One thing we know about the War of the Worlds TV series thanks to Hannah Shaw-Willams of ScreenRant and others is that it doesn’t yet have a release date but it will have eight episodes and star Gabriel Byrne and Elizabeth McGovern. The popular story has undergone a few different transitions since H.G. Wells first brought it to the attention of the public in 1898, but with each new version the effects have gotten a little better and the story becomes a little more compelling as the point of view changes just enough to give the story a new voice. In 2005 the effects and the story looked good enough to make it seem as though a Tom Cruise-led cast would be able to make this story stand up on its own legs again, but unfortunately that fell apart pretty quick. Despite the great special effects and the decent acting there wasn’t enough development throughout the movie to really make it work. Plus a lot of people would probably point out that the CGI wasn’t all that great and kind of detracted from the whole story.
One thing I’ll bet a lot of people have forgotten however is that War of the Worlds became a TV show in the late 80s, a sequel of sorts to the movie that came up with the idea that the aliens weren’t killed off by the bacteria but were instead rendered inert, still alive but in a coma-like state. They were then rounded up and shipped off an unknown site until they were somehow irradiated and woken up. Upon becoming reanimated they took over human bodies and then sought to go about the work they’d been doing before they had been defeated, trying to shape the earth so that more of their people could make their way safely to the ground. Even worse, they started coming up with ways to adapt to the environment and became even more dangerous. The show didn’t last that long but it was popular enough for a short while to gain some attention. But it’s easy to see that it might have been forgotten since War of the Worlds, despite it’s initial and horrifying outing over the radio at first, is still one of those stories that’s great every now and then, but doesn’t seem to have the same punch as other invasion stories.
This coming story seems as though it’s going to take on a bigger world view however as there are pictures so far that appear to be set in England or even France that depict people hiding out from the aliens and those on the surface making their way carefully along as the blasted ruins that remain all around are shown as a very bleak and unforgiving landscape. At the moment it would appear that this version is going to be darker, grittier, and much more in-depth than any other, but the hope is that the story will be far more developed since the movies and shows of the past have gone off on their own tangents but somehow still missed the point and didn’t seem to take the time to really build themselves up before moving on to the action and the overall plot of the story. And while some people like the twist of common bacteria being the downfall of the aliens, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if such a thing did happen, which is both easy and difficult to accept, that the aliens would somehow find a way to withstand the effects long enough to discover a method that would enable them to withstand and possibly beat back the bacteria that attacked them.
Given that the first season will have eight episodes it seems fair to believe that their might be a lot more explanation coming and it could be fleshed out in a much more convincing way, but until then it’s probably not a good idea to hold your breath. As Stewart Clarke of Variety has written this is just one version of this story that has been picked up. Not a lot is known about the other one but if it’s following any kind of schematic like this one is then it’s likely going to be just as dark and depressing in its own way, which of course is a big part of the whole show. Since its inception there’s been nothing really hopeful about the whole idea since even in the 2005 version the ending isn’t as happy as it could be despite the fact that Cruise and his kids find their mother and husband alive and well and reunite with them. It still leaves the problem of a world that’s been destroyed and the idea that the fight isn’t over yet. War of the Worlds was and still is a story that carries a lot of weight in pop culture, but it definitely needs a good kick to make it into something special again.
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