0:00

one would have believed, in the last years

0:02

of the 19th century, that human affairs

0:04

were being watched from the timeless worlds of

0:06

space. No one could have dreamed

0:08

we were being scrutinized as someone with

0:10

a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply

0:12

in a drop of water. Few

0:14

men even considered the possibility of life

0:16

on other planets, and yet, across

0:18

the gulf of space, mines

0:21

immeasurably superior to ours, regarded

0:23

this earth with envious eyes,

0:25

and slowly and surely they

0:27

drew their plans against

0:30

us. Welcome!

0:48

Oh, they got chills then. Welcome

0:55

to an arcade attack special pod.

0:57

I'm gonna label this one a hybrid

0:59

pod If you will if you

1:01

will as we're about to embark on

1:03

a journey across all things the

1:05

war of the worlds Welcome in welcome

1:08

in so first of all of

1:10

course I have to introduce My

1:12

co -hosts, sitting opposite me, Dylan,

1:15

who's providing the green gas of marmots this

1:17

evening. I've eaten too much pizza

1:19

and that's not happening. We'll just get that

1:21

out of the way because, you know, there you

1:23

go. But welcome, welcome. The chances of us

1:25

surviving are a million times. I think

1:27

those odds may be even longer to be fair

1:29

by the time we finish this part. There we

1:32

go. So, Keith, hello. Hello. Good

1:34

evening. He's there. He is an Adrian. The

1:37

chances of arcade attack covering more

1:39

of the world. was a million

1:41

to one. And yet here we

1:43

are. Thank you. chances of

1:45

arcade covering all the worlds

1:47

was a million to one. But

1:49

here we come. Adrian

1:52

has a beautiful voice. Amazing. Actually,

1:54

beautiful. Absolutely amazing. Very operatic, sir.

1:56

Well done. Jeff Wayne should snap

1:58

you out big time. So

2:00

we are, of course, we're going to chat

2:02

about The story, but we're going to chat all

2:05

things about the very beginnings of the story.

2:07

It's impact and its popularity. We're also going to

2:09

look at the various movies and TV shows

2:11

made and of course the iconic. Hold

2:14

on a minute. Captain

2:17

hijack over and of course the iconic musical

2:19

version. Yeah, the book, which we like. Come on

2:21

to it a bit. And of course, it

2:23

wouldn't be an arcade attack podcast without a look

2:25

at any and all. Video

2:27

games! Video games! Video games! That

2:29

have been spawned either as direct releases of

2:31

the story or ones that have included it as

2:33

part of a wider title or offshoot or

2:35

spin -off, yeah? And there are a few. Come

2:37

on to that. In a bit. Sochaps,

2:40

are we suitably strapped in and ready to

2:42

take on the Martians and their fearsome tripods? Yes.

2:44

Of course we are. We're ready. Let's go.

2:46

So I first want to lay out exactly

2:48

what I'm going to be taking us through

2:50

on this episode. And here's a spoiler alert.

2:52

It's not all about retro video games. Shame

2:56

on me. I know I know but we've done

2:58

it before we're gonna do it again Yeah, so

3:00

but there's a reason for that of course and

3:02

to do the war the worlds games that have

3:04

been spawned of any kind any justice We have

3:06

to look at the wider universe and

3:08

it's many outgoings into popular culture. So, I've

3:11

got an imaginary taxi standing by, and

3:13

it's going to take us on a journey

3:15

through the story and its adaptations across

3:17

time, including, of course, as we've said, the

3:19

video games that came from it. But

3:21

what else was there out there? Where do

3:23

we start? Where is the taxi dropping

3:25

us off first, Chaps? give

3:28

you a clue, I'll you a clue. It's

3:30

not Tom Cruise's house. Where is

3:32

it dropping us off, Chaps? We're going sort think

3:34

Woken. Woken? Are we going to Woken? It's

3:36

really quite local to us. us. Yeah,

3:39

it is very actually.

3:41

And I'll come on as I'm going to say

3:44

the C word not I

3:48

was very

3:51

worried. Yeah,

3:56

I'm very glad. But there we go. So we're going

3:58

to jump in the taxi a la Scrooge style.

4:00

you remember Scrooge? Taxi

4:02

when you fly. Yeah. So that's that's the way

4:04

I want you to think. So we've got like a

4:06

bit of a time machine taxi. We are going

4:08

to go all the way back to 1898. Okay.

4:11

Was that the first of a Waterworlds video game?

4:13

You always does that on these posts. From

4:17

the light gun podger, no. Cowboys.

4:20

Yeah, Wild West. Well, there

4:22

we go. But no, it's not funnily enough.

4:24

It's not a board game. It's not any

4:26

kind of game. It's a book. And it's

4:28

where it all began. It's where the story

4:30

came about. Does anybody know the author of

4:32

said book called The War of the Worlds?

4:35

No, I know Keith knows, obviously. But

4:37

he got it the other day. Gil's read

4:40

it recently. Didn't even know who wrote it. Adrian's

4:42

read it a while back, I think, perhaps.

4:44

Uh, no, but no. Oh, you haven't. I haven't

4:46

read the story. Oh, so you're more of

4:48

the kind of the games and other media type?

4:50

Okay, so we've got a mixture of experiences

4:52

here. That's good. It's by HG Wells. What does

4:54

HG stand for? I don't know, because I

4:56

didn't actually look that up. So, yeah,

4:58

HG Wells actually wrote three or

5:00

started to write three years prior, took

5:02

him three years to complete the

5:04

novel. And due to the way literary

5:06

works of the day were released

5:08

in that period, it was first seen

5:10

by readers of both Pearson's magazine

5:12

and Cosmopolitan in the UK. I didn't

5:14

actually know Cosmo was out in

5:16

the late 90s. And then the US

5:18

respectively during 1897. So the book

5:20

was released in serialized segments for the

5:22

readers and was used to leave

5:24

them on a cliffhanger wanting next week's

5:26

issue. So the novel in its

5:28

full glory wasn't actually released until a year later

5:31

in 1898. So obviously they, as he wrote

5:33

it, it was then released as, you know, serial

5:35

sort of parts and people were sort of like,

5:37

what's going to happen next week? What's going to

5:39

happen next week? That's the way they did it.

5:41

But that's, that's often how those types of works

5:43

were released back in the day. It wasn't just

5:45

a, here's the novel, go buy it. It was

5:47

actually released in serialized sequences. bit like the shareware

5:49

video games. you remember what you used to buy?

5:52

Yeah, yeah, I do. You could buy the first.

5:54

The first couple of levels. Well, shareware was

5:56

like, yeah, it was like a third of the

5:58

game. Yeah, the first chapter of Doom. I

6:00

think. H .G. Wells owns Doom

6:02

and a little bit of... Well,

6:05

they owe him. owe

6:07

him. So, we know, of course, H .G. Wells

6:09

created the story, but do we know any

6:11

of his other works? The Time Machine. Yes. Oh,

6:13

what a story that is. And there's a...

6:15

You're going... Some out for Mum, but Mum is

6:17

in the film, The Time Machine. Do you

6:19

know? Of all the things... He is, though. Some

6:21

out for Freakin' Mum. Do you know what?

6:23

I'm going to say this now. I watched it

6:25

go, no, some out for Mum, but... I

6:27

think she's a good actress. I think she's surprising

6:29

you couldn't that movie. No, Keith, when I

6:32

was watching it, I was ready to laugh and

6:34

go off for goodness sake. Yeah, Keith, don't

6:36

diss Samantha Mumbo. I completely forgot Samantha Mumbo even

6:38

existed until you just met her. Anyone under

6:40

the age of 30? Who? It's

6:42

true though, isn't it? You know this. And who's the

6:44

main actor in it again? Guy Pearce. That's it.

6:46

I like Guy Pearce as well. Good actor. It

6:49

actually, all jokes aside, it's actually quite

6:51

a good film. Yeah, I was surprised. I

6:53

thought, oh, here we go. I actually

6:55

enjoyed it. It is actually quite a good

6:57

film. Obviously, if you read the book,

6:59

you can create your own sort of visual

7:02

layout, but it's a hell of a

7:04

book, among several other kind of big works

7:06

that he did. And they do follow

7:08

a theme. He also did The Invisible Man

7:10

in 1897. Yeah, classic story.

7:12

The Island of Dr. Moreau,

7:14

1896. Again, another... The film

7:16

was okay, but it kind of

7:18

didn't really do the book justice in

7:20

my view. And The First Men

7:22

on the Moon in 1901. So do

7:24

we see any themes appearing there,

7:26

chaps emerging? Think about the

7:28

sort of, you know, the very sci

7:31

-fi and yeah. Exactly that. So I'll

7:33

give you a very brief outline of

7:35

what many consider a science fiction genius,

7:37

which was HD Wells. So he was,

7:39

in fact, a science teacher and a

7:41

major advocate of Darwinism. He was, of

7:43

course, fascinated by space, the future and

7:45

the possibility of intelligent life residing on

7:47

other planets, which was obviously quite a

7:49

handy prerequisite to the book. And to

7:51

make him even more likeable or not,

7:53

depending on your view, he was from

7:55

Bromley. Absolutely.

7:57

For those not in the know about

7:59

South East England locations, that's essentially only a

8:01

few miles away from where we all

8:03

grew up. David Bowie was from Bromley. Correct.

8:06

Was he? Yeah. There you go. And he sang

8:08

about space as well. Yeah, when he was Dave

8:10

Jones, he performed on the bandstand at Beckham Beckham.

8:12

If you've ever been to Bromley, you really do

8:14

want to go to outer space, so it's probably

8:16

a struggle. We're speaking of all the boys. We

8:18

can't, you know... Probably his class he compared Bromley.

8:20

They once upon a time had quite a good

8:22

Christmas market, but I think that was some years

8:24

ago now. But yeah, so

8:26

that's about it for Bromley. There's

8:29

a whole heap of info on Nature World's lifetimes

8:31

and works, but for the sake of keeping things

8:33

tight, I'm going to... that if you want to

8:35

learn a bit more, quick search online will give

8:37

you all the info. going to say where he

8:39

wrote this book. Guys,

8:42

it's Captain Hijack, isn't it? Well, no, go

8:44

on, go on. No, no, you can go

8:46

on Woken. That's where he wrote the book,

8:48

and there's apparently a famous plaque on his

8:50

house. Absolutely correct, which is... Yep. Woken's

8:53

quite famous for the setting of this particular

8:55

story of yours, isn't it? Yes, it does appear.

8:57

Along with several other locations, obviously, on the

8:59

journeys and stuff, some of which we'll touch on,

9:01

some of which, obviously, we just simply haven't

9:04

got the time to go for all of them.

9:06

But there's also... What is there? There's a

9:08

statue. I've seen it. And what's the statue of?

9:10

I don't know what they're called, those weird

9:12

tribe... The tribe road. What is this? Is that

9:14

in Woking as well? Oh, wow. So it's

9:16

like, almost like stainless steel, I suppose, isn't it?

9:18

it? Yeah. And it's 10

9:20

foot. Oh, nice. So not obviously knowing the

9:22

size of what, you know. the size of

9:24

a real one. The real

9:27

one. A real one. It was just scaled down. But

9:29

it's a hell of a thing to look at.

9:31

You got to look it up. There's actually quite a

9:33

good, a few pictures of it. I like how

9:35

the legs on it, it's not just... One is kind

9:37

of skew if isn't it? It's very well done. Yeah,

9:39

it's almost a bit. You'd think it was just free

9:41

going up. Almost a bit bent back on itself. It's

9:43

clever. You have to look it

9:45

up. So chaps, back to the story then.

9:47

Yeah, because have you actually, you been to

9:50

the, have you been to the statue actually?

9:52

My used to live in Woking, so I used to go

9:54

there quite a lot to visit my uncle. And he's

9:56

a massive, he was a massive fan of World of the

9:59

Worlds. So is my mum actually. So we obviously He

10:01

was very proud of where the area was

10:03

nice. The War of the World statue in it.

10:05

I love it actually. It's got bit of

10:07

a family connection in a weird way. That's so

10:09

cool. We love Woking and we love the

10:12

statue. So, the crux of the story. We've talked

10:14

a little, we've talked about, so we've fleeted

10:16

around it. But what is the crux of the

10:18

story? It is in fact an invasion of

10:20

Earth by Martians. Okay, now it sounds fairly straightforward,

10:22

but there's obviously a lot of baggage that

10:24

goes with this invasion. And the Martians

10:26

wish to occupy the planet by essentially

10:28

disabling humans and their industrial infrastructure to

10:30

the point at which they can't fight

10:33

back. They do this by using massive

10:35

three -legged machines called tripods, which we

10:37

mentioned. Anyone know the weapons that they

10:39

have available to them when they land?

10:41

The heat ray, man. The heat ray

10:43

is the worst one. The heat ray.

10:45

gases. Yeah, funny. Funny

10:47

you should say that. What number are up to

10:49

now? Yeah, so essentially the

10:51

main primary weapon is... Well, Keith, do

10:53

you want to kind of... The heat

10:55

ray? Yes. Well, what does it do?

10:58

Basically disintegrates people. It does.

11:00

With heat. It

11:02

essentially... Isn't it invisible, the ray

11:04

itself? Do they describe Yeah, the people

11:06

just kind of go on fire.

11:08

Yeah, so it's not like a flamethrower,

11:11

but it's just like a beam of heat. There

11:13

are, I think there are points in the story

11:15

where it is visible. I think the

11:18

bit with the thunder child would have come onto it. But

11:20

essentially, it's just an unbelievably

11:22

concentrated ray of heat that

11:25

just basically turns people to

11:27

dust. To dust on the

11:29

spot. And that's it, you're

11:31

gone. There's no kind

11:33

of worrying about it, you're gone. They

11:35

also have, as Dil mentioned, gas, funnily

11:38

enough. And they use like

11:40

thick black smoke and steam and stuff

11:42

like that to kind of like, you

11:44

know, choke people and disable them and

11:46

sort of be able to cover their

11:48

tracks as it were. But yeah, three

11:50

-legged machines called Tripods, heat rays, black

11:52

smoke to essentially just wreak havoc and

11:54

destroy their targets and infrastructure. They then

11:56

look to harvest their blood to remain

11:58

operational and it definitely reside on the

12:00

planet. So these... these Martians are

12:02

come on to the kind of look and

12:05

feel in a minute but yeah they don't

12:07

they they essentially need to feed off of

12:09

blood intravenously yeah so yeah we'll come on

12:11

to more on that in a bit but

12:13

for those that don't know the Martians in

12:15

the story are like they're like an octopus type

12:18

creature they're kind of like a bulbous

12:21

tentacle yeah well I say octopus I

12:23

mean you know you can kind of

12:25

draw your own clues if you look

12:27

at the kind of drawings of the

12:29

text from the text but yeah I

12:31

mean it's open to interpretation but it's

12:33

they are kind of like a cephalopod

12:35

type yes yeah creature no digestive system

12:37

because they just intravenously inject blood which

12:39

is pretty awful when you think about

12:41

it tentacles bulbous bodies

12:43

etc and no digestive tract

12:45

directing the blood of

12:48

the victims directly into their

12:50

veins to survive. The

12:52

book focuses on an unnamed protagonist and

12:54

his brother from Surrey who witnessed the landing

12:56

and then the rampage of the Martians

12:58

and their subsequent escape to Tillingham in Essex.

13:00

So there's lots of London locations in

13:02

here, obviously for those from London or no

13:04

London. And you haven't read the book,

13:07

you'll recognise a lot of these places. Seeing

13:09

here from various people along their journey

13:11

affected by the chaos, of course, us humans

13:13

do manage to fight back to a

13:15

degree and destroy one or two of the

13:17

tripods with large artillery in one instance

13:19

and a huge battleship called the Thunder Child.

13:21

In another, what a great name. Yeah.

13:23

Sounds like Thunder Lips Kid, isn't

13:26

it? Thunder Child. I

13:29

am Thunder Child. Yeah.

13:31

I defeated real meatball, isn't

13:33

it? The ultimate meatball. The

13:36

ultimate man versus the ultimate meatball. How

13:38

far away can we get from all the

13:40

worlds than to Rocky III? Like, what

13:42

on earth? We had to get it in

13:44

there, didn't we? Didn't do it in

13:46

any other pods, did you? Oh, it's

13:48

Captain Isaac over there. So

13:50

yeah, in one instance, the artillery get

13:53

lucky and managed to take one out.

13:55

The other instance, the large massive battleship

13:57

called the Thunder Child actually manages to

13:59

take one out as well. However, in

14:01

the end the invading force is too

14:03

great and the survivors end up either

14:05

being harvested by the Martians or being

14:07

driven underground to seek shelter. A pretty

14:10

awful plight for us humans then basically

14:12

being invaded and to the point of

14:14

extinction within no hours. Yeah, within hours.

14:16

So it's a coordinated attack. So as

14:18

the story then plunges deeper into the

14:20

tale of the futility of human retaliation

14:22

and the subsequent brink of annihilation, the

14:24

tide turns with the help of an

14:27

unexpected ally. Another spoiler alert if you

14:29

haven't read the book or listen to

14:31

the album book album film. Yeah, it's

14:33

the same in all of them. It

14:35

is the same thing. Absolutely. Yeah. So

14:37

anyway, I know Keith knows deal, you

14:39

know. How do the Martians become defeated?

14:41

How do they put themselves in a

14:44

bad position? Oh, because they can't deal

14:46

with our stuff. Yeah,

14:50

bacteria. Exactly that. So

14:52

the Martians had been completely unaware of

14:55

the existence. We've just spoiled that for

14:57

everyone. We haven't read

14:59

about 126 years to do So

15:02

essentially they'd been completely unaware of the

15:04

existence of bacteria and disease on Earth due

15:06

to the fact that on Mars in

15:08

the story at least it was a completely

15:10

sterile environment. So the minute

15:12

they landed on our planet, they were

15:14

exposed, they were besieged with armies

15:16

of bacteria causing irreversible damage and illness

15:18

to them, ultimately killing the entire

15:20

invading race. So that

15:23

is a very, very, very concise.

15:26

That was good though. That did cover exactly what

15:28

it is. So guys, well, before, yeah, before we

15:30

go any further, this is what I want to

15:32

do. So before we go any further, so Dill,

15:34

you've read it. Keith, obviously. Years ago, I read

15:36

it. Yep. Big fan. Thinking about the text alone,

15:38

if you can remove yourself from the sort of

15:40

album. Yes, hold on. What did that? It's kind

15:42

of delivered to you at the time, if you

15:44

can remember sort of anything from it. What can

15:46

I remember from last week? Rushing

15:49

through it. Keep going first. Well,

15:51

the funny thing, we will talk about that,

15:53

but that's my first memory of War of the

15:55

Worlds. So it's hard to separate out, because

15:57

then I read the book later on. And like,

15:59

oh, this is how it differs. But

16:01

that's my first memory of it. I

16:04

don't know about you guys. I haven't read the book. That's

16:07

fine. That's all good. Because you'll be

16:09

you'll come in later on with a couple of because I know

16:11

there's a deal as fresh as on the

16:13

book my comments on this

16:15

book So it's full -on. It's

16:17

literally it's like every single paragraph

16:19

something terrible is happening. Yeah,

16:21

so it's like a newspaper in

16:23

today's Yeah, and what's odd

16:25

like what I found odd about

16:27

it was that there's obviously

16:29

there's no character development in it

16:31

whatsoever. It's literally just The

16:33

Martians are doing us one, like

16:35

literally, oh no, what's happened?

16:37

Oh, here's the guy who's gonna

16:39

help you. Oh no, he's

16:41

dead. Okay, you gotta move

16:43

on now. Oh, it's just like, oh,

16:45

I've just witnessed hundreds of people being

16:47

burned alive. Okay, that's great. And then

16:49

move on. And it basically just, it's

16:51

just strike, you know, he basically, it's

16:54

just survival until obviously then they just

16:56

kind of die. Yeah, if I'm honest,

16:58

it's not my kind of book. It's

17:00

just like, I do prefer something that

17:02

kind of gives you a bit of... here

17:04

and there, and there's no respite. There's

17:06

literally like the only respite you get from

17:08

putting the thing down. And then you'll

17:10

pick it up and he's, ah, we're

17:12

doing. That's the story, though.

17:14

There was no respite, was there? That's it. So

17:17

actually, if that's what he wanted to convey, that's

17:19

very good. That's very good. That's exactly what he

17:21

wanted to put across. But man, yeah, I was

17:23

knackered at the end of it. So

17:25

it would have made more sense. doing it month to

17:27

month in a magazine, because you can quite a bit. Do

17:29

you get that respite? That's true. You'd be like, oh,

17:31

I wonder what happens next. You'd be like, oh

17:34

man, what's going to happen now?

17:37

Is he not given the name then, the

17:39

main character? No, he's just the narrator. He's

17:42

just the narrator. So you're hearing it from

17:44

his perspective. He

17:46

wasn't given the name. No, not

17:49

really. Yeah. He was called Nader. So

17:51

I think it's Nader. I think it's the same person.

17:53

There you go. So there's actually a deal, what you're

17:55

saying. That was actually, from

17:57

what we can fathom, there's two reasons

17:59

on purpose why he did that. First

18:02

of all, was not to make it

18:04

sort of get too dated. So

18:06

if you put too much detail obviously

18:08

on the characters appearances i mean okay it's

18:10

of the day of course it is

18:12

but he won't get a horse and can't

18:14

yeah do you need to do make

18:16

it applicable in every kind of age afterwards

18:18

yeah so that it was more of

18:20

a commentary and a more of a reporting

18:22

style as to an event than something

18:25

that's a kind of a frilly story. Yeah,

18:27

that has like this wonderful happy ending,

18:29

which okay to a degree you could argue

18:31

that it has a happy ending of

18:33

sorts, but there isn't another one's dead. There's

18:35

another there's another part of the ending.

18:37

Yeah. So he wanted to make

18:39

it applicable, you know, regardless of how old the

18:41

book got and how old the story got.

18:43

And the other reason which I'm going to go

18:45

into now. So essentially the story, albeit not

18:47

not the first written detailing the idea of aliens

18:49

and space travel, there were some before it.

18:52

But it was the first to deal a lot

18:54

more with topical issues and is one of

18:56

the most commented on works of its kind to

18:58

this day. Yeah. One thing I

19:00

did find quite clever was how

19:02

blasé people are about it at the

19:04

beginning and how they panic and

19:06

everything kind of speeds up through the

19:08

book. So like, oh, oh, they've

19:10

come. Oh, someone will deal with it.

19:12

No, it will be fine. I'm

19:14

just chilling. Yeah, fine. Oh, we'd better

19:16

go now. We'd better go

19:18

to a different town. Oh, crap. No, we need

19:21

to go to, like, a different kind of

19:23

country. Don't you think that's how it would be

19:25

in a first world country now if things

19:27

started to escalate? You know, in other parts of

19:29

the world, if you live in Garza, you're

19:31

used to the shit that happens every day. But

19:33

in a place like Britain, it'd be

19:35

like, oh, someone will deal with it. Yeah, someone will deal

19:37

it. Isn't it funny? And then suddenly, hang

19:39

on. No one's coming to say

19:41

yeah isn't it funny how we can now

19:43

have that conversation and it sounds exactly the same

19:46

you just hit the nail on you hit

19:48

exactly the nail on the head and that is

19:50

another reason why you wrote the story was

19:52

about complacency and it was a commentary on complacency

19:54

of the human you know condition yeah which

19:56

was that we believe and again I'm gonna

19:58

come on to that in a second but we

20:00

believe that you know we're untouchable. Oh,

20:04

it's fine. It's just over there. Just a few

20:06

people have died. And some of you, a Bromley, they

20:08

can feel. Yeah, it's fine.

20:11

So, yeah, it was thought that Wells

20:13

was actually speaking out about imperialism and

20:15

its effects on the population. And

20:17

again, more on that available the touch

20:19

of a button. So, you know... It's a

20:21

commentary. And again, if you sort of

20:24

think about it that way, then it does

20:26

start to show all of its layers.

20:28

And it's less about the specifics of the

20:30

characters, go say. Yeah, if it got

20:32

bogged down in this person and that person

20:34

and their relationship. And if there's

20:36

romance and... I mean, there is to

20:38

a degree, because obviously the Yeah,

20:41

but only in the sense that's a relatable thing. Oh,

20:43

I've got loved ones in this place and this is happening.

20:45

Correct. Not quite. Why aren't they doing this? Oh, they're

20:47

staying there for some reason. Oh, now they've gone. Yeah,

20:50

exactly. But it's much, much more

20:52

to do with human race as a

20:54

whole and kind of what it

20:56

would do in this kind of situation

20:58

and how they think and the

21:01

thought processes and the results of our

21:03

own choices. And once

21:05

you start to think about it like that,

21:07

it's pretty... overwhelming, yeah? Where are we

21:09

ultimately though? And the spoilers for anyone who,

21:11

again, hasn't read the book, seen the

21:13

films or heard the musical version. First of

21:15

all, where have you been? But it

21:17

is, in fact, as we've already mentioned, about

21:19

human complacency. So Wells was commenting on

21:21

the fact that we believe we're safe, secure,

21:23

and all -powerful in our houses and fragile

21:25

social order, but can be easily undone

21:27

by an invasive event such as the one

21:29

detailed in the story. And again, quite

21:32

a nice point that you guys

21:34

picked up was, like, How would it

21:36

actually play out? Probably the same. Probably.

21:39

We're talking 126 years ago. And in fact, hold

21:41

on a minute. There's a bit in the game.

21:43

We'll talk about it. There's a bit in the

21:45

musical because it's the one I'm more familiar with.

21:47

Yeah, sure. After they found the pod on the

21:49

common and people have been killed by the heat

21:51

ray. And he talks about the fact that people

21:53

are going about their day and going to work

21:55

and getting the train and all the rest of

21:58

it and having breakfast. And you

22:00

would just life would carry

22:02

on until it can't. This

22:04

is the staggering thing

22:06

about when you, and

22:08

again, this is the same in the

22:11

book as the musical version, is that the

22:13

way that initial part first, what quarter

22:15

of the story plays out is almost It's

22:17

very matter of fact, and oh, this

22:19

interesting thing happened today. Yeah, and as an

22:21

outsider, you're sitting there thinking, what are

22:23

you doing? But that's only because you

22:25

know what's happening. If we were sat here in

22:27

real life and something like that happened that we've

22:29

never seen before, what would the

22:31

reaction be? You simply don't know. Would it,

22:34

you know, and it would probably be the

22:36

same eventually. know, I can't, sorry, I won't

22:38

get off track too far. No, no, go

22:40

it. I can't remember if it's in a

22:42

film or where I saw it, but there's

22:44

this theory about, like, it's Western society, it's

22:46

like three meals away from collapse. Yeah. Like

22:48

if you took food away for, so

22:51

is it three days? I can't remember what it

22:53

is, where it's three days. Three meals. Is it three

22:55

meals? I think it's probably about, yeah. Something like

22:57

three meals away from a... Yeah. Something

23:00

like that. Yeah. I

23:03

don't know why I've heard that. Yeah. It's

23:05

really, we'll have to find out. Age, get your

23:07

phone out. Three meals away from something. That's

23:10

two meals down for Keith. He's on the edge now.

23:12

I'm full of pizza. I could go for days.

23:14

Just the third one to go. I was going to

23:16

look it up, but yeah, but it's the same kind

23:18

of principle like how quickly. Three meals away from anarchy. No

23:21

society is more than

23:23

three meals away from revolution.

23:26

It's just that thing about how we think we're

23:28

safe in our house. Society

23:30

and everything. It's like a house of

23:32

cards. And I really try not to think

23:34

about it because if you think about

23:37

it, it's terrifying. And that's

23:39

it, the three meals away from anarchy.

23:41

The whole population wasn't fed for

23:43

three meals. People would go, and it

23:45

would go. Yeah. I mean, a

23:47

loo roll. Why?

23:52

Why? I don't stop you on that. No, no, no, no,

23:54

no, no. Don't spread it. honestly, Oh.

23:56

Again, it's that thing of how fragile it all is,

23:58

you know. And that's what he was... Bang on.

24:00

Yeah. This is exactly what he's talking about. It

24:02

can literally all come tumbling down with a

24:04

major event, you know. And I think the

24:07

other thing that's important as well is he's

24:09

not just saying, oh, we need to have

24:11

a Martian invasion for this to happen. No.

24:13

What he's essentially saying is, this is what

24:15

did happen in my book. But

24:17

what he's commenting on is the fact that

24:19

it could happen with this event, this event,

24:21

this event, you know, or a country overtaking,

24:23

you know, overturning a government in another country

24:25

or, you know, and there could be that

24:28

chaos. And that death and that sort of,

24:30

you know, uncertainty. So yeah, it is dark,

24:32

not going to lie. But I think it

24:34

was a very good social commentary, not just

24:36

of its day. No, that's it. Certainly, very,

24:38

very, probably, I would even argue, even more

24:40

relevant, perhaps today. But there we go. Anyone

24:42

who's kind of, you know, really deep into

24:44

the story and kind of loves it, then.

24:46

you know, do let us know what you

24:48

think, what your take on it is. So

24:50

yeah, the most intriguing element of the story

24:52

is that a lot of the themes and

24:55

messages on things like war, technology and the

24:57

human condition contained within the book, again, as

24:59

we've said, are relevant today, making

25:01

it a staple for most home bookshelves for both

25:03

the richness of the story and the commentary on

25:05

our race and ways of thinking. So there we

25:07

go. So where are we off to next? We're

25:09

getting back in the taxi. Back in

25:11

the taxi. Can't remember the actor

25:13

that plays the guy in the taxi and

25:15

Scrooge. Can't remember now. Like a picture. Anyway,

25:19

not relevant. So we're getting back in

25:21

the taxi, we're tipping our taxi driver

25:23

and we're taking a massive drive forward,

25:25

in fact, 55 years. Okay, for this

25:27

one, all right, we're going to chop

25:29

and change and go back and forward.

25:31

But for this particular journey, we're going

25:33

for 55 years to 1953. I'm the

25:35

first video game mayor. Which

25:38

was an electro magnet. So

25:41

why that year I hear you ask

25:43

no it's not a video game that was

25:46

the year the very first motion picture

25:48

adaptation of the war the world was screened.

25:50

Okay, it was directed by Byron Haskin.

25:52

It starred Gene Barry and Anne Robinson. Not

25:54

that one. Yeah. Martians

25:58

are off, that's it. And

26:00

it's actually set, it's very different to the book.

26:02

It's actually set in 1950s California as opposed

26:04

to Victoria in England. So

26:06

a very different setting. It is considered an

26:08

excellent piece of cinema and it picked

26:11

up three Academy Awards. Never seen one. 1954

26:13

Oscars for Best Visual Effects, Film Editing

26:15

and Sound Mixing. It is also one of

26:17

the few examples of a film that

26:19

originally had an X rating, meaning nobody under

26:21

16 could view it due to its

26:23

horrific content for it to be downgraded years

26:26

later to a PG. So

26:28

there we go. That just shows you

26:30

how much time's changed, doesn't it? But there's

26:32

actually, there's not many examples of a

26:34

film that's gone that far through the ratings.

26:36

They normally hover a bit higher than

26:38

that, if it was originally sort of, but

26:40

I suppose at the time it released. So

26:43

yeah, overall, the War of the Worlds

26:45

has spawned 25 movie and TV adaptations.

26:49

And a staggering 85

26:51

total adaptations across print

26:53

audio. Oh my God. Yeah,

26:56

yeah, baby. Say no. Okay, I'll tell

26:58

you about it. No, I'm not going to

27:00

list them. Some of which

27:02

we're going to come on to in

27:04

a bit. So for now, we're just going

27:06

to shuffle forward in our taxi to the

27:08

next stop on the movie journey and other

27:10

than a 1981 Polish film by Piotr Szulkin.

27:12

Apologies if I've said that wrong to

27:14

any of our Polish fans. That

27:17

was a complete offshoot of the text,

27:19

the film basically not very, very loosely

27:21

related to it in terms of some

27:23

of the content. So not really something

27:25

we're going to look too much at.

27:27

But the next movie or the next

27:29

big movie came in 2005. No, we're

27:31

not getting there already, are we? We're going back and forward. We're

27:34

on the movies, don't forget. We're on the movies. You

27:36

don't want me to tell you the story about how I want

27:38

to do that. We want to hear the story. Before we do that,

27:40

we're going to hear from Dylan on his story. So

27:43

when I first went to America, we had summer camp.

27:46

So this is 2005. Occasionally, you just need like, you

27:48

have like a couple of days off or like a

27:50

day off or something. And in Philadelphia,

27:53

in Pennsylvania, as some of

27:55

our American friends will know, it sometimes

27:57

tips it down in summer, absolutely

27:59

tips it down. So we're like looking

28:01

forward to our day out. Oh,

28:03

I'm gonna go to Philly, like check

28:05

out some sights. No, it's just

28:08

absolutely tipping it down all day. So

28:10

like, oh, what's the nearest thing

28:12

that we could go to? Because it's

28:14

soaked through now, cinema. And it

28:16

was literally, it's this one in Wayne,

28:18

Pennsylvania. And I don't

28:20

think it's been updated since

28:22

like the 80s. It was one

28:24

of these old school cinemas.

28:26

Velvet seats. Velvet seats. No

28:29

one else was seeing this. And we were like,

28:31

oh, what do we see? Ah, War of the

28:33

World is the only thing that's on. All right

28:35

then, cool. Let's go watch it. So it was

28:37

like a tiny screen. We were the only people

28:39

in the cinema. Me and my mate Dave and

28:41

I think some other people from camp. Yeah, let's

28:43

just sit down and watch this, enjoy this Tom

28:45

Cruise movie. At the end of the movie, I

28:47

was like, I'd rather just play in the rain

28:49

or something. Play in the rain, run around. Was

28:51

Darren with you then? I

28:53

think you had to work that day. I

28:55

was down with us. I don't know. Darren, were you with us?

28:57

I can't remember if you were there or not. Shout in the

29:00

phone now. I feel like Darren had to

29:02

work that day. Sent us a sign. But

29:05

yeah, so I was like very underwhelmed. But

29:08

hey ho. What were you going to say

29:10

about it, James? Well, I've got

29:12

a little bit on it here. I've got a little

29:14

bit on it because it's not everyone's cup of

29:16

tea. Some people love it. Some people hate it. And

29:18

I think it I think it kind of is an

29:20

age thing, but I don't normally say that worth

29:23

mentioning as well that it's a Steven Spielberg

29:26

film, which I think some people forget. They

29:28

do, and you do see a lot of

29:30

differences in opinions between age groups, so it's

29:32

quite interesting. But I'm going to tell you

29:34

a little bit about it because, and the

29:36

reason being is, that unbeknownst to

29:38

a lot of people, there are a

29:40

lot of nods to the original text. and

29:43

that are quite a lot closer than some people

29:45

may be maybe give you credit for. There's a lot

29:47

of people that are in a knee -jerk reaction and

29:49

say, well, nothing like the book is terrible. There's

29:51

this, and they look nothing like the drive -up. But

29:53

actually, when you delve a little bit deeper, there are

29:55

points in it that are quite clever and they've

29:57

not hidden them, but sort of lots of lots of

29:59

big nods. I mean, obviously, it was a it

30:01

was the biggest budget film adaptation of the book to

30:03

date. And it is, of course, the one with

30:06

Tom Cruise as the lead role as the dead beat

30:08

dad who struggles to organize himself, let alone his

30:10

two kids, which we currently live between two houses due

30:12

to his separation. from his wife. The film is

30:14

set in the present day, and also is the arrival

30:16

of the Martians somewhat from the text by having

30:18

them ride a lightning bolt down into the ground to

30:20

rendezvous with their tripod craft that they had buried

30:22

for millennia underground. Yeah. Not

30:25

sure about that bit, but anyway. Why

30:27

bother with that? If you're going to

30:29

say that Martians came from space, can't

30:32

they just come in the ship? Why don't they

30:34

just come in it? There's like this suggestion at the

30:36

start that they give you again, and

30:38

it's like, okay, but... was nothing else in it

30:40

in the rest of the film. No. To

30:42

say that. What have they been doing? No. So

30:44

that bit of a me was like. Just

30:46

hanging around. It was a bit of a wasted

30:48

kind of off -shoot in the story. But the

30:50

opening and arrival of the Martians in this

30:52

manner is quite fast -paced and quite fast -paced to

30:54

fare and followed almost immediately by a rampage

30:56

and carnage caused by the invaders. There's not much

30:58

breathing space. unlike the text,

31:00

which obviously sets the scene quite well, and they

31:02

sort of discuss, you know, the sort of

31:04

gas from Mars and all this sort of stuff.

31:07

There's none of that. They use a news

31:09

footage style of film to deliver the snapshots of

31:11

the alien arrivals, and it's of course a

31:13

very different viewing experience than one that one would

31:15

imagine those had back in 1898 as part

31:17

of the text when the book is set. So

31:19

essentially it skips over the book's opening where

31:21

missiles are from Mars towards Earth

31:23

from an observatory. So the movie goes on

31:25

to detail the human race's futile efforts

31:28

to defend its with one scene in particular

31:30

showing tanks, infantry and other military vehicles

31:32

being completely eviscerated atop a hill where we

31:34

in the Martian tripods, I say we

31:36

humans, come face to face. So it's quite

31:38

a chilling scene actually and a reminder

31:40

that despite our belief that we're all powerful

31:42

and sit at the top of the

31:44

planetary food chain, an invasion of this kind

31:46

could undermine us completely in a very

31:48

short space of time. It's actually

31:50

one of those things that you might just

31:52

cast off as another like kind of explosive

31:54

action scene. I think

31:56

that what they did in relation

31:58

to the text was to try

32:00

and show how useless we are

32:03

against such a force. And

32:05

if you watch that scene in isolation,

32:08

it is quite like unnerving that

32:10

we send all of this military

32:12

might over the hill. And

32:14

we don't even see the battle. We don't even

32:16

see the battle. No, you don't. You don't. What

32:18

do see? No, no.

32:20

You just kind of see him disappearing

32:22

over the over the ridge and just

32:24

explosions and people running and Screaming it's

32:26

just carnage. Yeah, literally is utter carnage.

32:28

You just see tanks being thrown in

32:30

the air people like and again, you

32:33

know watching it for the first time

32:35

you can sort of think survive You

32:37

know, it's just a explosive actions kind

32:39

of sequence But it I personally think

32:41

that it's quite a good little homage

32:43

to the the darkness of the story

32:45

to show just how kind of pathetic

32:47

Yeah, I've seen it a few

32:49

times. Can I ever please dive in? So

32:51

I don't I don't love it. I don't

32:53

hate it. I will I'm not a big

32:55

Tom Cruise fan, but I'll admit that he's

32:58

made some great films. He has made some

33:00

great films. But anyway, I think they try

33:02

to change the focus of the story. Because

33:04

when I think about it now, you

33:06

know that, you know, they have this thing

33:08

in post -apocalyptic fiction, Walking Dead, all those

33:10

kind of things. Yeah. Or that the real

33:12

enemy is other people. It's not the zombies,

33:14

it's other people. And in this, it happens

33:16

so many times because you've got, there's a

33:18

bit where they surround his car and they

33:20

nearly take his little Dakota fan in when

33:23

she was little. They try and take. That

33:25

scene on the hill, there's another couple that

33:27

nearly take her away because they think she's

33:29

on her own. And also the

33:31

bit with Tim Robbins in the

33:33

house. Oh, this weird guy who's

33:35

clearly gone crazy. Again, he's the thing

33:37

you should be fearful of. It's other people

33:39

that you should be fearful of, not the Martians.

33:41

But that wasn't the point of the story.

33:43

No, it's all the Martians. But I will say

33:45

there's a couple of great moments, the

33:47

plane. Yeah. They when they come out of the

33:50

house and he's carrying his daughter and he makes

33:52

her cover her eyes because they're walking through. There's

33:55

this huge crashed plane

33:57

wreckage. Oh, yeah. It's like

33:59

a 747, isn't it? Yeah, a huge airline.

34:01

Like a suburban street. just falling out sky.

34:03

Just falling out of the sky. Yeah. And

34:05

he's carrying his daughter through it, like, covering

34:07

her eyes so she doesn't see the car

34:09

on it. It's just little scenes like that.

34:11

But yes, it has its faults, but... like

34:13

Tim Robbins as an actor. Tim Robbins is

34:16

good, but again it's kind of a different

34:18

take on it and it kind of shifts

34:20

the focus back onto all other people of

34:22

the problem. Which isn't the point, I

34:24

mean they are, but it isn't the point of

34:26

the story. It's a really good point. It's a

34:28

really good point. I'm actually going to come to

34:30

it right now because I've actually talked about this,

34:32

that section you said with Tim Robbins. I'm going

34:34

to put that in a kind of a little

34:36

glass jar just for a second because you are

34:39

absolutely right on several of the other fronts. So

34:41

where you've got like people as the enemy, that

34:43

just misses the point entirely. It's

34:45

not to do with that. Yes, of course,

34:47

I'm sure they'd be kind of, you know... It's

34:49

just like a lazy trope like this, I'd

34:51

say with post -apocalyptic anything. It's

34:53

just part of the real enemies. Yeah, it's

34:55

just a trope. And it was like a lazy

34:57

thing to throw into the film. My view

35:00

on that was it was just a Hollywood thread

35:02

that gets put in there. The reason I've

35:04

put kind of the Tim Robbins one in a

35:06

glass jar is because it is a specific

35:08

nod, or at least part of it is a

35:10

specific nod to a character in the book.

35:12

Right. It's a bit loose, but it does work,

35:14

and I can sort of see why. So

35:16

I've put here, despite the modern look and feel

35:18

of the 2005 movie, there are multiple nods,

35:21

as we've already said, to the source material, such

35:23

as the weaponry used by the Martians, the

35:25

aforementioned hilltop massacre of the artillery, because that happens,

35:27

obviously, in the book, and the infantry from

35:29

the human side, and a big nod to the

35:31

section of the story, where our protagonist finds

35:33

shelter with an artillery man. This is in the

35:35

book. He had previously met

35:37

and presumed to died. So in the book, the

35:39

soldier tells of how he's going to build

35:42

new cities and networks underground and humans can all

35:44

live full and glorious lives beneath the Martian

35:46

feet. This of course is a completely unachievable and

35:48

far -fetched plan due to the sheer scale of

35:50

effort and materials needed not to mention the

35:52

manpower. So the artillerymen has made no more than

35:54

a 10 foot long tunnel in a week

35:56

from which you plan to rebuild the country. So

35:59

that's obviously in the book and

36:01

also in the album. And yeah, it

36:03

becomes quite frighteningly apparent that the distance

36:06

between his ambition and his achievement. He

36:08

only needs a handful of men. what

36:10

he asks for. Yeah, right, okay. So

36:13

in the 2005 film, and this is why I've

36:15

picked up on this bit, the

36:17

part essentially of the artilleryman, even though in

36:19

the film he's not an artilleryman, he's

36:21

just a guy who's a farmer, a farmhouse.

36:23

played superbly by Tim Romney, I think

36:25

he does a great job. His character, Harlan

36:27

Ogilvy, nod to the astronomer. Initially,

36:30

it seems very accommodating, providing shelter

36:32

and sustenance for Ray and his daughter.

36:34

We quickly discover, however, that he's

36:36

so wrapped up in his grandiose plans

36:38

that he's completely separated from reality.

36:40

He even tries to kill Ray for

36:42

questioning his plans and states to

36:44

Ray's daughter, Rachel, that he will take

36:46

care of her if anything happens

36:48

to Daddy. Please.

36:51

The similarity of the source text

36:53

continues in the movie, you know,

36:55

after this as well. So there's

36:57

a section with Harlan, who's Tim

37:00

Robin's character, and it's towards the

37:02

end of that little exchange, and

37:04

he's trying to dig his little

37:06

tunnel, isn't he? And he's kind

37:08

of scratching away at the mud,

37:10

and it's like, it's such a

37:12

big nod to that section of

37:14

the book. You're like, what are

37:16

you doing? You have no idea

37:18

what you're up against. See,

37:20

Robin sticks a tunnel in another film. He does

37:22

indeed. And in fact, actually, if

37:24

Andy Dufresne had been in a war of

37:26

the worlds, he probably would have got a lot

37:28

further, even with his brick hammer. But

37:31

what a film that is. So

37:33

yeah, but that's why I put that

37:35

section in there. So all of the

37:38

others aside from that, absolutely almost borderline

37:40

stupidity, because it's just so missing the

37:42

point. However, Hollywood film,

37:44

blockbuster film, You know,

37:46

you need, they kind of, I suppose they felt they

37:48

needed that thread in there. Do you to, do you

37:50

want to, I personally, Spielberg probably got

37:52

a bit complacent and thought he was the cock

37:54

of the walk. And I think he's kind of

37:56

lost his magic a bit. I think he was,

37:58

was an amazing director. By that time, he thought

38:01

he could do anything. I'll just do, do a

38:03

high, how I want, it's going to be an

38:05

amazing success. And it wasn't. So Spielberg, wake up.

38:07

Yeah, wake up Spielberg. Yeah. Just because you can

38:09

hire good actors like Tim Robbins doesn't guarantee a

38:11

great film. It's one of my favourite actors actually,

38:13

I've decided Tim Robbins, but. Spielberg,

38:15

you're better than that. Funny thing is, there

38:17

are quite a few films. We're coming for

38:19

you, Spielberg. Watch your door, yeah.

38:21

We get these cousins Steven Spielberg. Who's

38:24

from the Simpsons couch, remember? They get the

38:26

Mexican cousin. Burns

38:30

has to hire him. How have

38:32

we ended up on the Simpsons? Right,

38:34

let's scrap that

38:36

on, James. You, honestly,

38:38

are taking it to new levels this

38:41

time, aren't you? I

38:45

don't even know where I am now, this

38:47

is the thing. Right, where were we? Ogilvy, nod

38:49

to the astronomer, trying to dig his tunnel,

38:52

never going to happen. Senor Spielberg,

38:54

oh. Senor. Senor

38:57

Spielberg. We're coming for you.

39:00

Oh my God. We're coming for

39:02

you. No, but you're all right though, just on that

39:04

note, because there are several films. He went through a

39:06

weird patch, shouldn't he? Is that fair? I think he's

39:08

lost it a little bit, Spielberg. I

39:11

think that may have kind of happened

39:13

naturally. Can you be top of your

39:15

game for that many years? It's very

39:17

rare. But anyway, but you're right though,

39:19

because there are several off as a

39:21

sidebar just briefly. There are quite a

39:23

few movies now that have been made,

39:25

I don't know, over the last 10,

39:27

15 years where they've had stellar casts

39:29

and flopped. You know, they've had big,

39:31

big casts, lots of money, flopped, so

39:33

there you go, doesn't guarantee you're right.

39:35

So, as we said, the similarity to

39:38

the original text continues in the movie

39:40

with the tripods picking up humans and

39:42

storing them later to harvest, which of

39:44

course then leads to their ultimate demise,

39:46

where they become completely overwhelmed with harmful

39:48

bacteria disease, most of which we have

39:50

an immunity to, but of course, they

39:52

don't. Overall, I think I probably,

39:55

yeah, the film's okay, there's a lot wrong with

39:57

it. I'm not a cruise fan. Yes, I

39:59

agree. He's had some excellent roles. I'm

40:01

just not, like, you know, excited about,

40:03

like, necessarily, certainly not his character in

40:05

this one. It's a fair, straightforward affair,

40:07

isn't it? It's a proper, like, every man

40:10

role. Yeah, it is. Anyone could have

40:12

played it really. Don't beat Crane Operator. You

40:14

know, it just sets the scene.

40:16

It probably would have been better if it

40:18

was a less known, do you know I mean?

40:20

Less of a household name, like, in that

40:22

role. Yeah, I He said it's like Tom Cruise.

40:25

So, I mean, it's worth mentioning there are

40:27

plenty of other applications have been made, but

40:29

of course it is the biggest budget Hollywood.

40:31

I'm just, it is quite disappointing, you know,

40:33

but I am prepared to obviously say that

40:35

there were those few kind of quite clever

40:37

nods. And I think if you're not a

40:39

big War the World fan, you would have

40:41

just, it would have gone straight over your

40:44

head. So, you know, I think that's, it's

40:46

worth noting. So if you want to, you

40:48

know, if you are going to ever give

40:50

it another watch, then just bear in mind

40:52

that there are some, there are nods to

40:54

the, to the. and the album in there

40:56

as well. So it is worth mentioning at

40:58

this point that other adaptations have been produced

41:00

over the years in the visual format. So

41:02

there have been eight total TV shows ranging

41:04

from a 1956 episode about the Awesome Worlds

41:06

radio show. Pop a pin in that, we'll

41:08

come back to that one. Right up to

41:10

a 2019 BBC adaptation, three parts are set

41:12

in the same period as the book. Now

41:15

I haven't seen this. And I've only

41:17

been, I've only found out about it very

41:19

recently. It looks very impressive. Okay. And it looks

41:21

extremely faithful to the source text in terms

41:23

of the period it was produced, you know, when

41:25

it was set, the characters, the layout and

41:27

all that sort of stuff. BBC. BBC three -parter.

41:29

it should be on iPlayer. I'm assuming iPlayer. Okay,

41:31

I have to have a look. got

41:35

to be honest, I've seen some stills of

41:37

it and I saw a trailer. It looks

41:39

very, very good. And I'm always a little

41:41

bit skeptical about sort of BBC stuff. Whether

41:44

they actually put... the right amount of

41:46

effort into it, but it looks very

41:48

good, so I'm well and truly gonna

41:50

give that a go. But I am

41:52

gonna get on my soapbox here very

41:54

briefly, chaps, and then I'm gonna get

41:56

off it very quickly as well, yeah?

41:58

And I'll explain why. I feel, at

42:00

this point, that we should have almost

42:02

certainly had a faithful, well -funded, source

42:04

material movie adaptation. Yes,

42:06

we've had the Tom Cruise one. Yes, we've got

42:08

the 1953 version which of course was set

42:10

in California so again not really kind of source

42:12

text. Wouldn't it be great to have a

42:15

proper you know build all those great sets. Yes

42:17

okay of course you're gonna have to have

42:19

CGI of course you are but you know to

42:21

do it properly to do it real justice

42:23

to do it in the right costumes the right

42:25

characters get the right cast with the music

42:27

as well. Oh for goodness sake

42:29

you know would that not make Do you know what

42:31

would be hard and you know what they do

42:33

though and they always do is they take the focus

42:35

away so it would be that it would there

42:37

be there be a love story and they'd be like

42:39

kids and that you know I mean because because

42:41

that's what you have to have in a Hollywood movie

42:43

and yeah that's why I'm getting off my side

42:45

it would be hard for them to make it in

42:47

the style of the book which is like just

42:50

reporting on what's happening when I was reading this actually

42:52

one thing that spring to mind was two towers. Lord

42:54

of the Rings and how

42:56

that movie is completely, it's

42:58

almost completely action. And

43:01

like actually is, there is three

43:03

hours action on the back of a

43:05

three hour film where you learn

43:07

about the characters. So I know, but you're

43:09

right. So you kind

43:11

of, you do know about the characters. That

43:14

movie for me went by

43:16

really fast and it's easily my

43:18

favorite. Yeah.

43:22

Yeah. I was like, okay, well, I don't know. I don't

43:24

know whether it could be done faithfully. How about a series? I

43:26

would like it because they always ruin

43:28

things. You have to have a human story.

43:30

But this is the problem. Would

43:33

they have the Cajonas to basically

43:35

create a faithful adaptation of the book?

43:37

No, for the thing that keeps

43:39

it. For the very reason that Hollywood

43:41

feel they have to meddle. And

43:43

put in a love story where they

43:45

have to put some kind of

43:47

other angle to make it relatable. not

43:49

like people won't watch it unless

43:51

there's like a love... Yeah,

43:53

it's crazy. I mean, I think it would be

43:56

a gamble and that's probably why nobody's done it,

43:58

because they just think... But it is a shame.

44:00

Like, now you could make it and it would

44:02

be amazing. It wouldn't... Like, if they did it

44:04

properly, faithful as well. And they had... It would

44:06

just be... And if you get the voice casting

44:08

right for the narration and then... Oh, my God.

44:10

And there's so many great actors as well. I

44:12

wonder if you could do it in that way,

44:15

though. Where you had the narration and you never

44:17

saw it. Just had the voice

44:19

and it showed I think there are so many

44:21

options. Well, I peep show kind of way. Nobody

44:24

showed you. Not in the POV. That's

44:26

what Cloverfield tried do. But like, you

44:28

know, like you gave your documentary with

44:31

Morgan Freeman. I've it. heard it. Yeah.

44:33

So Cloverfield tries to do that whole

44:35

thing. Yeah, it does. It

44:37

does, but it's a found

44:39

footage. Yeah. I'm shaky

44:41

cam. But that was low budget, wasn't it as

44:43

well? Yeah. I quite like it. I

44:47

mean, I think it would be quite

44:49

unique in that and that's probably why because

44:51

it would require a bit of an

44:53

offshoot from the normal Hollywood. Yeah, I think

44:55

that it's a risk. I don't think

44:57

anyone's into risk these days. Are they certainly

44:59

post COVID? And I think like war

45:01

the world's would it appeal to like the

45:03

newer generations like I think it's very

45:05

much our generation. Well,

45:11

you could make it apply to modern times,

45:13

but then you'd probably have to get away

45:15

from the thing. So that's I think the

45:17

ship has sailed for like a for a

45:19

true for a true. I like to think,

45:21

though, that there's because of the way the

45:23

world's set up now, there's there are more

45:25

younger people that are kind of. interested

45:28

in potentially the way the world works and

45:30

power shifts and stuff like that. There is

45:32

a little bit more attention that way. So

45:34

I don't know whether we're enough there yet,

45:36

but I don't know. I'm

45:38

just annoyed. We're

45:42

50 grand and we can do it. I'm

45:48

just annoyed that I'm probably never going

45:50

to get to see a faithful adaptation

45:52

movie with a decent budget. But

45:55

also, they probably just go, well, they've done that with Tom Cruise.

45:57

We're not going to make another one. I'm

46:01

just annoyed for myself really.

46:04

There's my soapbox moment. But I've put on here,

46:06

when I think about it, Hollywood would probably

46:08

not be very interested in creating something set in

46:10

old England. And they can set it in

46:12

good old USA. But as I

46:14

said, I still think it would make a

46:16

superb film. And it would be even

46:18

better if a certain soundtrack from a certain

46:21

composer and musician, who knows the story

46:23

quite well, who am I talking about? Jeff

46:25

Wayne. He's all excited.

46:28

He's all excited. Oh, it's just too good. So

46:31

are you. I'm

46:33

talking about the insanely talented Jeff

46:35

Wayne who created the musical version of

46:37

the War of the Worlds back

46:39

in 1976. I'll

46:43

give you that because when it was

46:45

released in 78, it was

46:47

released 78. He must have been working on

46:49

it. He was working on it for quite

46:51

a while before that. And that's where our

46:53

taxis dropping us off next. Good old 1978.

46:55

1978 was essentially ruled by disco music. We

46:58

were in the height of it

47:00

in 1978, played on every radio station,

47:02

every nightclub, and the nightclub scene

47:04

with disco was the thing at the

47:06

time. So when Jeff Wayne's musical

47:08

adaptation of the book arrived, it delivered

47:10

a very different blend of rock,

47:12

electronic, ambient and stage musical styles in

47:14

one package, whilst retelling HG Wells'

47:16

story almost bang on. pretty much is

47:18

there's a few adaptations in there

47:20

of names and they've given names to

47:22

people in the book that don't

47:24

have them and so on so forth

47:26

but it's very very faithful there

47:28

are some areas which are a little

47:30

bit more concise obviously because you

47:32

know you essentially have an

47:35

entire audio book on a musical CD

47:37

but there we go but yeah i

47:39

mean some of the characters in the

47:41

musical version were added where they did

47:43

not exist in the book but overall

47:45

very faithful retelling there's also a name

47:47

given to the narrator's wife which is

47:49

Carrie who in the book she remains

47:52

unnamed throughout So the narrator also effectively

47:54

plays both roles of himself and his

47:56

brother as described in the text. The

47:58

text has the narrator and his brother

48:00

who go on this journey obviously to

48:02

Essex to escape the tribals. But in

48:04

the album, it's just one man finding

48:06

his wife. So the superb mix

48:09

of music styles and tempos are

48:11

only eclipsed by the stellar voice casting.

48:13

So the likes of David Essex,

48:15

Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues and

48:17

Chris Thompson of Manfred Mann. Or

48:19

Mandarin Man's Earth Band. Yes. Give

48:21

the vocals an incredible depth and

48:23

well -roundedness. Of course, The Jewel in

48:25

the Crown has to be the part

48:27

of the narrator, played by legendary

48:29

actor. Richard Burton. Who?

48:32

Despite sporting an extremely well -spoken

48:34

English gentleman's accent. Was in fact.

48:38

Where's he from? Proud gentleman. Yes,

48:40

he was. Very much so.

48:42

He was Welsh. But the voice.

48:44

Oh, the voice. Just.

48:46

This is why I was... I first

48:48

heard this as a kid. My dad had

48:50

the double album. Scared the bejesus

48:52

out of me when I was a kid.

48:54

I'm so glad you said that because it's the

48:56

same. You know the voice and the authority

48:58

and it's like it sounds again we might touch

49:01

on it if we're going to talk about

49:03

the awesome world thing but when you're a kid

49:05

hearing it like, is this real? It's

49:09

got such a desk and

49:11

got such a tone and it

49:13

sounds as though that he's

49:15

talking directly to you and it's

49:17

like he's only telling you

49:20

the story. Not everybody else,

49:22

you feel as though you're sitting across

49:24

a table and he's literally telling

49:26

you, this is what happened. It's quite

49:28

incredible. It's fantastic. And I honest,

49:31

I'm not kidding. When I say, I've

49:33

probably listened to the soundtrack up

49:35

in the five figures. That's not a

49:37

lie. And yeah, that's a lot. But

49:39

I've over the years, it is amazing.

49:41

My mum used to play it all the

49:43

time. It's just a CD. Yep. And

49:45

I was like, spellbound, spellbound by it. It's

49:47

quite incredible. It's some of the music

49:49

and it's incredible. Yeah. I

49:52

mean, we'll come to that in just

49:54

a sec. But I mean, yeah,

49:56

that opening is something personally for me.

49:58

I don't think it's ever been

50:00

recreated in terms of that impact. Nice.

50:02

And the tone and the feeling.

50:04

No, I'm sorry. It's just, just since

50:06

she was. So in fact, the

50:08

original album had 13 tracks. which was

50:10

the eve of the war, which

50:12

is the most famous one, of course,

50:14

with the narration and the gas

50:16

coming from Mars. Or opposite

50:19

you, if you're sitting opposite me. And

50:22

obviously here from Ogilvy and

50:24

obviously the whole situation of the

50:26

missiles coming towards Earth and

50:29

people wondering what's going on. But

50:31

also, as Keith rightly pointed

50:33

out, the very scary, unnerving part

50:35

of trains shunting in the

50:37

distance and people basically going about

50:39

their life. when

50:42

basically we've got these green meteors

50:44

smashing into commons and in parks and

50:46

people sort of going, oh, what's

50:48

that? Oh, never mind. I'll just jump

50:50

on the train. What? So

50:52

that, yeah, the eve of the war is

50:54

unnerving, unsettling, highly

50:57

addictive, all the above. And

50:59

you've also then got Horsel Common and

51:01

the Heat Ray. I love that one.

51:03

Which is when Ogilvy basically gets absolutely

51:05

fraught for opening or he stands next to

51:08

the pod when it opens up. The

51:10

artillery man and the fighting machine, which we've

51:12

spoken briefly about where they managed to

51:14

cut one down, but then they quickly

51:16

get absolutely smashed to pieces. One of

51:18

my probably second favourite on the album is

51:20

Forever Autumn by Justin Hayward. Beautiful, isn't

51:22

it? Beautiful song, because that was a hit

51:24

on its own, wasn't it? It was

51:27

a very big hit. It had all

51:29

sorts of remixes and everything and re -releases.

51:31

Such a great song. Sort

51:34

of goes straight into Thunderchild. Yeah, on

51:36

the album. Yeah, it goes from that very

51:39

soft ballad to... Which is quite surprising

51:41

because you sort of think how would you

51:43

get from effectively like a love song

51:45

to... Something really quite sort of action

51:47

packed. Yeah dark and he manages to do

51:49

it because he's like that momentary like

51:51

calm, isn't it? Yeah, it's a case of

51:53

going down the river isn't it? They

51:56

go down the river and then he's

51:58

basically making his way to the port. Yeah

52:00

to try and get a boat out

52:02

of England to try and escape it

52:04

all and Manages to get there and then

52:06

all hell breaks to get the time

52:08

to weigh up the Thames and start

52:10

smashing bridges and I've Unbelievable. And then Thunderchild,

52:12

as we've kind of mentioned, was a

52:14

massive iron clad warship of the late

52:16

1800s, of which there were quite a few,

52:19

of course, and fired its massive guns

52:21

and took down a tripod, but was

52:23

quickly melted when the tripod was realized. I

52:25

loved the vocals on this one as

52:27

well. Chris Thompson. But

52:32

it's so good. Chris Thompson

52:34

from Man through Man. And

52:36

I'll come on to it. There is another version of this

52:38

later on, and it gets a lot of flak, but I'm

52:40

going to come on to that in a minute. The

52:44

vocals on it are slightly sort

52:46

of accentuated. It's so good though.

52:48

And then it goes from that

52:50

straight down to the red weed.

52:52

Red weed is a very atmospheric

52:54

ambient. It's

52:56

almost the musical version of looking at

52:58

a red plant grow. It's really strange.

53:00

The spirit of man. which is about

53:02

a sort of a pastor. the parson.

53:04

Yeah. And that's Phil Lynette from Finn

53:06

Lizzie. That's it. And his

53:08

wife, and he basically has this idea in

53:10

his head that he's caused it all and it's

53:12

the devil. he thinks he's demons. Yeah. And

53:14

the devil are not aliens. And

53:17

he doesn't know it's Martians and he refuses to believe

53:19

it. And it just all kind of goes a

53:21

bit. Again, I suppose it shows

53:23

the sort of mental state that you kind

53:25

of might, especially if you're religious, you've got

53:27

that conflict of, you know, sort of What's

53:29

caused yeah red weed part 2 which again

53:31

is just sort of the reprise of that

53:33

the artilleryman returns and we and then brave

53:35

new world Which is the bit we spoke

53:37

about where he's digging the tunnel and this

53:40

put my least favorite song. I love brave

53:42

new. Yeah. Yeah, I really like it and

53:44

it's I mean, I can see why

53:46

you sort of... It's quite long. It is

53:48

quite long. It's not quite as long as

53:50

Spirit of the Man. It's 12 minutes. Wow.

53:52

It's a 12 -minute song. Brave

53:54

New World are quite like, just because it's

53:56

so crazy and silly and like, he's obviously

53:58

got no idea what he's talking about. He

54:00

talks about wanting to play cricket against the

54:03

underground. And they're sitting there playing cards and

54:05

drinking champagne. And the worst

54:07

sports about the ground, cricket. It wouldn't work.

54:09

No, but his idea is

54:12

that you bad like spots play

54:14

straight away. You know, you

54:16

build these enormous plates straight away.

54:18

You can play Paul and

54:20

Snooker quite easily. No, but

54:22

his idea was so stupidly good. He was

54:24

going to build used to have these

54:26

enormous city rapture. Yes. Yeah, but underground. Can

54:29

you imagine rapture though, where you're playing like, I

54:31

don't know. Cricket. Cricket. You can be breaking the

54:33

glass. Smash a ball through the glass. You've

54:35

got a leak. We're all dead. Four.

54:37

Play with a tennis ball. That's

54:39

a six. Catch it. Anyway.

54:42

But no, you... Yeah, but that's

54:44

the stupidity of it. You know,

54:46

he talks about all these things,

54:48

you know, very clearly, but

54:50

then... That's one thing you couldn't do in Rapture. Play

54:53

cricket. Play cricket. Oh, sport. Yeah,

54:55

yeah. No. Oh, that's sad. So that's

54:57

a sad realisation about Rapture. No,

54:59

but they were too busy injecting each

55:01

other. Anyway, so

55:04

yeah, I quite like... new world, because it

55:06

is just a bit nuts. And it shows

55:08

that, you know, again, the thinking might be that

55:10

I'm not the biggest fan of David Essex.

55:12

Oh, he might be. We've got David

55:14

Essex fans go boo right now. Yeah, I

55:16

bet we've got loads of them. Now, well, loads

55:18

of 50 year old women. David

55:21

Essex was big, man. I know he

55:23

was. My mum loved him. Rock on. Anyway,

55:25

but I quite like the track just

55:27

because it just shows that I hate it.

55:29

This is my least he's kind of

55:31

like You know, the gap between his ambition

55:33

and his ability is massive. Dead London,

55:35

part one. There is no Dead London part

55:37

two, funnily enough. It's just a Dead

55:39

London part one. There is. Visit Croydon. They

55:42

said the C word again. They said

55:44

it again. And then

55:46

epilogue part one and epilogue part two.

55:49

And during all of that, we hear

55:51

obviously about the demise of the

55:53

Martians in quite a sort of a

55:55

graphic fashion with crows basically eating

55:57

the eyes out of their tripods. And

55:59

the fact that the Martians just

56:01

can't, they can't even move. They're so

56:03

plagued with disease and bacteria that

56:05

they've got. They're all full of cold.

56:07

full of cold, full of manbola. So

56:10

yeah, at the end of the original album, they

56:12

have the part where I don't know if you

56:14

must have, you heard the epilogue. Yeah, go on.

56:16

Tell us, tell us. So it's like, a

56:19

great bit. It's radio communications, isn't

56:21

it, between about observatories? Is it between like

56:23

NASA or is it between NASA and?

56:25

It's NASA and then sort of like base

56:27

stations around the world. Yeah, they

56:29

hear broadcast from Mars, don't they? They have

56:31

so I think it's because they've got a

56:33

they've got a rover of some kind. Yeah

56:35

is on Mars and they're basically like tracking

56:38

the sound and images. That's it. Yeah, it

56:40

then starts to get knocked out one by

56:42

one. I think they think couple of rovers

56:44

up there were knocked out one by one

56:46

and then the guy who's basically on the

56:48

radio saying that everything was looking good and

56:50

it's look at the rocks and it's amazing.

56:52

All of a sudden all the comms start

56:54

to go. And he goes, Houston,

56:56

come in. Can you read me? And then he goes,

56:58

so -and -so, base 19 or whatever it is, come

57:00

in. Oh, it's just radio silence. Oh,

57:03

they're coming back. Oh, dear. But

57:05

the whole point of the whole

57:07

premise of the story, and in

57:09

the book as well, definitely, is

57:12

that it could happen again. Of

57:14

course. Do they learn? Tom Cruise back on

57:16

the line. Do the Martians

57:18

learn from their mistake? And

57:21

if they do, how are they going to

57:23

protect themselves? So there's that whole open -ended part,

57:25

and that's what I think is such a great

57:27

ending. Oh, it brilliant. You could just make

57:29

up. You could just have the story how you

57:31

want it. Do you have it invading or

57:33

not? What happened next? Brilliant. So moving

57:36

on. Two additional tracks were added in 2009 with

57:38

the newer version of Spirit of Man recorded

57:40

with a medley of Eve of the War and

57:42

Forever Autumn as bonus content. I seem to

57:44

remember that was quite good as well. So Chaps,

57:46

we've all listened to this, the album, whether

57:48

it be a single track or the whole thing

57:50

or whatever. I know specifically myself and Keith

57:52

are massive fans of it. Any favourite tracks from

57:54

you guys? No, because I listened

57:56

to it as a kid and it was

57:58

always on. I wasn't looking the track titles

58:00

per se. You just kind of background. I

58:02

just remember the first track the most. A

58:05

million to one. I think everyone's heard that

58:07

at some point, haven't they? It's been featured

58:09

in so many places, it's just crazy. iconic.

58:11

Big word, but I think it is, definitely.

58:13

I mean, again, I've already put it, Eve

58:15

the Ward is my personal favourite, but on

58:17

the album as a whole, the use of

58:19

narration from Richard Burton, the change in pace

58:21

and the tones along with the arrangement of

58:23

instruments creates something, personally, I struggle to find

58:25

any comparison to. I don't think there's... much

58:27

else like it out there in terms of

58:30

the. don't know that anyone's tried to do

58:32

anything similar. No, it's such a musical way.

58:34

I don't know. Yeah. But it is. It's

58:36

fantastic. So I've put the album does sit

58:38

as a very unique piece of work due

58:40

to the fact that it's a musical journey

58:42

through a text rather than a soundtrack written

58:44

to accompany a motion picture. Yeah. So

58:46

my question here is then chaps, do we

58:49

do we feel as though because Jeff Wayne has

58:51

had a lot more kind of movement, I

58:53

suppose, and could use his own interpretation to a

58:55

degree? Do we think do we see the

58:57

finished product as a complete work of itself outside

58:59

the book. Because there's a lot of times

59:01

when you look at a film, and

59:03

the soundtrack is almost like a

59:05

1 .5 of the film. Yeah. It's

59:08

kind of a work by itself. Yeah,

59:10

I suppose it is. It's a kind of

59:12

a, you could almost argue that you don't,

59:14

I probably wouldn't argue, but you don't have

59:16

to read the book. Oh no. No, no,

59:18

no, it tells the story on its own.

59:20

But it does it so well. Yeah, yeah.

59:22

But yeah, multiple re -releases of the album

59:24

have been done along with various remixes. There

59:27

was also a 2010 recording arranged by Jeff

59:29

Wayne himself, which had the likes of Gary

59:31

Barlow, Maverick Sabre and Joss Stone all appearing.

59:33

I knew you were going to say that. And

59:35

Liam Neeson takes the reins as

59:38

the role of the narrator. He's no

59:40

Richard Burton, but a good pick. In

59:43

all honesty, when I first listened to this version,

59:45

I was ready to just bin it off. I was

59:47

ready to just listen to you go, well, nothing

59:49

could touch the original. However, I didn't.

59:52

You love Gary Barlow now, is

59:54

that what you're saying? Listen, the

59:56

casting on that re -recording is

59:58

actually really close to the

1:00:01

sound, to the kind of tone

1:00:03

of the artist on the

1:00:05

first one. And I was actually

1:00:07

quite surprised. It sounds really good. I

1:00:09

mean, I'm not a huge fan of the

1:00:11

eve of the war track because they

1:00:13

kind of made it a little bit more

1:00:15

like... They've made it sound a bit

1:00:17

more like electronic than it should be. So

1:00:19

it's not as instrumental. I much prefer

1:00:21

like the instrumental band version, of

1:00:23

course. But yeah, there's a lot of

1:00:25

good stuff on that rerecording though. And specifically,

1:00:27

I mean, sort of we scoff at the likes

1:00:29

of like Josh Stone, she has an amazing

1:00:31

voice. And she plays Beth,

1:00:34

who's the pastor's wife. She

1:00:36

does an amazing job, you know. So,

1:00:38

and Maverick Saber, you think, oh God, I've

1:00:41

saved him for a year. Again, sounds great,

1:00:43

you know, and does a great job on

1:00:45

this. So, don't bin it off until

1:00:47

you've had a listen. It's called War of

1:00:49

the Worlds, A New Generation. But yeah, as

1:00:51

a footnote though, I'll say nothing

1:00:53

beats the original. Especially

1:00:55

on vinyl if you can get your hands on one,

1:00:57

which I think you've got one. I've got two. is

1:00:59

your dad's original. two. Yeah, I got bought the re

1:01:02

-release a couple of years ago and then I went

1:01:04

to my dad's loft and found the... The original one.

1:01:06

A little bit warped. A little bit warped, but it

1:01:08

works. Nothing a hot

1:01:10

fang. 50 years in the lot. Let's do

1:01:12

that. Jesus. Yeah, I suppose it

1:01:14

is. So there we are, chaps. We've taken look

1:01:16

at the book, the movie, the TV shows

1:01:18

and the musical adaptation. So what's left for us

1:01:20

to delve into here, you ask? Well,

1:01:23

it wouldn't be an arcade attack podcast

1:01:25

without talking about some games. So without further

1:01:27

ado, let's tip the taxi driver once

1:01:29

more and get him to take us back.

1:01:31

We're going back again. So we haven't

1:01:33

gone far to 1978. with

1:01:36

one of the greatest retro games of all

1:01:38

time that was apparently inspired by War of

1:01:40

the Worlds. You see what I've done? It's

1:01:42

not an actual War of the Worlds video

1:01:44

game. So it's designed by the name of

1:01:47

Tomahiro Nishikado. Anyone know? It

1:01:49

rings a bell. Love the book

1:01:51

and the musical version so

1:01:53

much that the design of the

1:01:55

octopus -like aliens from Space Invaders

1:01:57

were based on the descriptions

1:01:59

the Martians from H .G. Wells'

1:02:01

Invaders. OK, that is cool. Now

1:02:03

that's quite good. That's really cool. So

1:02:05

when you place Space Invaders again, they

1:02:08

are based on the cephalopathy. You're

1:02:10

talking about a seminal video. That's a

1:02:12

good tie -in. Why

1:02:14

are you talking about War of the

1:02:16

Worlds? Well, because without War of the

1:02:18

Worlds, Space Invaders wouldn't be what you

1:02:20

know. Space Invaders. They were invading from

1:02:22

space. So there we go. So

1:02:26

there we are. So only one

1:02:28

year later, there was an actual War

1:02:31

of the Worlds arcade game that

1:02:33

was created and released by Cinematronics with

1:02:35

a re -release in colour in 1982.

1:02:38

In the game, you man a little tank at

1:02:40

the bottom of the screen. You need to both

1:02:42

dodge incoming marsh and heat ray fire, as well

1:02:44

as retaliate with your own tank gun to try

1:02:46

and destroy them. Points are awarded, of course, for

1:02:48

hits, and the game has a very similar look

1:02:50

and feel to that of Battlezone with its vector

1:02:52

graphics. Oh, nice. So,

1:02:54

yeah, it is a cool -looking game,

1:02:56

cool -looking little cabinet as well. And

1:02:58

it's got, God knows, probably an absolute

1:03:00

fortune to buy one if you

1:03:02

can find one that's serviceable. But yeah,

1:03:04

it looks very similar to that.

1:03:06

that ilk of game. Apparently quite popular

1:03:08

as well, but only in certain

1:03:10

sort of territories. There was a board

1:03:12

game that appeared in 1980 by

1:03:14

Task Force Games and then in 1984...

1:03:16

We had what was supposed to

1:03:18

be the first big home release of

1:03:20

a World of Worlds video game.

1:03:22

So it was labelled as an action

1:03:24

-adventure game. The player assumes the role

1:03:26

of the narrator. I must navigate

1:03:28

through the various locations mentioned in the

1:03:30

book whilst avoiding Martian contact and

1:03:33

various other dangers along the way. Sounds

1:03:35

good. Sadly, it only ever made

1:03:37

it onto the specky. The only rating

1:03:39

I can find of the game

1:03:41

is from a 1992 survey of science

1:03:43

fiction games by Computer Gaming World,

1:03:45

which gave it one out of five

1:03:47

stars. We're disappointed.

1:03:50

And advise the reader it's better to curl up

1:03:52

with the book in snooze. I

1:03:54

mean, you can't argue with that. But yeah,

1:03:56

I mean, it sounded so like so much.

1:03:58

So much promise and such a big letdown.

1:04:00

We've been there before, haven't we? So the

1:04:02

game, to be honest with you, it must

1:04:04

have stunk so bad that nobody did make

1:04:07

another version for another 14 years. So

1:04:09

1998, and this is where Adrian's going

1:04:11

to come in, saw a very different way

1:04:13

of delivering a game experience to the

1:04:15

player via the real -time strategy genre. It

1:04:17

was released exclusively for Windows and was based

1:04:20

on the musical version of the story. What

1:04:22

do you remember about it? Because I remember you saying

1:04:24

at the start before we started recording. I'm not going

1:04:26

to sit here and say I put hours and hours

1:04:28

and hours into it. It was a game that I

1:04:30

think my brother Chris got somehow. I

1:04:33

can't remember exactly how he got it. And by

1:04:35

at this point, I was very into my RTS

1:04:37

games. Warcraft would have been out by

1:04:39

now, June 2, even the minor conquer I think would

1:04:41

have been out. It was a massive genre. We

1:04:43

did a whole pod on it. I

1:04:45

don't think we mentioned this game in the

1:04:47

pod if I'm a regret though. No,

1:04:50

I don't think I did. But I do remember,

1:04:52

I think you could either be the humans or

1:04:54

you could be the Martians. You could change it. And

1:04:56

obviously when I played it, was like, I want

1:04:58

to be the Martians. I want to control the

1:05:00

tribods and kill people. But I found the game, if

1:05:02

I'm a regret, there wasn't many options of What

1:05:04

you could use basically was you could be the Martians

1:05:06

and that was about it. It wasn't like the

1:05:08

tripod. So I don't think there's loads of different

1:05:11

weapons you could choose from. And it was mediocre. After

1:05:13

playing things like Red Alert and Command and Conqueror

1:05:15

and Warcraft 2 and all that sort of stuff, it

1:05:17

just, it wasn't quite, I didn't fall in love

1:05:19

with it. I played a few levels, a few

1:05:21

missions. I gave up on it and Chris kept playing.

1:05:23

I was kind of looking over his shoulder little

1:05:25

bit. Okay, it's all right. But it's quite samey. Bit

1:05:27

samey. Nothing. Yeah, it always seemed like some

1:05:30

really good RTS games you can upgrade, you

1:05:32

can build all these really cool things, but it

1:05:34

just seemed a little bit too maybe even

1:05:36

too close to the story because it didn't seem

1:05:38

to be many different things to do. I

1:05:40

think yeah, because the book obviously

1:05:42

doesn't. need to have lots of

1:05:44

different flying machines and, you know,

1:05:47

vehicles, because obviously the invaders are

1:05:49

Martians in tripods. So,

1:05:51

you know, you've got your main kind of adversary

1:05:53

there, haven't you? But in a game, of

1:05:55

course, you do need variety. So you're right. You're

1:05:57

basically saying what a lot of people who

1:05:59

reviewed it said, which was there just wasn't enough

1:06:01

variety and it didn't kind of like grab

1:06:03

you. It was quite good graphics, but it wasn't

1:06:05

amazing. It was quite good gameplay, but it

1:06:07

wasn't amazing. graphics were all right. Yeah. And I

1:06:09

mean, you know, on the At a basic

1:06:11

level, players could choose, you could either defend the

1:06:13

land as humans or you can choose to

1:06:15

be the Martians. They're set in the UK at

1:06:17

the same time as the book and features

1:06:19

like a zone type combat system. You

1:06:22

have like a timed sort of battle

1:06:24

and then in between each battles, you

1:06:26

can then create units and build buildings

1:06:28

between rounds and you can seek to

1:06:30

destroy your opponents in each area to

1:06:32

gain that area and zones so on

1:06:34

and so forth. It was designed and

1:06:36

published by Flip Switch Games, along with

1:06:38

GT Interactive and Atari. mixed reviews on

1:06:40

IGN, giving it only 5 .8 out

1:06:42

of 10. But funnily enough, an

1:06:44

overall Google user score, 96%. God knows where

1:06:46

that's going. It might be a call

1:06:48

in the house type thing there. Yeah,

1:06:50

review bot. yeah, if we look

1:06:52

at IGN, normally pretty good, I would say.

1:06:54

Yeah, it's the only reins I could

1:06:56

find on it, really. But 5 .8, kind

1:06:58

of. And that sits kind of where you've

1:07:01

just said. So, okay. It

1:07:03

wasn't terrible, but it wasn't. Just average.

1:07:05

Yeah, that's probably about a right score then

1:07:07

really, I'd say. Yeah, but I mean, there

1:07:09

are one or two other sort of like

1:07:11

smaller kind of reviews out there, but they're

1:07:13

just as mixed and sort of around the

1:07:15

same areas. So slight move forward

1:07:17

to the year later in this

1:07:19

time of PlayStation game by Duty Interactive

1:07:22

again, once again in April, sorry,

1:07:24

in 1999. The game is seen

1:07:26

from a third person perspective in which the player

1:07:28

can use an array of vehicles to attack

1:07:30

invading Martians and flying machines. There's

1:07:32

several locations to explore including Dover, Oxford

1:07:34

and the Scottish Highlands between battles.

1:07:36

It's got narration by Richard Byrne and

1:07:38

they used the editing clips from

1:07:41

his original recordings from the album and

1:07:43

a lot of the album artwork

1:07:45

which was created by Mike Trim, Jeff

1:07:47

Taylor and Peter Goodfellow also feature

1:07:49

as well. So it's quite heavily inspired

1:07:51

by the musical version. So

1:07:54

that's a PS1 third

1:07:56

person sort of shooting.

1:07:59

What sort of game is similar? Do

1:08:02

you remember Wargames? PS

1:08:06

one game. PS one game.

1:08:08

So imagine imagine kind of need

1:08:10

for speed with guns, basically. So

1:08:13

you can drive various

1:08:15

vehicles. Yeah, yeah. We'll

1:08:18

go to it. Yeah, twisted. So imagine twisted

1:08:20

metal, but with Martians. Yeah. So you're driving

1:08:22

around. You can choose your vehicle. They

1:08:24

each have kind of, you know, vigilante

1:08:26

style. There you go. Yeah,

1:08:30

good game that. So yeah, third person. And

1:08:32

it actually did quite well review wise.

1:08:34

PlayStation Pro gave it 91%, PlayStation Plus 8

1:08:36

out of 10, and PlayStation Extreme 83%.

1:08:38

There were some other lower scores and other

1:08:40

publications, but they described it as average

1:08:42

graphics, but the overall reception was pretty good.

1:08:44

You might have to check this out.

1:08:46

So yeah, do you know what it reminds

1:08:48

me of a bit? In Half -Life 2,

1:08:50

I think one of the add -on packs,

1:08:52

one of the sort of extra missions

1:08:54

you can buy, They've got massive

1:08:56

sort of tripod and monster sort of things.

1:08:58

And the best part of it, you

1:09:00

could get in like vehicles in Half -Life

1:09:02

2, you could kind of weave in in

1:09:04

between the legs when you're walking. And

1:09:07

it can be crushing stuff. And it just

1:09:09

reminds me, I reckon Half -Life 2 got

1:09:11

a lot of inspiration from War of

1:09:13

the Worlds. But that particular bit in the

1:09:15

last bit of the... the game is

1:09:17

so fun. I think probably from what you're

1:09:19

describing is it's not the same kind

1:09:21

of combat. It's definitely a homage at the

1:09:23

very least, but it's so fun that

1:09:25

it's just driving in between the legs. Yeah,

1:09:27

I think that's, I mean, I personally,

1:09:29

I've not played the PS1 game I was

1:09:31

just talking about, but I've had a

1:09:33

look at a lot of the screen shots

1:09:35

and it sounds exactly like that. So

1:09:37

yeah, might be one to try because it's

1:09:39

reviewed quite well. So yeah, massive boot

1:09:41

forward again, jumping forward to 2011 now. Yeah,

1:09:43

2D platform are created by other ocean

1:09:45

interactive featured narration by Patrick Stewart. Yeah. And

1:09:48

it's essentially, if you can imagine, an

1:09:50

arty metal slug meets an arty contra

1:09:52

meets Ori, if you can imagine that.

1:09:55

Struggling. Yeah. Wow. It is quite

1:09:57

an atmospheric 2D platform where

1:09:59

you basically have to navigate You

1:10:01

know the scorched landscape train

1:10:03

yards buildings by title was it

1:10:05

wasn't it was yeah, but

1:10:07

you know and there's a lot

1:10:09

of it. I mean graphics

1:10:11

are really good and and you

1:10:13

kind of after like

1:10:16

scale buildings and things like that. But you

1:10:18

got to obviously get over things like fire pits

1:10:20

and burning vehicles and stuff. So it's quite

1:10:22

a tricky, it's quite a tricky little game because

1:10:24

obviously the mechanics in it can be not

1:10:26

something you've sort of played before necessarily because you

1:10:29

have to like grab on ledges and then

1:10:31

jump across a ledge whilst you're hanging onto this

1:10:33

one. And okay, quite tricky, quite tricky, but

1:10:35

it looks great. So and again, reviewed fairly well,

1:10:37

but I don't think Gret got massive exposure.

1:10:39

No, I didn't know anything about it. So yeah,

1:10:41

it's really for 360 and PS3. Looks like

1:10:43

a great little game, all said and done. So

1:10:45

I can't seem to find any reviews for

1:10:48

it, really. I can find a few sort of

1:10:50

like passing comments on it and things like

1:10:52

that, but there's nothing, there's no kind of like

1:10:54

central reviews. So I've put down here that

1:10:56

it's a suck it and see approach. So if

1:10:58

you fancy playing it, you can, you can

1:11:00

still get out of it now. So if anyone's

1:11:02

interested, this is quite an interesting one. So

1:11:04

the next entry was called Gray Skies. Anyone ever

1:11:07

heard of that one? It's called Grace Guy's

1:11:09

Award of the World Story from 2020, believe it

1:11:11

or not. It's a third -person stealth adventure game,

1:11:13

so you play a character called Harpo who

1:11:15

must use stealth tactics to avoid mushroom contact and

1:11:17

navigate the landscape. That's about as good as

1:11:19

it gets, to be fair. The movement is slow,

1:11:21

the character has no real depth, and the

1:11:23

lighting and sound aren't very immersive. I played it

1:11:26

for a little bit, a little bit, a

1:11:28

while back, and I, yeah, don't. Please. It's still

1:11:30

available. You can still buy it. It is

1:11:32

surprising, therefore, that a sequel was made called Darker

1:11:34

Skulls, which follows Jack, a survivor the invasion,

1:11:36

navigating the world in a survival horror style adventure.

1:11:38

So it's kind of like a post -apocalyptic type

1:11:40

thing, but after the Martian invasion. Although this

1:11:43

title featured more shooting, it also suffered from some

1:11:45

of the same issues as the first being

1:11:47

somewhat dull and drew ratings of around 60 %

1:11:49

with critics and magazines alike. It was released in

1:11:51

2021 for PS4, Xbox One and Switch and

1:11:53

can be bought and tried now if you want.

1:11:55

Although, don't think my regimentation is

1:11:57

going to go very far. There's

1:11:59

also a remastered version for the

1:12:01

PC on Steam. Yeah, no. Well,

1:12:04

you go age. Yeah. So finally,

1:12:06

we arrive on our doorstep in 2024.

1:12:08

2025 you mean. No

1:12:10

doorstep, doorstep could be any time.

1:12:14

Not in the door, didn't say in the door

1:12:16

did I? Or past the door in the back

1:12:18

garden. It's on the doorstep. And to what many

1:12:20

consider the best war the world's game to date.

1:12:22

And this is the weird thing, it's like a

1:12:24

limited release thing. Not many people have seen it,

1:12:26

Keith's probably not seen it, Dilma I've seen it. It's

1:12:29

simply called War of the Worlds and

1:12:31

thus far has only been released on Steam

1:12:33

for Windows. It's once again

1:12:35

by Flip Switch Games. They

1:12:37

created the

1:12:39

RTS PC game

1:12:41

in 1998. They've

1:12:46

actually done quite well with this time to

1:12:48

be fair. So players control a character from a

1:12:50

first person perspective and must loot and shoot

1:12:52

their way through an open world landscape. Naturally invading

1:12:54

Martians are one of the main threats to

1:12:56

your survival, but also other hostile human groups. may

1:12:59

try to rob or kill you for

1:13:01

your valuable weapons. So coming

1:13:04

soon to early access is

1:13:06

what I've got on Steam. Oh

1:13:08

is it like a beta?

1:13:10

I think there's like a playable

1:13:12

version. Can you explain it

1:13:14

to us? Please do. Well,

1:13:16

this is the script. Yeah. Hardcore

1:13:18

horror open world survival game, which throws

1:13:21

a player into the middle of

1:13:23

the extermination of mankind with the sole

1:13:25

purpose of surviving long enough to

1:13:27

find a way to bring down the

1:13:29

alien machines, loot buildings, fight off

1:13:31

hostile survivors, stay hidden from the machines

1:13:33

and stay alive. And there's some

1:13:36

at the minute. I mean, they can't

1:13:38

tell much from these pictures. But

1:13:40

yeah, I can't tell much, but please play

1:13:42

on. So. I don't know where I got

1:13:44

this info from, but I was led to

1:13:46

believe that there was some sort of playable

1:13:48

demo or something. I can't

1:13:51

see anything. We might be

1:13:53

at cross -purpose here. It might be a

1:13:55

different game then, but it sounds like

1:13:57

the same one. But to be fair, if

1:13:59

it's done properly, it

1:14:01

looks actually quite good. So from what I can

1:14:04

see from what I've heard anyway, but we'll see

1:14:06

we don't know this is the thing you get

1:14:08

that kind of look don't you and then something

1:14:10

releases and you go oh yeah okay onto the

1:14:12

next but I like the premise I love the

1:14:14

premise and nothing's been done yet. With that so

1:14:16

if they get it right and get the survival

1:14:18

kind of thing in the building thing in the

1:14:20

looting thing and then you add the Martians in

1:14:22

there. Do you know what I was thinking though,

1:14:24

when you think about the tripods, it's a little

1:14:27

bit like, you know, that game Walker is talking

1:14:29

about the Amiga. Yeah, you can almost do a

1:14:31

game like that. You control and you got to

1:14:33

kill humans. I'm sorry. Well, yeah,

1:14:35

you walk around. That'd be quite fun, wouldn't it? Yeah. Yeah,

1:14:37

I want to see Walker, but all the worlds. Yeah,

1:14:39

I don't know. Honestly, I don't know where I've got this

1:14:41

from, because I've put down here. Players can travel by

1:14:43

foot, control a selection of vehicles they come across on their

1:14:45

journey. a co -op mode as well.

1:14:47

Players can team up with others to take on

1:14:49

the threats. The graphics are amazing. The gameplay looks

1:14:51

really well -rounded. And it's got reviews of 96%.

1:14:54

So where the hell have I got that from,

1:14:56

then? I do not know. Because I found it

1:14:58

a different game. You've been to the future. Yeah,

1:15:00

I have, haven't I? Yeah, I've been to the

1:15:02

future. But there we go. Oh, well, if that...

1:15:04

I tell what then, if that happens in the

1:15:06

future, if that happens, then happy days. Good

1:15:08

grief. So there we go. We can park

1:15:10

that paragraph then, I suppose, and see if it

1:15:12

comes true. So there we are, chaps. I'm going

1:15:14

to, I'm going to, I am going to kind

1:15:16

of do a little sidebar in a second

1:15:18

because there's something that Keith and I have done

1:15:20

that the other two should definitely do. We'll come

1:15:23

to that in just a second. But a

1:15:25

somewhat potted history of the main sort of adaptations

1:15:27

of the War of the Worlds by HD Wells.

1:15:29

But it is worth pointing out there have

1:15:31

been a lot of the several other

1:15:33

TV shows, movies and video games and things

1:15:35

like comic books, web serials, board and

1:15:37

print games and also radio shows. There's been

1:15:40

just an absolute ton of stuff and

1:15:42

that is only the kind of faithful stuff.

1:15:44

There's other offshoots as well that are

1:15:46

kind of based on, you know, I mean,

1:15:48

you can kind of take those as

1:15:50

the pinch of salt and if you like

1:15:52

them, happy days. So before I go

1:15:54

on to the very last... section, which we

1:15:56

did kind of allude to earlier on.

1:15:58

Keith and I have been to the all

1:16:00

the world's immersive experience, I think. What's

1:16:03

it like? Brilliant. Why

1:16:05

is it brilliant? Loved it. I think if

1:16:07

you've got any kind of love for the story,

1:16:09

especially the album, it's

1:16:12

like walking into it. They've

1:16:15

spared no expense on the

1:16:17

sets and the actors and

1:16:19

everything. It's really, really good

1:16:21

fun. And it takes in all the main

1:16:23

set pieces, doesn't it, from the story?

1:16:25

Exactly that, yeah. It's all the main areas

1:16:27

that one. There's a

1:16:29

couple of VR sections, but there's

1:16:31

also these really cool sets and special

1:16:33

effects. It's brilliant. And there's

1:16:36

a lot of use of the

1:16:38

lighting and you get lots of

1:16:40

steam and smells. I mean,

1:16:42

we're not going to spoil it too much, but there's

1:16:44

got the smells already. We've got the smells. But

1:16:46

there's like one point, for example,

1:16:48

when you're literally sitting in a fully

1:16:50

kitted out Victorian dining room and

1:16:52

you're sat at a fully laid dinner

1:16:55

table with the candlesticks, the plates,

1:16:57

and it's got the rugs and the

1:16:59

ornaments and the fireplace. It's

1:17:01

slightly surreal, isn't it? You

1:17:03

just don't, you know, you sort of

1:17:05

go into it thinking, well, I know this

1:17:08

is a, I know it's a set.

1:17:10

Of course this isn't real, but you sort

1:17:12

of have to just park that at

1:17:14

the door. And my one bit of advice

1:17:16

for anybody going, just join in. Oh

1:17:18

yeah, yeah, got to throw yourself into it.

1:17:20

Like really, really, you know, almost like

1:17:22

become one of the actors. And that sounds

1:17:24

silly, but kind of act as if

1:17:26

it's happening because it makes you so much

1:17:28

better. Start digging tunnels in

1:17:30

the set. Well, there's

1:17:32

to where you go through world. Yeah, I'm not

1:17:35

going to. But

1:17:37

but there's I mean, obviously, if you know the

1:17:39

story, you're going to know what's kind of in

1:17:41

there. But I will. There is a warning on

1:17:43

it because there's some bits which are pretty like

1:17:45

brutal. Yeah, pretty crappy. If you

1:17:47

don't like jump scares, then it might

1:17:49

Is it Central London? Is that right? Yeah.

1:17:51

It's like a 10 -minute walk from

1:17:53

London Bridge. We walked from London Bridge.

1:17:55

It was more of a, yeah, about

1:17:57

20 minutes you walked across the bridge

1:17:59

and around the corner. It wasn't far.

1:18:01

It's easy to get to. Central London.

1:18:03

It's got a very cool bar, which

1:18:05

has got a huge Martian tripod in

1:18:08

it. The art style of the album.

1:18:10

Yeah, in the style of the album.

1:18:12

Yeah, the big green eyes. That's really

1:18:14

cool. Every so often it shoots out

1:18:16

like gas, like steam

1:18:18

and stuff like that. Yeah, there he

1:18:20

is. Yeah, that's great. Be

1:18:22

a recommended, definitely. Yeah, the spirit of man

1:18:24

bar, isn't it? That's the one. Oh, there's

1:18:26

the spirit of man bar, but halfway through, because

1:18:28

it's quite, yeah, it's like a, it's quite a long

1:18:30

experience. So they have an intermission halfway through and

1:18:32

you go into the red weed bar and it's like

1:18:34

having a red weed, but yeah, you stop for

1:18:37

like 20 minutes at the middle. Have a drink. So

1:18:39

they've got you captive in this bar. Oh, you

1:18:41

have to buy a drink and then you carry on

1:18:43

and do the rest of it. It's great. It's

1:18:45

great for me because you can have a little toilet

1:18:47

break as well. Yeah,

1:18:50

it's really, really good fun. The way they've

1:18:52

done the, just reminding me, actually, the red weed

1:18:54

buzz. They've got all the red weed

1:18:56

round the walls and everything, haven't they? It's all

1:18:58

like the red LEDs and stuff. Yeah, just in

1:19:00

the background. Yeah. I

1:19:02

mean, even if you're not a big fan

1:19:04

of the album, it's just a fun,

1:19:06

immersive experience, I think. No, you're right. And

1:19:08

I think if anything, if you go

1:19:10

into it totally fresh, you'll enjoy

1:19:12

it. But I think what you might end

1:19:14

up doing is then going away and maybe

1:19:16

learning about the story. whether that be from

1:19:18

one of the films or from a comic

1:19:20

or whatever. That's right. Yeah. If you were

1:19:23

like someone who is a fan, but you've

1:19:25

got family or people that you would go

1:19:27

with the arm, take him anyway, because I

1:19:29

think they would still enjoy it. And you

1:19:31

get, there's a great photo op at the

1:19:33

end where you get a photograph with like

1:19:35

the invading Martians behind you. And it's like

1:19:37

on a newspaper picture. That's it. Yeah. I

1:19:39

just look like an absolute moron in my

1:19:41

one because I probably went for it. Yeah.

1:19:45

Like mouth open and up in the air

1:19:47

and yeah, the missus was like never

1:19:49

taking you anywhere ever again. But

1:19:51

yeah, that was a... I've got an email

1:19:53

about it today actually. They were extending it until

1:19:55

the end of September next year at least.

1:19:58

So you can still... not surprised. I'm not quite

1:20:00

scared to go. She thinks it'd be scary

1:20:02

for her. It would be. It would be. I

1:20:04

think it might kill Becca. Actually, Rebecca's not

1:20:06

allowed to go. Yeah, there

1:20:09

are sections where it's in your face. I

1:20:11

mean, obviously, you don't get hurt, of course

1:20:13

you don't, but it's quite sort of, there

1:20:15

is like a lot of sensory overload. quite

1:20:18

visceral, yeah. So, yeah. Anyway,

1:20:20

but that's, yeah, I highly, and I'm sure

1:20:22

you well. Yeah, no, it's great. And

1:20:24

yeah, maybe a little field trip. So

1:20:28

the last, I'm coming to the last section

1:20:30

and the reason this is the last section

1:20:32

because it kind of, I don't know, it's

1:20:34

a bit of a weird one. It's not

1:20:36

a story because it's just a retelling. It's

1:20:38

kind of not a comic. It's not a

1:20:40

movie. It's not another book. It's none of

1:20:42

those. It's a radio show. It's a

1:20:44

radio show. I was starting to worry that you weren't

1:20:46

going to mention it. I'm going to mention it. Oh,

1:20:48

I saved it till last. We're going back to 1938. And

1:20:53

a relatively, at the

1:20:55

time, a relatively little known stage and

1:20:57

radio actor called Orson Welles delivered a

1:20:59

radio broadcast adaptation of the War of

1:21:01

the Worlds on CBS radio to quite

1:21:03

a sizeable audience, in fact, because obviously

1:21:05

back then radio was the media of

1:21:08

the day. And that's how a lot

1:21:10

of information was conveyed. There was in

1:21:12

fact a disclaimer at the beginning of

1:21:14

the broadcast stating that the following was

1:21:16

a work of fiction. However, Due

1:21:18

to a musical interlude, it

1:21:21

was widely reported that most

1:21:23

people didn't hear it. But

1:21:25

what's cool about it, well, you've got to

1:21:27

carry them first and then I'll jump in. You

1:21:29

sure? We know, I was just going to

1:21:31

say, what's clever about it is they weave in

1:21:33

little bits where they cut away to musical

1:21:35

interludes. That's it. So you're hearing it as if

1:21:37

it's a news report and then it'll cut

1:21:39

back to... it is so so music call somewhere

1:21:42

and then it plays a bit of music

1:21:44

and then they'll cut jump back and so if

1:21:46

you missed like the beginning where there was

1:21:48

any kind of disclaimer and you just had your

1:21:50

radio on. I can see

1:21:52

how people well the and the report

1:21:54

of the time was the fact that most

1:21:56

people are large portion of the of

1:21:58

the audience. didn't hear this disclaimer before the

1:22:00

musical interlude. Either they just kind of,

1:22:02

I don't know, had it on in the

1:22:04

background, didn't hear it, or they just

1:22:07

were focusing on the music afterwards or whatever,

1:22:09

we don't know. But there's a ton

1:22:11

of people that didn't actually hear it. So

1:22:13

Wells then went on to deliver his

1:22:15

broadcast in a breaking news style format, reporting

1:22:17

that invading Martians were attacking and that

1:22:19

everyone should prepare for such. It's

1:22:21

woken, was he saying? No, no, this

1:22:23

was in America. I was going to say New York,

1:22:25

but I don't know. I'm not sure. It

1:22:27

might be one the districts of New York

1:22:29

State, I think it was not in this. I

1:22:32

could be wrong on that. So I'll look

1:22:34

that one up. But anyway, but it caused quite

1:22:36

a bit of panic among the listening population

1:22:38

and caused law enforcement to storm the radio studio

1:22:40

where the broadcast was taking place. And

1:22:42

immense struggle then broke out. And those

1:22:44

who had listened to only a portion of

1:22:46

the show were panicking, leading to a

1:22:49

huge unrest. Three mils away from panic. That's

1:22:51

it. I mean, I looked at this

1:22:53

briefly. I think it was like back in

1:22:55

uni or something. We looked at and

1:22:57

it was like communication media. and how everything

1:22:59

can be like misconstrued or misheard. And

1:23:01

this was one of the things, I mean,

1:23:03

Blimey, I was at 23 years ago. But

1:23:06

yeah, and, but if you

1:23:08

think about it, no internet, no

1:23:10

phones, no PCs, no kind

1:23:13

Well, it's where you get your news,

1:23:15

the radio. Yeah, the radio was the

1:23:17

live media. You know, you heard your

1:23:19

news, you got your music, you got

1:23:21

your information. So why wouldn't you, if

1:23:23

you missed that first bit and you

1:23:25

heard someone saying, well... what's happening, breaking

1:23:27

news, you'd absolutely saw your trousers.

1:23:29

I'm sorry, you would. You know, you wouldn't

1:23:31

know any different and you'd think, right,

1:23:33

we're under attack. So I almost kind of

1:23:35

can forgive those who thought that it

1:23:37

was a real high cost. I

1:23:40

would never forgive them. You're

1:23:42

stupid. But

1:23:44

yeah, so it went on, but

1:23:46

upon identifying the broadcaster's merely a

1:23:48

work of fiction, order was restored,

1:23:50

but Wells was summoned to several

1:23:52

high -profile press conferences to explain

1:23:54

his actions and apologize for causing

1:23:56

distress. Newspapers for

1:23:59

days would report how he tricked

1:24:01

people and caused this upheaval to so

1:24:03

many. Eventually though, he was regarded

1:24:05

as a master storyteller, with this broadcast

1:24:07

still being studied today in colleges

1:24:09

and universities for its delivery and subsequent

1:24:11

effects on the listeners. As

1:24:13

we now know, Awesome Worlds went on to

1:24:15

be one of the most legendary filmmakers in history.

1:24:17

So there we have it chaps. You know

1:24:19

what Awesome Worlds last role was? Yes. What? Transformers.

1:24:22

Yay! It's the

1:24:24

voice of unicorn in Transformers, the

1:24:26

movie. So, from the pinnacle of

1:24:28

broadcasting... To the pinnacle of movies.

1:24:30

For movies. Right,

1:24:33

shots fired. We

1:24:35

used to go and have a punch up in a minute. We

1:24:37

like awesome ones, don't we? Yeah, well, I mean,

1:24:39

again, if you want to do a bit of

1:24:41

digging and have a look at the works and stuff,

1:24:43

I know there'll be some out there who knows

1:24:46

works. Some of you don't. Please do go and have

1:24:48

a look. He's done some unbelievable stuff. Some absolutely

1:24:50

legendary films. Transformers. Well, aside

1:24:52

from... Let's park that one just for

1:24:54

a moment, yeah. But there

1:24:56

we have it, Chaps. So our taxis dropped

1:24:58

us off at home after our trip through

1:25:00

the various incarnations of the war of the

1:25:02

worlds. My question to you, then, fellas, is,

1:25:04

other than the original book itself, which of

1:25:07

the various adaptations did you enjoy the most,

1:25:09

or have you had the most to contact

1:25:11

with? The Gary Barlow birth. That's

1:25:13

a good answer, Adrian. Thanks for coming

1:25:15

along. Yeah. It's

1:25:19

got to be the album. Yeah. Do

1:25:21

you all sing? I need to listen to the whole album. You

1:25:23

do. Because obviously I've just listened to

1:25:25

the first few tracks. You just listen to me sing bits

1:25:27

of it. That

1:25:32

will be my second because I didn't

1:25:34

really like Tom Cruise movies. Yeah, until we

1:25:36

get that perfect adaptation of it. This

1:25:38

is it. That will remain my

1:25:40

favorite. There's so many ways to enjoy

1:25:43

the story. Well, this video game

1:25:45

that does or doesn't exist. I'm

1:25:48

genuinely sad in the future. It's gonna be

1:25:50

good. I don't know. I need to gun.

1:25:52

I'm You're now completely freaked me out because

1:25:54

I've no steam. It just says it's not

1:25:56

even out. Yeah. I don't know

1:25:58

what I've been looking at. I have to say,

1:26:00

but as you came off it, the awesome world's

1:26:02

thing, it's easy to find even. I think it's

1:26:04

on Spotify and YouTube. Yeah, it's worth a listen

1:26:06

even now. It's it's it's only like an hour

1:26:08

long, I think. It's so well done. Yeah. But

1:26:10

it's really well done. It's worth a listen. It's

1:26:13

worth a listen. Can quite easily be missed because

1:26:15

food is not a book of fiction. Yeah. Mine's

1:26:17

the book first and foremost. has to

1:26:19

be because the original story, but very, very,

1:26:21

very closely followed by the musical version.

1:26:24

Well, I've waxed lyrical about it enough, but

1:26:26

it's, yeah, it's one of my sort

1:26:28

of favourite albums ever, just because of how

1:26:30

unique it is, different sounds, the brilliant

1:26:32

casting. It's so evocative, you

1:26:34

know. It's chilling,

1:26:37

but addictive, but all

1:26:39

of that. Yeah, anyway, I better leave that

1:26:41

there, because I'm just going to go on about

1:26:43

it forever, but yeah. That's

1:26:45

a wrap, folks. Remember, if there are

1:26:47

any adaptations or spin -offs that you feel

1:26:49

need some airtime, do tag us on the

1:26:52

socials, because obviously we can't mention everything. But

1:26:54

if there's something you want to chat about, do let us know. Do give us

1:26:56

a nudge. But for now,

1:26:58

at least, it's bye until the next

1:27:00

time. And remember, stay safe from those

1:27:03

invading Martians. Thanks

1:27:05

for listening to today's podcast. We really

1:27:07

hope you enjoyed it. For

1:27:09

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1:27:11

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arcade attack until next time take care

1:27:42

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