Might've been a nice in-joke...

...to have a cameo in this movie by a certain famous actor. A certain famous actor who was still alive when this movie was made. A certain famous (if massively overweight by now) actor who, in his youth, had a rather infamous acquaintance with a famous work of H.G. Wells.

Let's just say that this actor was in San Francisco for reasons of location shooting...either for a movie or for a wine commercial. On the street, he brushes against H. G. and looks back in shock, staring after this man who looks very much like...no, it CAN'T be... "Must be seeing things in my old age," he mutters, and continues on his way.

(It wouldn't be the first time that Nicholas Meyer made reference to Orson Welles and the infamous War of the Worlds broadcast. He wrote the script for an above-average TV movie, "The Night That Panicked America.")