Alien4 Posted at 2019-10-17 04:53:12(266Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| Had some trepidation about this to start with, so I plonked my arse down and watched Ep 01 really wanting it to be utter utter shite. Nay twas not, had me glued after about 10 mins the period detail was amazing and you weren't subjected to a constant barrage of cgi. Must say the design of the martian tripods were great like lumbering old oak trees. Does zip ahead a few times now and then but I guess it all knits together at some point throughout. Looking forward to Ep 02 | |
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Post liked by - sherb       , zeke23  , B4ND1T69, LRS, Mafketel | ||
| MafketelPosted at 2019-10-17 08:01:07(266Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| It's on my to watch list.... | |
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| LRSPosted at 2019-10-17 08:38:16(266Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| Can't believe other Countries got it 1st though 8o what are we paying for..? | |
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| Post liked by - Mafketel | ||
| MafketelPosted at 2019-10-17 08:43:24(266Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| For us to see it first:-@:-@ | |
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| Post liked by - LRS | ||
| B4ND1T69Posted at 2019-10-17 09:29:49(266Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| I`ve tried to watch it 3 times so far8o:facepalm ...puts me to sleep each timeO:-DB) Looks good...not seen any aliens yet....didn`t know it was a double episode start (movie length). Shame it`s been done by the PCB this time as it`ll have soooooo many "messages" and "pc crap" in it:facepalm:facepalm:facepalm:facepalm Like lesbo/maybe doctor who ffs:facepalm:facepalm:facepalm.....anyone else NOT missing that show now...? Will try to watch it again....this time standing up so i don`t fall asleep again:-):-) | |
Like 0 | ||
| zeke23Posted at 2019-10-17 09:53:50(266Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| this is cool cheers BBC:) | |
Like 0 | ||
| B4ND1T69Posted at 2019-10-17 11:45:26(266Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| LBGTQ Strictly Come Dancing8o:-):-):-):facepalm:facepalm Lesbian/Gay/Non-Gender Specific Doctor Who:facepalm:facepalm Absolutely not left wing biased News:facepalm:facepalm Loads of shows about buyin and sellin stuff:facepalm:facepalm The rest is Pointless:P:P:P .....nice to know your licence fee is going to a good cause eh...?8o:facepalm I`d just like to add that the BBC is the ONLY channel where you can see Gary Lineker without a bag of crisps in his hand:-*:P:D...£1.3 Million a year for that one so enjoy the crisp free experience:-):-) Last edited by B4ND1T69 on 2019-10-17 11:48:09 | |
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| LRSPosted at 2019-10-17 12:49:59(266Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| Thought Piers Morgan had the monopoly on the "Everyone look at me" topics rammed down our throats each and every day, now you a freak if your Heterosexual :facepalm. As for Gary Lineker we have him to thank for the invention of widescreen Tv's... how else would they get his ears in the shot ? Any way i thought this program was a 3 parter...? | |
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| Post liked by - B4ND1T69 | ||
| battlestarPosted at 2019-10-17 19:28:01(266Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| It is, episodes 2 and 3 to come. It was somewhat disappointing, and seems more interested in the 'pc' messaging than the actual war of the worlds. The flash forwards are confusing and dont seem to serve any useful purpose (except as spoilers - hey we won after all). @Bandit - tbh, Im not really missing Doctor Who, the last series was really poor, in so many ways (not just the new doctor). | |
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| Post liked by - B4ND1T69, LRS | ||
| MafketelPosted at 2019-10-17 21:10:31(266Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| Got to say that I actually enjoyed it. At least it is not like the last one with farty cruise... So over the top... This one is much more down to earth :-@:-@ And indeed a shame with the flashbacks... | |
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| Post liked by - B4ND1T69 | ||
| MafketelPosted at 2019-10-17 21:12:00(266Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| Do lay some pillows around you... :facepalm:facepalm | |
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| Post liked by - B4ND1T69 | ||
| B4ND1T69Posted at 2019-10-18 00:09:32(266Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| I think it`s time we had a list here...?;):D Here you can list all the T.V. Shows and Movies that have been shamefully Hijacked to "promote" a politically correct/sexually aware message or cause etc. Please leave a note about why you think the show you posted has been hijacked and by what cause8o:facepalm:facepalm Current Hijacked T.V.Shows/Movies : Doctor Who Where do you begin with this one:facepalm ...we got a feminist, lesbian, companion to the Doctor first....who spent her whole time eying up and "fancying" all the other women in the show, just so we "get the message":facepalm ....and to get us used to the woman being the main focus in the show....this led to weak episodes as the "message" became more important than a Time Lord battling Aliens each week:-( Then we got the Female Doctor:facepalm....nothing against that at all....until the first episode....and the constant "message pushing" again:facepalm:facepalm:facepalm ...that was as far as i got and gave up8o:-( Batwoman "Holy Crap in a Hand Basket Batpersonmale"....."That`s right Non-Gender Specific Named Boy.....this was is a sh*tshow" The plot was crapolla with a healthy dose of turdbasket poured over it.8) The action, or lack of, and fight scenes were soooooo fuggin poor and badly timed (you know....when they duck before the punch is swung etc and they still miss) Batwoman.....she`s called BatGirl ffs:facepalm:facepalm...."Girl" and "Woman" are still both female so why change it...?...to make a point thats why:facepalm:-* Plot bumbles around from one "message" to another in a missmatch of stories etc.....then she just stumbles across the batcave and BINGO!!!....she suddenly knows how to use all the "Bat Gadgets" flawlessly ffs:facepalm:facepalm Feel Free to add your own to the list:-*:-* | |
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| Post liked by - LRS, sherb | ||
| battlestarPosted at 2019-10-18 00:22:22(266Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| I had to cringe at Supergirl. Apparently she now has to wear trousers (or 'pants' in the US) - no longer her red mini skirt. Oh, and of course, her "sister" has to be the now obligatory lesbian. :facepalm | |
Like 4 | ||
| Post liked by - Alien4, LRS, sherb, B4ND1T69 | ||
| jaxePosted at 2019-11-02 17:25:44(264Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| I think it sucks. I am also tired of sitting down to watch a TV series with high hopes and to have Politics and Lesbian/Gay/Transgender and Race stuff thrown in my face. I don't have anything against anyone who wants to be Gay or Lesbian or Transgender or anyone who wants to be Democrat or Republican or anyone who is African, African American, Hispanic, etc but I don't need to be constantly reminded. The last Purge movie was all about race. The new HBO TV series Watchmen based on the movie of the same name and based on the Comic series is all about race and politics. The TV series Designated Survivor that was on ABC for two seasons and was cancelled had none of that in there; then it was picked up by Netflix and in the 3rd season, first season on Netflix, they turn one of the main character gay. He is a main character on the White House staff, he is Black, and the writers had him sleep with one of the Secret Service agents who is on the Presidential protection detail, who by the way is also Black. They even had several scenes showing them fucking and many scenes of them about being Black and Gay in America. Furthermore, Netflix added a new character that was not in the first 2 seasons when it was on ABC: the President's brother in law: who turns out to be transgender and he is played by an actor who is transgender in real life. They used him or is it her, as the plot device for the President to win reelection. Totally unnecessary. On the ABC Cop TV series The Rookie, one of the main characters was suddenly written as gay toward the end of the first season after many episodes, so they can make a whole episode about him. Last edited by jaxe on 2019-11-02 17:29:23 | |
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| Post liked by - sherb | ||
| MafketelPosted at 2019-11-08 08:19:12(263Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| It started out good but ended shitty. Truly disappointed :facepalm | |
Like 0 | ||
| PaladinNitesPosted at 2020-01-08 06:00:04(255Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| “The chances of anyone making a true adaptation of WOTW are a million to one”:facepalm Scruffy looking retired Tactical Medic drags up mobile podium. Unpacks notes of movie review. Takes position upon said podium and taps attention. “A long time ago, on a web site now far, far away back in time”… (pauses. Cocks head and ponders “Damn that kinda catchy….someone should use it for something-like…oh hell I dunno. Maybe an intro to…Nah wouldn't work) Circa 2003 to 2007 I was a Mod on a web site called Eve of the War.com. We had members from all over the world all gathered to meet, discuss all things Wells. And in particular the run up to not one, not two but 3 movies coming out to depict his most famous novel WOTW. Asylum pictures from California…Spielberg’s Cruise-fest…and one from a company called Pendragon Pictures that promised a faithful, authentic period adaptation. Don’t even get me started on Pendragon… Wells published his “scientific-romance’ first in 1897 Pearsons Magazine. Of which I actually own a copy! Before I get into my review of BBC’s mini-series, let us consider just how much of his template for future Sci-Fi have come true: The Heat Ray-Wells is basically describing a directed energy weapon. Today these are reality in the form of Microwave, Laser and plasma weapons being tested and improved, day by day. The Black Smoke - Chemical warfare that came to frightening reality in the trenches of WW 1. The Tripod attacks - Wells describes both tactical and strategic movement. Rapid speed, destruction of railways, telegraph lines etc. British Army completely unable to put up an effective resistance ; the British government disintegrating and evacuating the capital; the mass of terrified refugees clogging the roads. A mere 4 decades later this was realized with the Blitzkrieg in France 1940. So let us compare what H G wrote and contrast to what we got with this….show. During the opposition of 1894 a great light was seen on the illuminated part of the disk, first at the Lick Observatory, then by Perrotin of Nice, and then by other observers. English readers heard of it first in the issue of Nature dated August 2. I am inclined to think that this blaze may have been the casting of the huge gun, in the vast pit sunk into their planet, from which their shots were fired at us. Then we have; This jet of fire had become invisible about a quarter past twelve. He compared it to a colossal puff of flame suddenly and violently squirted out of the planet, “as flaming gases rushed out of a gun.” We got -a tracking shot from Mars ‘roving reporter’ of indeed the red planet. But no vast pit. No gun. But rather a scene that resembles the red planet popping a large zit. Wells - Hundreds of observers saw the flame that night and the night after about midnight, and again the night after; and so for ten nights, a flame each night. Why the shots ceased after the tenth no one on earth has attempted to explain. It may be the gases of the firing caused the Martians inconvenience. We got - our PC cast of characters do indeed observe these, and have some pretty nifty pictures of them. Now on to the first landing site. Wells gives us this; An enormous hole had been made by the impact of the Projectile…The uncovered part had the appearance of a huge cylinder, caked over and its outline softened by a thick scaly dun-coloured incrustation. It had a diameter of about thirty yards….The end of the cylinder was being screwed out from within. Nearly two feet of shining screw projected. Somebody blundered against me, and I narrowly missed being pitched onto the top of the screw. I turned, and as I did so the screw must have come out, for the lid of the cylinder fell upon the gravel with a ringing concussion…and then two luminous disks—like eyes. Then something resembling a little grey snake, about the thickness of a walking stick, coiled up out of the writhing middle, and wriggled in the air towards me—and then another. We got - Well no cylinder.No unscrewing. No first glimpse of other worldly eyes. We watched a cross between a Saturday Night Fever disco ball blended with1998’s Michael Crichton’s Sphere. This one not only spins, but levitates and rapid fires. Then like a party favor it goes poof and drizzles down black residue. Perhaps the Bee Gees was playing in the background of the writers room at BBC. Because Wells described; afterwards a thin rod rose up, joint by joint, bearing at its apex a circular disk that spun with a wobbling motion. What could be going on there?…Then slowly the hissing passed into a humming, into a long, loud, droning noise. Slowly a humped shape rose out of the pit, and the ghost of a beam of light seemed to flicker out from it. Forthwith flashes of actual flame, a bright glare leaping from one to another, sprang from the scattered group of men. It was as if some invisible jet impinged upon them and flashed into white flame. It was as if each man were suddenly and momentarily turned to fire The Tripods - Wells description; And this Thing I saw! How can I describe it? A monstrous tripod, higher than many houses, striding over the young pine trees, and smashing them aside in its career; a walking engine of glittering metal, striding now across the heather; articulate ropes of steel dangling from it, A kind of arm carried a complicated metallic case, about which green flashes scintillated, and out of the funnel of this there smoked the Heat-Ray. We got - not bad really. Except they don’t glitter, it looks like they shed like a shaggy dog with each stride. And the cowl is just a variance of Spielberg’s Tripod down to the blue light. Wells on the Black Smoke - a few minutes past nine that night when these three sentinels were joined by four other Martians, each carrying a thick black tube… a sound like the distant concussion of a gun. Another nearer, and then another. And then the Martian beside us raised his tube on high and discharged it, gunwise, with a heavy report that made the ground heave…There was no flash, no smoke, simply that loaded detonation. These canisters smashed on striking the ground—they did not explode—and incontinently disengaged an enormous volume of heavy, inky vapour…heavier than the densest smoke, so that,after the first tumultuous uprush and outflow of its impact, it sank down through the air and poured over the ground in a manner rather liquid than gaseous...even as I have heard the carbonic-acid gas that pours from volcanic clefts is wont to do…One may picture, too, the sudden shifting of the attention, the swiftly spreading coils and bellyings of that blackness advancing headlong, towering heavenward, turning the twilight to a palpable darkness, a strange and horrible antagonist of vapour striding upon its victims, men and horses near it seen dimly, running, shrieking, falling headlong, shouts of dismay, the guns suddenly abandoned, men choking and writhing on the ground, and the swift broadening-out of the opaque cone of smoke. And then night and extinction—nothing but a silent mass of impenetrable vapour hiding its dead. We got - well the only way to describe it was a Tripod farting out black smoke from twin baffles that, it appears the writers made not for death, but a Martian version of Miracle-Gro fertilizer. In some kind of effort of terra-forming. Wells in one of his most iconic scenes gave us the HMS Thunderchild; It was the torpedo ram, Thunder Child, steaming headlong, coming to the rescue of the threatened shipping…The Thunder Child fired no gun, but simply drove full speed towards them. It was probably her not firing that enabled her to get so near the enemy as she did. They did not know what to make of her… Suddenly the foremost Martian lowered his tube and discharged a canister of the black gas at the ironclad. It hit her larboard side and glanced off in an inky jet that rolled away to seaward, an unfolding torrent of Black Smoke, from which the ironclad drove clear. To the watchers from the steamer, low in the water and with the sun in their eyes, it seemed as though she were already among the Martians. They saw the gaunt figures separating and rising out of the water as they retreated shoreward, and one of them raised the camera-like generator of the Heat-Ray. He held it pointing obliquely downward, and a bank of steam sprang from the water at its touch. It must have driven through the iron of the ship’s side like a white-hot iron rod through paper. A flicker of flame went up through the rising steam, and then the Martian reeled and staggered. In another moment he was cut down, and a great body of water and steam shot high in the air. The guns of the Thunder Child sounded through the reek, going off one after the Other…At the sight of the Martian’s collapse the captain on the bridge yelled inarticulately, and all the crowding passengers on the steamer’s stern shouted together. And then they yelled again. For, surging out beyond the white tumult, drove something long and black, the flames streaming from its middle parts, its ventilators and funnels spouting fire…she was alive still; the steering gear it seems, was intact and her engines working. She headed straight for a second Martian, and was within a hundred yards of him when the Heat-Ray came to bear. Then with a violent thud, a blinding flash, her decks, her funnels, leaped upward. The Martian staggered with the violence of her explosion, and in another moment the flaming wreckage, still driving forward with the impetus of its pace, had struck him and crumpled him up like a thing of cardboard. We got - a scene at the beach. Two Tripods going down from off shore fire, one just by taking a hit in the knee joint. Who knew the Martians had trick knees? But a scene of the heroic Thunderchild, again no where to be found. Wells on the description of the Martians; They were, I now saw, the most unearthly creatures it is possible to conceive. They were huge round bodies—or, rather, heads—about four feet in diameter, each body having in front of it a face. This face had no nostrils—indeed, the Martians do not seem to have had any sense of smell, but it had a pair of very large dark-coloured eyes, and just beneath this a kind of fleshy beak. In the back of this head or body—I scarcely know how to speak of it—was the single tight tympanic surface, since known to be anatomically an ear. In a group round the mouth were sixteen slender, almost whiplike tentacles, arranged in two bunches of eight each. These bunches have since been named rather aptly, by that distinguished anatomist, Professor Howes, the hands. We got saddled with; Remember the movie Starship Troopers? Well the bugs that flunked out of casting call for that movie made it into this one. Sabre legs and all. Wells on the Martian diet; They did not eat, much less digest. Instead, they took the fresh, living blood of other creatures,and injected it into their own veins. We got - a facsimile of this, in the building where our intrepid PC cast are taking shelter, the middle aged lady goes tits up and sucked dry by one of the bugs by a probiscus rammed into the chest. So kinda sorta close. On a curious side note, Wells was able to foresee what 50 some years later people would describe as “Aliens’ they have seen or encountered. Let’s review his words; …the nature of the remains of the victims they had brought with them as provisions from Mars. These creatures, to judge from the shrivelled remains that have fallen into human hands, were bipeds with flimsy, silicious skeletons (almost like those of the silicious sponges) and feeble musculature, standing about six feet high and having round, erect heads, and large eyes in flinty sockets. Rather like the so-called grays eh? Another example of foreshadowing the future is his description of how the Tripods moved; …Almost all the joints of the machinery present a complicated system of sliding parts moving over small but beautifully curved friction bearings. And while upon this matter of detail, it is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature of the disks in an elastic sheath; these disks become polarised and drawn closely and powerfully together when traversed by a current of electricity. using the "muscle-like" contractions of metal discs along an axis to produce movement. Electroactive polymers currently being developed for use in sensors and robotic actuators are a close match for Wells's description, not to mention limbs for amputees.Bio-mechanical interfaces. In conclusion BBC screenwriter Peter Harness describes this movie as “a collision of sci-fi, period drama and horror". To me, it was a sad effort, a missed opportunity. It had it’s moments to be sure. But I can’t shake the feeling that all the writers were locked up in a room with meth & weed being smoked and snorted. One of them had a dog-eared copy of Spark Notes for WOTW and they just skimmed an picked out a few lines, a few scenes. Once the working script was completed and was green lit there were fist bumps and high fives all around. To me this was just a bloody waste of time, effort and license money. SMH (steps down from podium, folds and packs up all. And begins to exit stage left) ‘Oh, and the faint sound of you hear in the distance, kind of a high speed rotation? Don’t fret, its just H. G. spinning in his grave over this. Cheers, Paladin Last edited by PaladinNites on 2020-01-08 06:49:19 | |
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Post liked by - Ange1  , Janor, Mafketel | ||
| MafketelPosted at 2020-01-08 09:07:30(254Wks ago) Report Permalink URL | ||
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| [quote=PaladinNites] “The chances of anyone making a true adaptation of WOTW are a million to one”:facepalm Scruffy looking retired Tactical Medic drags up mobile podium. Unpacks notes of movie review. Takes position upon said podium and taps attention. “A long time ago, on a web site now far, far away back in time”… (pauses. Cocks head and ponders “Damn that kinda catchy….someone should use it for something-like…oh hell I dunno. Maybe an intro to…Nah wouldn't work) Circa 2003 to 2007 I was a Mod on a web site called Eve of the War.com. We had members from all over the world all gathered to meet, discuss all things Wells. And in particular the run up to not one, not two but 3 movies coming out to depict his most famous novel WOTW. Asylum pictures from California…Spielberg’s Cruise-fest…and one from a company called Pendragon Pictures that promised a faithful, authentic period adaptation. Don’t even get me started on Pendragon… Wells published his “scientific-romance’ first in 1897 Pearsons Magazine. Of which I actually own a copy! Before I get into my review of BBC’s mini-series, let us consider just how much of his template for future Sci-Fi have come true: The Heat Ray-Wells is basically describing a directed energy weapon. Today these are reality in the form of Microwave, Laser and plasma weapons being tested and improved, day by day. The Black Smoke - Chemical warfare that came to frightening reality in the trenches of WW 1. The Tripod attacks - Wells describes both tactical and strategic movement. Rapid speed, destruction of railways, telegraph lines etc. British Army completely unable to put up an effective resistance ; the British government disintegrating and evacuating the capital; the mass of terrified refugees clogging the roads. A mere 4 decades later this was realized with the Blitzkrieg in France 1940. So let us compare what H G wrote and contrast to what we got with this….show. During the opposition of 1894 a great light was seen on the illuminated part of the disk, first at the Lick Observatory, then by Perrotin of Nice, and then by other observers. English readers heard of it first in the issue of Nature dated August 2. I am inclined to think that this blaze may have been the casting of the huge gun, in the vast pit sunk into their planet, from which their shots were fired at us. Then we have; This jet of fire had become invisible about a quarter past twelve. He compared it to a colossal puff of flame suddenly and violently squirted out of the planet, “as flaming gases rushed out of a gun.” We got -a tracking shot from Mars ‘roving reporter’ of indeed the red planet. But no vast pit. No gun. But rather a scene that resembles the red planet popping a large zit. Wells - Hundreds of observers saw the flame that night and the night after about midnight, and again the night after; and so for ten nights, a flame each night. Why the shots ceased after the tenth no one on earth has attempted to explain. It may be the gases of the firing caused the Martians inconvenience. We got - our PC cast of characters do indeed observe these, and have some pretty nifty pictures of them. Now on to the first landing site. Wells gives us this; An enormous hole had been made by the impact of the Projectile…The uncovered part had the appearance of a huge cylinder, caked over and its outline softened by a thick scaly dun-coloured incrustation. It had a diameter of about thirty yards….The end of the cylinder was being screwed out from within. Nearly two feet of shining screw projected. Somebody blundered against me, and I narrowly missed being pitched onto the top of the screw. I turned, and as I did so the screw must have come out, for the lid of the cylinder fell upon the gravel with a ringing concussion…and then two luminous disks—like eyes. Then something resembling a little grey snake, about the thickness of a walking stick, coiled up out of the writhing middle, and wriggled in the air towards me—and then another. We got - Well no cylinder.No unscrewing. No first glimpse of other worldly eyes. We watched a cross between a Saturday Night Fever disco ball blended with1998’s Michael Crichton’s Sphere. This one not only spins, but levitates and rapid fires. Then like a party favor it goes poof and drizzles down black residue. Perhaps the Bee Gees was playing in the background of the writers room at BBC. Because Wells described; afterwards a thin rod rose up, joint by joint, bearing at its apex a circular disk that spun with a wobbling motion. What could be going on there?…Then slowly the hissing passed into a humming, into a long, loud, droning noise. Slowly a humped shape rose out of the pit, and the ghost of a beam of light seemed to flicker out from it. Forthwith flashes of actual flame, a bright glare leaping from one to another, sprang from the scattered group of men. It was as if some invisible jet impinged upon them and flashed into white flame. It was as if each man were suddenly and momentarily turned to fire The Tripods - Wells description; And this Thing I saw! How can I describe it? A monstrous tripod, higher than many houses, striding over the young pine trees, and smashing them aside in its career; a walking engine of glittering metal, striding now across the heather; articulate ropes of steel dangling from it, A kind of arm carried a complicated metallic case, about which green flashes scintillated, and out of the funnel of this there smoked the Heat-Ray. We got - not bad really. Except they don’t glitter, it looks like they shed like a shaggy dog with each stride. And the cowl is just a variance of Spielberg’s Tripod down to the blue light. Wells on the Black Smoke - a few minutes past nine that night when these three sentinels were joined by four other Martians, each carrying a thick black tube… a sound like the distant concussion of a gun. Another nearer, and then another. And then the Martian beside us raised his tube on high and discharged it, gunwise, with a heavy report that made the ground heave…There was no flash, no smoke, simply that loaded detonation. These canisters smashed on striking the ground—they did not explode—and incontinently disengaged an enormous volume of heavy, inky vapour…heavier than the densest smoke, so that,after the first tumultuous uprush and outflow of its impact, it sank down through the air and poured over the ground in a manner rather liquid than gaseous...even as I have heard the carbonic-acid gas that pours from volcanic clefts is wont to do…One may picture, too, the sudden shifting of the attention, the swiftly spreading coils and bellyings of that blackness advancing headlong, towering heavenward, turning the twilight to a palpable darkness, a strange and horrible antagonist of vapour striding upon its victims, men and horses near it seen dimly, running, shrieking, falling headlong, shouts of dismay, the guns suddenly abandoned, men choking and writhing on the ground, and the swift broadening-out of the opaque cone of smoke. And then night and extinction—nothing but a silent mass of impenetrable vapour hiding its dead. We got - well the only way to describe it was a Tripod farting out black smoke from twin baffles that, it appears the writers made not for death, but a Martian version of Miracle-Gro fertilizer. In some kind of effort of terra-forming. Wells in one of his most iconic scenes gave us the HMS Thunderchild; It was the torpedo ram, Thunder Child, steaming headlong, coming to the rescue of the threatened shipping…The Thunder Child fired no gun, but simply drove full speed towards them. It was probably her not firing that enabled her to get so near the enemy as she did. They did not know what to make of her… Suddenly the foremost Martian lowered his tube and discharged a canister of the black gas at the ironclad. It hit her larboard side and glanced off in an inky jet that rolled away to seaward, an unfolding torrent of Black Smoke, from which the ironclad drove clear. To the watchers from the steamer, low in the water and with the sun in their eyes, it seemed as though she were already among the Martians. They saw the gaunt figures separating and rising out of the water as they retreated shoreward, and one of them raised the camera-like generator of the Heat-Ray. He held it pointing obliquely downward, and a bank of steam sprang from the water at its touch. It must have driven through the iron of the ship’s side like a white-hot iron rod through paper. A flicker of flame went up through the rising steam, and then the Martian reeled and staggered. In another moment he was cut down, and a great body of water and steam shot high in the air. The guns of the Thunder Child sounded through the reek, going off one after the Other…At the sight of the Martian’s collapse the captain on the bridge yelled inarticulately, and all the crowding passengers on the steamer’s stern shouted together. And then they yelled again. For, surging out beyond the white tumult, drove something long and black, the flames streaming from its middle parts, its ventilators and funnels spouting fire…she was alive still; the steering gear it seems, was intact and her engines working. She headed straight for a second Martian, and was within a hundred yards of him when the Heat-Ray came to bear. Then with a violent thud, a blinding flash, her decks, her funnels, leaped upward. The Martian staggered with the violence of her explosion, and in another moment the flaming wreckage, still driving forward with the impetus of its pace, had struck him and crumpled him up like a thing of cardboard. We got - a scene at the beach. Two Tripods going down from off shore fire, one just by taking a hit in the knee joint. Who knew the Martians had trick knees? But a scene of the heroic Thunderchild, again no where to be found. Wells on the description of the Martians; They were, I now saw, the most unearthly creatures it is possible to conceive. They were huge round bodies—or, rather, heads—about four feet in diameter, each body having in front of it a face. This face had no nostrils—indeed, the Martians do not seem to have had any sense of smell, but it had a pair of very large dark-coloured eyes, and just beneath this a kind of fleshy beak. In the back of this head or body—I scarcely know how to speak of it—was the single tight tympanic surface, since known to be anatomically an ear. In a group round the mouth were sixteen slender, almost whiplike tentacles, arranged in two bunches of eight each. These bunches have since been named rather aptly, by that distinguished anatomist, Professor Howes, the hands. We got saddled with; Remember the movie Starship Troopers? Well the bugs that flunked out of casting call for that movie made it into this one. Sabre legs and all. Wells on the Martian diet; They did not eat, much less digest. Instead, they took the fresh, living blood of other creatures,and injected it into their own veins. We got - a facsimile of this, in the building where our intrepid PC cast are taking shelter, the middle aged lady goes tits up and sucked dry by one of the bugs by a probiscus rammed into the chest. So kinda sorta close. On a curious side note, Wells was able to foresee what 50 some years later people would describe as “Aliens’ they have seen or encountered. Let’s review his words; …the nature of the remains of the victims they had brought with them as provisions from Mars. These creatures, to judge from the shrivelled remains that have fallen into human hands, were bipeds with flimsy, silicious skeletons (almost like those of the silicious sponges) and feeble musculature, standing about six feet high and having round, erect heads, and large eyes in flinty sockets. Rather like the so-called grays eh? Another example of foreshadowing the future is his description of how the Tripods moved; …Almost all the joints of the machinery present a complicated system of sliding parts moving over small but beautifully curved friction bearings. And while upon this matter of detail, it is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature of the disks in an elastic sheath; these disks become polarised and drawn closely and powerfully together when traversed by a current of electricity. using the "muscle-like" contractions of metal discs along an axis to produce movement. Electroactive polymers currently being developed for use in sensors and robotic actuators are a close match for Wells's description, not to mention limbs for amputees.Bio-mechanical interfaces. In conclusion BBC screenwriter Peter Harness describes this movie as “a collision of sci-fi, period drama and horror". To me, it was a sad effort, a missed opportunity. It had it’s moments to be sure. But I can’t shake the feeling that all the writers were locked up in a room with meth & weed being smoked and snorted. One of them had a dog-eared copy of Spark Notes for WOTW and they just skimmed an picked out a few lines, a few scenes. Once the working script was completed and was green lit there were fist bumps and high fives all around. To me this was just a bloody waste of time, effort and license money. SMH (steps down from podium, folds and packs up all. And begins to exit stage left) ‘Oh, and the faint sound of you hear in the distance, kind of a high speed rotation? Don’t fret, its just H. G. spinning in his grave over this. Cheers, Paladin [/quote]  | |
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