Would we have felt the same way in '53?

[Tripod Bait]

I was watching the Special Features disc from my 2 disc Spielberg WOTW last night and I began to think about a lot of the heat that this film has taken since it's release. I was also wondering if George Pal's version would have been as well received if we were in 1953 looking at it as a new release. Personally, I enjoy the Spielberg version. I went in not looking for a truly loyal rendering of Wells' novel, but rather a modified modern day adaptation. By and large I got what I expected. ...I mean, it's not high art, or anything, and I do have a few gripes with it, but it's definitely an enjoyable film, and IMO and enjoyable addition to the WOTW line up.

Pretty much everyone here will agree that Pal's vision of the story is a classic, and it's a favorite among many WOTW fans - including myself. Yet Pal deviated quite a bit from the novel in many areas. ...The main character is a scientist, there's now a love interest that travels with him, there's an overt religious thread throughout the film, the Curate is toned down and turned into the uncle of the main character's love interest, the main character has a much closer link to the military action, the entire "Dead London" portion of the story was changed, the Martians had shields, and so on. Yes, Pal did a very good job of staying true to the novel in many respects, but some of his changes, IMO are no greater than what Spielberg attempted to do in creating his own vision. Also, as Spielberg said, he was creating an homage to Pal's film as well as the novel - not so much a direct recreation. I'm not saying that the Spielberg version is an instant classic - it lacks the resonance of Close Encounters, Jaws, or Indiana Jones, but I think it has its merits, and I'm largely pleased with it. I love Wells' story, but I'm not a purist, which is why I enjoy many of WOTW adaptations (the Pendragon version being a notable exception to this) - there is a difference in approach to telling each one, and I appreciate that. I feel I walk away with something new from each telling.

Perhaps I'm oversimplifying this - it's just a thought that occurred to me last night. ...I think that if we were having these discussions 53 years ago we'd be equally displeased with the Pal version... A version that we now hold so dear to us.

As richardburton said in another thread: "I still think the film has a lot of plus points and I still think that as an adaption in a lot of ways it's better than the '53 version and closer to the original work (even though I am still very fond of that one). But it's all just opinion at the end of the day and everyone has different tastes, so we're all going to get something slightly different out of seeing exactly the same film."

[richardburton]

Thanks, Tripod Bait. Always nice to be quoted, especially when it's one of my more lucid moments (few and far between, I know!).

[sunnyrabbiera]

well I can always forgive Pal for what he did, for one it was a different era back then and expectations were different.
If Pal had the chance and the oppertunity to do as he pleased he would have done a period piece that would be very close to the book.

Firstly I can forgive Pal for bringing the story of WOTW into a more modern setting, Orson Welles did the same for his radio play and so did the rest of the radio plays at the time.
Really I can let Pal and Spielberg get away with setting it in or around todays time period, as its a very classic storyline that has a lot of flexibility.
Then again Pal did want to set his movie in Victorian times and have it filmed in England, but at the time overseas shooting was out of the question and it would have been too much money.
As for Spielberg, I don't think the thought of setting the story in its original timeline came to him, I mean sure he probably did think of it but it seemed he wanted to save his slowly deteriorating career.

then comes the tripods vs. the manta/ swans
its true that George Pal wanted to do the tripods and the octopi Martians, but the technology was not possible without it looking too silly.
Pal was thinking of stop motion for the tripods but the budget was tight...
but I can let the manta's slide, after all they were still tripods... sorta with the three invisible leg idea
on the other hand is the Spielberg tripod, the best thing in the movie...
the bergpods were very cool and shared a lot of the ideas of the novel... but its heat ray was pathetic in my mind compared to the Pal version.
if the bergpods had the 1950's style heat ray instead of the magic powder ray I would have been far more impressed.
then comes the aliens themselves.
Okay Otto Lump Lump was no technological feat, it looked like the sad sick brother of ET but I thought it was a lot better then Spielberg's Idees (I call them Idees because they are clearly mapped after the ID4 aliens)
okay Otto was a puppet, fine Otto was goofy looking... but thats why I liked it, as it was alien looking.
its like how I like the Daleks from doctor who, they are goofy looking but I think they are cool because they look so alien...
But yeh both films could have tried better at the alien effects, though I am willing to let Pal slide as I think Otto was more impressive then a guy in a suit or some lame CG effect (Idee)

next up, acting...
both movies did not have the best actors in them...
now of course in Pal's case you got who you could, and you can let it somewhat slide as sci fi movies were still in their infancy, and the top actors did not see any value in a space/ sci fi film...
but I thought both Ann Robinson and Gene Barry were pretty decent, certainly I liked Ann's screaming a lot better then little Dakota Fanning's screeching.
but Spielberg seriously goofed...
Okay I admit I did like Tom Cruise in some films, Top Gun, a few good men, and to a point Jerry Maguire... those films had Tom right in their sights, but in this film the casting way way off...
Okay there was Rain man, the only film where Tom seems to actually evolve his character but thats the only good mentions I can give to him.
heck I can give pardon to James Cameron for casting Leo DiCaprio in titanic (after all I liked him in what's eating gilbert grape, if you think Leo doesn't have any acting skill there is proof in that film that one time Leo had at least some talent in one point of his life)
or Lucas for having Hayden Christensen as Annikan Skywalker (to a point, but he could have been way better)
But Tom stood out like a sore thumb, I hated him and I did wish that he was hit by a heat ray...
Dr. Clayton Forrester was a good character for the time period (and spawned a popular MST3K character), Sylvia Van Buren was a good character for the time period... but Ray Ferrier can rot in hell...
for me I felt for Forrester and Van Buren during the middle and the end of the film, but for the characters in the Spielberg film I felt nothing... if any of them died I would not care... heck I would have cheered for the death of Tom's character.

in the end I still favor Pals film over the tosh that Spielberg made for the fact that it did have a better lead up to the story, a better sense of dread in some areas...
and its classic value is worth a million dollars, which is funny because Spielberg's film cost more then that and still wound up like garbage...

The new film might be a little more like the book in some areas with the tripods, red weed and the main character being an everyday person, but overall in my opinion the 53 version is the better film

[Leatherhead]

honestly, though....the Spielburg one had more ties witht the novel than the Pal version. Redweed, (real [i.e. actual legged]) Tripods, "curate and artillery man combo", ferry scene (however scewed), etc. I really liked this adaption.

[sunnyrabbiera]

true, but in my mind that doesnt make it a better film

[Lensman]

I dunno... I think our reactions to film are more emotional than intellectual, altho we may try to explain our reactions in intellectual terms. I see the Pal version as a "classic" in its own right. Perhaps not as groundbreaking or influential as Wells' novel, but it was one of the best SF films of its era.

True the Spielberg film does have some details, such as Tripods and blood-sucking, that the Pal version does not; but still Pal's film "feels" closer to Wells' novel to me. The overall sweep of the story, with the gradual realization of the Martians' invincibility and the slow disintegration of society, seem much closer in tone and pacing to Wells' novel. Spielberg has the Tripods very quickly initiating a super-massive assault with dozens or hundreds of Tripods apparently in every major city, the breakdown of society is extremely quick, and most of the film is just Ray trying to run away and protect his kids-- which is another place the Spielberg film differs sharply from Wells' novel, which has no important characters who are children.

I can't say how I would have reacted to Pal's WotW if it came out recently instead of 50+ years ago. But I do think that Pal stuck as close to the source as he reasonably could have, given that he was working within the Hollywood studio system and that he didn't have the budget to do actual Tripods. Spielberg OTOH *could* have done an authentic period piece if he had wanted to-- so I don't cut him as much slack.

[richardburton]

sunnyrabbiera said:

well I can always forgive Pal for what he did, for one it was a different era back then and expectations were different.
If Pal had the chance and the oppertunity to do as he pleased he would have done a period piece that would be very close to the book.

How could you possibly know what Pal would or wouldn't do today? He was a Hollywood blockbuster director of his time. Given the opportunity, he may have come up with something very similar to Spielberg for all we know.

People think very fondly of Pal's version for a lot of different reasons, but one of them is also the fact that with age, it has become a classic in its own right, as well as being associated with the original text. For all we know, Spielberg's could be looked upon as a classic in 50 years from now. And sorry, some may scoff, but it's a definite possibility.

But most of what is said here, as I have said before is all just differing opinions. It'd be a boring old world if we all felt the same about everything.

[sunnyrabbiera]

well Pal was a great producer and director, if you saw his version of the Time machine you can tell he had a great talent, same thing with when worlds collide.
but his version of the time machine is a trillion times better then the one dreamworks made, as he did stay pretty true to the book a lot better then the dreamworks film, sure he modified the story a bit but the Time machine wasnt a long story anyhow compared to what Wells did later.
its a very expandible story, and I think Pal expanded it well, too bad the original time machine is being looked over because of the pathetic dreamworks film, in fact that should have been an indicater to us on how nutsty WOTW was going to be from them.

[Tripod]

You'll never know, maybe in 2056 Spielberg's War of the Worlds is considered a classic. It does have some potential.

Tripod

[loz]

tripodbait said:

I got what I expected.

A true mark of a bad film.


The film was actually better than i expected. It had quite a grim and unrelenting feel. I just think it would have been so much better though if they had cut down Cruise's heroics concerning the hand grenade and left him as the ineffectual father/ bystander. And i just cant work out the burried under the ground bit. Okay, so it's a metaphor for 'sleeper cells' and so on, but it makes no sense in a film about a superior planet invading a less developed one. Infact the Martians should have/would have/are supposed to take the 'Shock and Awe' route to invasion.

i wonder if War Of The Worlds had such mass appeal in 1953 though? I would say that Jeff Wayne and the musicals art work is responsible for introducing the majority of people these days to the story. In '53 wouldnt most people have associated the story to Orson Welles radio drama? In which case i doubt there would have been so much criticism about the film changing the period setting and doing away with the tripods. I'm not sure that antiquated walking machines would have made much sense to a 1950's audience anyway.


But will Speilbergs film become a classic? I doubt it. It failed to resonate in the minds of the audience enough for it to be remebered as a classic. And there is little in the film that future audiences would rediscover in order to herald it as a 'lost classic' or something.

As an updated retelling of WOTW which also sums up the the spirit of the times it was made in i think Independance Day of all things will stand the test of time much better.

[Lensman]

loz said:

i just cant work out the burried under the ground bit.

We can't either. The more it's discussed, the less sense it makes.

[malfunkshun]

the only reason we all hold the Pal version so dear to our hearts is because most of us saw it when we were only children and were very impressionable at that time. i personally read WOTW when I was 8 and saw the Pal film when I was 8. yeah, at the time it was great. but being 35 now, i can't necessarily get rid of the nostalgia of watching the film as a child, but if i had been a grown man in 1953 and the WOTW fan that I am now, i would probably been pretty pissed off at Powels version.