I’ve been pretty hooked on two channels lately: Turner Classic Movies and American Movie Classics. It got to the point of realizing I had a problem when I stayed up all night last Halloween watching a Boris Karloff marathon, even though I had to work the next morning. But so what? Old movies kick ass, and watching those two channels as much as I have recently has made me realize just how much everything that comes out of Hollywood these days kinda sucks. I miss low-budget special effects. I miss completely retarded stories that somehow contain a brilliant social commentary. I miss camp. Oh sweet Jesus, do I miss camp.
For years I’ve known the story of War of the Worlds, as well as the infamous radio version debacle. It’s one of my favourite science fiction stories of all time. As I walked out of the newer version of the flick, pretty much all I heard was people complaining about the ending. What the fuck guys? It’s an incredibly popular story, how the Hell did you miss it? In any case, I really liked it, Tom Cruise and all.
I’d never seen the original film version of War of the Worlds until recently, when I caught it on AMC one lazy Sunday afternoon. I was lucky enough to flip by right a the beginning, and intrigued by the fact that it was the original, I decided it was something that I must watch. Not a week later I was out trying to find the film on DVD (needless to say, I loved it), and came across the beauty you see to the left.
Double/triple feature DVDs seem to be all the rage right now, as I see more and more of them every time I browse the movie sections at Wal-Mart and Best Buy. Most of the time, they don’t seem like anything I care to invest in, but the odd time I come across pure gold, like the War of the Worlds/When Worlds Collide pack, and the It’s Alive trilogy (more on that another day). I’d never even heard of When Worlds Collide when I saw this, but given that I was going to buy War of the Worlds anyway, and the double pack was the same price as the solo WotW, it was kind of a brainless move.
I’m going to assume that everyone knows the general plot to War of the Worlds, so I’ll skip that part. If you don’t have any idea what it’s about, you might want to catch up on your genre-defining stories, you uncultured swine. Anyway, I like it way more than the new one. Yeah, it may lack fancy-pants special effect, but the crap effects are hilarious and take me back to a day I wasn’t around to actually experience. The characters, though many more in number, are better if anything, and the entire movie has an undeniable charm that makes it totally lovable. The next logical step for me would be to, you know, read the book.
When Worlds Collide is a very similar beast, though mostly because old sci-fi movies all have a lot in common. Like the gigantic plot holes, for example! The premise for this movie is that a foreign planet is on route to pass close by to the Earth, with its sun following right behind, which is on a direct crash-course with Earth. So what to do? Build a rocket ship to carry a handful of people onto the new planet as it passes by so that the human race isn’t totally wiped out when Earth is crushed by the oncoming star. This was totally sound in 1951, but knowing all we do about space and stuff these days, the timeframe of the movie really fudges up a lot of stuff. The most notable oversight being that the Earth would be burnt to a crisp long before the star smashes into it, which the movie completely fails to consider.
But it’s okay! When Worlds Collide is otherwise a decent movie! The pacing is a little fast, because the plot runs over the course of about a year. In that respect, you miss some of the necessary gradual progression of things like relationships between the characters, but this fault can be overlooked, because otherwise the movie would be like five hours long. The characters are generally pretty likable, some in a “love to hate” way, and the plot is a pretty fun sci-fi take on early space exploration. Granted, I slept through about 15 minutes in the middle, but I’m happy to have watched this movie. It’s the kind of thing you put on every once in a while to remind you that global disaster movies used to be good.
Do I recommend this DVD set? Hells yeah! These are two timeless stories that everyone should be able to enjoy. They’re fun and touching, and I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t enjoy them. I know I enjoy a lot of crappy movies, but I firmly believe that War of the Worlds and When Worlds Collide are two great films. That said, I’m old.