War Of The Worlds: Movie Adaptations Of The Novel

The eminently distinguished novel and the most anticipated film of 1953, War of the Worlds (1953) had substantial expectations. Stemming from the science fiction novel by English author, H.G. Wells, its evaluated that the use of technologies and institutions have affected the overall context of the final production. The global invasion prototype and including aliens as intruders were among the original components presented into the lexicon of the science fiction genre. Through the analysis of moving-picture, the construction of War of the Worlds (1953) has effectively used technologies and institutions to enhance the overall success of the film.

War of the Worlds (1953), directed by Byron Haskin, written by Barré Lyndon and produced by Paramount Pictures was released at a time of heightened uneasiness around the threat of nuclear war. A.H Weiler of The New York Times reported that “the film is an imaginatively conceived, professional turned adventure, which makes excellent use of Technicolour, special effects by a crew of experts, and impressively drawn backgrounds” (Weiler, 1953). Contrastingly, through the analysis of moving-picture, the 2005 production of War of the Worlds, directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by Paramount Pictures, came out at a time of small expectations in special effects. Traumatised by the organised terrorist onslaught launched on 11 September 2001, writers saw the story line as possessing a substantial resonance in a post-9/11 world. Screenwriter David Koepp states “I think the ideas of war and the danger to one’s homeland and the feeling of being invaded is on everybody’s mind right now” (Koepp, 2016).

Acquiring a mixed response in 2005, the film contemporarily reflects on responses to 9/11; from the early panic to society either helping or turning on each other (Cornmell, 2019). Spielberg’s strategy when deciding to remake War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise playing a working-class everyman from New Jersey, was to metaphorically recall an apocalyptic post 9/11 feeling of paranoia (Desowitz, 2005). Offering a true insight into transformed cinematic principles in a post 9/11 world, the first two scenes are striking (Carl, 2014). It was not only budgetary constraint that impacted upon the production of War of the Worlds (2005); reaffirming the impact of 9/11 on the production company, Koepp acknowledges that “we all come out of the same set of experiences” (Koepp, 2016).

The use of technologies affected the overall context of the final production of War of the Worlds (1953). During the 1950s, the appeal of alien invasion films, like War of the Worlds (1953) was conceptualised by André Bazin, the French film theorist, as the ‘Nero Complex’; a term describing the vicarious pleasure experienced by cinema audiences when viewing the spectacular destruction of major landmarks. Even if some special effects show their age (the very heavy props of the Martian craft required a veritable cat’s cradle of wires to keep aloft), the strength of the film’s imagery is quite remarkable (Heath, 2016). Apart from its manipulative use of screen composition and superior special effects, War of the Worlds (1953) is not a very complex film. For the destruction of the Los Angeles City Hall, powder man Walter Hoffman placed explosive charges inside the eight-foot-tall miniature, and its explosive destruction was filmed by high-speed cameras. The miniature streets were built on a platform so the high-speed cameras could not only shoot from street level but also get as close to the miniature buildings as necessary.

A specific scene that showcases this technique is when Clayton Forrester is left behind, and his truck is gone. Running through the vacant streets, he discovers the truck, but the only sign of Sylvia’s school bus is its destination sign lying in the street. At the end of the film, the Martian crafts, soaring malevolently down the nearly unoccupied streets of Los Angeles, with their heat rays blasting the Los Angeles City Hall, fire only two seemingly unenthusiastic bursts and then abruptly crash on the street. To watch what has transpired, Forrester leads the public out into the street to observe another Martian craft crash on the other side of the street. Linking to the success of the film institution and audience, War of the Worlds (1953) is a sensational triumph in purely visual terms, with its threatening Martian crafts flying relentlessly across the screen, leaving death and utter demolition.  (Haskin, 1953)

In War of the Worlds (1953) there were a lot of jump cuts used to make the effects happen, and there was also still a learning process in editing, courtesy of film editing pioneers such as Georges Melies (Geoghegan, 2016). The sound of the Martian screaming after Forrester hits it is a mixture of a microphone scraping along dry ice and a female’s scream played backward. The trembling, almost chanting sound of the machines themselves was a magnetic recorder hooked up to send back an oscillation sound. To create the sound of the meteoroid landing, recordings of substantial artillery shells was applied and the sound of the spaceships shutting down was made by vacuum cleaners being turned off. To show their existence, subtle downward lights were to be added directly under the moving war machines; however, in the final production, they only appeared when one of the first machines could be seen rising from the Martian’s landing site. Featuring the partial destruction of various landmarks including the Taj Mahal in India and the vibrant colour special effects, War of the Worlds (1953) was the first visual effects-laden “popcorn” film (Dirks, 2010).

War of the Worlds (1953) was a box office success (Gebert, 1996). Haskin enthralled the audiences of 1953 by creating a visual event. Drawing the audience in with the vibrant imagery, the use of technicolour leads to a much more engrossing film. The film text is engaged in anticipating the contours of the next battle, which for most Americans meant a seemingly inevitable war with the USSR; 1953, after all, was the year in which the Russians successfully tested their first hydrogen bomb. Along with the establishment of the invasion story’s paradigmatic use of power relationships as embodied in social structures and institutions, it is this tension that has been taken up by the cinematic adaptations of the film. In War of the Worlds (1953), the engagement with power structures underlying the apocalyptic empire narrative is depicted through the reactions to the Martian invasion of the characters, who can be said to represent the institutions of military (Cornell, 2004). Hence, its cohesively justified that the use of technologies has affected the overall context of the final production.

The editing, development of computers, CGI and special effects have a profound impact on the genre of the 2005 production. Receiving positive reviews from critics, War of the Worlds, which was worth $132 million, became the fourth most prosperous film of 2005, both domestically and internationally. Well aware of the $100 million average cost for promoting the major film, studio marketers were looking for striking, cost-efficient ways to entice viewers, and turned to surfacing technologies. However, because of profound variations from the plot and Rachel Ferrier’s “constant” shrieking, a handful of viewers severely excoriated the film with some declaring it “nearly ruined the film for them”. In War of the Worlds (2005), there was no requirement for jump cutting to make the magic occur; it was all produced through motion capture (acting in a costume of lights for the computer), computer animation (composites and graphics), video compositing (green screen) and movement graphics (pictures). The special effects were progressed through green screen compositing effects and computer technology; a time where technology flourished (Geoghegan, 2016).

Set in the heavily inhabited civic industrialised American landscape centred upon Bayonne in New Jersey (though widening also to cover Boston), the film utilised striking special effects to take advantage of computer-generated imagery to represent the intruders and their powerful impacts wreaked upon normal people in their own houses. The audience sees the tripod as a fighting machine that somewhat resembles scorpions. The alien invasion absolutely demands an audience reaction by Americans, who react by segmenting the world into its most elemental groups of “us” and “them”. The film produces very strong tension, chiefly where the audience sees what society can become in the face of such invasions in life as they know it. In one scene, Cruise races along the street right towards the camera, which is swiftly receding before him (Spielberg, 2005). The special effects team came up with the vaporisation of the bodies and regarding it could not be wholly digital because of the complications of the timetable, live-action powder was used alongside the CGI specks (Ryu, 2007). Virtually all shots, particularly during the tripod onslaught, were filmed with the camera set at a person’s eye-sight. (Spielberg, 2005)

War of the Worlds (2005) reflects the collective worries of people living in a fast transforming world and most remarkably misgivings about the impact of scientific advances upon society. The film did not do anything towards repairing Spielberg’s prestige for being unable to provide audiences with an honest resolution but did solid business at the international box office (Wampler, 2010). While it was well-received by audiences and reviewers, the film was hit by criticism over its unexpected denouement (Sandwell, 2018). Providing a recruitment-friendly depiction of the professionalism with which the US military would response to such an invasion, War of the Worlds (2005) projected to audiences a verité, vivid rendering of what a post-9/11 alien invasion might look like in reality (Graham, 2018). For the neighbourhood plane crash scene, the production crew bought a retired Boeing 747 formerly operated by All Nippon Airways, with transportation costs of $2 million, destroyed it into pieces, and built houses around them (Spielberg, 2005). One half of the final film consists of some form of special effects produced by the special effects/prop department at Paramount Studios. Thus, its substantially justified that technologies have been used to enhance the overall production. (Spielberg, 2005)

The use of institutions within War of the Worlds (1953) have affected the overall context of the final film. Paramount Pictures established Paramount Theatres Limited in 1930 in the United Kingdom with the opening of a cinema in Manchester. Multiple Paramount Pictures Theatres opened or were procured in the United Kingdom before being sold to the Rank Organisation’s, Odeon Cinemas chain in 1939. Paramount Pictures was heavily involved in television in 1960s, with its future being uncertain. As a result, the production company amalgamated with Joseph E. Levine in the 1960s. Accordingly, its thoroughly analysed that institutions contribute to the production of moving-image.

Therefore, its analysed that the development and availability of technologies in War of the Worlds are used to enhance/distract from the overall productions. Contrastingly, the change in technologies are responsible to the change in languages. The use of technologies and institutions have contributed to the success and impact of the final versions of the films.