War Of The Worlds – The Extinctive Cut

Review by veggieguy12 — March 13, 2011 @ 2:40 pm

As the reviewer above wrote, “I’m giving this a 7/10. Not Boon’s fault at all… I greatly *admired* this fanedit, I wish I could say I *enjoyed* it as well.”
There was a vast improvement, and if Boon was in the editor’s role for Speilberg and the studio, this could have been awesome – though Tim Robbins would have gotten no paycheck.
Editing: 9/10, Movie in Fanedit Form: 7/10

Review by spelledaren — August 4, 2009 @ 1:51 pm

Thanks, great work on this one.

Not too fond of every change of scene, but then, how often does that happen? Really liked most that was done.
The movie, for some reason, doesn’t feel really -complete- to me, as if something’s a bit off. Wonder why.

8/10 for me, improving upon the original.

Added ratings for the categories. Entertainment down to 7.

“Its not enough to survive... One has to be worthy of survival. “ Commander William Adama.

Sadly, such a notion is not universal. That might explain the survival of repellent lead characters. After two hours of the original, viewers will likely root for the alien raiders to capture, consume and silence our ordinary fellow humans.
Boon is biting off a lot here, trying to paint lipstick on a cancerous pig, attempting to carve the crap without leaving behind a corpse.

Video: MPEG 720 X 480p. Let’s get this out of the way. Once you hit PLAY and have to choose which version of CBB’s edit, Extinctive is transposed to Extincitve. Oversight that should have been caught long ago.

In both Extinctive and Purist cuts, once past Chapter 10, resolution is poorer. This seems more noticeable in Extinctive, especially with blacks and deep shadows.

Audio: 2 Channel AC3. Subtitles - yes! Sound is really good here, with a nice dynamic range.

Narrative: I watched both versions, and both are cohesive and logical. Extinctive ending held an unexpected surprise. Can’t say that I bought it from a logical point of view. Questions about how long a future time frame are we looking at? Food supplies? Water? Politicians? Still, it might be taken as a Hollywood 70s ending. The Purist was OK and I had no problem with omitting the microbial aspect.

Enjoyment: Did someone say extras? Man, Boon is generous with the goodies! Trailer, Deleted Scenes, the shack with and without Robbins, a chunk of CBB edits to boot.

If one means “enjoying the actual film” - I disliked the original and my dislike for the edit is only marginally less. Problem is with source material. Characters you can’t wait to get killed. Blame script or directing. And Spielberg has a curious history of terrorizing children into screaming. Not judging, just saying. There is less of that in this edit, and CBB reimagines Robbie’s path well.

Recommended to fans of the original. Naysayers will still be displeased.

I watched this one a while ago but never wrote a review. Definitely not the best CBB edit. While I liked some of the changes (a lot of the minor cuts worked well for me) the big changes left me confused and irritated. Note, I watched the Extinctive ending, not the Purist ending. Purist ending might have been more up my alley but I never felt like rewatching the edit.

Editing was kind of a mixed bag. The removal of Oglivy (or whatever) was really well done but simple scene transitions felt awkward and other scenes were choppy.