deep, soothing voice of the narrator (Morgan Free-
man) speaking the opening lines of H. G. Wells’s
1898 novel The War of the Worlds, on which the
screenplay was loosely based:
No one would have believed in the last years of the
nineteenth century that this world was being
watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater
than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men
busied themselves about their various concerns
they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost
as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scru-
tinise the transient creatures that swarm and multi-
ply in a drop of water.The ominous nature of this text, along with the
grave voice of the narrator, lets us know that we’re
in for a thrilling story. Furthermore, these few lines
establish the basis of the sound design. Those
“intelligences greater than man’s” inhabit the
colossal tripods, which make thunderous noises. By
contrast, humankind is a puny thing, prone to mak-
ing incredulous assumptions about what is happen-
ing and then whimpering or crying about it.
Big/little, loud/soft: that’s the pattern underscoring
this conflict.
As the action begins with Ray Ferrier (Tom
Cruise) working at a New Jersey container port, we
hear the ambient sounds of this industrial opera-
tion: traffic in and around the area; the television in
Ray’s apartment (bringing an ominous news report
of violent lightning strikes in Ukraine); and dia-
logue between Ray, his ex-wife Mary Ann (Miranda
Otto), and their children (Rachel, played by Dakota
Fanning, and Robbie, played by Justin Chatwin),
who are spending the weekend with their father.
From this point on, however—when the movie rap-
idly enters the surreal world of the story—the major-
ity of the sounds we hear are the work of sound
engineers and technicians: the violent lightning
storm that incites the action, sudden winds that
make the laundry flap wildly on the line, shattering
glass as a baseball breaks a window, the earth-
quake that splits the streets and enables the giant
tripods to emerge, electrical flashes that emanate
from the tripods, and the sounds of explosions,
falling debris, shattered glass, and people being
vaporized as the tripods wreak havoc. There are
also implied sounds, such as what Robbie is listen-
ing to on his iPod, which we cannot hear.
As the crisis in this New Jersey town worsens, we
are overwhelmed by the sounds of fires, explosions,
bridges and highways collapsing, and the screeching
tires of the car as Ray drives frantically out of town.
When Ray and his children reach the temporary
safety of his ex-wife’s new house, there are more light
and lightning storms, heavy winds, and the sounds of
a jet aircraft crashing on the front lawn. Many of
these sounds were produced in the Foley lab.Sounds introduce conflictAt the beginning of Steven
Spielberg’s War of the Worlds(2005; sound designer:
Richard King), we hear loud, high-pitched sounds
(accompanying eerie atmospheric effects) and realize that
something terrible is going to happen. Here, Ray Ferrier
(Tom Cruise) and his daughter, Rachel (Dakota Fanning),
brave the roaring winds to watch the darkening skies.The tripods’ warningFor the first time, Ferrier sees and
hears the foghornlike warning “voice” of the tripods. He and
his neighbors, who do not yet understand what’s happening,
seem stunned by the tripods——as much by their massive size
as by their ill-portending sounds.TYPES OF FILM SOUND 411