MIRLI BOOKS
  • Home
  • Books
    • Henry's Trials >
      • Extract from Henry's Trials
    • Smethurst's Luck >
      • Extract from Smethurst's Luck
    • Murder in the Red Barn >
      • Extract from Murder in the Red Barn
  • Talks
    • Talk on Henry's Trials
    • Talk on Smethurst's Luck
    • Talk on Isambard Kingdom Brunel
    • Talk on the Murder in the Red Barn
    • BBC
  • Publications
    • A history of high power laser research UK
  • Peter Maggs
  • Shop
  • Blog
  • Family History
    • Mirli
    • BM Creeper >
      • The Significance of Stonehenge
      • Educating Ealing I: How Lady Byron Did It
      • Educating Ealing II: Church of England Primary in the 1920s
      • All Because of Crystal Palace
      • Innocent in Ealing - Extract
      • Miss McDonald

Not HG's War of the Worlds

2/12/2019

0 Comments

 
I was so excited when the Beeb decided to film H G Wells’ War of the Worlds, set as he wrote it in late nineteenth century England with the Martians landing on Horsell Common. But the ‘improvers’ got hold of it, and in my view squandered some excellent sets and CGI effects (and precious BBC budget) by vandalizing the plot.

There were some brilliant sequences of the Martian fighting machines on their great articulated tripods, but they were supposed to have been manufactured and the producers gave them hairy legs … Admittedly it made them look far more sinister, but they were mechanisms not insects. The Martians themselves were shown as great three-legged spider-like creatures, but no-one seems to have told the BBC writers that such an organism would have found it impossible to use tools without hands, claws or tentacles to manipulate them …

And then there were the longueurs – seeming to occupy most of the final episode – set in a scarlet and misty post-apocalyptic landscape, the legacy of the Martians. They had died out by this time of disease for which they had no defence (the original plot), but their ‘Red Weed’ had poisoned the earth preventing crops from growing. This was, I suppose, an allegory of climate change. There was even a nod to colonial guilt: “The Martians are just doing to us (The British Empire) what we have done to so many countries – invading and killing people!”

This cannot have been a cheap production, but having gone to all the trouble of simulating the fighting machines rather well – with the exception of the legs – why were there so few scenes in which they figured? ​

I read the original book quite recently and it illustrates HG’s enormously fertile imagination. Quite enough material there for a very good ‘creature-feature’ with all the charm of the period and even the opportunity for some fin de siècle decadence. And, by the way, the substitution of a woman as the heroine worked really well; such a pity that much of the rest of it was, frankly, boring. A real missed opportunity.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Welcome to the Mirli Books blog written by Peter Maggs

    Archives

    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Website and Contents © Peter Maggs 2021
  • Home
  • Books
    • Henry's Trials >
      • Extract from Henry's Trials
    • Smethurst's Luck >
      • Extract from Smethurst's Luck
    • Murder in the Red Barn >
      • Extract from Murder in the Red Barn
  • Talks
    • Talk on Henry's Trials
    • Talk on Smethurst's Luck
    • Talk on Isambard Kingdom Brunel
    • Talk on the Murder in the Red Barn
    • BBC
  • Publications
    • A history of high power laser research UK
  • Peter Maggs
  • Shop
  • Blog
  • Family History
    • Mirli
    • BM Creeper >
      • The Significance of Stonehenge
      • Educating Ealing I: How Lady Byron Did It
      • Educating Ealing II: Church of England Primary in the 1920s
      • All Because of Crystal Palace
      • Innocent in Ealing - Extract
      • Miss McDonald