Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Dark or bloody?
There is always a controversy when approaching War of the Worlds, how do you handle it? It's a dark, terrifying book, that doesn't hold back on the gore element. Okay maybe the gore element is an over exaggeration, but the visual element is there. The end of the matter is, War of the Worlds is an extremely violent and mentally graphic book. The horrors of war and invasion are not held back in anyway. The problem lies in how to convey this in both story and visual form. I'm not out to make an R rated movie, or a family friendly movie, but also I want don't avoid the obvious graphic tones as portrayed in the book. This is the problem I found with Hine's version. He made a poor movie unnecessarily bloody, not to convey the horror but to save an otherwise failing project, and this is made obvious in the poor effects put into the graphic violence. So this is the impasse I am currently at, where does art end and exploitation begin? Where do I draw the fine line?
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Part 1:
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what the American film age ratings are, but in the UK, maybe it could be something like a 12 - 15 (I think that would be PG-13 in the US).
Now for the gore, the most gory scences would be when the Martians feed. I liked how Steven Spielberg did the Martian feeding secene, where the pipe went into the man and the blood went through the pipe. It shows the darkness, and the terror of the Martians, but does not make it too gruesome. But that brings up another issue that has puzzled me for a while. I have read about half of TWOTW (I plan to read it all the way through soon). But when the Martians feed, do they use a metal pipette, or do they have a biological means of feeding. A good theorie I heard was that the Martians had a bone pipette in their throats, and that extended into the victim's neck, then it would suck the blood out. The bone pipette was connected to the respiratory system, and the heart. The idea was the respiratory system was used to make the air pressure to suck the blood out, and was used to clear the bone pipette to stop clotting. And the blood was taken from the victim through the bone pipette, and went straight into the heart which pumped it around the body. Then the waste blood was expelled out the mouth as saliva. Now I know this is going off-topic, but I thought it was an interesting point.
Part 2:
ReplyDeleteAlso when doing TWOTW, I think a bit of mystery and darkness is needed. Such as the mystery of the Martians. So if you are asking, make it drak or not, in my opinion, I say YES. And lastly, the Martian's weapons. I have seen alot of TWOTW fan movies, and all other stuff. The Martian's weapons are open to imagination. What I mean here is how the victim dies. In some, the heat ray zaps you and your gone, but in some, when you get zapped, you die slowly and horriibly. I have been thinking about how the 'heat ray' might have looked, and how the ray would have looked, also how the victims death would have looked. In the book, the heat ray is a spining disc, that I think is used to project intense infra-red. Now what I thought would be a good effect, is that, since we cant see the radiation, but we can see 'Heat Haze'. In alot of TWOTW things, the ray is visible. I dont really like this, but to show where the rays is, you could have a 'ray' of heat haze, where the air distorts where the heat ray fires, and all it touches bursts into flame. And that would be a good victim death. Since I think you need to be inbetween instant and slow death, if the victim is engulfed by flames, then drops to the floor, then the fire dies down, and all that is left is ashes. But because the flame engulf the victim, you cant see the gore, but the death is not instant.
I think the heat haze effect and the turned to flame works on how it says "An invisible sword of heat turned men to flame". (Not exact quote).
Oops. I said "drak or not". I meant to put "dark or not". Sorry. :P
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