War of the Worlds (BBC TV Series)

It's worth noting that Wells explicitly compared the Martian attack to the conquest of Tasmania in the original text. Nothing has been added there for a modern audience.

I'm hoping that the flash-forwards scenes (which I've got to admit, I don't really like that much) are going to explain the rather weak ending of the book. I think this is one of the biggest challenges of adapting the novel: it works fine for the Martians to just drop dead in the original novel, but in a visual format it's rather disappointing. Alan Moore's version did this rather well, with the truth being hidden by the authorities, and I think we might be going down that route here, in a slightly different manner.

Of course, if the setting is Edwardian, the opportunity for the greatest franchise crossover ever has appeared, as the Secret Service calls upon the Banks children to write another Letter of Summoning...
 
I remain baffled by the reception to this series.
Last night's episode kept me hooked.
Criticisms of one scene about British colonialism are imo way off the mark. It was a brilliantly acted and totally appropriate scene. (This country is still full of idiots who refuse to accept what Britain has done in colonial times.)
The horror was horrifying and the acting uniformly great.
Unlike a lot of people, I thought the sense of hopeless, filthy, grim despair was really well evoked - the post invasion nightmare.
Perhaps a re-watch will convince a few that this was well written, visually great and brilliantly acted.
 
To say it was brilliantly acted, well written and visually great is a bit of a stretch. Whilst it was not terrible it was middle of the road, mediocre and not very memorable.

If I was to point to one main criticism it would be the pacing of the series. I found it disjointed throughout the 3 episodes. Although the apocalyptic vision of post war Britain was well done.

Rafe Spall is one of my favourite actors and I though he was ill served by a poor script and direction.
 
I have to say that I found the last episode disappointing. It lacked tension and pacing, and the monologue at the end felt unnecessary. There were too many unnecessary changes. Why remove the curate and the artilleryman, or their equivalents? That's perfectly decent material. It's not just fun spectacle like the Thunder Child episode, but goes deep into Wells' arguments. If the adaptation is to cover Wells' anti-imperialism and his interest in science, why not cover his anti-religious argument too? While I suspect that the budget was too low to do the Martians justice, I just don't see why they jettisoned what would have been cheap and effective scenes.

As I suspected, the divorce subplot came to nothing once the Martians showed up.

(Now I think about it, two references could have been made to the curate's arguments, but neither time very well. In the second episode, Amy sarcastically asks whether the Martians are the wages of her "sin" with George - obviously they aren't. In the third episode, George wonders if the Martians are a just punishment for the Empire. Again, not for those people, they're not, because they have no say in it. That's perilously close to saying that it's ok to blow up people from X because the government of X is bad. But then, George is feverish, so I suppose his rhetorical skills might be rather weak at that point!)
 
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I have to agree with Stephen. I really liked it. The first episode was a little bemusing for me. The way it had been advertised, I thought it would be a faithful adaptation. It was certainly faithful to the tone, and general ethos of the book. By the second episode, I just watched it as if these were the events being experienced by contemporaries of the unnamed narrator of the novel. Once I did, that, it gelled for me.

Okay, so they lost some of the characters, as Toby points out, which I think would have made it a richer series; and I was not overly taken by the Martians. They also made the lead character to have similarities to HG Wells, himself, having left a marriage, and living with the woman he was intending to marry -- which I think would have added more to the social commentary (something Wells specialised in) if it had been a longer series*.

All in all, I think it was a solid performance. One not without flaws, but the closest to the novel so far.

*If we can get the next version with a screenplay by Sarah Waters and Andrew Davies, and sci-fi administration from Jo Zebedee, we'd have a blockbuster. ;)
 
Well, that's three hours of my life I won't get back.
I didn't think anything could make me like Tom Cruise's WotW, but this has done it. And it makes the 1950s George Pal look even better than it did.
I can't really think of a good note in the show. The special effects weren't special. The pacing was all over the place. The Flash-forwards ruined any tension there might have been. The plotting felt muddled. We didn't even get HMS Thunder Child...
I know it said "Based on..." they should have added a "very loosely" at the beginning.
My major regret is that this may have stopped us getting a closer adaptation for ten years or more. I think there is a great film/TV show to be made of the HG Wells story, I just don't think this is it.
 
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CupofJoe said:
I know it said "Based on..." they should have added
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"and it's been done badly." As you say, it undermines its own dramatic potential because of the poor way the storytelling is structured, if structured is the right word to us (a perhaps more accurate descption might be: some sections thrown on the metaphorical cutting room floor and picked up at random).

To be fair, I haven't watched the second and third episodes. I started to watch the second but switched it off almost immediately (knowing that it was more of the same AND that I was also recording it), and have not felt like resuming my watching since then... which, I suppose, encapsulates just how little enthusiasm it generated in me.
 
I don't think you are alone.
I work with a HUGE HG Wells fan [they have 6? different War machine models they've made over the years and have taken me on at least two WotW walks across Horsell common and to the Pubs named around Woking] and they LIKED the show because they "knew" it was going to disappoint them. They looked past the fact it wasn't the WotW they wanted and enjoyed the story that was told.
I must admit I couldn't.
I was looking forward to seeing a BBC Drama of the book and I didn't get that. Add to that, that it started a week after His Dark Materials [which I am enjoying] just made it worse in comparison.
If it had been shown over three consecutive nights as an Xmas treat, it might have fared better...
 
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CupofJoe said:
I work with a HUGE HG Wells fan [they have 6? different War machine models they've made
Click to expand...

Pictures please! There are some great tripods out there.

I think that, while the novel is full of ideas, an adaptation has to provide both ideas and spectacle. The ideas are comparatively easy, as they come from actors talking. That's why I think skimping on the Thunder Child episode is a mistake: it's one of the key "beats" of the story and will be expected as a thrilling highlight of a TV adaptation. It's the equivalent of King Kong punching a Tyrannosaurus: it doesn't go the heart of the concept, but it is a massive crowd-pleaser and perhaps the visual high point, and people expect it.

I agree with CupofJoe that if it had just been "a science fiction story" it would have been much easier to like. I would happily tune in for "Mrs Poldark vs the Space Aliens", but I would expect more from an adaptation of The War of the Worlds.

I did hear a writer saying that it was made in a hurry to undercut a rival ITV production, but I don't know if that's true.
 
Toby Frost said:
I did hear a writer saying that it was made in a hurry to undercut a rival ITV production, but I don't know if that's true.
Click to expand...

I don't think that that can be right. Filming on the miniseries was done back in 2018 and post-production was finished by May 2019. So, it's been finished for quite some time. I think the BBC wanted to air it at Christmas, but then somehow it aired in Canada and New Zealand back in October, so they let it go early.

There is, however, an 8-part adaptation of War of the Worlds made by Fox and Canal+ which is set to air in America (and probably the UK) next February. Their version is in a modern-day setting, however, and it sounds like it's an even more "loosely based on" adaptation than the BBC version.
 
Toby Frost said:
Pictures please! There are some great tripods out there.
Click to expand...
I'll try the next time I'm over there. But it is their Bernard the Ice Warrior that is the truly great model...
 
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