The BBC unleashes the trailer for a right proper little War Of The Worlds
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H. G. Wells’ The War Of The Worlds—the author’s classic treatise on the power of bacteria and nature’s most elegant shape, the laser-shooting tripod—has seen its fair share of adaptations over the years. (It’s the rare story that can count both Steven Spielberg and Orson Welles among its adherents.) And yet, very few such versions of Wells’ story take into account the context in which it was written—i.e., 1897, a period when science fiction itself was still a bold and new concept. The idea of a bunch of damn bloody Martians coming down from yonder spaceways to cause an upheaval at the local fête? Why, perish the thought, our good woman or sir!
All of which is to say that the most interesting thing about the BBC’s new take on The War Of The Worlds—promoted with a new trailer that the organization released tonight— isn’t all the alien battle machines stomping around; it’s the fact that they appear to have arrived halfway to teatime at Downton Abbey, as a crew of very freaked-out-looking Edwardians flee some very modern-looking space monsters. (If you’re looking for subtext, meanwhile, watching a bunch of people in top-hatted authority yell at their constituents to stop worrying about a planet-destroying threat is likely to meet your needs.) The series is being directed by Craig Viveiros, with Rafe Spall and Eleanor Tomlinson attempting to stay alive in the middle of this popping good little extraterrestrial apocalypse, guv. The series is set to air in three installments, starting in the fall.
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The chances of anything coming from Mars
Are a million to one, he said
But still they come!Glad I’m not the only one singing this album over the trailer!
UUUUU-LAAA!
Jeff Wayne’s musical version of the WotW.
FAREWELL, THUNDERCHILD!
It’s funny they don’t release the actual airing date after all these heavy promotions. It is already Autumn now.
It’s Forever Autumn
Now you’re not here!
Very good.
I wish I could star this more than once.
Justin Hayward
1897 is Victorian, not Edwardian.
a crew of very freaked-out-looking EdwardiansPerhaps they were a crew of people plotting to put the playboy prince on the throne four years early, only for their plans to be interrupted by Martian invasion.
These characters are just ahead of their time. Why, they’re so progressive they don’t even cross the street when a black person approaches!
What about little green people?
“1897 is Victorian, not Edwardian.”The people fleeing are all called Edward. Read the damn book.
From the BBC description on YouTube: “Set in Edwardian England.” So it looks like they moved the time period on a bit and this explains the service dress of the soldiers, which didn’t come in till after 1902.
No US distributor?
It feels like another binge weekend is coming up.
The series is being directed by Craig Viveiros, with Rafe Spall and Eleanor Tomlinson attempting to stay alive in the middle of this popping good little extraterrestrial apocalypse, guv. There’s a non-zero chance you completely made up those names.
Even odds that Lord Top Hat McSnobbingdon gets vaporised by a heat ray mere seconds after yelling “There’s nothing to worry about!”Seriously, have been looking forward to this for a while. Am always down for some Martian death-raying.
Happened to see this just yesterday on Reddit; thought it was great. (Given that I grew up across the lake from Seattle.)
Earlier this year TCM aired the original WotW with Frank Darabont as a guest to talk about the film. At the end he said that while he liked both film versions, he wishes that someone would make a true adaptation of the novel – set in London in the late 1800s. Maybe someone at BBC heard him?
It’s the BBC so it’s coming in the Autumn.
or in the Proms.
I feel like I have been waiting for this forever!
I always get irked at the idea of setting the story in 1890s, when it was written, would be a “proper” or “true” adaptation. This looks like it’ll be a fun kind of way to tell the story, and if you’re going to revisit it at this point you DO need to do it with some new perspective to avoid the redundancy of the whole thing, so I definitely appreciate this take. BUT, Wells didn’t write War of the Worlds as a period piece, when he wrote it it was contemporary, the whole point was to take advantage of, what was at the time, cutting edge scientific knowledge and military tactics/arsenal (cause part of the idea of the story was to be humbling, which is tough to do if you approach it with an “well that was 100 years ago” attitude), while also being commentary on current political and social mores. I feel like adaptations that bring the story into current time periods and attitudes are just as true to the tome as a word for word adaptation might be.
I agree with your point, but at the same time no film or radio adaptation of this story (that I know of) has been set in anything but present-day; so, I’m looking forward to seeing how they handle this. (And chanting under my breath, “Don’t screw this up. Don’t screw this up. Don’t screw this up…”).
Absolutely agreed.
It’s a matter of rights, IIRC. “The War of the Worlds”, set in the same era as the book was, belongs to Jeff Wayne (he of the stunningly great album). His copyright is also the source of the comic-book sequel “Scarlet Traces”.
“War of the Worlds”, without a The, in a modern-day setting, belongs to Universal.
I got really distracted by your sentence with seven commas, a pair of quotes and parentheses, and a forward slash.
At least they’re doing it right and keeping it canon—the Martians get here with Wells-approved fake meteors.
Spielberg having the Martians “ride the light” to man, uh, martian their war machines that had been previously buried on Earth was truly a what-the-eff-were-you-thinking? choice that still irritates me when I catch the flick on TV. Seriously, what the hell?
It wasn’t in the trailer so I’m hoping the save it for air, but if this is a Victorian WoW and it doesn’t have the HMS Thunderchild, I’m going to be pissed.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-reAahY1GCE
“War of the Worlds” was one of my first pop culture obsessions although I arrived at it sideways. I started with the Pal/Haskin film in second grade, several years later caught a rebroadcast of the Welles’ radio adaptation, then read the John Christopher reimagining in his YA “Tripod” series before I finally worked my way to the Wells novel in seventh grade. All the time, though, I’ve wanted a proper Victorian film or television version. I’m the perfect audience for this but I have to say it looks disappointing.While all the previous takes managed to evoke a core aspect of the novel (the film the apocalyptic intensity, the radio play the first person immediacy and horror, the “Tripod” books the ironic, reverse-imperial twist) this one looks a bit flat. It has the shiny, crisp glare of digital capture smeared with the obligatory muddiness of subpar CGI. I also detect a more melodramatic approach to the narrative while the production design seems especially uninspired. The tripods look oddly more like Curd Jürgens’ underwater lair from “The Spy Who Loved Me” than the original Victorian water towers run-amok illustrations by John Guy Collick:or the later, wonderfully looney, owl-eyed, tin hatted and tentacled Alvim Corrêa designs: It also appears too bright and polished when it should look like a smoggy, grime-coated nightmare.I might give this a glance far down the road but I’m in no hurry.
“Oh Alan, a forty second trailer couldn’t possibly make anybody prejudge the show as crap, you’re just being paranoid!”
My one fear is the Brits have a nasty tendency to fixate too strongly on the period costumes, almost to the exclusion of all else. Even in the modern ‘Sherlock’ they gave him an anachronistic long morning coat to twirl around in.
We only do that because we assume you chaps would be disappointed otherwise. Most Brits were never upper class, nor the direct servants of the same. But if historical adventures are to carry any kind of realism, those are the sort of people who would have zany adventures. Everyone else was too busy shovelling shite.
We have all this stuff just lying around, and it’s a great opportunity to polish it and stick it in front of a camera!
“anachronistic”? Is that how you spell “stylish AF”?
Something often overlooked now is that the book was written as a response to a whole genre of literature about the British Empire slaughtering and conquering “backwards” foreign nations, which Wells was far ahead of his time in seeing for the racist shite it was, and so he said to them “What if we were the ones being invaded by a foreign enemy with hopelessly superior technology?” My big hope is that this one taps into that more than we usually see.
For a brief happy moment, I was hoping this was going to be an adaptation of the sci-fi trilogy “The Tripods”, which is probably due a reboot in the internet age. What the Earth is like after the “Martians” win.I’m happy to have any sci fi, and I’m sure they’ll do a good job of it. But as it is, it’s difficult to see what could be added to the many adaptations already made to the classic story – it’s a deus ex machina where the humans needn’t have bothered.
I loved that trilogy (and they added at least one prequel at some point) as a kid, and I’ve always thought it was ripe for modern film treatment. Not sure why it hasn’t happened yet.
I agree. The BBC killed off the third series, partly because it was so expensive (for the time), but mostly because the BBC (Michael Grade) hated all forms of science fiction. He killed off Doctor Who a few years later.
In this science fiction version of the UK, Neville Chamberlain is prime minister in 1897. They’re doomed!
Bah. The only Tripods I recognize have mind controlling hats and aren’t defeated by any measly Earth pathogen, but rather by, as I recall, blowing up their bases on Earth?
Our fierce armada of hot-air balloons will see us through this.
And a good shot of grain alcohol in the water supply.
This really seems like it should just be a Doctor Who episode.
(If you’re looking for subtext, meanwhile, watching a bunch of people in top-hatted authority yell at their constituents to stop worrying about a planet-destroying threat is likely to meet your needs.)
I can’t possibly imagine how that could relate to the modern day…/s
“Hello. Hello old chap. Welcome to England.”
I really want this to be good. I love the book, and haven’t found any adaptations that do it any sort of justice. There’s something about the little details – like changing the Martian’s weapons from an invisible heat ray to some kind of blue laser that disintegrates people- that really dilute the effect of the story for me, somehow. So an actual period piece has me optimistic for a closer adaptation.
I’m in. FUCK yes.
It looks absolutely fantastic! Can’t wait to see it!