The ship design is fresh even today. The sound effects of the weapons, the way they moved it was presented in a unique fashion. The latest WoW went more traditional to the book with their look and how they moved.
The two most powerful scenes that are classic today are the 'Valley of Death' scene. It is very Hitchcock. The other is the destruction of LA as they go thru and destroy everything.
They wanted to use the tripod machines described by H. G. Wells in the novel "War of the Worlds". They couldn't get tripod walkers to work so they went with the anti gravity machines instead.
shareThey didn't get the tripod ships to work very well in the Tom Cruise remake either.
There was another remake that was not bad ... Thomas Howell maybe?
Traditional "flying saucers" have become so commonplace in popular culture of the past seventy-five years that they almost seem warm and comforting. The ships in "War of the Worlds" were very effective in their frightening alien appearance and sound, both in this movie and when footage of them was used again several years later in "Robinson Crusoe on Mars". They are nightmarish in a way that never fails to give me the creeps.
shareThese were the same flying saucer effects used in "Robinson Crusoe On Mars". I bet they used them in other movies too. I liked this movie as a kid, and still think it is pretty good when compared to the Tom Cruise movie. I'll never understand why they think remakes are somehow enhanced when you based them around some kind of dysfunctional family, or why action movie stars have to be like super-man? The realism, or attempts to be more realistic in the older movies is something I like and miss. Newer movies are so full of noise and stupidity.
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