Also, big walking things
In most ways Howl's Moving Castle and War of the Worlds are very different films, but they share a couple of distinctive features; first, a presumably timely obsession with war and mass destruction; second, an unabashed determination to have things Come Right in the end, without excessive respect to consistency or narrative logic. (Yes, the fate of the Cthulhu-Martians was there in the novel, but the scenes before and after it belong to a much more upbeat movie.)
I assume Spielberg and Miyazaki are trying to keep our spirits up. I still can't help being reminded of the end of Brazil.