18 years later, Steven Spielberg isn’t happy with the ending to this Tom Cruise sci-fi film, but he still doesn’t know how he should have ended it

news culture 18 years later, Steven Spielberg isn’t happy with the ending to this Tom Cruise sci-fi film, but he still doesn’t know how he should have ended it

An 1898 work adapted for the cinema

The War of the Worlds, an iconic novel by HG Wells that appeared in the late 19th century, is one of the most iconic works of science fiction. Reflecting the fear of imperialism and the Victorian era, the book left a deep impression. For generations, this story has seduced wide audiences by engaging beliefs in war channels and discourses about possible inhabited planets.

In 1895, when author HG Wells had just moved to the country with his wife, he took advantage of a beautiful day to take his brother for a walk, and the duo began talking about Earth’s response to a hypothetical alien invasion. This discussion is not without future: HG Wells is driven by the desire to tell a story around these possible invaders and he begins to pen the War of the Worlds, a work to be adapted into a role-playing game, in comics, feature films and even TV series.

Steven Spielberg’s film follows the journey of Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise), a divorced father living in New Jersey who takes his two children, Rachel and Robbie, home for a few days. While everything is proceeding as naturally as possible, one evening a strange storm breaks out and strange phenomena occur across the city – including car breakdowns.

Suddenly, machines appear from deep within the earth and annihilate everything that gets in their way. The War of the Worlds tells how Ray and his children will try to survive on this planet in utter damnation.

An ending that doesn’t satisfy the filmmaker

The 2005 film adaptation of Spielberg has convinced many viewers. Whether it’s the shock sequences, the acting or the overall production, the film is very strong! Unfortunately, the American director believes his feature film could have ended differently.

In fact, it ends rather abruptly after two hours of great spectacle, and that’s an element that comes up quite often in the conversations of fans of the film. Spielberg readily admits this:

The film doesn’t end well. I never found a way to end this damn thing.

There’s no question of spoiling this, but it turns out that the War of the Worlds doesn’t live up to the American filmmaker (anymore) in its final sequence. It has to be said that the book itself doesn’t exactly end epic. Which leads James Cameron, Spielberg’s defense attorney, to say that the original author faced the same problem himself. We often forget, but the beginning and end of feature films are taken very seriously by directors. They are the ones who set the pace and complete the story. It’s not always easy and we can’t count the number of plants suffering from the same problems. Sometimes it takes months or even years to find the right idea.