Talk:The War of the Worlds (1953 film)

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The "Plot" section mainly discusses special effects and differences between the book and the movie, not the plot itself.

The same problem exists on the novel's synopsis, where the machines and weapons are talked about mostly, rather than the actual story. Of course, if the plot of the book is improved on its article, then there won't really be much of a need for a synopsis in the film. Scorpionman 15:28, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

And there seems to be a bit of POV within the text. I did some work by removing trivia section so as to give a place to integrate two of the effects into the article more structually. Som film articles are too narrow to avoid this, but this film has enough behind it to avoid a trivia section, I feel. But I should note that I kind of got stumpped on how to write the effects secrets into it, so I hid it, and hope someone will do it in the future.

I also agree that the article puts too much focus on the differences between the film and its source material. There is no mention of the colourful history behind the film such as adaptation issues (which involved Cecil B. DeMille, Alfred Hitchcock, and Ray Harryhausen), as well as Pál's attempt to get a TV series started. --Bacteria 19:23, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] fun facts?

Some of the trivia seemed odd to me based on what is contained in the commentary on the latest DVD release. For example, the martian sound effects were done with an electric guitar. A woman screaming backwards would sound...almost exactly like a woman screaming forwards! Markmtl 08:35, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the person who added most of the trivia took it from IMDb (which claims that the invisible legs are only present in the beginning of the film, though you can see them as late as the climax just before they go down). I removed the bits (see above) and tried to splice it into the rest to make it a better worked article, but I kind of got lost in trying to figure out how to put them in without making it a simple list, which should always be avoided in these articles. Part of this that I got confused about something: is the electric guitar thing related just to the humming, or does it include the Heat-Ray firing, which is what I would think sounds the most like a guitar. --Bacteria 19:23, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

The heat-ray firing sounds nothing like a guitar, maybe when it is getting ready to fire. I saw the movie on TV and they had an introduction where they said the heat-ray was the recording of a woman screaming played backwards. One more thing, I believe a guitar can just faintly be heard when the heat-ray is fired, behind the high-pitch screeching.- JustPhil 12:53, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

The DVD commentary also mentions electric guitar. There's the thrumming noise before the firing of the heat ray weapon and then the "NEEH-NEEH-NEEH-NEEH-NOWWW" screechy sound with the falling pitch at the end. I'm a sometime guitarist and it seems to me that whereas the electric guitar tech of 1953 could have made the thrumming noise, the screeching sound of the heat ray firing is plausible but only with technique that would have been extremely avant-garde for the day. I visualize a two-fingered right-hand repeated tapping technique on two strings at once, ending with a slide down the neck while dampening the strings near the nut with the left hand. I wish I could locate a definitive description of the sound effects creation. 66.56.69.6 (talk) 03:52, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Alien01.jpg

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BetacommandBot (talk) 04:49, 2 January 2008 (UTC)