Question: Several other answers and corrections state that the reddish liquid sprayed by the tripods was what essentially grew the red vines. However I thought I heard someone in the film say something along the lines of "using us (i.e. blood) as fertiliser". Can someone please clarify?
Question: Is there any indication as to where the aliens come from and what exactly they want?
Chosen answer: In the original George Pal version they were Martians and the reasoning for what they were doing was never explained. In this version, it's never explained where they come from, but their mission is simple, to eradicate human life from Earth, and use our bodies to fertilise the planet, probably so that they can colonise the planet for themselves.
If it was to eradicate us they could have done that millions of years back, why now, so that doesn't add up.
You want to grow the substance (people) that grows your food source before using it. If they waited too much longer, they'd have a harder time because we'd have the technology to fight them back.
The reason which was apparently provided by Wells was that Mars was dying by lack of natural resources and that Martians needed a new home and food source.
They were waiting until the population grew large enough to sustain terraforming efforts. As they used our bodily fluids seemingly as a primary material for their terraforming.
It's an assumption that they could have eradicated us millions of years ago (which by the way would be long before we even existed). Maybe they didn't have the ability to transport themselves, only the machines. Maybe the original aliens all died. Lots of other options why they couldn't have done it.
They probably needed to wait for us to produce enough humans to use as fertilizer. Doesn't make sense to try to use several million bodies as fertilizer back then vs now with billions of people.
Answer: Maybe they were waiting for us to get up to a very high number in population. Before, we didn't have over 7 billion people in the world. More people, more food.
Answer: All versions of "War of the Worlds" are based on the novel of the same name written by H.G. Wells and published in 1897. Wells explained that the aliens are from the planet Mars, and they came to Earth for the natural resources.
But that still doesn't answer why did they wait till then to attack when they could have done it years ago with less resistance. The natural resources were still here.
Perhaps the Martians considered the technological advances of Mankind as "resources," also. The prologue states that the Martians had been observing humanity on Earth for a long time before they chose to attack. Why? Possibly observing our advances in engineering (dam building, for one example, mining for another). It could be viewed that the Martians allowed us to perform the hard work of making natural resources more accessible and consolidating those resources. Personally, I always thought the Martians intended to come exploit the fruits of our labor, allowing us to advance as far as we could without becoming a physical threat to them. If the Martians had waited a few decades more, they could be dealing with a technologically-dangerous human species.
Maybe they were still building the tripods, and when they finished, they would bury them in the ground. Then wait for the Earth's population to grow.
Answer: The alien homeland is never described in the film, but is described in the script as a lifeless, barren place, unfit for life.
Question: I'm still a bit confused on the tripods' actual height. I can't find it anywhere and I just wanted to make sure how tall the tripods are. Preferably in meters but any measurement is fine.
Question: At the end, a tripod collapses after behaving erratically for an hour, because the aliens inside were dead or dying. If so, wouldn't the tripod just stop moving and stand there because the aliens were too sick to operate it?
Answer: Or they had a mental link with the tripods.
The tripods are a mech suit for the aliens.
Answer: Depends on exactly how the disease affected the aliens. They might have entered a state of dementia and started piloting erratically, or even just have muscle spasms that knocked the controls around inside the cockpit.
Answer: Remember, when the tripod is spotted acting erratically, a cloud of birds are seen swarming the vehicle (presumably feeding on the dead/dying aliens inside). We can speculate that, although the aliens inside were incapacitated by disease, the tripod itself was probably functioning on auto-pilot with no precise operator control. Vulnerable, the staggering tripod was then an easy target for the military rocket-propelled ordnance, which easily brought the tripod down.
The birds weren't feeding on the dead aliens. Ray noticed that they were landing on top of tripods, showing that the force fields that had protected the machines and were impenetrable to military weapons were no longer operable. The military could then destroy them.
In the original H.G.Wells story, it is plainly stated that the birds were feeding on the dead aliens. So, the aliens are already dead, even though some of the tripods were still staggering around on autopilot.
Answer: Its theorized the tripods are bio-mechanical (half organic half machine) and so the system itself can get infected.
Answer: In the original H.G.Wells story, it is plainly stated that the birds were feeding on the dead aliens. So, the aliens are already dead, even though the tripods are still staggering around on autopilot.
Answer: It's a vehicle. If the driver dies or begins to die and is unable to control it properly, it's not going to be a smooth ride. Just like someone might drive erratically when sick or incapacitated, the tripods are going to movie a little "wonky" due to what's happening to the drivers.
Question: Why do the tripods make a horn sound?
Answer: Adding a horrifying sound is also intimidating to the people they're attacking.
Answer: It is a signal to the other tripods. They coordinate their attack with the signals. For instance, a specific horn sound is heard when a tripod discovers a group of humans and other tripods come to assist.
But if it is the case, there would probably be a more efficient way to communicate. They can travel through the lightning but they can't use a walkie talkie.
We know virtually nothing about the aliens or their culture. Using the horns in this manner could be ceremonial. It's also a misconception that a society more advanced than ours must have mastered everything our society has mastered. Just because they built death machines millions of years ago doesn't necessarily mean they ever developed a walkie talkie. The Martians seem to be perplexed by the wheel. The scene with the wheel also occurs in the source novel, wherein the narrator theorizes Martians never invented the wheel, "skipping over" this crucial milestone in human advancement.
In addition, it can be used as a way to intimidate the populace of Earth, to try and make them panic into poor decisions.
I mean, from a cinematic standpoint it definitely darkens the mood even more. A walke talkie wouldn't hold the wow factor as a loud sinister horn sound did.
Each tripod seemed fully capable of destroying anything (and enough) around it. Your idea is as good as any, but it seemed like the tripods just came out wherever they were buried and did their own thing without assistance. Besides, didn't a lot emerge from the water?
Answer: The sound of the said to be *horn* could be a way of asking for assistance or giving off their location to other tripods.
Answer: I thought it happened when the tripods flushed waste. Kind of like grunting is to humans.
Answer: I "thought" (guessed) it was to blow out any dust/debris that may have accumulated while underground and/or "fire up" (energize) their weapons before shooting.
Question: In the scene where Tom Cruise and co. are in the tripod's 'basket', a man is sucked up into the tripod and no-one does anything, but as soon as its Cruise's turn everyone grabs him to try and help, why?
Answer: When Tom covered his daughter he noticed a grenade belt dangling from the cage. He grabbed it as he was being pulled into the tripod. When the soldier noticed Tom had the grenades he immediately grabbed Tom to pull him out, and ordered everyone to pull as well.
Answer: You can see someone try to help the first guy, presumably the same soldier as when Tom gets caught.
Answer: Everyone in the basket realised he had a child with him so they decided to save him. Only after they pull him out did they realise the grenade pins were pulled and then the army guy told everyone to brace themselves.
Question: What's all the orange liquid that comes out of the tripods?
Answer: If you're referring to the liquid that pours out at the end when the alien piloting the tripod that was shot down dies, it may stand to reason that since the tripods themselves are built the same as the aliens (three legs and the same shaped head) it's a type of liquid that allows them to neurologically connect to the tripods and control it as though it's a dream. Sort of Pacific Rim-esque except no suit is needed.
Answer: I believe that this orange liquid has nothing to do with the red weed or something like this. As this liquid is only visible when tripods are being attacked from inside or seriously damaged, this may hint that it is blood from the creatures or some kind of liquid flooding the whole habitable spaces inside the tripod, as the creatures look a little amphibious. Both theories fit the fact that in the last scenes, the liquid comes from the same door the alien puts his arm out.
Question: In the scene at the ruined house, what is Ray doing in the closed room while his daughter is closing her eyes and singing?
Answer: Tim Robbins was shouting quite loud (and losing his mind) and Ray did not want the aliens to discover their hiding place. He therefor had no choice but to kill (or possibly beat unconscious) Robbins in order to keep his daughter safe. Rachel was told to sing so she would not hear what her father was doing.
Question: When all of the people are trying to get on the boat, how does a tripod just randomly come out of the water like that?
Chosen answer: While it's never explained, there are several possibilities: as all the tripods were buried deep underground, this one may have been lodged below the lake and was just emerging. Also, a tripod could have "walked" from somewhere else, then went underwater to explore, and, attracted by the ferry's noise and movement, surfaced to investigate. It's also conceivable that, observing how ferries worked, it slipped underwater from further away and ambushed the boat, or the tripod was simply making a crossing from one shore to the other (traveling underwater if it was deep enough) and just happened upon the ferry when it did.
Question: Is it realistic to think that Manny, the garage mechanic would have NO idea of what was going on when Ray steals the van from him? After all this is probably about 20 minutes after the Tripod emerged a few blocks away. Surely news would travel faster than that! And you'd think Manny would have felt the massive tripod moving or heard the destruction.
Answer: There's no electricity, so the only way Manny could have heard was through word of mouth. The few survivors from the initial attack scattered in different directions and if any happened Manny's way, they were probably too busy running to stop to explain anything to a garage mechanic. As for his awareness of the destruction, anything he may have felt or heard he likely dismissed as further manifestations of the freak electrical storm.
People are running scared all around him, and there is a burning tree nearby which can be seen when the van drives away. By that point Manny should have caught on to what was happening.
Question: How did Robbie survive?
Answer: Robbie said that he only wanted to watch it happen, and not interact. He most likely ran off somehow and hid from the aliens before you saw the burning Humvee indicating the death of the military squadrons flying/driving in.
Chosen answer: Dumb luck? A soldier chased him off from the fighting? Who knows?
Robbie's survival is a movie all on its own.
Question: Do we know the human casualties by the end of the war?
Answer: No such numbers are ever discussed in the novel or in the subsequent radio and movie treatments. What we may surmise, however, is that the human casualties were comparatively minor. Once the Martians were exposed to earthly microbes, they were wiped out pretty quickly.
Voiceover by Morgan Freeman at the end of the movie: by the toll of a billion lives.
Morgan Freeman says "By the toll of a billion deaths, man had earned his immunity, his right to survive among this planet's infinite organisms." He is saying that Mankind evolved with microorganisms for countless generations on Earth, making Mankind immune to most of those microorganisms. Perhaps a billion humans or more died of bacterial and viral plagues throughout human history; but, as a species, we gained immunity. Freeman's quote has nothing to do with the number of Martians that died because they had no immunity.
Answer: The ending dialog states a death of 1 billion.
The billion deaths spoken of don't refer to those that died in the alien attack but the billion deaths from the microorganisms that killed the aliens. "By a billion deaths man earned his immunity."
I feel that he meant that the organisms that killed the aliens killed a billion humans first before we got our immunity from them.
They are saying that.
Exactly.
Question: Near the beginning of the movie during the lightning storm Ray says "where's the thunder?", Isn't thunder just the sound lightning makes and if you were close enough to the lightning wouldn't the sound occur at the same time as the flash?
Answer: Precisely - Ray is seeing the lightning but there is no sound of thunder at all - there is also no sound of the thunder as the lightning is getting closer too, it's just the lightning itself and that 'whooshing' sound, but the sound doesn't sound like thunder.
Question: Before Tom Cruise is ushered into the tunnel in Boston, the army man says, "______ is the key." What does he say; what is the key?
Answer: Tom Cruise notices that the birds are able to land on the tripod and realises the shields are down. He points this out to the army guy, who yells to his men, "The Javelin is the key." The Javelin is the anti-tank weapon they use to take the tripod down.
Question: Can anybody shed some light on how the Tripod's laser works?
Answer: In the original War of the Worlds book and movie, they were called heat rays. They (the tripods) generated incomprehensible amounts of heat, hence the laser's white color. They forward the heat in coordinated blasts of energy, that energy contains the heat. That's why the victim disintegrates so fast. The heat quickly evaporates all the liquids in the body and turns everything else (except the clothes) into ash. The ray blow burst of the air around it down at the ash remains of the victim, blowing the rest of the victim away.
Chosen answer: This question is beyond answering here. There is nothing to go on other that what we can see onscreen. Anyone's attempt to actually answer this question would be purely speculative.
Or from clues we have from the book. I would have to agree that it is most likely a heat laser. It makes sense with the color of the beam and the destruction it causes.
Answer: In the book the heat ray is described as being generated in a vacuum and the heat ray is invisible. Also in the book the heat ray is just that: a heat ray, it simply burns things leaving its victims as charred corpses. The 2005 version of the heat ray vaporizes flesh but not clothes (from what's seen), caught a tree on fire and sent stuff flying (cars, buildings, elevated road-ways, you name it) and is visible. Don't exactly know what it is other than an energy weapon of sorts.
Answer: If it is a heat ray, then why are the victims' clothes left behind? In the original movie, that might be right but I think the new version has something we can only speculate.
Question: How come the grandmother's house was not attacked while the tripods were taking down every neighborhood.?
Question: When Tom Cruise is battling to get free of the tentacle pulling him into the ship from the cage, there is alien (presumably) writing visible on the underside of the tripod just beyond his arm and above the lights. Can someone shed light on what this may say (theories, previously suggested writer/director thoughts)?
Chosen answer: My guess is that it could be a manufacturing symbol or name like you would see on today's construction machines. It could also be a warning like, "Caution: Hot Vent", or something along those lines. To my knowledge it is never clarified by anyone. Also could have been the number/name of the unit the tripod belonged to.
Answer: Like it stated in the movie these tripods were buried years upon years ago, and if you slow don't the movie it appears to be Egyptian writing.
Question: I was a little confused. Why did the aliens die? I know it had to do with micro organisms but the answer doesn't come clear to me. Can someone please explain this for me?
Chosen answer: It's similar to how the Native Americans were decimated by smallpox and other diseases when America was colonised by Europe - They had never encountered that virus before, so they had no immunity to it whatsoever, and many of them died. The aliens would have no immunity to any diseases, or even a basic hereditary immunity to default earth viri. Basically they all caught some disease or other (maybe even a cold), and died because they had no immunity at all to it.
Answer: Since the tripods tended to spray the red fluid shortly after pulling a human into themselves, it seems a good assumption that the red fluid is essentially blood. Given this, it seems likely that the "spore" of the vines is spread in the red fluid.
scwilliam