Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning play a father and daughter under siege in Steven Spielberg's "War of the Worlds." Cruise's character must protect his kids, played by Dakota Fanning and Justin Chatwin, in an alien attack.

That scene probably was shot in Rockbridge County in the fall. The alien attack forces people to seek safety on a ferry. The alien attack stops traffic in what may be a scene shot in Virginia and then digitally altered.

THE BASICS:

Hits theaters: Wednesday

Official plot: The extraordinary battle for the future of humankind, seen through the eyes of one American family fighting to survive

Cruise's version of the plot: "'E.T.' gone bad."

Based on: 1898 novel by H.G. Wells

Big-screen inspiration: A 1953 adaptation of the novel received an Academy Award for special effects.

Estimated budget: $128,000,000

Filming dates: Nov. 8 to to March 7 (a mere 72 days, or about $1.8 million per day)

Number of extras: several thousand

Number of filming locations: two dozen in five states

Rating: PG-13 for frightening sequences of sci-fi violence and disturbing images

Runtime: one hour, 56 minutes

THE PLAYERS

Director: Steven Spielberg

Writers: Josh Friedman (script consultant for "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy") and David Koepp ("Spider-Man")

Producer: Kathleen Kennedy (longtime Spielberg collaborator)

Tom Cruise: plays Ray Ferrier, divorced dockworker

Justin Chatwin: Ray's son, Robbie

Dakota Fanning: Ray's daughter, Rachel

Tim Robbins: stranger who offers refuge in cellar

Gene Barry and Ann Robinson: veterans of the 1953 version who show up again

TRIVIA

Spielberg contemplated making the movie 12 years ago but changed his mind after learning about "Independence Day," another alien movie.

Second collaboration between Cruise and Spielberg; the first was "Minority Report."

Originally slated for a 2007 release, the film instead went into production in the fall of 2004 when Spielberg and Cruise both had other projects fall apart.

Even as Spielberg was filming the movie, scenes were being edited and sent to special-effects houses to get the movie ready for summer release.

The Martian tripods in this "War of the Worlds" have been much-discussed online. Will there be tripods? How long will we be able to see the tripods? Will they be scary tripods? Spielberg would answer yes to the last question. "I wanted the Tripods to be really scary because they represent what's driving them," he was quoted as saying in publicity materials.

Show us the money!

You mean it's not just a scary Martian movie? Let's pretend the following makes sense, because Steven Spielberg (above) said it, and if he wants to wax poetic about his alien movie, then we should let him:

"It's an odyssey. It's a journey based on gut instinct. It starts in New Jersey and ends in Boston; it's a very, very short span of distance when you compare it to how far these alien invaders must have come. And at the same time, that journey is forever."

'WOW' in Rockbridge

Spielberg and Cruise, who also filmed part of "Minority Report" in Virginia, scouted locations for "War of the Worlds" in Rockbridge County the last week in September 2004.

Thousands of Virginians auditioned for roles as extras on Dec. 5 at Rockbridge County High School. About 400 were chosen to play background parts in the movie.

Filming took place in Brownsburg (near Lexington) the week of Dec. 13.

Cruise traveled to the set by helicopter

Cruise kept a low profile while in Lexington but could be spotted regularly at the Lexington Dairy Queen.

The "War of the Worlds" production reported spending $2.5 million while in Virginia, according to Mary Nelson of the Virginia Film Office. Add on an estimate of the money spent by people who come in to work on the movie (on restaurants, convenience stores and the like), and the economic impact on the state would be $5.3 million.

Will Virginia get its 15 minutes of fame?

Looks like it.

How to spot cousin Troy in the movie

Many of the scenes filmed in Rockbridge County may have ended up on the cutting room floor, but here are some things to look for:

Survivors migrating across a field (or for that matter, a mass of people migrating past an interstate, since computers created much of the film)

A shot of a burning Humvee

Any scene with a white farmhouse

Survivors chasing up a hill after Humvees

Cruise's character trying to stop his son from climbing onto a Humvee

On Oct. 30, 1938, Orson Welles adapted the H.G. Wells sci-fi novel "The War of the Worlds" as if it were being covered by real radio news, panicking a whole gaggle of listeners who thought they'd soon wind up in Martian bellies.

Let's hope that doesn't happen with the Spielberg/Cruise adaptation.

Here's how Roanokers reacted to that 1938 version:

Apparently envisioning a national catastrophe, hundreds of Roanoke radio listeners were badly scared last night and swamped The Times office with inquiries about "the horrible things they were hearing," and for nearly an hour the Sunday night city room staff of two men was kept busy explaining that, despite the realism of the program, the "invasion of the United States" was all a mistake.

Approximately 350 calls were answered, and in some cases it was impossible to convince the callers that they were listening to a dramatization on Orson Welles' "Mercury Theatre," heard over Columbia Broadcasting System and WDBJ. The production was based on the imaginative H.G. Wells book, "The War of the Worlds."

Like a bolt from a clear sky, excited and sometimes irate residents began calling a few minutes after the radio program started at 8 o'clock, and it was nearly 11 o'clock before the telephones had quieted and the nerve-frayed staff got back to the task of putting the newspaper "to bed."

"What was that I just heard about a meteor falling in New Jersey and they found out it wasn't a meteor?" came the voice of the first caller over the telephone. A quick answer was given and apparently the caller was satisfied. But, not so with the next.

"Oh, I have just heard on the radio of a horrible thing in New Jersey," exclaimed an excited woman, who went on to explain that seemingly the United States was being attacked, and that she was worried because a relative was in New Jersey. She didn't seem altogether satisfied with the explanation.

Four telephones, almost simultaneously, set up an incessant ringing as efforts were made to answer all calls. For half an hour or more, this kept up.

Some chuckled when informed that the attack was not an actuality, but was merely a Halloween program.

So frantic were some of the callers that the entire matter soon ceased to be funny, even for the newsmen, who were kept busy, jumping from one telephone to another and back again.

One call came to the newspaper office from Lexington, and others from points in the county.

While The Times was being deluged, police headquarters got several calls, as did the fire department. Police anxious to know the truth of the situation called the newspaper. . .

WDBJ workers arriving in advance of the program scheduled from the local studio at 9 p.m. found themselves besieged with calls.

Shortly after the program was concluded, the Columbia Broadcasting system brought ot its listeners from coast-to-coast an explanation of the realistic program.