HOW MUCH?????

I would buy this movie, But these people selling this item would be called GOUGERS at any other time, My god nearly 70 dollars for an old movie. THIS IS DISGUSTING and they should be ashamed of themselves you can buy this movie on VHS for 8 bucks for christ sakes....

Hopefully re-released soon

In many ways this film grows in stature as the years pass and its iconic qualities are appreciated more and more. George Pal, like Spielberg, hated war and saw this story for what it was: one of the truly great anti-war statements. The book, which it seems few read any more, is astonishingly brutal for its time. Pal's essential old-world gentlemanliness and the limitations of its era prevented him from going too far (although psychologically he went very far--the movie is still terrrifying in parts). Spielberg, very much a gentleman but also a man with a mission will probably go the limit, in a Private Ryan way. Whjat I've seen of the clips indicates that. Heaven help us.

What will be missing from the modern version is the surreal and dreamlike imagery conjured up by the older-style film special effects. Spielberg's film looks like it's going to be very realistic. But this film, in fact, is one of the best arguments for sets and models over CGI with much of the movie having an otherworldly feel that sticks with one for decades.

Everyone who tackles this comes across one big problem. In the Welles story the Martians go about in enormous tripedal machines. Some years ago someone tried to work that out from an engineering standpoint and apparently a tripedal walking machine can't really function (just think about it for a second). Pal overcame that, and saved himself a lot of animation time, by having the machines float. It'll be interesting to see how Spielberg overcomes the snag.

In case anyone's paying attention it still would be nice if someone, for once, simply did the story up straight in its late Victorian English setting. Aliens exterminating modern humans is a pretty over-cooked image but there would be tremendous power in seeing people from an era that we tend to romanticize face the sort of mass-destructive war technology that we ourselves wield now. After all, in 2005, we (and I exclude very few, anywhere in the world) are now the Martians, aren't we?

Deserves its Classic status

Although very much of its time, this 50's sci-fi flick stands up to a modern viewing. The effects deserve their Oscar, and the production design of the martian ships is both beautiful and timeless. The story has a certain 50's hokiness, but works well anyway.

One note about the sound effects. The martian battle noises are probably what stays with me most, although some of them have been recycled throughout the years. One hears the unmistakable throb of 60's-era Star Trek photon torpedoes, a sound that was later reused (again) for certain video games. During the climactic scenes in the church as the martians plow a path of destruction nearer and nearer to our heroes, I kept asking myself who it was that was playing Maelstrom in the vicinity (as that was what much of the battle sounded like).