War Of The Worlds

[AisA]

And I was talking about the anticlimax. An anticlimax is an anticlimax, no matter how well it was presented.

From page 47 of "The Art of Fiction":

The term anticlimax refers to a development after the climax that does not follow from it.  For instance, it would have been an anticlimax if, after the Cortland trial, I had shown Roark and Wynand quarreling about an unpaid commission on some building.  Considering the issues that had been resolved between them, such an issue could be of no importance.  Its only function would be to destroy the importance of the climax.

The climax of War of the Worlds is the death of the aliens. After that, in Speilberg's version, the central character delivers his children to their mother. I do not see how that is an anticlimax, given Miss Rand's explanation of the term.

Now, one could argue that the climax itself does not follow from the events of the story, i.e. that beings intelligent enough to cross the galaxy and travel on light beams would not overlook something as obvious as bacteria. That is probably a more valid criticism now than it was when Wells wrote the story in the 1890s.

[source]

The climax of War of the Worlds is the death of the aliens.  After that, in Speilberg's version, the central character delivers his children to their mother.  I do not see how that is an anticlimax, given Miss Rand's explanation of the term.

OK, now you have me a bit confused with the quote. I think that there was a paragraph in which Ayn Rand stated that if the main villain suddenly dies accidentaly for reasons such as an earthquake or illness or due to a plane crash, or simply by natural causes, it is not a climax (before you quoted her, I thought that was an anticlimax, which is why I'm a bit confused right now). I'm sure that you will find something similar to what I said in her book.

Alternatively, I will be back home in about a week, so I can look this up myself and quote it here.