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War of the Worlds - Oh dear...


Harlequin
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Wells' concern is speciesism, not racism. His narrator suggests that human civilisation appears to the Martians much as an anthill appears to us: a thing to be obliterated without a thought. This doesn't quite hang together, since it is also clear that the Martians are interested in humans as a source of nutrition. When describing the Martian blood-sucking, he remarks "The bare idea of this is no doubt horribly repulsive to us, but at the same time I think we should remember how repulsive our carnivorous habits would seem to an intelligent rabbit."

 

As a human, he can arrive at this degree of empathy; he implies that Martians, having evolved out of the need for such bodily functions as digestion and sexual intercourse, have lost or never had the capacity for empathy.

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5 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Wells' concern is speciesism, not racism. His narrator suggests that human civilisation appears to the Martians much as an anthill appears to us: a thing to be obliterated without a thought. 

 

I am not sure if for us, it is "obliterated without a thought" but more a case of "obliterated when it is likely to be a pest to our plans". I eliminate an ants nest when it threatens entering the house or doing damage in the garden but I would not seek to go out of my way to destroy ants nests.

I suspect Aliens would do the same. Eliminate all aspects which could possibly hurt them or trying to stop them from settling and living on our planet. But unlikely to go searching the very last parts of the earth to eliminate everyone of us. A roman army could do our modern day generally unarmed civilian population great harm despite our technical superiority  but that would only happen if our modern armies allowed them to form and get close. An ancient civilization would be quickly routed in the face of modern firepower. It could still exist but would not pose a threat.

 

They could use us food, but then you would want a fair amount to survive and breed to supply that food, in much the same way we farm cows. Even here cows would be a better choice. How long do we take to become adults vs a cow?

 

Strangely, a French channel (Canal+) has also released a War of Worlds Series set in modern times in London and France. The adds have no big tripods only dog like aliens (note video is mostly in English with some French).

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=la+guerre+des+mondes+série&&view=detail&mid=C35B1310C17F2D26D0DDC35B1310C17F2D26D0DD&&FORM=VRDGAR  

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As the closing credits rolled yesterday evening, my only emotion was relief that there wouldn’t be any more next week. I felt obliged to watch the whole thing in the hope it might improve at some point, but it was not to be. Tedious and irritating.

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1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

All this sounds rather like the United Federation of Planets in the Star Trek universe.  As to whether that will ever come to pass .....


Whilst it would be nice to think that at some time in the future we could get past such things as nationalism, poverty and war to form an organisation like the Federation, a far more likely future for Earth is shown in ‘The Expanse’ which is now on Amazon Prime.

 

A brilliant series and an excellent example of the right way to adapt a novel (or series of novels in this case) without the need to get all preachy about it! 
 

Tom. 

Edited by TomE
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49 minutes ago, Colin said:

As the closing credits rolled yesterday evening, my only emotion was relief that there wouldn’t be any more next week. I felt obliged to watch the whole thing in the hope it might improve at some point, but it was not to be. Tedious and irritating.

 

I accept that film and TV adaptations may not always be totally true to the original book. Various reasons for that, god and otherwise.

 

But, if there had not been the classic tripods, I simply would not have recognised parts of this as being from that book at all. HGW must be turning in his grave.

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I could imagine an Edwardian schoolmaster looking through the essay (as we might call the script) and marking it thusly:

 

1/10 

See Me.

And it may well be that some exercise books down the back of the trousers might have been an essential precaution....

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You need to remember that Wells formed his thinking in an age before the Bolshevik Revolution, when Fabians could still believe in the coming technocratic state. The Soviets ran rings around him for their own purposes, as they did George Bernard Shaw, Nansen and other figures of the time. 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

I accept that film and TV adaptations may not always be totally true to the original book. Various reasons for that, god and otherwise.

 

But, if there had not been the classic tripods, I simply would not have recognised parts of this as being from that book at all. HGW must be turning in his grave.

 

I once saw Andrew Davies talking about TV adaption where he explained his approach. You often can't take the book straight off the page and on to the screen. My problem with WotW was that so little of it had come from the original. Had they not stuck WotW on the title and instead just claimed it to be a brand new series, then most of the objections would have gone (apart from the last few scenes with the sky clearing, that WAS rubbish) and we could have "enjoyed" people gawping at the scenes of destruction and Martians.

 

As it was, Tom Cruise did it better.

 

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12 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

You often can't take the book straight off the page and on to the screen.

 

But you can stick to the spirit and characterisations of the book that is being adapted for the screen, large or small.

 

And thats what must be done if you're going to use the same title as the book.  If you want to "re-imagine" it and include a get out in the form of "Based on War of the Worlds by HG Wells", then using the original title is lying or at the very least, misrepresentation.

 

Anyhow.

 

I'm going to force myself to sit through the last episode this evening and I promise not to use the skip button. From what I've read so far its not going to be a pleasant experience.  Then I'll delete the whole lot.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Captain Kernow said:

I was very much looking forward to this series. My considered opinion now is that it was a load of bolocks.

 

I stuck with it right the way through from what looked like a positive beginning in the first episode to the mish-mashed jumble of the final one.  To be honest I think your opinion of the programme as 'a load of bolocks'  is remarkably restrained shows a strong element of forgiveness for the utterly mangled storyline, the at times amazingly weird script, the inexplicable lighting, and the seemingly peculiar ideas it attempted to squeeze in to the overall story.  Or to put it another way as Mrs Stationmaster said yesterday evening 'That's another hour of my life I won't get back.'

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I've only watched two of them so far and my reactions are mixed. I think what they did capture was how a world with limited communications and those badly disrupted simply wouldn't know what was going on. Remembering that in those days the military didn't have the sort of co-ordinated command and control system they might have now even with comms down. Even in 1953 there seems to have been no way of warning local populations  about the floods moving down the N. Sea nor even of knowing that they were happening till it was too late.

The train did amuse me. Not because it was the wrong train for that part of the country at that time but rather the idea that the main line from Woking to London could be a single track country branch line. That strikes me fairly often whenever main line steam era trains are represented by preserved railways. The GCR can manage it to some extent but beyond that they might be better off with CGI if they can get it right.( Let us draw a discrete veil over the Blue Train in the later Poirot series trying to get from Marseilles to Nice by travelling west along the mediterranean coast and being stuffed with Le Train Bleu branding that neither the PLM nor the CIWL ever used in  a manner more reminiscent of the modern VSOE than any regular train of the 1930s)

 

7 hours ago, JSpencer said:

Strangely, a French channel (Canal+) has also released a War of Worlds Series set in modern times in London and France. The adds have no big tripods only dog like aliens (note video is mostly in English with some French).

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=la+guerre+des+mondes+série&&view=detail&mid=C35B1310C17F2D26D0DDC35B1310C17F2D26D0DD&&FORM=VRDGAR  

  I actually want to see that but not sure how I can get to. The real bonus with the Canal+ trail is that they've attached the 1957 Ed Murrow dramatised documentary The Night America Trembled about the panic created by Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre radio production on the eve of Halloween in 1938 (though they manage to never mention Welles by name). As often with programmes of that era it's amusing to see future stars including "Jim" Coburn, Warren Beatty, Warren Oates and Ed Asner playing minor roles. The other remarkable thing is that the hour long The Night America Trembled was broadcast live without fluffs or forgotten lines.

Edited by Pacific231G
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I don't say the following lightly.  Not At All.  That..... well.... it's won the award of "most God-forsaken, awful, ill-conceived and badly executed television programme I have ever had the misfortune to sit through".  The previous holder of the title being Ancient Aliens.  Yes, somehow the BBC have created something worse than even that.

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14 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

rather the idea that the main line from Woking to London could be a single track country branch line.

 

They could have just missed that bit out, they did with virtually everything else. However, if the South Devon got a few quid it could be considered a high point.

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46 minutes ago, Tony Davis said:

Wouldn't you (or "they" rather) need opposable thumbs to develop and operate spaceflight technology?

 

From Wells' narrator's description of the Martians: "In a group round the mouth were sixteen slender, almost whiplike tentacles, arranged in two bunches of eight. These bunches have since been named rather aptly ... the hands." (It does sound like an arrangement that would be, well, handy when soldering up a complex kit!)

 

In any case, the Martians have self-replicating machines.

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Well, I watched Episode 3 to the final apotheosis.  I definitely think I deserve some sort of recognition!

 

It struck me that the fates of a number of characters in The Book were completely inverted, in the series the Journalist (George) and his brother were killed off.  Ogilvy and the priest survived.  Of course, this was entirely due to the perverted narrative that the 21st century scriptwriters wanted to push.  And when the Martians were still skittering about, sticking their probosces into people to drink their blood, why didn't anyone think to get hold of a double-barrelled shotgun and go around blowing them to shreds?

 

Nevermind.  Watching it was one of those formative experiences, I suppose!

 

Talking about reviews, I've just been entertaining myself looking at the other IMDb reviews. As well as those, I came across one in the New Statesman* for the first episode.  The reviewer seemed to like it, though given their demographic, I'm not entirely surprised...

 

* https://www.newstatesman.com/war-worlds-bbc-one-adaptation-tv-sunday-review

 

 

 

Edited by Hroth
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I’ve just caught up. I had to watch on catch up because it clashed with my guilty pleasure, “I’m a Celebrity...”. But maybe I shouldn’t feel so guilty because "I’m a Celebrity" was more entertaining, better scripted and had more depth...


The casual use of the wrong train in Ep1 was a sign! We’d been given sign! 

 

Remember, you might be able to delete it from your personal recorders but it will be available on the iPlayer for ever, and ever, and ever...

 

Edited by Harlequin
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