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Great Books is an hour-long documentary and biography program that aired on The Learning Channel. The series was a project co-created by Walter Cronkite and television producer Jonathan Ward under a deal they had with their company Cronkite Ward, The Discovery Channel, and The Learning Channel. Premiering on September 8, 1993, to coincide with International Literacy Day, the series took in-depth looks at some of literature's greatest fiction and nonfiction books, along with the authors who created them. Most of the narration was provided by Donald Sutherland.
Episodes feature insights from historians, scholars, novelists, artists, writers, and filmmakers who were directly influenced by the books showcased and discussed.
A look at H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds. Also: a discussion of the author's life by two of his biographers, David Smith and Michael Coren.
Episodes feature insights from historians, scholars, novelists, artists, writers, and filmmakers who were directly influenced by the books showcased and discussed.
A look at H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds. Also: a discussion of the author's life by two of his biographers, David Smith and Michael Coren.
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00:08No one would have believed in the last years of the 19th century that this world was being watched, keenly
00:15and closely, by intelligences greater than man's, and yet as mortal as his own.
00:21That as men busied themselves about their various concerns, they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a
00:30man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.
00:36With infinite complacency, men went to and fro over this globe, about their little affairs, serene in the assurance of
00:46their empire over matter, yet across the gulf of space.
00:51Minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool
00:58and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely knew their plans against us.
01:49The War of the Worlds
01:51may be the most widely read science fiction story ever written. It was first published in 1897
01:58as a serial in Pearson's magazine and in book form in 1898. It has not been out of print since
02:06then,
02:06with new editions appearing regularly on bookshelves around the world,
02:11and it has inspired some dramatic variations on the theme.
02:15A bulletin is handed me. Martian cylinders are falling all over the country.
02:23Forty years after the War of the Worlds was published, that radio play from the novel
02:30terrified thousands of Americans. And movies made from this and other books by Wells reached an even
02:38wider audience. He inspired a whole new category of fiction. Science fiction.
02:52Wells and later writers in the genre aroused several generations to think about the future
02:59and look towards the stars. Today's space program owes them all a debt.
03:14Welles was not the first to imagine life from other planets. But the realism with which he
03:20described his Martians made it seem that way. It had for me mechanical quality that I think later
03:28Spielberg and Lucas picked up in some of their work. The giant machines which felt to me in reading very
03:34awkward. And I found it primitive in that respect, but at the same time awesome. Maybe for the very
03:39same reason, because they were so clunky, mechanical, and yet were able to function.
03:46The novel follows the hero as he evades death at the hands of those invading creatures.
03:54The hero, who is never named, watches as they destroy his land, his countrymen, his world.
04:04These superior beings, behaving much as man has behaved, begin their remorseless massacre of civilization.
04:39For the most part, Wells based his stories on what science
04:43science knew or thought it knew at the time. His dark vision was that just as man is mortal,
04:50so too is humanity. The danger may come from space or here on earth. In either case,
04:57our safety on this globe is not assured.
05:02Wells feared a kind of golden rule operating in nature.
05:06He warned that we may suffer the same fate to which we have consigned other species—extinction.
05:17Hope, if any, lies in unity and scientific knowledge.
05:23The story begins with a sign in the heavens.
05:26Hundreds of observers saw the flame that night, and the night after about midnight,
05:31and again the night after, and so for ten nights a flame each night.
05:37Then came the night of the first falling star.
05:41It was seen early in the morning, rushing over Winchester eastward, a line of flame high in the atmosphere.
05:49Hundreds must have seen it, and taken it for an ordinary falling star.
05:57Thirty miles from London, near the town of Woking, a great cylinder crashes to the ground.
06:05A crowd gathers as a hatch opens, revealing creatures which look like huge brains with eyes and mouths and tentacles
06:15for limbs.
06:16I noted a little black knot of men, the foremost of whom was waving a white flag.
06:22This was the deputation. There had been a hasty consultation, and since the Martians were evidently,
06:28in spite of their repulsive forms, intelligent creatures, it had been resolved to show them,
06:34by approaching them with signals that we too were intelligent.
06:48Slowly, a humped shape rose out of the pit, and the ghost of a beam of light seemed to flicker
06:55out from it.
07:04The slaughter begins.
07:08As the townspeople scatter for their very lives, the Martians' fantastic weapon,
07:15a kind of heat ray, swings about, firing at everything that moves.
07:22Until nothing moves anymore.
07:31Suddenly, like a thing falling upon me from without, came fear.
07:35I ran, weeping silently, as a child might do.
07:46As night falls, the Martians assemble several monster machines.
07:52Each machine is manned by a Martian brain.
08:05They begin to burn and blast their way through Woking and other towns in the direction of London.
08:23The army attacks them with its biggest guns.
08:27But it is no use.
08:40It seems clear now that all humanity is doomed.
08:47War of the Wells could be read, and was read as being a parable, about the possible German invasion of
08:55England.
08:55I think some other people thought of it as perhaps the British Empire was coming to an end.
09:02The frontier had closed off in North America.
09:05Where's the next frontier?
09:06It's going to be in outer space.
09:08But what if somebody is already there?
09:11There was a kind of sadness in the gay 90s.
09:16A sense of endings was in the air.
09:19End of the century.
09:21End of Victorian England.
09:23The old was dying.
09:27But the new was being born.
09:29And it was an exciting time to be alive.
09:32Especially if you were young, and brilliant, and in London.
09:37And the young HG was all of that.
09:39And he seems to have copied the contradictions of the age onto his very soul.
09:45He was a socialist, and yet he wasn't a socialist.
09:50He hated privilege, and yet he loved hobnobbing with the rich.
09:54He was from the very lowest edge of the middle class, semi-professional class, so that he was conscious of
10:03the problem of slipping down into the working class, but at the same time hopeful that he could rise in
10:08the class he was in.
10:10HG Wells was born in 1866 in Bromley, Kent.
10:15His mother was a maid, and his father a shopkeeper.
10:20No literary influence there.
10:22In fact, his career owed a lot to a childhood accident.
10:25He broke his leg.
10:27He, at eight years old, with a broken leg, sitting on the couch for about four and a half months,
10:33read every single day of his life, all that time.
10:36And it was that reading, and the breadth of the reading, and the scientific nature of some of it, that
10:41I think drove him in the way he was going.
10:45He began writing little stories when he was about eight or nine years old.
10:50And, in fact, one or two of them still exist.
10:53They were strip cartoons with a text.
10:56One called The Desert Daisy has been reproduced since his death by the University of Illinois.
11:03In school, young Herbert George was recognized as extremely bright, and he won a scholarship to the Normal School of
11:10Science in London.
11:12He taught biology.
11:14Briefly.
11:16But writing was his passion.
11:18From the time he started writing, he continued to write in one form or another throughout.
11:23Much of the stuff is not published or publishable, but he's working on the time machine by the time he's
11:3018,
11:31and writing fairly seriously about science and education right from the beginning.
11:38Wells produced an enormous volume of work in his lifetime.
11:41One hundred and fifty-six books of fiction, philosophical essays, and political tracts, and countless articles.
11:50He wrote more words than Shakespeare and Dickens combined.
11:54The quality of this output was uneven.
11:57But even in his less successful works, Wells showed a unique power of vision.
12:04He could see the likely results of scientific findings and new technologies decades into the future.
12:11In 1902, he saw the coming of the suburbs and long-distance commuting.
12:19Ironclad road fighting machines may perhaps play a considerable part.
12:27Aeroplanes will sweep down upon the adversary's rear, and will drop explosives and incendiary matters upon them.
12:45At the turn of the century, the War of the Worlds captivated a reading public already fascinated by the promise
12:52and dangers of science,
12:54and by the implications of one scientific theory in particular, evolution.
13:01Wells shared and exploited the unease Darwin's theory had created.
13:05His Martians, in fact, were evolution's product.
13:10We men are just in the beginning of the evolution that the Martians have worked out.
13:16They have become practically mere brains, wearing bodies according to their needs,
13:21just as men wear suits of clothes and take a bicycle in a hurry or an umbrella in the wet.
13:30Wells doesn't take sides between the Londoners and the Martians,
13:36because part of his marvellous argument is that in time we might evolve to be like the Martians.
13:46The Martians, he says, owing to the conditions that they endure on Mars,
13:52have evolved from creatures much like us.
13:56And after the description of how horrible the Martians are, this is what you get to learn, that it could
14:01be us.
14:02Or it could be the end of us.
14:06Wells is very heavily influenced by Darwin.
14:09Wells believed that human beings, homo sapiens, in the 1890s, were at the apex of their rule of the world,
14:16and very probably would be thrown down by some other species to come.
14:22Evolution was a theory widely misused then and later.
14:27It seemed to justify everything from colonialism to ideas of supermen and master races.
14:35Natural selection became survival of the fittest,
14:38which in turn became survival of the strongest, most cruel, and ruthless.
14:45There was a dark side to evolutionary theory, which also cast its shadow on H.G. Wells.
14:56Wells wrote a lot that was wrong and that was bad.
14:59He did a lot that was wrong and that was bad.
15:01He said a lot that was wrong and was bad, and it hasn't been recorded in previous biographies.
15:06Michael Corrin's book is a critical biography in the harshest sense of that word.
15:12One might even call it attack biography.
15:15Corrin is not fond of his subject.
15:17I was trying to put the record straight.
15:20As a writer, he was a social engineer,
15:22so he put forward views and ideas that didn't make the Holocaust possible,
15:27didn't make the Khmer Rouge or Mao or Stalin possible,
15:29but it gave a sort of intellectual veneer to those ideas.
15:34In 1902, Wells published a book of predictions entitled Anticipations.
15:41That book showed his gift as a prophet.
15:44It also embodied those contradictions in his character
15:47that prompt debate to this day.
15:51Writing in the final chapter of Anticipations,
15:54he predicts a new elite of engineers and scientists
15:58who will administer a new utopia,
16:01encourage the procreation of what is fine and efficient and beautiful in humanity,
16:07and weed out undesirable types.
16:10And the method that nature has followed hitherto in the shaping of the world,
16:15whereby weakness was prevented from propagating weakness,
16:18the method that must in some cases still be called in to the help of man,
16:22is death,
16:23the merciful obliteration of weak and silly and pointless things.
16:34That's what Wells' critics mean when they call him a social engineer.
16:37The cool, even cold detachment with which he mused about obliterating weak and silly and pointless things
16:46can be read dismayingly as a precursor to the insane experiments in social engineering
16:54that would scar the 20th century.
16:59Wells has also been accused of racism and anti-Semitism,
17:04partly on the basis of the new society he described in Anticipations.
17:09And as Wells said, for example,
17:11as for the dark and swarthy and yellow people,
17:13I take it they will have to go,
17:15or the Jews are termites in the civilized world,
17:18I take it they will have to go.
17:19That's not entirely fair.
17:21This is what Wells actually wrote.
17:24And how will the new republic treat the inferior races?
17:28How will it deal with the black, the yellow man?
17:31How will it tackle that alleged termite in the civilized woodwork, the Jew?
17:36Certainly not as races at all.
17:39Whatever men come into its efficient citizenship, it will let come.
17:43While the logic of those sentences are anti-racist,
17:46there is, however, a racist tone to his language.
17:49And for the rest, those swarms of black and brown and dirty white and yellow people
17:54who do not come into the new needs of efficiency,
17:58I take it they will have to go.
17:59And yet in the same book,
18:02Wells also argued forcefully against the racist idea.
18:06And he denounced the twisting of Darwinian theory.
18:10The worldwide repudiation of slavery in the 19th century
18:14was done against a vast sullen force of ignorant pride,
18:17which, reinvigorated by the new delusions,
18:21swings back again to power.
18:29As a rising, young, literary star,
18:32Wells was invited to join the Fabian Society,
18:35a socialist group which included playwright George Bernard Shaw
18:38and other intellectuals of the day.
18:42But Wells was a socialist full of contradictions.
18:45He didn't have much use for the masses.
18:47He hated trade unions.
18:48He was a child of the lower middle classes who was terrified of the lower classes.
18:53He strongly supported the Bolshevik revolution.
18:56But unlike so many others on the left,
18:59he was revolted by Stalin's repressions.
19:01Yes, he went and saw Stalin.
19:03He was much more critical of the Stalin regime
19:05than almost any of the other leading critics from the left in this country,
19:10certainly much more than Bernard Shaw and Sidney Webb,
19:12who went there and wrote highly favorable views about Stalin.
19:18Michael Foote, the former leader of Britain's Labour Party,
19:22knew Wells personally and is pained by suggestions
19:24that he supported social engineering, Soviet style.
19:28Indeed, when he went to see Lenin, Lenin denounced him ferociously
19:32as a ridiculous little bourgeois or something of that sort.
19:36But of course, what Wells wrote about Russia in the shadows at that time,
19:41considering at the moment when it was written,
19:44it was a, I don't say a fully prophetic book,
19:46and some things that he said were right and some things that were wrong,
19:49but what he said were the genuine judgments of a liberal mind.
19:54A satirical aside in the philosophical fantasy,
19:58a modern utopia,
20:00foresaw in 1905 the genocide practiced by the Nazis.
20:05Furthermore, this man accused of racism and social engineering
20:09also was a lifelong libertarian
20:12and the principal author of an idea called the Universal Rights of Man
20:16that later was enshrined as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
20:21It came from the War Ames campaign of 1939.
20:25It had been translated into about 40 or 50 languages
20:28and circulated around the world for commentary.
20:32Wells thought this should be part of a United Nations organization,
20:35and Eleanor Roosevelt proposed it in a modified form,
20:38somewhat modified, not much,
20:40and it was adopted and is part of the charter,
20:44the Universal Declaration,
20:45which was Wells' originally,
20:48is part of the UN charter.
20:59Welles' many books and articles,
21:02his ideas about the future,
21:04and the accuracy of many of his predictions
21:06brought him prominence beyond the fame of popular authors.
21:11He became a kind of international guru,
21:15consulted by great personages.
21:17He met with the likes of Lloyd George,
21:21Henry Ford,
21:22Franklin Roosevelt,
21:23and Shirley Temple.
21:25This is why he's difficult to classify,
21:27because he became,
21:30depending how you look at it,
21:32much more or much less than a writer.
21:35He became a world figure.
21:37Wells believed passionately in the idea of one world
21:41world and one world government.
21:44For years, he preached his vision of a global society at peace,
21:48where distinctions of race and class
21:50will give way to those of merit.
21:53During World War II,
21:55he proposed that the emerging victors,
21:57America,
21:58the Soviet Union,
22:00and Great Britain,
22:02work together to enforce global peace.
22:04If they took possession of the air,
22:07as they are quite capable of doing,
22:12nothing could withstand them.
22:13They could take the air out of politics,
22:17out of international affairs,
22:19and lay the foundations
22:21for a world peace that would endure forever.
22:27That wasn't quite what happened, of course.
22:30Wells' fellow human beings
22:32seemed as ill-suited to peaceful cooperation
22:36as his fictional Martians,
22:38and they had come to conquer.
22:41During the Martian invasion,
22:43the hero figures the safest place to be
22:45is in the alien's ruined wake.
22:49He follows their machines toward London,
22:51passing through miles of devastation on the way.
22:56He meets another survivor,
22:58the curate of a local church,
23:00and they continue together.
23:03The two men take shelter for the night
23:05in a deserted house.
23:07Suddenly the house caves in,
23:09hit by the crash landing of a Martian spaceship.
23:12The two men survive,
23:15but are trapped,
23:16and through an opening in a crushed wall,
23:19they witness the Martians' dietary habits.
23:27They did not eat,
23:29much less digest.
23:31They took the fresh, living blood
23:33of other creatures
23:34and injected it into their own veins.
23:37I cannot bring myself to describe
23:39what I could not endure
23:41even to continue watching.
23:45The bare idea of this
23:47is no doubt horribly repulsive to us,
23:49but at the same time,
23:51I think that we should remember
23:52how repulsive our carnivorous habits
23:55would seem to an intelligent rabbit.
24:06The men notice a strange red weed
24:08growing beyond the wall,
24:11apparently something the Martians brought with them.
24:15Trapped for two weeks in that ruined house,
24:18they begin to learn more
24:20about this new species
24:22come to dominate the future.
24:28The Martians do not sleep,
24:31and so they are able to work
24:33round the clock.
24:35And they do not know what illness is,
24:39there having been no microorganisms on Mars.
24:43In the next place,
24:45wonderful as it seems
24:47in a sexual world,
24:48the Martians were absolutely without sex,
24:51and therefore without any of
24:53the tumultuous emotions
24:54that arise from that difference among men.
24:58The author of those words
25:00was quite familiar with
25:02tumultuous emotions.
25:04If many Victorians were
25:06inhibited about sex,
25:08H.G. Wells was not one of them.
25:11He challenged that starched convention
25:13with, so to speak,
25:15a passion.
25:17Well, certainly did know a lot of women.
25:19It was one of the things
25:21that writing and success brought him.
25:24And what's more,
25:26women liked him very much,
25:27and after they had been his lovers,
25:29they often remained his friends.
25:32They said he smelled of honey.
25:37H.G. Wells explored his sexual urges
25:40with a legendary number of women,
25:43wives, lovers, friends, and flings.
25:47He later explained his insatiable appetite
25:49as a search for his lover's shadow.
25:53It began with his cousin Isabel.
25:55He married her,
25:57but Isabel quickly proved
25:58sexually and intellectually
26:01disappointing.
26:03A second person came
26:05into Wells' life,
26:06and this is the woman
26:07we know as Jane,
26:08or Amy Catherine Robbins,
26:09as her real name was.
26:11She was a student
26:13in Wells' laboratory.
26:15So Wells divorced Isabel,
26:17married Amy,
26:18whom he inexplicably insisted
26:19on calling Jane,
26:20and went to work.
26:22From 1895 to 1898,
26:25he wrote frantically,
26:27launching his writing career
26:28with three of his most famous novels,
26:31The Time Machine,
26:34The War of the Worlds,
26:37and The Island of Dr. Moreau.
26:43Married bliss, however,
26:46soon more thin,
26:47and Wells began chasing shadows again.
26:55By all accounts,
26:56Jane knew of his affairs
26:57and accepted them.
27:00There was one occasion
27:01when two mistresses,
27:03two rival mistresses,
27:04went to see
27:06a Shewell's wife
27:07and said,
27:07I want to be your husband's lover.
27:09No, I want to be your husband's lover.
27:10And she had to judge,
27:12Solomon-like, if you like,
27:13who would be
27:14her husband's lover.
27:16It was a turn-of-the-century soap opera.
27:19Was this man
27:20who loved so many women
27:22a feminist or a rogue,
27:25a free spirit
27:26or a rink?
27:31A number of his lovers
27:33were impressive,
27:34dynamic women.
27:35They admired him.
27:37They bore him children.
27:39They kept in touch with him
27:40long after their affairs ended.
27:43The most important of these
27:45was the novelist Rebecca West.
27:47The two loved and quarreled
27:48for ten years.
27:51Wells once shouted out,
27:52you're too ugly
27:53to meet my friends.
27:54He treated her
27:54in the most appalling way.
27:56When they had a child,
27:57he refused to see the child
27:58and just packed Rebecca
27:59and the little boy
28:00off to the countryside.
28:03But she also,
28:05the day after he died,
28:06wrote to his daughter-in-law
28:08and said,
28:09you and I both know
28:10that I loved him
28:11every day of my life.
28:13But sexual gratification
28:14and emotional commitment
28:16appeared to be two more
28:19worlds at war
28:20within this man.
28:27In the war of the worlds,
28:30more than people
28:31and buildings are destroyed.
28:34Institutions, too,
28:35are leveled.
28:36Organized religion
28:37takes a direct hit
28:38through the person
28:39of the curate.
28:41Under severe stress,
28:43the curate loses his nerve
28:45and finally his mind.
28:46For God's sake, shut up!
28:47He begins to rant loudly,
28:50forcing on the hero
28:51a grim necessity.
28:59The curate is the weakest
29:01of the weak.
29:02He gives in.
29:03The narrator has to kill him,
29:05in fact,
29:06because he's going to reveal
29:07all to the fighting machines.
29:09And he's...
29:10The curate is a person
29:12who, first of all,
29:13tries to rely on God
29:14and then finds that
29:15that fails him.
29:16And so he doesn't have
29:17anything to rely on
29:18except run around.
29:19He's the epitome
29:20of the rabbit,
29:21in fact,
29:22in the metaphor.
29:26On the 15th day
29:27of his imprisonment,
29:29the narrator wakes up
29:31and discovers,
29:31to his astonishment,
29:33that the Martians are gone.
29:35He steps out
29:36of the shattered house
29:37and gazes across
29:38a landscape,
29:39empty except for
29:40the Martians' red weed,
29:41which seems to be everywhere.
29:43I felt the first inkling
29:45of a thing that presently
29:47grew quite clear
29:48in my mind,
29:49that oppressed me
29:50for many days.
29:52A sense of dethronement,
29:54a persuasion
29:55that I was no longer
29:56a master,
29:57but an animal
29:58among animals,
29:59under the Martian heel.
30:02With us,
30:03it would be as with them,
30:05to lurk and watch,
30:06to run and hide.
30:08The fear and empire
30:10of man
30:11had passed away.
30:13Alone now,
30:15the narrator resumes
30:16his grim journey
30:17toward London.
30:19As he passes
30:20the fearful leavings
30:21of the Martians,
30:24a thought of guilty
30:25recognition seizes him.
30:27We must remember
30:28what ruthless
30:28and utter destruction
30:30our own species
30:31has wrought,
30:32not only upon animals,
30:33but upon its
30:34inferior races.
30:39The Tasmanians,
30:40in spite of their
30:41human likeness,
30:42were entirely swept
30:43out of existence
30:44in a war of extermination
30:46waged by European immigrants.
30:49Are we such
30:50apostles of mercy
30:52as to complain
30:53if the Martians
30:54war in the same spirit?
30:56So the Martian invasion
30:58was a cautionary tale
30:59in the spirit of
31:00what goes around
31:02comes around.
31:04The idea of intelligent
31:05beings on Mars
31:06was taken seriously
31:07by many people
31:08back then,
31:09including H.G. Wells.
31:10He'd written about Mars
31:12a couple of times
31:12earlier
31:13and summarizing
31:15the knowledge.
31:15But in addition,
31:17this was a time period
31:18when a great many
31:19people in England
31:20are interested
31:21in visitors
31:22from outer space,
31:23the possibility
31:24of visitors
31:25from outer space.
31:25In 1877,
31:28the Italian astronomer
31:29Giovanni Schiaparelli
31:30saw what he took
31:32to be waterways
31:33on Mars.
31:34He called them canali,
31:36which is Italian
31:36for channels.
31:38The word was mistranslated,
31:40however,
31:40to read canals.
31:42When people began
31:44to see these
31:44illusionary lines,
31:46then this was
31:48in a period of time
31:48when all over the world
31:50people were building
31:51canals
31:52and great works
31:52of irrigation.
31:53and so it was
31:55an easy next step
31:57to say,
31:58well,
31:58these great canals
31:59were to save
32:00that Martian world.
32:01So again,
32:02imagination took over
32:04and built much
32:05of that structure.
32:06But nevertheless,
32:07that was the popular
32:08scientific understanding
32:10at the time
32:10H.G. Wells wrote.
32:12And long after
32:13that time,
32:14Wells' story
32:16of invading Martians
32:17still had the power
32:18to shock.
32:20On the night
32:21of October 30,
32:221930,
32:24several million
32:25American radio listeners
32:26were tuned to CBS
32:27when the Halloween broadcast
32:29of the Mercury Theater
32:30of the Air came on.
32:32Many who tuned in
32:33a little late
32:34missed the introduction
32:36and may have caught
32:39this.
32:46Ladies and gentlemen,
32:47here is the latest bulletin
32:48from the Intercontinental Radio News.
32:50Professor Morris
32:51of Macmillan University
32:52reports observing a total
32:53of three explosions
32:54on the planet Mars
32:55between the hours
32:55of 7.45 p.m.
32:57and 9.20 p.m.
32:58The story unfolded
33:00in the form of a series
33:01of special radio bulletins.
33:03Thousands believed
33:04they were hearing live news.
33:06Radio actors provided them
33:08with details of ultimate
33:09and the ultimate disaster.
33:10It is reported
33:11that at 8.50 p.m.
33:12a huge flaming object
33:14fell on a farm
33:15in the neighborhood
33:16of Grover's Mill,
33:16New Jersey,
33:1722 miles from Trenton.
33:18Woking had been replaced
33:19by Grover's Mill,
33:20London by New York,
33:21but the basic plot
33:23was the same.
33:24The monster is now
33:25in control
33:25of the middle section
33:26of New Jersey
33:26and has effectively
33:27cut the state
33:28through its center.
33:29Communication lines
33:30are down from Pennsylvania
33:31to the Atlantic Ocean.
33:32Highways are clogged
33:33with frantic human traffic.
33:34Police and army reserves
33:35are unable to control
33:36the mad flight.
33:37As the radio conjured up
33:39images of panic
33:40in the minds of listeners,
33:42some listeners
33:42actually did panic
33:44and fled.
33:46The enemy is now
33:46in sight above the Palisades.
33:48Five great machines.
33:50First one is
33:52crossing the river.
33:53I can see it from here
33:54wading,
33:56wading the Hudson
33:56like a man
33:57wading through a brook.
34:012X2L
34:02calling CQ
34:04and anyone on here
34:06isn't there anyone
34:08on the air
34:10isn't there anyone?
34:13Howard Koch remembers
34:15that night
34:15as well he should.
34:18He wrote the script,
34:19did it in a six-day
34:20and night marathon,
34:22then got a full night's sleep.
34:24The next morning,
34:25as he walked down
34:2772nd Street
34:28to get a haircut,
34:29he learned what he
34:30and his producer
34:31had done.
34:32You see,
34:33I heard war,
34:35panic,
34:35so on.
34:37And I went into
34:38the barbershop
34:39and I said,
34:40are we at war
34:41or something?
34:43And he laughed
34:44and he held up
34:45a newspaper
34:46with a headline,
34:49Martian broadcast
34:51panics nation.
34:52Well,
34:53that was one of the
34:54strangest moments
34:55in my life.
34:56But the real heat
34:57was on the very young
34:58and beleaguered producer,
35:00whose name happened
35:01to be Wells also.
35:03Orson Welles.
35:04And it seemed,
35:05came rather as a great
35:06surprise to us
35:07that a story
35:09that fine H.G.
35:12Wells' classic fantasy,
35:15the original for so many
35:16succeeding comic strips
35:18and adventure stories
35:19and novels
35:20about a mythical invasion
35:22by monsters
35:23from the planet Mars
35:24should have had
35:25so profound
35:27an effect
35:28upon radio listeners.
35:30Howard Koch
35:31went on to write
35:32screenplays for such
35:33movie greats
35:34as Casablanca.
35:38But he has never forgotten
35:39Halloween 1938.
35:46Perhaps War of the Worlds
35:47will always strike a chord.
35:49In 1943,
35:50a young British soldier
35:52on his way to the front
35:53found Wells' creation
35:54still powerfully appropriate.
35:56I was on the mainline station
35:59and there,
36:00settling in hardcover,
36:03was H.G. Wells'
36:04all of the worlds
36:05with the deadly machines
36:09of the Martians
36:09striding across the cover,
36:11searchlights waving,
36:13even as that night
36:14they waved over London.
36:16Ah, God!
36:17This was a topical novel,
36:19you know?
36:20It was the most topical novel
36:21you could read at that time.
36:23And then it had been written,
36:24what?
36:24It was 50 years old then.
36:27Menacing all mankind
36:28and every creature on earth
36:30comes the war of the world.
36:35In 1953,
36:37Hollywood tried its hand
36:39at adapting War of the Worlds.
36:41The movie unveiled
36:43startling new special effects.
36:47The adaptation might have caused
36:49poor H.G. to groan in his grave.
36:51The story was given
36:52a kind of religious overlay
36:54and updated once again.
36:57The Martians had learned to fly.
36:59The narrator got a name
37:01and a love interest.
37:02Oh, Uncle Matthew,
37:03this is Dr. Clayton Forrester.
37:05My uncle,
37:05Dr. Matthew Collins,
37:07pastor of the community church.
37:08Well,
37:09The curate was a minister
37:10who,
37:11trying to communicate,
37:12became a martyr.
37:17which conveniently
37:18left his niece
37:19to get trapped
37:20with the narrator
37:20in the house
37:21caved in
37:22by the new arrival.
37:28The Martians did come
37:29to the same end
37:30as in the book.
37:31Almost.
37:34We were all praying
37:35for a miracle.
37:38It's just that this time,
37:41it was an act of God.
37:51Mars.
37:53The red planet.
37:55It still intrigues us.
37:58Of course,
37:59we can relax
37:59about a Martian invasion.
38:01We've been taking
38:02close-up pictures of Mars
38:04since 1965,
38:06and we haven't spotted
38:08a launching pad yet.
38:11In the last three decades,
38:14Mars has been extensively
38:15studied by NASA spacecraft.
38:18From Mariner 9 in 1971,
38:22to the Viking spacecraft
38:23in 1975,
38:25a whole new picture
38:27of the planet
38:27began to unfold.
38:30Gigantic canyons.
38:33Monstrous volcanoes.
38:36Even small channels.
38:39It might have been
38:40caused by rain.
38:43So the possibility
38:45then existed
38:46that sometime
38:47in the ancient past
38:48on Mars,
38:49there may have been
38:50liquid water
38:51on the surface.
38:52So that then opened
38:53the possibility
38:53that there may once
38:55have been life,
38:57and if there was once life,
38:59maybe it was preserved
39:00in some places.
39:02Today, it's agreed
39:03there is no
39:04intelligent life
39:05on Mars.
39:06But if not on Mars,
39:09somewhere else.
39:12For several years,
39:13NASA operated
39:14a program called
39:15SETI,
39:16Search for
39:17Extraterrestrial Intelligence,
39:19with massive radio telescopes
39:21scanning deep space frequencies
39:23in hopes of finding
39:24manufactured signals.
39:28Now, private money
39:29continues the effort.
39:32But what would those
39:33intelligences be like
39:34if we found them?
39:36Or if they found us?
39:39Science fiction people
39:41have imagined
39:42some pretty wild alternatives.
39:59Fascination with the idea
40:00of extraterrestrial life
40:02persists.
40:03Aliens have been a popular,
40:04if not always deadly,
40:06serious theme
40:06in movies and television.
40:08And they have featured
40:09some of the most popular
40:10characters of all time.
40:15Captain,
40:17the Horde is a remarkably
40:18intelligent and sensitive creature.
40:21Like the more or less
40:22friendly Vulcan
40:23who arrived aboard
40:24Star Trek
40:24back in the 1960s.
40:26I suspect you're becoming
40:27more and more human
40:28all the time.
40:32Captain, I see no reason
40:33to stand here
40:34and be insulted.
40:35Leonard Nimoy
40:37actually began
40:37his extraterrestrial career
40:39in the 1950s.
40:41Perhaps a little longer.
40:42The atmosphere
40:43on Mars is so thin
40:44we've adapted ourselves
40:45to live on
40:45very little oxygen.
40:49My first work
40:51as an alien
40:52was I believe 1951,
40:55over 40 years ago,
40:57in what was known
40:58as a Saturday serial.
41:00It was in a piece
41:01called Zombies
41:03of the Stratosphere
41:04in which I played
41:06one of three or four Martians
41:07who arrived on Earth
41:08in a wobbly,
41:10silver, cigar-shaped
41:11spaceship
41:12that landed behind a rock
41:14because then they didn't
41:14have to show
41:15the whole ship.
41:16And we got off
41:18of this ship
41:19carrying weapons
41:21that looked to me
41:21like .38 caliber
41:24revolvers
41:25and we hijacked
41:26a pickup truck
41:27and we were going
41:28to take over
41:28planet Earth.
41:32as both actor
41:33and director
41:34Leonard Nimoy
41:35has done a lot
41:36to popularize
41:37the idea
41:37of space exploration.
41:39He also has
41:40some thoughts
41:41about the psychological
41:42roots of this
41:43alien thing.
41:44There was a movie
41:45in which I had
41:46a very small role
41:47in I think
41:48the early 50s
41:48called Them
41:50also about
41:51alien creatures.
41:53In this case
41:53there were mutations,
41:54there were ants
41:55that had mutated
41:55into these giant creatures.
41:56but I thought
41:58the title
41:58was perfectly
41:59appropriate
42:00to cover
42:01this entire
42:02canvas.
42:04Them.
42:04It's us
42:05and there's them.
42:07And them
42:08is the other.
42:09It's people
42:11of different color,
42:12people of different
42:13attitude,
42:14people of different
42:14social structure,
42:16people with
42:17different values
42:18than we have.
42:19some say
42:20we have a
42:21deep-seated need
42:22for aliens.
42:24After all,
42:26what's in us
42:27without a them?
42:32Atwell saw
42:33his Martians
42:33in stalker terms
42:34as perhaps
42:36man's fate
42:38if man
42:39is not very smart
42:40or lucky
42:42or both.
42:50as the hero
42:51continues his
42:52journey,
42:53he sees
42:54that the Martians
42:55have shifted
42:55from the use
42:56of heat rays
42:56to a form
42:57of poison gas
42:59which at least
43:00preserves
43:00the architecture.
43:03And something
43:04is happening
43:04to the red weed.
43:06It seems
43:07to be dying,
43:08probably from
43:09a mold
43:10or some
43:11other plant
43:11pest.
43:13Now,
43:14as he makes
43:14his way
43:15deeper
43:15into the
43:16city
43:16of London,
43:29it was as if
43:31that mighty
43:31desert of houses
43:32had found a voice
43:33for its fear
43:34and solitude.
43:36I turned
43:37northwards,
43:38marveling
43:39toward the
43:40iron gates
43:40of Hyde Park.
43:44I had half
43:45a mind
43:45to break
43:45into the
43:46natural history
43:46museum
43:47and make
43:47my way
43:48up to the
43:48summits
43:49of the towers
43:49in order
43:50to see
43:50across the park.
43:52But I decided
43:53to keep
43:53to the ground.
44:07he comes
44:08upon Regent's Park
44:10and there
44:11it is.
44:13I was not
44:14terrified.
44:15I came
44:16upon him
44:16as if it
44:17were a matter
44:17of course.
44:18I watched
44:19him for some
44:20time,
44:20but he did
44:21not move.
44:25The second
44:26monster lies
44:27by the
44:27zoological gardens.
44:29The hero
44:30continues walking
44:31with some
44:32purpose now,
44:34past the park.
44:41while that voice
44:42sounded,
44:43the solitude,
44:43the desolation
44:44had been
44:45endurable.
44:47By virtue
44:48of it,
44:49London had
44:49still seemed
44:50alive,
44:50and the sense
44:51of life
44:51about me
44:52had upheld
44:53me.
44:56Then suddenly
44:57a change,
44:58the passing
44:59of something,
45:00I knew not
45:01what,
45:01and then
45:02a stillness
45:03that could
45:04be felt.
45:07Nothing
45:08but this
45:09gaunt
45:09quiet.
45:14Moving on,
45:17he finally
45:17sees the
45:18curve of
45:18Primrose Hill,
45:20and on its
45:21crest,
45:22a third
45:23Martian.
45:24The Martians
45:25were dead,
45:26slain by the
45:27putrefactive
45:28and disease
45:28bacteria against
45:29which their
45:30systems were
45:31unprepared,
45:32slain as
45:33the red
45:33weed was
45:34being slain,
45:35slain after
45:36all man's
45:37devices had
45:38failed.
45:40Well, it's not
45:41the earthlings
45:42who defeat
45:43the Martians,
45:45it's the
45:45minute and
45:46almost invisible
45:47bacteria.
45:48What a coup
45:49de teatro!
45:50Who wrote
45:51such a marvellous
45:52ending to a
45:53novel as that?
45:54It's wonderful,
45:54isn't it?
45:55Millions of
45:56readers have
45:56agreed.
45:59But there
46:00is more to
46:00this book
46:01than a
46:01wonderful story.
46:03Behind it
46:04was Wills'
46:05continuing fear
46:06that humankind
46:07would annihilate
46:09itself before
46:10it learned how
46:10to preserve
46:11itself,
46:13a subject
46:14about which
46:14he had
46:15uncanny
46:16foresight.
46:17In 1934,
46:19a young
46:20physicist named
46:21Leo Zillard
46:22was contemplating
46:23the idea of
46:24atomic chain
46:25reaction.
46:26Knowing what
46:27this would
46:28mean,
46:28Zillard said
46:29years later,
46:30and I knew
46:31because I had
46:32read H.G.
46:32Wells,
46:33I did not
46:34want this
46:35patent to
46:35become public.
46:37In 1913,
46:39Wells already
46:40had imagined
46:40just such a
46:41chain reaction,
46:42an atomic
46:43bomb.
46:45And 32
46:46years later,
46:47that frightful
46:48prediction came
46:49true,
46:51obliterating the
46:52cities of
46:53Hiroshima
46:54and Nagasaki.
46:57The writer
46:58died a few
46:59months later.
47:06The character
47:07of H.G.
47:08Wells is a
47:08subject of
47:09continuing debate,
47:10but his
47:11importance as
47:12a writer and
47:13a thinker
47:13is not.
47:15The New York
47:16Times called
47:17him the
47:17greatest public
47:18teacher of
47:18his time,
47:19and the
47:20durability of
47:21his stature
47:21is conceded
47:22even by his
47:23bitterest critic
47:23today.
47:27Don't be put
47:27off because he
47:28was a bad
47:29man and he
47:30wrote things
47:30that can be
47:31very damaging.
47:31He was also
47:32one of the
47:33finest writers
47:33of the century.
47:35The War of the
47:36Worlds is a
47:37book of
47:37consummate
47:38standing.
47:41Wells was
47:42without any
47:42doubt a
47:43great writer.
47:44I think he'll
47:44be seen as
47:45one of the
47:45great,
47:45let's say one
47:46of the 20
47:47greats in the
47:47English language.
47:50The struggle
47:51between good
47:52and evil
47:53in mankind.
47:55Glorious future
47:56versus none
47:57at all.
47:58Such are the
47:59elements that
48:00do battle
48:01in a little
48:01book published
48:02almost a
48:03century ago
48:03by an
48:04enigmatic,
48:05contradictory
48:06man at war
48:07with himself,
48:08but a man
48:09whose vision
48:09embraced the
48:11future of the
48:12human race.
48:14and when the
48:15slow cooling
48:16of the sun
48:17makes this
48:17earth uninhabitable
48:19as at last
48:20it must do,
48:21it may be
48:22that the
48:22thread of life
48:23that has begun
48:24here will have
48:25streamed out
48:26and caught our
48:27sister planet
48:27in its toils.
48:31Dim and
48:32wonderful is the
48:33vision I have
48:33conjured up in
48:34my mind of
48:35life spreading
48:36slowly from this
48:37little seedbed
48:38of the solar
48:39system throughout
48:40the inanimate
48:41vastness of
48:41sidereal space
48:43but that is a
48:45remote dream.
48:46It may be,
48:47on the other
48:48hand, that the
48:49destruction of
48:50the Martians is
48:51only a reprieve.
48:53To them, and
48:55not to us perhaps,
48:56is the future
48:57ordained.
49:21the future
49:39the future
49:40isn't
49:40and
49:41have
50:09Transcription by CastingWords
50:26CastingWords
50:41CastingWords
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