8 years ago: War of the Worlds

July 14, 2005, on this blog: War of the Worlds

These conservative film critic wannabes want a story to follow the moral outline of the old comics code or of Job’s foolish friend Bildad. They want the good guys to be rewarded for their virtue and the bad guys to be punished for their vice. But Wells’ story isn’t about morality, it’s about power. His Martian invaders have bigger, better weapons so they win and we lose. Period.

This, I think, is what the rightwing critics find most threatening in Wells’ story and Spielberg’s film. It vividly illustrates that might and right are not the same thing, that military superiority is not evidence of superior virtue. If the illustration of such a basic truth can now be interpreted as an “anti-American” political statement, that is neither Wells’ nor Spielberg’s fault.