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Post by yankee on Nov 25, 2019 14:32:27 GMT
From what I heard they have changed the end because it won’t “all go back to normal” once the Martians go, get defeated, die off or whatever. The damage to the planet will be permanent, or at least will take many decades to recover. That is interesting because a lot of the sci-fi / horror movies made in the U.S. in the 1950s were allegories for the Cold War. The alien invaders with their lasers and bombs were all metaphors for the Soviets and the always present threat of nuclear war.
So of course when the Earthlings (Allies/good guys) defeated the aliens (Soviets/ bad guys) the square jawed hero hugged the lovely leading lady, usually said something cheesy about mankind, the music swelled and it was a happy ending.
Never any talk about the fallout from everything that took place beforehand.
Whereas with the Japanese films of the same time period, the giant monsters such as Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan etc. were all mutations or prehistoric fossils brought to life through nuclear fallout, something the Japanese knew first-hand.
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Post by spinninghead on Nov 28, 2019 12:41:20 GMT
I dithered about watching the second episode - but, in the end, didn't bother.
Catching up with a review, the writer here doesn't pull punches. Two stars? Bit generous, that.
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Post by goodhelenstar on Nov 28, 2019 13:33:52 GMT
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Post by Miranda on Nov 28, 2019 13:43:40 GMT
I haven't watched the second one yet either. Not sure I'll bother. Even though I enjoyed the first one a lot, the whole flash-forward thing has put me off.
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Post by spinninghead on Nov 29, 2019 8:44:26 GMT
This is the review I mentioned earlier...
The War of the Worlds review: 'A massive disappointment' Pat Stacey
The BBC’s three-part miniseries The War of the Worlds, based on HG Wells’s classic 1898 alien invasion novel, was supposed to be shown last Christmas.
The news that it had been postponed, reportedly due to problems with special effects, sparked speculation that the production was in trouble.
While the BBC dithered over announcing a transmission date, The War of the Worlds was quietly shown in Canada and New Zealand last month, in two parts rather than three. It was a strange move for such a major drama and one that set more alarm bells ringing.
Now that the miniseries is finally here, spread across three Sundays and – self-defeatingly – in direct competition with ITV’s ratings behemoth I’m a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, it’s impossible to ignore the signs any longer.
I’ve seen all three episodes and they’re a massive disappointment. Much as I hate to say it, because I’ve loved Wells’s book since I was a boy, The War of the Worlds is an early Christmas turkey.
The novel is a difficult one to adapt. It’s a fantastical tale of a Martian invasion, framed as a piece of thrilling reportage. It’s even set in real locations, including Horsell Common in Woking, Surrey, where the invasion begins.
The unnamed narrator is a witness to events, forever running for his life. We learn little about him other than that he has a brother, whose account to him of the Martian rampage in London forms part of the narrative, and a wife, who’s packed off to safety early on and doesn’t reappear until the end.
None are what you’d call well-drawn characters. The challenge facing any adaptation is to flesh out the story.
Orson Welles’s famous 1938 radio drama cleverly recreated the immediacy of the book by presenting it as a mock news broadcast.
The 1953 Hollywood film played on Americans’ Cold War fears. Steven Spielberg’s 2005 film, with Tom Cruise, echoed the 9/11 attacks.
For this version, which takes place in 1905, close to the novel’s setting, writer Peter Harness has bafflingly decided that what The War of the Worlds needs is a modern makeover full of contemporary concerns and clumsily signposted virtue signalling. You might say things have got “woke” in Woking.
The nameless narrator has been replaced by Amy (Eleanor Tomlinson) and George (Rafe Spall), an outcast couple who buck the trends of stuffy Edwardian society by living together out of wedlock (George’s wife refuses to give him a divorce).
He’s an ineffectual and frankly drippy journalist, while she’s a scientist, a feminist and very much the chief protagonist. Their relationship takes up more screen time than the alien attacks.
There’s a strong suggestion that their friend and Amy’s boss, the astronomer Ogilvy (Robert Carlyle), a character who’s vaporised by the Martian death ray early on in Welles’s book, is gay and therefore also an outcast – although there’s no obvious sign of this.
Fatally, sightings of Martian fighting machines are few and far between and, when they do turn up, usually one at a time, not particularly impressive. Most of the book’s major events happen (if they happen at all) off screen. The slaughter of mankind is depicted through the sound of distant explosions and lots of smoke. It’s as if Earth is under attack from a giant smoke machine.
The action, if you can call it that, is continually interrupted by tedious, red-filtered flashforwards to post-war society.
Welles’s original readers will have picked up the novel’s strong anti-imperialist message, which was subtly communicated. Harness’s script, however, sledgehammers it home in interminable, talky scenes.
Only one scene effectively captures the horror of Wells’s premise – that the Martians are harvesting humans for food – but it doesn’t come until halfway through the final episode. By then, viewers might have decided The War of the Worlds is The Bore of the Worlds.
Apologies - I should've remembered that this paper requires registration.
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Post by goodhelenstar on Nov 29, 2019 9:19:22 GMT
Thanks for that, spinninghead. All the reviews I've read are critical of the projection of 21 century values onto Edwardian life, which adaptations of classic works often do and it's a very strong feature of this adaptation, with strong feminist Amy who's an invention and wet blanket George.
I have mixed feelings about it. The values of the time wouldn't be acceptable to a modern audience, so there has to be some commentary on it in the story, and here they've chosen to do it with Amy but I agree with the reviewer that it's overdone.
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Post by yankee on Nov 29, 2019 14:53:06 GMT
That was the most brilliant thing about the Orson Welles radio adaptation.
Yes he changed the time it was set and moved the location across the pond.
But he didnt try and shoehorn in any romantic subplot or bring in protagonists characters whose lives we follow as we see how "they" react to the unfolding events.
By making the radio play a series of scattered breaking news reports Welles gave the listeners a "you are there" perspective and allowed their own reactions to what was unfolding drive the ship.
Its particularly chilling early in the radio play when the news reports start as brief cut ins during a broadcast of a big band show. Then return to the light happy music - cut in with another report - back to the music show etc.
As the news reports get more grim the contrast to the light dance music becomes more stark and the intervals between the back and forth become shorter until finally the news reports take over completely.
It's a slow burn and very effective at building tension and drama more so than a love story.
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Post by goodhelenstar on Nov 29, 2019 16:13:17 GMT
It's a very famous broadcast but I'd never actually heard it before. It's available on YouTube so have been listening. Knowing what we know about the broadcast, it can't have the same impact it had on its initial broadcast (and Orson Welles himself is playing several parts with his very distinctive voice), but it's pretty disturbing nonetheless, having lost none of its impact after so many years – it was first broadcast in 1938!
I don't know if Welles was the first broadcaster to make this simulated reality broadcast, but it's become well established since then. The Blair Witch Project comes to mind – no screams in that one but a strong sense of dread in the face of an unknown threat.
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Post by vicky on Nov 29, 2019 16:19:45 GMT
I don't agree. There are numerous examples throughout literature from Chaucer onwards of attitudes and behaviours that don't correspond with later ones but that doesn't require the original to be altered in any way. Each generation needs to learn how people before them thought and acted differently, otherwise history is just airbrushed out of existence and is eventually lost. Sticking our collective heads in the sand is not a good thing.
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Post by yankee on Nov 29, 2019 16:27:08 GMT
It's a very effective "fly on the wall" way of creating tension without a sappy story.
Blair Witch was brilliant the first half of the film but then you begin to wonder why the young woman would keep making the video diary once everything went to hell in a handbasket.
"Night of the Living Dead" was handled similarly brilliant as well.
Not the mockumentary style of WOTW or Blair Witch but as if you were watching this handful of mismatched people in a farmhouse dealing with a zombie apocalypse.
There was not a ton of dialog and the things these people said to each seemed genuine rather that a script.
Romero gave a nod to Orson Welles by having the farmhouse refugees listening to radio and tv news reports to try and find out what was happening. Whilst more and more zombies were milling around outside.
It created a sense of confusion, fear and claustrophobia all at once without feeling like you were watching a film.
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Post by goodhelenstar on Nov 29, 2019 16:52:10 GMT
I agree the original stands alone, but we are talking about adaptations. I'd always recommend someone whose first experience of TWOTW or anything else that's a TV version to go back to the original. It's part of the argument of those who make adaptations, either because it isn't practical to represent locations or events in the original story, or because what works on the page doesn't work on screen. It's a question of degree, isn't it? Adaptations are always interesting because they are adapted – it's fairly safe to say that on these boards the recent Agatha Christie adaptations have gone down like a lead balloon!
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Post by yankee on Nov 29, 2019 17:13:51 GMT
IMO the best adaptations take the central theme of a classic and do something interesting with it to create a stand alone companion piece rather than a paint by numbers remake.
'West Side Story' taking the central theme of Romeo and Juliet and the star crossed lovers kept apart by feuding families and updating it to a 20th century urban setting.
'O Brother Where Art Thou?' taking Homer's Odyssey and giving it a depression era retelling.
Both examples also adding music soundtracks that have becoming iconic in their own right.
You dont take an existing classic and try and make it better than the original in its own form.
You take its central story as an inspiration to create a story with a different relevance to a new audience.
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Post by Miranda on Nov 29, 2019 17:26:54 GMT
Which is pretty much what Shakespeare did a lot of the time. Many of his basic ideas were taken from Mediaeval stories that he rewrote for Elizabethan audiences. Of course, his stuff is now so much more famous that a lot of people think they are his original ideas.
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Post by yankee on Nov 29, 2019 17:37:52 GMT
I wasnt aware of that Miranda! Thank you. I learned something new today!
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Post by bidiein on Nov 29, 2019 17:50:53 GMT
Glad I did not bother with episode 2. Clearly the BBC have been looking for somewhere to dump this in the schedule. A shame because they have a good cast and the original story is excellent. Sadly everything needs to be 'updated' and it just doesn't work for the target audience, imo.
I liked the Tom Cruise version which I did not expect to.
It reminds me of the mess the BBC have made of several Agatha Christie books. There are plenty of stand alone mystery novels written by this author which have NEVER been filmed - (including a wonderful one set, from memory, in ancient Rome) - why not do one of them? Instead they try and bring a 'fresh eye' to classics like the ABC Murders and Then There were None. A waste if time if you ask me.
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