- In one of the most faithful adaptations of HG Wells' science fiction masterpiece, Martians launch a ruthless assault on an unsuspecting Victorian England, in an attempt to escape their dying planet.
- At the end of the 19th century a large cylinder falls on the English countryside. A young writer is among those who witnesses the event. But soon the cylinder opens and a group of Martians appear. It soon becomes apparent the Martians intend to attack. The writer soon finds himself fighting for his own survival as the military fights to stop the Martians, society collapses, and as the human race fights to win the war of the worlds.—timdalton007
- This authentic movie adaptation of the H. G. Wells classic novel follows the story of humanity at the turn of the 20th century as a large cylinder from space falls on the English countryside.
Set in England in the early 1890s, the first part of the film follows the experience of a journalist from Woking, England known as "the writer" (Anthony Piana), gets involved with the discovery of a "falling star" on Horsell Common which later turns out to be a Martian Cylinder. The writer and a fellow astrometer named Mr. Ogilve travel to the impact site along with several other people to view the mysterious Cylinder. The Cylinder opens and a large, multi-tenticled creature emerges. After a minute, the Martian retreats back into the Cylinder and then a small dish-shaped device appears on the top of the cylinder. The Martians start killing people with a "heat ray"; a type of weapon that incinerates everyone and everything in its path. Dozens of people, including Ogilve, are burned alive. The writer discovers his house is in range of the Heat Ray and decides to take his wife (Susan Gorforth) and her maid to the comparable safety of her cousins in the nearby town of Leatherhead. He does not stay with them after promising to return the horse-drawn cart to the landlord of The Spotted Dog Inn near his home. However, when he returns the horse and cart, the owners and most of the population of that town is dead; killed not by a heat ray but by a chemical weapon known as the "black smoke"; a lethal type of poison gas that kills people and animals instantly.
As the writer returns to Leatherhead, his wife and housekeeper are gone, having left behind a note that they are going to London to find help and safety. As the writer attempts to find his wife, he encounters Martian-built 100-foot tall tri-pod "Fighting Machines" which begin laying waste to everything moving in their path.
Meanwhile, the writer's younger brother, a student living in London, learns about the alien invasion over the newspapers and decides to escape from London to the European continent where most of the city's population is heading in the wake of the Martian advance.
Back in the countryside, the alien Tripods wipe out Royal Army units positioned around the impact crater and attack surrounding communities, moving toward London. Fleeing the scene, the writer meets a retreating artilleryman, who tells him that another cylinder has landed between Woking and Leatherhead, cutting the writer off from his wife. The two men try to escape via Byfleet, but are separated at the Shepperton to Weybridge Ferry during a Martian attack on Shepperton. One of the Martian fighting machines is brought down in the River Thames by British artillery as the writer and countless others try to cross the river into Middlesex, while the Martians escape. The Martian heat way from the knocked down tripod burns the water, boiling many people alive. Our hero is able to float down the Thames toward London in a boat, stopping at the town of Walton which has been abandoned.
Meanwhile, the writer's brother meets two women, a middle-class lady who introduces herself as Mrs. Elphinstone, and her teenage daughter, Miss Elphinstone, whom are traveling among a group of refugees to the Essex coast. They encounter a group of looters in which Miss Elphinstone frightens them off with a revolver of hers. As they travel through the countryside in a mule-drawn cart, a group of scavengers attack and steal the mule. The brother attempts to intimidate them with his gun, but the scavengers are also armed and when the brother hesitates on shooting them, they subdue him and steal his gun and money as well as the whole cart, leaving the brother and his two female companions behind.
Neverless, the brother and Mrs. and Miss Elphinstone arrive at the coast where they take a ferry steamer across the English Channel to France only to encounter a group of three Tripods swimming on the water which attack the convoy of steamer boats. However, a Royal Navy warship, a torpedo ram/destroyer which the brother recognizes as the HMS Thundercloud, arrives and engages the three Tripods with its heavy guns. Despite being hit with Martian rockets containing black smoke and hit with heat rays, the Thundercloud destroys and rams two of the Tripods, and damages the third forcing it to retreat to the English coast, but the Thundercloud sinks with all hands. However, the convoy is able to escape and reach France where the brother and Mrs. and Miss Elphinstone arrive safely. (After this, the brother and his two female friends are never seen or mentioned again in the film).
Meanwhile back in England, the writer encounters a traumatized currate in Walton whom is clearly unbalanced after witnessing the massive death and destruction of the whole town. When the writer and currate take shelter in an abandoned house from the black smoke, the house is severly damaged when another Martian cylinder lands nearby, trapping both of them inside the ruins of the house. Over the next several days, Red Weed, a Martian form of vegetation, spreads with extraordinary rapidity over the landscape wherever there is abundant water.
The curate, traumatized by the invasion, sees in the Martian creatures heralding the advent of the Apocalypse. The writer's relations with the curate deteriorate, and he eventually knocks him unconscious to prevent his loud ranting, but not before he is heard by a Martian, who captures him with a prehensile tentacle and dragged outside where a Martian Tripod drains him of his blood; blood transfusion is the Martians' form of nourishment. The writer escapes detection by hiding in the coal-cellar.
The Martians eventually depart, and the narrator is able to head toward Central London. He once again encounters the artilleryman, who briefly persuades him to cooperate in a grandiose plan to rebuild civilization underground. But after a few hours the narrator perceives the lunacy of this plan and the overall laziness of his companion and abandons the artilleryman to his delusions. Heading into a deserted London, he is at the point of despair and offers his life to the aliens when he discovers that the invaders have died from microbial infections to which they had no immunity, since "there are no bacteria in Mars." The writer realizes with joy that the threat has been vanquished.
The writer suffers a brief breakdown of which he remembers nothing, he is nursed back to health by a kind family, and returns home to find his wife, whom he had given up for dead. In a final voice-over, the writer reflects on the significance of the invasion and the "abiding sense of doubt and insecurity" that it has left in the writer's mind.
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