War of the worlds

Since it was first released the War Of The Worlds story has been remade and re- imagined several times. Each time our societies feel a sense of paranoia, fear of others or uncertain futures. This is because the universal themes of the original novel reflect a time when our society was facing a uncertain future. The same paranoia's and fears are felt in our modern society ad we can identify aspects of our culture in this story.

H.G. Wells wrote the story 'War of The Worlds' in Victorian London in 1898. At the time in London, the British Empire was the most dominant power in the world due to the industrial revolution. Using the fear of the people around him of paranoia and threat, he wrote this novel to tap into that. People at the time were afraid of attack due to the amount of power and control Britain had. The invasion aspect involved in the story of the tripods coming down to earth is a direct reference to the fear and paranoia felt by people at the time of the novel due to immigrants. People saw the immigrants as a direct threat to British Culture and cultural ideologies.

In each interpretation of The War Of The Worlds, the feared the same thing and that was attack from 'others'. The radio drama from 1938 was fear of the rise of the Nazi power and world war two. The aliens in the film represent and invasion from the nazis and other foreign powers. The technology of the aliens also represents the fear of new technology in the 30's due to new threats of nuclear weapons/war. A similar fear put across in the radio show as the novel is the fear of being changed, at the time of the novel people were afraid of their culture being changed by immigrants and at the radio show time, people were afraid of a spread of fascism.

The radio show captures the paranoia at the time and would have heightened it due to the way the 'news' was delivered. There would be an opera show on the radio and then an interruption of breaking news stating that there was aliens coming down to earth and invade, then the show would continue. Families at the time would have gotten news on the nazis in a similar way so the show to them was very realistic and heightened their fear and paranoia, some even took it to mean that the nazis, or others were invading them.

The 1953 War Of The Worlds film captured the fears of the people at the time, by making the aliens red and have them falling from the sky, we see their fears which was the Russians red army and the USSR. They to at the time feared a change of ideologies and this time they were afraid of a communist revolution. The fears at the time were very real, they were afraid of another world war after the second. The annihilation aspect is also the same as the radio drama, at the time people were afraid of nuclear war/weapons.

The 2005 film changed its threat, this time it was a threat of terrorists due to the trauma of the 9/11 bombings of the world trade centre. It captures a sense of distrust as people at the time started to fear non American nationals and even stopped trusting their government. they were afraid of an all out war and terrorist attacks in the future, they were always on edge. In the film we see this portrayed because everyone is constantly waiting for another attack, Rachel's character even asks, "is it the terrorists?" Constant paranoia was a huge problem at the time and this film tapped into that, just like the radio drama did, with constant little bursts of news, and then back to an opera show.