BBC's The War of the Worlds Review & Comments

Casimir Harlow

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Watched this too last night and have the same feeling.
On the positive, the period sets look great and there is a nice colour palette, the score wasn't bad, but the addition of lots of mysterious fog/smoke seems to be the cheaper way to hide poorly implemented vfx. You could tell some sort of cgi was about to happen as all of a sudden....it got foggy, which brought me out of the drama.
I appreciate they are on a strict budget, but it did feel like they decided to use the vfx money on some Christmas specials coming up instead, same happened with Watership down although its cgi was simply just poor.
I will however watch the other 2 parts for completion
The BBC need to start speaking to to the vfx team who work on Mindhunter!
 
Thanks for the Review, Cas.
I was really excited about this when I heard about it - now it looks like it will disappoint.
Just watched that trailer attached to the piece:-
"Horse! Quick get-away! Get on Horse, there's not a moment to lose" (Quick Jack Aubrey quote there :) )
"Dog! Get dog! we've got time!"
"Alien Tripod! Just stand there looking at it! Forget Dog! Forget quick escape!"
Wow!
And going by the original trailer & what is written here, why Eggs instead of Cylinders? To me, the description of the cylinders unscrewing in the Book, and the sound they used in the Jeff Wayne interpretation, really produced the proper chill of the moment. Or do they handle it OK even with eggs in the Episode?
 
One main word after watching last night. Disappointed.☹

Distinct lack of tension. This is the part that should have built tension and blown us away... literally. Nope.

Do I care if any of these characters live or die? Nope... in fact do I care if the human race survives...nope

As @steviedr said anytime anything happened or was about to happen that involved effects cue the smoke. Even bricks falling on someone from a collapsing house. Explosion, person standing, randomness puff of smoke, cue shot of said person under bricks.

possibly not the BBC fault but found the program full of posterisation.

A generous 3 for me cause lord knows why this mess was delayed so long. Can’t have been for the effects. For me going backwards and forwards in time did not help either.

I was so looking forward to seeing what the BBC did with my favourite bit of the book and soundtrack where Thunder Child makes its last desperate attempt to help people get away. Has always moved me that bit. Now I don’t know if I’ll bother seeing if they add that bit.

Disappointed.
 
Yes the cylinders slowly unscrewing, very creepy and better than the giant dung ball depicted here. Looks OK but too much 21st century revisionism. There's more rubber bricks and polystyrene timber action in this than an 80's Star Trek film. Why not be faithful to the book and have the narrator instead of this Spall character. Will watch the next 2 episodes I guess unless I loose all interest by Ep2?
 
The desert bits are how the planet ends up?
I'm guessing.
 
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The desert bits are how the planet ends up? I'm guessing.
Not if they follow the book.
In the Book, the Martians have zero tolerance for Earth Microbes, & so are vanquished by the smallest organisms on the Planet and not Humankind. (To me this was a great and very bold statement against the arrogance of The Age, which was an Age of Empires - and, no, not the Game :) )
 
Was really looking forward to this as Rafe Spall is one of my favourite actors and I love the original movie of WOTW and (don't bash me.......) Tom Cruises' movie too!
 
"......possibly not the BBC fault but found the program full of posterisation."

Ditto to that. Maybe I just got spoilt with UHD 7 Continents! :)

Let's hope the next episodes are better... but I doubt they will!
 
Yes very disappointing. A poor third after the Pal and Spielberg versions IMHO

I Agree with others here about the cylinder unscrewing leading to the emergence of the Martians for the first time (in the book).

The first tripod seems to take its cue from the Spielberg version emerging from the ground but made of Martian crystal!

No sign of the red Martian weed in the flash forwards shots.

Lets see how Thunder Child is done.
 
Yes the cylinders slowly unscrewing, very creepy and better than the giant dung ball depicted here. Looks OK but too much 21st century revisionism. There's more rubber bricks and polystyrene timber action in this than an 80's Star Trek film. Why not be faithful to the book and have the narrator instead of this Spall character. Will watch the next 2 episodes I guess unless I loose all interest by Ep2?
I noticed that when he put pressure on a timber it bent a bit.

Both the 50s and the Tom Cruise one gave great tension when the martians appeared , this did not. A lot of the plot seemed on the divorce interrupted by the invasion.
Why the heck was George just looking up an the machine instead of getting the hell out of there.
and why put the scene in which looks as though its going to be an apocalyptic ending as that looks like that's going to be George and Amy's child wandering round with her.
 
I thought any second when the cylinder started to revolve in the forest that a Tardis would appear and Tom Baker would get out with his sonic screwdriver. The effects really were of that era. Poor.
 
Not if they follow the book.
In the Book, the Martians have zero tolerance for Earth Microbes, & so are vanquished by the smallest organisms on the Planet and not Humankind. (To me this was a great and very bold statement against the arrogance of The Age, which was an Age of Empires - and, no, not the Game :) )
So the red is the "red weed"?
 
Oh dear, sounds rubbish.

Lets hope they don't mess up A Christmas Carol too, because i'm really looking forward to that.
 
Yes very disappointing. A poor third after the Pal and Spielberg versions IMHO

I Agree with others here about the cylinder unscrewing leading to the emergence of the Martians for the first time (in the book).

The first tripod seems to take its cue from the Spielberg version emerging from the ground but made of Martian crystal!

The Blue glow has a frightening similarity to the Blue glow on the creatures made from the proto-molecule in "The Expanse" (Side Note - really excited for the next series of that! :) )

Both the 50s and the Tom Cruise one gave great tension when the martians appeared , this did not. A lot of the plot seemed on the divorce interrupted by the invasion.
Why the heck was George just looking up an the machine instead of getting the hell out of there.
Agree, and agree! :)
 
Apparently it's not at all faithful to the book! :thumbsdow
 
Oh dear, sounds rubbish.

Lets hope they don't mess up A Christmas Carol too, because i'm really looking forward to that.
The Martians are going to stage "A Christmas Carol"? Now THAT is what I call integrating yourself with the local population! :D
 
Oh dear, sounds rubbish.

Lets hope they don't mess up A Christmas Carol too, because i'm really looking forward to that.

Apparently this BBC version focuses almost exclusively on tiny Tim and his struggles, as a person with a disability, in a non inclusive victorian world.
 
I didn't even manage to get as far as watching it.

The wife and I took one look at the title and just couldn't bring ourselves to watch it even though it's right up our street. It's a story that's been done to death is so many ways (multiple films, radio, tv etc.) so just couldn't justify the time to watch the same thing yet again.

Glad we didn't now.

G
 
if you think you gents are disappointed now... just wait until it's finished and you realise they didn't do any of the good bits from the book :thumbsdow (if you get that far)

At least when I saw it it was as two 90 min episodes which were paced a bit better than the three 60 mins episodes will be.
I don't really understand why they couldn't just do a faithful adaptation of the story. It's still known now for a reason, dagnammit. They've just used the title as a jumping off point to tell a different soap opera-ish story, half of which is set after the invasion.
Disappointing and poorly executed is about the best I can say about it
 
if you think you gents are disappointed now... just wait until it's finished and you realise they didn't do any of the good bits from the book :thumbsdow (if you get that far)

At least when I saw it it was as two 90 min episodes which were paced a bit better than the three 60 mins episodes will be.
I don't really understand why they couldn't just do a faithful adaptation of the story. It's still known now for a reason, dagnammit. They've just used the title as a jumping off point to tell a different soap opera-ish story, half of which is set after the invasion.
Disappointing and poorly executed is about the best I can say about it
Why bother if they can't make a faithful adaption?:nono::facepalm:
 
This was just odd, looked pretty bad and why is there so much chatter and nonsense about a divorce. Set in the time period but that is about it. Saying that I may well watch the next two episodes just to see how bad it gets.
 
Sorry to break with the general feeling towards this but I enjoyed it overall. Some of the shots of the 'meteorite' definitely had a Dr Who budget vibe but I liked the period setting. I can't recall ever reading the book but I've listened to the radio play, seen the 50s film and watched Spielberg's effort.

Certainly prefer it to Spielberg/Cruise's version which
had that crappy and we all meet in Boston and live happily ever after annoying ending. Really annoyed with how that version felt like a special effects showcase for an unfinished film

I'm just intrigued by the setting and the response that the era would have towards such an invasion (militarily and the society of the time).
 

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