War of the Worlds (Hollywood style)

Every so often, a story comes along that restores my faith in enthusiasm, creativity and artistic vision. SF Crowsnest is reporting that Pendragon Pictures has trumped Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise by wrapping production on their period-set take on the H.G. Wells novel, The War of the Worlds:

In news fit to set Steven Spielberg's hair on end, Pendragon Pictures has just announced the completion of principal photography on their take of H.G. Wells' The War Of The Worlds. Set in Wells' intended turn-of-the-century English locale, the movie is the world's first authentic adaptation of the H.G. Wells classic 1898 novel.

The live-action production, lensed in complete security under the cover title The Great Boer War, taking two and a half months to complete on location in England and the Pacific Northwest. The picture wrapped almost three years to the date when Pendragon's original updated version of War Of The Worlds was shut down due to the events of September 11th.

I remember when Pendragon first started talking about this project--they had a website with some nifty concept artwork displayed. This was, oh, back around 1998-99 or so. They had trouble getting the film off the ground because there were competing projects floating around at the same time, including an animated movie and a musical stage production(!) not to mention Steven Spielberg's undying interest. Well, the production art is nowhere to be found, but Pendragon has published movie stills on the official website. I'm jazzed about this film. Firstly, the original novel was an attack on British imperialism. As much as I love the George Pal version, moving the timeframe up to modern day simply loses the resonant undertones that made the original so effective. The germs defeating the Martians in the original was a lesson in the follies of hubris. In modern versions, it's simply deus ex machina. Besides, we've already had a contemporary War of the Worlds remake. It was called "Independence Day" and people still complain about the dumb writing that stitched together all those killer special effects sequences. But it was, in effect, an unabashed remake of the George Pal movie.

I can't wait to see the Pendragon film. Hopefully, Spielberg's people won't bury these guys in frivolous lawsuits between now and then. Yeah, color me Pollyanna.

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