New 'War of the Worlds' TV miniseries

I don't really hate any filmed versions (I just hate Tom Cruise and the guys who made year 2 of the series SO radically different and depressing). I think us fans of the book would just love for ONE filmed version to be true to the book. It's really a great story.
PS- At least Speilberg got the machines right- they were EXACTLY as I had always envisioned them. Every other version should just copy them.

 

I have read that H.G. Wells was disappointed with the illustrations Warwick Goble provided for the original serialized version of the story published in Pierson's Magazine. So much so that when it came time for the narrative to be printed as a hardcover book, he added some new text, having his protagonist (in story) lament the assumptions made by journalists who apparently never actually saw one of the tripods for themselves.

However, Goble's concept, (or rather a resin model kit released by "Lunar Models" which had a short column article printed in StarLog magazine along with a photo of said kit) was probably the first depiction of a war machine I saw other than Al Nozaki's famous copper hued "manta ray" shaped machines from the 1953 film. The kit was based more upon Frank R. Paul's interpretation of Goble's design which was presented on the cover of "Amazing Stories", and the model itself veered a bit from Paul's concept. So, like a game of "telephone", each design got altered from the previous. But generally, all had a "pill" shaped main casing. Atop that was a "hood" or "cowl" shaped canopy where the Martian piloted the machine. Beneath the "pill" was an array of mechanisms that anchored the three legs, each of which were rigid but with several "joints".

I've always liked this general layout, even if the details and proportions might differ.

Here is a "kit bash" of two different commercially available digital models by a merchant named Petipet at DAZ3D.com along with elements (like the cowl assembly) that I modeled myself. It captures a LOT of what I prefer in a Martian tripod, which I freely admit is personal preference.

While the tripods we saw in the 2005 movie are arguably closer to Wells' intent than any other production, the fully flexible, tentacle type legs tend to "throw" me. I always inferred from the text that the legs were more arthropod type, rigid segments separated by flexible joints that don't show any clear evidence of a wheel type "pivot" (which I confess the digital model here "betrays"). If only the '05 tripods had possesses "bug-like" legs, I'd say they were the near perfect design.

 

Been a few years since I read the book, but doesn’t Welles describe the machines motion as a “fluid - like stride”, which amazes the author considering the machines’ bulk and height? The ‘05 machines certainly achieve that.

 

It's been a few years for me as well, so I can't make any statements with authority. (I freely admit my memory is crap and prone to the "mandala effect".) It's quite possible such is the case. It would be nice if some intrepid soul has compiled every sentence and phrase describing the tripods to make for easy reference.

 

I don't find any such reference in the text here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/36/36-h/36-h.htm

What we have is this:

And later:

The "milking stool tilted and bowled" description makes it sound like it had a spinning motion, or at least its legs did underneath the "body of machinery." The impression I get is of fast, agile movement more like a living being than a clunky 19th-century mechanism.

 

That's the impression I got as well, but I'm willing to concede I probably forgot a significant passage. What did stand out to me was Wells' protagonist making special mention about the lack of obvious pivot/wheel type centers of rotation at the joints. Instead, he described a series of layered, sliding "plates" extending upon the outer edge of knee type joints. I visualize it as a kind of a telescoping "clam-shell" effect, rather like the hangar doors on the Enterprise.

 

You must mean this part:

Sounds like it's meant to be sort of a biomechanical design, mimicking organic musculature. Pretty prophetic, really, since some current robotics research is along similar lines.

 

Yes! That's the passage. at some point I want to update the model in my render, apply some sheath-like elements to help disguise the conventional pivot design of the joints.

 

I wonder why H.G. Wells never wrote the Martian machines as flying machines. And why didn't they just try and trip the tripods up. I saw it in this really obscure film once. They had these big robot camels walking across this snow planet and the heroes had to bring them down by wrapping their legs in tow cables. What was it called again, Revenge of the Empire, The Empire Awakens, something like that.

 

As for the first notion, flying machines, that point WAS addressed in the book. Apparently the Martians intended to handle their invasion in stages. They landed; they secured the site; they built walkers; then trod the countryside literally blazing the way. Now, I forget if it's the artillery soldier who warns the protagonist of the following, or if he saw the hardware for himself, but shortly before earthly bacteria and viruses killed the, the Martians were constructing flying machines. It was just sheer luck they croaked before they got airborne.

As for "tripping" the tripods, I guess nobody had ample opportunity to entwine cable around the legs. It's something they'd have to do quickly, particularly if the tripods were moving rapidly (and the text implied they could). In "Empire", they needed a snowspeeder to do it quick enough. And the fastest thing the army probably had were horses. I doubt they could have transported enough cable and I doubt it had the tensile strength required to restrain the legs.

On the other hand, a cannon was able to destroy one of the tripods and the Thunderchild gained enough speed to ram and bring down another (before the ship itself was cleaved in two by the heat ray of another war machine). So the Martian technology was not totally impervious, merely superior.

 

Not to suggest that Wells had this in mind, but it makes sense that they didn't use flying machines. After all, Mars's atmosphere is extremely thin, so it's very hard to achieve sustainable flight. It's reasonable that their technology didn't develop in that direction. At least, it makes sense that they waited until securing their position on Earth before beginning construction on machines that took advantage of our planet's far more buoyant atmosphere.

And I'm with Redfern on the tripping thing. The book described the tripods as whirling like a three-legged stool bowled across the ground, which suggests a terrifyingly fast motion, like a mechanical tornado. At the very least, it suggests that the legs raise high enough on each step to clear any kind of tripwire.

 

^You mentioned a point I was about to bring up, that you'd probably have to go fairly high up to get to a point where the tripod couldn't just step over it. If all you have are people and horses, it probably wouldn't be possible to get that high up.
In The Empire Strikes Back they were fairly high up on the walkers' legs when they wrapped them.