CAMELOT Theatrical Special Effects

Since my last post about the "war of the Wars of the Worlds" in which I wrote about the three versions of WOTW then in production (Paramount/Spielberg (2005), Pendragon/Hines (2005) and the animated Jeff Wayne's musical version (2007)), I have now seen the Spielberg version and re-watched the George Pal version (1953). Sitting on my coffee table, as of yet unviewed, are the Pendragon/Hines version and yet another one that caught me totally by surprise: The Asylum version directed by David Latt originally titled Invasion but now renamed War of the Worlds. How did I miss that one? Same way you did: almost no publicity, a tiny production budget (a measly million dollars) and the fact that it went directly to DVD. Is it any good? I'll let you know when I've watched it but it has received amazingly positive reviews. So: that's five movie versions of the H. G. Wells classic extant, one from 1953 (let's call that the cheesy flying-things version), three from 2005 (what the hell?) and one yet to come in 2007. Forgive me if I'm a bit overwhelmed and I trust you are too.

So, what did I think of the Spielberg version with Tom Cruise? Y'know what? I sort of liked it. I'm not going to give a review of the acting as there are plenty over at Rotten Tomatoes and because, after all, this is a special effects blog. Let's talk about the special effects.

My original concerns were that, since tripods can't walk and even George Pal cheesed-out by having the fighting machines fly instead, the CG effects would be cartoon-silly. They weren't entirely, although Spielberg's special effects team (Industrial Light and Magic of Lucas fame, duh) did cheese out. But they got the science right. There was obviously a pre-production meeting (or several) regarding the issue and I imagine it went something like this:

Pablo Helman (ILM Visual Effects Supervisor): "Okay, we need walking tripods. Tripods can't walk. Ideas?"
ILM geek: "How about if each of the three legs have three more legs? Then they'd be stable when the thing takes a step."
Pablo: "So we're talking nine legs here?"
ILM geek: "Yeah. It's a nonopod."
Pablo: "Anybody else?"
ILM nerd: "The body is metal but the legs could be organic."
Pablo: "That's silly."
ILM nerd: "Hey, this is CG."
Pablo: "What kind of organic?"
ILM dudette: "Sort of tentacles maybe, but big, like elephant legs?"
Pablo: "An octopus?"
All: "It's a nonopus!"

So that's what they did: the machines were metal with organic elephantentacles that bent in every direction. If such a thing existed, it could walk. Then, because they were ILM, they added that THX sub-woofer audio so that each time a trifoot came down there was a huge thud that caused the popcorn to flip out of our buckets and the people in the cineplex next door watching The Longest Yard to spill their drinks, which was all right with me: people who go to Adam Sandler movies deserve wet pants.

I would have been happier if Spielberg and ILM hadn't been under quite so much time-pressure that they felt it necessary to lift quite as much from the 1953 Pal version. Gene Barry and Ann Robinson, still alive, were both given bit parts as "old fogeys." That was unnecessary. Back to the technical stuff that you came for.

The scariest part of both films (and the 1898 book as well) was "the probe scene" when the creatures operating the stories-tall fighting machines get tired of blowing everything to shit and decide to poke around inside an old farmhouse. It never made sense, even to H. G. Wells, but it makes for wonderful suspense so there it is. Our hero is hiding out in a rathole farmhouse, totally unremarkable for any sort of technological secrets, when a fighting machine decides to send a "probe" into the house to "snoop around." In the novel it's a metallic tentacle that actually brushes against the hero's shoe. In the Pal movie, a camera was added to the tentacle consisting of a red, green and blue lens in a housing attached to an obvious wire and coupled to several dozen feet of automobile "flex exhaust pipe." It was brilliant, though, considering that the RGB concept of color graphics and TV was still on the laboratory bench, making Pal's vision totally accurate and a harbinger of the technology still in use today, 50 years later. And it was scary, did I mention that?

ILM obviously thought so too, but 50 years in the future, they had CG graphics. They needed to rip off the Pal scene but, rather than spend too much time on it, they ripped off Steve Johnson's XFX, Inc., the creators of the water-creature probe in The Abyss. Johnson and XFX mapped water onto a snake and came up with this. ILM mapped metal with some gold ribbon thingy on it onto a snake, or maybe a vacuum-cleaner hose, and came up with this. Same thing only different.

But it was scary. Ripped-off but scary. And then: Pal screwed it up. Because his cheesy flying-things weren't scary, he decided to let the drivers get out and walk around inside the farmhouse. Too bad: they were cute! Why did Spielberg have to copy that? Not only that: why did he have to make his monsters even cuter? He just can't get past that Close Encounters/E.T. cuteness look and in the end, the dying monster looks at the camera with big, Shrek 2 Puss-in-Boots cute-kittycat eyes and then they glaze over. Funny... so did mine.

posted by C. J. # 5:14 PM