Starts tonight at 2100....anyone else watching?
Starts tonight at 2100....anyone else watching?
I’ll give it a watch
When I was young my dad bought that album and played it continuously it seemed and it left a big impression on me. Still love listening to it now and the artwork with the album was fantastic, particularly the misty Horsell Common picture. Even now when I pass a similar looking location early in the morning or at dusk the album artwork image comes into my head.
Very much looking forward to the series and I’m currently reading the original H G Wells book.
Cheers
Neil
Really looking forward to this, hope it does it justice
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Wait - there was a sphere. Where in the book is the spacecraft a sphere? It was a cylinder which unscrews. then someone falls into the pit. Cue PANIC!! The sphere somehow disappeared and people started going up in flames - that wasnt in the book. The tripods carried a heat ray 'camera' originally.
For "anyone watching it?" substitute "Eleanor Tomlinson is in it". Self-answering question.
Timer set thank you.
Mmmm - Pretty negative responses.
I thought some of it was pretty good, quite eerie at first, but then there was no reveal, just a tripod stomping on everyone.
The flash forward were a bit confusing initially, too, is there any of that in the book?
I'm on the fence, less negative than most, but it needs to pick up in the next episode for me.
I'm of the Stranglers/Buzzcocks era (more of a Clash man myself), but I've always found the Wayne album intriguing and finally bought a copy about 10 years ago and really enjoyed it (not having read the book, to be fair).
From the trailer it looks like more Edwardian conflict is in upcoming episodes, so I'll remain hopeful.
M
The only positive for me was, it took me back to my days of walking through the pinewoods where it was filmed. Happy memories of many enjoyable walks right on my, then, doorstep.
Best Regards - Peter
I'd hate to be with you when you're on your own.
Yeah, I thought it could have been better, but it's not as bad as everyone has been making out. Will definitely watch the next part.
Not exactly, it's clearly the "red weed" but the book doesn't jump around the timeline like that.
One thing I noted when I read the book was that the alien technology didn't seem all that advanced. It's all a bit steampunk/retrofuturistic (as you might expect from that time) rather than ultrafuturistic, or indistinguishable from magic. I was hoping they'd have kept that aspect closer to the book. It's been a while since I read it but I especially remember the description of the heat ray being a bit odd: something like a spinning mirror on a stick. It's a shame they didn't try to reproduce that aesthetic, or else something close to the Jeff Wayne album art.
I think perhaps one reason people have been a bit disappointed with this is that their expectations were in the wrong place. People tend to remember the Tom Cruise film being about a 5/10 or a 7/10 at best. But that's the average. Really it's a weird mixture of some pretty dire 2/10 stuff and some absolutely outstanding scenes (the initial attack in the street, for example). I don't think anything is ever going to top the impact of that scene, so anyone hoping this series would do that was only setting themselves up for disappointment.
Incidentally, if you haven't read the book, it's in the public domain so Project Gutenberg has it for free, here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36/36-h/36-h.htm
(other formats)
Another thing you notice about the book - and I'm in two minds about how this should be handled in a modern interpretation - is how laid back everyone is about the "men from Mars". It's really only when they start blasting everyone with a heat ray that they are anything more than a curiosity. But the thing is, we've had decades of sci-fi training us to assume aliens = whatever it is, it can't be good. But for HG Wells, that was a completely new idea. I think this version captured some of that naivety, but they missed a big chunk of it too.
Looking forward to it. Some of the clips in the advert look like they have tried to recreate the artwork in Jeff Wayne's brilliant album. Hopefully that sort of attention to detail bodes well. Just hope the BBC dont pepper it with their usual thinly disguised anti-brexit propaganda and out of time (for the drama concerned) political correctness.
Well unless you've heard "The chances of anything coming from Brexit negotiations are a million to one" in the trailer, I wonder if it's the BBC or you..
I'm looking forward to it, although I understand the red headed woman plays a character not in the original novel, so you may find it's been too altered for your taste.
M
Last edited by snowman; 17th November 2019 at 16:28.
Dont concern yourself about me, it's the BBC definitely lol. I'm not overly concerned about deviations from the novel such as an extra new character for example, more a complete reworking a la Tom Cruise. And as stated in my earlier post I think it bodes well.
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Think I'm going to have to dig out the cd for in the car...............OOOOOOOoooolaaaaa
Just dug out the album. It’s such a classic
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Some of you that maybe haven't invested time in the book may be a little disappointed, from the trailer it looks like a very good effort to stay true to the novel, so not quite as 'Holywood' with the accompanying fireworks.
Last edited by number2; 17th November 2019 at 18:14.
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.
On another thread, I recommended the authorised sequel "The Massacre of Mankind" by Stephen Baxter. It's excellent, and follows on in a much expanded way beautifully.
So clever my foot fell off.
I had the album but somehow lost it. Remember it having the machines on the cover.
Telegraph review today was rather scathing!
"By a quirk of scheduling, the same actor appears in both The War of the Worlds and His Dark Materials on BBC One tonight. In the latter, Harry Melling played an official running the port of Trollesund. In the former he was a soldier who wore the haunted expression both of a man who had just seen his comrades eviscerated by Martians, and one who had realised he was stuck in this BBC stinker."
It ends: " It’s hard to know what would be more torturous – surviving in a post-apocalyptic landscape or slogging through another episode of this."
I'm giving up after last night. I know there's only one episode to go, but sadly lost interest.
Like many, I grew up with the classic 1950s film, which at least tells the story in order. BBC seem to have an obsession with jumping forwards and backwards, they did it the other week with The Dublin Murders with me continually asking the wife what year are we in now - just stop it.
I'm looking forward to watching it, hope it lives up to expectations.
I remember this version from when I was a kid. It was very scary then but looks rather weak now.
https://youtu.be/6zrn1pp0NgU
So far, effects, over-loud sound track, wafer-thin script.
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Very slow, cgi and real actors completely separate shots, looks budget!
I'm in no great rush to see episodes 2 and 3
The jury is out on this one. Hoped for better, expected worse.
A bit......meh
Will probably watch ep2 though
Positives:
Eleanor Tomlinson is in it.
Negatives:
They blew up the George & Dragon in Great Budworth.
Been excited for this since I heard about it last year as a friend of a friend lives by a village they were filming in. Apparently one of the filming cranes fell on someone's Bentley
Personally thought it felt like a mix of Clover field, doctor who and Downton abbey. What a load of shat.
I lost interest when it looked like the poor dog copped it. Having said that, if the series prompts people to read the novel then it’s no bad thing.