Epix's War of the Worlds

[Gibraltar]

Has anybody watched this? Out of curiosity I watched the first three episodes free on pay-per-view, and am now strongly considering getting a subscription to Epix just long enough to binge the rest of the show.

It's a European remake of War of the Worlds, and it's rather well done. The production values are high, the acting is solid, and it's a pretty convincing portrayal of the aftermath of a devastating alien attack on earth. It's set in Great Britain and France in contemporary times and the plot (so far) seems pretty well thought out. The means used in the attack and the following 'mop-up' operation make logical sense, more so than the original 1950's movie version or the 2005 Tom Cruise vehicle.

It's not an action-packed show, and much like other post-apocalyptic fare such as The Walking Dead, it focuses more on the effects of the attack on individuals and society in general rather than an armed rebellion battle-of-the-week like Falling Skies.

I was a bit shocked to see it garnered a meager 6.2 on IMDB, but it appears many viewers were expecting a much more military bent to the series.

I'd be curious if anyone's watched the entire season and whether you'd recommend it?

 

[Bollie74]

I binge watched it in two days (thanks miss covid). Great show, I would love to talk to anyone about that ending. Have you seen it all, Gibraltar?

 

[auntiehill]

My husband and I watched it every week. I really enjoyed it, even though it is very bleak. They do a good job of setting up the mystery surrounding the aliens and have some interesting characters -- I particularly like the French scientist.

 

[Redfern]

EPIX offered a free weekend of programming and it played the first 7 episodes back to back on Saturday, and aired the "season finale" on Sunday night.

As Gibraltar noted, it's more of a "character study", depicting how different people might react during an "alien occupation" scenario. I also found it interesting the French scenes were presented in French with English subtitles. As it seemed various French production teams were heavily involved in this show, I suspect it was the opposite in France, the English scenes were subtitled in French.

I do have one minor complaint. The overall narrative has so little to do with HG Wells' story (other than aliens invading) that personally, I wish another title had been chosen. Really, I think the production paid for the rights to use the name for its "brand recognition", merely to draw in more viewers under a somewhat deceptive pretense. The show is not bad, but it's clearly its "own thing".

 

[Gibraltar]

I binge watched it in two days (thanks miss covid). Great show, I would love to talk to anyone about that ending. Have you seen it all, Gibraltar?

Only the first 3 episodes so far.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I do have one minor complaint. The overall narrative has so little to do with HG Wells' story (other than aliens invading) that personally, I wish another title had been chosen. Really, I think the production paid for the rights to use the name for its "brand recognition", merely to draw in more viewers under a somewhat deceptive pretense.

"How To Do Hollywood-style Reboots 101."

Yeah, it could easily have had a totally original title, but War of the Worlds is an already known title to the public, even for those who have never read Wells' story.

 

[JD]

EPIX offered a free weekend of programming and it played the first 7 episodes back to back on Saturday, and aired the "season finale" on Sunday night.

As Gibraltar noted, it's more of a "character study", depicting how different people might react during an "alien occupation" scenario. I also found it interesting the French scenes were presented in French with English subtitles. As it seemed various French production teams were heavily involved in this show, I suspect it was the opposite in France, the English scenes were subtitled in French.

I do have one minor complaint. The overall narrative has so little to do with HG Wells' story (other than aliens invading) that personally, I wish another title had been chosen. Really, I think the production paid for the rights to use the name for its "brand recognition", merely to draw in more viewers under a somewhat deceptive pretense. The show is not bad, but it's clearly its "own thing".

I was just about to ask about this, so thank you.
It doesn't effect my interest in any way, I was just curious.
So of all of the different versions over the years, which one or ones stick closest to the book? This seems to be one where a lot of people just take the name and then do their own thing with it.

 

[Redfern]

I was just about to ask about this, so thank you.
It doesn't effect my interest in any way, I was just curious.
So of all of the different versions over the years, which one or ones stick closest to the book? This seems to be one where a lot of people just take the name and then do their own thing with it.

Of the professional productions I have personally experienced, I begrudgingly admit it's the Pendragon Production that was released (direct to video) in 2005, trying to "ride" the word of mouth of the Tom Cruise flick. Never heard of it? Be grateful you've never seen it.

While it's set at the turn of the 19th to 20th centuries, set in England, depicts tripod war machines and cephalopod, "vampiric" Martians, the destruction of the Thunder Child, etc, the production values were so horrendously cheap and slipshod that many fan efforts on YouTube show better skill and "art". Think I'm using hyperbole? When came to the slaughter of humans upon Horsell Common, they repeated the same shot of the same extras at least 3 or 4 times (who were cheaply CSO'd into a wooded backdrop). When struck by the heat ray, they lapse dissolved to digital models of skeletons, ones that came with Poser of that time. I'm reasonably certain because those meshes were so low polygon that the skulls did not even have modeled teeth, just featureless bands upon the upper and lower jaws. After "reduced" to skeletons, these meshes continued to flail upon the ground as though break dancing! I could spend paragraphs listing the poor choices made for this "film". Like, was there really the need to "CSO" the protagonist into a shot of a door upon which he knocked? It's not like the entrance was a 100 foot tall access gilded with gold and precious stones; it was an average wooden door with recessed molding!

But technically, the setting and events are arguably closer than any other adaptation I've personally seen.

 

[JD]

Sounds like pretty solid proof that sticking closer to the source material doesn't automatically

 

[Jadeb]

I thought this made Picard look like a Fast and the Furious movie. So slow, so much suffering. Enjoyed some of the character work, and the show was quite suspenseful at times, but I felt like the season, overall, accomplished very little. I found myself wondering why none of the millions of dead ever started to rot or were eaten by the birds flying around.

I’m a huge WotW fan and agree this would have been better billed as something else.

 

[Q2UnME]

I thought this made Picard look like a Fast and the Furious movie. So slow, so much suffering. Enjoyed some of the character work, and the show was quite suspenseful at times, but I felt like the season, overall, accomplished very little. I found myself wondering why none of the millions of dead ever started to rot or were eaten by the birds flying around.

I’m a huge WotW fan and agree this would have been better billed as something else.

As for the rotting, I believe, in universe, the whole of season one takes place over a week, two at the most. Natural decomposition of bodies takes longer than that. Bodies by the end of the season should be bloated and looking pretty grim/nasty, but still largely intact. As for brids and other wild life, yes, the scavengers should be having a feast, likely after a day or two of the big killing event.

As other have noted, this moved at a glacers pace with not a whole lot happening. Could have used a few more $$ in the VFX budget too.

Q2

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I couldn’t take any more and fast forwarded through the rest. If I need more, I’ll stick to Boston Dynamics videos on YouTube, they’re more exciting and scary.

 

[Redfern]

I'm glad somebody finally mentioned Boston Dynamics because it looks like the company's creations finally rose up and revolted in this series. Really, the "drone" (walkers, whatever) look rather like the "Spot" model (one of which has been loaned to the venerable Adam Savage for a year) with heavy metal plating.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Given the supposed source material something like this would've been cool.

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[Gibraltar]

^ That's very cool. I agree something like this would have been more in keeping with the source material. However, given that they're operating primarily in urbanized areas, the quadrupedal design makes more sense for moving through human structures.

 

[Morpheus 02]

I had started but got bored before the attack actually happened.

My wife saw the first episode so we now finally saw the whole season before Epix free sample ends on Xfinity.

Some freaky pre-war situations come to light... were we still wanting to see more by the end of each episode.

I know realistically animals should be eating all the dead bodies. But that is a budget saving thing I am ok with.

Lots of other questions...like it is ONLY the "dogs" doing the shooting ?

Are they taking brain samples from the adults?

how Do they grab babies???

Now that in the last minute we finally meet a non dog...i have no idea what that means.