War Of The Worlds, (Jeff Wayne, 2007)
Back in 1978 Jeff Wayne released a record that still stands the test of
time as a fantastic evocation of The War Of The Worlds. It benefited from
the perfect narrative tones of Richard Burton and the singing talents of
David Essex, whom Wayne had previously worked with on a number of highly
acclaimed albums. At the time of the original album release, Wayne had
arranged for the production of a 4 minute animated promo using some of
the amazing imagery that accompanied the album, but until now that was as
close as we have been to what could surely rate as the definitive War Of
The Worlds movie. However, the album received a major remastered
release in 2005 and better yet, a CGI movie is apparently in preproduction that will
utilise the music.
The details are very sketchy at present,but the budget is apparently
penciled in at 48 million dollars and the film promises to retain the
original Victorian setting. The full CGI approach is a bit of a gamble.
I was able to glimpse some test footage of the Thunderchild at a recent
science fiction event and while the hardware looks great, the stumbling
block is always going to be the human characters, who looked quite offputting.
However, test footage is exactly what it claims to be, so there is always room
for improvement. As previously stated, the hardware looks fantastic and
several short clips at can be viewed at the waroftheworldsmovie site. The
Martian Tripod is especially impressive.
 The film is also going to give us a first look at the Martian flying machine
mentioned in the original novel and apparently we can expect a new prologue
which will set the scene and explain the reason for the Martian invasion. This seems to
have received a try-out on the recent stage version of the musical, but I must say it
comes across as pretty clunky and superfluous. But again, it is very early days and the fact
that we are likely to get a big budget War Of The Worlds set in Victorian times has got
to be cause for celebration.
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See also in:
Music
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1978
The War Of The Worlds by Jeff Wayne. The original musical version of The War Of The Worlds is still an amazing realisation of the story.
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2006
The War Of The Worlds by Jeff Wayne. Big stage version of the classic record that has toured the UK to great acclaim.
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