Steven Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" held its world premiere in Tokyo on Monday. At the press conference, Spielberg said the days when movie audiences sympathize with a lovable alien such as E.T. may be over.

''It seemed like the time was right for me as a filmmaker to let the audience experience an alien that is a little less pleasant than E.T.," Spielberg said yesterday at a news conference for his new film, ''War of the Worlds."

''In the shadow of 9/11, I think the film has found a place in society," said Spielberg, who directed ''E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial," from 1982, and ''Close Encounters of the Third Kind," from 1977.

The movie is inspired from H.G. Wells classic "War of the Worlds", who caused panic on radio in the 1930s. Spielberg's version presents the aliens as monsters bent on destroying humankind.