War of the Worlds is a 2005 American science fiction action thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Josh Friedman and David Koepp, based on H. G. Wells' 1898 novel, The War of the Worlds. Tom Cruise stars in the main role alongside Dakota Fanning, Miranda Otto, and Tim Robbins, with narration by Morgan Freeman. It follows an American dock worker who must look after his estranged children as he struggles to protect and reunite them with their mother when extraterrestrials invade Earth and devastate cities with giant war machines.
Produced by Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks Pictures, Amblin Entertainment, and Cruise/Wagner Productions, the film was shot in 73 days, using five different sound stages as well as locations in California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and Virginia. It was surrounded by a secrecy campaign so few details would be leaked before its release. Tie-in promotions were made with several companies, including Hitachi.
War of the Worlds premiered at the Ziegfeld Theatre on June 23, 2005, and was released theatrically by Paramount Pictures on June 29. The film was released on June 13, 2005 in Tokyo. The film received generally positive reviews, with praise for effectively capturing the thrilling and suspenseful elements of Wells's novel while modernizing the action and effects to appeal to contemporary audiences. It was also a commercial success, grossing $604 million worldwide against a $132 million production budget, making it the fourth-most successful film of 2005. It earned Academy Awards nominations for Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Mixing and Best Sound Editing.
Plot
A narrator opens the film stating that extraterrestrials with immense intelligence have grown envious of humanity's dominion of Earth and are plotting against them.
Charming but self-absorbed longshoreman Ray Ferrier works as a crane operator at a dock in Brooklyn, New York and is estranged from his children, ten-year-old daughter Rachel and his teenage son Robbie. Ray's pregnant former wife, Mary Ann, drops the two off at his house in Bayonne, New Jersey on her way to visit her parents in Boston, Massachusetts. Later, a strange thunderstorm occurs, during which lightning strikes multiple times into the middle of a nearby intersection, causing an EMP that instantly disables almost all electronic devices. On his way to investigate the impacts, Ray suggests his mechanic friend Manny repair a customer's minivan by replacing a solenoid. He joins the crowd at the scene of the impacts, where a massive "tripod" war machine emerges from the ground following an earthquake and attacks the crowd using energy weapons to disintegrate most of the witnesses into ash.
Ray collects his children and commandeers the van Manny has repaired; he attempts to persuade Manny to join them but is forced to leave him behind when the tripod attacks, resulting in Manny's death. Ray drives his children to Mary Ann's empty suburban New Jersey home to take refuge. Later, a Boeing 747 crashes into the neighborhood. Ray meets a wandering television news team scavenging the wreckage for food, upon which a correspondent reveals that many tripods have attacked major cities around the world and that they have force shields that protect them from humanity's defenses. She adds that the tripods' pilots traveled to Earth within the lightning storms to enter their machines, presumed to have been buried underground long ago.
Ray attempts to transport his children to Boston to be with their mother, but a desperate mob swarms their vehicle, forcing them to abandon it. They eventually get on a ferry crossing over the Hudson River before tripods attack the refugees. A tripod emerges from the water and capsizes the ferry, forcing Ray and his children to swim to shore while the tripods abduct several refugees. They then witness a US military counter-offensive against the tripods. To Ray's dismay, Robbie joins the futile fight out of hatred for the invaders, leaving Ray and Rachel to flee. The military forces are obliterated, with Robbie presumed dead along with them. Shortly afterward, the pair are offered shelter in a nearby house by a former ambulance driver, Harlan Ogilvy.
The three remain undetected for several hours, even as a tripod's probe and a group of aliens explore the basement. Tensions soon arise between Harlan and Ray, with Harlan insistent on fighting and killing the aliens, having heard that the Japanese military was successful in doing so in Osaka, while Ray prefers hiding with Rachel to avoid being spotted and killed by the aliens. They soon discover that the aliens have started cultivating a red-colored vegetation across the landscape that is quickly spreading. Later, Harlan suffers a mental breakdown after witnessing the tripods harvesting human blood and tissue to fertilize the alien vegetation. Fearing that his mad shouting will alert the aliens, Ray reluctantly kills him. Later in the night, a second tripod probe then catches the Ferriers sleeping, causing Rachel to flee outside only to be abducted by the tripod. Chasing after the tripod, Ray grabs a belt of grenades from an abandoned Humvee that has been overgrown with the red vegetation, then intentionally allows himself to be abducted. With the help of other abductees, Ray destroys the tripod from within with the grenades.
Ray and Rachel eventually reach Boston, where they find the alien vegetation withering and the tripods inexplicably collapsing. When another tripod appears, active yet unstable, Ray notices birds landing on it, indicating that its force shields have been disabled. He alerts the soldiers escorting the fleeing crowd, who shoot it down with Javelin missiles. As the soldiers advance on the downed tripod, a hatch opens, and a weak, horribly diseased alien struggles halfway out before dying. Ray and Rachel finally approach Mary Ann's parents' house, reuniting with Mary Ann and Robbie, who inexplicably survived.
Against a backdrop featuring multiple dead and destroyed tripods, the narrator explains that the aliens died because they could not have possibly prepared themselves against the countless microbes and viruses inhabiting the Earth, to which humanity has adapted over millennia.
Cast
Tom Cruise as Ray Ferrier, a crane operator and Rachel and Robbie's father Dakota Fanning as Rachel Ferrier, Ray and Mary Ann's 10-year-old daughter and Robbie's younger sister Miranda Otto as Mary Ann Ferrier, Ray's pregnant former wife and Rachel and Robbie's mother Tim Robbins as Harlan Ogilvy, a former ambulance driver who is insistent on fighting and killing the aliens Justin Chatwin as Robbie Ferrier, Rachel's older brother and Ray and Mary Ann's teenage son Rick Gonzalez as Vincent, Ray and Julio's friend Yul Vazquez as Julio, Ray and Vincent's friend Lenny Venito as Manny the Mechanic, Ray's friend and a mechanic Lisa Ann Walter as Sheryl, Ray's friend Ann Robinson as Grandmother (she played the lead role of Sylvia van Buren in the 1953 film) Gene Barry as Grandfather (he played the lead role of Dr. Clayton Forrester in the 1953 film) David Alan Basche as Tim, Mary Ann's husband and Robbie and Rachel's step-father Roz Abrams as Herself Camillia Sanes as News Producer Amy Ryan as Neighbor With Toddler David Harbour as Dock Worker (deleted scene) Danny Hoch as Policeman Morgan Freeman as The Narrator (voice) Columbus Short as Soldier Daniel Franzese as National Guardsman Dee Bradley Baker as Alien Vocals (uncredited) Channing Tatum as The Boy In The Church Ty Simpkins as 3 Year Old Boy
Production
Development After collaborating on 2002's Minority Report, Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise were interested in working together again. Spielberg stated about Cruise, "He's such an intelligent, creative partner, and brings such great ideas to the set that we just spark each other. I love working with Tom Cruise." Cruise met with Spielberg during the filming of Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can (2002) and gave three options of films to create together, one of them being an adaptation of The War of the Worlds. Spielberg chose The War of the Worlds and stated, "We looked at each other and the lights went on. As soon as I heard it, I said 'Oh my God! War of the Worlds – absolutely.' That was it."
The film is Spielberg's third on the subject of alien visitation, along with Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). Producer and longtime collaborator Kathleen Kennedy notes that with War of the Worlds, Spielberg had the opportunity to explore the antithesis of the characters brought to life in E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. "When we first started developing E.T., it was a much edgier, darker story and it actually evolved into something that was more benign. I think that the edgier, darker story has always been somewhere inside him. Now, he's telling that story." Spielberg stated that he just thought it would be fun to make a "really scary film with really scary aliens", something which he had never done before. Spielberg cited Ridley Scott's Alien (1979) for inspiration for the film. Spielberg was intent on telling a contemporary story, with Kennedy stating the story was created as a fantasy, but depicted in a hyper-realistic way.
"For the first time in my life I'm making an alien picture where there is no love and no attempt at communication." – Steven Spielberg J. J. Abrams was asked by Spielberg and Cruise to write the script but had to turn down the offer as he was working on the pilot for his television series Lost. Josh Friedman delivered a screenplay, which was then rewritten by David Koepp. After re-reading the novel, Koepp decided to do the script following a single narrator, "a very limited point of view, from someone on the very periphery of events rather than someone involved in events", and created a list of elements he would not use due to being "cliché", such as the destruction of landmark buildings. Some aspects of the book were heavily adapted and condensed: Tim Robbins' character was an amalgam of two characters in the book, with the name borrowed from a third. While changing the setting from 19th century to present day, Koepp also tried to "take the modern world back to the 1800s", with the characters being devoid of electricity and modern techniques of communication.
Spielberg accepted the script after finding it had several similarities to his personal life, including the divorce of his parents (Ray and Mary Ann), and because the plight of the fictional survivors reflects his own uncertainty after the devastation of the September 11 attacks. For Spielberg, the characters' stories of survival needed to be the main focus, as they featured the American mindset of never giving up. Spielberg described War of the Worlds as "a polar opposite" to Close Encounters, with that movie featuring a man leaving family to travel with aliens, while War of the Worlds focused on keeping the family together. At the same time, the aliens and their motivations would not be much explored, as "we just experience the results of these nefarious plans to replace us with themselves".
Although accepting the script, Spielberg asked for several changes. Spielberg had been against the idea of the aliens arriving in spaceships, since every alien invasion movie used such a vehicle. The original Martian cylinders were discarded and Spielberg replaced the origins of the tripods, stating they were buried underground in the Earth long ago.
In August 2004, Dakota Fanning was hired to portray a major role in the film. Spielberg had Miranda Otto in mind for the part of Mary Ann, but at the time he called her she was pregnant and thought the opportunity would be missed. Spielberg then decided to incorporate Otto's pregnancy into the film, changing the part for her.
Filming