[geeks] H.G. Wells

[Eric Dittman]

> "Four Complete Novels" by H.G. Wells ($9.95, Barnes & Noble Publishing, 
> about 517 pages)
> Stories include:
> * "The Time Machine"
> * "The Island of Dr. Moreau"
> * "The Invisible Man"
> * "The War of the Worlds"
> 
> All of these have been made into big movies.  None of them are faithful 
> to the original book.  I had high hopes for Time Machine after seeing 
> one of the trailers, but was sorely disappointed at how much *ahem* 
> "creative liberty" was taken in the storyline.  I mean, sure, it was 
> loosely based on the original story.  Very loosely.  I think they spent 
> their whole F/X budget on the morlocks though since the eloi looked 
> like regular unevolved humans in the movie (possibly to keep Alex's 
> love interest from seeming too freaky)

_The War of the Worlds_ is currently in preproduction.  The
original plan was to make the movie take place in modern
times and show the invasion around the world, but after
September 11 the producers didn't want to show big cities
being attacked so they've moved the story back to the
original time period.  Another examples of people wimping
out after 9/11.

A problem I see with moving the movie to present time is
other than the death ray, the Martians didn't really have
anything else on us.  A Martian war machine was taken out
by an ambush of artillery guns in the book.  The previous
movie gave the Martians force fields that could resist
nuclear weapons.  Making more changes would end up giving
us "Independence Day" again.

The version of _The Island of Dr. Moreau_ with Val Kilmer
and Marlon Brandon did give use Dr. Mephisto and Kevin on
South Park.
-- 
Eric Dittman
dittman at dittman.net
Check out the DEC Enthusiasts Club at http://www.dittman.net/