Growing up I was horrified of the idea of a hostile Alien invasion.

[Saelune]

Well, I mean, Mass Effect is essentially saying in their universe that the default is that most interplanetary species have similar respiratory requirements as humans. A more realistic idea would really be that we ALL, us and other theoretical interplanetary species would require equipment to make spacefaring work. But that is just another one of those overly hand-waved aspects, though one I think that is detrimental, particularly in Star Trek.

Damn straight we would be all wearing space suits. Though technically I guess we might just call them 'survival suits' or 'internal pressure suits'. Given they wouldn't just be for space. One of the more scarier depictions ofMars thatI think does a discredit to actually showing why it would be insanely hard to set up a colony there is how any and all of its depictions never seen to bother talking about perchlorates in Martian soil.

You can't just have an air lock. The suits themselves will need to be decontaminated. Entire rooms will need to be routinely auto-vacuumed and filtered. You're going to need to ship dirt from Earth, or find some way to fix Martian soil to safely cultivate it. And despite all your best efforts, it's only a matter of time until it builds up. Turns out interplanetary colonization is hard. This shit will get in seals, get in door gears, clog your pores making it hard to completely decontaminate. Under fingernails removing suits. In small doses it's fine, but it builds up. And there's only so much equipment and resources you can bring with you.

That being said, with a hypothetical interstellar society of everybody wearing survival suits, I reckon we should adopt the Equestrian system of personalizing property. It's actually really cute and smart. Ponies put their cutie marks on their saddlebags and beside their names on letters.

Seems like a clever way of personalizing goods without a mutual written language. That is assuming that complex vision and colour perception is pretty much a prerequisite for advanced intelligence and civilization development.

Basically give every being a specific, temporary visual symbol that they can quickly use and temporarily spray over part of their suit and collected bags/harnasses ... make it easier to identify people without requiring their radio frequencies.

That's how I'd do it, anyways. Random assortment of colour contrasted, geometric shapes that is individual to that person on star bases or planets that they get assigned. Something an automated CAD-controlled computer and ink sprayer can perform and just sort of spray on someone's suit, their ship, and their bags.

Kind of like a passport stamp. Implement Q-Code tech in there that people can just scan that image and all the pertinent details come up based on that person's security clearance to see it.

We should also probably assume that as the technology advances and normalizes, it will update to be well, better, likely better in ways we cannot currently comprehend cause well, we don't even have the initial version. I mean, think of what it would be like to live when computers took up a whole huge room and to learn that not even 100 years later, a hand-sizes computer could handily outperform a whole room of computer.


I mean, I remember when I saw the first episode of Pok?mon and it had a video phone and I was like 'Wow, what a futuristic sci-fi device!'

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

We should also probably assume that as the technology advances and normalizes, it will update to be well, better, likely better in ways we cannot currently comprehend cause well, we don't even have the initial version. I mean, think of what it would be like to live when computers took up a whole huge room and to learn that not even 100 years later, a hand-sizes computer could handily outperform a whole room of computer.


I mean, I remember when I saw the first episode of Pok?mon and it had a video phone and I was like 'Wow, what a futuristic sci-fi device!'

Technology advances as to needs and means.

Kinetic energy is still a killer on the battlefield. Regardless of whether that represents a future magnetic rail naval cannon propelling a radar-primed explosive warhead to cause stealthily deployed multi-level injury events or a bullet out of a gun, or a bolt in in someone's crossbow, or an arrow in someone's bow, or a javelin in someone's atlatl to create additional force pressure, to a rock in David's sling, to an ancient bolos, to an edge sharpened flint rock in someone's hand aimed at someone's head.

So much so that ultimately the 'future nuke' of the late 21st century will simply be firing a big arse piece of metal at Earth from space based platforms.

So we've gone from atomic weapons to thermonuclear, and straight back to hyper-advanced ballistae simply because international treatises. Gigantic tungsten rods it is, then. And turns out they (could) impact Earth and cause as much devastation as the 20mt termonuclear 'city killers' of the 60s.

In a galaxy where people wear armour designed to calculate and insulate against impacts of focussed magnetic fields of hot plasma being flung at them, a hypothetical bullet and direct delivery and application of kinetic energy is suddenly a viable weapon if the computer can't calculate that.

Sure, we might have gotten rid of the bayonet (or, you know .. we still train with it, we just don't leave the armoury with it) ... has less to do with the physics of why the bayonet is a relic.

Ultimately that's all a weapon is ... delivering energy to a target for the sake of the target's impairment and damage. Technology will merely transform what forms that energy takes and what tools deliver it. And so it's hard to imagine a state where simple resistance isn't a factor to take into consideration.

If it turns out tungsten rods are viable, we'll simply use tungsten rods and annihilate everything in a 10 kilometre radius. Which is arguably not much more than flinging a meteorite at Earth.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

I 'member being afraid that an apple seed might grow into a tree in my stomach if one was eaten. I also 'member being afraid the LHC would create a black hole and destroy our whole planet overnight. Aliens though? Nah, the sooner the better please. Same with ghosts. Anything at all would be nice, don't matter if you got bad intentions. Anything to break the existential isolation we currently find ourselves in really. Can't remember any fears of being colonised by aggressive entities. Wonder if that's a symptom of being British and all the baggage that entails.

Yea, I have never been afraid of aliens, and I also remember my cousin who told me if I swallowed Watermelon seeds they would grow out my ears. The one thing I was completely terrified of, though rightly so, due to the sheer number of them I have survived was tornadoes. I had a recurring nightmare that something happened on earth that caused a nightmarish weather shift and there were hundreds of tornadoes everywhere.

Ever since that birthday when I as a kid where the sheriff came by with his bull horn telling us to take cover and everyone had already taken shelter when me and my Dad were still outside and I saw one huge funnel with two skinny trailers in a row coming straight for us and it throwing cars and digging into the ground destroying everything. Those three tornadoes lined up like that is something I will never forget. When My dad realized I was still outside he yelled at me to get in the shelter and I ran into the house and grabbed my birthday cake since I had not even blown out my candles yet and held on to that thing the whole time I was in shelter. My dad came running in last and held onto the door the entire time in the hopes of preventing it from flying off. It sounded horrible, much worse than standing next to a train and we heard crashing and glass and thought we were done in for.

We lucked out though, it touched down across the street from our house and destroyed a barn entirely and threw it at and into our house. part of the barn was in our living room, on our roof and in our back yard. It apparently went back up and skipped us and came down again behind our house and destroyed another barn. I survived many after that, but that was the closest it came to "getting me" except maybe the one that threw a tree at my car while driving home. Man I hate those things. I am probably going to have nightmares again now.

wait how much of that was nightmare, and how much of it happened?

"hundreds of tornadoes everywhere" was the recurring nightmare. From my Birthday on actually happened.

That's just awful. And on your birthday too. Weird question I know, but was the cake eaten in the end? It sounds like you must live somewhere deep in the Alley. What happened with the tree thrown at your car story?

Yes, I did get to blow out my candles and eat my cake! We also had to clean up a huge mess and board up our windows, but actually turned out okay when the neighbors and sheriff found out it was my birthday and they all showed up and some even brought presents!

Yea we are in the DFW metroplex so much of the tornadoes that go on to hit other parts of the nation actually form here first so they come right down on top of us without warning far too often. That was what happened the day I was driving from one Clinic to another. There was no tornadoes present at the time, although other parts of the metroplex had been hit pretty hard that day. But there were no warning at the time and schools were being let out as usual at the time, I was actually driving down the road near the school and they made the parents leave their vehicles and run into the school to take cover with the students inside the school. It actually crossed the road ahead of me in my path, Luckily the tree just flew across my hood and I drove off road to avoid serious damage so just some dents in the hood for the most part. Considering what it it did elsewhere that day, I feel pretty lucky. Here is some footage of it:
I was on the same street he was on when he filmed this and saw the same thing he did but from the other side of the tornado.
Here is some of the damage it did that day:
Yes, wiped brick homes down to the foundation.
More about it:
https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2012/04/03/tornado-reports-coming-in-from-across-north-texas/

What the people went through that were in those homes being hit:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-grandmother-wins-tug-war-tornado-grandson/story?id=16068618

Thankfully, even though it ripped part of the roof off an elementary school filled with kids, people took cover and there were no fatalities from it even though it was horrific. All I can say, is when they tell you take cover, or you hear the sirens, ALWAYS take cover. As long as people take them seriously and do what they were taught to do, they have the best chance to survive.

 

[Squilookle]

I 'member being afraid that an apple seed might grow into a tree in my stomach if one was eaten. I also 'member being afraid the LHC would create a black hole and destroy our whole planet overnight. Aliens though? Nah, the sooner the better please. Same with ghosts. Anything at all would be nice, don't matter if you got bad intentions. Anything to break the existential isolation we currently find ourselves in really. Can't remember any fears of being colonised by aggressive entities. Wonder if that's a symptom of being British and all the baggage that entails.

Yea, I have never been afraid of aliens, and I also remember my cousin who told me if I swallowed Watermelon seeds they would grow out my ears. The one thing I was completely terrified of, though rightly so, due to the sheer number of them I have survived was tornadoes. I had a recurring nightmare that something happened on earth that caused a nightmarish weather shift and there were hundreds of tornadoes everywhere.

Ever since that birthday when I as a kid where the sheriff came by with his bull horn telling us to take cover and everyone had already taken shelter when me and my Dad were still outside and I saw one huge funnel with two skinny trailers in a row coming straight for us and it throwing cars and digging into the ground destroying everything. Those three tornadoes lined up like that is something I will never forget. When My dad realized I was still outside he yelled at me to get in the shelter and I ran into the house and grabbed my birthday cake since I had not even blown out my candles yet and held on to that thing the whole time I was in shelter. My dad came running in last and held onto the door the entire time in the hopes of preventing it from flying off. It sounded horrible, much worse than standing next to a train and we heard crashing and glass and thought we were done in for.

We lucked out though, it touched down across the street from our house and destroyed a barn entirely and threw it at and into our house. part of the barn was in our living room, on our roof and in our back yard. It apparently went back up and skipped us and came down again behind our house and destroyed another barn. I survived many after that, but that was the closest it came to "getting me" except maybe the one that threw a tree at my car while driving home. Man I hate those things. I am probably going to have nightmares again now.

wait how much of that was nightmare, and how much of it happened?

"hundreds of tornadoes everywhere" was the recurring nightmare. From my Birthday on actually happened.

That's just awful. And on your birthday too. Weird question I know, but was the cake eaten in the end? It sounds like you must live somewhere deep in the Alley. What happened with the tree thrown at your car story?

Yes, I did get to blow out my candles and eat my cake! We also had to clean up a huge mess and board up our windows, but actually turned out okay when the neighbors and sheriff found out it was my birthday and they all showed up and some even brought presents!

Yea we are in the DFW metroplex so much of the tornadoes that go on to hit other parts of the nation actually form here first so they come right down on top of us without warning far too often. That was what happened the day I was driving from one Clinic to another. There was no tornadoes present at the time, although other parts of the metroplex had been hit pretty hard that day. But there were no warning at the time and schools were being let out as usual at the time, I was actually driving down the road near the school and they made the parents leave their vehicles and run into the school to take cover with the students inside the school. It actually crossed the road ahead of me in my path, Luckily the tree just flew across my hood and I drove off road to avoid serious damage so just some dents in the hood for the most part. Considering what it it did elsewhere that day, I feel pretty lucky. Here is some footage of it:
I was on the same street he was on when he filmed this and saw the same thing he did but from the other side of the tornado.
Here is some of the damage it did that day:
Yes, wiped brick homes down to the foundation.
More about it:
https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2012/04/03/tornado-reports-coming-in-from-across-north-texas/

What the people went through that were in those homes being hit:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-grandmother-wins-tug-war-tornado-grandson/story?id=16068618

Thankfully, even though it ripped part of the roof off an elementary school filled with kids, people took cover and there were no fatalities from it even though it was horrific. All I can say, is when they tell you take cover, or you hear the sirens, ALWAYS take cover. As long as people take them seriously and do what they were taught to do, they have the best chance to survive.

Damn that's just crazy. I've always found tornadoes utterly fascinating but I've never seen one up close. I'm glad you've managed to keep one step ahead of them.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

The fact that humanity is nothing special is probably the one thing saving us. We're on a backwater rock in the ass-end of an unremarkable galaxy, and we've got nothing worth fighting over- any useful materials would be easier to gather from any of a million lifeless rocks scattered throughout the universe.

 

[Drathnoxis]

War of the Worlds was a terrible movie. It was just dumb, all the way through. The aliens were horrendously inefficient at their human slaughter and the ending was awful. How the heck could a race get to space faring levels and not know about micro organisms. And even if they did, how did they get to Earth if their space pods weren't airtight? Basically the aliens died because they were too stupid to live. I know they beam down unprotected all the time on Star Trek, but it's stupid the moment you think about it for 2 seconds. As an ending, it's cheap and unsatisfying.

And what the heck were the red vines anyway? The aliens were mincing people up and making red vines grow, but nothing ever came of that plot point as far as I'm aware of.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

War of the Worlds was a terrible movie. It was just dumb, all the way through. The aliens were horrendously inefficient at their human slaughter and the ending was awful. How the heck could a race get to space faring levels and not know about micro organisms. And even if they did, how did they get to Earth if their space pods weren't airtight? Basically the aliens died because they were too stupid to live. I know they beam down unprotected all the time on Star Trek, but it's stupid the moment you think about it for 2 seconds. As an ending, it's cheap and unsatisfying.

And what the heck were the red vines anyway? The aliens were mincing people up and making red vines grow, but nothing ever came of that plot point as far as I'm aware of.

Allow this video to explain:

 

[Squilookle]

Allow this video to explain:

Nope. Not a single thing in that vid made the film better. It actually made it worse. If that's what they were really going for, then they completely dropped the ball in getting that across to the audience if it takes that level of bending over backwards to even find dots to connect.

My problem with the 2005 movie (The Spielberg one that is, not the David Michael Latt one or the Timothy Hines one, which both also came out in 2005) is that generally adaptations of the story go one or two ways: either the Martians are shielded and literally invincible to everything we throw at them (like in the 1953 version) and we are forced to the brink of accepting our fate at their hands before the ending is revealed, or we put up a valiant fight early on and the Martians lose some machines, but a point is reached where we can no longer fight back and afterwards seem to be at their mercy.

SS's film tries to have it both ways by giving them shields which just... stop towards the end, so we can get some hoo-rah kill the bad guys action near the end. having the fightback there instead of at the start is the dumbest place to have it. It's like those godawful stories about aliens subjugating the whole world except for one last place where the resistance begins. Guys, if you left it that late to start a resistance, it's over.

The other major problem with it is in all the other versions, the main character, while a noncombatant, is the vessel for the story because he sees every stage of the invasion. In most he's a reporter, so that's his job. In this movie he just runs away all the time. While I certainly don't fault the character for doing that, as I probably would too, in the end it just means the movie followed the wrong person. Literally anyone else who survived to the end probably had a more insightful story to tell.

Then you've got the fact that pretty much every change they made just made the movie worse. Pods in the lightning/blurting out they've always been here? Lame as hell. As a species we tend to do a lot of digging and monitoring- to hide thousands of those things underground for years is just the dumbest plan possible. The Ferry Scene was a pivotal moment in previous versions, in this it's utterly generic and bland. The tripod's cry is just... a foghorn. Lame. The military makes a stand- and we don't see how they get decimated. Lame. Add a kid who wants to run off into a battle and a father who lets him. Lame, Lame, Lame.

In fact it's mostly like all the military has is infantry and jeeps. Should I make a theory video saying that it's a propaganda movie that's really about increasing the National Defence Budget? It's about as likely as the blood theory...

All in all I know what versions do it well, and Spielberg's sure as hell ain't one of them...

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Allow this video to explain:

Nope. Not a single thing in that vid made the film better. It actually made it worse. If that's what they were really going for, then they completely dropped the ball in getting that across to the audience if it takes that level of bending over backwards to even find dots to connect.

My problem with the 2005 movie (The Spielberg one that is, not the David Michael Latt one or the Timothy Hines one, which both also came out in 2005) is that generally adaptations of the story go one or two ways: either the Martians are shielded and literally invincible to everything we throw at them (like in the 1953 version) and we are forced to the brink of accepting our fate at their hands before the ending is revealed, or we put up a valiant fight early on and the Martians lose some machines, but a point is reached where we can no longer fight back and afterwards seem to be at their mercy.

SS's film tries to have it both ways by giving them shields which just... stop towards the end, so we can get some hoo-rah kill the bad guys action near the end. having the fightback there instead of at the start is the dumbest place to have it. It's like those godawful stories about aliens subjugating the whole world except for one last place where the resistance begins. Guys, if you left it that late to start a resistance, it's over.

The other major problem with it is in all the other versions, the main character, while a noncombatant, is the vessel for the story because he sees every stage of the invasion. In most he's a reporter, so that's his job. In this movie he just runs away all the time. While I certainly don't fault the character for doing that, as I probably would too, in the end it just means the movie followed the wrong person. Literally anyone else who survived to the end probably had a more insightful story to tell.

Then you've got the fact that pretty much every change they made just made the movie worse. Pods in the lightning/blurting out they've always been here? Lame as hell. As a species we tend to do a lot of digging and monitoring- to hide thousands of those things underground for years is just the dumbest plan possible. The Ferry Scene was a pivotal moment in previous versions, in this it's utterly generic and bland. The tripod's cry is just... a foghorn. Lame. The military makes a stand- and we don't see how they get decimated. Lame. Add a kid who wants to run off into a battle and a father who lets him. Lame, Lame, Lame.

In fact it's mostly like all the military has is infantry and jeeps. Should I make a theory video saying that it's a propaganda movie that's really about increasing the National Defence Budget? It's about as likely as the blood theory...

All in all I know what versions do it well, and Spielberg's sure as hell ain't one of them...

The movie is confirmed to be in development hell. Its been stated that Speilberg is more interested in realistic, and serious Drama movies like Munich, Lincoln and Bridge of Spies. That he is incapable of making the big blockbuster genre movies he made in his past.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Hmm when you think about it, the Orcs from Warcraft are from another world entirely and had to invade Azeroth via portals.

Yet none died to the native germs inhabiting Azeroth

Right, but fantasy is fantasy, and the idea of alien invaders invading Earth without clothing is something different.

Clothing just makes sense. Even if you'rea super-advanced race, clothing brings utility. It allows you to store tools, determine social standing, protection from hazards, and an outlet for creativity and self-expression.

Even if an alien race manages to do without some of that it's hard to imagine they can do awaywith all of that.

Particularly if they have managed to achieve interstellar society.

You're looking at this from an entirely human perspective. You assume any alien race that evolved in a completely different environment than we did would have any need for all of those things. Wookies were brought up earlier and yes Chewbacca wears a belt, but if I'm not mistaken, a belt is the most a Wookie will ever wear because all other clothing is actually taboo.

 

[Squilookle]

Allow this video to explain:

Nope. Not a single thing in that vid made the film better. It actually made it worse. If that's what they were really going for, then they completely dropped the ball in getting that across to the audience if it takes that level of bending over backwards to even find dots to connect.

My problem with the 2005 movie (The Spielberg one that is, not the David Michael Latt one or the Timothy Hines one, which both also came out in 2005) is that generally adaptations of the story go one or two ways: either the Martians are shielded and literally invincible to everything we throw at them (like in the 1953 version) and we are forced to the brink of accepting our fate at their hands before the ending is revealed, or we put up a valiant fight early on and the Martians lose some machines, but a point is reached where we can no longer fight back and afterwards seem to be at their mercy.

SS's film tries to have it both ways by giving them shields which just... stop towards the end, so we can get some hoo-rah kill the bad guys action near the end. having the fightback there instead of at the start is the dumbest place to have it. It's like those godawful stories about aliens subjugating the whole world except for one last place where the resistance begins. Guys, if you left it that late to start a resistance, it's over.

The other major problem with it is in all the other versions, the main character, while a noncombatant, is the vessel for the story because he sees every stage of the invasion. In most he's a reporter, so that's his job. In this movie he just runs away all the time. While I certainly don't fault the character for doing that, as I probably would too, in the end it just means the movie followed the wrong person. Literally anyone else who survived to the end probably had a more insightful story to tell.

Then you've got the fact that pretty much every change they made just made the movie worse. Pods in the lightning/blurting out they've always been here? Lame as hell. As a species we tend to do a lot of digging and monitoring- to hide thousands of those things underground for years is just the dumbest plan possible. The Ferry Scene was a pivotal moment in previous versions, in this it's utterly generic and bland. The tripod's cry is just... a foghorn. Lame. The military makes a stand- and we don't see how they get decimated. Lame. Add a kid who wants to run off into a battle and a father who lets him. Lame, Lame, Lame.

In fact it's mostly like all the military has is infantry and jeeps. Should I make a theory video saying that it's a propaganda movie that's really about increasing the National Defence Budget? It's about as likely as the blood theory...

All in all I know what versions do it well, and Spielberg's sure as hell ain't one of them...

The movie is confirmed to be in development hell. Its been stated that Speilberg is more interested in realistic, and serious Drama movies like Munich, Lincoln and Bridge of Spies. That he is incapable of making the big blockbuster genre movies he made in his past.

Tell me about it. The less said about the Tintin movie the better. I honestly think he's lost his edge.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

You're looking at this from an entirely human perspective. You assume any alien race that evolved in a completely different environment than we did would have any need for all of those things. Wookies were brought up earlier and yes Chewbacca wears a belt, but if I'm not mistaken, a belt is the most a Wookie will ever wear because all other clothing is actually taboo.

Which is the best possible way to look at it. There's no real reason not to compare ecological niches and fundamental understandings of the relationship between human intelligence and their works, and the lengths we will have to go through, to simply support human life off our terrestrial sphere. The capacity to form permanent habitation. Written language. Verbal communication. Adept capacity for vision. Chewie would still need a spacesuit. 'Taboo clothing' relegates them to a handful of incredible hospitable planets that are *inexplicably hospitable*... it basically halts them ever being able to inhabit a biological, radiological, and chemical hazard zones.

Chewie is incredibly close to human. A mammal, bipedular, opposable digits, gregarious pack animal ...

Chewie also shares biological necessities to survive cosmic radiation, vacuum, and NBC hotzones.

To put it pointedly ... Martian dust will always be toxic to humans. It's also toxic to a whole host of life and innumerable forms and expressions of it.

Comparing the universe as is to Star Wars is the definitive broken idea of looking at alien life as if through a human gaze.

Never let the irony escape you. You might be critical of me putting to evolutionary forces on Earth and human achievements as if necessary miles stones as 'looking at aliens through human eyes' ... but I hope you realize how broken an argument it is to use Star Wars as an example and pretending as if that isn't a worse exercising of anthropomorphizing alien life.

The universe will not be kind to humans. We will always need to take utmost security to save ourselves in it. And it's ridiculous to assume intelligent life elsewhere 'has it easier'.

 

[Hawki]

War of the Worlds was a terrible movie. It was just dumb, all the way through. The aliens were horrendously inefficient at their human slaughter

How?

and the ending was awful. How the heck could a race get to space faring levels and not know about micro organisms.

Same reason the Martians in the original novel didn't?

As contrived as it might be, it's the cross that every WotW story has to bear.

And even if they did, how did they get to Earth if their space pods weren't airtight?

The airpods weren't the problem, the aliens exposed themselves to the atmosphere as seen earlier in the movie.

And what the heck were the red vines anyway? The aliens were mincing people up and making red vines grow, but nothing ever came of that plot point as far as I'm aware of.

The red vines were native vegitation that the Martians were trying to grow on Earth as part of their terraforming (for lack of a better word) efforts. The vines die due to exposure to Earth's micro-organisms. In the context of the novel, they're representative of invasive plant species introduced to various colonies by European powers.

SS's film tries to have it both ways by giving them shields which just... stop towards the end, so we can get some hoo-rah kill the bad guys action near the end. having the fightback there instead of at the start is the dumbest place to have it. It's like those godawful stories about aliens subjugating the whole world except for one last place where the resistance begins. Guys, if you left it that late to start a resistance, it's over.

The shields don't just "stop working." It's heavily implied that the shields aren't working there because the Martians aren't able to control their machines properly due to their illness. Also, I don't see how the ending is meant to be a sign of resistance. It isn't a sign of anything, apart from the fact that "yes, you can take down a tripod, but that means nothing - your technology didn't determine the outcome of this war."

The other major problem with it is in all the other versions, the main character, while a noncombatant, is the vessel for the story because he sees every stage of the invasion. In most he's a reporter, so that's his job. In this movie he just runs away all the time. While I certainly don't fault the character for doing that, as I probably would too, in the end it just means the movie followed the wrong person. Literally anyone else who survived to the end probably had a more insightful story to tell.

Completely disagree. One of the great things about the movie is that it follows a "nobody," so we get a sense of not only how terrifying it is for Average Joe, but also what it's like to be bereft of information in a desparate situation.

Then you've got the fact that pretty much every change they made just made the movie worse. Pods in the lightning/blurting out they've always been here? Lame as hell. As a species we tend to do a lot of digging and monitoring- to hide thousands of those things underground for years is just the dumbest plan possible.

Disagree. We have no idea how deep they are, and it conveys a sense of how advanced and ancient the aliens really are.

The tripod's cry is just... a foghorn.

If it is, it's an absolutely terrifying one.

The military makes a stand- and we don't see how they get decimated.

The scene is brilliant precisely because we DON'T see it. It helps convey the sense of helplessness, the sense of isolation, the sense of lack of comprehension. More than anything, it conveys the sense of how outmatched humanity is. That this battle is so unimportant that for all our firepower, it makes no impact. This isn't some great big battle, this is the equivalent of natives throwing spears at a battleship.

Add a kid who wants to run off into a battle and a father who lets him.

Which is foreshadowed early on. Course it depends on how you read it, but a reading I agree with is that it was commentary on the Iraq War. That going off to fight and die for your country in a hopeless cause sounds like a good idea, but blind patriotism and jingoism can be self-destructive.

In fact it's mostly like all the military has is infantry and jeeps.

Except we clearly see tanks, IFVs, helicopters, and jets.

The movie is confirmed to be in development hell.

What? The movie was made in 2005, how can it be in development hell.

Its been stated that Speilberg is more interested in realistic, and serious Drama movies like Munich, Lincoln and Bridge of Spies. That he is incapable of making the big blockbuster genre movies he made in his past.

First of all, a movie made in 2005 says nothing about Spielberg today.

Second of all, I don't see that as a bad thing. Bridge of Spies is my #1 Spielberg film and was the best film I saw that year, The Post is my #2 film for this year. While he made a dud with the BFG, Ready Player One was still good. Not great, but good.

Tell me about it. The less said about the Tintin movie the better. I honestly think he's lost his edge.

What was wrong with Tintin? I loved that film.

Also, define "edge." Because looking at Spielberg's recent output (again, Bridge of Spies/Post), he's still an accomplished director. If we're referring to adventure films, again, I'd cite RPO and Tintin as good examples (TBH, I've never understood the appeal of Indiana Jones, so I can't really wax nostalgic for something I was never into). And, yes, The BFG was balls, but that wasn't an issue of edge, that was an issue of, among other things, being far too twee for its own good, even by the standards of the original novel.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

You're looking at this from an entirely human perspective. You assume any alien race that evolved in a completely different environment than we did would have any need for all of those things. Wookies were brought up earlier and yes Chewbacca wears a belt, but if I'm not mistaken, a belt is the most a Wookie will ever wear because all other clothing is actually taboo.

Which is the best possible way to look at it. There's no real reason not to compare ecological niches and fundamental understandings of the relationship between human intelligence and their works, and the lengths we will have to go through, to simply support human life off our terrestrial sphere. The capacity to form permanent habitation. Written language. Verbal communication. Adept capacity for vision. Chewie would still need a spacesuit. 'Taboo clothing' relegates them to a handful of incredible hospitable planets that are *inexplicably hospitable*... it basically halts them ever being able to inhabit a biological, radiological, and chemical hazard zones.

Chewie is incredibly close to human. A mammal, bipedular, opposable digits, gregarious pack animal ...

Chewie also shares biological necessities to survive cosmic radiation, vacuum, and NBC hotzones.

To put it pointedly ... Martian dust will always be toxic to humans. It's also toxic to a whole host of life and innumerable forms and expressions of it.

Comparing the universe as is to Star Wars is the definitive broken idea of looking at alien life as if through a human gaze.

Never let the irony escape you. You might be critical of me putting to evolutionary forces on Earth and human achievements as if necessary miles stones as 'looking at aliens through human eyes' ... but I hope you realize how broken an argument it is to use Star Wars as an example and pretending as if that isn't a worse exercising of anthropomorphizing alien life.

The universe will not be kind to humans. We will always need to take utmost security to save ourselves in it. And it's ridiculous to assume intelligent life elsewhere 'has it easier'.

If I'm not mistaken, Wookies are a very tribal society and don't really have any desire to go and colonize other worlds. But ok, maybe Star Wars aliens are bad examples, I'll accept that. You're still ignoring the possibility that any alien species might have evolved a natural protection from environmental hazards and don't have any need for self-expression or at least do so in other ways besides clothing. Maybe they do have space suits, they just don't wear any other clothing because they don't have any need to. Yeah the aliens from War of the Worlds were too stupid to be able to achieve intersteller travel but some how did. However using clothing as a marker for intelligence is arrogant and shortsighted.

 

[Squilookle]

SS's film tries to have it both ways by giving them shields which just... stop towards the end, so we can get some hoo-rah kill the bad guys action near the end. having the fightback there instead of at the start is the dumbest place to have it. It's like those godawful stories about aliens subjugating the whole world except for one last place where the resistance begins. Guys, if you left it that late to start a resistance, it's over.

The shields don't just "stop working." It's heavily implied that the shields aren't working there because the Martians aren't able to control their machines properly due to their illness.

I'm aware of that. It still means the movie wanted to have it both ways, and ended up weaker than committing to either end as a result.

The other major problem with it is in all the other versions, the main character, while a noncombatant, is the vessel for the story because he sees every stage of the invasion. In most he's a reporter, so that's his job. In this movie he just runs away all the time. While I certainly don't fault the character for doing that, as I probably would too, in the end it just means the movie followed the wrong person. Literally anyone else who survived to the end probably had a more insightful story to tell.

Completely disagree. One of the great things about the movie is that it follows a "nobody," so we get a sense of not only how terrifying it is for Average Joe, but also what it's like to be bereft of information in a desparate situation.

Even stories with the absolute smallest nobodies as protagonists have a duty to place them in positions that serve to view the story the best. If they don't, then why the hell are we watching that character? It's just storywriting 101. There's a very good reason we don't follow, say, the silver droid here- because the silver droid doesn't see shit.

Then you've got the fact that pretty much every change they made just made the movie worse. Pods in the lightning/blurting out they've always been here? Lame as hell. As a species we tend to do a lot of digging and monitoring- to hide thousands of those things underground for years is just the dumbest plan possible.

Disagree. We have no idea how deep they are, and it conveys a sense of how advanced and ancient the aliens really are.

No, it just shows how little the writers did their jobs before knocking off for lunch. What's wrong with cylinders from the sky? From Mars? Even a century after it was written that still works better for the story. I'm half convinced they made up the buried crap solely so that they could storyboard that first tripod reveal scene that way just for the trailers.

The tripod's cry is just... a foghorn.

If it is, it's an absolutely terrifying one.

If you say so. A foghorn's still just a foghorn, no matter how many scared people you fill reaction shots with.

The military makes a stand- and we don't see how they get decimated.

The scene is brilliant precisely because we DON'T see it. It helps convey the sense of helplessness, the sense of isolation, the sense of lack of comprehension. More than anything, it conveys the sense of how outmatched humanity is. That this battle is so unimportant that for all our firepower, it makes no impact. This isn't some great big battle, this is the equivalent of natives throwing spears at a battleship.

Except you know what would have been more interesting than a spears vs battleship metaphor? AN ACTUAL BATTLESHIP! You want to feel helplessness? Isolation and a sense of how outmatched humanity is? Compare Spielberg's scene that shows nothing of what we can field against them, what they can withstand, what we're willing to try, just try in order to have a chance at surviving, against this scene from the now ancient film version from 1953:


The whole reason the '53 version set it in the modern day was so they could unleash an A-Bomb on the Martians in that film. And you know what? The tension, the ethical question of whether to use it or not, the rising hopes of those nearby, the amazing scene of the flash and nuclear whirlwind, only for a man to brave a look through his binoculars to see the Martians glide slowly out of the smoke utterly unscathed... now THAT was a scene. We used the greatest and most terrible weapon we had against them and it didn't touch them. While the 50's movie felt like little more than a B movie at times, that scene makes Spielberg's 'explosions over the hill crest' scene look like a bargain-basement fan film by comparison.

Add a kid who wants to run off into a battle and a father who lets him.

Which is foreshadowed early on. Course it depends on how you read it, but a reading I agree with is that it was commentary on the Iraq War. That going off to fight and die for your country in a hopeless cause sounds like a good idea, but blind patriotism and jingoism can be self-destructive.

Yes yes yes, we get that too, but if Spielberg really wanted to make that comment about the Iraq War, he should've made a movie about The Iraq War, or adapted something that was actually intended to allegorise it instead of adapting something that was borne of a far more interesting allegory.

In fact it's mostly like all the military has is infantry and jeeps.

Except we clearly see tanks, IFVs, helicopters, and jets.

I'll grant you that one as they probably did. I don't even remember them showing up.

Bridge of Spies is my #1 Spielberg film and was the best film I saw that year, The Post is my #2 film for this year. While he made a dud with the BFG, Ready Player One was still good. Not great, but good.

I'm glad you liked it. Personally I found Bridge of Spies ruined itself with its obsession with Spielberg's saccharine sentiment. That final scene was so unbelievably on the nose and unnecessary it derailed the whole thing (oh other than the spy plane that wants to pull you downwards when you're attached to it, but the moment you're free it teleports above you to give a cheap collision scare).

I'm already going off topic, so I'm not going to get into Tintin. Suffice to say that it just shat all over the character. Maybe Spielberg could've done it justice back in the late 80s, but he's completely lost his touch. He hasn't made a half-decent movie since Munich, which was a fluke looking at the few that came before it.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

If I'm not mistaken, Wookies are a very tribal society and don't really have any desire to go and colonize other worlds. But ok, maybe Star Wars aliens are bad examples, I'll accept that. You're still ignoring the possibility that any alien species might have evolved a natural protection from environmental hazards and don't have any need for self-expression or at least do so in other ways besides clothing. Maybe they do have space suits, they just don't wear any other clothing because they don't have any need to. Yeah the aliens from War of the Worlds were too stupid to be able to achieve intersteller travel but some how did. However using clothing as a marker for intelligence is arrogant and shortsighted.

But there won't be an intelligent species that will evolve in the vacuum of space. About the closest thing to it may be an artificial intelligence successor species. In which case we might not even recognize it as intelligence. The paradox ofartificial intelligence is it needs to act in a recognizably intelligent fashion to the observer. Otherwise it may just be seen as 'automated'.

So ixnaying an alien A.I. of which we won't recognize as sapient, that leaves biological beings that are obviously biological and yet share enough common interrelationships that we recognize as intelligent. Visual acuity, artistry, emotionality (fear, surprise, gregariousness) and nascent curiosity.

If they act like wolves and are simply given over to primal instinct, then that's how we'll view them. And the problem is, that's how they'll view us if we don't make it as easy as possible to communicate gregarious pack animal intelligence.

Clothing (and artistry) and entertainment connotes gregarious pack animal behaviour that is intelligent.

And by logical extensions, whether because they value their own lives enough to merit such preoccupations with personal safety, or simply as the fastest way to communicate to another species they are in fact cultured and civil they will likely adopt obvious monikers of both. Clothing is literally the easiest way to show both intelligence and socialization.

If two alien species meet eachother, and assuming visual acuity is a necessity for advanced civilization (which, why wouldn't it be?) ... clothing is literally the easiest way to communicate to another alien; "Hey, we're actually smart and we're social creatures."

Probably the biggest argument why humans should wear a close approximation to uniforms assuming 'first contact' ... is because it immediately communicates intelligence and pack animal gregariousness. It would be the easiest way to communicate; "We value human life to protect it through advanced protective outfits, we have a gregarious nature, we are capable of symbolism and artistry, we are intelligent and can maintain orderly yet complex social hierarchies."

That's the benefit of clothing. It's an immediate sign of intelligence, culture and social order.

Assuming accidental first contact, the benefit of clothing is also that it makes an alien species more frightening just to attack. Another reason why various takes on an obviously unformed nature might be just the ticket. Because it suggests a level of ordered society that may be like hitting a hornet's nest if provoked.

Assuming a more uniformed look it also creates the attribute of a desire for personal hygiene. Which seems insignificant until you realize that communicates decorum and ritual behaviour. Assuming aliens are prepared for first contact, clothing is going to be a thing. It is the best way of putting our foot forward to immediately communicate core aspects of our socialization, orderliness and intelligence.

Having your Starfleet comms badge made of finely wrought and molded metals, highly polished and placed upon clean uniforms of abstracted colour patterns but following a similar disposition of line and contour, worn in a precise placement, will tell a spacefaring alien race a lot about us.

What do you think a bunch of naked humans scurrying about with dishevelled appearances would tell them? They might immediately assume we're pets or an infestation onboard a smarter alien's ship, or a slave race to another. We don't want to communicate a sense that we don't actually care about our conduct, or comportment, or that we don't give a shit about eachother.

That is not arrogant ... no sufficiently advanced spacefaring race is going to just assume our clothing means nothing. Moreover, an alien spacefaring race prepared to meet other beings that may be unfamiliar with them is going to use adornments to immediately communicate a sense of civility and intelligence.

 

[Hawki]

Even stories with the absolute smallest nobodies as protagonists have a duty to place them in positions that serve to view the story the best. If they don't, then why the hell are we watching that character? It's just storywriting 101. There's a very good reason we don't follow, say, the silver droid here- because the silver droid doesn't see shit.

"to view the story the best" is technically true, but what story's being told? The 2005 War of the Worlds is focused more on the family angle and sense of isolation that comes from an unstoppable foe, and lack of information concerning said foe. I once read a comment on YouTube that it would have been great if the film cut to NORAD (or something), showing the government's response to the aliens. That would defeat the entire angle that the film was going for.

Off the top of my head, take 'The Road', which focuses on just two characters existing in a post-apocalyptic landscape. It doesn't tells us what cause said apocalypse, because the novel's focus is entirely on these characters. If the story is "how the world ended" then the novel is failing, but I wouldn't argue it IS failing, because it's not telling that story.

No, it just shows how little the writers did their jobs before knocking off for lunch. What's wrong with cylinders from the sky? From Mars? Even a century after it was written that still works better for the story. I'm half convinced they made up the buried crap solely so that they could storyboard that first tripod reveal scene that way just for the trailers.

Making a 1:1 translation wouldn't work as well. The aliens in the novel were dealing with the collapse of their planet over a course of centuries/decades. We now know that water hasn't existed for Mars (if at all) for billions of years. The idea of men from Mars might have been groundbreaking in the 1890s, but now, it would just be quaint.

Now if the film was going for quaint, then sure, but 2005 is clearly taking itself seriously. So by extension, it goes with extra-solar aliens, which fits in much better with what we understand of astro-biology. Also adds to their 'alienness.'

Except you know what would have been more interesting than a spears vs battleship metaphor? AN ACTUAL BATTLESHIP!

We've already seen the tripods. But seeing them in that scene would strip away a lot of its impact.

You want to feel helplessness? Isolation and a sense of how outmatched humanity is? Compare Spielberg's scene that shows nothing of what we can field against them, what they can withstand, what we're willing to try, just try in order to have a chance at surviving, against this scene from the now ancient film version from 1953:


The whole reason the '53 version set it in the modern day was so they could unleash an A-Bomb on the Martians in that film. And you know what? The tension, the ethical question of whether to use it or not, the rising hopes of those nearby, the amazing scene of the flash and nuclear whirlwind, only for a man to brave a look through his binoculars to see the Martians glide slowly out of the smoke utterly unscathed... now THAT was a scene. We used the greatest and most terrible weapon we had against them and it didn't touch them. While the 50's movie felt like little more than a B movie at times, that scene makes Spielberg's 'explosions over the hill crest' scene look like a bargain-basement fan film by comparison.

Okay, I haven't seen the '53 film, but taking that scene in isolation...no. The 2005 version, if you pardon the pun, blows it out of the water. Even discounting that it's obviously on a set and the effects, it comes nowhere near the sense of helplessness and dread that the 2005 scene conveys. In 53, I see the characters safe at an outpost, witnissing a nuke, where upon failure of said nuke, they seem...not that upset actually. In contrast, in 05, we go from intrigue (the refugees), to hope (surging up the hill), to hopelessness (ineffective weapons) to sheer terror (obliteration of the US forces and subsequent scattering of civilians). The '05 scene goes on a bit longer, but it does far more and conveys far more. Another key difference is that the 53 version is using expositional dialogue, whereas in 05, the dialogue feels far more natural.

Yes yes yes, we get that too, but if Spielberg really wanted to make that comment about the Iraq War, he should've made a movie about The Iraq War, or adapted something that was actually intended to allegorise it instead of adapting something that was borne of a far more interesting allegory.

-WotW is allagory as you said, but allagory doesn't have to remain static. The world of 2005 was much different than the 1890s. The 2005 film can say different things to fit its time period.

-If we're discussing allagory, isn't the '53 film also allagory heavy? The whole "aliens are communists, but God saves the day" thing? The film literally ends with a choir singing. Not that the 05 film is entirely free of references to God, but it at least quotes the original novel for it. When I read War of the Worlds all those years ago, I certainly didn't remember a church service. 0_0

 

[Squilookle]

Even stories with the absolute smallest nobodies as protagonists have a duty to place them in positions that serve to view the story the best. If they don't, then why the hell are we watching that character? It's just storywriting 101. There's a very good reason we don't follow, say, the silver droid here- because the silver droid doesn't see shit.

"to view the story the best" is technically true, but what story's being told? The 2005 War of the Worlds is focused more on the family angle and sense of isolation that comes from an unstoppable foe, and lack of information concerning said foe. I once read a comment on YouTube that it would have been great if the film cut to NORAD (or something), showing the government's response to the aliens. That would defeat the entire angle that the film was going for.

Off the top of my head, take 'The Road', which focuses on just two characters existing in a post-apocalyptic landscape. It doesn't tells us what cause said apocalypse, because the novel's focus is entirely on these characters. If the story is "how the world ended" then the novel is failing, but I wouldn't argue it IS failing, because it's not telling that story.

I agree that cutting to NORAD is unnecessary, because this isn't an all-encompassing strategy movie like say, Independence Day was.

However, if he wanted to go the family angle that's fine. Just don't call it War of the Worlds- because that isn't this story. The Road works fine because it is it's own story. Had it come out under the name Mad Max, or Fallout, or any other existing story, it would have been a garbage adaptation- as garbage as this one was to The War of the Worlds.

No, it just shows how little the writers did their jobs before knocking off for lunch. What's wrong with cylinders from the sky? From Mars? Even a century after it was written that still works better for the story. I'm half convinced they made up the buried crap solely so that they could storyboard that first tripod reveal scene that way just for the trailers.

Making a 1:1 translation wouldn't work as well. The aliens in the novel were dealing with the collapse of their planet over a course of centuries/decades. We now know that water hasn't existed for Mars (if at all) for billions of years. The idea of men from Mars might have been groundbreaking in the 1890s, but now, it would just be quaint.

Now if the film was going for quaint, then sure, but 2005 is clearly taking itself seriously. So by extension, it goes with extra-solar aliens, which fits in much better with what we understand of astro-biology. Also adds to their 'alienness.'

And yet every other adaptation I can think of simply drops the water angle and says they were envious of Earth, most notably for its warmth. Done. We still get the meteor shower of cylinders as usual, with a more ironclad explanation.

There's no single way to do it, but there are better and worse ways. Having interstellar alien machines buried under the ground for goodness knows how long is, like I said, just lame.

Except you know what would have been more interesting than a spears vs battleship metaphor? AN ACTUAL BATTLESHIP!

We've already seen the tripods. But seeing them in that scene would strip away a lot of its impact.

Not really. The first impression is established as it's own scene. Everything beyond that just makes them appear more impressive in what the Martians/Aliens can take on and win against.

You want to feel helplessness? Isolation and a sense of how outmatched humanity is? Compare Spielberg's scene that shows nothing of what we can field against them, what they can withstand, what we're willing to try, just try in order to have a chance at surviving, against this scene from the now ancient film version from 1953:


The whole reason the '53 version set it in the modern day was so they could unleash an A-Bomb on the Martians in that film. And you know what? The tension, the ethical question of whether to use it or not, the rising hopes of those nearby, the amazing scene of the flash and nuclear whirlwind, only for a man to brave a look through his binoculars to see the Martians glide slowly out of the smoke utterly unscathed... now THAT was a scene. We used the greatest and most terrible weapon we had against them and it didn't touch them. While the 50's movie felt like little more than a B movie at times, that scene makes Spielberg's 'explosions over the hill crest' scene look like a bargain-basement fan film by comparison.

Okay, I haven't seen the '53 film, but taking that scene in isolation...no. The 2005 version, if you pardon the pun, blows it out of the water. Even discounting that it's obviously on a set and the effects, it comes nowhere near the sense of helplessness and dread that the 2005 scene conveys. In 53, I see the characters safe at an outpost, witnissing a nuke, where upon failure of said nuke, they seem...not that upset actually. In contrast, in 05, we go from intrigue (the refugees), to hope (surging up the hill), to hopelessness (ineffective weapons) to sheer terror (obliteration of the US forces and subsequent scattering of civilians). The '05 scene goes on a bit longer, but it does far more and conveys far more. Another key difference is that the 53 version is using expositional dialogue, whereas in 05, the dialogue feels far more natural.

To be fair, if the A bomb scene was trying to take on all that by itself, I would completely agree with you. Thing is, like most other versions as well, the '53 version has hit those notes already in the early stages where the wonder and intrigue are really given time to blossom before we realise what the Martians are after. This A Bomb scene actually happens around the midway-2/3rds mark in the story. In the 2005 version, you go straight from cracks in the road to an erect tripod disintegrating people. They probably attempt more of these story elements later because they simply didn't allow us any of them early on (except for the wonder element- SS's seems completely disinterested in letting people marvel at the alien technology before seeing its bloodlust. Hell even Independence Day managed to include that). As a result, THAT loses the 2005 aliens some impact, because we would expect the military to clash with them as early as possible after the aliens revealed themselves as hostile, as indeed every single other version of the story does. So I'd say the 2005 film actually does and conveys a lot less, not more. Though I can't fault your critique of the old film's dialogue. That's movies in the 1950s for you

Yes yes yes, we get that too, but if Spielberg really wanted to make that comment about the Iraq War, he should've made a movie about The Iraq War, or adapted something that was actually intended to allegorise it instead of adapting something that was borne of a far more interesting allegory.

-WotW is allagory as you said, but allagory doesn't have to remain static. The world of 2005 was much different than the 1890s. The 2005 film can say different things to fit its time period.

-If we're discussing allagory, isn't the '53 film also allagory heavy? The whole "aliens are communists, but God saves the day" thing? The film literally ends with a choir singing. Not that the 05 film is entirely free of references to God, but it at least quotes the original novel for it. When I read War of the Worlds all those years ago, I certainly didn't remember a church service. 0_0

True, you can change the allegory, but again, doesn't make it better or even, in this case, any good. Some say the novel was an Empirical guilt backlash- written by an Englishman to make his countrymen understand how the 2/3rds of the globe that the British Empire had subjugated must have felt. That's a hell of a lot more interesting and timeless than an allegory about some stupid little war in the Middle East the U.S. is incapable of dealing with.

The religion aspect is quite interesting, I agree. But if you've read the original novel, no doubt you'll remember the curate- the priest who is convinced the aliens are sent by God to judge mankind. He gets so worked up in the folly of Man that brought them here that he goes insane, his mad ramblings endangering the protagonist. A few adaptations, including Jeff Wayne's, streamline the character a bit and have him believe he is the sole chance to cast out these 'demons' with the crucifix he holds around his neck. He advances on them slowly and in plain sight, chanting a hymn and holding up his cross, only to be obliterated. The 50's film includes this too. In that movie it ends in the church basically with the remnants of humanity awaiting their demise with quiet hymn singing resignation, much as say, many did during the Titanic sinking. I didn't really see any attempt to evoke the fear of communism, but I was young so it's possible it was there and I didn't notice. Perhaps one could argue it suggests God's intervention to save them, but personally I saw a church as a logical last refuge to hide in for a religious population. The novel certainly does have something to say about the invasion through religion's eyes though, make no mistake.

[sub]Salvador Dali, anyone?[/sub]​

 

[Thaluikhain]

Talking about WoW, one thing I find notable is that in the original work, the aliens were easily winning, but weren't god-mode invincible. For one, forcefield defences weren't a thing back then. British artillery could destroy tripods (also interesting in that, IIRC, British artillery was lagging behind some continental rivals at the time), and the Martians stopped to look at the Thunderchild for too long before attacking it.

Later adaptations tend to have them have shields and can't be scratched.

 

[Terminal Blue]

True, you can change the allegory, but again, doesn't make it better or even, in this case, any good. Some say the novel was an Empirical guilt backlash- written by an Englishman to make his countrymen understand how the 2/3rds of the globe that the British Empire had subjugated must have felt. That's a hell of a lot more interesting and timeless than an allegory about some stupid little war in the Middle East the U.S. is incapable of dealing with.

I don't think it's remotely deniable that the war of the worlds is an allegory about colonialism (and also animal rights). It's incredibly text.

That's said, it's complicated because Wells had complicated views on both colonialism and animal rights. I mean, after all this time intentionally upsetting the idea of human dominion and mastery over the earth, the ending is kind of an unabashed endorsement of human exceptionalism. Wells point seems to be that nature is a thing to be respected rather than mastered. Humans are here because billions of our ancestors died getting us here, and the point seems to be that this should imbue us with a sense of humility about our place in the world (which the Martians lacked, and that's why they lost).