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Rating:  -
The DVD you are looking at is "The Classic War of the Worlds" which is a shorter versions of the film "H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds" directed by Timothy Hines. Well, perhaps you've already read some of the reviews on Amazon about the original version that runs 3 hours. I won't repeat here what I wrote about the first version, which is exactly the same as any reviewers giving only one star rating.
Usually I don't buy the same film more than once, but H. G. Wells' novels are something that I cannot miss, so I decided to buy this newer one that runs 125 minutes. In addition to the feature film, DVD has Special Features that include:
Scene Access
Photo Gallery
Forward: Anatomy of H. G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds" by Charles Keller, H. G. Wells Society, the Americas. (23 pages of text about Well's original book)
H. G. Wells Biography (2 pages of text)
Trailers
[NEW VERSION] As to the editing it is true that the newer one has been improved. The tighter editing made the film's pace faster than the first one. Instead of deleting one entire episode, the newer one shortened or removed one or more shots of each scene. You notice some part of dialogues or shots (of characters walking in the country road, for instance) are missing in the revised edition. This is certainly is improvement as a whole, but the film's tempo would have been much better had they removed certain episodes entirely, such as the one in which an old man is locked in the barn.
However, I didn't notice much difference in the special effects, which was not the best I had seen. I'm sorry if I am wrong, but I watched the earlier version for comparison again and my impression is, frankly, what's the difference? That does not mean they didn't retouch the film. In the original version, film's continuity was not clear in the scenes where we witness the alien's massive attack from the landed cylinder, but the re-edited one makes it clear by inserted footage of moving clouds and added dark tint. The naval action sequence gets much shorter with less shots of the CGI-created boats. All shots of paddle wheeler which were out of place in the original are wisely removed.
But can I call this new film improvement? It is and it is not. It's hard to say. I like the film though I know it is not good. I like the idea of setting the film's time in late Victorian era, but the town didn't look Victorian enough. I like the designs of the tripods better than Spielberg's, but their movements look ... you know ... too light. To really improve these things, the amateurish acting and all means staring from scratch, but that would mean making another film after all.
Rating:  -
Wow. I saw the original 3 hour version last year, and with effort watched the entire thing in one sitting (while drinking a bottle of wine!). Although it was somewhat of a disappointment, especially given the hype around the film, I too generally liked it's quirky and antique style. There were truly some moments of brilliance, but these were ultimately lost in the odd editing and the scenes that dragged and dragged.
I actually was surprised that a re-cut did not come sooner, because even at that time I thought this movie would be really good with some re-tooling. Well, I've watched this new version, and it is a vast improvement! Sure, if you hated the original movie with a passion, no re-cut or re-tooling will ever change your opinion. But this film, at an hour shorter than the original cut - actually has more scenes (such as completing out the artilleryman's story)! I'm not sure how they added scenes but took off time, but they did! For the most part, everything is still there, it just plays better, is totally re-edited, and is now the complete story.
And the special effects are improved as well, but the basic animated style of it remains. They definitely tackled the fixes that really needed improvement - such as giving the heat ray victims a melting flesh sort of look and some other cool things like that.
So overall it's the same movie - but is shortened, added to, improved upon, and much much more watchable. Oh, and I'm keeping my original copy, BTW - cuz that's just a weird bubble in the history of War of the Worlds renditions, but I'm probably not going to watch it again. But this one, yup - it is The War of the Worlds.
Rating:  -
Like all the reviewers below I have not seen the new shortened and improved version hyped in Amazon's e-mail. I cannot imagine that shortening the original will do it many favours, as I suspect this will simply lose what quirky charm it has without improving it. The special effects certainly could do with upgrading, but unless they have been redone from scratch it's unlikely that they'll have changed much.
However, unlike all the previous reviewers, I didn't find the original unwatchable. It's done in the style of a silent film, and though this was probably only done because they had no money and the actors were mediocre, it doesn't entirely fail. Even the dodgy stop motion Martians and the daft 'dancing skeletons' might have impressed an audience in 1919. The original 3 hour film is a closer adaptation of the book than most film versions (at least it's set c. 1900 and not in 1953 or 2005), and in places it does give a decent impression of the collapse of a civilisation. I admit the special effects are pitiful in places, and little effort has been made to hide the fact that it was all filmed in the Pacific Northwest (even the military uniforms are more American than British, while the paddle steamer carrying refugees that 'Thunderchild' saves is a tiny sternwheeler intended for tours on a Washington State lake rather than a proper ship - and someone can't pronounce "Harwich"), but the film was clearly made by someone who cared about the book, and that redeems it to a significant extent. I found it quite watchable for all its faults, and would not throw out or sell my copy.
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