The War of the Worlds

Post-World War II adaptation of H.G. Wells’ novel of the same name (1898), produced by George Pal for Paramount Pictures and directed by the adept Byron Haskin. The movie won an Academy Award for Special Effects, although the novel’s original walking tripods are nowhere to be found.

One of the first things that stands out about the film is its profound distortion of the Wellsian credo, particularly regarding the importance attributed to the divine. Despite never falling into scientistic dogmatism, Wells still remained a worthy son of positivist doctrine, and his worldview has very little to do with the Christian viewpoint through which Haskin filters the entire series of events. Consequently, the great British novelist and essayist’s convictions (“There is no creed, no way of living left in the world at all, that really meets the needs of the time” – “The Fate of Man”, 1939) are painstakingly set aside and replaced by a theocentric vision that leads one to see the aliens as a sort of Antichrist (‘The Martians can conquer the Earth in six days’. ‘The same number of days it took to create it!’) and to see humanity’s only hope for salvation in divine miracle (in fact, the invaders will be “destroyed […] by the littlest things which God in His wisdom had put upon this Earth“).

From this perspective, it may be interesting to draw a comparison with what happens in the contemporary “Invaders from Mars” (1953). That film starts with a similar premise (Martians attack Earth), but celebrates the efficiency and potential of the United States military, as opposed to “The War of the Worlds”, in which the military crumbles in the face of its own manifest uselessness. The fact remains that, beyond their contrasting messages, both films are the product of an era characterized by a deep sense of insecurity owing as much to the instability of international relations as to the extraordinary speed of scientific progress – with its attendant risks of a loss of control and unknown side effects.

Cornerstone of invasion sci-fi, now rather dated, “The War of the Worlds” doesn’t even distinguish itself as far as dialogue or acting. Gene Barry turns Dr. Forrester into an uncommonly unlikable character, while Ann Robinson wears thin as the irritatingly hysterical Sylvia.

At the end of the day, aside from the film’s undisputed historical value, there’s very little to redeem it.