War of the Worlds? More like War of the Worthless

Last weekend I watched The War of the Worlds. Much like Byron Haskin’s 1953 version, it failed to scare. In fact, unlike the 1953 version, it failed to present a coherent and believable storyline. In case you’ve been living on the planet Zog for the past few hundred years, The War of the Worlds (or TWotW as I’ll call it) is the story of alien invaders (traditionally from Mars, although this isn’t really alluded to in this version) who’ve been planning for millions of years to launch an attack on the Earth.

The original story is believed to have been a response to the unification and militarization of old Germany, along with European colonization of the Americas, Africa and far East. In the first chapter, The eve of War, Wells has this to say about the aliens:

And before we judge them too harshly, we must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon animals, such as the vanished bison and the dodo, but upon its own inferior races. The Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness, were entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European immigrants, in the space of fifty years. Are we such apostles of mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit?

What brought Wells to write about Mars was entirely different.

In 1894, Mars was so close to the earth that for the first time astronomers were able to see the red planet in amazing detail. Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli had reported signs of “canali” on Mars (canali is italian for ‘channels’). This term was then mistranslated as Canals, leading people towards the possibility that an industrious people inhabited Mars.

Other influences on the story include Java, well known at the time for the 1883 explosion of Mount Krakatoa, and a number of places from Wells’ childhood in England, including Woking, Surrey. Of particular interest are the references to weapons that were at the cutting edge of modern capability at the time such as heat rays (lasers), the ‘Black Smoke’ (chemical weapons) and mechanised armour such as the tripods, possibly a reference to research on armoured cars preceding the tank.

It was this realism and relevance that made the story so scary. The realistic setting, combined with Wells’ vivid capacity for destruction through the use of technology literally on the edge of invention made the story gripping reading.

In 1938, the story resurfaced. Orson Welles chose to rekindle a version of the original story in a time of severe instability. The German Reich was sweeping across Europe, and Stalin was gearing up for impending war. On the other side of the Pacific, war was looming between China and Japan, and in the U.S. itself, unemployment was running at 19%. Welles’ version, set in Grover’s Mill, New Jersey was based around his regular radio show. He interrupted his show with false news bulletins, keeping scared listeners up to date. Many were so frightened as reports of advancing Martian troops heading for New York came through that they packed their bags and fleed their homes. The aftermath of this broadcast is history, and the story died down for a while.

The first major Cinema production of TWotW came in 1953. Directed by Byron Haskin, The War of the Worlds was a remake of the original, only with floating ships instead of Tripods and like the audio broadcast, was set in the U.S. This is probably the best visual version of the story, which unfortunately doesn’t mean much. The film was updated to reflect the post world war era, complete with an A-Bomb delivered by a Flying Wing aircraft. The acting was standard as 50’s creature features go, although the special effects were way ahead of their time.

In 1978, Jeff Wayne produced a concept album of TWotW, the predictably named “Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds”. With clear prog rock influences and none other than Richard Burton and David Essex amongst the cast, the album was a success. I listened to it as a child and found it incredibly entertaining, and although I wouldn’t say it would be fair to compare to the films it certainly sits well next to the Welles radio version.

A host of other movies, stories and musical pieces have been heavily influenced and I won’t go into them here. Suffice to say, if you’ve ever seen Tim Burton’s excellent Mars Attacks, or more recently played the superb Destroy all Humans! then you’ll know what I mean.

Which brings us on to the 2005 Spielberg version of the story. I guess it’s technically a remake of the 1953 version – there are certainly similar scenes and I believe some of the original actors make brief appearances. Tom Cruise plays his ‘flawed but working on it’ guy straight from Rain Man, Cocktail, Magnolia – in fact Vanilla Sky to some extent too. This is the first issue. Don’t get me wrong, I like a good Tom Cruise movie, I just think it works best when he doesn’t need to stretch his abilities. To be fair, he wasn’t given a huge amount of opportunity to stretch either as the film bumbled on and schmaltzed its way through another ‘9/11′ style attack on the US. There are also some fundamental flaws in the film. For example, when three-legged killing machines are running rampant across your country, with their arrival triggered by lightening strikes that knock out all electrical systems, you do not expect to cross a floodlit Hudson River. The sheer volume of lighting at the jetty, combined with the general lighting in the town just makes it all seem a little ridiculous. Tim Robbins’ character is laughable. A Brando-style nutcase from Apocalypse now he is not. Furthermore, I’d imagine that the Aliens (for we aren’t informed that they’re from Afghanistan, Mars or Iraq, although at one point a character suggested they could’ve been from Europe) could’ve at least come up with some way of detecting human activity beyond noise.

With all this talk of the apocalypse though, I did feel it was time to swot up on what the tell-tale signs of the world ending were, when I came across Exit Mundi, an essential guide to the end of the world. I can sleep safer now, knowing that I should be more concerned about the Oil Peak than advancing Alien (or European) hordes.