Written by Daniel – BBC’s Three Part Drama War of the Worlds has just come to an end. This is an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ 1897 novel (of the same title, first serialised in Pearson’s Magazine (UK)). I’m a big fan of the novel, and subsequent adaptations such as Orson Wells’ radio adaptation (1938), and Jeff Wayne’s Musical Adaptation (1978), and despite heavy criticism I absolutely loved this new retelling by the BBC. What is alarming to me is that many people didn’t like it; viewers have been slamming the dramatisation for it’s “inaccurate retelling” of the original material, for not living up to their nostalgia of the book (and in many cases, and bizarrely, not meeting up to their nostalgia for Wayne’s musical version), others have critiqued the show for it’s socialist left wing whining (apparently forgetting that the novel is a socialist critique of colonialism).
The drama was unashamedly socialist, and as you might expect there have been people moaning about the show being WOKE, or Left Wing. Yet, if they ever read the book they’re going to be in for a shock. H.G. Wells was a socialist, he even ran as a Labour Party candidate for London University in 1922 and 1923 general elections. There have been many readings of Well’s novel to suggest that the novel was intended as a direct criticism of the British Empire and British Imperialism, positioning British citizens as the victims to the imperial power of the martians. At the time of writing Well’s was a socialist challenging the oppressive ordering of society. Today, however, we see audiences criticising BBC’s adaptation for being ‘left wing rhetoric’, going to show that, despite all the technology humanity has created, the divides between us have only got even greater.
Setting this new adaptation not to far off from the beginning of World War One, our narrator is no longer our male hero from the books. Our narrator is his wife, or in this adaptation his lover Amy. The story is told in flashback as Amy recounts the Alien invasion and the martians domination of Earth. But what’s the point of adapting the story? Changing the characters, adding and taking away events? Well, War of the Worlds was a social commentary, a way for Wells’ to express his concerns for the time he lived in. To retell the story exactly as written would firstly be pointless, just go back and read the book if you really want to, but most significantly it wouldn’t be relevant to the political, social, and environmental climate we live in today. Wells’ world provides a landscape in which new socially relevant stories can be told, and with consideration to Wells as an active socialist commentator, I expect he would think it only right to adapt texts to the time, it’s what makes War of the Worlds useful rather than just another re-run. Let’s have a quick look at it, episode by episode: (more…)
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