CAMELOT Theatrical Special Effects

This will be an interesting battle, possibly a story of its own called "War Of The Box-Office." For those of you who live on a small planet circling a rather nondescript star on the edge of a modest galaxy, like the rest of us, it may be news that the Steven Spielberg version of "War of the Worlds" has been moved from its projected 2007 release date to a June 29, 2005 release. That's not a move; that's a quantum leap! The rumor mill has it that Spielberg has shelved everything in order to devote full resources to hitting his new deadline.

Why the rush? Well, it seems that Pendragon Pictures is also filming "War of the Worlds" with a release date of March 30, 2005. What? TWO WOTWs within three months? That's insane! That's madness! Oh... that's the motion-picture industry. Add Jeff Wayne's animated WOTW: a $48 million feature-length animated project currently in pre-production and using state-of-the-art CGI and Motion Capture technology and you've got THREE WOTWs coming this way. Run for your lives!

Whatever happened to "rights?" After all, in the live theatre world we have to apply for production rights every time we plan a show. If someone else in the area already has them, or it's been done too recently, the rights are withheld; it's "first-come-first-served" on stage. Doesn't the same apply to motion pictures? Obviously not, although it is highly likely that two of the three WOTWs will go directly to DVD or cable, and let me guess, one of 'em ain't gonna be Spielberg's.

The Pendragon production is a "true-to-the-book" enactment, set in England and holding to a budget of $20 million or so. The Spielberg production is a "modern-day" enactment starring Tom Cruise, set in America (New York, New Jersey) and boasting a budget of $200 million. Wait a minute... even with cost overruns, didn't James Cameron's "Titanic" only cost a piddling $170 million and still set a record as the most expensive movie ever filmed? And didn't the actual Titanic itself (the ship, not the movie) cost a mere $12 million as the most expensive ship ever built? What are these people smoking and where does it grow? I want some. Some reports are that the budget has been trimmed to $128 million. Whew! I thought we were getting into real money here.

I hate to sound sacreligious but my money is not on Spielberg this time around. Don't think "E.T." or "Jurassic Park" or even "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." Think of the TV series "Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories:" the dumbest, most god-awful, horribly-written and stupid pieces of trash to have been foisted on the television public since "Gilligan's Island." Think "Artificial Intelligence" if you don't recall that Steve occasionally steps in a pile of poo.

A big budget and an all-star cast aren't enough to save this turkey from the scrapheap of history according to my crystal ball. Here are a few reasons:

Only eight months of filming. Now, while eight months should be enough for Tom Cruise, who specializes in one character, Tom Cruise, that's only okay for "a Tom Cruise movie" which "War of the Worlds" isn't. Tom does heroics and the protagonist of WOTW is not a hero.
500 special effects shots. I understand that ILM is rushing like crazy to get them all ready in time. Oh boy, rushed special effects! This could be right up there with "The Creature Wasn't Nice" for camp value.
Aliens invading the United States? Didn't Roland Emmerich do that in "Independence Day" back in 1996? And wasn't that a gigantic "oink?"
For that matter, wasn't this done already in 1953 by Byron Haskin? Oh, wait, that was set in California. This one is set in New York. Duh.
The thought of aliens destroying New York comes too close in time to the real thing to be considered tasteful.
We already know that there is no "master race" on Mars because we've been there. Any attempt to move the menace to another planet or through some goofy "Oops, we missed them" gimmick will be just plain silly.

My other beef with even trying to film this thing at all lies with, again, the special effects. In Haskin's 1953 version with Gene Barry, the "fighting machines" were cheap-assed flying wing contraptions hung from wires. In H. G. Wells's novel, the machines are giant tripods that walk. Now that would be a great effect, impressive and truly scary to see since a tripod can't walk. (Quick: name a three-legged animal! Okay, I saw a dog once that had lost a leg but he didn't walk, he hopped.) Three points determine a plane and a tripod is totally stable; that's why it's called a tripod. If three-legged animals ever evolved, they were quickly devoured by even-number-legged animals because they just stood there looking helpless and stupid. So which way is Spielberg going to go? Tripods or flying things? The concept of a walking tripod would be so great, such a call for amazing computer special effects, a true breakthrough. Betcha he goes with flying things. Did I say "oink?"

Ranking the potentials of the three, I'm going with 1) Jeff Wayne because of the great music, 2) Pendragon because it holds to the book and 3) Spielberg because, given an existing novel with a solid morality story and a time-proven setting to rewrite on the fly, he can be guaranteed to screw it up.

posted by C. J. # 3:36 PM