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What The Hell Am I Watching? Reviewing Pendragon's H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds
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- čas přidán 16. 12. 2013
- A thing two guys made about Pendragon Pictures' H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. We talk about our thoughts on this version of the movie, it's production values, how it compares to the novel, and other such discussions.
www.imdb.com/ti...
Gerkinman:
/ gerkinman
/ visitorsfromdreams
Th1rt3en:
/ kedertheblack
The saddest part of all this is that a big-budget version set in the original 1901 England setting could have happened back in the 1990s had it not been for Jeff Wayne. Kenneth Branagh wanted to make a WOTW movie (with Brian Blessed as a co-star and Peter Briggs as its writer), but Wayne had a stranglehold on the international rights at the time and used it to veto any big-budget WOTW period piece that wasn't an adaptation of his musical. (Both the Hallmark Channel and even Tom Cruise were likewise stymied by Wayne when they tried to do period adaptations.) The Cruise/Spielberg movie was the result of Paramount being forced to compromise with Wayne; he relaxed his hold over the rights to allow Paramount to release their movie globally, but they had to make it a modern-day version and forfeit the period setting to him. The only reason the BBC is able to do their own WOTW now is because the book finally became public domain worldwide and Wayne no longer controls it.
This crappy Pendragon film might still have happened even without Wayne wasting decades stonewalling any major studios and networks, but it wouldn't have come with the insanely high expectations that got laid on it. People were so desperate for a period piece version that they were willing to give a Z-grade cheapo outfit the benefit of the doubt, and they got nothing out of it. Jeff Wayne's selfishness indirectly led to this train wreck (a) getting made and (b) taking advantage of the fandom's goodwill. I just hope the BBC's version can finally put this matter to rest and give people the period version they've been waiting for.
As an avid fan of the musical, hearing this (if I find true) would really lower my respect for Jeff. I'm curious as to what sources you found this from :O
There's some digging involved, since a lot of the articles in question are over a decade old, but here's Branagh's screenwriter Peter Briggs talking about the issues with Wayne on AICN (which ran quite a few WOWT articles leading up to the Cruise version):
www.aintitcool.com/node/4914
And if you ever happen upon the Dark Horse Comics adaptation of WOTW, you'll notice that they had to get permission from Ollie Records and sell ad space for Wayne's musical on the back cover (as well as on the webcomic version ). That alone was a big eye-opener when I saw the hardcover edition.
I had my own experience dealing with Waynes lawyers back in 2004 when I was making my "The Martian Saga" webseries. They didnt come after the series itself but they did block me from selling any merchandise based on my animated series despite being set in Australia and not being a true period piece.
And the BBC miniseries turned out to be a huge disappointment. I'm convinced WotW fans will never be satisfied with an authentic high budget period adaptation
Another missed opportunity was when Ray Harryhausen wanted to do his version of WOTW, but the project got taken away from him.
In all honesty I preferred this to the 2005 wotw mainly because it followed the actually story. The Thunder child for example wasn't used in any of the WOTW movies, nor the Classic Martian description, this was good because they hardly changed anything, even the time period was spot on. Jeff Wayne's version also does this, they don't change the story or plot.
Jeff Wayne's version changed a few things. The writer and his brother were smooshed together to form one single character. They completely made up the Carrie character, the supposed girlfriend of the writer who lived in London with her father. Also, the parson was never referred to as Nathaniel in the book, and he didn't have a wife named Beth who got crunched under the Martian cylinder.
The Steven Spielberg WOTW is one of my favourite movie adaptations. I don’t care that it strays from the original, Spielberg did a fantastic job of capturing the bleakness and sheer hopelessness of the situation which this one, despite staying more true to the novel, failed to achieve. Plus the Tripods are terrifying.
Yet this is the ONLY version that truly respects every aspect of the original novel.
The point of the bicycle scene was again just for the sake of being faithful to the book. In Book 1 Chapter 16, the brother drags it out of a bike shop and punctures the tyre I think, but he does use it for a short period of time in the book to get out of London as the Martians approach, he gets through like several towns with it before the rim of the wheel breaks and he dumps it and keeps walking instead. The problem here is that the movie wants to cram as much of the book in as possible, but this is such a small part of the book that it spends no time at all with it.
This is why quite a few adaptations have done the smart thing of ditching entire subplots of the novel for runtime. There are a bunch of comic and radio adaptations that completely ditch the brother subplot, like one from 1967 that including breaks between episodes and recaps is 2 hours 41 minutes.
This novel could work so much better as a TV show or miniseries. I think right now the BBC are planning to do a 3 part miniseries to faithfully adapt the book.
No matter how lame this movie was, at least it made the Tripods look a little unique.
Like giant ants ha ha.
madcat789 maybe Micheal Bay can use these design for the Martians if he made a version of war of the worlds
It looks like the live-action cutscenes from Command and Conquer: Red Alert
The train that goes by in the movie with the "crappy steam", as the reviewers refer to it by, is not even powered by a steam engine. It's a diesel (diesel-electric). Diesel locomotives don't put out steam like that. Diesel locomotives used to have steam generators that were used to power the cars before headend power was developed, but the leakage of steam would be very minuscule compared to what a steam locomotive puts out. This was a big gaffe in my opinion. This would be something akin to using a 737 airliner to represent a Jenny biplane.
And it's clearly an American or Canadian train, not a British one. The whole setting is obviously not England.
They blew half the budget making a mechanical collapsing house. Did you spot the cardboard cutout paper doll soldiers? How about the night time garden scene, filmed during the day and then they coloured the sky in black
Great review guys! I've been wanting to watch this movie for a while but unfortunately I live in the UK. Thankfully I got to see some more footage that I hadn't seen before in this review.
We are glad you found it informative. It isn't for sale here in Australia either, but the DVD you buy online from their store is region free so it will play anywhere :)
Gerkinman Did you purchase it a few years ago? It would appear that Pendragon have erased all traces of this movie from their website and instead replaced it with their new 'True Story' adaptation (I'd love to hear you're opinion on that one too!)
*****
I bought it from their website back in 2009. Interesting that its gone from their website. I have a copy of "True Story" but I have got around to watching it yet. It looks better then the original film from what I have seen.
Gerkinman I've managed to track down a copy of the "Classic" cut. My god is it bad! The removed footage is painfully obvious; music randomly jumps around, scenes start and then abruptly end, the already unrealistic conversations become even more unrealistic! As for the "updated" special effects, its consists mostly of lens flares, more mind-numbing filters and everyone's favorite; more CG fire!! I also found a very broken torrent (bits were missing) of the original film and compared to the "Classic" cut, it's a lot better (though that isn't saying much.)
I'm sad they removed the hilarious dinner scene with his cousin, that had me cracking up the first time around.
*****
I really want to find a copy of the original 3 hour cut...
The pendragon version was okay, at least it was more like the novel unlike the Tom Cruise version
I still have the original 3 hour cut on DVD....my life is a fucking joke
I still really need to see that version but couldn't be bothered hunting it down.
I still have the VHS 😂
This movie was reported to have had a 25m dollar budget. I don't get it.
Yup, it was a mystery to us as well!
Timothy Hines is someone who was known throughout the long and troubled production of this film to have been a pathological liar. He claimed the special effects were as good as those in the Matrix. He claimed that test audiences gave the film critical acclaim. He even claimed that Anthony Piana (who plays the narrator and the brother in the film) was the next Al Pacino. He was very much hyping his film as one which would beat Spielberg at the box office. In reality most of the cast were personal friends of Hines from the greater Pacific Northwest area and had no prior acting experience (The Artilleryman was a nurse from Portland). In reality there was barely any money during shooting or post-production. He claimed that Paramount pressured theatres into pulling plans to screen his film. Personally I think the few theatres willing to show the film pulled it because they were horrified at the results.
But I hear his 2012 film the True Story got decent reviews. And I hear that one glimmer of positive reception gave Timbo delusions of grandeur. He's not a talented director. A 12 year old with a camcorder and passion for the industry can make a better film than he ever will.
@@thepessimistictitan2655 wow
what streaming service is it on?
The two-hour re-edit is on Amazon Prime. The original 3-hour cut is out of print.
So far, I've watched around 30 minutes of the movie and I honestly couldn't tell if it was meant to be a comedy or not.
I don't think we will ever really know... :(
An excellent review that shares so many of my own opinions about the film. I'm interested about The Martian Saga mentioned early on in the review. Is that around anywhere?
I think you should be able to find The Martian Saga somewhere on my channel in the earlier videos.
Should I watch this?
I'm surprised this review is still up since Hines has been trying to scrub this film from existence due to shame. Thank God for fair use.
Lolll I still own it on dvd and man it is bad
Fingers crossed that the BBC version won't be shit
Still the only one that tried to stay true to the novel and set in the right period. I don't hate this one. I do hate Spielbergs rape of Wells. The 1953 one I can't even count. So until someone makes a new adaptation this is the only one there is.
I have the full 3 hour DVD - it's awful. Only watched it once. The Blackmoon Dubs 25 minute satirical re edit was much better.
19:07
I thought pendragon WOTW was great but I still like the musical version better
So, you must never have watched it, then?
It's better than the asylum version
I have only seen the Asylum sequel, but it was awful.
RED!!! REDDDDDDDD
SETTLE DOWN CASEY!
Glammis gloyt shmarfs!!!
Seriously.
Super cereal.
The best cold opening ever!
Nothing but the best!
I got this on VHS when it came out. It's still the worst film I've ever seen.
It came out on VHS as well? Jesus, i had no idea.
Gerkinman Oh, yeah. The film was so long, however, that it was set on ELP, which made the quality match the film.