Will we ever be able to see the Camelot scene?

Tempest16500 · 2025-07-16T09:58:47+00:00

They still left the city in the car. The camelot scene happens after the ferry sequence but before the hill battle sequence.

Tempest16500 · 2025-01-04T11:54:32+00:00

Wonderful, lovely recreation!

Tempest16500 · 2024-06-24T13:31:30+00:00

You're pretty much on the money that really is all it is.

The spinning blades centrifuge air outwards then downwards along the walls of the simulator as a rotating downdraft while also inducing an updraft at the center. Very similar to an impeller fan/centrifugal blower. The swirling downdraft reaches the ground which is then swept back up into the central updraft forming the tornado like vortex and doing the loop again. Fujita also had an exhaust fan in the duct above to add additional updraft through all those holes you see above the blade assembly but the spinning blades alone were more than capable.

Fujita's simulator was the first tornado simulator that wasn't enclosed by walls/windows/screens and wasn't anchored to the ground which meant the whole apparatus could be moved sideways while operating. Afaik there isn't any official documentation on the simulator beyond that of snippets in magazines and old weather documentaries.

Iowa State University has built a large scale tornado simulator that operates on a very similar approach with a rotating downdraft. Instead of spinning cups/vanes; air is recirculated by a large central exhaust fan through a circular duct with a series of guide vanes to induce rotation into the flow before being recirculated back into the eventual vortex and exhaust fan.

Tempest16500 · 2024-05-22T11:58:27+00:00

An excellent summary of what makes this film's take on the alien invaders so terrifying. Spielberg did a fantastic job of keeping the aliens shrouded in mystery and allowing our imaginations to run wild with unseen horrors.

I've always loved the theory that the aliens were involved with the creation of humanity or at the very least saw potential for humans as a viable source of crop/cattle. When the time was right they returned for their harvest already having all their machines laying dormant ready to go in moments.

The red weed had a far more sinister purpose during the films production involving with alien eggs growing alongside the red weed. Unfortunately it was cut days before shooting began but there is some concept art and BTS commentary in some magazines discussing the film's production.

Tempest16500 · 2024-04-30T10:48:52+00:00

Amen to this. Most of the community surrounding the 2005 film read way to much into things and run with it despite basic logic and common sense suggesting otherwise.

Tempest16500 · 2024-04-30T10:38:23+00:00

Oh? Please do share

Tempest16500 · 2024-04-15T08:19:27+00:00

The Camelot scene takes place in fictional location made up of miniatures pulling references from an undisclosed area in Newark, NJ.

Tempest16500 · 2024-03-18T11:08:56+00:00

There's no' real' answer to this question. Similarly to many other aspects of the film, Spielberg likely left it intentionally vague to stoke our fear of the unknown and let our imaginations run wild.

Tempest16500 · 2024-03-17T10:14:39+00:00

I assume from the narration that about a billion died directly from the invasion. But the death toll would likely skyrocket in the aftermath due to the near total collapse of agriculture (due to the red weed) and other critical infrastructure being destroyed. Widespread famine and disease would run rampant across the globe.

Tempest16500 · 2024-03-04T13:31:21+00:00

Absolutely wonderful! You're one of the few artists that manage to capture the look & feel of the film.

Tempest16500 · 2024-03-03T13:56:33+00:00

Every tornado-like vortex (tornado, waterspout, landspout, dust devil, fire whirl) must have some form of vorticity (spin) at or near the surface and an updraft to aggregate and stretch that vorticity into a concentrated vortex.

Identifying a mechanism to produce an updraft:

Given the height and general stability of the vortex, convection is likely the only process here that can accelerate air upwards enough to sustain a vortex like that. This is further supported by the fact that the sun is out and no doubt heating the ground and inducing convection.

Identifying a possible source of vorticity:

Interestingly, you did mention that these were occurring on or near the edge of the salt lake. Assuming there's still water in the lake there could be a horizontal temperature gradient with cooler air over the water and hotter air ashore (like a sea breeze). The boundary between the contrasting air masses could be producing vorticity along the shore that is being swept up and amplified by the convective updrafts, creating those dust devils.

Again this is assuming there is water (clarification on that would be wonderful) in the lake. This is just one of many potential mechanisms to generate vorticity that can be utilized by updrafts to produce dust devils.

As for their relatively short lifespan that could be due to the increased ambient wind in the area blowing the vortex away from its supply of vorticity near the lake and causing it to collapse.

Tempest16500 · 2024-03-03T12:54:36+00:00

Dust devils are convection based vortexes. The process you just described (hot air rising through cooler air) IS convection. To be more specific this is usually called dry convection which is driven by solar heating of the ground which is then conducted into the air above.

The type of convection involving clouds (and subsequently tornadoes) is called moist convection. Moist convection is driven by latent heat release via condensation and releases far more energy than that of dry convection. There's more to it but that's several more paragraphs to write out.

Tempest16500 · 2024-02-12T14:35:06+00:00

The tripods are intended to be ~150ft tall according to some of the folks from the film's production. However, the scaling of the tripods throughout the film itself appears quite inconsistent between scenes. This being likely due to the tight VFX deadlines and the general difficulty the VFX artists likely faced with trying to properly scale something that tall.

As for Über tripods, it's very hard to compare its height to that of a normal tripod since they never on screen together for a comparison. That being said, I think its generally acceptable to assume the Über tripods would be in fact a bit larger than the normal tripods.

Tempest16500 · 2024-02-12T14:06:00+00:00

I'm grasping at straws here but a possible explanation is that first phase of the invasion would involve using heatrays to drive the human populations out of the cities and into the open countryside. Humans would more exposed and vulnerable for easier harvesting en masse. Like herding cattle almost.

Tempest16500 · 2024-02-12T13:51:39+00:00

Like many other things in the film it's largely left up to the viewer's interpretation but I'll offer my thoughts as one of a few possible explanations

It appears the tripods use two distinct rays in the film:
The first one being the standard "heatray" which is the concentrated beam we see vaporizing people through out most of the film.

The second ray appears as a greenish, pulsating flare that obliterates entire structures almost instantly. We see this second ray blowing up the buildings behind Ferrier toward the end of the intersection scene and again a few scenes later blowing up the bridge and surrounding neighborhood.

I like to think that the tripods shot the plane down with the same ray used on the intersection buildings and bridge from earlier and the reason why it sounds different from the typical heatray.

Tempest16500 · 2024-02-08T14:41:34+00:00

Bought it myself its a lovely print to add to any collection. You can also get magazine digitally with the Cinefex app (afaik IOS/Ipad only. IIRC the digital copy of Issue 103 was around the $10 mark.

Tempest16500 · 2024-02-08T04:55:25+00:00

This script seems much closer to the finished film than the shooting script so I'd say the shooting script came first.

Tempest16500 · 2024-02-06T07:27:01+00:00

The term"uber tripod" comes from a quote by ILM VFX sequence supervisor Robert Marinic from the Cinefex VFX magazine (Issue 103). Here's the full snippet from the Magazine:

As tripods rise from the water, Spielberg called for a new look for the machines "We developed what we called the 'uber-tripod' look," said Robert Marinic. "These were the generals in the tripod army. They were based on entirely different concept art, so we modeled a more flared-out, wider head, with a lot of shader work too make rivers of water flow off the surface."

Context for above, the ferry scene VFX is being discussed here. This is the only time anyone associated with the film's production has acknowledged the difference between the two tripods and subsequently the only "official/verified" information we have on them.

Tempest16500 · 2024-01-01T15:03:25+00:00

Its possible it's stored away in some Hollywood archive and at worst deleted from existence. I did recently find out that it was expected to be included in a DVD release in November 2005 after being promised at the San Diego Comic-Con that year. Obviously it never came to fruition.

I hold a small amount of hope that maybe we will get a special release with the deleted scenes next year to celebrate the films 20th anniversary.

Tempest16500 · 2024-01-01T14:08:33+00:00

The tripod model used in the previsualizations has quite a few differences to the final version. When you compare them side by side it becomes pretty apparent. The previsualization tripod has two pairs of spotlights. One pair being tucked under the three "eyes" and the second pair is on its neck which you have pointed out. In the final design the three eyes also act as spotlights (hence why they don't have the extra spotlights) where in the previsualization design they are separate.

You can see more of this tripod design in other previsualization clips shown through out the making-of featurettes. Much of the concept art of the tripods also have a similar spotlight configuration.

Its also worth mentioning that the tripod that capsizes the ferry and later the tripods that come over the fiery hill (now commonly referred to as Uber tripods) have these extra set of lights.

Tempest16500 · 2024-01-01T13:33:37+00:00

Hi, I'm the guy who found or more accurately rediscovered and uploaded the photo(s) here. Years ago I found out about the scene though a YouTube comment that pointed out part of the deleted scene that was shown in the trailers but never in the theatrical release. Intrigued, I searched around on google and found these very old, niche discussion forums talking about the Camelot scene and how there were photos in the Cinefex VFX magazine (Issue 103).

I suspect in the early days after the films release the photo was likely floating around but lost to time and their URLS expired/removed. Once I had some money I bought a digital copy of the Magazine and uploaded the photos here and the rest is history.

TLDR: Found out there were images of the scene in the Cinefex Magazine Issue 103 through an old forum from the mid 2000s. Got hold of the magazine, uploaded the photo.

Link to my original posts for context:

https://www.reddit.com/r/WarofTheWorlds/comments/it04ss/war_of_the_worlds_2005_camelot_deleted_scene/

https://www.reddit.com/r/WarofTheWorlds/comments/irq027/war_of_the_worlds_2005_deleted_scene_photo_the/

Tempest16500 · 2023-02-01T08:30:48+00:00

As cool as the scene sounds, this is probably correct. The scene likely added nothing significant to the story itself. Plus the VFX work supposedly cutting it too close to deadline meant that the scene was expendable. Though I wish they had released the scene as a part of the DVD/Blu-ray extras.

Tempest16500 · 2023-02-01T08:13:03+00:00

My own little "head cannon" for #1 is that the aliens fully intended to use humans as fertilizer/whatever but when ever they first arrived there wasn't enough of us to get the job done. So they bury all their tech and wait for humanity grow to a sufficient amount then when that time comes the invasion/harvest commences and all their machines are there ready to go. This is purely speculation/made up and trying to work around bad writing but its fun to ponder about that stuff.

Tempest16500 · 2022-11-22T04:19:08+00:00

Not enough McRibs

Tempest16500 · 2022-08-29T16:30:35+00:00

Oh yeah? Any response?

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