Mike Smith

A BBC drama production that surely proves that the BBC has totally lost the plot. The War Of The Worlds was perhaps my favourite book as a schoolboy. So good, in fact, that I read it twice during one half term holiday. I have read it several times since then. After seeing trailers for this adaption months eariler, I had been eagerly anticipating this new version of my favourite sci-fi tale, especially as it was to be set in a period more contemporary to the original work. Most other versions had been set in different periods. The first episode appeared to be relatively promising at the outset, but gradually declined - as did the remainder of the series. There was very little feeling of genuine threat. The characters were threadbear and had little bearing to the original story; Silly character changes and omissions; No cylinder and hence no menacing sound of un-screwing - instead some ridiculous and pointless 'special effects'; No underground world of the Artillery Man. No Thunderchild; Poorly imagained Martians; An unsatisfactory 'conclusion' to the story; to name just a few failings of the drivel of a script produced by the BBC. Throughout the series most of the 'special effects' were either not-so-special, plain dire or simply stupid (e.g. Martians with three pointed limbs and no aparrent means of manipulation). Cheap special effects can certainly be excused on what is a relatively low budget terrestial televison production, if the rest of the story and production are of high quality. Sadly evidence of any quality writing was entirely absent here; so bad I'd doubted that the writer had even read H G Well's novel. H G Wells was a splendid writer, so there really was no need to re-write a story as good as this, it was perfect to begin with. But then it doesn't fit with the BBC's apparently politically correct nonsence, so it had to be re-written - extremely badly. Time's up BBC - this really must be the end of your world. ------- Footnotes: Perhaps my favourite version of the story is Jeff Wayne's musical which I listened to almost endlessly as a youngester. I am always enthralled by Orson Welles' 1938 radio play. Listen to that on a dark winter's night - eerie and frightening! I can imagine how some radio listeners of the time could have been genuinely worried by this audio reportage. I saw the 1953 hollywood movie as a youngster a few years after I read the book and remember being quite disappointed. However on subsequent viewings, I can forgive its failings and have enjoyed it more. Given the big budget of the 2005 Tom Cruise / Steven Spielberg effort, I found that rather unsatisfactory. Although the special effects really were excellent, too many of the important story points were unnecessarily changed. I will still re-watch it because it is most certainly a movie spectacle, but always wonder "What was Spielberg thinking?". (Martians buried underground? Come on!) It really could have been so much better. Perhaps the best movie adaption of the story didn't even claim to be a version The War Of The Worlds. It therefore didn't have to include cylinders, tripod machines or red weed. That movie was Independence Day. A epic sci-fi romp. Some say nonsense, of course, but to its credit it took a few grains of Well's themes totally re-imagined the ideas - and it worked. It had some great characters, great actors, a massive sense of doom, some humour, suspense and spectacular special effects. A great story. No microbes, but instead, rather cleverly, a modern day infection; a compter virus. Forget the sequel though, just as you might want to give the BBC TV adaption of The War Of The Worlds a miss.