Amazon’s War of the Worlds Uses Real Disaster Footage For Its Alien Invasion

When I wrote about Amazon’s War of the Worlds last month, I focused on its poor reviews and reception. The latest adaptation of H. G. Wells’ classic sci-fi novel currently enjoys a 4% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and critics have ripped into the film for its cheesy premise, awful effects and performances, and blatant Amazon product placement. (The film’s climax literally hinges on the purchase of an Amazon gift card.)

As bad as those might be, there’s an even bigger and more legitimate reason to dogpile on the film: it uses real disaster footage for its scenes of aliens invading and decimating the planet.

Shortly after the film’s release, Anthony Finchum — who posts online extensively about world disasters — posted a video on TikTok that highlights the various real world disasters the appear in War of the Worlds via found footage. These disasters include the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire, the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion, and the 2011 Tōhoku tsunami, as well as a recreation of the 2013 airplane crash at Afghanistan’s Bagram Airfield.

Corridor Crew also covered this controversy in a recent “VFX Artists React” video. As Niko Pueringer points out, it’s one thing to use disaster footage for reference material or in a way that’s contextually relevant (e.g., newsreel footage in a war film). It’s quite another to take footage of tragedies that involved the very real loss of human life and property, drop it into your film “as is,” and dress it up with some CGI aliens. Doing so is just a gross trivialization of pain and suffering.

Pueringer’s couchmate Jordan Allen drives this home when he brings up the notion of someone dropping aliens into footage from 9/11 or Columbine. If that makes you feel angry and maybe even a little sick to your stomach, then congratulations: you’re a decent human being. One wonders if the same can be said of the film’s director and producers.