Poll: War of the worlds

[Caninus]

Having recently been to see the live performance of Jeff Wayne's Musical adaptation of H.G Wells' book I was wondering who on the Escapist has read the book and which of the three adaptation you prefer, if any, and why.

I prefer the musical because not only is the musical score amazing it's the only one of the three that has any tangible connection to the book. It's simply a shortened version of the book with all of the major plot points. The two movies have barely anything in common apart form the Martians die due to bacteria. I think the second film with Tom Cruise in it does have a few hints of things taken from the book but nothing on the scale of the musical.

 

[Curtmiester]

I prefer the radio broadcast that fucked up everyone's dinner.

 

[Kasawd]

I would have to say that the radio broadcast was perhaps one of the best hoaxes I have ever heard of.

 

[Froobyx]

Mm I have the musical on CD... And I've asked very nicely to go see it for my birthday.

Just the music make shivers go up my spine

 

[SecretTacoNinja]

I haven't read the book all the way through and I've only seen a bit of the first movie ("it's pretty darn hot!") but I'm going to say the musical, because it's fucking awesome and the first movie looked really cheesy.

 

[Harlemura]

Well, I've only seen the second adaptation but I really didn't like it. I've heard that the first one was better though, so I'll vote for that.
Just because making polls go wrong is fun.

 

[xHipaboo420x]

"I've only read that book" is kind of an odd option... I've seen them all but I preferred the book...

 

[Cpt_Oblivious]

I perefer the radio broadcast that fucked up everyones dinner.

Yea, what that guy said.

Althought the CD of the musical (Haven't actually seen it) is pretty badass.

 

[Skeleon]

I only read the part in Otherland that's based on it.
And saw the movie, but I hated that.
Oh, and I saw Scary Movie 4, which was bad but still better than the actual movie.
I'm going to have to read the book some day.
I already read The Time Machine and enjoyed it a lot.

 

[mkg]

I don't really like the stroy all too much. I mean, they master space travel and military technology, not to mention the sheer logistics of interstellar invasion, but forget to give their troops booster shots? C'mon.....

 

[Agent Larkin]

The musical. It kicks ass on CD and will blow you away live.

 

[Caninus]

I totally forgot about the radio broadcast, curse my short-sightedness. I take it no ones heard it on Vinyl then? I prefer that to the cd version.

 

[Caninus]

Well, as it's pointed out at the end there is no bacteria on Mars and hadn't been for thousands of years. There was no need for them to think about such tiny insugnificant things. Also, I think it's meant to show the vulnerability of man.

 

[SpikeyGirl]

I read the book for part of my English GCSE and I liked it. Ages before then I heard the radio broadcast while trying to sleep during a car journey. I didn't realise it was fiction and was wondering 'What the hell, why is no one panicking?' Turns out my parents had the broadcast as an MP3. I loved it though.

 

[KDBTV]

I'm going to see the musical in 2 two weeks
I can't wait for it!

 

[sgtshock]

"A humped shape is rising out of the pit. I can make out a small beam of light against a mirror. What's that? There's a jet of flame springing from the mirror, and it leaps right at the advancing men. It strikes them head on! Good Lord, they're turning into flame! Now the whole field's caught fire. The woods... the barns... the gas tanks of automobiles... it's spreading everywhere. It's coming this way. About twenty yards to my right..."

"...Ladies and gentlemen, due to circumstances beyond our control, we are unable to continue the broadcast from Grovers Mill. Evidently there's some difficulty with our field transmission. However, we will return to that point at the earliest opportunity."

Yeah, the radio play. I'll vote for the second movie though, just because I don't think it was nearly as bad as people said it was.

 

[Jamash]

1. The 1898 novel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds] by H.G. Wells.

2. The 1938 radio play [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_(radio)] read by Orson Welles.

3. The Tripods [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tripods] - A 1980's British science fiction TV series based on a series of novels set after the events of War of the Worlds, which assumed the aliens had been successful in their invasion.

4. The 1988 War of the Worlds [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Worlds_(TV_series)] TV series.

5. The 1953 film [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_(1953_film)].

I haven't actually listened the musical, only heard clips of it, and I also haven't seen all of the modern film, so I can't really give an informed opinion on those.

 

[TheFacelessOne]

It so has to be the radio broadcast, just because everyone thought it was happening. XD