That's a serious question; are the idiots who wrote this mess aware of the original novel? I ask because this piece of work feels very much like they thought they were making a TV series based on a Steven Spielberg film based on a prog rock album and didn't bother to look any farther than that.
Let's list the things they've taken out:
The cylinder. The Martians. The heat ray (seriously, whatever they use in this version slightly chars clothes but leaves buildings largely intact). The battle at Weybridge where the Royal Artillery force the Martians to retreat. The battle between the Thunderchild and a force of several Fighting Machines (AKA 'The Best Bit'). The pit. The Handling Machine. The tension that comes from not knowing whether the armed forces of Britain can beat them or not (that's partly why Weybridge and Thunderchild are so important to keeping the audience engaged.) Any sense of jeopardy. The horror of seeing familiar places devastated by war. The twist at the end.
Now, let's list what they've added instead:
A pointless soap opera-style romantic plot tumour. A female lead who doesn't need to exist but is apparently going to save the world, thus completely undermining the point of theoriginal ending. A cast of male characters apparently cribbed straight from Monty Python's 'Upper Class Twit of the Year' sketch. A pointless post-apocalyptic future plot. That stupid blue LED lighting effect that's been in every poor-quality sci-fi work since Skyline.
I'm going to go and listen to the Jeff Wayne version now to calm my nerves.
Give this garbage a wide berth.
Post-episode 3 edit:
Oh, dear God in his weird pinky-orange heaven, it got worse. The Martians are unspeakably awful (and not in a good, Lovecraftian way), the majority of the episode is spent sitting around doing nothing in a place that looks a bot like that derelict village from Zardoz and the writer finally comes clean and admits that he thinks the audience are morons, having a character actually stand up and shout out- literally- the point that Wells was making with his allegorical invasion of the UK. That scene is akin to having Victor Frankenstein dementedly screaming 'Maybe setting events into motion before I've fully considered the consequences is a bad idea!?' as he slams down the switch.
Yeah, no shit?
Not to mention the aliens- for some reason- look like their machines again. Mr. Doesn't-Get-Allegory even claims the British Empire tramples other cultures in 'machines built in our own image' during his little rant. I'm not sure if this means he has friends who look a bit like pre-Dreadnought battleships or if the British Army won at Rorke's Drift by using Gundams and I just missed that bit in Zulu?
Honestly, it's like somebody let a blitzed first year creative writing student loose with a couple of million quid.
We could have had another seris of Blackadder or something instead. Think about that.
Let's list the things they've taken out:
The cylinder. The Martians. The heat ray (seriously, whatever they use in this version slightly chars clothes but leaves buildings largely intact). The battle at Weybridge where the Royal Artillery force the Martians to retreat. The battle between the Thunderchild and a force of several Fighting Machines (AKA 'The Best Bit'). The pit. The Handling Machine. The tension that comes from not knowing whether the armed forces of Britain can beat them or not (that's partly why Weybridge and Thunderchild are so important to keeping the audience engaged.) Any sense of jeopardy. The horror of seeing familiar places devastated by war. The twist at the end.
Now, let's list what they've added instead:
A pointless soap opera-style romantic plot tumour. A female lead who doesn't need to exist but is apparently going to save the world, thus completely undermining the point of theoriginal ending. A cast of male characters apparently cribbed straight from Monty Python's 'Upper Class Twit of the Year' sketch. A pointless post-apocalyptic future plot. That stupid blue LED lighting effect that's been in every poor-quality sci-fi work since Skyline.
I'm going to go and listen to the Jeff Wayne version now to calm my nerves.
Give this garbage a wide berth.
Post-episode 3 edit:
Oh, dear God in his weird pinky-orange heaven, it got worse. The Martians are unspeakably awful (and not in a good, Lovecraftian way), the majority of the episode is spent sitting around doing nothing in a place that looks a bot like that derelict village from Zardoz and the writer finally comes clean and admits that he thinks the audience are morons, having a character actually stand up and shout out- literally- the point that Wells was making with his allegorical invasion of the UK. That scene is akin to having Victor Frankenstein dementedly screaming 'Maybe setting events into motion before I've fully considered the consequences is a bad idea!?' as he slams down the switch.
Yeah, no shit?
Not to mention the aliens- for some reason- look like their machines again. Mr. Doesn't-Get-Allegory even claims the British Empire tramples other cultures in 'machines built in our own image' during his little rant. I'm not sure if this means he has friends who look a bit like pre-Dreadnought battleships or if the British Army won at Rorke's Drift by using Gundams and I just missed that bit in Zulu?
Honestly, it's like somebody let a blitzed first year creative writing student loose with a couple of million quid.
We could have had another seris of Blackadder or something instead. Think about that.