War Of The Worlds Movie
U.S.News & World Report recently reported (July 25, 2005) that David Koepp, the screenwriter for the Movie War Of The Worlds, explained that his screenplay was intended as a representation of current world events. The Martians, he explained, represent the American military, while the Americans being slaughtered at random represent Iraqi civilians.I wish I had an exact quote of David Koepp's words, as I find it hard to believe that anyone would be dumb enough to make a statement like that; surely his words must have been taken out of context? If he really did say such thing, it seems to me to be an even worse literary pretension than the screenwriters of Batman Begins making their story "about" the statement "What you are on the inside doesn't matter; it's what you do that defines who you are", and then writing a plotline which not only doesn't support that statement, but in fact clearly shows the opposite to be true. (To read about that, click the following link: Batman Begins - Gotham City is a Whole New World)
What is wrong with David Koepp's statement? A great deal. The first is the very obvious point that the story was not his, and for him to attempt to twist the meaning and purpose of the story into a form that suits his own personal political agenda is an act of intellectual piracy, and shows a shallowness of thought and regard for the legacy of a "real" writer. If Koepp wants to write a story that makes his political point, let him do so; if he is capable of creating and sustaining a plot of his own invention, rather than simply pirating the ideas of another and twisting them to satisfy his own agenda.
But the issues go deeper than that. Did Koepp really say "being slaughtered at random"? Because if he was foolish enough to say that, then he hasn't even watched his own movie. There was nothing random about the slaughter of the civilians in War Of The Worlds. It was a deliberate and methodical genocide performed with great care and precision.
So, is Koepp really saying that the US is performing a calculated and careful genocide of the Iraqi people? Perhaps, in Koepp's view of things, the intent of the United States is to completely obliterate the Iraqi people, leaving it unpopulated so we can move our own citizenry into the deserted land? Because, in case he didn't notice, that was the whole point of the Martian invasion in War Of The Worlds. As I said, maybe Koepp didn't read his own story.
But let's take his garbled and absurd analogy even further. What exactly was the point of War of the Worlds? That mankind was complete helpless to defeat the alien oppressor, and that the very best they could hope for was to nip at the heels of the giant and stay alive long enough to hope that a natural disaster (or, perhaps, as the closing scene might suggest, an act of God) would befall the aliens. So what is the message? Is it a message sent to the Iraqi people: "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here...only an act of God will stem the tide of our slaughter." Or perhaps it is a message to the American people: "We are so powerful that only God himself can stand in the way of our global conquest".
I find it hard to believe that the screenwriter intended either of those messages.
What is the problem here? The problem isn't really that War Of The Worlds is political propaganda either for or against the United States' war in Iraq. Because the movie isn't political propaganda. No, my theory is this: when he was all done writing his movie, David Koepp found himself thinking "Oh, if I ever want to be considered a writer of great literary merit, my movie has to have a point, a meaning, perhaps even a moral lesson. Let's see...what was I trying to say when I wrote that? Oh! I know! It was a commentary on our war in Iraq. Yeah, that'll sell good."
The fact of the matter is, there are very few writers in Hollywood who are capable of writing a story that actually means something, but everyone else wishes the could write something of meaning and value. The results are usually pathetic and tawdry and unbelievable.
As a science fiction alien adventure, complete with alien monsters and machinery, exciting chase scenes and special effects, War of the Worlds was successful. If you look at it as a story of an everyday family under stress and strain, fighting to stay together and protect one another while growing in understanding of one another, it is even fairly successful on that level. But the moment the writer tried to infuse "meaning" into his story, instead of just letting it stand on its own merits, he made himself a laughingstock.
Perhaps Hollywood should just stick to mindless (yet entertaining) drivel, and let us turn to books for something of real merit and meaning.
Posted On Jul 22, 2005 at 7:09 PM
On Jul 22, 2005 Doug wrote: Interesting, it just occurred to me that there have been three entries recently in this log in which I've complained about movie writers trying to put "meaning" into their movies, and failing not just badly but downright miserably.
There's this one, of course, and the entry about Batman Begins (the "what you do that defines who you are" comment)
And then there was Revenge of the Sith, with its pathetic and mind numbingly absurd "Only the Sith deal in absolutes". Once again we find ourselves with a writer who puts a statement in his movie without ever stopping to consider that there's absolutely nothing in the movie that supports the statement.
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