- theyāre really difficult to resolve in ways that arenāt just transparentlyā¦ unrealistic. Especially when a movie like War of the Worlds
does such a great job of creating such an unfathomable horror of an invader like it
does in the first actā¦ in the end it creates an undefeatable enemy. An enemy we neither can nor want to understand. And in 2005, thatās not what we were here
for. But moreover, especially for American-made
films, ārevengeā is often a key element, and helplessness is never good - we want revenge
against the invaders, and War of the Worlds ā05 doesnāt deliver, it just kind of peters
out, as does the narrative about Ray and his family. Both the invasion narrative and the character
narrative just kind of slops out at the end like this alien out of a tripod. But moreover, especially for American-made
films, ārevengeā is often a key element - we want revenge against the invaders, and
War of the Worlds ā05 doesnāt deliver, it just kind of peters out, as does the narrative
about Ray and his family. Both the invasion narrative and the character
narrative just kind of slops out at the end like a dying alien out of a tripod. American audiences in 2005, jacked up on war
on terror propaganda and seeking narratives that provide a sense of ārevengeā, were
left cold by this film upon release. In the fourteen years since, feelings have
softened on it to the point of a sort of cultural amnesia of how much people hated it at the
time - but a more positive reevaluation is deserved in my opinion - except, of course,
the resolution. part of why invasion narratives have fallen out of favor is that they're really hard to resolve with a happy ending We were okay with a dumb happy ending in 1996 But not in 2005 and not really now either It will never be 1996 again. You cannot go back to Independence Day. If we can conceive of an "Other" enemy that is capable of defeating us so completely It's harder to suspend disbelief that there is a way we could fight back and have a happy ending Now, a complete-ness in an invasion narrative just doesnāt feel narratively truthful that humanity could survive something so devastating And it's not that invasion narratives are gone Nowadays, invasion narratives tend to be secondary
to the main conflicts, like Avengers, Transformers or even Man of Steel - the āinvasionā
only happens in the third act, and ALL of these involve superpowered beings or giant
anthropomorphic robots protecting earth. Not normal humans as in Independence Day and War of the Worlds Moreover, the villains in these films are
not like ālocustsā, They're like locusts, moving from planet to planet... they are not intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, Intellects vast, and cool, and unsympathetic they are, in effect, despite technically being aliens, human - their motivations are clear and completely understandable to the audience. The more straightforward alien invasion, as
seen in Edge of Tomorrow tend to be commercial failures Now audiences want a twist, and the ones you
do see tend to be low budget suspense thrillers that have more in common with the horror genre
and character studies than action scifi, like A Quiet Place and 10 Cloverfield Lane. So the alien invasion motif is not gone, but it's nothing like War of the Worlds or Independence Day We are not interested in villains we canāt
understand anymore - we have culturally stared down an event that we were unprepared and
incapable of adequately resolving, in part because comprehending it would mean facing
our own societal evil. So an incomprehensible villain - mass audiences
just donāt want it. I can think of a number of reasons why that
might be
I started watching thinking I would stop somewhere and not watch it completely.
I watched the whole thing, felt like a breeze, love this channel!
As someone who was Robbie's age when this came out and also has massive Daddy issues, it's so hard to not apply a generational reading of War of the Worlds as Boomers trying and completely failing to "man up" in the aftermath of 9/11.
Definitely one of my favorite YouTubers. I always watch her with my meals as well!
I found this to be very intellectually stimulating as well as entertaining. Brava
I've got a crush on Lindsay Ellis...
Not sure I'd compare the zeitgeist to penises, but I approve the reference nonetheless.
I forgot how depressing the first half of War of the Worlds is. That shit is pretty dark.
Great video!
Does anyone know what the clip at 3:03 is?