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WAR OF THE WORLDS Trailer. BBC (Miniseries)


505thAirborne

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Mm. I've been waiting for more news about this one. I've read HG Well's original book, listened to the 1938 radio play, watched the 1953 movie and the 1980s television series. Heard about the docudrama, but haven't seen it yet.

Anyway, this looks fun. I'm very keen to revisit the tale with the guise of HG Wells' historical setting. The trailer doesn't go deep into new territory (thankfully), so it doesn't spoil anything that I didn't read in articles from earlier this year and last year, Alas, even the design of the Martian tripod was spoiled early on.

Edited by technoblue
typos
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  • 505thAirborne changed the title to WAR OF THE WORLDS Trailer. BBC (Miniseries)

I'm going to be that weirdo who preferred the Tom Cruise movie to most other depictions of the story, just because I felt it flowed better, stuck mostly to the original premise, and didn't spend so much time navel gazing.

Granted, I read the book a very long time ago (probably before high school), so I may get more from it now, but I remember a good chunk of the center section of the book being one of the most mind-numbing slogs I've ever experienced.  Based off that impression, I thought the treatment of the situation with the farm house in the Cruise version was actually a fair upgrade.

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I loved the '50s movie and the '80s show! Something about the design of the ships really captured my imagination as a kid.

The Cruise movie was... adequate. It had some issues, definitely, but it had some pretty good scenes, too. And I thought it retained the spirit of the original novel, despite the change in setting and time period.

As for this, well... I feel like a faithful, turn-of-the-century London adaptation was done direct-to-video around the time the Cruise film came out. And it wasn't very good. If I'm being totally honest, while I think Wells' novel was extremely influential and has earned its place in history I think it's a bit of a slog and hasn't aged well. So while I'm interested in checking it out, I'm feeling a bit pessimistic about how much I'll actually like it.

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16 minutes ago, Beltane70 said:

Please tell me that you’re joking and aren’t really unaware of the original novel or 1953 film’s existence!

I am absolutely 100% joking, although I've never partaken of either.

I'm also aware of the infamous halloween radio play that had people convinced an actual invasion was happening. This is the best version just by virtue of chaos caused.

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@Dynaman - What potential obstacles are you seeing from the trailer?

As I said, it was too short for me to get much out of it, but on another forum I frequent there has been discussion over a few minor nitpicks. Will the time period be late Victorian era or early Edwardian? Will the story focus on the two brothers from the novel or change that core relationship (as the BBC is wont to do nowadays). I don't know, but I guess it could be fun to speculate while we wait to find out. ;)

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4 hours ago, 505thAirborne said:

The Tom Cruise version was ok, definitely had some great scenes in it. If they had just written his son out the story it would have been so much better, I kept waiting for the Aliens to kill that obnoxious little SOB. 

at a certain point in the theater, I just started cheering for the martians in-general... best part: other people joined in! :rofl:

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3 hours ago, Dynaman said:

The tone is all wrong.  The book handles the preachiness indirectly.  This version has it coming right out of character's mouths - because modern audiences are too stupid...

Yeah, that's fair. With the book, the preachiness reflected the internal bias of the two brothers narrating the eyewitness accounts (or Wells's own preachiness, depending on your point of view). With the series, I'm not sure we will get a narrator, so I guess they have to find other ways to get that information across. If the dialogue doesn't improve beyond the trailer soundbites, than at least it will make for a few good chuckles.

"This is nothing to be concerned about!' I got a kick out of that line.

Edited by technoblue
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