Heavy Metal Magazine Fan Page - Movies - War Of The Worlds: Goliath

Basic Information

Release Date - July 14, 2012 screening in San Diego. September 22, 2012 world premiere in Los Angeles. November 15, 2012 in Theaters (in Malaysia, P13 version) by Golden Screen Cinemas. March 7, 2014 in limited American theaters. April 1, 2014 on blu-ray, DVD, and VOD.

Running Time - 88 mins.

MPAA Rating - PG-13 (Fantasy War Violence Including Some Disturbing Images)

Production Studio - Tripod Entertainment Sdn Bhd

Distributor - Anderson Digital, Barking Cow Media Group

Links:
Official site
Facebook Group
The Internet Movie Database

Disc Features

Region 1 - Blu-ray:
- Audio: English (DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1, and Commentary by Joe Pearson and David Abramowitz)
- Subtitles: English For The Hearing Impaired, English, Spanish, Chinese, and Bahasa Malaysia
- 1.78:1 Widescreen
- 2D and 3D
- Special Features: "Stories Before The War: St Petersburg" - The comic from the Summer 2011 issue of Heavy Metal: 3.5min.
- Special Features: "Stories Before The War: The Oath" - The comic from the Summer 2011 issue of Heavy Metal: 8.5min.
- Special Features: "The Movie In Storyboards" - A picture-in-picture of the storyboard for the whole movie, while the movie plays: 88min.
- Special Features: "Meet Our Voice Actors" - Brief text about actors and their characters
- Special Features: "The Art Of War: War Machine Blueprints" - Design images for various war machines
- Special Features: "The Art Of War: Production Gallery" - Various design images
- Special Features: "Trailer" - 2.5min.
- Special Features: "The Lovers" - Storyboards and the audio for an intimate scene cut from the movie: 2min.
- Special Features: "The Making Of War Of The Worlds: Goliath" - This feature may not work on some systems: 24min.
- Previews: Time Warrior - 2min.
- Previews: Poseidon Rex - 1.5min.

Region 1 - DVD:
- Audio: English
- Subtitles: Spanish, Chinese, and Bahasa Malaysia
- 1.78:1 Widescreen
- Special Features: "The Movie In Storyboards"
- Special Features: "Meet Our Voice Actors"
- Special Features: "The Art Of War"
- Special Features: "Trailer"
- Special Features: "The Making Of War Of The Worlds: Goliath"

Credits

Main Crew:
Director - Joe Pearson
Writer - David Abramowitz, Joe Pearson, and Leon Tan
Producer - Leon Tan, Joe Pearson, David Abramowitz, and Mike Bloemendal
Executive Producer - Kevin Eastman

Animation:
- Studio Climb (background and vehicle design)
- Silver Ant Art Lab (CG modeling)
- Epoch Ink Animation (storyboards)
- Sun Min Image Studios Co, Ltd (animation)
- Basecamp Films (stereoscopic 3D)

Main Cast:
- Peter Wingfield - Captain Eric Wells
- Elizabeth Gracen - Lieutenant Jennifer Carter
- Jim Byrnes - Theodore Roosevelt
- Tony Eusoff - Lieutenant Raja Iskandar Shah
- Beau Billingslea - Private Abraham Douglas
- Rob Middleton - General Sergei Kushnirov
- Adam Baldwin - Wilson
- Mark Sheppard - Sean O'Brien
- Matt Letscher - Captain Manfred Von Richthofen
- Adrian Paul - Corporal Patrick O'Brien

Music - Score:
Composer - Luka Kuncevic

Music - Songs:
- Luka Kuncevic - "Forever Autumn (Montage Version)"
- Jinx Chin - "Coming Home To A.R.E.S."
- Iain McNally - "Martian In A Jar"
- Luka Kuncevic - "Forever Autumn (Goliath Version)"

Additional Information

This story is not directly based on Heavy Metal, but it is a sequel to the classic The War Of The Worlds novel by H.G. Wells. There were many War Of The Worlds: Goliath short stories in the magazine in 2011. The movie was originally intended on being part of a series of Heavy Metal Videos, but those plans changed, and it became an independent project.

Lostboy's Review

The cultures of Earth divided; on the verge of the First World War. At the same time, it's a world brought together by interplanetary war. The idea is very interesting, and full of possibilities.

In this alternative history, humans adopt Martian technology from their last attack, and this is definitely seen predominantly throughout the film, which makes for a nice steampunk image. A great amount of detail went into the machine mechanics, which boarders on the obsessive. It immerses you in a somewhat believable alternate history of 100 years ago. Although with this futuristic machinery and army, I often forgot that this isn't modern, but is 100 years ago. But still, it's a great look overall.

War Of The Worlds: Goliath is a pure action movie. Don't expect much more then that. Although the setting is a good idea, the story doesn't really venture outside of battle, and so it doesn't explore too much of the interesting possibilities of this alternate history. I also thought there was no character depth, and I didn't care or feel any emotion for any of them. The story itself is straight forward and easy to follow, which makes it a little boring. It relies on its battle scenes to keep the movie going, and in that aspect, it doesn't disappoint. I questioned some of the tactics and other logistics, but there is enough battle variety to keep it interesting, without it becoming stale. As this is a War Of The Worlds movie, I guess a lot of war scenes are to be expected.

The music and soundtrack throughout was well fitting, and the acting was nicely done. However Jennifer, played by Elizabeth Gracen, had some of the cheesiest and worst cliché lines in the movie. But that's due to the writing, not the acting.

One of the major issues to stand out for me was the default Master Audio track on the Blu-ray disc. I couldn't get past the bass and muted speech. The music and sound effects were loud, and being a war movie there was no shortage of exploding bass. But when someone spoke, they were pretty quiet. I was constantly turning the volume up and down throughout the entire movie, making it very distracting to the viewing experience.

I also tried the Dolby Digital audio track, but it's only slightly better. It's not as crisp and dynamic as the other track. It also hardly takes advantage of the surround sound, and it seems like it's more blended and neutralized. But it doesn't have quite the same problem with the high-low volume as the Master Audio, so I did find it to be better.

I thought the animation was done very well overall. The backgrounds and vehicles are very impressive with a lot of smooth animated details. The CG and hand drawn animation blended wonderfully together. However I found the character animation could have used improvement. They were sometimes jittery and could have used a few more frames drawn, and half of the men looked like they were on a massive amount of steroids, which is a style I don't personally care for. There were also a few errors, such as backwards lettering and other minor anomalies. But overall, nitpicking aside, I thought it looked beautiful. I didn't see the 3D version, so I can't comment on that.

There was a scene cut from the movie, which is found as a feature called The Lovers. Personally I'm glad this was cut. It seemed really out of place from the rest of the movie, and it would have just felt gratuitous if it was left in.

The Making Of feature on my Blu-ray disc didn't work when I played it on my PS3, but when I tried it on my computer, it played without a problem. If you're having the same issue, I suggest trying it on a different device if you can, and see what happens.

When the movie was over, it had a bit of a To Be Continued ending. I normally hate it when movies do that, but with this movie, they did finish the story, and it was only a hint of what might be next. Which did make me wonder; I would like to see what's next. In this alternate history, what would the outcome of WWI be? What would an invasion be like during WWII? What if we introduced nuclear weapons?

I wish the movie had more multi-strand plotlines to follow, less action, and better character development. However, as an action film, it's very well done, and brings some unique ideas into play. In the end, the movie did make me want more.