War of the Worlds (2005 film)/WMG

The Heat Rays were actually energy-leaching beams
As mentioned in the main article, the rays vaporized the people, but left their clothes intact, floating around in a really ridiculous way. This troper believes that those beams were really some sort of beam that sucked out all of the energy or water-content (dehydrating the victims) of the victims and transferred it into the machine to power it. Of course, this theory becomes problematic upon viewing said rays explode military vehicles, but I'm going to blame that on Rule of Cool until either I or another troper can expand on this.
 * A focused beam of electrons would have the effect presented in the film, violently vaporizing water which could destroy people and vehicles while leaving stuff like clothes intact (if ragged).

The ships themselves were implanted during the lightning attack
Rather than being buried there for millennia to be piloted by lightning-riding invading aliens whose technology would've likely advanced far beyond them, the tripods themselves were what the lightning implanted in the ground.

The reason why the Japanese defeated some of the Tripods, is because they used Giant Mecha against them.
In thisg movie the story goes around the Japanese took some tripods down. Since Japan is partially known for its large amount of giant mecha its possible they finally deployed them for real, instead of just using them as props for television shows.

Humanity has been one long Martian scientific experiment.
Especially in the Spielberg film, where the tripods are planted on Earth in advance of the attack. The Martians seeded mankind on Earth thousands of years ago to observe the rise of a civilization; now they're satisfied and the experiment is finished. Time to sterilize the equipment and put the planet back to the way it was when they started. The tripods aren't soldiers, they're exterminators.

The ending was All Just a Dream.
The movie ends with the fall of the tripod. It would explain the totally unlikely survival of Robbie Ferrier.