07-11-2005, 02:06 PM
Just saw this last night. I'm a military sci-fi reader, so the anachronisms and inconsistencies in the plot and in the aliens' technology were so jarring to me that I couldn't enjoy the movie.
There are pretty obvious plot holes - how didn't we discover those things before, for one thing, and why would any invader with that level of technology (we're talking inserting the "pilots" at near-relativistic speed from total stealth) want our planet anyway, but there's tons of tiny stuff.
Their energy weapon, which clearly transfers enough energy to vaporize humans, set trees afire and blow up houses, apparently doesn't radiate enough heat or create a large enough thermal bloom on impact to do anything to Tom Cruise who dodges one just in front of him, or to the victims' clothes, of all things. Also, having designed advanced cybernetics and with sensors good enough to have been watching us and planning against us (from total stealth, mind, so no active emissions), they revert to the relatively primitive method of using giant spotlights to see their human targets. Their probe, which they send into basements, also uses the giant-spotlight method. Not only does it apparently carry far less sensitive audio sensors than the tripods, but the field of vision is pointlessly fixed forward. We know they have to have better tech than that.
Their kill-all-the-harmless-civilians-first battle plan isn't exactly a stroke of genius, either. Especially when their attitude appeared to be, vaporize first, harvest later. Either they need the blood or they don't; if they do, why not harvest immediately? If they don't, why do it at all? Their tripods make way too much noise and light; they're dead in any recon war with any enemy with a similar tech base. And who sends their organic pilots in to search a room that their presumably better sensor probe has already searched, and why send them in lacking enviro suits, battle armour, or personal weaponry of any sort?
Little things, like I said, but things that really got to annoying me after a while.
There are pretty obvious plot holes - how didn't we discover those things before, for one thing, and why would any invader with that level of technology (we're talking inserting the "pilots" at near-relativistic speed from total stealth) want our planet anyway, but there's tons of tiny stuff.
Their energy weapon, which clearly transfers enough energy to vaporize humans, set trees afire and blow up houses, apparently doesn't radiate enough heat or create a large enough thermal bloom on impact to do anything to Tom Cruise who dodges one just in front of him, or to the victims' clothes, of all things. Also, having designed advanced cybernetics and with sensors good enough to have been watching us and planning against us (from total stealth, mind, so no active emissions), they revert to the relatively primitive method of using giant spotlights to see their human targets. Their probe, which they send into basements, also uses the giant-spotlight method. Not only does it apparently carry far less sensitive audio sensors than the tripods, but the field of vision is pointlessly fixed forward. We know they have to have better tech than that.
Their kill-all-the-harmless-civilians-first battle plan isn't exactly a stroke of genius, either. Especially when their attitude appeared to be, vaporize first, harvest later. Either they need the blood or they don't; if they do, why not harvest immediately? If they don't, why do it at all? Their tripods make way too much noise and light; they're dead in any recon war with any enemy with a similar tech base. And who sends their organic pilots in to search a room that their presumably better sensor probe has already searched, and why send them in lacking enviro suits, battle armour, or personal weaponry of any sort?
Little things, like I said, but things that really got to annoying me after a while.