60's TV series pilot for War of the Worlds

[cosmicjazz]

I saw this item on ebay. It is a DVDR containing a short promo pilot for a proposed War of the Worlds TV series produced by George Pal. I guess it is set in the future. And was done in the 60's. Does anyone know of this? I have never heard of it.

[Gnorn]

Do you have a linky to that item?

I certainly never heard of an early WotW tv-show... and rather wish I had not heard of the 80's one either :-)

-Gnorn

[cosmicjazz]

cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6417084045&category=617&ssPageName=WDVW&rd=1

[Gnorn]

Mmm... weird. I think (almost) none of the Wellsians (or Warsians if you will) know of this proposed tv-series. At the price it is going now, I think you can't go wrong by bidding on it.

-Gnorn

[Zoë]

Oh I got something like this from ebay. I've not been able to watch it yet but it talks about an unaired pilot.
I'll watch it now and probably say what it was like..
It has that pilot thing, the film trailer, test footage from special effect models from when worlds collide, destination moon and war of the worlds.. Also has the '53 film, which is named as the '54 film.. silly people.
till then...

[Zoë]

OK im writing this as the show is playing.
It starts of with narration about how earth life is zooming in on earth, then it talks about mars.
Cut to a clip from the '53 film of the manta rays killing soldiers and buildings, then when they fire at the church, and their downfall.
Then it goes on to say about how they went back to re-group and how the war of the worlds has just begun.
A spaceship Pegasus (main man seems to be someone called Anderson) was sent up to go and find the aliens and kill them where they go to another planet called Mega.
There is no acting at the moment, just narration and pictures.
The crew of pegasus find remains of an old crew of people who went to that planet, the crew dead, the ship ruined (i dont know why im using the word ship, im not sure if its correct my mind is blank trying to think of a word)
Ok and now the aliens are shown, still its just drawings and its the ones from the '53 film, living in a cave.
Ok and they appear to have human warrior slaves, and survivors of the crash are now mindless robots controlled by the aliens (cant really call them martians because they are on Mega)
Going on about a place called Endor now.
Ok and im not deleting all what I just wrote as it turns out that, that was just a few ideas that were made to be pitched to someone because it goes.. "War of the worlds will be brought to you by....."

Oh so There is some form of tv show. Colour is a bit funny but hey its old.
Man walking around a strange place, talking with someone about how they want to leave.
Sound is also poor when people talk.
Ok a guard was just there, didnt sound like he was talking any earth language but that could just be because of the sound.
oo some form of spaceship, with that triple eye on the side has appeared and some huge gun has come from inside it.
Ok the two men were caught and then it skips to a trailer for the film.

Well I didnt undertand much of that which would explain if none of you understand what the hell im going on about.
Sorry if anything like this has been posted before, or its not so unknown of.
Oh yeh and sorry thats its a long post
Oh time: the first section with the drawing lasted about 8 mins, and with actual 'acting' it was about 5 mins

[David Faltskog]

Thank's for the info Zoe, facinating.

D.F.

[Zoë]

your welcome.
If i get chance and if any one wants me to, I could always watch the special effect test footage and try my best to say what happens and so on. Only for war of the worlds, unless people are interested in the other films.

[morthren]

zoeyvonne said:

OK im writing this as the show is playing.
It starts of with narration about how earth life is zooming in on earth, then it talks about mars.
Cut to a clip from the '53 film of the manta rays killing soldiers and buildings, then when they fire at the church, and their downfall.
Then it goes on to say about how they went back to re-group and how the war of the worlds has just begun.
A spaceship Pegasus (main man seems to be someone called Anderson) was sent up to go and find the aliens and kill them where they go to another planet called Mega.
There is no acting at the moment, just narration and pictures.
The crew of pegasus find remains of an old crew of people who went to that planet, the crew dead, the ship ruined (i dont know why im using the word ship, im not sure if its correct my mind is blank trying to think of a word)
Ok and now the aliens are shown, still its just drawings and its the ones from the '53 film, living in a cave.
Ok and they appear to have human warrior slaves, and survivors of the crash are now mindless robots controlled by the aliens (cant really call them martians because they are on Mega)
Going on about a place called Endor now.
Ok and im not deleting all what I just wrote as it turns out that, that was just a few ideas that were made to be pitched to someone because it goes.. "War of the worlds will be brought to you by....."

Oh so There is some form of tv show. Colour is a bit funny but hey its old.
Man walking around a strange place, talking with someone about how they want to leave.
Sound is also poor when people talk.
Ok a guard was just there, didnt sound like he was talking any earth language but that could just be because of the sound.
oo some form of spaceship, with that triple eye on the side has appeared and some huge gun has come from inside it.
Ok the two men were caught and then it skips to a trailer for the film.

Well I didnt undertand much of that which would explain if none of you understand what the hell im going on about.
Sorry if anything like this has been posted before, or its not so unknown of.
Oh yeh and sorry thats its a long post
Oh time: the first section with the drawing lasted about 8 mins, and with actual 'acting' it was about 5 mins

SPOILER!!!

I just bought a copy off ebay and had to avert my eyes to avoid reading your post!

[morthren]

Finally got and watched War of The Worlds: A Video Scrapbook. The concept for setting the George Pal series in the future was interesting but unfortunately the studio "brains" thought better than to lens it. Too bad. If they had jazzed up the FX and acting perhaps a complete pilot would have made for a good series.

The Earth ship they planned on using was released as a model years ago called the Galactic Cruiser. It was later rereleased as the UFO Mystery Ship. It glows in the dark, has bomb bay doors, and a small shuttle craft. Yeah, I still have it. Good luck finding one on Ebay!

Overall, the DVD is well worth picking up for your collection!!!

[cosmicjazz]

I ordered one myself. It is quite good. A must for fans of the 50's version. Can't beleive the raw FX shots they included. I bet the new Parmount DVD in Nov won't have any of this stuff.

[Lensman]

morthren said:

The Earth ship they planned on using was released as a model years ago called the Galactic Cruiser. It was later rereleased as the UFO Mystery Ship. It glows in the dark, has bomb bay doors, and a small shuttle craft. Yeah, I still have it. Good luck finding one on Ebay!

Niven & Pournelle used this model when writing The Mote in God's Eye as a model for the main ship in the book, the MacArthur. This is mentioned in their article "Building The Mote in God's Eye". The model is featured on the cover of the issue of Galaxy science fiction magazine (Jan 1976) in which that article first appears, in a very nice painting by Rick Sternbach.