War of the Worlds

With the release of H.G Wells’ science fiction novel, War of the Worlds, the world was introduced to an incredibly allegorical, imaginative tale of invasion, paranoia and fear of the unknown. Due to these identifiable themes, the story has been retold (directly many times and indirectly countless times), in order to fit with societies paranoia and fears at the time.

In our post 9/11 society, the story has resurfaced in the form of a blockbuster Steven Spielberg film starring Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning. Spielberg altered the setting and era of the story in order for it to be relatable for a modern day audience. This decision was made because in real life 9/11 was the disaster that shook the world and changed everybody’s perception of safety; danger to the every day and how you should interact with others was affected as it was in the film. This is shown with the quote from The Chronicle, ‘scenes of urban destruction – chaos in the streets, collapse in communications – intentionally call to mind everyone’s worst terrorism nightmares’.

When the novel was written, it was set in Victorian London and not 2005 New York. However, the themes identified in the 2005 film are prevalent as being the same as when the story first surfaced. Of course, there was the denoted alien invasion and panic as the world begins to collapse, but there was also the connoted fear of ‘immigrants’ and cultural destruction.

At the time of writing, the British Empire was under threat of collapse to due an influx of foreign nationals into the political and economical capital. On top of this, people living at the fin de siècle period of the 19^th century were living with a very real fear of the ‘End of the World’ as the new millennium approached, much like any fear of disaster such as ‘Y2K’ or the fear and trepidation surrounding 2012.

These themes are clear in the text and due to their allegorical nature have remained up to date and just as clear in the present day.

Between the release of the novel and the Steven Spielberg film, the story has been retold in two main forms, once as a radio drama by Orson Welles in 1938 and again as a film in 1953.

With the radio show, Orson Welles played on the paranoia seeping the nation due to the rise of the Nazi party in Europe and the inevitable threat of war constantly looming over people due to the constant breaking news releases over the radio that families would hear and try to learn to live with as time went on. In this form the aliens represent fascism and the ideological challenges brought about all across the world, as the big powers at the time were mainly capitalist.

The 1953 film played upon the fear of nuclear annihilation from the USSR and communist ideologies. This was achieved by the aliens coming from the ‘red planet’ and the use of flying saucers dropping bombs and delivering threat from above.

With the 2005 adaptation of the well-known story, the world collectively feared invasion due to the rising threat of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction after the attacks on New York just a few years earlier in 2001.

Spielberg stated that he shot the scenes in the street when the aliens are introduced from the perspective of the people looking up and surrounded by the dark, grey dust in order to evoke the feelings and the home videos that the New York citizens felt and created during the destruction of the twin towers. Moreover, Spielberg used the shot of the missing persons posters in order to reflect that of ground zero following 9/11. Furthermore, the use of cameras and camera phones during the beginning of the attacks is a direct comparison to how civilians and the media acted on the day of September 11^th 2001. In the film (despite the already pre-established fact that electronic devices are no longer working) there is a shot through the dropped camera of a man as he dropped it and ran away in fear of his life from the tripods.  Spielberg included this because it is especially relevant as the majority of the footage of 9/11 is *****People would stare at the burning building in disbelief at what has happened and many used their phones to document what was happening, whilst others contacted the media with any information that they had from what they had seen or had been told by other people.

Another way 2005 War of the Worlds reflects the time in which it was made is through the scene where the tripods first emerge from the ground. As they rise up, the tripod rips through and destroys a church. The use of the icon of a church is important as icons act as visual signifiers to the audience and in this case symbolises the loss of faith of the characters in the film. As well as this, it also links the tripods to attacks on religion, which reflects the real life attacks on the western world by eastern terrorists as they wish to annihilate any that are not their own (infidels) while using their own religion to justify their means.  

Through the use of recreating the story with – at the time- modern issues being the connoted focus, the tale is clearly seen as allegorical and relevant to all around the world due to the universal themes it touches upon.