The War of the Worlds (1953)

Great Books: A Worthwhile Series
My comments relate to the excellent TV series "Great Books," of which I have seen 33 episodes. The episode dealing with H G Wells' classic "War of the Worlds," was balanced and informative. It gave an overview of Wells' life, his social concerns, and the history of "War of the Worlds" in its different incarnations: print; radio; and film. It is important for people to realise that Wells was attacking the history of European imperalism in the world by having the Martians, with superior military technology, taking over our world - just as the Europeans had taken over and exploited the Americas, Australasia, Africa and parts of Asia. (He expressed concerns about unfettered Capitalism in "The Time Machine.") As a father of modern science fiction, Wells not only created some of the archetypal stories of the genre, but established one of its major functions: social criticism. This particular episode of "Great Books" is well worth viewing, as are many of the others, e.g., "Gullivers Travels," and the "Scarlet Letter."

war of the worlds/tom cruise
The movie,if you can put aside your prejudice about Tom, was very good. It was not a faithful rendition from the book. However if you are like me and can project yourself into the books you read, the movies you see, you will feel the fear, and utter helplessness of this situation. I was truly frightened by this. The movie has some ideas from the original book, has some ideas from the 1953 Pal movie, and a cameo appearance of Gene Barry and Ann Robinson at the end as the grandparents. They were the original stars of the Pal movie. The train scene really got to me of the hopelessness of it all. Where the heck can you go. There is also a second rendition as well this year.It is available on DVD and is real faithful to the book. A lot of computer graphics but well worth watching.

DON'T BOTHER...I WALKED OUT!!!
I went into the theatre with high expectations of a FAITHFUL remake of the original film using today's special effects/space craft design enhancements--but TRUE to the original--and found myself in the middle of yet another Tom Cruise "Star feature" film where he's...
1] babysiting his own and ex-wife's disfunctional/spoiled teenage son and a self-centered slightly smart-ass "screaming" adolescent daughter,
2] the three of them (with the cast of extras acting like idiots) watching loose-lipped as the pilots of the buried alien space crafts are "lighteninged" into them from somewhere above ala "beam me DOWN, Scotty",
3] coping with more idiot-extra "me first" crowd mentality comandeering the ONLY running wheels Tom latched on to (without any explanation of how he did that), then
4] in the middle of the mayhem the three retreating to a streetside coffee shop's WINDOW SEAT BOOTH for safety? (tell me another, I LOVE to laugh!) only to watch their stolen van taken over by other idiot-extras, etc., ad nausium.
After 45 minutes of this--NONE OF IT IN THE ORIGINAL FILM OR BOOK!!!!--I gave up and WALKED OUT knowing I had better things to do with my time than lend credibility to the schlock I was seeing on the screen.
The special effects I DID see were just standard stuff for this day and age, the atmospheric disturbance straight out of Independence Day/The Day After Tomorrow (been there, done that), the emergence of the first alien craft cludged from a collection of Star Wars/Terminator tri-legged dinasaur-Rex constructs--a BITTER disappointment, with a slight pause (alien scratching his head, "Duh...what do I do now?") before blasting any and everything in sight with rays that inexplicably disentegrated the human victims to pulpy atoms while leaving their clothes--mostly their pants--intact.
If this is what Dreamworks thought the public wanted to see--based on the CLASSIC nature of the original film--they were, in my view, sadly mistaken. The remake is a DUD!!!