# War of the Worlds (BBC) Trailer



## Vince W (Sep 29, 2019)

Oh please, oh please, oh please let this be great.


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## dask (Sep 29, 2019)

Looks like they know what they're doing. Hope it shows up on PBS.


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## svalbard (Sep 29, 2019)

Looks great.


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## Vertigo (Sep 29, 2019)

Unlike the Tom Cruise film this actually looks like they have read the book! Fingers crossed!


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## Vince W (Sep 29, 2019)

I just wish BBC would set an air date. This Autumn is too vague.


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## BAYLOR (Sep 29, 2019)

Its looks damned good ! 

I thought the official making the comment " There is nothing to worry about " was a nice ironic  touch


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## Extollager (Sep 29, 2019)

A faithful adaptation could be a huge treat.  Btw the novel was one of the first books I ever chose for myself.  I still have my boyhood copy of the Whitman Classic edition, dated Feb. 4, 1967.


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## Elckerlyc (Sep 29, 2019)

'This is nothing to be concerned about??' Oh, but I do! I do!


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## Cli-Fi (Sep 29, 2019)

Vince W said:


> Oh please, oh please, oh please let this be great.



Having just read the novel for the first time last year, this looks like the real thing.


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## HareBrain (Sep 29, 2019)

Looks good apart from the design of the tripod. It looks _very _2019. I'd much rather they'd gone for a c1900 feel for that too.


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## Vince W (Sep 29, 2019)

HareBrain said:


> Looks good apart from the design of the tripod. It looks _very _2019. I'd much rather they'd gone for a c1900 feel for that too.


Yes. It looks rather like a large spider. Too terrestrial altogether. But if that is the only major flaw it could still end up being a good adaptation.


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## Ursa major (Sep 29, 2019)

HareBrain said:


> Looks good apart from the design of the tripod. It looks _very _2019. I'd much rather they'd gone for a c1900 feel for that too.


The tripods weren't designed by Victorian engineers; they were designed by Martians.


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## Vince W (Sep 29, 2019)

According to this Radio Times article Fox/Disney is doing adaptation this year as well. Only it will be set in current times.
Aliens attack in first-look War of the Worlds trailer


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## tegeus-Cromis (Sep 29, 2019)

Ursa major said:


> The tripods weren't designed by Victorian engineers; they were designed by Martians.


They weren't designed by human automobile designers c. 2019 either, but that sure is what they look like.


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## Ursa major (Sep 29, 2019)

You must have some very odd-looking cars in your neck of the woods.

Are you sure the aliens haven't landed where you live?


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## HareBrain (Sep 30, 2019)

Ursa major said:


> The tripods weren't designed by Victorian engineers; they were designed by Martians.



What I meant (but didn't put very well) was that I'd rather they looked like Wells might have imagined them.


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## Venusian Broon (Sep 30, 2019)

HareBrain said:


> What I meant (but didn't put very well) was that I'd rather they looked like Wells might have imagined them.


Exactly, he imagined them as _Victorian _Martians. It was 1895. Not real martians.  

Part of the charm of the book, for me, is that he is extrapolating and interpreting their technology from current Victorian tech and knowledge.


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## traceyphillips (Sep 30, 2019)

*This looks brilliant! I hope they haven't just put all the best bits in the trailer and the rest of it is a bit naff. Fingers crossed!*


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## Toby Frost (Sep 30, 2019)

If I remember rightly, Wells didn't like the first illustrations of the tripods when WOTW was published in serial form, and actually had a swipe at the artist in the text when the book was published in full. I think he mentions the tripods having no wheels and some kind of artificial musculature, which suggests a bio-mechanical look, a bit like the ones in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic book. I don't think they ought to look steampunky, as that seems a very human style. Perhaps some strange mixture of insect and mollusc might work?


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## Extollager (Sep 30, 2019)

I've started reading the novel again -- something like my 7th reading.  It is still fresh -- as I expected it would be.


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## BAYLOR (Sep 30, 2019)

Ive though about rereading this  novel.


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## Toby Frost (Sep 30, 2019)

It's extremely good - up there with _Moreau_, I think. Both feel very modern in their ideas and execution, even though some details are clearly dated.


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## Vince W (Oct 1, 2019)

Extollager said:


> I've started reading the novel again -- something like my 7th reading.  It is still fresh -- as I expected it would be.


I'm going to read it again shortly as well.


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## Bagpuss (Oct 1, 2019)

Could be good, the tripod design looks like a larger version of one of the Masters from the BBC's "The Tripods" series, though. I mean, it's perfectly balanced on all three feet. If it picks up one foot it's going to fall over!


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## Rodders (Oct 3, 2019)

The trailer looks pretty damn good.​


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## Vince W (Oct 11, 2019)

Strangely, it seems that the first episode is available to purchase on AppleTV. Tempting. Very tempting.


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## ctg (Oct 14, 2019)

The BBC's adaptation is quite brilliantly Hard Science-Fiction showing people in the impossible situation at back in the time, when there was no internet. The dialogue teaches as much science as the special effects. And there is nothing wrong in the prop department as all the equipment and costumes are period pieces. 

One thing I did find strange and somewhat implausible is the way newspapers news room operates. Either nothing has changed, or then the whole thing has been made for the modern viewers, instead of being absolutely faithful to the period activity. 

It is interesting that none of them realise about what is going to happen is a first contact that straight away turns into the War of the Worlds. is is also funny how the people behave according to what we know about human values back in the time. 

I, personally did end up shouting once again at the small screen, about the things they do when they encounter the unknown. Although I cannot say we would be any better, but when you know the plot it kinds spoils the thing. Yet, you expect that the war will begin, and they it does it marvellous, and you certainly cannot find it in the book.

Not literally. What is intriguing is that after the first contact, people start to behave as if they've been invested some higher knowledge. Yet, others remain stupidly stubborn, denying just like we would do about the reality of the situation. 

The alien tripods are magnificently done, and they stay somewhat true to the Well's imaginary ... as we know it. What is funny is that even though they don't have the internet, the government acts just like it would today. You cannot but feel for them as the events progress towards the clash between the defenders and the invaders. Thing is nothing really that the British Imperium can do against the race possessing higher technology. 

There is a twist and it is rather interesting as it's nothing like anything that Mister Wells described. Instead it has born out everything we now know about the disasters. They are truly terrible and it's hard to live in the period of alien invasion at the Victorian times.


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## ctg (Oct 21, 2019)

Spoiler: S01E02



It is hard to imagine how would you fight a war, where you face a superior opponent and you'll have to fight with the weapons from before the great wars. You can't. There's next to nothing that can do anything, when the enemy posses technology that turns you to a black goo. 

You could try to fight it biologically or chemically, as back then a few absolutely brilliant minds were still alive. But, you would have to everything manually, and you wouldn't be able to use any of the modern machines. It is a task that seems too insurmountable. Especially as none of the people facing the crisis can handle the fact that they are facing a superior enemy. 

A captain at the beach tells the minister of war (not defence) that the army cannot do nothing. "Bullets and shells all ricochet. They do nothing." Yet, then they show that the might of the Imperial Armada is able to take one of the tripods wandering in the beach and getting then shelled to death. 

If it's that easy then why they lost the war? Those two kills are probably the easiest scores I've seen in any invasion type of productions. And it shows the fact that with powerful enough gun you can wipe out anything. Back then, there were people dreaming about Paris guns, being able to lop heavy shells over hundred kilometers. It is only now that is coming back in the arsenals, and even then, it's mostly American products that gets hyped. 

The Professor Ogilvy  said, "We might have won battles and achieved a few victories. But does it look like we have won the war? All I see is the Red Planet. This might be the reason they sent down the machines in the first place...." 

In other words he doesn't have a vocabulary to produce "terraform," even though that is exactly that rendered the heart of the British Imperium to a land unable to produce crops. Well, that's not entirely true as the land is covered in the red stuff. Some that looks very organic. Almost as you could imagine happening in the what-if scenario that Verne and Burroughs were painting in the public minds, while the Astronomers saw the canals carved in the Martian landscape. 

In itself the BBC's War of the Worlds is not a bad production, and it is hard to understand why this piece has only 5.9 score in the IMDB. You look at the planets in our solar system and your mind can easily imagine whole civilisations living in there. The same thing is only magnified if you'll study the exoplanets as you wonder what kind of life could be living in there. 

The aliens approached the invasion correctly, and even though it is a mystery of how the grandmaster Wells managed to imagine, when there was no science backing it. Back in the eighteen hundreds nobody had not even heard about the Andromeda Virus, or the possibility of alien life being something other than a carbon based bipedal. 

In the episode you'll see the alien tripod studying intensely the infected old woman, before she is taken by one of them. It is only logical to think they would know that the subject was ready to be harvested by them. Almost as if everything was planned in before hand, and nothing that the humans could come up,  would affect them.  

In fact, I loved that the leading lady said, "We are already living dark ages," when Robert Carly's professor tried to explain things in the scientific terms. You could even claim that is proper use of science in the fiction, when the general audience knows more about it then the characters actors portray in the small screen ... and I would agree. Essentially, what the BBC has done is the Hard SF in the fictional play. 

Maybe the most intriguing thing is that the result of 2005 movie is used and rehashed, as you always wondered why the aliens didn't learn from the mistake. In the BBC series they die before of the bacteria and then the world turns bad as the humanity feels the result of the aftermath. It feels that the aliens learned and adapted their strategies, before Roberts professor finds out the truth about why the alien has stopped coming down on the second red planet. 

It is what you would do if you are able to create planetary invasion vessels. Any general would expect there to be set backs. So you are left to wonder what is there for the third episode, when the invasion, the war, and the aftermath was dealt in the middle episode? Did I said my praises too early?


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## Jeffbert (Oct 24, 2019)

It should be rather interesting! I hope it comes to the U.S!


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## ctg (Oct 24, 2019)

Jeffbert said:


> I hope it comes to the U.S!



Sure it will. Is there a BBC series that didn't make it over there?


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