SSC Film Studies

In the 2005 version of H.G Wells book “War of the worlds” the director Steven Spielberg uses the recent memory of the 9/11-twin towers attack to enhance the films horror as an alien invasion and an attack from the unknown, also to show how paranoia has effected the American citizens and people from all over the world since the 9/11 attacks. The film is set in an post 9/11 world, in the film world the three main characters, Ray, his two children, Robbie and Rachel all live in a world were they have experienced the 9/11 attacks and are still in a state of paranoia that it can happen again. If you look at the young girl in the film Rachel, she throughout the film makes post 9/11 comments, her most obvious one being the quote she says when the three of them are in the car “Is it the terrorists” this is a young girl making a 9/11 remark in a world with a terrorist fear, she doesn’t know anything about why the terrorist attacked 9/11 however I do feel she says this because of the setting and how the aliens have created a massive disruption into her world.

A good example of the director using iconography in the film is the use of grey dust. They grey dust is similar to the scenes in New York City straight after the planes crashed into the twin towers. This creates a sense of realism that the audience can relate to and Spielberg is drawing comparisons between the real life events and the fiction. We see this imagery on screen and automatically think of how we’ve seen stuff like this in real life before.  He also shows people looking on boards of missing people where in the film world it would have only been a few hours since the alien attack happened so the use of the boards is a iconic image of the aftermath of 9/11.

The themes the director has chosen in the film are unbelievably similar to the situation in real life shortly after 9/11 and in modern times now. The theme of paranoia is strong in the film and links with the real life situation after 9/11 where the majority of the united states went into a state of paranoia where there was no trust between society and the government and it even went as far as the USA government setting up a bill to basically spy on the us citizens. A character in the film WOTW, Ogilvy represents the theme of paranoia in the film, he believes the aliens have been on the planet all along, they have been spying and waiting for the right time to attack the planet, the paranoia side of this is the fact that an attack is imminent and just around the corner but they don’t know how, when or where it’s going to happen.  This theory from Ogilvy can also be related to 9/11 in the way that some people believe that the terrorist may not be an outside agent and however may be US citizens, already living amongst the realms of normality, just waiting to attack. Paranoia causes chaos in the film and its shown when the family are in the car driving through herds of people and they start to get attacked, people are ripping the car windows with bear hands and pointing guns at children and the paranoia has taken over them and making them do irrational and stupid things.

Another theme featured in the film is the fear of outsiders and others, this is shown by using the aliens as a direct copy of the Muslim terrorists who were supposedly to blame for the 9/11 attacks. The aliens are represented as different to the Americans with different ideologies and wanting to start a new world with them as the lead race. This is the same motive as the terrorists who attacked the twin towers. Both the terrorists and Muslims are different in appearance to Americans; the terrorists are aliens in a real life situation.