Was of the Worlds

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The War of the Worlds
Directed by Byron Haskin
Starring Gene Barry, Ann Robinson
Review by Ed McKeown

This version of War of the Worlds is not a perfect movie but it is one of the best adaptations of the book, particularly in a visual sense. The movie opens with an ominous voice over a tour of the Solar System using the art work of the great Chesley Bonestell.

The movie is told from the POV of Dr Clayton Forrester (Gene Barry) and Sylvia Van Buren, small town girl and niece of the local pastor (Ann Robinson) when Martian War machines land in the Pacific Northwest. The humans act in a logical fashion, unlike in so many first contact movies where we shoot the alien as he offers us a present (The Day the Earth Stood Still) or try to dissect the people who have the technology to move across interstellar depths (Starman)

Almost literally following a plan I laid out in an article published in SFWA Bulletin, Humanity establishes an exclusion zone, moving in military assets and moving out most of the civilian population so that the contact can be controlled and hopefully peaceful. But it is not to be. Peaceful overtures are scorned. Combat is immediate and no quarter is given by the Martians. They want the planet and they do not want us in any significant numbers around.

The Martian war machines, which remind me of the later Klingon cruisers are protected by deflector screens and armor that defeats our best weapons. The scene of slaughter is repeated around the world as the combined military of the world’s powers hurl themselves on the invaders to save the population of Earth.

The professor and young lady are the first to see the face of the enemy and draw first blood for us. Wounding a particularly adventurous Martian who dismounts to explore a human habitation. Armed now with some damaged Martian equipment and a sample of Martian blood they retreat to the labs trying to come up with countermeasures,

Since we are traveling with the science team we get to see the development of the strategy against the Martians. “We know we can’t defeat their machines, we must defeat them.” But before a chembiological counter can be developed, the aliens press the attack. In the chaos of a failing society, humans cease to cooperate, turn on each other destroying our last chance for an effective defense.

Forrester wanders the devastated LA, looking in the growing chaos for Sylvia. All is lost and he only wants to find her, maybe just to die with her. Realizing the pastor’s niece would seek God’s presence for her final hours, he finds her in a church as the Martians move in to sterilize LA.

But something is wrong, Martian machines are falling from the sky, grounding all around them. The chembiological counterattack has begun but it is not of man’s making, rather it has been brewing for billions of years. Earth, far more fecund and varied then dying and barren Mars, has overwhelmed whatever immunities and filters the Martian’s had. The enemy expedition force is literally sick to death. Disease annihilates them, leaving their machines for us to explore and to learn from in our second chance and the inevitably rematch, hopefully on Mars.

There is a strong religious sentiment to the movie, that God has moved in answer to prayers. One may wonder why God allowed millions or billions to fall first but that issue, the question of evil has vexed philosophers and religious thinkers since the days of the cave and this movie can no more answer that question that any other party can, but it does pose it in an interesting fashion.

War of the Worlds is sumptuously visual, decently and occasionally excellently acted. Because of the POV and the higher level we do not get that much into the nitty gritty of a dying society as is done in the later Tom Cruise movie. I also thought that later film was interesting as the combat was not utterly one-sided as here. Even in the book, the Martians occasionally suffered reverses, such as when the hidden battery took one machine down and the Thunder Child warship accounted for another.

Recommended for the capture of the sense of helpless and horror that one faces in a situation where technology has hopelessly outmatched one side. The Iraqi Army must have felt this in the battle of 73 Easting where they were were slaughtered by fourth-generation US armor in their second and third-generation Russian equipment, losing 28 Iraqi tanks, 16 personnel carriers. and 30 trucks in 23 minutes with no American losses.

Fans of the Flying Wing and other antique military equipment may enjoy the film for that reason. This War of the Worlds is very much a capture of the time in which it was done. Science and Reason are our weapons but they do not totally trump Faith in this movie.