This is a movie I've watched countless times. I still can't resist watching it when it shows up on cable.
This is one of the most fun and action packed fifties sci-fi movies. Next to the Time Machine, this is probably Pal's best science fiction movie. The effects are flawed (those visible wires supporting the saucers and some shakey early fifties blue-screen work) but they're still enormously entertaining. Even over fifty years later, the Martian creature has an eerie otherworldly quality. Many critics of scifi movies pick out Ann Robinson as being one of the worst actresses in a scifi film. I think she's fine here. Gene Barry is a bit of a square, but then again so are most 50's heroes.

AMEN! I agree 250%! This is my "All Time Fave" too! "War of the Worlds" was the FIRST MOVIE I bought on DVD.

This is one fine dvd and one great movie. A classic if there ever was and I just gotta jump on the appreciation bandwagon. yeah the sets, effects and acting was cheesier than wisconson but thats one oft he things that made it great.

The fifties 'feel' is a large part of its appeal. There's no gore or profanity. It's a great classic for the whole family.
One thing struck me as being very outdated. Crowds of people eagerly huddle close to the explosion of the atomic bomb. One bit of 50's technology still looks modern. The 'flying wing' that delivers the atomic bomb almost looks like a modern Stealth bomber!

The crowd was following the "Duck & Cover" command.
In the 50's there was a HUGE Atomic Bomb Awareness Program that told you what you were supposed to do when you see the flash of light...
Throw yourself onto the ground and cover your head with your hands, a blanket or a newspaper,
or head for the "Family Bomb Shelter". (If there's time)
If you were a kid at school, you hide under a school desk)

The 1982 documentary "The Atomic Cafe" shows many of the 1960s U.S. government propaganda films designed to reassure Americans the atomic bomb wasn't a threat to their safety. The 'duck and cover' commands are shown. Even into the late 1970s, elementary school children practiced this routine every so often. My elementary school still had air raid sirens (from when it was built in the 1950s).

The 'flying wing' shown as the atom-bomber was actually the experimental Northrop Flying Wing. Northrop built approximately twelve of the enormous planes, prototypes with a variety of bombing and reconnaissance capabilities.

My reviews of the actors /actresses:

Gene Barry (Dr. Clayton Forrester) Very straightforward. He should've been a little more romantic with Sylvia though.

Ann Robinson (Sylvia Van Buren) Great actress- despite what people say

Les Tremayne (Maj. Gen. Mann) Rugged...tough as nails...reminded me of Patton

Sandro Giglio (Dr. Bilderbeck) He worked with George Pal in "When Worlds Collide" & I guess Pal liked his acting. He was OK.

Lewis Martin (Pastor Dr. Matthew Collins) Absolutely believable.

Paul Frees (Radio Reporter) Legendary. I've ALWAYS liked his voice.

Vernon Rich (Col. Ralph Heffner) A little too cocky. He should've pulled out when the shells failed to penetrate the Martian shields.

Sir Cedric Hardwicke (Commentary) Legendary as well.

Anne Robinson was quite good in this, as was Gene Barry, who would go on to play Bat Masterson, and Amos Burke in Burke's Law.
The Martian ships were pulled out of mothballs for an episode of the short-lived War Of The Worlds TV series in the late 1980's.

A Martian ship was revamped for use in 1964's "Robinson Crusoe on Mars" (also directed by Byron Haskin). The original design was a classic: it has a timeless appeal.

One nit: The 'white flag' waved by the townsmen towards the Martian craft. Beyond how the Martians would recognise it as a 'sign of peace', isn't it mostly used in war movies to signal surrender. If that was also one of its presumed meanings, wouldn't 50's audiences assume that the men(Earth) were preparing to surrender?

I think it's generally assumed that the white flag is more of a sign of "truce" than "surrender".

Director Byron Haskin was also the associate prodicer on the first Star Trek pilot, "The Cage." (Why he wasn't asked to direct it is one of life's little mysteries.) He died on 4/16/84.

Am I nuts, or was there a board for this film somewhere else? I know I made some references to this film on the Independence Day board, but I thought there was another board where George Pal's TWotW was discussed.
By the way, this film is one of my favorites, too!

Yeah...but I think it was deleted due to lack of interest.

John, you mentioned that the reporter in the film, Paul Frees, was legendary. His voice sounds so familiar. Wasn't his voice used for the aliens in "Earth versus the Flying Saucers"? It sure sounds like his distinctive voice!
"War of the Worlds" was an influence not only on "Earth vs the Flying Saucers", but on later films such as "V" and "Independence Day". I read somewhere that there are plans to remake "War of the Worlds". I presume if it is remade, CGI will be used to depict the 'walking legs' described in the original novel.
Religion was depicted in a positive way in this film. It helps bring people together and give them hope. Pal's "Conquest of Space" depicts religion in a somewhat negative manner. The mission's Commander is a religious nut who believes God doesn't want man in space. Some rather contradictary messages in Pal's films! The ending of "War of the Worlds" with the church bells and singing is a bit corny, but it leaves the film on an uplifting note.
One really delightful sequence in the film is the opening tour of the solar system. It nicely encapsulates fifties' astronomical ideas in a very entertaining manner.

Yes indeed, Mark. He was the voice of the aliens in "Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers". He was also the voice of the "Talking Rings" in "The Time Machine" (Original version)

Didn't he also do the narration in the Star Wars spoof Hardware Wars? And I could have sworn he played one of the scientists in The Thing (though it's been years since I've seen that film).

Oh, back to TWotW, sort of... One of my many hobbies is building models (or it used to be when I could afford to and had time to do so). I've noticed over the years that several independent model makers have made kits of the Martian war machines for sale, and/or have scratch built their own replicas. But all of them have the models propped up from the ground by a clear rod, to simulate the "flying" effect seen in the movie. NIT: the Martian war machines in the film actually were supposed to be supported by three nearly nearly invisible "legs" of energy, which seemed to come from the light green ports on the bottoms of each machine. (In a few scenes, "shots" of energy can be seen scintillating between the green ports and the ground; a nice animated detail on the part of the sfx gang!) Anyway, models of the machines should be propped up on three clear rods, not one.
Of course, a really accurate replica would have a buch of support wires connecting the top of the machine to some overhead scaffolding! (I hope a special edition DVD comes out of this film, with the wires deleted from the war machine scenes.)

(I hope a special edition DVD comes out of this film, with the wires deleted from the war machine scenes.)

NO!! Leave my movie alone! (Take that, George Lucas!)

Oh, it's not like I'd have the three men shoot first at the Martian (like Greedo in the revised Star Wars). And honestly, the wires are the only thing I'd clean up. They just stick out too obviously in an otherwise perfect (especially for its day) film. (I may have once said something about colorizing the mushroom cloud, but I think I'd even leave that alone.)

Ngen wrote
"The 'flying wing' shown as the atom-bomber was actually the experimental Northrop Flying Wing. Northrop built approximately twelve of the enormous planes, prototypes with a variety of bombing and reconnaissance capabilities."

There were actually two flying wing prototypes at that time. The first was a large multi propellor engined aircraft, the second was a jet engine powered version which I believe is the version used in this movie.

TRIVIA

George Pal make an appearance in this movie as one of the hobos listening to the radio.

I must note that the footage of the people listening to the radio in the General Store comes from "When Worlds Collide"

Altering the film through CGI enhancements would definately upset some. Remember all the controversy surrounding 'colorised' films back in the 1980s.

Another interesting animated effect in War of the Worlds: when the Colonel is hit by a Martian ray he glows and his skeleton becomes visible. This seemed to be a direct inspiration for a similar effect a couple of years later in "This Island Earth". An effect almost identical to the one in War of the Worlds was also seen in 1993's Space Rangers tv series.

The 1984 V television series even used one shot directly from War of the Worlds. A shot from the end of the film, showing L.A. in flames, was used to show the effects of a visitor attack on Los Angeles. Needless to say, it didn't quite fit in as L.A. skyline had changed quite a bit in thirty years (more skyscrapers).

1980's colorisation was so horribly done, it's no wonder it wasn't popular. (Artistic integrity is another matter, of course. Back in the 80's, I said "If colrising can't be done well, it shouldn't be done." Now I generally don't think it should be done at all, unless it's to fix color that's faded over time or correct a really obvious color mistake... but note that's with films which are already in color.)
Using CGI to hide the wires in this film could be done nowdays without compromising its artistic integrity. Since the whole attempt back in 1954 was to make the machines appear to be levitating, hiding the wires would only complete what the sfx gang tried to accomplish. (For its time, the effect was quite well done!)

Truth to tell, I never noticed the wires. But just the act of proposing CGI changes to a movie, what's to prevent The Powers That Be from saying, "Hey, as long as we're changing this, let's make the Martians CGI as well! And the ships!! And we can put a blast ring around the nuclear explosion now!!" That's the kind of thing I'm afraid of.

I don't doubt that the guys that would have to do the work would want to respect the original, but the producers, etc., only see that bottom line.

As to the 1953 War of the Worlds, I read that tests were initially made of actually suspending the models with electricity, but this proved to be extremely dangerous (and the idea was dropped).
The wires suspending the Martian models allowed for the electricity to power the lights in the models.

The scenes in the farmhouse seem a bit confusing. When the Martian gently puts his hand on Sylvia's shoulder it almost seems as if it wants to make peaceful contact with the humans. Of course, they react in fear and strike the creature. Understandable, given the fact of the battle between the army and the saucers earlier. The scene is definately played from more of a horror angle, but to a degree, the creature seemed to want to make peaceful contact. Maybe, it just wanted to say to Sylvia; "Sorry about invading your planet. Can we still be friends?"

Then again, in most 50s scifi movies an alien creature never passed up an opportunity to get its hands on a babe! The mutant in This Island Earth seemed to be very interested in the lady!

My theory behind the Martain contact scene is the the Martians already knew about Earth's diseases and wanted some human specimens to find out how they could be as immune as the humans.

(That is the theory that I have and which is mine and what it is, too.--Anne Elk)

Just a note: I now own an offical "War of the Worlds" Movie poster. Mint condition.

Cool!

That must have been expensive John!
I saw some nice new books on the poster art of sci-fi films at Barnes & Nobles. I'll probably get one. War of the Worlds was included in the books.
Which poster did you get? The one with the Martian hand?

Yes indeed,Mark. It is the poster which contains the Martian Hand....and it only cost me $15.00

Where can you get one? I'll tell ya'

SPACE DEBRIS INC.

http://www.space-debris.com/invlinks.htm

PS, it's under: "Masterprints"

For the fiftieth anniversary of "War of the Worlds", last October Starlog printed a couple of nice interviews on the film. Of course, an interview with Gene Barry was included. A rather more unexpected interview was that of Diana Gemora, the daughter of the actor (Charles Gemora) who played the Martian creature. It included some nice behind the scenes descriptions as she assisted her father on the set: she worked the pulsating veins of the costume. I always thought the creature was very effectively photographed so that it wasn't too obvious it was a man in a suit.

I'll say! I always thought the thing was a puppet.

For the record, I am 300% against Spielberg remaking this film.

I have no problem with a War of the Worlds film based upon the original novel. Even setting it in modern times, but following the basic plot of the original novel, could be interesting. Unfortunately, most people's familiarity with The War of the Worlds is based upon the 1950's movie, and any new film is going to be considered a "remake," even if it isn't really a remake.

I was disappointed by the 1980's "sequel" series that was on tv for a season. It had potential, but just didn't capture the feel of the film, the excitement.

Anyone who was exposed to the sentimental vomit that was the ending of A.I. would be wary of Spielberg remaking this.

On the other hand, if Spielberg does make this film and treats it as a war story (that is what the story is, after all), maybe it wouldn't be too bad. I thought Saving Private Ryan was a powerful war film; it had sentiment at the end, but in the context of the story, how could it not have it? As long as it isn't syrupy or just tacked on for no reason, sentiment can be an effective literary or filmic tool. (I haven't seen A.I. yet, so I can't comment about it nor make a comparison.)

By the way, I firmly believe that no matter what the new movie is, it's going to be pegged as a remake. Perhaps even by the people making it. Sigh.

I wonder how the film is going to deal with Mars as we know it actually is today? Are the Martians from another planet, and Mars had been a forward observation/staging post for launching the invasion of Earth? Are they indeed from Mars, descendents of a long-lost race that migrated and have now returned only to find Mars dead and Earth ripe for colonization?

...or could it be like the 1979 "Martian Chronicles" which totally ignored the '76 Viking Mission (and also the 60s Mariner missions).

I hope not, especially since it would only take a simple explanation like the two I made up to explain away the nit. Anyone else have any ideas?

Yes...don't remake the movie.

But what about an adaption faithful to the novel? Are you opposed to that as well? (Not that the studios would ever actually do that, but I can dream...)

If they're true to both the novel AND the 1953 movie, that'll be fine.

What'd I'd like to see in the new movie:

* The flying "swan-like" war machines...they're from an advanced race...they should prove it. They can add some detail to the exterior of the ship if they want to.

* The same heat-ray / acid torpedo effects

* The same electronic eye as seen in the farm house.

* The same alien outfit...that's so cool.

I agree that the Martians in the original movie were cool (remember, I never realized it was a guy in a suit... that says something!), as were their machines.
But the Martians in the H. G. Wells novel were considerably different, looking vaguely like land-bound octopi in a way. They were essentially a large "head"-like body, with numerous tentacles along the bottom on either side of their faces for both grasping and for locomotion.
The Martian machines in the novel were tall tripods, though the Martians had also developed a flying machine that was only seen from a distance by one character and seen sitting inert on the ground by another. (Chilling concept, though, considering that the novel was written in 1898!) They also had a "handling machine", a small, five legged general purpose vehicle for construction, scavenging, capturing humans and so on. I got the impression those were spider-like, which is also creepy.
Oh, and the novel has some Martian "red weed" that grows all over the place for a time, before dying off due to incompatibility with Earth's environment. Could that be the earliest work to show an attempt at terraforming? (Or should I say Marsaforming?)

Anyway, the 1953 movie "advanced" the Martians by having their machines supported by electromagnetic beams rather than physical legs. Rather an inspired bit of updating on the part of the film's writers/producers/sfx gang.

In the 1940s, Ray Harryhausen was interested in making "War of the Worlds". He made a puppet of a Martian creature that very much resembles an octopus (there's a photo of it in the new book "Ray Harryhausen, An Animated Life").

Judging from Earth vs the Flying Saucers, Harryhausen would have probably made a quite spectacular War of the Worlds. The tripod legs of Well's craft would have been a natural for stop-motion animation. The time and expense necessary to properly depict those walking legs probably account for why Pal dropped them for his film.

The "saucers" could better be described as flying "manta rays".

I remember an old pic in a magazine article in the early 1970's (it may have been Starlog, but it also may have been one of several monster magazines still around back then) that showed an early desktop model of the "manta ray" design... with three stilt-like legs! Granted, they may have been a tripod just to hold up the model, but they may also have been part of a test model to see how walking machines would have looked.
If I can find the magazine, I'll post an update. (Has anyone else seen that photo?)

I saw a program once that said 50's audiences were fascinated by sea creatures such as manta rays due to newly filmed documentaries on sea life (for tv and theaters). Maybe the film's designer had them on his mind after watching one of those documentaries.

One simple solution never occurred to the Martians: to avoid contamination from Earth microbes they could have simply worn space suits.

The ending of the film states that the Martians were killed by the littlest of God's creation. The same line was also used in the original Well's novel. Well's was famously an atheist, but he thought that using "God" for the ending statement perfectly fit.

As most may know, Speilberg will be doing a WoTW film with Tom Cruise playing the main charactor. I have not heard about doing a re-make of the 1953 movie or doing it based on the novel or going on a completely different concept. Anyone have more information on this? Thanks.

I'm sure a new board will be created (if it hasn't already been created) for the 29 June 2005 Spielberg film, so I won't mention much about it on this board after this.
I have seen the trailers, and they don't show much, but clearly the new film is its own thing, not just a remake. Yes, it's set in contemporary USA, but looks like it adapts several elements from the original 1898 novel, and (like the novel) shows humanity's reactions to being on the losing side of an invasion. I hope it will avoid what I call "Hollywood awe" that plagues so many movie characters nowdays: characters stand right in harm's way, exclaiming "Look at that! Right in front of me!" and then get killed. (See ID4, the American Godzilla film, The Day After Tomorrow, or just about any made-for-tv disaster flick for examples.)
While it's unclear what the aliens are/look like, some artwork suggests a biological entity/entities (not just creatures driving machines around), which could allow for the novel's ending to come into play in this film.
I'll have to see when it comes out.
Oh, it does appear to be pretty intense; not a kid's film. (As of this post, it has not yet been rated.)

The new film will require one change. We know there are no canals or civilizations (or life, presumably) on Mars. I assume the new invaders will be from beyond our solar system. It just seems like a retread of familiar territory. We don't need another Independence Day!

From what I read, Ann Robinson WILL BE in the 2005 movie version.

Good job, Spielberg!

A new version of War of the Worlds has just been released on DVD. It's a 20 million dollar independent film from Pendragon films, and it's set in 1899. The film was supposed to be released in theaters in March. I don't know if it ever was (not in my area). Paramount has been using some ugly bullying tactics against the small Pendragon company. Though this film was in production before Paramount even announced it was going to make their version, Paramount threatened to sue Pendragon and attempt to prevent it from being released in theaters.

Though everyone will be awed by Paramount's mega-budget film, I look forward to seeing the Pendragon film. Smaller, independent films often have more heart and soul. The hype for the Speilberg film is a bit much at times. The excess of publicity about Tom Cruise (and his "love" for Katie Holmes)lately is almost nauseating.

At long last, a faithful adaptation of the original novel!
I don't know about "bully tactics," but I think the direct-to-dvd release was actually a good move, and since it beats the release of Spielberg's film, can cash in on the wave of popularity that big budget film creates.

I saw the dvd for Pendragon's H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds in the store, and was intrigued. It has a three hour running time! The setting's in the late 1890's. The chapter titles follow the novel. (Well, I didn't know that until I saw the menu.) I figured an independent film company might make it better (as in more faithful to the original novel) than a lavishly produced big studio flick (though I do want to see the Spielberg one--more on that later). Should be an entertaining watch, at least for fans of the novel (like me). So I bought it for just under nine US dollars and stuck it in my dvd player.

Sigh. I was a bit disappointed. Not completely, but mostly.

Script-wise, this film is indeed a faithful adaptaion, with only a couple of scenes added that weren't in the book (they could be removed, in fact) and one major omission (the black smoke the Martians use to asphyxiate humans--more on that later). But overall, not badly adapted.

The acting's OK; it's cast with unknowns, but I expect unknowns in such a production. The main star has a dual roll, that of the main character ("The Narrator") and the main character's brother in London. Personally, I think he did a better job as the brother than as the main character. Plus, the Narrator's mustache is the most distracting bit of fake costuming/makeup appliance work I've ever seen on film. Mercifully, the brother doesn't have a mustache.
As for others, one of the co-producers even has a prominent roll. Oh, and one Jamie Lynn Sease, who plays Miss Elphinstone, is rather attractive, but I digress...
A lot of the background actors (extras) are reused in several crowd scenes, which isn't necessarily such a bad thing in a film, but there are several shots where costume changes would have helped prevent seeing the "same" person get killed in several different shots. Better editing could have helped that, too. (More on that later... gee, there's going to be a lot of "more later" follow-ups in this post.)

Special effects. Umm, let's just say "effects" and leave off the "special," because this film makes the some of the worst Doctor Who fx look positively big-budget. Actually, a better comparison would be to the Sidd & Marty Kroftt series from the 1970's, The Land of the Lost. In that show, the actors stood in front of a blue screen, and were "Chroma-keyed" into model fx shots; by today's standards, the effect is a little cheesey, but for its day (and for a live action kid show) it was acceptable. For this film (especially considering it was originally supposed to have been a theatrical release), it's a bad idea, at least as it was executed. The backgrounds are often hazy looking (especialy nightime shots of blurry stars that made Van Gogh's work look crystal clear). The perspective is often mismatched, (such as one shot looking downhill at water, but a boat on the water recedes as though viewed from the shore, rather than from the hilltop). The shots remind me of pre-Renaissance paintings, before artists understood perspective.
Most of the fx work is CGI, but it's so primitive looking that the fx shots look like an early 1990's video game, and take the viewer right out of the action. Miniature work in some of the worst Godzilla films would have looked better. One of my favorite scenes in the book involving a British warship fighting a Martian tripod was poorly done in this film. The ship looked like a World War I destroyer rather than a turn of the century vessel, but that wasn't the worst... it looked like a cartoon of a WWI destroyer. The ferry boat the warship was trying to protect was poorly inserted into shots of water whipping by at high speed (filmed from a speedboat, perhaps?) And the destruction of the warship & tripod actually didn't match the book.
Another problem with the fx is that the actors often were reacting to nothing (obviously), but were not looking at the same point or marker. Thus, when the shot is complete, everyone's gazing at different points.
At least the design of the Martian tripods was very cool.
The Martian Heat Ray effects are also actually rather good, with the "spinning mirrored disc" looking just like Wells described it. I even liked that there wasn't a laser-like beam of light, but rather a spontaneous combustion of anything the disc was aimed at. Would have been better if real fire could have been used, instead of CGI fire, though. The CCI fire looks OK at first, in quick shots, but it's lingered on a little too long, and the effect is ruined. Case in point: when the Heat Ray is first used against people, they burst into flames, and seconds later, their CGI skeletons drop to the ground. These are quick shots, and they work. The problem is that there are then several sloooowww motion closeups of several victims; not only do the flames look fake in these shots, but the cartooniness of the skeletons becomes extremely aparrent, especially when those skeletons continue to writhe around on the ground (neat trick, what with no muscles and all).
The use of colored filters throughout the film is somewhat distracting, but I got used to it. Worse was the skipping in the film; every few frames are missing, so the film jumps a bit, making me think my dvd was bad. I eventually realized it was done to make the film look as though it were filmed a hundred years ago. Interesting idea, actually, but it gets a little tiresome, especially given how long the film is.

And that brings me to a big issue. Remember the MST3K ep where the 'bots kept saying "Rock climbing, Joel. Rock climbing..."? You know, because the characters spent most of the film climbing up a rocky mountain in search of a crashed rocket? This WotW is like that, only it's "walking, Joel, walking." Lots and lots of walking. Sometimes purposefully, oftentimes aimlessly. Walking. More walking. Wow. If the three hour running time seems epic, it is most definitlely not, when a full hour of that is nothing more than walking. Shortening (or cutting) all the walking scenes would have helped the pacing of the film, and not detracted from the story in any way at all.

Come to think of it, a lot better editing could have helped this film, even with it's not-so-special effects. (Told you I'd mention more about editing; just took me a while to get here.) Many shots are choppy: shaky view of tripod, cut to reaction of character, cut back to view of tripod, cut back to character, cut back to tripod, cut back to character, all in less than five seconds. It's one thing to try to convey chaos & panic, but let's linger for a few seconds on what's causing it in the first palce, shall we? On the other hand, some reaction shots of characters actually hold for way too long, especially when such shots involve the characters looking reacting to the same thing but all the actors are looking in different directions.
Two other shots go on for way too long: one is of a captured woman who is feasted upon by the vampiric Martians (I believe the victim was male in the novel), and the other is a woman that gets stepped on by a tripod. The captured woman is shown screaming helplessly for a long time as she is partially stripped of her clothing before finally having her blood drained (in a not-very convincing CGI way). The stepped on woman was shown after the tripod moved on... again, non-convoncing CGI, but gross nonetheless; just showing the tripod's foot step on her and have a hint of blood oozing out from under the foot would have sufficed. (Why women are victimized in these two shots is beyond me. At least the character of Miss Elphinstone is a strong character, so the film doesn't bash women throughout.)

What else in those "more on that later" things? Ah... the black smoke. I admit that I actually fast forwarded through the interminable walking scenes, so maybe there was mention of the black smoke and I missed it. But I didn't actually see any. Maybe the fx guys thought it looked too fake? (That's sarcasm, folks, in light of how fake nearly everything else looked.)

Oh, well. I like the film in that it was a nice effort, but I wish it had been done better. (The music was pretty good, though.) Maybe I'm more forgiving because I like the original novel so much, and this film is all we have for now that brings it to the screen. I have a hard time believing $20,000,000 was spent on it, though. That may not be "big" budget in Hollywood, but the finished product doesn't look like that much was spent. (Especially since the location shooting wasn't all that extensive, given the use of CGI backgrounds. And the CGI was too primitive to have been overly costly, I would think.)
As for the upcoming Spielberg film, I want to see it. Not so much for the fx, which I know will be spectacular, but for the human story: the core of the original novel was humanity and its reactions to the events taking place, the overall sense of fear and unknowing. I want to see if I can get lost in that like I did the first time I read the novel.

Just re-watched parts of the Pendragon film... there is another scene of a woman getting stepped on like I described, without focusing on the gore, and it is disturbing enough, as I thought it would be. Unfortunately, that makes three women dispatched in nasty ways. (To be fair, many more men than women are killed in this film, but it's the graphic lingering on the women that I find troublesome. The mens' deaths don't seem as graphic nor as long lasting.)

Another nit/criticism is that the sea battle scenes are intercut with the Narrator scenes in a farmhouse. I realize this was to up the pacing and not have a "movie within a movie," but it's a little jarring how it's done. Worse, the sea scenes are in daylight, and the farmhouse scenes are at night. We go from day to night & back about half a dozen times.

Again, with better editing & fewer walking scenes, this could have been a better film. Better sfx (especially ones that don't resemble video game graphics) would have nudged it into the "really good" category.

I'm glad I paid the eight or so bucks for a dvd copy, rather than for a seat at the cinema; at least I have something to show for it, and can go back and rewatch the good parts at my leisure. (By the way, it takes about an hour and a half to two hours to watch by fast forwarding through the walking scenes. If you FF through long bits of dialogue, it's even shorter, but then you'd be missing the human interplay.)

Oh, just to rail this topic back to the 1953 George Pal WotW, the Pendragon farmhouse scene actually uses some miniature work and bears some resemblence to the George Pal version in the way that the farmhouse caves in.

Also, Big Ben in London gets blown up, but the effect is no where near as cool as Los Angeles City Hall in the GP film. The Big Ben thing is one of the worst examples of video game graphics in the film. It looks OK when it collapses onto the bridge, but it's the fall itself that is so bad. (Made worse in that it's really slow, and cuts to an aerial view of the bridge--from the wreckage's point of view, I guess--then back to the tower wreckage, back to the bridge POV shot, back to the ... you get the idea. At least on the trailer, the tower is shot & the wreckage falls onto the bridge in one normal-speed shot.) Anyway, the guy-in-a-rubber-monster-suit film Gorgo does a better job of wrecking Big Ben. And the GP WotW does an even better job of wrecking LA City Hall.

For $20,000,000 there is no excuse for effects as bad as you discribe in the Pendragon film. The Star Wars fan film Star Wars: Revelations was shot on DV & DVCPRO for $20,000 and has some really nice CGI. Granted those guys all worked pro-bono but still for 20 mil.

Who knows? Maybe Pendragon rushed the CGI in order to get the film done & released before the Spielberg one... this could be thought of as a rough cut, with a "special edition" featuring cleaned up SFX & better editing to come at a future time.
Can't find anything on Pendragon's website nor at IMDb that says so, though, so it looks like this is it.
(Pendragon's next sci-fi film, Chrome, looks kinda interesting, though. Maybe they shifted focus to that film before finishing this one.)
Re: fan films: I remember the funny Star Wars fan film Pink Five, featuring a Valley Girl-like Rebel pilot and some pretty nifty SFX. Don't know how much was spent on that, though, but it looked pretty good for a short fan film.

Oh, by the way, I've been meaning to do this for sometime, but either kept forgetting or didn't have access...
For all you fans of the George Pal "Martian Manta," or whatever you want to call it, here is a nice collection of pics from the film & behind the scenes. The last two pics on Sheet 1 show the "energy tripods legs" I mentioned a long time ago, and the first several pics on Sheet 2, although missing the animated "legs," show the sparking effects they have on the ground. Enjoy! (The website is by Phil Broad, and also covers tons of other sci-fi spaceships.)

Thanks for the link, CR!

I'm adding it to my "favorites"

No problem! I figured you'd be one of the first to enjoy it.
I'd stumbled across that site some time ago while looking for info (photos, etc.) about the spaceship from the original Planet of the Apes. Fans of older sci-fi films (and even a couple of recent ones) should have fun exploring the site. I would have loved a resource like this as a child. (Pics of the George Pal Martian war machine, for example, were few and far between back then; the shear number of dvd screen captures on the pages I linked to is like an old dream come true, and the vintage magazine article is an added bonus.)

Oh, one last thing about that Pendragon WotW, which I forgot to mention... the costume design & manufacture was very impressive. It looks like costuming is where a large amount of the budget (whatever it actually ended up being) was spent. Kudos to the designer(s).

It's nice to see that other people enjoy the Cloudster site as much as I do. As a Gerry Anderson fan, the site's huge collection of UFO photos held my interest until I got the show on DVD. I also found the classic Trek photos interesting; I had never seen behind the scenes shots of the Romulan Warbird in the studio.

I finally got around to seeing Pendragon's War of the Worlds, which I bought on DVD a couple of weeks ago. CR, you use the term "intrigued" to describe your reaction to the film. I would use the term "stunned" to describe mine. I almost couldn't believe what I was seeing. This film has the worst special effects of any scifi film I've seen in the last fifteen years. If ever somebody wants to see a film in which almost every special effect looks fake, this is your film. Think of the cheesiest SCIFI channel original picture...this is worse!

The film is incredibly misconcieved. It's supposed to be a special effects showcase, but there are no "special" effects to be seen anywhere. May's issue of CFQ magazine sparked my interest in the film. The article and photos looked promising (the effects actually looked decent in the photos). I see no evidence that this thing cost 20 million dollars. It looks more like a million at most. Now I understand why Pendragon's film wasn't released theatrically. The critics would have tore it to shreds. It will be interesting to read the reviews of the film in CFQ and other genre magazines.

The film exerts a strange sort of fascination. It's so ineptly done, one is glued to the screen hoping that it will get better...but it never does. It also contains so many mismatched shots that the director could be considered the new ED Wood. Characters are walking in what is supposed to be a town one moment, the next, they're in a rural field. The film lacks establishing shots, so it's confusing as to where the characters are. The production team also didn't bother with finding suitable locations. Phoney-looking buildings pasted onto the left and right side of rural field scenes don't suffice for town locations.

The film is also unable to generate any sort of supspense. The effects are so bad that they're distracting. A good example would be the early scenes of the townspeople examining the Martian ship. The ship is a cheap-looking CGI obviously pasted onto the live action scenes. The direction and editing don't help either. Most of the people look as if they're not anywhere near the ship. When the Martian craft attacks, it's laugh time. The rays reduce the people to awful CGI skeletons that ridiculously writhe around long after they've just been reduced to skeletons. When a Martian creature finally appears...well, words fail to describe how pathetic it is. George Pal's Martians remain a classic. Later, the Martian craft walk. Think of some bicycle pumps tied together and green-screened into shots. This film makes the BBC's Tripods series look like The Empire Strikes Back.


The effects representing London are even worse. Imagine TOY STORY if it was made in 1980, and you'll have an idea of how the CGI look. The London of 1899 is also pictured as some bizarre medieval looking town with a Big Ben in the background. To be honest, some big budget films have represented 19th century London in unconvincing CGI shots too. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen featured a flat-looking CGI panorama (with many buildings unknown to London) ending with a pan to a live action building in Prague. Around The World in Eighty Days just pastes a CGI Big Ben into the background of a neoclassical Berlin square. In those films, London was just a brief location. Here, it's supposed to be a major location (so it's poor depiction is all the more noticable).

If you watch this film, open the windows 'cuz it's a stinker.

Treklon, I was intrigued that a film faithful to the novel had been made, and that I hadn't even heard about it until I saw it on the shelf at the store. I had never heard of the production company nor any of the stars listed on the dvd case, but I was willing to give it a chance and made the purchase.
"Intrigued" was not describing my reaction to having watched the film itself. (Just thought I'd try to clear that up a little.)
Good point about establishing shots, or lack thereof.
As for pasted-in buildings, how about filmed buildings with pasted-in wrecked rooftops? There was one shot wherein the main character is walking down what appears to be an alley, and the buildings he's between have their upper floors & roofs burned off (via CGI). Someone watching the movie with me pointed out the obvious: "Shouldn't that road he's walking on be filled with wreckage?"
And an earlier scene has three nits in one! The scene where the narrator first sees a Martian tripod is during a nighttime rainstorm. First nit: there are stars in the sky instead of clouds (but there are lightning bolts). Second nit: the narrator appears dry. Of course, that's because of nit #3: the "rain" is added via CGI, but looks more snowy, or sleety.

Oh, well.

A prime example of the film's incompetently done effects is the scene where the narrator is riding in a carriage through a thunderstorm. They can't even depict rain realistically. Almost every film since the beginning of film has been able to depict rain competently (either by spraying water from above or by superimposing rain). In other words, the film is unable to pull off the simplist of effects. As if the effects (rain looking more like volcanic ash) weren't bad enough, the actor ridiculously overacts. He's so frightened by the rainstorm, he appears to be the biggest wuss in history. That contradicts his later behaviour where he punches out blondie, the religious fanatic (who's also given to overacting), in the farmhouse.

I watched the film again (fast forwarding through the "running" parts) to see how it could be improved. It really is like a rough cut in need of drastic cutting. A bigger problem is the direction. It's simply a very badly directed film. It appears that the director may be very inexperienced, but that's no excuse for leaving in so much unnecessary footage. I don't like criticising a film that may have been a labor of love for Time Hines. At a minimal cost, he could have used some effective stock footage of turn-of-the-century London (from a vast number of earlier films) instead of those laughable CGI shots of London. If I was the director, I would insist that the CGI effects be taken out. If all else failed, any artist could make a decent old-fashioned painting of the London skyline instead (which surely wouldn't cost much).

The worst parts of the film are overpowering; the battle between the warships and the Martian craft just leaves too bad an aftertaste. For many viewers, I think that is what they will remember most.

There are stretches of the film that are reasonably well done. One part I enjoy quite a bit. In the middle of the film, there is a sequence where the Martian craft attack a church and town by the lake. The editing is much tighter and the sequence is fast moving and fun. The CGI effects of the smaller town and church work much better than the London shots. The effects still have a lowbudget look but they are fairly well done and designed. I particularly liked the shot where a Martian ship grabs a man and throws him off in the distance. The zooming shot towards the church tower with a screaming man inside is well done too. The Martian ships don't really look that realistic, but these scenes emphasise their interesting ant-like design. The Martian ship's stumble into the lake is impressive because it also shows the craft in it's most dynamic action. The water-splash effects are poorly done though.

Another distracting thing in the film are the phoney English accents. The narrator's acting is fine, most of the time, but his accent isn't convincing. One actress affects a particularly bad accent; that would be the lovely Jamie Lynn Sease. She is beautiful though! She looks like a young Jennifer Beals, so her presense is a plus. I looked in the credits to see where the film was shot. I couldn't find a mention of any locations, though Canada would be my guess. The phoney accents are distracting. Contrast this with another H.G. Wells film; First Men in the Moon. It's nice to see a film where the accents are authentic!

I don't regret buying the film. I rather enjoy the film the more I think about it. I just wish it would have been better. I was waiting for someone to film the novel as it was written too! I read in the newspaper yesterday that the people in Woking, England (where Wells wrote and set the novel- the town has a Martian Tripod statue in it to honor him) are disappointed that Spielberg's film version will be set in America again.

I believe the Pendragon film was shot around Seattle & Tacoma, Washington (USA), where the company is based. Must have seen that on their website, or at IMDb, but I don't remember exactly.
Strange, I thought I was the only one who actually liked this film in spite of its flaws; it's grown on me since my initial viewing, just as Treklon admits "I rather enjoy the film the more I think about it." Maybe there are subliminal messages in the dvd copy causing us to feel this way! ()
Oh, as for the often-mentioned (by both myself & Treklon) Jamie Lynn Sease, here she is as Miss Elphinstone in the Pendragon WotW. (By the way, she looks pretty cool as a Copper class robot in Chrome.)

By the way, sorry to have kept going on about the non-George Pal WotW on this board... I hadn't expected to, though I doubt I've much more to say about it. I don't really think that the Pendragon film will have enough viewers (it's got plenty of nit-able material, though!) to warrant its own board.
If, however, the Moderator would prefer, we could start up a separate board & move the relevant posts to it. I won't do so unless I hear otherwise.
Thanks, everyone, for your patience & understanding.

The mega-budget Spielberg film is somewhat of a disappointment too. One thing much better explained in his film is the red plants which sprout up all over the place. In the Pendragon film, bright orange bushes just seem to pop up for no apparent reason.

Spielberg's film does shamelessly ripoff the ad art of Pal's film. It features an almost identical image of an alien hand grasping the Earth.

Is it a rip-off, or an homage?
By the way, the late 1980's (or was it early 1990's?) tv series that was a sequel to the 1953 film also used similar imagery, but updated to resemble the tv series aliens, not the suction cup fingers of the 1953 film Martians.

There are somethings that always bothered me about the original:

1. If the Martians scanned our universe with "instruments with we have scarcely dreamed", how did they miss the stuff on the microscopic level?

2. How come the sheriff didn't know what a geiger counter was? (He said, "What have you got in here, fella? It's ticking like a bomb!")

3. Dr. Forrester OWNS a plane, therefore he must have a license...yet he crashes the plane in the ditch. What happened?

BTW...Alvy Moore (Mr. Kimball) appears in this movie. He's the guy who says, "I'm going to see it, who's coming?" after the meteorite crashes and he's the guy who yells, "Hey, the phone's gone dead" at the square dance

The Martians scanned our world (we share the same universe with them.), but even as advanced as they were, I doubt they could have detected microscopic things from Mars, nor even from Earth orbit. Perhaps they didn't even do so once they began their invasion. Not that they couldn't do so; they were probably just too overconfident to bother. Then again, maybe that's another reason they were examining the farmhouse (besides trying to find out what had chopped off their camera probe).

As for the sheriff not knowing about the Geiger counter, I guess one could chalk it up to how "new" radiation stuff was in the 1950's. (Or in other words, not everyone knew a lot about it yet. Kind of a reach, I know, especially given that a law enforcement officer should have been aware of radiation stuff for Civil Defense reasons...)

As for Forrester crashing, I think part of it was due to panic (specifically, Sylvia's panic distracting him), coupled with nearly flying into the Martian machines catching him off guard.

A SPECIAL EDITION of the classic WOW movie is coming to DVD on Nov. 1! It will have commentaries from Gene Barry & Ann Robinson!

I CAN'T WAIT!

On the same note, the 1988 TV series will be released on DVD in November.

I'm SPECULATING that the 2005 movie will be released at this time as well.

I wonder if they will keep the same opening for the TV series (one season of it, anyway). Since it looks like the poster for the current movie is a near-duplicate of it.

Unless I miss my guess, I assume they will use that image (the three-fingered sucker-tipped hand slowly shrouding the Earth from above) to hopefully mislead people into thinking they are getting something related to the movie.

I've seen that dozens of times. For example, when a Disney movie like Aladdin would be released on video, suddenly old, cheap cartoons surface in a collection that has a cover very similar to the Disney release.

Just visited AMAZON.COM....both the Special Edition & Season 1 TV series will be released Nov. 1

More nits & observations:

If you look VERY CAREFULLY, you can see Woody Woodpecker sitting on top of a tree during the second footage of the descending meteor at the beginning of the movie.

=================================================

In the commentary, Ann Robinson noted that she had a purse while running towards the plane. She stated that she didn't have one before that. She is wrong. Sylvia (Robinson) had a purse in her hand when she first met Forrester.

==================================================

That ending with Earth's bacteria killing off the martians seems to bother a lot of people. At first glance, it indeed seems unbelievable that such advanced creatures would not be prepared for that threat. Yet, it is a quite logical and plausible ending if you read the book carefully. In it, the martians are described as a very old civilization that had completely domesticated its biosphere. There had been no harmfull bacteria on their world for countless generations. The very concept of a pathogen was probably totally foreign to them.

It's very much the same attitude as our own behavior when we go into real wilderness. Here, I'm talking about ordinary citizens, not experienced explorers of course. We just don't realize how wild and dangerous it can be, with predators, parasites and toxic plants just waiting to do us in. Used as we are to our controled urban or rural environments, we are simply not prepared for those hazards and don't think about them until we are actually confronted with them. Now, extend this tendency over thousands of generations and you realize how dangerous our "wild" biosphere was to the martians, and how unprepared to face it they could have been.

Also, in the book, the martian's fate was an alegory for what was happening to the european soldiers of the time trying to conquer Africa. They were falling like flies, killed by deseases like malaria or sleeping sickness, nasty little bugs the europeans were very vulnarable to, while the local african populations were mostly immune to them.

Concerning the 1953 movie (one of my favorites which I have watched more times than I can remember), I wonder what would have happened if the soldiers had fired a few bombs or mortar shells in the crater before the martians were ready to move. Was the meteor ship also protected with an electronic shield?

And I have recently noticed a very neat special effect. When the martians fire their heat ray in the streets of Los Angeles, you can see the telephone and electrical wires running along the streets instantly evaporate into smoke, even though the heat beam isn't hitting them directly. I always felt that the heat beam was really a sort of magnetic induction weapon, using powerful variable magnetic fields to induce intense and chaotic electric currents in the target, incinerating it from the inside out. The effect it had on radios, telephones and other electronic system seemed to confirm this, and now those wire evaporating are one more piece of evidence in favor of that hypothesis.

The Flying Wing evolved later into the Stealth Bomber

Actually the Flying wing as used in this movie was destroyed. The design concept evolved into the current stealth bomber.

Yeah...that's it. You got the idea.

I got this dvd when it first came out. You can see the wires holding up the Martian machines..

Doc: (Technobabble).


Girl: Yes, I can see the wires too.

It's Dr. Clayton Forrestor, and Sylvia Van Buren., can someone fix it?

You should hear this movie in "Surround Sound". It's awesome.

This movie won a well deserved Oscar for "Best Special Effects". It was nominated for "Best Film Editing" and "Best Sound Recording"

I forgot to mention that the footage of the scientists listening to the radio also comes from "When Worlds Collide" along with some of the disaster footage.

When the sheriff finds the geiger counter in Forester's car, we also see fish in a container that are being kept fresh with a layer of ice chunks. Where did Forester get that ice if he had been fishing in the wilderness? Or if he somehow had access to a supply of ice, how did it not melt in the heat of a California summer while he was driving to the meteor? Or, come to think of it, why were the fish there at all? Shouldn't his two friends have taken all the fish they caught with them back to Los Angeles? Along with all that fishing tackle cluttering up the back of the car?

War of the Worlds (1953) is coming to HD BLU-RAY July 7, 2020

I've seen clips on YOUTUBE

Colors are brighter

Sound is crisper

WIRES ARE GONE!

I would appreciate a link or two to those clips please, I can't seem to be able to locate them.

Btw, here is a link to a fan made recreatrion of the opening monologue scene using modern NASA images that I did find.

And every major world capital was destroyed by the Martians, but they left Washington D.C. alone for... reasons.

Probably because the Martians didn't have time to get to it. It wasn't the only major city to have been spared at that time, the commentator says it is one of the few. And Los Angeles had not been attacked yet either at that point in the movie.

Ann Robinson, who played Sylvia in this movie, reprised the role for the 1988 TV series.

I wonder why they didn't get Gene Barry back as well. At the time the show was made, he was still alive.

When general Mahn reviews Col. Heffner's preparations, he comments that the martians have probably disabled all means of communication. Heffner says that their field telephones still work, to which Mahn repies that hey will go the moment the Martians fire another heat ray. But, when the Martians do fire on uncle Matthew, Heffner orders to "let them have it!", which his aide relays to the troops with his field telephone, and the phone works just fine.

Before and during the first battle, we are shown many shots of the war machines from different angles and distances. In several of those shots, only two machines can be seen even after all three have already come out of the crater.

Forrester and everyone else keep talking of the Martian cylinder in the gully as a meteor. However, at that point it should be referred to as a meteorite. Understandable that the ordinary town folks would make that mistake, but a scientist like Forrester, or a well educated woman like Sylvia, really should know better.

Holds up pretty good for a movie made 71 years ago.