How Did This Get Made? – "War of the Worlds (2025)" (September 5, 2025)

Hosts: Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael, Jason Mantzoukas
Episode Theme: A hilarious takedown and dissection of the new, much-ridiculed "War of the Worlds (2025)"—an Ice Cube-starring, COVID-era retelling of H.G. Wells’ classic story, which leans heavily on webcam filmmaking, product placement, and questionable technology.

Episode Overview

This episode dives into the internet-infamous flop "War of the Worlds (2025)," just weeks after its release—and its immediate rise to meme status thanks to a 0% Rotten Tomatoes score (later 3%). The comedy trio, joined briefly by producer Scott, gleefully unravel the movie’s baffling choices: COVID-inspired single-location acting, relentless product placement (hello, Amazon Prime), and a plot hinging on alien data vampires and surveillance culture. The review ranges from incredulity to reluctant admiration—if not for the film, then for its unintentional comedy.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Premise and COVID Context

• Origins: The movie was filmed at the start of the COVID pandemic and released five years later.
  • June: “I thought that it was a Covid movie… Like this was made on March 14, 2020… everybody just had their iPhones and a computer screen…” [03:28]
  • Paul: “It was shot right at the beginning of COVID...” [04:05]
• Delayed Release: The group jokes about the attempt to update the VFX over five years, only for the movie to still look like “everything is a docusign.”
  • Jason: “Everything looks like a docusign. Nothing looks real.” [04:45]
• Single Location Filming: Actors are mostly on their own, speaking to phones or webcams, which becomes its own running joke about “webcam acting Olympics.”

2. Plot Breakdown and Character Oddities

• Ice Cube stars as Will Radford, an expert NSA surveillance analyst who monitors everyone—including his own family via smart fridge cameras and Facebook.
  • Paul: “He is stalking his children, he is stalking the refrigerator of his children.” [06:24]
  • Product placement is rampant: Amazon Prime, Tesla, Facebook, Microsoft Teams, and more.
• The Alien Threat: Aliens attack Earth by sabotaging satellites and critical infrastructure, but the movie makes the inciting action about stealing “data.”
• Data centers are literal targets; aliens are described as “feeding” on data.
  • Scott: “This whole attack is just a big diversion to get those tripods to the data centers…” [11:43]
  • Paul: “All these robots are just fingering the data.” [12:11]

3. Product Placement and Absurd Tech Use

• Amazon is the hero: From a drone-delivered zip drive (which Ice Cube has to literally 'add to cart') to saving the world with “Prime” delivery.
  • June: “They're not gonna have... Amazon be the...thing that saves the world... They did.” [11:17]
  • Jason: “Just to see how easy it is to order quickly on Amazon… even in the end times…” [17:31]
• The film’s depiction of technology (dropdown menus like “show sensitive government addresses,” hacking by clicking “data” pictures, etc.) is hilariously unconvincing.
  • Jason: “There are shots in this thing where I just wrote down some of the things that are available in dropdown menus…” [35:42]

4. Technical and Dramatic Incoherence

• Characters communicate only through video chat—even in mortal danger.
• The action often devolves into watching Ice Cube furiously click around multiple computer screens.
  • Jason: “It gave me a panic attack, like too many open active windows on his desktop.” [02:51]
  • June: “I would love someone to pull some data on how. How much screen time is devoted to just his screen and moving windows around…” [48:44]
• Real-Time Confusion: The passage of time is inconsistent; all scenes seem to proceed in “real time,” though time jumps are unclear.
• Stakes and Contradictions: Characters act like the world is ending, but news channels still broadcast, Amazon drones still deliver, and WiFi never goes down.
  • June: “People have access to Internet still. Like they took down a lot. Yeah, but they didn’t take down our WiFi.” [33:07]

5. Plot Holes and Absurdities

• Ice Cube's powers as an “analyst” defy logic: he coordinates the global war effort, talks to the president, and directly controls high-level military drones—for some reason.
  • June: “He runs the world alone. Alone in that office. But at the same time … he has no idea what's happening and is making all the terrible decisions.” [40:45]
• The villainous aliens’ plan—to “eat” data—is never explained, and the film confuses tech jargon throughout (including a running joke about how characters say “data”).
  • Paul: (montage) “Data, data, data, data ... They're eating our data. My data is being drained.” [47:19]
• The Disruptor Twist: The hacker they’re tracking is Ice Cube’s own son—and the protagonist never figures it out despite surveilling his every move.
  • Paul: “The fact that he couldn’t figure that out makes me think he’s dumb. Absolutely terrible.” [31:08]
• Dramatic Scenes Undercut by Context: Ice Cube’s big emotional letter to his kids is a string of disconnected sentences, written while saving the world.
  • Scott/Pseudovoice: “Dear Faith and Dave, being a parent is hard....” [72:13]
  • June: “There’s not a paragraph to be found in that.” [73:17]

6. Unintentional Comedy and Performance

• The hosts repeatedly marvel at how the actors are “working so hard at an impossible task”—acting world-ending drama to a webcam, alone, against green screens.
  • Jason: “It’s impossible to act, not just to act against nothing, but to act against nothing but have the stakes be so high.” [60:30]
• Eva Longoria as “Sandra, NASA” is a standout, earning the hosts’ praise for her professionalism amidst the chaos.

7. Running Jokes and Memorable Quotes

• The show amplifies how often “data” is pronounced differently, compiling clips (“data,” “dada,” etc.).
  • June: “And there's only one right way to say it, of course, which is data, data, data.” [47:30]
• Product placement gone wild: “add-to-cart” moments, Amazon drones heroically saving the day, and the “baby daddy” being labeled as such by on-screen tracking overlays.
  • Paul: “This is a world in which aliens are attacking, cities are being destroyed, and when they tell this…guy…‘free cell service’—not moved. But when they say, ‘$1,000 Amazon gift card,’ he risks his life.” [17:43]
• Microsoft Teams as the global crisis command line, causing existential distress:
  • Paul: “You can’t have a more jankier video service... I want to turn down that meeting.” [14:28]

8. Critical Reception and Audience Response

• Hosts read truly bewildering (and glowing) 5-star Amazon reviews; some see it as a “profound message,” “corporate world takedown,” or “cyber evasion” thriller.
  • Paul (reading): “I like when the President said, ‘I hereby initiate a war of the Worlds.’ And everyone clapped.” [66:30]
  • June: “Dropping nuclear bombs? … I don't remember that.” [67:43]
• Group debates if this movie is the "Independence Day" for a new generation.

9. Would They Recommend It?

• Universal consensus: it's “wild” and absolutely worth watching—at least the first 15 minutes—for the sheer confusion and unintentional comedy.
  • Paul: “...even at a tight 90, it went down pretty smooth.” [77:21]
  • Jason: “This is the kind of movie that…you can watch while making coffee in the morning…” [77:39]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• Jason: “It gave me a panic attack, like too many open active windows on his desktop.” [02:51]
• Paul: “His cursor is the little hand cursor. It looks like a kid’s computer. ... Not like one 63 year old man.” [04:45]
• Scott: “This whole attack is just a big diversion to get those tripods to the data centers…” [11:43]
• Paul: “All these robots are just fingering the data.” [12:11]
• Jason: “Amazon is the hero of the movie.” [10:34]
• June: “I would love someone to pull some data on how much screen time is devoted to just his screen and moving windows around and answering calls and typing and coding versus, like, action with people and aliens…” [48:44]
• Paul: “It is absolute madness what…he has at his fingertips.” [36:29]
• June: “I did. I liked what he said [in the letter]. … But there's not a paragraph to be found in that.” [73:17]
• Jason: “It’s impossible to act, not just to act against nothing, but to act against nothing but have the stakes be so high is impossible to….” [60:30]
• Paul: “I will fly the Amazon drone to your office…” [61:10]
• June: “He runs the world alone. Alone in that office. But at the same time, like he has. He also seems to have no idea what's happening and is making all the like, terrible decisions.” [40:45]

Important Segment Timestamps

• [02:51] – First impressions and COVID context
• [06:24] – Ice Cube’s character as a stalker and tech voyeur
• [11:43] – Alien plot and “data center” revelation
• [14:28] – Microsoft Teams as emergency command center
• [17:43] – Amazon drone–delivered USB drive
• [35:42] – Hilarious dropdown menus and hacking scenes
• [47:19] – Data/dada pronunciation compilation
• [60:30] – Acting through the webcam—praise for the cast
• [66:30] – Glorious Amazon user reviews
• [77:21] – Final recommendations (“went down smooth”)

Tone and Style

The conversation is fast-paced and irreverent, packed with wit, in-jokes, and exasperation. The hosts riff on every plot hole and delivery device, balance affectionate skewering with some genuine admiration for the cast’s commitment, and return repeatedly to the wild product placement and the absurdities of depicting a global crisis entirely via computer screens and shopping carts.

Final Thoughts

“War of the Worlds (2025)” is (unintentionally) one of the strangest movies the hosts have covered—part pandemic artifact, part Amazon infomercial, part lost dad-thriller. If you crave “pure bonkers,” watch it, even if only to see world-ending drama fought with dropdown menus, Facebook messages, and panic-clicking “add to cart.” As Paul puts it:

“It will still shock you. … Even everything that we’ve just revealed here, it will still shock you.” [58:38]