War Of The Worlds
If you are looking to see how the New York Times would cover a world war with aliens, look no further then War Of The Worlds. Talk about a pessimistic, defeatist, “give-up-easy” attitude. The aliens may have lost, but it was definitely on a technicality, so its not like we (humans) really “won” the war.
Kinda like the NYT’s coverage of the War on Terror - pessimistic, defeatist, and with a “give-up-too-easy” attitude.
For all of its corny cliche’s and one-liners, Independence Day was a far better “end-of-world-battle-with-aliens-movie”. It was positive, upbeat, and optimistic. And, even more important, we kicked some serious alien ass. In WOTW there was no Will Smith punching an alien in the forehead and delivering the classic “welcome to Earth!” line, with one sentence conveying an entire world’s anger and optimism at the same time. Instead of that, WOTW gives you played-out drama, overdone and slightly cheesy special effects, not-at-all-scary aliens, and the overwhelming sense that we are going to lose this fight and there is nothing at all we can do about it.
Independence Day holds out hope, War of the Worlds squashes it out.
Don’t waste your $10.75.
–Pat