Remakes - War of the worlds

The original war of the world’s written by H.G Wells is a cult classic that was brought to life on screen by director Bryon Haskin in 1953. Hailed as a revolutionary and scary Sci-fi the film is a story on the invasion of earth by Martians, at the point of creation Martians and UFO sightings were very popular and feared so the reason that everyone was so scared of the film at the time was due to this. The story follows a small Californian town were a huge meteor comes crashing down to earth and there is an air of buzz and excitement all around until the townspeople realise that the visitors that have come with the meteor are evil and slowly but surely the Martians begin to take over leading to a war against the human race. Today looking back the effects that scared so many look cheesy and funny to us but this possibly may be that due to the increasingly violent content within the media that we as a modern society have become desensitized and scare less often than back then.  A lot of thought and hard work went into the overall design of the film to avoid the cliché flying saucer look but at the same time keep that sense of fear that people get from the fear of flying saucers. The final product was that the spaceships themselves ended up looking like sinister manta rays that would float above the ground, the long protruding neck and singular eye/beam on top of them was modelled after cobras. The iconic Sound effect of the Martian heat ray was created by having an orchestra play a piece using mostly cellos and Violins and became the standard and iconized sound for laser beam sound effects for many years after the creation of the film.  In 2005 Stephen Spielberg remade War of the worlds as part of an ideological message on the attacks at the world trade centre in 2001, playing on the fear and vulnerability of the American audience after morale and security were hit by the fear of terrorism.  There are often clear references to the attacks in the film itself in the way that people are incinerated by the Martian heat rays and everywhere and everyone surrounding is covered in ash. The story itself Follows a divorced father who’s children come to visit him as part of his custody over them when a strange storm takes over the skies and weird electrical bolts rain down from the sky and penetrate the ground below where the Martian tripods rise up. You could say that instead of a shot for shot remake the 2005 edition is more of an inspired piece using ideology from the novel and first film to create a new original piece. Unlike back 1953 the effects in the film have become something of a bore due to the fact that we see effects everywhere we turn we are no longer shocked or surprised by how real anything looks.