Without Warning

Shown 30 October, 1994, the Anniversary of the radio broadcast of War Of The Worlds, Without Warning is a tribute to the legendary radio broadcast. The film effectively represents the feel of War of the Worlds, by using a real life news anchor, Sander Vanocur, and newslike camera work. The effect was so real, that thousands of people called TV stations asking if it was real. Without Warning is a well executed salute to the War of the Worlds broadcasts of the 1930s. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in War of the Worlds, and the recent asteroid movies, Deep Impact and Armageddon.

As the final commercial comment said, a realistic depiction of fictional events that never occurred. For Halloween of 1994, CBS paid homage to the Orson Welles radio broadcast of "War Of The Worlds" with a story about asteroids colliding with Earth. The movie is told in a style of interrupted TV broadcasts, eventually becoming on the air news of the destruction of the world. It is told like a series of newscasts breaking up normal broadcast television. (In fact, the movie opens up with a clip from a Mario Bava picture.) This is the movie's greatest strength.

To add to the realism, they used real news caster Sander Vanocur as the "star." It may seem kind of redundant, but, Vanocur does play a fake newscaster well, as if it is real. In too many cases, like say sports stars, it's hard to act playing your profession on screen. He lends the film believability, much the same way he does to the news scenes in "Street Fighter: The Movie." With cameos by, as themselves, Arthur C. Clarke and a bevy of people who you probably wouldn't know playing themselves, one might be forgiven for believing it if they came in on the middle on this. Only the appearances of established actors John de Lancie, Dennis Lipscomb (From another disaster epic, "The Day After.") Philip Baker Hall, and she who would become the mother of Malcolm In The Middle reassure anyone who hasn't been watching from the beginning that it's a fake.

The only real problem with this production are a few science fiction cliche's thrown into the story. Yes, we know we humans are barbarian. But, how else would you react when directed asteroids were being hurled your way, even if they may (Or may not.) have been under control of an alien, peaceful intelligence merely trying to send us a message? You take steps to prevent them from crashing into you. And, yes, blowing things up is a violent reaction, but, if you were an alien trying to peacefully contact Earth, would you rain down stone armageddon (Excuse the pun.) from the skies?



All in all, the final result is a pleasing surprise of extended, building suspense and (mostly) logical story progression. The ending is a nice surprise, where the denoument doesn't extend too long, for once. I'm glad I taped this during its first run, as I've not seen it air anywhere in the US since. Another perfect unknown candidate for a video release.

I had high hopes for this film. The idea of a "War of the Worlds"-style fake news broadcast about an imminent asteroid impact was very intriguing. One of my favorite TV films was 1983's "Special Bulletin", which took a similar approach to the subject of nuclear terrorism.

Unfortunately, this movie fails on almost all levels. The actors playing the news reporters come off like, well, actors playing news reporters. The plot points are just plain silly and melodramatic. The conclusion of the film is wretchedly insipid. In effect, the fact that humankind takes perfectly logical steps to protect ourselves from an asteroid causes super-advanced aliens to think we're too warlike for them to let us live. Or something like that.

The issue of asteroid impacts is real and serious enough that we don't need television trivializing the subject with ridiculous sci-fi elements.

I saw this pretty late at night, and it draws you in so much. The plot twists and turns in an amazing story that mirrors a real-situation, so much that I thought it was a real news broadcast too. Only the appearance of Q from Star Trek, and references to 1994 gave the game away.

The end sequence, from the destruction of the 3 meteors onwards was as tense as many of the scenes in films like Scream. It also showed man's darker side, and gave many lessons for the future.

It wouldn't work on the big screen, but on the small screen it is one of the best films I have seen in a long time. And that's saying a lot for a film of such small stature!

Before I comment on the execution of this 1994 TV movie, I'd like to say something about the unbelievably pompous sermonizing this movie does by offering this hypothetical. Suppose Captain Kirk sent an unmanned shuttle to contact a planet that had never experienced an alien contact before, and then the aliens, not having any clue what this was, then shot the shuttle down. Captain Kirk then decides this is a hostile act and decides to nuke the planet and destroy all life on it.

Now if Captain Kirk did this, you'd think he was a madman and the epitomoe of all things evil. You would not as a matter of course blame the aliens for not knowing any better. So why then I ask, does this TV-movie serve up the exact same premise to us, and then deliver a scathing indictment about how this is all humanity's fault, and that our barbarism caused this, and that ultimately, as Sander Vanocur says before Washington blows up around him, "The fault lies not in our stars but in ourselves"? That kind of thinking is not merely insulting to one's intelligence, it's just plain dumb. Yet for some reason, Hollywood has long had a fascination with this incredible cliche of how aliens are always wiser than humans and that any normal reaction of fear on the part of humans constitutes barbarism making destruction by the aliens justifiable (this after all is the very premise of "The Day The Earth Stood Still").

Now setting aside the dumb philosophy, how does this work in terms of execution? Only so-so. I can't believe anyone would have fallen for this in a minute since it should have occurred to them to merely change channels and then remember that the last time Sander Vanocur was a serious journalist was a long time ago. But then again, the people who listened to Orson Welles long ago never had the sense to do that either so I suppose that can be forgiven. The problem with this fake newscast is that we are served up the most shallow of cliched characters to represent the different points of view in the scientific, military and political communities and you can't take them seriously for a second. This is always the greatest problem with any "fake newscast" style of drama. They spend so much time trying to make the newscasting sound authentic that in the end they forget all about trying to make the characters themselves have the ring of authenticity.

As mindless entertainment this film has its merits but for chilling authenticity in a fake newscast, try to find Buffalo radio station WKBW's 1971 update of the War Of The Worlds. THAT was a drama that knew how to push all the right buttons and come off with an air of authenticity.