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ronnywhite
SFN Regular
501 Posts |
 Posted - 12/29/2005 : 23:00:32 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Snake
...Yes Ronny, you got that right, it's the scene with the preist...
First thing that came to mind (and my favorite, too)... that had to be it! |
Ron White |
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Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 12/29/2005 : 23:02:51 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Chippewa
My late father worked on "War of the Worlds". He was in the continuity department. (Making sure a piece of rubble was in the same position to match the shot a day later, etc.) My dad had interesting stories about the movie. Dad always liked the priest getting zapped too! Though the director, George Pal was something of a fundie. Pal started in movies with animated puppets, which he called "Puppetunes". The stories were often religious.
My dad also worked on "Destination Moon", another Pal production which was terrific. Space artist Chesley Bonestell did the lunar matte paintings. Yet another Pal SciFi epic was "When Worlds Collide". He managed to get some religious connotations into that film too, but it was still pretty good.
Some other stuff my dad told me: Yes, as you may have suspected, the Martian death ray was designed to resemble a Cobra head, and moved sideways menacingly in the manner of a snake before striking. They used a garage door spring as the basic sound for the ray building up energy before firing.
My dad and I both loved the Northrop flying wings, and it's a delight to see one actually flying in color in that movie.
Interesting about Pal being a fundie. I didn't really know much about him other than his extensive creativity with FX.
Glad I didn't know, might not have enjoyed all those wonderful movies as much over the years. Some how knowing what a person thinks sort of taints what they do, for me.
I didn't remember the Stelth plane until I saw it this time in the film again. Wow, was I impressed to see in in the movie. I actually saw the real one flying overhead, the 'new' one, a couple of years ago at an air show here in the Los Angeles area. It's fantastic. I didn't know there was one just like it 50 years ago.
My room mate while watching the movie with me made a comment that the 'eye' looked like a snake. I made the comment that the sound was much like the one in 'Them'. About the giant ants! Do you know if it is? It's been a while since I've seen that movie too, so maybe my memory isn't correct. |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 12/30/2005 : 00:04:28 [Permalink]
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From Trivia for The War of the Worlds:quote:
The Flying Wing depicted in the movie is the Northrop YB-49. Two were built and both crashed. Stock footage was used in the movie.
quote:
Originally posted by Snake
I made the comment that the sound was much like the one in 'Them'. About the giant ants! Do you know if it is? It's been a while since I've seen that movie too, so maybe my memory isn't correct.
Maybe.
quote:
The sound effects of the Martian war machines were created from three electric guitars played backwards. The sound of the Martian screaming after Forrester hit it was a mixture of a microphone scraping along dry ice and a woman's scream played backwards. The former set of sound effects became widely used stock sound effects after the film was released and were used to this day. They are still in use.
Them was released a year after War of the Worlds was, though the trivia page for Them doesn't mention if the picture used the same sound effects or not.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 12/30/2005 : 00:06:16 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by ronnywhite
Back then aliens were mostly hostile it seems (there was The Thing, The Blob, Invasion of the Body Snatchers etc.) Except for "Forbidden Planet," It wasn't until "ET" when the cinema extraterrestrials started to mellow out.
Funny you should mention Forbidden Planet, my room mate is not into Sci Fi. Lucky I got him to watch War of the Worlds, haha but the next film I wanted to watch was Forbidden Planet, he refused. I've seen it so many times but not recently. Love that movie. Right, there were no aliens in there, I don't think. The monster was being controled from within his mind.
I bet no one knows a movie called 'Man From Planet X', I only saw it once, on TV, and missed the beggining so don't know how he got here on Earth but he was not hostile. In fact it was the Earthlings who were the aggressers. I think there are other movies pre ET where you will also find that to be the case. Maybe not as many though, not sure. Movies do reflect the times, and the propaganda is in them. Sci Fi is a good genre to use for that.
I also happen to like Charlie Chan, we were watching one about some secret bomb plans that were stolen. You should have heard the very racial remarks about the Japanese. No way they could say anything about any group of people like that today.
(Too bad, I hate when people are afraid and must act 'politicaly correct') |
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Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 12/30/2005 : 00:09:38 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by H. Humbert
From Trivia for The War of the Worlds:quote:
The Flying Wing depicted in the movie is the Northrop YB-49. Two were built and both crashed. Stock footage was used in the movie.
quote:
Originally posted by Snake
I made the comment that the sound was much like the one in 'Them'. About the giant ants! Do you know if it is? It's been a while since I've seen that movie too, so maybe my memory isn't correct.
Maybe.
quote:
The sound effects of the Martian war machines were created from three electric guitars played backwards. The sound of the Martian screaming after Forrester hit it was a mixture of a microphone scraping along dry ice and a woman's scream played backwards. The former set of sound effects became widely used stock sound effects after the film was released and were used to this day. They are still in use.
Them was released a year after War of the Worlds was, though the trivia page for Them doesn't mention if the picture used the same sound effects or not.
Cool! Thanks for the info. |
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ronnywhite
SFN Regular
501 Posts |
Posted - 12/30/2005 : 01:54:55 [Permalink]
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RE Flying Wing, yea, of all the bold/unusual conceptual engineering efforts that briefly come-and-gone from that "Golden Age of Aviation" era, that one was ambitious, but not practical in it's time. Now the (XB-70) Valkarie... that thing just incredible!
quote:
Originally posted by Snake
...Movies do reflect the times, and the propaganda is in them. Sci Fi is a good genre to use for that...
That's true. Book I read years ago by William Shatner (not "good", maybe unless one's a hard-core star trek fan or something, which I'm not... it was "ok", I suppose) said they frequently incorporated political messages in the scripts. Other than that, 1960's Star Trek, as well, left me little doubt that most aliens are hostile- from the ones that looked like skinny humans in the original pilot (aside from having bald craniums the size of basketballs covered with veins) to the Klingons, Romulans, those brains in that Plexiglass bubble that lit-up like colored light bulbs when they talked etc. etc. most extra-terrestrials seemed to be pretty big jerks. A few were pretty cool, though.
... No way they could say anything about any group of people like that today...
[/quote]
Yea, and I even see the way things have changed in that way when I've seen TV shows from when I was a teen in re-runs on rare occasion. Glanced at a "Charlies Angels" (mid 70's) on some cable channel or another maybe a year ago... that was pretty conservatively done by today's standards, and even so, in the maybe 20 minutes I watched it there was a scene emphasizing (in passing) that they were in the "bad part of town" by showing a minority in stereotypical pimp-attire wandering by (he was the sole minority I seen in the episode, and the show itself overall was mostly caucasion from what I recall of it)... that kind of thing would never wash these days.
...(Too bad, I hate when people are afraid and must act 'politicaly correct')...
[/quote]
Kind of a "fact of life" sometimes, I guess. Seen at least several incidents in the last couple of decades which suggested strongly to me that those with political power in our country can- and sometimes will- give people openly critical of them, or who act disrespectfully in a public way (which might translate to an attack on their public image) who are, or might be in positions to hurt their popularity numbers, such as media personalities and celebrities- varying degrees of difficulty or hardship. A little disturbing, but not much one can say about it. In numerous other countries, it's much worse I've read and been told.
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Ron White |
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Chippewa
SFN Regular
USA
1496 Posts |
Posted - 12/30/2005 : 02:28:21 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Snake
...I actually saw the real one flying overhead, the 'new' one, a couple of years ago at an air show here in the Los Angeles area. It's fantastic. I didn't know there was one just like it 50 years ago...
The old Flying Wings were quite impressive!
The Germans also developed a secret flying wing jet fighter during World War II. |
Diversity, independence, innovation and imagination are progressive concepts ultimately alien to the conservative mind.
"TAX AND SPEND" IS GOOD! (TAX: Wealthy corporations who won't go poor even after taxes. SPEND: On public works programs, education, the environment, improvements.) |
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