War of the Worlds is a 2005 American science fiction action film and an adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel of the same name, directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Josh Friedman and David Koepp. It is one of three film adaptations of War of the Worlds released that year, alongside The Asylum's version and Pendragon Pictures' version. It stars Tom Cruise as Ray Ferrier, a divorced dock worker estranged from his children (Dakota Fanning and Justin Chatwin) and living separately from them. As his ex-wife drops their children off for him to look after for a few days, the planet is invaded by aliens (loosely based on H. G. Wells' Martians) driving Tripods and the earth's armies are defeated, and Ray tries to protect his children and flee to Boston to rejoin his ex-wife.

War of the Worlds marks Spielberg and Cruise's second collaboration, after the 2002 film Minority Report. The film was shot in 73 days, using five different sound stages as well as locations at Connecticut, Staten Island, California, Virginia, and New Jersey. The film was surrounded by a secrecy campaign so few details would be leaked before its release. Tie-in promotions were made with several companies, including Hitachi. The film was released in United States on 29 June and in United Kingdom on 1 July. The film generally received positive reviews, and attained a 74 percent "fresh" rating on the film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 250 reviews. War of the Worlds was also a box office success, and was 2005's fourth most successful film both domestically, with $234 million in North America, and worldwide, with $591 million overall.

Plot[link]

Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise) a container crane operator at New York city port, estranged from his children, is visited by his ex-wife, Mary Ann (Miranda Otto), who drops off their children, Rachel (Dakota Fanning) and Robbie (Justin Chatwin), at his house as she is going to Boston to meet her parents. When Robbie takes Ray's car out without his permission, Ray goes out to search for him and notices a strange wall cloud, which starts to send out electromagnetic pulses in the form of lightning. This disables all electronic devices in the area, including cars, forcing Robbie to return. Ray leaves to investigate, telling Manny, the local mechanic, to replace the solenoid on a dead car.

Ray reaches the place where lighting struck and finds a hole has appeared in the ground from which a massive machine with three long legs appears. After emerging, the Tripod opens fire with destructive heat-rays, vaporizing bystanders and destroying everything in its path. Ray manages to escape; he packs up his kids and leaves in the vehicle Manny repaired as the Tripod destroys the town. He drives to Mary Ann's house to take refuge that night. Loud and violent explosions occur in their sleep. The next morning, he discovers that the tripods have caused a Boeing 747 to crash into the houses. He meets a news team surveying the wreckage. The sole female member shows him footage of Tripods invading Earth, with the unknown pilots riding down the lightning to the machines and using them to destroy other cities, revealing that they have been preparing this invasion for a long time.

Ray flees to join Mary Ann in Boston. Robbie, obsessed with joining the fight against the hostile aliens, tries to leave with the U.S. military, but Ray and Rachel stop him. They are forced to leave their car after a mob attacks them in order to take the vehicle, and survive a Tripod attack while navigating the Hudson River on a ferry. The family then encounters the military preparing an attack on the Tripods. Upon seeing Robbie's determination to join the fight, Ray lets him go with the military. After he disappears, the tripods destroy all military resistance, presumably killing Robbie in the process. The tripods are revealed to be protected by some kind of energy shield that makes them invulnerable to all forms of attack. While escaping, Ray and Rachel are offered shelter and protection by a stranger, Harlan Ogilvy (Tim Robbins), who vows revenge on the aliens after his family was killed upon their arrival.

While hiding in Harlan's basement, they witness the Tripods spreading a strange red weed substance over the ground, and avoid detection by aliens who arrive to explore the basement. The following morning, Ogilvy suffers a mental breakdown after witnessing a Tripod harvesting blood and tissue from a human to fertilize the weed. Concerned that Ogilvy's yelling and ranting will attract the Tripods, Ray kills Ogilvy to silence him. Ray and Rachel's hideout is exposed when a probe catches them. Ray cripples the probe using an axe, but Rachel is caught by a Tripod, ironically the same one that Ray saw in the beginning that destroyed the town. While pursuing the Tripod, Ray finds several hand grenades and detonates one of them to attract the Tripod's attention, intending to be captured to try to rescue Rachel. His plan works and he is put into a basket with Rachel and several other prisoners. Ray finds Rachel, seemingly suffering a state of shock, after witnessing a human captive pulled up into the ship to be harvested as fertilizer. As Ray finally gets her back to normal, the aliens try to pull Ray inside the Tripod to be used as fertilizer, but the other prisoners manage to save him. Then, the grenades left by Ray inside the Tripod detonate, causing the Tripod to collapse, and freeing all the captives.

Ray and Rachel arrive in Boston, where they notice the red weeds are starting to dry up and die, and the Tripods appear to be dying also. They witness a Tripod acting strangely. Ray notices that a cluster of birds are circling and landing on the machine, indicating its force fields are no longer functioning. Ray alerts nearby soldiers, who attack and destroy the Tripod. Approaching the downed machine, a hatch opens, releasing a copious amount of red weed fertilizer and revealing an alien as it dies. Ray and Rachel reach Mary Ann's parents' (who are portrayed by Ann Robinson and Gene Barry, the stars of the 1953 film version) house and find her and, to their surprise, Robbie, who has survived the attacks.

Cast[link]

• Tom Cruise as Ray Ferrier
• Dakota Fanning as Rachel Ferrier
• Justin Chatwin as Robbie Ferrier
• Miranda Otto as Mary Ann Davis
• Tim Robbins as Harlan Ogilvy
• Rick Gonzalez as Vincent
• Lenny Venito as Manny the Mechanic
• Lisa Ann Walter as Cheryl
• Ann Robinson as Grandmother, played a lead role in the 1953 film.
• Gene Barry as Grandfather, played a lead role in the 1953 film.
• David Alan Basche as Tim
• Roz Abrams as Herself
• Camillia Sanes as News Producer
• Amy Ryan as Neighbor with Toddler
• Morgan Freeman as the narrator

Production[link]

Development[link]

After collaborating in 2002's Minority Report, Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise were interested in working together again. Spielberg stated about Cruise, "He's such an intelligent, creative partner, and brings such great ideas to the set that we just spark each other. I love working with Tom Cruise."^[2] Cruise met with Spielberg during the filming of Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can (2002) and gave three options of films to create together, one of them being an adaptation of The War of the Worlds.^[2] Spielberg chose The War of the Worlds and stated, "We looked at each other and the lights went on. As soon as I heard it, I said `Oh my God! War of the Worlds – absolutely.' That was it."^[2]

The film is Spielberg's third on the subject of alien visitation, along with Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Producer and longtime collaborator Kathleen Kennedy notes that with War of the Worlds, Spielberg had the opportunity to explore the antithesis of the characters brought to life in E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. "When we first started developing E.T., it was a much edgier, darker story and it actually evolved into something that was more benign. I think that the edgier, darker story has always been somewhere inside him. Now, he's telling that story."^[2] Spielberg stated that he just thought it would be fun to make a "really scary film with really scary aliens", something which he had never done before.^[2][3] Spielberg was intent on telling a contemporary story, with Kennedy stating the story was created as a fantasy, but depicted in a hyper-realistic way.^[2]

Josh Friedman delivered a screenplay, which was then rewritten by David Koepp.^[5][6] After re-reading the novel, Koepp decided to do the script following a single narrator, "a very limited point of view, from someone on the very periphery of events rather than someone involved in events", and created a list of elements he would not use due to being "cliché", such as the destruction of landmark buildings. Some aspects of the book were heavily adapted and condensed: Tim Robbins' character was an amalgalm of two characters in the book, with the name borrowed from a third. While changing of the setting from 19th century to present day, Koepp also tried to "take the modern world back to the 1800s", with the characters being devoid of electricity and modern techniques of communication.^[7]

Spielberg accepted the script after finding it had several similarities to his personal life, including the divorce of his parents (Ray and Mary Ann's divorce), and because the plight of the fictional survivors reflects his own uncertainty after the devastation of the 11 September attacks.^[3] For Spielberg, the characters' stories of survival needed to be the main focus, as they featured the American mindset of never giving up.^[3] Spielberg described War of the Worlds as "a polar opposite" to Close Encounters, with that movie featuring a man leaving family to travel with aliens, while War of the Worlds focused on keeping the family together.^[3] At the same time, the aliens and their motivations would not be much explored, as "we just experience the results of these nefarious plans to replace us with themselves".^[8]

Although accepting the script, Spielberg asked for several changes. Spielberg had been against the idea of the aliens arriving in spaceships, since every alien invasion movie used such a vehicle.^[6] The original Martian cylinders were discarded, where Spielberg replaced the origins of the Tripods with stating they were buried underground in the Earth long ago.^[4][6]

Filming[link]

Destroyed Boeing 747 used on the War of the Worlds set. Currently, visitors can view the destroyed airliner set during the Universal Studios's back-lot-tour.

Filming took place in Virginia, Connecticut, New Jersey, California, and New York. The film shooting lasted an estimated 72 days.^[9] Originally, Spielberg would shoot War of the Worlds after Munich, but Tom Cruise liked David Koepp's script so much that he suggested Spielberg to postpone that project, while he would do the same with Mission: Impossible III. Most of Munich's crew was brought in to work on War of the Worlds as well.^[4] In 2004, the production crews quickly were set up on both coasts to prepare for the start date, scouting locations up and down the Eastern Seaboard and preparing stages and sets which would be used when the company returned to Los Angeles after the winter holiday. Pre-production took place in only three months, essentially half the amount of time normally allotted for a film of similar size and scope. Spielberg notes, however, "This wasn't a cram course for War of the Worlds. This was my longest schedule in about 12 years. We took our time."^[2] Spielberg collaborated with crews at the beginning of pre-production with the use of previsualization, considering the tight schedule.^[9]

The scene depicting the first appearance of the Tripods was filmed in Newark, New Jersey.^[10] Later, Spielberg filmed several scenes in Virginia.^[11] The continuous scene was filmed in California.^[12]

The ferry scene was filmed in the New York town of Athens, and Mary Ann's parents house was located in Brooklyn (but was featured in the film in Boston).^[2] For the scene involving a crashed Boeing 747, the production crew bought an out-of-use airplane, with transportation costs of $2 million,^[13] destroyed it into pieces, and built houses around them.^[2] The destroyed plane was kept for the Universal Studios back-lot tour.^[13] Ray's house was filmed in Bayonne, New Jersey (with a soundstage doubling the interior); meanwhile, the valley war sequence was filmed in Lexington, Virginia and Mystery Mesa in California. The scene where the tripod is shot down and crashes through a factory was filmed in Naugatuck, Connecticut. ^[2][14] The film used six sound stages, spread over three studio lots.^[2]

Design and visual effects[link]

Industrial Light & Magic was the main special effects company for the movie.^[15] While Spielberg had used computers to help visualize sequences in pre-production before, Spielberg said, "This is the first film I really tackled using the computer to animate all the storyboards."^[2] He decided to employ the technique extensively after a visit to his friend George Lucas.^[2][15] In order to keep the realism, the usage of computer-generated imagery shots and bluescreen was limited, with most of the digital effects being blended with miniature and live-action footage.^[16]

The design of the Tripods was described by Spielberg as "graceful," with artist Doug Chiang replicating aquatic lifeforms,^[16] At the same time, the director wanted a design that would be iconic while still providing a tribute to the original Tripods, as well as intimidating so the audience would not be more interested about the aliens inside than on the vehicle itself.^[8] The visual effects crew tried to blend organic and mechanical elements in the Tripods depiction, and made extensive studies for the movements of the vehicle to be believable, considering the "contradiction" of having a large tank-like head being carried by thin and flexible legs.^[17] Animator Randal M. Dutra considered the movements themselves to have a "terrestrial buoyance", in that they were walking on land but had an aquatic flow, and Spielberg described the Tripods as moving like "scary ballet dancers". Most of the alien elements revolved around the number three – the Tripod had three eyes, and both the vehicle and the aliens had three main limbs with three fingers each.^[8] Visual effects supervisor Pablo Helman considered depicting the scale of the Tripod as challenging, considering "Steven wanted to make sure that these creatures were 150 feet tall",^[16] as it was the height described by Wells in the novel.^[8] The aliens themselves had designs based on jellyfish, with movements inspired by red-eyed tree frogs,^[17] and an amphibian quality particularly on the wet skin. A styrofoam alien was used as a stand-in to guide the actors in the basement scene.^[8] Spielberg did not want any blood or gore during the Heat-Ray deaths; in the words of Helman, "this was going to be a horror movie for kids". So the effects crew came up with the vaporization of the bodies, and considering it could not be fully digital due to both the complexity of the effect and the schedule, live-action dust was used alongside the CGI ray assimilation and particles.^[16] Digital birds followed the Tripods in most scenes to symbolize a prenounce of death, which Chiang compared to vultures and added that "you don't know if these birds are going to the danger or away from it, if you should follow them or run away."^[8]

During the scene where Ray's minivan is attacked by a mob, Janusz Kaminski and Spielberg wanted a lot of interactive lights, so they added different kinds of lights, including Coleman lamps, oil lanterns, flashlights and Maglights.^[2] The IL&M crew admitted that the destruction of the Bayonne Bridge was the toughest scene to be made with heavy usage mix of CGI effects and live action elements,^[18] and a four-week deadline so the shot could be used in a Super Bowl trailer.^[16] The scene originally had only a gas station exploding, but then Spielberg suggested blowing up the bridge as well.^[16] The scene involved Tripods shooting a Heat-Ray towards the minivan and minivan escapes from it involved a lot of CGI layers to work out. Over 500 CGI effects were used in the film.^[19]

Costume designer Joanna Johnston created 60 different versions of Ray's leather jacket, to illustrate the degrees to which he is weathered from the beginning of the journey to the end. "He begins with the jacket, a hoodie, and two t-shirts," explains Johnston. One piece of Dakota Fanning's costume that takes on a special importance is her lavender horse purse: "I wanted her to have something that made her feel safe, some little thing that she could sleep with and put over her face," Johnston notes. "That was the lavender horse purse. We tied it up on a ribbon and Dakota hung it on her body, so it was with her at all times." Johnston dressed Robbie for an unconscious emulation of his father, "They're more alike than they realize, with great tension on the surface," Johnston says.^[2]

Music[link]

Longtime Spielberg collaborator John Williams composed the music score of War of the Worlds. It was the first time Williams had to compose with an incomplete Spielberg film, as only the first six reels, totalling sixty minutes, were ready for him to use as reference.^[20] He considered the score "a very serious piece," which had to combine "necessary frightening atmosphere" with "propulsively rhythmic drive for the action scenes" –^[21] the music would be symbolically "pulling forward" vehicles in chase scenes such as Ray driving out of Bayonne or the Tripod attacking the Hudson ferry. Williams added small nods to classic monster movie scores by having orchestras doing a "grand gesture" in scenes overlooking Tripods. To increase the scariness, Williams added a female chorus with a crescendo resembling a shriek – which would "humanize" the track representing "victims that go out without saying an 'ouch' – they're gone before they can say that" – for the Tripod attacks, and a nearly inaudible male choir – which Williams compared to "Tibetan monks, the lowest known pitch our bodies can make" – for the aliens exploring the basement. The only deviation from orchestras were electronic sounds for the opening and closing narrations.^[20]

A soundtrack album was released by Decca Records, that featured the film's music and Morgan Freeman's opening and closing narration.^[22][23] The songs "Little Deuce Coupe" and "Hushabye Mountain" are also featured in the movie, the former sung by Tom Cruise, and the latter by Dakota Fanning.^[24][25]

Themes[link]

The film was described as an anti-war film, as civilians run and only try to save themselves and their family instead of fighting back the alien Tripods.^[26] Debra J. Saunders of San Francisco Chronicle described the film as "If aliens invade, don't fight back. Run." Saunders compared the film to Independence Day, where the civilians do run, but they support the military efforts.^[26] Many reviewers considered the film tried to recreate the atmosphere of the 11 September attacks, with bystanders struggling to survive and the usage of missing-persons displays.^[27] Spielberg declared to Reader's Digest that beside the work being a fantasy, the threat represented was real: "They are a wake-up call to face our fears as we confront a force intent on destroying our way of life."^[28] Screenwriter David Koepp stated that he tried not to put explicit references to 11 September or the Iraq War, but said that the inspiration for the scene where Robbie joins the army were teenagers fighting at the Gaza Strip – "I was thinking of teenagers in Gaza throwing bottles and rocks at tanks, and I think that when you're that age you don't fully consider the ramifications of what you're doing and you're very much caught up in the moment and passion, whether that's a good idea or not."^[7] Retained from the novel is the aliens being defeated, not by men's weapons, but the planet's smallest creatures, bacteria, which Koepp described as "nature, in a way, knowing a whole more than we do".^[8]

Even so, the troops who fought the evening engagement against the aliens, while employing the most powerful weaponry they possessed, fought them not to defeat them, but to buy what time they could for the refugees' retreat as revealed by conversations among the troops during the battle. Their willingness to face inevitable death for the sake of the civilians remained a constant theme throughout the film, where soldiers were not portrayed deserting or running away.

Release[link]

War of the Worlds premiered at the Ziegfeld Theatre on 23 June 2005. There, Tom Cruise revealed his relationship with Katie Holmes.^[29] Six days later, on 29 June, the film was released in approximately 3,908 theaters across America.^[1]

Secrecy[link]

Spielberg kept most of the parts secret in the filmmaking, as the cast and crew were left confused about how the aliens looked.^[30] When asked about the secrecy of the screenplay, David Koepp answered, "[Spielberg] wouldn't give [the screenplay] to anybody". Koepp explained he would e-mail it to him, and he would give a section of the script that was relating to whatever somebody was doing.^[30] Miranda Otto thought of not even discussing the story with her family and friends. Otto said, "I know some people who always say, 'Oh, everything's so secret.' I think it's good. In the old days people didn't get to know much about movies before they came out and nowadays there's just so much information. I think a bit of mystery is always really good. You don't want to blow all of your cards beforehand."^[31]

Spielberg admitted after keeping things secret for so long, there is in the end the temptation to reveal too much to the detriment of the story at the press conference of War of the Worlds. So, Spielberg only revealed the hill scene, where Ray tries to stop his son from leaving, stating "to say more would reveal too much."^[32] The secrecy caused The Sun to claim the film would surpass Titanic's 200 million budget, which at the time held the record for the most expensive film ever made.^[33] The actual budget of the film was US $132 million.^[1][34]

Marketing and home media releases[link]

Paramount Pictures Interactive Marketing debuted a human survival online game on its official website, waroftheworlds.com, on 14 April to promote the film.^[35] Hitachi collaborated with Paramount Pictures for a worldwide promotional campaign, under the title of “The Ultimate Visual Experience”. The agreement was announced by Kazuhiro Tachibana, general manager of Hitachi’s Consumer Business Group.^[36] Kazuhiro stated, "Our ‘The Ultimate Visual Experience’ campaign is a perfect match between Spielberg and Cruise’s pursuit of the world’s best in film entertainment and Hitachi’s commitment to the highest picture quality through its digital consumer electronic products."^[36]

The film was released on VHS and DVD on 22 November 2005, with both a single-disc edition and a two-disc special edition featured production featurettes, documentaries and trailers.^[37] The film grossed $113,000,000 in DVD sales, bringing its total film gross to $704,745,540, ranking tenth place in the 2005 DVD sales chart.^[38]

Although Paramount had the worldwide theatrical rights, the US DVD rights were with DreamWorks, while Paramount had international DVD rights. War of the Worlds was one of the last DreamWorks DVD releases to be distributed by Universal Studios Home Entertainment, since Paramount would announce its acquisition of DreamWorks a mere few weeks after the DVD release (it was completed in February 2006, though DreamWorks would later become independent again). Because of the Paramount/DreamWorks merger, Paramount now has inherited the rights originally with DreamWorks, and future re-releases on any media will be distributed by Paramount (which had produced the 1953 version alone). Paramount released the film on Blu-Ray on 1 June 2010.

Reception[link]

Box office[link]

On 29 June 2005 (2005-06-29), the film grossed approximately US$21 million worldwide,^[39] and earned the thirty-eighth biggest opening week gross with grossing $98,826,764 in 3,908 theatres, averaging $25,288 in each theater.^[40] Meanwhile, on Independence Day weekend, War of the Worlds grossed $64,878,725 in 3908 theatres also, giving an average of $16,601.^[41] This is the third-biggest film opening on Independence Day weekend.^[42] The film earned $200 million in 24 days, ranking thirty-seventh place in the list of fastest films to gross $200 million.^[43] The film has grossed $591,745,550 worldwide,^[1] making it the fourth highest grossing film of 2005, and the sixty-sixth highest grossing film worldwide.^[44][45]

Reviews[link]

The film received positive reviews from critics. Review aggregator website Metacritic gave it an average score of 73 based on 40 reviews.^[46] On another website, Rotten Tomatoes, War of the Worlds currently garners a 74% "fresh" rating based on 250 reviews and the critical consensus stating [that] "Steven Spielberg's adaptation of War of the Worlds delivers on the thrill and paranoia of H.G. Wells' classic novel while impressively updating the action and effects for modern audiences."^[47] Among Rotten Tomatoes' Top Critics, which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs, the film's reception was more ambivalent with a score of 67% based on 42 reviews.^[48]

James Berardinelli praised the acting and considered that focusing the narrative on the struggle of one character made the film more effective, but described the ending as weak, even though Spielberg "does the best he can to make it cinematically dramatic".^[49] Total Film's review gave War of the Worlds 4 out of 5 stars, considering that "Spielberg finds fresh juice in a tale already adapted for film, TV, stage, radio and record", and describing the film as having many "startling images", comparing the first Tripod attack to the Omaha Beach landing from Saving Private Ryan.^[50]

Los Angeles Times' Kenneth Turan, who felt the special effects were unusual, stated that Spielberg may actually have done his job in War of the Worlds "better than he realizes", showing how fragile the world is. Turan claimed Spielberg raised a most provocative question: "Is the ultimate fantasy an invasion from outer space, or is it the survival of the human race?"^[51] However, Broomfield Enterprise's Dan Marcucci and Nancy Serougi did not share Berardinelli and Turan's opinion. They felt that Morgan Freeman's narration was unnecessary, and that the first half was "great" but the second half "became filled with clichés, riddled with holes, and tainted by Tim Robbins".^[52]

Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune gave the film three and a half stars (out of four), saying "War of the Worlds definitely wins its battle, but not the war." Wilmington stated the film brought the viewers on a wild journey through two sides of Spielberg: the dark and the light. He also said the film contained a core sentiment similar to that of Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.^[53] About.com's Rebecca Murray gave a positive review, stating, "Spielberg almost succeeds in creating the perfect alien movie", with criticism only for the ending.^[54] Jonathan Rosenbaum of Chicago Reader praised the special effects and Cruise's performance.^[55] Roger Ebert criticized the "retro design" and considered that despite the big budget, the alien invasion was "rudimentary" and "not very interesting", regarding the best scenes as Ray walking among the airliner wreckage and a train running in flames, declaring that "such scenes seem to come from a kind of reality different from that of the tripods."^[56]

The French film magazine Cahiers du cinéma ranked the film as 8th place in its list of best films of the 2000s.^[57]

Awards[link]

War of the Worlds was nominated for three Academy Awards, Visual Effects, Sound Mixing (Andy Nelson, Anna Behlmer and Ron Judkins), and Sound Editing, losing all to King Kong.^[58] The film was nominated for six Saturn Awards,^[59] and won Best Performance by a Younger Actor (Dakota Fanning).^[60] The film won a Golden Reel Award for Sound Effects & Foley,^[61] an World Soundtrack Award for Best Original Soundtrack,^[62] and three VES Awards for its special effects,^[63] and was nominated for three Empire Awards, three Satellite Awards, and an MTV Movie Award. In a less positive light, Cruise's performance was nominated for Worst Actor at the Razzie Awards.

See also[link]

• The War of the Worlds (1953 film)
• Deus ex machina

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: War of the Worlds (2005 film)

• Official website
• War of the Worlds at the Internet Movie Database
• War of the Worlds at AllRovi
• War of the Worlds at the TCM Movie Database
• War of the Worlds at Rotten Tomatoes
• War of the Worlds at Box Office Mojo
• War of the Worlds at Metacritic

The War of the Worlds
Cover of the first edition
Author(s)	Herbert George Wells
Country	England
Language	English
Genre(s)	Science fiction novel
Publisher	William Heinemann
Publication date	1898[1]
Media type	Print (Hardcover & Paperback) & E-book
Pages	303 pp
ISBN	N/A
Preceded by	The Invisible Man
Followed by	The Sleeper Awakes

The War of the Worlds (1898), a science fiction novel by Herbert George Wells, is the first-person narrative of an unnamed protagonist's adventures in London and the countryside southwest of London as Earth is invaded by Martians. Written in 1895-1897,^[2] it is one of the earliest stories that details a conflict between mankind and an alien race.

The War of the Worlds has two parts, Book One: The Coming of the Martians and Book Two: The Earth under the Martians. The narrator, a philosophically inclined author, struggles to return to his wife while seeing the Martians lay waste to southern England. Book One (Chapters 14, 16, and 17) imparts the experience of his brother, also unnamed, who describes events in the capital and escapes the Martians by boarding a ship near Tillingham on the coast sixty-five miles northeast of London and is not mentioned again.

The plot has been related to invasion literature of the time. The novel has been variously interpreted as a commentary on evolutionary theory, British imperialism, and generally Victorian fears and prejudices. At the time of publication it was classified as a scientific romance, like his earlier novel The Time Machine. The War of the Worlds has been both popular (it has never gone out of print) and influential, spawning half a dozen feature films, radio dramas, various comic book adaptations, a television series, and sequels or parallel stories by other authors. It has even influenced the work of scientists, notably Robert Hutchings Goddard.^[3][4]

Plot[link]

Yet across the gulf of space, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded our planet with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.

After ten paragraphs of introductory remarks, the narrative opens in an astronomical observatory at Ottershaw where explosions are seen on the surface of the planet Mars, creating much interest in the scientific community. Later a "meteor" lands on Horsell Common, southwest of London, near the narrator's home in Woking, Surrey. He is among the first to discover that the object is an artificial cylinder that opens, disgorging Martians who are "big" and "greyish" with "oil brown skin," "the size, perhaps, of a bear," with "two large dark-coloured eyes," and a lipless "V-shaped mouth surrounded by "Gorgon groups of tentacles." The narrator finds them "at once vital, intense, inhuman, crippled and monstrous."^[5] They briefly emerge, have difficulty in coping with the Earth's atmosphere, and rapidly retreat into the cylinder. A human deputation (which includes the astronomer Ogilvy) approaches the cylinder with a white flag, but the Martians incinerate them and others nearby with a heat-ray before beginning to assemble their machinery.

An army of Martian fighting-machines destroying England.

The narrator flees with his wife to Leatherhead, where she has relatives, and then returns to Woking. He discovers the Martians have assembled towering three-legged "fighting-machines" (Tripods), each armed with a heat-ray and a chemical weapon: the so-called "black smoke". These Tripods wipe out the army units positioned around the crater and attack surrounding communities, moving toward London. Fleeing the scene, the narrator meets a retreating artilleryman, who tells him that another cylinder has landed between Woking and Leatherhead, cutting the narrator off from his wife. The two try to escape via Byfleet, but are separated at the Shepperton to Weybridge Ferry during a Martian attack on Shepperton. One of the Martian fighting machines is brought down in the River Thames by British artillery as the narrator and countless others try to cross the river into Middlesex, while the Martians escape. Our hero is able to float down the Thames toward London in a boat, stopping at Walton.

A Martian fighting-machine battling with HMS Thunder Child

More cylinders are landing across southern England, and a panicked flight of the population of London begins. This includes the narrator's brother, who flees to the Essex coast after Black Smoke is used to devastate London. The torpedo ram HMS Thunder Child destroys two tripods before being sunk by the Martians, though this allows the ship carrying the narrator's brother and his two female travelling companions to escape to the continent. Shortly after, all organised resistance has ceased, and the Martians roam the shattered landscape unhindered. Red weed, a Martian form of vegetation, spreads with extraordinary rapidity over the landscape wherever there is abundant water.

At the beginning of Book Two, the narrator and a curate from Walton take refuge in a ruined building in Sheen. The house is nearly destroyed when another Martian cylinder lands nearby, trapping them in the house for almost two weeks. The curate, traumatised by the invasion, sees in the Martians creatures heralding the advent of the Apocalypse. The narrator's relations with the curate deteriorate, and he eventually knocks him unconscious to prevent his loud ranting. But not before he is heard by a Martian, who captures him with a prehensile tentacle and, the reader is led to believe, drains him of his blood: blood transfusion is the Martians' form of nourishment. The narrator escapes detection by hiding in the coal-cellar.

The Martians eventually depart, and the narrator is able to head toward Central London. He once again encounters the artilleryman, who briefly persuades him to cooperate in a grandiose plan to rebuild civilisation underground. But after a few hours the narrator perceives the lunacy of this plan and abandons the artilleryman to his delusions. Heading into a deserted London, he is at the point of despair when he discovers that the invaders have died from microbial infections to which they had no immunity, since "there are no bacteria in Mars."^[6] The narrator realises with joy that the threat has been vanquished. The narrator suffers a brief breakdown of which he remembers nothing, is nursed back to health, and returns home to find his wife, whom he had given up for dead. The last chapter, entitled "Epilogue," reflects on the significance of the invasion and the "abiding sense of doubt and insecurity" that it has left in the narrator's mind.

Style[link]

The War of the Worlds presents itself as a factual account of the Martian invasion. The narrator is a middle-class scientific journalist somewhat reminiscent of Doctor Kemp in The Invisible Man, with characteristics similar to Wells's at the time of writing. The reader learns very little about the background of the narrator or indeed of anyone else in the novel; characterization is unimportant. In fact, none of the principal characters are named.^[7]

Scientific setting[link]

Wells trained as a science teacher during the latter half of the 1880s. One of his teachers was T. H. Huxley, famous as a major advocate of Darwinism. He later taught science, and his first book was a biology textbook. He joined the scientific journal Nature as a reviewer in 1894.^[8][9] Much of his work is notable for making contemporary ideas of science and technology easily understandable to readers.^[10]

The scientific fascinations of the novel are established in the opening chapter, where the narrator views Mars through a telescope, and Wells offers the image of the superior Martians having observed human affairs, as though watching tiny organisms through a microscope. Ironically, it is microscopic Earth lifeforms that finally prove deadly to the invasion force.^[11] In 1894 a French astronomer observed a 'strange light' on Mars, and published his findings in the scientific journal Nature on 2 August of that year. Wells used this observation to open the novel, imagining these lights to be the launching of the Martian cylinders towards Earth. American astronomer Percival Lowell published the book Mars in 1895, suggesting features of the planet’s surface observed through telescopes might be canals. He speculated that these might be irrigation channels constructed by a sentient life form to support existence on an arid, dying world, similar to that Wells suggests the Martians have left behind.^[7][12] The novel also presents ideas related to Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, both in specific ideas discussed by the narrator, and themes explored by the story.

Wells also wrote an essay titled 'Intelligence on Mars', published in 1896 in the Saturday Review, which sets out many of the ideas for the Martians and their planet that are used almost unchanged in The War of the Worlds.^[7] In the essay he speculates about the nature of the Martian inhabitants and how their evolutionary progress might compare to humans. He also suggests that Mars, being an older world than the Earth, might have become frozen and desolate, conditions that might encourage the Martians to find another planet on which to settle.^[13]

Physical location[link]

'The Martian' in Woking.

In 1895, Wells was an established writer and he married his second wife, Catherine Robbins, moving with her to the town of Woking in Surrey. Here he spent his mornings walking or cycling in the surrounding countryside, and his afternoons writing. The original idea for The War of the Worlds came from his brother, during one of these walks, pondering on what it might be like if alien beings were to suddenly descend on the scene and start attacking its inhabitants.^[14]

Much of The War of the Worlds takes place around Woking and nearby suburbs. The initial landing site of the Martian invasion force, Horsell Common, was an open area close to Wells's home. In the preface to the Atlantic edition of the novel, he wrote of his pleasure in riding a bicycle around the area, and imagining the destruction of cottages and houses he saw, by the Martian heat-ray or the red weed.^[7] While writing the novel, Wells enjoyed shocking his friends by revealing details of the story, and how it was bringing total destruction to parts of the South London landscape that were familiar to them. The characters of the artilleryman, the curate and the medical student were also based on acquaintances in Woking and Surrey.^[15]

In the present day, a 7 metre (23 feet) high sculpture of a tripod fighting machine, entitled 'The Martian', based on the description in The War of the Worlds, stands in Crown Passage, close to the local railway station, in Woking designed and constructed by artist, Michael Condron.^[16]

Cultural setting[link]

His depiction of suburban late Victorian culture in the novel, was an accurate reflection of his own experiences at the time of writing.^[17] In the late 19th Century the British Empire was the predominant colonial and military power on the globe, making its domestic heart a poignant and terrifying starting point for an invasion by aliens with their own imperialist agenda.^[18] He also drew upon a common fear which had emerged in the years approaching the turn of the century, known at the time as Fin de siècle or 'end of the age', which anticipated apocalypse at midnight on the last day of 1899.^[15]

Publication[link]

In the late 1890s it was common for novels, prior to full volume publication, to be serialised in magazines or newspapers, with each part of the serialisation ending upon a cliff hanger to entice audiences to buy the next edition. This is a practice familiar from the first publication of Charles Dickens' novels in the nineteenth century. The War of the Worlds was first published in serial form in Pearson's Magazine in 1897.^[19] Wells was paid ₤200 and Pearsons demanded to know the ending of the piece before committing to publish.^[20]

The complete volume was published by William Heinemann in 1898 and has been in print ever since.

An unauthorised serialisation of the novel was published in the United States prior to this, in New York in 1897.^[21] A pirated version involving the Martians landing in New England was published by the Boston Post in 1898, which Wells protested against.^[8]

Reception[link]

The War of the Worlds was generally received very favourably by both readers and critics upon its publication. There was however some criticism of the brutal nature of the events in the narrative.^[22]

Relation to invasion literature[link]

The Battle of Dorking front cover

Between 1871 and 1914 over 60 works of fiction for adult readers describing invasions of Great Britain were published. The seminal work was The Battle of Dorking (1871) by George Tomkyns Chesney, an army officer. The book portrays a surprise German attack, with a landing on the South coast of England, made possible by the distraction of the Royal Navy in colonial patrols and the army in an Irish insurrection. The German army makes short work of English militia and rapidly marches to London. The story was published in Blackwood's Magazine in May 1871, and so popular that it was reprinted a month later as a pamphlet which sold 80,000 copies.^[23][24]

The appearance of this literature, much of which might be viewed as contemporary propaganda, reflected the increasing feeling of anxiety and insecurity as international tensions between European Imperial powers escalated towards the outbreak of the First World War. Across the decades, the nationality of the invaders tended to vary, according to the most acutely perceived threat at the time. In the 1870s, the Germans were the most common invaders. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, a period of strain on Anglo-French relations, and the signing of a treaty between France and Russia, the French became the more common menace.^[23][24]

There are a number of plot similarities between Wells's book and The Battle of Dorking. In both books, a ruthless enemy makes a devastating surprise attack, with the British armed forces helpless to stop its relentless advance and both involve the destruction of the Home Counties of southern England.^[24] However, The War of the Worlds transcends the typical fascination of Invasion Literature with European politics, the suitability of contemporary military technology to deal with the armed forces of other nations, and international disputes, with its introduction of an alien adversary.^[25]

Although much of Invasion Literature may have been less sophisticated and visionary than Wells's novel, it was a useful, familiar genre to support the publication success of the piece, attracting readers used to such tales. It may also have proved an important foundation for Wells's ideas, as he had never seen or fought in a war.^[26]

Scientific predictions and accuracy[link]

Mars[link]

Martian canals depicted by Percival Lowell.

The arid, lifeless surface of Mars as seen by the Viking Probe.

Many novels focusing on life on other planets written close to 1900 echo scientific ideas of the time, including Pierre-Simon Laplace's nebular hypothesis, Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, and Gustav Kirchhoff's theory of Spectroscopy. These scientific ideas combined to present the possibility that planets are alike in composition and conditions for the development of species, which would likely lead to the emergence of life at a suitable geological age in a planet's development.^[27]

By the time Wells came to write The War of the Worlds, there had been three centuries of observation of Mars through telescopes. Galileo, in 1610, observed the planet's phases and in 1666 Giovanni Cassini identified the polar ice caps.^[12] In 1878, Italian astronomer, Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli observed geological features which he called canali (Italian for "channels"). This was mistranslated into English as "canals" which, being artificial watercourses, fuelled the belief that there was some sort of intelligent extraterrestrial life on the planet. It has been suggested in recent years, that the canals were actually the result of a disease that made Giovanni see his own eye structure which he assumed were canals. This further influenced American astronomer Percival Lowell.^[28]

In 1895 Lowell published a book entitled Mars which speculated about an arid, dying landscape, whose inhabitants had been forced to build canals thousands of miles long to bring water from the polar caps to irrigate the remaining arable land. This formed the most advanced scientific ideas about the conditions on the red planet available to Wells at the time War of the Worlds was written. The concept of canals with flowing water was later proved erroneous by more accurate observation of the planet, and later landings by Russian and American probes such as the two Viking missions which found a lifeless world too cold for water to exist in its liquid state.^[12]

Space travel[link]

The Martians travel to the Earth in cylinders, apparently fired from a huge space gun on the surface of Mars. This was a common representation of space travel in the nineteenth Century, and had also been used by Jules Verne in From the Earth to the Moon. Modern scientific understanding renders this idea impractical, as it would be difficult to control the trajectory of the gun precisely, and the force of the explosion necessary to propel the cylinder from the Martian surface to the Earth would likely kill the occupants.^[29]