More shots from the WAR OF THE WORLDS

And we hazard a guess as to what one of them may be

By Patrick Sauriol     December 16, 2004
Source: DreamWorks Fansite

Two nice exclusives have shown up on the DreamWorks Fansite pertaining to the WAR OF THE WORLDS film shooting right now. The first is a look at the teaser poster that a quick-thinking reader took a digital photograph of. The image shows us the movie's logo artwork and also may reveal a plot element that we'll see in the Spielberg directed film next summer: if you look closely below at the edge of the fire (just under the "Worlds" part of the logo) you'll see something that looks like thin tentacles. Hold that thought for a moment.

The second exclusive appearing on the site are seven spy photos showing Spielberg and stars Tom Cruise and Miranda Otto working on the film's on-location street sets. Of particular note is the sixth photo showing a close-up of a disfigured woman. Upon first glance the makeup on the actress' left-side of her face might resemble that of someone who was recently burned, but it may turn out that the injury is more severe and alien in its origin.

As readers of H.G. Wells' novel may recall, when the Martians invaded Earth they attacked not only with their war machines but by using alien biological weapons. One of these was known as the "red weed", a grass-like substance that grew at an astonishingly rapid rate across the land. While the book had the Martians using biowarfare in their invasion of the Earth, the two most famous adaptation of Wells' novel, the 1953 movie and Orson Welles' 1938 radio adaptation, chose not to include this facet of the story in their works. Perhaps Spielberg is, and the photo of the woman with the redness on her face and the images of the "tentacles" seen in the two teaser posters is in fact our first look at the Martians' red weed.

[Thanks to Jawad for the heads up.]


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