Compare and Contrast Review on The War of the Worlds

In 1938, Orson Welles made a broadcast that was an adaptation to the novel ‘The war of the Worlds’. In Orson’s broadcast the aliens have come from Mars in a huge cylinder. The broadcast starts off with a quote that was taken directly from the book. Then there were a few news flashes in between music. The broadcast goes to an interview with an astronomer who describes that there is several explosions of gas on Mars and there is gas moving toward the earth. The gas is described as a jet of blue flames. Then there is a report of an earthquake and then there is an interview with a guy who lives near Grover’s Mill, New Jersey. The guy talks about how there was a flash in the sky and about when it hit the earth. The interviewer describes a huge cylinder and the metal is a yellowish white. There is a scraping noise that comes from inside the cylinder and then a shadow emerges from inside the cylinder. The shadow is identified as an alien. The alien has tentacles, it was large as a bear, eyes were black and gleamed like a serpent, and the mouth is a ‘V’ shape. The aliens have tripods, heat rays, and black smoke that is poisonous. The broadcast describes the attack and how cities are starting to evacuate. Towards the end of the broadcast Orson Welles describes how he is the last person on earth. He talks about a man who wants to kill the aliens. The broadcast ends with Orson saying that bacteria killed the aliens.

The invasion sounded real and the characters were well played and believable. The broadcast sounded so real that people in 1938 were panicking for hours until they realized the whole broadcast was fake.

The movie that was made in 2005 is similar yet different from the broadcast. The only thing similar was the plot. The movie showed a few scenes that were described in the broadcast. Like when people were trying to get away in boats and tripods started to emerge from under the water.

Though they have a similar plot, the aliens from the movie are different and they don’t come from Mars.

The movie is done in first person point of view. It follows the story of Ray trying to get his two kids, Robbie and Rachel, to Boston.

The invasion is first talked about in three news reports. One talked about lighting, the second about earthquakes, and the third about something to do with electromagnetic and storms. Later in the movie, wind starts to blow towards a storm and lighting strikes twenty-six times in the same place. Unlike the broadcast the aliens don’t land in Grover’s Mill, they land in New York in capsules. They ride the lighting into tripods that were buried underground. After the storm passes, anything that required power or batteries didn’t work (such as cars, watches, phones, lights). Like the broadcast, people crowd around the place where the aliens have landed. A tripod comes out of the hole and causes a small earthquake. The tripods had three legs, mechanical, had lights, three eyes, three fingers, jelly fish-like, tentacles like a squid or octopus. The tripod begins to move through the city and starts blowing up humans and shooting fire.

Some more differences between the broadcast and movie are: the tripods have shields, tripods spread blood and red weeds, and tripods have cages were they put humans and then one by one the tripods kill the humans somehow.

Although the broadcast was well done the movie was done better. It shows how technology failed humans and nature ended up saving the world. The movie relates to current events and how there is so much fear in the world. The movie is much more scarier than the broadcast. The visual and sound effects make the movie sounds real and sends shivers down your spine.