Calamitous Prime Video sci-fi thriller War Of Worlds uses real footage of disasters and Middle East conflicts, it’s been revealed. The story behind one of the year’s wobbliest, most talked-about films has suddenly become rather darker. Quietly released on Prime Video in late July, War Of The Worlds is the latest attempt to adapt HG ... War Of The Worlds | Prime Video movie uses real footage of attacks and disaster
Calamitous Prime Video sci-fi thriller War Of Worlds uses real footage of disasters and Middle East conflicts, it’s been revealed.
The story behind one of the year’s wobbliest, most talked-about films has suddenly become rather darker. Quietly released on Prime Video in late July, War Of The Worlds is the latest attempt to adapt HG Wells’ seminal invasion novel for a new generation. Ice Cube stars as an NSA analyst watching from his computer screen as aliens descend on Earth and begin destroying everything they see.
It’s an odd concept to begin with – not least because the aliens are here to “steal our data” – but then there’s the execution. Ice Cube spends much of the movie scowling and yelling at his various apps. There are multiple, glaring moments that showcase Amazon goods and services (though the film’s producer later denied that these were paid product placement – more on that in a second). And then there are the VFX, which often look unfinished.
This latter aspect is when the War Of The Worlds story becomes rather grim. Over the weekend, the YouTube channel Corridor Crew pointed out that some shots of alien war machines causing havoc are taken from real-world footage. California wildfires, terrorist attacks and bombings in the Middle East, and video of a military aircraft crash are all shown in the movie, albeit edited and overlaid with alien invader VFX.
So how did something as morally questionable as this happen in a relatively high-profile film production (at one point, The War Of The Worlds was going to be distributed by Universal)? Partly because of trouble behind the scenes.
Read more: War Of The Worlds review | Ice Cube fights an alien invasion – with the help of Amazon
The parts involving such actors as Ice Cube and Eva Longoria were shot in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, and then the film went into post-production the following year. According to Corridor Crew, and anonymous posters on Reddit claiming to have worked on the film’s VFX, a rough cut was put together with temporary effects shots. At this stage, it was intended that all the invasion footage would be seen entirely in a tiny panel on Ice Cube’s computer screen, and so the VFX were made to fit – in other words, they didn’t have to look pristine because they wouldn’t be shown full-screen.
At some point, producers decided that War Of The Worlds needed to be bigger and broader. Those rough VFX shots were then shown full-screen in the finished movie. Footage that was presumably used as a temporary placeholder therefore ended up on Prime Video.
As Corridor Crew discuss in their VFX Artists React video, these are clips of real peoples’ homes and towns being destroyed – real-world tragedies being co-opted into a silly alien invasion movie that also appears to double as an advert for Amazon. The film as a whole is so bizarre that the usage of this footage was easily overlooked; certainly, it’s not something this writer even thought of until Corridor Crew singled it out.
In an entirely separate video, producer Patrick Aiello appeared on YouTube channel Toni’s Film Club to talk about his film’s widespread derision. He talked about how it began as a pitch for a ‘screenlife’ film produced by Timur Bekmambetov, and how Universal looked at the movie and decided to send it straight to streaming. It’s a distinctly rose-coloured view of the production, however, and Aiello rather implausibly says that the constant presence of Amazon products was organic rather than imposed on the filmmakers.
There’s a deeper story to be told about War Of The Worlds’ making, clearly. It’s likely more will emerge in the coming months.
