La guerra de los mundos. La verdadera historia

Ever since I read the book I wanted to see HG Wells version and now I have , this docudrama is about 95% of the book so it's the closest we will get , it's not perfect as there's some ropy acting but it stays faithful to the book so I can forgive that

If you loved the book I recommend this version as a must see , you can watch it on prime video and also buy it if you wish it's not expensive

...that at the 4th attempt, this film does nothing to raise Mr Hines from the level of a modern day Ed Wood. This is not a character assassination (although the actors do a good job themselves) of Mr Hines, this is my opinion after having purchased and watched all four versions of this film: the original three hour debacle, the director's cut, the 'classic' version and this, the 'True Story'.

Plus marks do need to be given for the idea of making an eye witness documentary, for it was a good idea. Unfortunately, as with the previous efforts, the execution of said idea is very poor indeed.

Despite claims previously made to the contrary, there is a large amount of footage form the previous films used. Not a massive problem but when (as previously stated) this was supposed to be a new, fresh, properly done version coupled with the fact that a lot of the old scenes seem to have been given the sort of filter effects that one could perform with basic video editing software, one such as I who has loyally bought all versions is left feeling rather robbed.

Even the documentary/interview sections seem to have been processed with some dreadful and unnecessary effects in post.

There is new CGI, a lot of which barely improves on the previous attempts, but the reason I have raised this from a 2 out of 10 to a 3 is that some time and effort has clearly been made on a new 'tripod' design. It does look very good, in a 'steam punk' kind of way.

Perhaps if I was not a previously loyal (if demonstrably misguided) customer I would have marked this higher. Perhaps if I was a newbie and bought this film with no real expectations of greatness that had been promised I wouldn't feel so disappointed. Alas, I do, and I will not be spending any of my hard earned money on any future endeavours by Tim Hines.

Still, it was nice to see that he included a bit of footage from his long forgotten film-that-was-never-made 'Chrome' as a video ident at the beginning.

Actually, the music was pretty good, but alas whoever was in charge of final production appears to have the aural and mixing dexterity of a deaf baboon.

So, what next for the half Ed Wood, half Walter Mitty? Frankly, I am not in the least bit interested anymore.

Actually, I am raising this to a 4 out of 10, because after all it is better than the woeful Tom Cruise version and especially the dreadful version by Asylum.

Before starting this review, I have one thing to say... STOP BASHING Steven Spielberg's 2005 adaptation!!! It is not a bad movie! It's good! Sure, the way the aliens come to Earth is odd and the two kids are annoying, but the acting is good, especially Tom Cruise and Tim Robbins' performances, and it does more justice to the book than the old one does! It has actually as many flaws as the 1953 has, flaws I'm shocked some people never notice, like the strings that hold the war machines, the characters being undeveloped (in the 2005 film Ray goes through a character development unlike them) and the "explaination" of why the martians wanted to invade Earth is flawed compared to the one in the book which made a lot more sense! Bottomline, quit hating the 2005 movie, it's not a bad film or a bad adaptation! Just STOP.

...And now that we got that elephant out of the room, let's talk about this film. Now THIS is how Timothy Hines should have done his adaptation from the beginning! Something that does justice to the book and it's original on it's own.

The way they played like if the War of the Worlds really happened with fictional documents and pictures while being obvious at times at how they made the effect, has a such old-school charm. That's what this movie is: charming. Well, probably to all the fans of the book like myself, but even so I think everyone can enjoy this little gem of a fictional documentary. I also believe it's a VERY good introduction to someone who knows nothing about the source material. The Tripods look really good and I loved how the martians were haunting creatures that are shown rarely, it really sets a good tone. Everything is so fresh, the idea is genuine and never done before... I probably like it more than others because this is the adaptation I would have done if I was a filmmaker. Just with a bigger budget. And this is where we come to the negatives...

For the negatives... This movie carries some of the campy nature and stiff performances that Hines has shown in his previous adaptation. The dramatic scenes, filmed in sepia tones to blend in with the historical footage, are clumsily staged and acted, you know, just like in that film. But again, what saves the movie it's its conception and charm.

And so I must give this movie a 7/10 It's not perfect, it's not the ultimate adaptation of WOTW, but it's a damn close one in my opinion. Go see it.

Really cute idea. Found footage, fill the obvious gaps with a narration from a survivor, and also use basically the text of the original source novel.

And that's it. Nothing else worked. The overall style is just a total mess. It doesn't emulate any documentary done by anyone, anywhere, with the weird titles flying across the screen, etc. All graphics look like they were done on an Amiga. Yes, in the 90s. had to look several times to confirm this is from 2012.

The fake found footage is hilariously bad. Even the stills are just atrocious, junior high project level bad. Newspapers with Comic Sans hastily over-printed for example. The film is... I can't tell. The conceit admits they have some re-enactments, but it's not clear which badly done bits are supposed to be re-enacted, which are supposed to be stock, and which are supposed to be the original footage.

And all the film is... weird. Like post-processed to reduce quality I /guess/ but it looks just strange instead.

Good idea, someone should do it. Just none of the people involved with this. Ever.

I am surprised most people consider this to be fiction. My great-grandfather tells me of the huge machines marching across the landscape, their heat rays blasting great swaths across the...

Okay, maybe not. I enjoyed this film quite a bit, for several reasons. One: it didn't take itself too seriously. This is comprised of a great deal of "found footage" scenes... none of which is so blatant as a young Shirley Temple stepping out on a balcony to view the destruction. Similar "popular actor" scenes can be found if one is watching closely. I found that enjoyable, a sort of built-in easter egg they added for the fun of it.

Two: the dialog/script was excellent. People today are largely unaware that the language we speak in the U.S. today is vastly different from that of the 1800s and early 1900s. The film stuck true to the language of the day, giving it a greater feel of authenticity.

I also enjoyed the "Steampunk" element to it, visible nowhere so much as in the design of the Martian Tripods.

There were three major flaws in the film, which is why I give it 8 rather than 10 stars.

1) The distance / time correlation was faulty in several areas of the film. People walking on foot could not possibly have traveled as far as indicated in the film within the short time given. Similarly, at the beginning of the film, they would have had to have newspaper printing presses faster than the Internet to publish the number of editions rolling out within a very short period of time. These were continuity errors that are forgivable within the otherwise interesting presentation of the film in general.

2) Blatantly missing (and contradictory to logic) is the concept that scientists of the day would have been hard at work disassembling the Martian machinery and reverse-engineering it to create their own massive war machines in preparation for a future invasion. The idea that this invasion was very closely followed by World War I really made little sense-- and the total lack of Martian weaponry during that war difficult to believe. At the very least they could have mentioned, "Great effort was made to reproduce the Martian death weapons, but they were simply too far advanced beyond the science of the day." That would have at least explained such a glaring omission.

3) The utter inability of mankind to fight back. They showed one scene where an artillery shell by sheer coincidence made direct contact and blew a Martian Tripod apart. Why then, weren't the battleships at sea able to do the same? (I believe in the original work a couple of Tripods were indeed taken out in such a manner.) Most of the cannons shown were mass-destruction "lob" types. Where though, were the far-more-accurate sight-aimed artillery weapons? Those could have done some significant damage.

So those items knocked the film down a couple of stars. Beyond that the acting (especially of the elderly "Wells") was superb, the directing well-done, and the story, though pretty much by-the-book and nothing-new-here... was enjoyable (a story well told, even if known, is still a good story). Also two thumbs up for the ancient-but-effective special effects. The results of the Martian death rays were as well-done as the Tom Cruise remake... which was one of the original-concept high points of that movie.

I enjoyed the fake-documentary style of this, the occasional obviously-fake-footage while making the whole film relatively believable, and the effort in general of simply telling a good tale. In that, I believe they succeeded.