>>213597487 (OP)
The War on Terror stuff really muddled the movie in a way. Some of the imagery really works, the 9/11 inspiration for the first tripod appearance and everything. But trying to parallel the actual diagetic situation to the war on terror in a more meaningful way is just silly. 9/11 is not only beyond insignificant compared to the events of the film in terms of scale and how dire they are, but like qualitatively the situation is actually about as close as you can get to the opposite of 9/11. It wasn't America that got invaded by a vastly materially more powerful force aimed at remaking and exploiting their home according to its cold and merciless interests. Its far closer to an analogy for the Taliban's or Iraq's point of view than America's.
Like is his son trying to fight the aliens bad because its hopeless and he can't make a difference, which would appear to be the case if the movie is taken at face value, or is it bad because signing up to the military after 9/11, a situation with no actual meaningful connection to the events of the film, was bad. This is a really inelegant and ill fitting parallel to try and play around with here.
