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The single disc edition of “War
of the Worlds” features only 1 featurette “Designing the Enemy”
(which is relocated to the second disc for the two disc edition).
It’s a solid featurette with plenty of pre-production designs
and pre-visualization footage incorporated into interviews
with production designer Rick Carter, Kathleen Kennedy and
others discussing the homage to the 1953 film and the elements
that Spielberg and screenwriter David Koepp wanted to retain
from Wells’ turn of the century novel. ***
”Revisiting the Original Invasion”
a featurette where Spielberg discusses the genesis of wanting
to revisit Wells’ novel. He notes that “War of the Worlds”
touches a nerve because it’s more than science fiction; it
reflects our personal fears and the element of humanity when
faced with an overwhelming force. This features behind-the-scenes
footage and Spielberg discussing how the science fiction films
of the 50’s ( and particularly the original film of “The War
of the Worlds”) and how impacted his films. He also notes
how 9/11 informs THIS “War of the Worlds” and a different
mindset in the 21st century allowing the film to become topical
again. Tom Cruise also discusses working with Spielberg and
Koepp. Koepp discusses how he wanted to avoid the clichés
o the genre and wanting to personalize the invasion touching
on how it would impact the average American. Koepp went back
to the novel’s point-of-view which was centered around the
hero’s experience. ***
”The H. G. Wells Legacy” briefly
discusses Wells’ life featuring interviews with Wells’ grandson
and great-grandson (director Simon Wells who updated his great-grandfather’s
novel “The Time Machine” a couple of years ago). It’s pretty
superficial but does discuss Wells’ ordinary origin and how
writing was his fall-back position as his career as a school
teacher came to a halt due to an injury. Taken with the Wells’
featurette for the 1953 DVD both are very good but it is incomplete
by itself. ***
”Previsualization” incorporates
location footage, interviews and early CGI footage to give
an overview on how the film was visualized. Spielberg didn’t
like to do pre-visualization until Lucas inspired him to do
so after his latest “Star Wars” trilogy. Spielberg found that
the pre-visualization doesn’t always apply because of variables
on the set. To prevent that from happening the sets weren’t
designed until the pre-visualization was done so that things
didn’t have to be radically revamped. ***
“War Chronicles” is a series of
video featurettes featuring interviews and behind-the-scenes
footage for this bi-coastal production. The featurettes are
broken up into the various stages of production from pre-production
to “Destruction”, etc. for both the west coast where the town
was rebuild for the destruction sequences and the location
footage. Spielberg appears minimally during all these featurettes
as does Tom Cruise. The featurettes primarily focuses on people
like visual effects supervisor Dennis Muren from ILM, production
crew, etc. ***
”Scoring of ‘War of the Worlds’”
features behind-the-scenes footage of Williams scoring the
film and discussing his inspiration for the film. Spielberg
wanted to make a film with Cruise where Cruise didn’t play
the hero running off to fight the bad guys. “Characters: The
Family Unit” features Spielberg the most discussing working
with Tom Cruise, rehearsing and discussing the scenes on set
with the cast. Cruise is also featured luckily he gives us
a break and doesn’t do another song and dance on the benefits
of Scientology and his expertise on depression and psychiatric
care. Cruise keeps his comments confined to his character
and working on the film. Screenwriter David Koepp discusses
his rule (which he discussed with Spielberg) about focusing
only on what Ray and see and experience to give the audience
a handle on the invasion. You’ll also note that we don’t see
the destruction of any major landmarks. This was another cliché
(that Koepp discusses elsewhere and also in the limited edition
Screenplay book available at Bestbuy.com) that Koepp wanted
to avoid as it tends to magnify the experience and take away
the intimate nature of this invasion. This “War of the Worlds”
focuses, much like Wells’ novel, on an ordinary people and
how this overwhelming invasion force impacts them on a much
more personal, small basis. It’s a wise approach allowing
Spielberg to avoid the pitfalls that undermined “Independence
Day” and most of the disaster thrillers we see. It also makes
this film much more into a suspense thriller or horror movie
vs. a disaster movie. ***
There’s no theatrical trailer included.
Also, there’s production notes. Yes, production notes. That’s
not a bad thing. Reading is great but the production notes
do recap the featurettes and that was a featurette that went
out for most DVDs a couple of years back which makes me wonder
when Spielberg last watched any special features on a DVD.
Nevertheless, in a sense it’s refreshing to have that option
of scrolling through the production notes and discovering
the behind-the-scenes material through reading about it. ---
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