War of the Worlds - has there been such a thing as a decent, faithful screen version?

Cafe Society
1

I’m reading The War Of The Worlds at the moment, and listening to the Jeff Wayne musical of it.

And I’m wondering if a decent, book-faithful version of it has ever been done, and if not, why not?

  • The 1953 version ignored (apparently dues to technical/budget limitations) the design of the fighting machines, the anatomy of the Martians and set the action in a different era and location.

  • The 2005 Spielberg version (which I have not seen) Apparently sets the action in modern day America, has the Martians appearing from somewhere other than Mars and is (according to my friend who has seen it) flawed in many ways.

There were apparently two other versions also released in 2005 - low budget/straight-to-video affairs:

  • HG Wells’ War Of The Worlds directed by David Michael Latt - which, according to reviews is fairly good, but is again, a modern-day retelling, set in Washington, USA.
  • H.G. Wells’ ‘The War of the Worlds’ directed by Timothy Hines - this version was produced with the specific intention of being faithful to the book - the tag line being ‘The first authentic movie adaptation of the 1898 H.G. Wells classic novel.’ - however, according to the critics, it tries hard, but it’s terrible with ‘more walking than LOTR’, with American actors trained at the Dick Van Dyke School Of English Accents (incorporating the Royal College Of Painful Stilted Hammy Dialogue) and with very poor colour-masked effects.

So why can’t we have a book-faithful version? It doesn’t matter that the book gets science stuff wrong (i.e. oceans on Mars) - just present that in the same way the book does; as the best knowledge of the day.

I really think it’s about time that we had an authentic movie version of this classic work of fiction. So. Why can’t it be done?

2

A TV series of some sort? A mini-series with top notch British actors, some nice SFX, on the BBC… Anyone else see it working?

I’ve been beaten over the head on IMDB with the argument that the whole point of the original was that it was addressing the mightiest power on Earth at the time and that consequentially, remakes had to be set in the US. Ok, I understand that, I really do. But I enjoyed the book and would love to see the Tripods striding across the moors, Thunderchild steaming towards its doom and the artilleryman digging his tunnel to nowhere. Ah, that would be nice indeed :slight_smile:

3

Ack, should have read your post more thoroughly, indeed the machines levitate and don’t use tripods, but they’re an effective design nonetheless.

What I disliked about the 50s version was the overly religious tones, it seemed to take the words of Wells’ conclusion a bit far.

4

Maybe, although I’d prefer to use little-known actors, to avoid the whole personalities thing. I’m not averse to using non-British talent as long as they can actually pull a convincing performance.

I wouldn’t even mind it being an animated feature.

5

I get what you mean, there are some actors I just can’t think of as characters but personalities from the year 2007 who’ve ended up in the 1930s etc :stuck_out_tongue:

Not entirely convincing, but based on the art of the album cover at least :slight_smile:

6

Ray Harryhausen was working on test footage for a period War of the Worlds when they started making the 1953 version. Some stills and footage exists – it’s pretty impressive, and more closely resembles Wells’ description than any other filmed version. (The Tripods done in Stop-Motion animation would have been awesome. Stop-motion has that “strobing” effect that can very easily be used to imply somewhat jerky, mechanmical motioon, as with the Imperial ATAT “Walkers” in The Empire Strikes Back. I don’t think anyone’s ever done stop-motion Martian tripods) On the other hand, from what I’ve seen, I get the impression that the story wouldn’t be wholly faithful to Wells.

So the answer, as far as I know, is no. The most faithful adaptations I’ve seen are the Clasics Illustrated comic book version (which still makes the Martians a little too cartoony, and ignores some of the creepier inferences, as well as the Red Plants) and parts of the second League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series, which is scrupulously accurate in the way it portrays the Martians and their equipment, right down to the V-shaped saliva-dribbbling mouth.

There have been two very good TV films about the 1938 Orson Welles broadcast, though. One was made in the 1950s and has an intro by Edward R. Murrow, and just came out recently on DVD. The other is Nicholas Meyer’s underappreciated Night that Panicked America, done as an ABC Movie of the Week back in the early 1970s, and which features IIRC the entire radio broadcast , and makes a lot of points that I’d missed.

7

Ah, now that would have been nice. Clash of the Titans was repeated a few times over the holidays, I love the stop motion effect in the film, especially the large bronze statue that attacks.

8

Either you’ve got the title wrong, or watched more than one movie, or else have a different definition of “large” than I do.

Jason and the Argonauts is the Harryhausen flick with the bronze giant (Talos). In Clas of the Titans the only animated metal creature is the annoying Bubo the Owl, who’s not all that large.

9

:smack: I think they were both on, I remember both the bronze giant and the owl being on the tube at some time.

10

Have you seen the BBC’s adaptation of John Christopher’s The Tripods? Convincing three-legged walking is not the easiest thing in the world to do, but some of the BBC Tripods do move rather effectively (though it’s not stop-motion, as far as I can see, but mechanically-operated models CSO’d onto the image.)

11

The original book is actually too short to support a miniseries.

12

I’m not sure - I reckon it could be made into three or four 45-minute pieces as it stands, but I think the temptation to add new dialogue and subplots, discarding some of the original material at the same time, would be too great if it were produced this way.

I’m starting to think 80 minutes of high-quality Animé would do it best justice.

13

I’m thinking…Pixar?

14

I think Pixar would be reluctant to make it horrible enough. Disney, Dreamworks or anyone else of their ilk would want to introduce a superfluous annoying talking pet

15

Not to mention that instead of concentrating on the plot, the emphasis would fall on merchandise tie-ins - plastic tripod-shaped radio alarm clocks that wake you up by screaming ‘Ulllaah!’

16

Another childhood favourite, I loved the scene where the tripods advanced over the horizon and everyone scrambled for cover or the one where they think they’ve escaped, only to realise they’re right underneath one :eek:

It is actually isn’t it? A two hour special? Or a Christmas/Easter time two episode show?

17

Like they did with Cars?
Or The Incredibles? :dubious:

Personally, I think a War Of The Worlds that was no more violent than The Incredibles, & faithful to the period (more or less) would do rather well.

18

I haven’t seen Cars, but although there was implied death in The Incredibles, I think TWOTW cannot leave out details such as people being burned alive by the heat ray or being drained of blood by the Martians.

19

Oops, if you mean the talking/cutesy pet thing; no: like they did in The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Treasure Planet and probably a few others I can’t remember.

20

I just wanted to mention 2 things:

The Thunder Child scene from the book is probably my favorite. Because it happens to be long on action and short on dialogue, I suspect it would translate extremely well to the big screen. Ditto for the part where the protagonist crosses the river amongst the tripods. Oh, and the scene with the train leaving the station.

Dark Horse Comics released a somewhat-faithful comic book adaptation which they published on the web. It’s missing some important parts, and is a bit off in many areas, but otherwise is a half-decent visual study of the original story.