1. War of the Worlds
The original War of the Worlds movie was released in 1953 and the new remake was made 52 years
later in 2005, the original was directed by Bryon Haskin and distributed by Paramount Pictures, the
estimated budget is $2,000,000. The remake; made in 2005 and was also distributed by Paramount
Pictures but the director was Steven Spielberg. Unlike most remakes, money wasn’t the reasoning
behind the 21st
century version of this film. Strangely the main reason for the remake was the 9/11
disaster.
You may wonder how a film about an alien invasion has anything to do with 9/11 but if you look past
the aliens and spaceships there are many similarities. Firstly the terrorists that caused 9/11 can be
compared to the aliens that attacked our planet, both had the same intention; to cause pain to
others and reap havoc on earth. In the case of the original War of the Worlds which was made at the
height of the cold war the aliens would have represented the Russians. The use of such emotional
events as a movie plot could be seen as insensitive by viewers, especially those affected first hand by
the disasters but Spielberg does not suggest at any point throughout the film that 9/11 is the focus.
Using similar events to 9/11 and the cold war but in a completely different concept can help to show
the audience the emotion and devastation that was caused by such events while also providing them
with excitement from the $132,000,000 budget film. Spielberg has said that if this event hadn’t had
happened then he is unsure whether the remake would have taken place but this gave him
inspiration.
Spielberg used stars such as Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning and Justin Chatwin in the remake which
also relates to star theory; the use of familiar actors/actresses to attract a wider audience. As the
actors used in this movie are American you can see that they are more emotionally connected to the
plot than an English actor would be as it was their country affected. As Tom Cruise is in many action
films that younger children may enjoy it helps to attract them to watch this film and help them to
learn about 9/11 without the seriousness of an explanation based solely on the topic.
Due to the advancements in technology the remake was a visual masterpiece compared to the
original, this may not appeal to some cult fans of the original film but it helped to attract a whole
new audience that may then go home and watch the older version. The remake could have had a
very bad reception if the use of 9/11 would have been used just to gain money from the audience
but instead it took the concept of a terrible attack and portrayed it to the audience as a sci fi movie
that could still be related.