I Happen to be a fan of the Novel and the 53 version (not the 2005,very dissapointed could have been better) But by listening to the 1939 Radio show it dawned on me about the use of Dr Pearson and his work at The Observetory and the use of telescopes in the broadcast,It was also mentioned in the novel.I just didn't realize it wasn't mentioned at least once in the George Pal Version. be well jeff z
shareYou cannot really turn an entire novel into a movie...or a radio program for that matter, so the writers pick what they think will tell the story they want. In real life, even now, you wouldn't see a launch of ships from Mars. Spotting them on the way would be impossible, given their size, until they hit the atmosphere. I think the screenwriters did a good job.
shareTrue, I agree. They didn't know anything was up there to see until after the first one hit the ground just after the beginning of the film. Before they'd barely subjectured what they thought might've accounted for it, a second one falls nearby, and they receive a radio-report that another one landed, I think, in some town in Italy on nearly the other side of the planet.
By then I think they were all too overwhelmed on the ground to get the opportunity to have a look into Space beyond the Earth's Surface, the Surface being where the Martians were devastating them already.
i agree with you, I just thought since the radio show had that view, i thought Pal would have done a little of the same thing, even the novel OGLIVY saw the martians coming through the telescope. it was just a thought that's all. for all the money they had back then I thought to this day it's still better than INDEPENDENCE DAY .
shareIn the original 1897 novel Wells has the Martian craft launched from a giant gun, with the flash of light as they were launched visible from the Earth. Maybe the idea of such a gun was borrowed from Jules Verne's 1865 novel 'From the Earth to the Moon'.
This may have been left out of the film in 1953 because it was regarded as highly implausible. Or maybe they just figured that it would make a better start to the film if they began with people seeing the fireball in the sky when the Martians arrived.
I can't be bothered with a signature