JUST WAIT UNTIL RUMSFELD UNVEILS THE TRIPODS
TKS
jim geraghty reporting
Just a quick addition to the thoughts of Kaus and Instapundit regarding the comment by War of the Worlds screenwriter David Koepp that the Martians in his movie represent "American military forces," while Tom Cruise and the embattled Earthlings represent Iraqi civilians.
If this is the case, this is a fascinating case of really hidden symbolism, because to follow this logic, the audience has to recognize that the stand-in for "American military forces" is the giant three-legged alien tripods, and that they are not "symbolized" by... American military forces.
Sorry, when we see the guys in green uniforms loading up and riding off to certain death against the aliens just to buy time for the civilians to escape, my first thought wasn't, "Hey, that's just like Abu Zarqawi!"
Bah. Bad movie. Visually impressive, but the weakest, least compelling or interesting hero in many a year. Dakota Fanning has been ultra-likeable in almost every other role; here I kept hoping she would meet the wrong end of an alien death ray.
And again, we see a director - even Spielberg, who gave us "Saving Private Ryan," - portraying Americans falling apart, panicking, and turning on each other in a crisis. Come on, Hollywood. Maybe you folks would shoot your neighbor over their SUV when it hit the fan, but the rest of the country reacted with teamwork, compassion and courage when faced with 9/11, hurricanes, anthrax mailings, earthquakes, forest fires, radioactive space shuttle wreckage falling from the sky, and the breakup of Brad and Jen. We don't panic that much or that often.
Interesting that about a week or two after "War of the Worlds" debuts, featuring scenes of Americans acting like animals in a crisis, the world watches Great Britain handle a terrible crisis with their trademark stiff upper lip.
I told this to a guy I saw "WOTW" with, and he said, "Yeah, but in this situation [in the movie], people feel like no place is safe." As opposed to the overwhelming sense of security we all felt on the afternoon of September 11.
Sigh.
tks.nationalreview.com
slate.msn.com
instapundit.com |
