Did anyone else hate Ray's son?
-
reaseltbim — 12 years ago(January 10, 2014 04:41 AM)
well that was the problem. Ray didn't tell him Anything. Anything at all.
I Was more pissed at Ray for not telling the kid anything, The kid wanted to go and kick some alien's butt, but he had no idea bout the shields.
And Ray NEVER told him once about the shields. Wtf?
So yeah, maybe he kid was kind of annoying, but Ray didn't help at all. -
MyDarkStar — 12 years ago(September 25, 2013 11:22 PM)
By the middle of the movie I was hoping both kids would die. I didn't care if it was by one of those energy\laser beams or by getting pulled up into one of those tripods and being sucked into one of those vaginas and having their blood sucked out. I just wanted them to go away.
-
somesunnyday — 12 years ago(September 26, 2013 11:51 PM)
Agree, when the car gets swamped by people and she's screaming out stupid questions like "why is he doing that?" when the guy's trying to bash the windows in, "can't we give him a ride?"
She was young, but not that young. At that age I'm sure we would all realise exactly what was going on and scream at Dad to plant the foot! -
jaystarstar — 12 years ago(October 07, 2013 04:00 AM)
(Insane guy starts to smash windshield)
RACHEL: Can't we give him a ride?
RAY: Yeah, we can give him a ride at about 60 mph plastered to our front bumper as we bulldoze our way through these MFkers until we get our ass across the river.
(Insane guy continues to smash windshield)
RACHEL: AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
(RAY pulls out gun and blasts guy off windshield)
RAY: See? Now he doesn't need a ride any more.- You ever seen Superman $#$# his pants? Case closed.
-
Archeoterrex — 12 years ago(November 08, 2013 08:40 AM)
You're invoking two fallacies. First one is a composition fallacy. You make the broad sweeping generalization that "many" teenagers are like that based upon the few that you know. That's called a stereotype, or when used as an argument (like you are doing now) a composition fallacy. You can't use your own personal experience with a very limited amount of teens in order to make a generalization about them.
Second fallacy you made was a red herring. It doesn't even matter, the kid was still annoying, the fact that you know teens that are frigging idiots does not in any way invalidate or counter the argument that the kid in the movie was frigging annoying and stupid. -
reaseltbim — 12 years ago(January 10, 2014 04:44 AM)
to be honest, No, I did not hate him as much as I hated the little girl. I know she is little and everything but she almost got them killed plenty of times.
They were lucky they didn't die. She kept screaming and being annoying the whole time. Ray's son was annoying but at least he knew when not to yell or when to stop,but that girl. So annoying.
The funny thing is that the crazy guy in the basement had the same exact ideas as Ray's son. Ideas about killing the aliens and fighting them, fighting back. -
Odilwerk — 12 years ago(February 26, 2014 03:17 PM)
He's an irritating character to be sure, however some people just are so I can live with it.
The only thing that actually annoys me about the film itself however is that he actually survives. It's quite clear he wasn't supposed to, however someone clearly had a change of heart when they realised what they had left at the end of the film.
Film should of ended with the entire town they were heading to being a smouldering ruin, the aliens are defeated, but at the cost of a near human extinction. Our very existence saved because of the planet itself, something we have no control over, which in turn we rape and take for granted every single moment. Would of been awesome IMO.
Unfortunately we got sappy Hollywood pap. Missed opportunity. -
Hollylikesmovies — 11 years ago(April 24, 2014 08:33 PM)
I just finished watching this movie again for the first time in a few years and I was just thinking about Ray's son so came here to comment. Here is the thing that really stands out to me:
- In the car scene, Robbie calms Rachel down from her panic doing the whole "this is your space" dialogue
- Anytime Rachel is frightened in the first half of the movie, she jumps into a Robbie's arms and he holds her
- In the plane crash scene, Robbie moves Rachel to the deeper part of the basement first
- When the Army trucks first drive by, Rachel yells at Robbie and says "Where are you going? Who will take care of me if you leave?"
- Other subtle examples of their closeness as siblings: Apparently they don't complain about sharing a room at their father's house. They take each other's side in arguments against their father, such as Rachel saying in the beginning of the movie "You'll never get through to him that way."
So clearly, they have a close relationship and Robbie is her big brother/protector who makes her feel safe. It was a really cruel thing for him to abandon his baby sister and traumatize her/leave her to think that he was dead. Especially with a father he believes does not care about them. Seems like if you stuck to the characterization of Robbie, he would have at least had guilt or been torn about leaving her. It really surprised me the first time I saw the film when a) he was just so obsessed with joining the Army and didn't have a second thought about his sister's safety and b) Ray let him go. I know Ray had to make a tough choice that instant cause some couple was running off with the daughter, but I still didn't expect it to go that way. I expected to see Ray actually figure out how to do some real parenting and drag his son by the ear away from the danger. I just expected that based on the start of the film with him being a pretty lousy dad, I thought this would be his moment of character growth where he'd be like "I can't lose you Robbie" or something that would have still given the moment it's heart warming emotional cheese, but gone a different way.
Seems like the writers decided Robbie had to separate from the family in order to achieve a) some real fear that he was dead and b) in order for the relationship between the father and daughter to improve. I still think Ray could have improved his relationship with both his kids at the same time when he was hiding out in the cellar with that crazy guy.
There's a lot of parents on this board commenting "My kids wouldn't have acted that way blah blah." And I'm going to chime in with the same sentiments. It's hard to watch this and not think of my kids because actually, I have kids exactly the same age and years apart as Robbie and Rachel. So it was hard not to see my kids which got me thinking a lot about how they would act in a crisis. My son would have never abandoned his baby sister. But if he got such a fool idea in his head, I would have been dragging him by his hair saying "Don't you even dare think about it, are you crazy? Your sister needs you" etc etc. Sometimes as a parent you just have to take control.
The dialogue when he does leave "Let me go blah blah" If I were in Ray's shoes I would have been like "You're the only one who can make your sister stop screaming!" LOL, or something like that. But basically "How can you think about leaving your little sister?"
-
Trax-3 — 9 years ago(November 06, 2016 06:46 PM)
Ray let him go. I know Ray had to make a tough choice that instant cause some couple was running off with the daughter, but I still didn't expect it to go that way.
All I could think was: "Why doesn't he leave this moron and go take care of his little girl". -
RussellDunn — 11 years ago(June 09, 2014 10:58 PM)
I just got through reading everyone's disparaging comments about Robbie. While I found his character annoying, I will say I preferred it rather than a son who cowered out at the first sign of danger. Yes he was stupid and not what you would call a model teenager but the kid had guts.
As far as Dakota Fanning, she played the part very good.