I always liked how despite their most powerful weapon failing, General Mann refuses to abandon the fight. Clearly stating that they will establish a line and fight the aliens to the death with conventional weapons simply to delay them and buy time for a scientific breakthrough.
"Yet hope there is still, if we can but stand unconquered for a little while." This seemingly-simple statement by Théoden in The Lord of the Rings is at the heart of a lot of unwinnable conflicts, both real and fictional. Even if there isn't an immediate solution, the only way to find one is to keep fighting and hold back the tide. I know this is a silly movie to attribute moral philosophy, but I guess I'm feeling sentimental tonight.
@@williampan29sometimes we all have that in us before we end up dead. Like the Spartans, samurai, Texans, it's better to die trying than to wait for death or to lose.
Very interesting how the machines had to combine the strength of all their shields to survive the blast. Probably one of the most incredible details in a 50s sci fi movie.
So the alien ships had to combine all their strength to withstand the blast of an atom bomb, the strength of just one alien ship would probably not withstand it. And that was an atom bomb in which they had to combine all their strength to withstand the blast. That being said, a hydrogen bomb might've been able to stop them.
This scene out of all of them, now, it still scares the living hell out of me. The Atom Bomb going off, the shockwave of the wind and this scene with no music. The horrifying vibe.
"They haven't even been touched!" The most powerful and horrifically destructive weapon we have ever had both then and now, and it did absolutely nothing... still terrifying in its implications.
With the end of the Cold War, younger generations may not appreciate how *terrifying* this scene was in 1953, or even later, and how very topical it was.
Why would they be afraid? The nuke did nothing to them. They just put up their shields like they did against the artillery barrage earlier in the movie. One-size defensive tactic.
@@danieldickson8591 They clumped together in order to create a more powerful shield and briefly paused their advance, waiting for the bomb to dissipate before advancing again. It's possible if it was one nuke vs one ship the nuke could have destroyed it.
@@dfmrcv862 On one hand, it's hard to see from that distant shot if their shields really were "clumped together" or just looked that way. The machines also moved slowly, so we can't tell if they stopped their advance. But on the other hand, even if what you say is true, since they always moved in groups of at least three, humanity would still be screwed.
Looks better than the lazy CGI garbage they do today. The only one that looks as good is Terminator 2: Judgment Day and that was in early 1990s when CGI didn’t take over a movie and look horrible
@@acenosce3334 they also thought it would set the upper atmosphere on fire during the Manhattan project. But they said fuck it and tested the nuke anyway. People had balls back then.
The aircraft used to drop the A-bomb on the Martian war machines, the Northrop YB-49, was a jet-powered derivative of the piston-engine XB-35, and the second and third YB-35s on order (serial numbers 42-102367/42-102368) were converted to YB-49 iteration, and the first YB-49 flew on October 21, 1947, a week after Chuck Yeager used the Bell X-1 to become the first person to break the sound barrier. Despite being faster than the XB-35, the YB-49 suffered longitudinal instability during state trials, and thus was judged unsuitable as a bombing platform, not to mention that it had an operating range only comparable to the Boeing B-47 Stratojet. The second YB-49 had a crash in June 1948 during a flight over the Mojave Desert, which killed all five crewmembers aboard, including Glen Edwards (for whom Muroc Air Force Base was renamed) and one of the people aboard the B-29 Superfortress used to carry aloft the very X-1 that broke the sound barrier. The Air Force ordered 30 examples of a photographic reconnaissance version of the B-49, designated RB-49, which would have eight General Electric J47s (six buried in the wing, two below the wing), and another incomplete YB-35 on order (serial number 42-102376) was chosen to be the RB-49 prototype and became YRB-49, powered by six J35s (four in the wing, two under the wing), while seven YB-35s (serial numbers 42-102370/102375, 42-102377) were earmarked for conversion to RB-35Bs to train crews to fly the RB-49. The RB-49 production order was canceled in 1949 and the RB-35Bs were never completed, but the YRB-49 took to the skies of May 4, 1950, making its first flight two months earlier after the sole remaining YB-49 was destroyed during a taxi run. Although not destroyed in an accident during testing, the YRB-49 did not survive the breaker's torch, being scrapped in late 1953, more than two years after its last flight. By the time, Northrop relinquished his post as head of the company that he had founded in 1939, only returning to the Northrop headquarters in the late 1970s to see a model of what would become the B-2 Spirit, which has the same wingspan as the XB-35 and YB-49 but is stable in flight thanks to fly-by-wire controls.
In this movie, the military, the government, the church and science all try to stop the Martians and all fail miserably. It's an epic smackdown of the pillars of human civilisation. I remember as a kid thinking humanity was actually going to get wiped out in the end...I was chilled to the freakin' bone by this movie.
@@Fireheart1945 fun fact: American soldiers and Martian soldiers can die both there's no difference who can die or that cannot die. They can lose martian's protective blisters an another day
Best invasion movie ever. No CGI, no fighters moving at breakneck speed. Just those elegant war machines moving easily and purposely, they don't have to rush, they're unstoppable and they know it. Gliding to the next target. That kind of enemy would be terrifying.
There is an old saying, warriors run into battle, soldiers walk. That is how the Romans beat all the warriors they faced, until their armies were filled with warriors as well. This is what the Martians are doing. What beats them isn't us.
Did it never occur to them to just plant bombs underground in the path of the Martians, let the shield bubble move over them, and then blow them up? the explosion would be amplified by nature of being trapped inside the shield.
YES! When the enemy can't be beaten with conventional tactics, don't play by their rules. Nuke them over and over. If they enter a ravine, blow up rocks to try to crush them. Make entire minefields with the idea of blowing them up when the martians pass over them. Don't just go into a fetal position and wait for a heat ray or disintegration beam to kill you.
They kind of did, that scene with loads of military hardware on the hill, one of the soldiers yells “No effect on target! No effect!” You don’t see the fight, but you get a good idea of who is winning.
Spielberg deliberately walk away from the typical doomsday film where you see big cities getting their ass kicked and nukes dropped on them unscratched as these things have been done to death in aliens and end of the world genere like ID4, deep impact and the day after tomorrow (etc etc). He wanted the remake to be about suvival of an average family. Therefore he intentionally left out scense where big cities are getting its ass kicked (He could've chose NYC instead of NJ). and could've made the hill scene a nuke scene. But he didn't. he put in a half ass conventional fight where you can't really see what's going on behind the hill. (but you still see the result). Not everyone liked this approach, and the remake was only an average blockbuster compare to his other work.
Granted, this is science fiction. The effects of a ground zero nuclear blast are better understood by writers of today than writers of the early 1950s. Shields or no shields, the combined effects of a point blank range nuclear detonation, intense radiation, a million plus degree fireball, and over pressures would have still obliterated every martian ship in the group. Those ships would not have emerged from a nuclear blast unscathed.
@@victorwilson6826 I always wondered since I was a kid,(50 yrs ago) why not bury a cannon, pointing straight up, and fire it as the machines pass over? LOL. American ied. A kids overactive imagination!
I always love watching these old sci-fi movies that were made before we defined the terminology for sci-fi technologies. Like they could have easily called the Martian shields "shields," but in this movie they describe them as "protective blisters", "electromagnetic coverings" or even "umbrellas."
"It'll only end one way...we're beaten." "Actually, we'll all be dead in a few days of radiation poisoning, from all of this fallout dust we're covered with."
I'm not an expert at nukes but my guess is that just after setting one off, the cloud of smoke takes a long time to dissipate, so you wouldn't immediately see from a safe distance if the aliens have been destroyed. This also applies to Independence Day.
ivy king was a high yield nuke that would've had a much bigger mushroom cloud with a very different shape, ivy mike was also tested in 1952. also in 1953 the entire operation upshot knothole, which had 11 nukes in it, was conducted, and the most famous mushroom cloud images come from there (knothole grable, aka Atomic Cannon, people always confuse it with the Davy Crockett; knothole badger, that famous one people confuse with Trinity, etc.) so it was likely this was a low yield nuke (10 - 60 kt, the range of the knothole nukes) and was probably leftover from Operation Upshot Knothole or another nuke operation
The takeoff and flight scenes of the YB-49 are recycled stock footage of the YB-49 carrying out its first flight on October 21, 1947. The YB-49's bomb baby was not big enough to carry the first generation of American nukes, including the Mark 4 bomb, but Northrop did propose an improved B-49 with a bigger bomb baby, designated N-40 by the company, which would have had the same number of engines as the YB-49.
AND the characters were a lot more attractive and interesting and not annoying and dysfunctional like Tom Cruise and his halfwit son and constantly screaming little girl. They paid Dakota Screaming a fortune to scream the whole movie at anything and everything.
@@classicgunstoday1972 Right but it's better to have some redhead chick blowin your ears out with screamin as well, accompanied by horrid acting, eh? Lol.
Well the martians(Aliens from an unknown in the 2005 version which is Gene Barry’s Final film before he passed away in 2009) has a bunch of force fields around them. How they did the effect is they filmed plastic bubbles against a black screen and then layered the bubbles over the war machines. I discovered it on IMDB.
In Spielberg's version the main characters are innocent bystanders caught on the periphery of the action, just trying to survive. In this movie they're at the heart of the story, so we as the audience feel more a part of the major events and decisions.
The tripods, most of the camera work, the soundtrack, the atmosphere and battle scenes of the 2005 one were good. unfortunately the characters aren't great though.
I grew up with War of the Worlds on t.v. so many times; from my very first viewing on ABC Sunday night in the late '60s, to WGN's Family Classics in the 70s, and even on CBS in the mid-afternoon also in the early 70s---yet every time I hear a scientist say, "protective blister", I want to shout at my television screen, "It's called a Force-field...!!!"
The only thing memorable about the 2005 remake was Gene Barry and Anne Sheridan have a cameo at the very end. Yes, the special FX were impressive, but takes more than that to made a movie worth watching in my book, and as long as moviegoers keep paying good money to watch mediocre movies, that's what Hollywood will keep churning out
@@ernesthill2681 hitting the mute button everytime Tom Cruise or is dysfunctional kids start whining and screaming. (Which is about 90% of the movie) Oh and I believe her name was Robinson not Sheridan
i was watching evangelion with my friend for the first time and there was a scene that reminded me of this so i pulled this up and showed my friend this because the scenes were very similar.
2:25 This part always made me laugh Forester looks like he's about to say. "yeah sure buddy... I'll get right on that. I'll let you know.... As soon as I know you'll know... I'll call ya."
1953: A Northrop YB-49 flying wing drops an atomic bomb on a concentration of Martians. Is ineffective due to a protective ‘blister’. 1996: A similarily jet-powered flying wing also built by Northrop (Grumman), the B-2, fires a nuclear missile at an Alien Mothership. Is also ineffective due to a protective shield enveloping it. Probably not intentional but I found it funny that a Northrop flying wing was used to deploy a nuke as a last resort against aliens in both Films
I watched this on AMC as a kid and thought it was cheesey. Movies like Independence Day and Terminator had improved nuke scenes. But I’m glad I watched it because the remake with Tom Cruise would’ve been so scary if I didn’t know how it ended ahead of time.
Films like these can only be appreciated if you take into account that it was of it’s time. In 50 years, effects will probably trump films like Independence Day. But that doesn’t make it any less of a bad movie.
In real life a nuke would be the end of these alienz l thought it was a bit far fetched when they survived. A bit silly to an otherwise really good film. Special effects were superb given its a very old film. 8/10.
Where is the Flying Wing? Theres supposed to be a Flying Wing Bomber that drops the A-Bomb in this scene. How could they have taken such an iconic plane out?
I’m just say this. People are hating the 2019 war of the worlds for its differences to the novel. Yet, this film is barely like the novel. They aren’t even tripods.
The machines are held up by a trio of invisible legs actually; it's even mentioned in the film itself. When they first emerge from their nest in the early part of the movie, the scene where the priest walks out to try to speak to them, you can see on the ground some sparks and fires flare up because of the invisible legs walking across the terrain.
Little did they know in 1953 that a nuclear explosion would have created an EMP that would have ripped their shields right off. Nor did they consider using other forms of weapons like chemical weapons.
I think it's a riot how they wrote atomic weapons in most of the sci fi movies during the 1950's. A classic example is the movie Them where giant ants were the result of nuclear testing.
I actually prefer this version of War of the Worlds to the more recent one with Tom Cruise. The tripods didn't rush around frenetically. They were slow and methodical while going about their work of destruction. They were impervious to anything humans could throw at them and so didn't have to hurry.
The Day The Earth Stood Still is another great sci-fi movie in which the original is far superior to the pathetic re-make. Michael Rennie as Klatu was perfect casting. Patricia Neal said, shortly after making the movie, that she thought it was "silly" but, years later realized that she had been part of a classic. True! Locke Martin as Gort was a doorman at Groman's Chinese Theatre when he was spotted by a studio executive and cast as the robot. There's a lot of interesting trivia about Day The Earth Stood Still on the web.
actually if they were like any conventional shields the harder the force they use the more the shields are able to repel them I wonder if they were like the clone wars where a slow-moving object could enter the shield barrier. only problem I don't think they'll allow anything to get that close.
That's a good question, they easily spotted the plane but how could they tell it was going to drop a nuke and not a conventional bomb? And why didn't they just shoot the plane down before it dropped the bomb?
They were probably tracking the flying wing as soon as it took off, and with their advanced tech could sense the nature of the bomb from long range. Once they realised it was an A bomb they might have been mockingly treating it as like a little testing exercise or something.
Northrop YB-49. Experimental prototype, preceded by the YB-39 that was identical in shape but had turboprops instead of jet engines. Neither made it into production, but did lay the groundwork in terms of role and physical profile for the Northrop Grumman B2 Spirit.
Always wonder why they didn't hit them with repeated nukes, until their shields broke. Also, an airburst EMP prior to a series of ground detonations. If they had hydrogen bombs back then, that would have made a hell of a difference.
@@halo-cn3ku That's a good point, and something I didn't know. Hindsight is always 20/20. It would make more sense to EMP their shields while dumb bomb nukes were already falling on their position. No. More. Martians.
Use more than one nuke. Instead of just one, drop one another another until their shields are gone; better to use up your nukes than let the Martians capture the Earth. Bombard them from 10 to 20 miles away with artillery while doing so. Plant nuclear mines in the path they're heading, so that the bomb blows up under them instead of on the shield.
to much fallout for humanity as a whole, secondly the martians will not give you time to do that very likely next time they will shoot down the aircraft. like they did earlier.
The blood analysis was a foreshadowing to the aliens eventual downfall. Behind their invulnerable machines the martians themselves were too weak to withstand earth’s bacteria and viruses.
This is getting a ton of attention now considering the US government now admits the existence of ufos and is now proving they have a new Pentagon department investigating it.
And the invasion, and the characters, and the score, and the CGI, and why do you people insist on hating a good film? Because Tom Cruise was a little weird back then?
During the scene where the world map showed all the Martian positions, my son asked me what was up with all the Martians in Australia. I told him because of the "Sheep Dip". Six seconds later, he was choking on his mouthful of pizza ...
Love that movie 😁😁😁 I first saw it when I was 6...And many times after that... I remember that scene...To think that atomic weapons did nothing but in the end it was a common cold that killed them...
10 times better than the Steven Spielberg version with Tom Cruise running with his halfwit teenage boy and Dakota Screaming and 10,000 times better than the 2019 mini-series the BBC crapped out (boring, slow, annoying and distracting between the Titanic love story/social crap and the flash forward and flash back scenes constantly going back and forth. It takes two episodes to actually get to a battle and then you can’t see what’s going on because the damn Titanic-looking swimming/kissing scene between the guy and girl are in the way)
I always liked how despite their most powerful weapon failing, General Mann refuses to abandon the fight. Clearly stating that they will establish a line and fight the aliens to the death with conventional weapons simply to delay them and buy time for a scientific breakthrough.
sounds like the Pacific theatre
"Yet hope there is still, if we can but stand unconquered for a little while."
This seemingly-simple statement by Théoden in The Lord of the Rings is at the heart of a lot of unwinnable conflicts, both real and fictional. Even if there isn't an immediate solution, the only way to find one is to keep fighting and hold back the tide. I know this is a silly movie to attribute moral philosophy, but I guess I'm feeling sentimental tonight.
@@williampan29sometimes we all have that in us before we end up dead. Like the Spartans, samurai, Texans, it's better to die trying than to wait for death or to lose.
Very interesting how the machines had to combine the strength of all their shields to survive the blast. Probably one of the most incredible details in a 50s sci fi movie.
Great observation. I've seen this movie several times and never noticed that, but it sure seems to be there.
What do you mean? Never noticed this.
@@TobeyStarburst Look at 0:20
So the alien ships had to combine all their strength to withstand the blast of an atom bomb, the strength of just one alien ship would probably not withstand it. And that was an atom bomb in which they had to combine all their strength to withstand the blast. That being said, a hydrogen bomb might've been able to stop them.
Those are called plot armor . They can withstand anything except a plot twist , like bacteria
"Guns, tanks, bombs...they're like toys against them!"...it's that moment when you know humanity is screwed.
Iconic line as well.
The scientists know the moment the bomb failed, it's game over. "They'll stomp the city flat!"
so true
on being born is the moment you know it's doomed
"How soon can you get the H-bomb ready?" If nuclear weapons aren't solving your problems, you aren't using enough of them.
This scene out of all of them, now, it still scares the living hell out of me.
The Atom Bomb going off, the shockwave of the wind and this scene with no music.
The horrifying vibe.
Made worse by the realization that the bomb does nothing.
@@benlaskowski357 Yep
And that's frightening.
@@doom7ish True.
Excellent point about no music. it makes the scene all the more stark.
"They haven't even been touched!" The most powerful and horrifically destructive weapon we have ever had both then and now, and it did absolutely nothing... still terrifying in its implications.
With the end of the Cold War, younger generations may not appreciate how *terrifying* this scene was in 1953, or even later, and how very topical it was.
It was also the last year of the “Korean War”
The cold war never ended
@@Neotokyovibes-WelcomeHome bro ww2 soldiers and alien soldiers can eliminate both
68 years and it still holds up
Especially the creepy scene in the farmhouse.
Even the aliens were afraid of a nuke. Tells you how close we were getting to them. Makes sense why they’d invade. That’s called good story telling.
2019: waddup Martians we invade you with robots haha terminator all over again
Why would they be afraid? The nuke did nothing to them. They just put up their shields like they did against the artillery barrage earlier in the movie. One-size defensive tactic.
@@danieldickson8591 They clumped together in order to create a more powerful shield and briefly paused their advance, waiting for the bomb to dissipate before advancing again. It's possible if it was one nuke vs one ship the nuke could have destroyed it.
@@dfmrcv862 On one hand, it's hard to see from that distant shot if their shields really were "clumped together" or just looked that way. The machines also moved slowly, so we can't tell if they stopped their advance. But on the other hand, even if what you say is true, since they always moved in groups of at least three, humanity would still be screwed.
@@danieldickson8591 Eh, you can see they stop and their shields seem to glow with more intensity in that group. It gives us options, at least.
"Just cough on them," one guy said. Lol
Made my entire night.
The explosion actually stands up after all these years.
It was a pretty nice practical simulation of an A-bomb blast.
The blue screen is a bit obvious though
The US Army looks like from the Korean War 🙂
@@robertm. that's because it is, 1953
Looks better than the lazy CGI garbage they do today. The only one that looks as good is Terminator 2: Judgment Day and that was in early 1990s when CGI didn’t take over a movie and look horrible
I'd be more immediately worried about the mysterious white powder all over me that causes bone pain and makes Geiger counters go crazy....
Pretty sure it was supposed to be just dust kicked up by the blast.
@@danieldickson8591 that's the point. Fallout, irradiated dust.
Ah fuck it, it's the 50s lmao
@@Darksyne they underestimated the power and devastation of nuclear weapons back then. They believed that the fallout would last for just two weeks
@@acenosce3334 they also thought it would set the upper atmosphere on fire during the Manhattan project. But they said fuck it and tested the nuke anyway. People had balls back then.
The aircraft used to drop the A-bomb on the Martian war machines, the Northrop YB-49, was a jet-powered derivative of the piston-engine XB-35, and the second and third YB-35s on order (serial numbers 42-102367/42-102368) were converted to YB-49 iteration, and the first YB-49 flew on October 21, 1947, a week after Chuck Yeager used the Bell X-1 to become the first person to break the sound barrier. Despite being faster than the XB-35, the YB-49 suffered longitudinal instability during state trials, and thus was judged unsuitable as a bombing platform, not to mention that it had an operating range only comparable to the Boeing B-47 Stratojet. The second YB-49 had a crash in June 1948 during a flight over the Mojave Desert, which killed all five crewmembers aboard, including Glen Edwards (for whom Muroc Air Force Base was renamed) and one of the people aboard the B-29 Superfortress used to carry aloft the very X-1 that broke the sound barrier. The Air Force ordered 30 examples of a photographic reconnaissance version of the B-49, designated RB-49, which would have eight General Electric J47s (six buried in the wing, two below the wing), and another incomplete YB-35 on order (serial number 42-102376) was chosen to be the RB-49 prototype and became YRB-49, powered by six J35s (four in the wing, two under the wing), while seven YB-35s (serial numbers 42-102370/102375, 42-102377) were earmarked for conversion to RB-35Bs to train crews to fly the RB-49. The RB-49 production order was canceled in 1949 and the RB-35Bs were never completed, but the YRB-49 took to the skies of May 4, 1950, making its first flight two months earlier after the sole remaining YB-49 was destroyed during a taxi run. Although not destroyed in an accident during testing, the YRB-49 did not survive the breaker's torch, being scrapped in late 1953, more than two years after its last flight. By the time, Northrop relinquished his post as head of the company that he had founded in 1939, only returning to the Northrop headquarters in the late 1970s to see a model of what would become the B-2 Spirit, which has the same wingspan as the XB-35 and YB-49 but is stable in flight thanks to fly-by-wire controls.
Flying wings are dope
I think this scene would've been cooler if the nuke was code named "Thunder Child" as a references to the HMS Thunder Child from the original novel.
Good ol' Les Tremayne as General Mann. The embodiment of steely-eyed American determination.
...who was actually an Englishman!
One of the best on screen generals in film history.
A little moral booster, especially since this was in the aftermath of the Korean War.
Born an Englishman, he here projected the iron fortitude of
all great warriors 👏
It’s so spooky seeing their shields activate from afar and also seeing them slowly emerge from the mushroom cloud.
In this movie, the military, the government, the church and science all try to stop the Martians and all fail miserably. It's an epic smackdown of the pillars of human civilisation. I remember as a kid thinking humanity was actually going to get wiped out in the end...I was chilled to the freakin' bone by this movie.
Yeah I was probably too young to see this film when I did; the "battle" and the martian weapons scared the stuffing out of me.
Didn't it get wiped out in the book?
@@PiroKUSS no they were getting tossed around but humanity prevailed
@@Fireheart1945 fun fact: American soldiers and Martian soldiers can die both there's no difference who can die or that cannot die. They can lose martian's protective blisters an another day
I remember watching this in late 60s on television, scared the hell out of me!
Best invasion movie ever. No CGI, no fighters moving at breakneck speed. Just those elegant war machines moving easily and purposely, they don't have to rush, they're unstoppable and they know it. Gliding to the next target. That kind of enemy would be terrifying.
Like the AT ATs in the Battle of Hoth in Empire Strikes Back.
This movie is timeless and still top notch
Kind of like Independence Day.
like Godzilla
There is an old saying, warriors run into battle, soldiers walk. That is how the Romans beat all the warriors they faced, until their armies were filled with warriors as well. This is what the Martians are doing. What beats them isn't us.
“Bring out the holy hand grenade!”
One, two five.
Three, sire!
5 is right out
Might be kind of crammed in this one though. Hope it goes well. XD
Did it never occur to them to just plant bombs underground in the path of the Martians, let the shield bubble move over them, and then blow them up? the explosion would be amplified by nature of being trapped inside the shield.
Might have been worth a try. Of course the bubble may have had a bottom that moved over the ground.
YES! When the enemy can't be beaten with conventional tactics, don't play by their rules. Nuke them over and over. If they enter a ravine, blow up rocks to try to crush them. Make entire minefields with the idea of blowing them up when the martians pass over them. Don't just go into a fetal position and wait for a heat ray or disintegration beam to kill you.
I've always thought about that even with the 2005 remake
Definitely they should have went for the "go broke".
@@rescot00 ahhhh they’ve got a blank check and can use every cent of it to try to kill em
The maker of This movie put a lot of effort in it.
I wonder why they didn't have a scene like that in the remake.
They kind of did, that scene with loads of military hardware on the hill, one of the soldiers yells “No effect on target! No effect!”
You don’t see the fight, but you get a good idea of who is winning.
Spielberg deliberately walk away from the typical doomsday film where you see big cities getting their ass kicked and nukes dropped on them unscratched as these things have been done to death in aliens and end of the world genere like ID4, deep impact and the day after tomorrow (etc etc). He wanted the remake to be about suvival of an average family. Therefore he intentionally left out scense where big cities are getting its ass kicked (He could've chose NYC instead of NJ). and could've made the hill scene a nuke scene.
But he didn't. he put in a half ass conventional fight where you can't really see what's going on behind the hill. (but you still see the result).
Not everyone liked this approach, and the remake was only an average blockbuster compare to his other work.
There just wasn't enough time. Tom Cruise MUST be shown running for at least a third of the movie. It's in his contract. ;)
Granted, this is science fiction. The effects of a ground zero nuclear blast are better understood by writers of today than writers of the early 1950s. Shields or no shields, the combined effects of a point blank range nuclear detonation, intense radiation, a million plus degree fireball, and over pressures would have still obliterated every martian ship in the group. Those ships would not have emerged from a nuclear blast unscathed.
@@victorwilson6826 I always wondered since I was a kid,(50 yrs ago) why not bury a cannon, pointing straight up, and fire it as the machines pass over? LOL. American ied. A kids overactive imagination!
Everyone covered in fallout and lived happily ever after.
Glen Arnold 3.6 roentgen. Not great, not terrible.
Duh...didn't you see that they were wearing dark goggles? That's all you need.
The Martians Suck
They even broke into an abandoned home and enjoyed a steak and egg breakfast, later on.
I guess 1950’s radiation could be solved with a simple shower, no big deal!
The iconic scene for me was the aliens blasting city hall!
I always love watching these old sci-fi movies that were made before we defined the terminology for sci-fi technologies. Like they could have easily called the Martian shields "shields," but in this movie they describe them as "protective blisters", "electromagnetic coverings" or even "umbrellas."
"It'll only end one way...we're beaten." "Actually, we'll all be dead in a few days of radiation poisoning, from all of this fallout dust we're covered with."
I'm not an expert at nukes but my guess is that just after setting one off, the cloud of smoke takes a long time to dissipate, so you wouldn't immediately see from a safe distance if the aliens have been destroyed. This also applies to Independence Day.
To be fair nukes in space acts differently than nukes in atmosphere.
@@praise_kek340 Who talked about nukes in space? Both in war of the worlds and in Independence Day nukes are used in our atmosphere, not in space.
@@JustRememberWhoYoureWorkingFor my mistake I thought you were talking about the mothership
@@praise_kek340 ohh, true, in id nukes are used twice and not just once.
I consider that a reasonable use of dramatic license to get to the point without making the audience wait an unacceptable time.
This movie was way better than the remake! I watched this as a kid and it's still awesome, after all these years gone by.
Remakes generally suck. The only remake I've ever seen that was worth watching was True Grit
I wonder if the Martians didn't have a chance to bunch up and combine their shields like that could the bomb have worked?
Try again with a nuclear mine in their path.
@@GaryCameron exactly!
The nuke is 500 kilotons aka the ivy king this movie is 1953 thats when the ivy king was tested one year before
ivy king was a high yield nuke that would've had a much bigger mushroom cloud with a very different shape, ivy mike was also tested in 1952. also in 1953 the entire operation upshot knothole, which had 11 nukes in it, was conducted, and the most famous mushroom cloud images come from there (knothole grable, aka Atomic Cannon, people always confuse it with the Davy Crockett; knothole badger, that famous one people confuse with Trinity, etc.) so it was likely this was a low yield nuke (10 - 60 kt, the range of the knothole nukes) and was probably leftover from Operation Upshot Knothole or another nuke operation
They later all died of radiation sickness.
@Dillon Andrews they meant the humans died from radiation
@@WUTANGGZA1983 I think both would tbh
Loved the flying wing takeoff and flying scenes right before this.
The takeoff and flight scenes of the YB-49 are recycled stock footage of the YB-49 carrying out its first flight on October 21, 1947. The YB-49's bomb baby was not big enough to carry the first generation of American nukes, including the Mark 4 bomb, but Northrop did propose an improved B-49 with a bigger bomb baby, designated N-40 by the company, which would have had the same number of engines as the YB-49.
@@vahe2391 would have been nice if they used the B-36.
This 1953 war of the world is far better than the remake this is more realistic the remake is only half as good
AND the characters were a lot more attractive and interesting and not annoying and dysfunctional like Tom Cruise and his halfwit son and constantly screaming little girl. They paid Dakota Screaming a fortune to scream the whole movie at anything and everything.
maybe 1 10th as good.
@@classicgunstoday1972 Right but it's better to have some redhead chick blowin your ears out with screamin as well, accompanied by horrid acting, eh? Lol.
Martians: exist
Coronavirus: I am about to end this man’s career.
This scene has always stayed with me since I was 6 years old. When the Martians came out of that blast it out and out scared me.
Classic Of The Classics
Those darn protective blisters…
lol blisters
Well the martians(Aliens from an unknown in the 2005 version which is Gene Barry’s Final film before he passed away in 2009) has a bunch of force fields around them.
How they did the effect is they filmed plastic bubbles against a black screen and then layered the bubbles over the war machines.
I discovered it on IMDB.
This movie is loads better then Spielberg's version.
The only thing I liked in Spielberg's version was the cameo's of those two actors from this movie.
Everyone has there own taste in movies. When I saw Spielberg's movie it didn't really scare me. I was 18 at the time. It takes a lot to scare me.
In Spielberg's version the main characters are innocent bystanders caught on the periphery of the action, just trying to survive. In this movie they're at the heart of the story, so we as the audience feel more a part of the major events and decisions.
The tripods, most of the camera work, the soundtrack, the atmosphere and battle scenes of the 2005 one were good. unfortunately the characters aren't great though.
Nah. There both good
I grew up with War of the Worlds on t.v. so many times; from my very first viewing on ABC Sunday night in the late '60s, to WGN's Family Classics in the 70s, and even on CBS in the mid-afternoon also in the early 70s---yet every time I hear a scientist say, "protective blister", I want to shout at my television screen, "It's called a Force-field...!!!"
Missing Northrup Flying Wing prequel scene
Ugh! Why hasn't Paramount put this movie on Blu Ray?!
Tim Rogers imagine 4K
Tim Rogers they did
Tim Rogers its actually in 3d and the picture is fucking awsome no joke
Death Ray is enough
Tim Rogers YA. WHY DON'T THEY
I love how they're literally covered with nuclear fallout, lol
Ahhhh, Gene Barry.......what a legend he was.......
😢
The only thing memorable about the 2005 remake was Gene Barry and Anne Sheridan have a cameo at the very end.
Yes, the special FX were impressive, but takes more than that to made a movie worth watching in my book, and as long as moviegoers keep paying good money to watch mediocre movies, that's what Hollywood will keep churning out
@@ernesthill2681 hitting the mute button everytime Tom Cruise or is dysfunctional kids start whining and screaming. (Which is about 90% of the movie)
Oh and I believe her name was Robinson not Sheridan
A LOT better than the remake.
No it's not
@@the_red_barron1002 lol
A lOt BeTtEr ThAn ThE rEmAkE
The Original is great, for that generation. But the Spielberg Version is better.
@@tlsrob6772 the musical and the book are better still
I just watched it a few hours ago, it's actually quite scary.
1:58
“Guns, tanks, bombs! They’re like toys against them!”
They're immaculately dressed for being the middle of an alien invasion.
the martians survived a nuclear explosion but they couldn't handle bacteria? That's insane
They should have talked to the Krell, about hubris (see Forbidden Planet).
i was watching evangelion with my friend for the first time and there was a scene that reminded me of this so i pulled this up and showed my friend this because the scenes were very similar.
Meanwhile in the Soviet Union
"Cyka Blyat Ivan! It didnt worked! Well time to drop the Tsar Bomba on them!"
The sound wouldn't reach them for at least 30 more seconds. But hey, it's gotta be big and loud doesn't it
Okay. Now we know what we're fighting. Solid movie that's still entertaining today.
This scene hits harder when you remember this was made during the early Cold War
2:25 This part always made me laugh Forester looks like he's about to say.
"yeah sure buddy... I'll get right on that. I'll let you know.... As soon as I know you'll know... I'll call ya."
"3 minutes to bomb time" lmao i still remember those words from my childhood.
this is so original
1953: A Northrop YB-49 flying wing drops an atomic bomb on a concentration of Martians. Is ineffective due to a protective ‘blister’.
1996: A similarily jet-powered flying wing also built by Northrop (Grumman), the B-2, fires a nuclear missile at an Alien Mothership. Is also ineffective due to a protective shield enveloping it.
Probably not intentional but I found it funny that a Northrop flying wing was used to deploy a nuke as a last resort against aliens in both Films
I watched this on AMC as a kid and thought it was cheesey. Movies like Independence Day and Terminator had improved nuke scenes. But I’m glad I watched it because the remake with Tom Cruise would’ve been so scary if I didn’t know how it ended ahead of time.
Films like these can only be appreciated if you take into account that it was of it’s time. In 50 years, effects will probably trump films like Independence Day. But that doesn’t make it any less of a bad movie.
This movie had an impressive budget, not your typical 50's sci-fi cheesefest.
In real life a nuke would be the end of these alienz l thought it was a bit far fetched when they survived. A bit silly to an otherwise really good film. Special effects were superb given its a very old film. 8/10.
This version of war of the worlds is better then the 2005 one
I love them both
haha no the 2005 one is much better
Agreed, the 2005 one is absolute garbage, and this is coming from a Spielberg buff.
1:04 “ We have Achieved liftoff!”
Amazing movie.
I just learned there was a 2019 version now I found this
Breathe that fallout in...
Where is the Flying Wing? Theres supposed to be a Flying Wing Bomber that drops the A-Bomb in this scene. How could they have taken such an iconic plane out?
The Flying Wing scene occurs immediately before this one.
This shows how far advanced the martians are with their ships and technology.
Target remains. I repeat: target… remains
I’m just say this. People are hating the 2019 war of the worlds for its differences to the novel.
Yet, this film is barely like the novel. They aren’t even tripods.
Well in a way they are, they look like flying machines, but they aren't, they are supported by invisible legs.
Donny Mckinnon
Okayyy-
To be fair this movie at least did it good.
@@TGM_Productions Okayyy thanks for the smartass reply!😛😅
The machines are held up by a trio of invisible legs actually; it's even mentioned in the film itself. When they first emerge from their nest in the early part of the movie, the scene where the priest walks out to try to speak to them, you can see on the ground some sparks and fires flare up because of the invisible legs walking across the terrain.
They think all that stuff they are wearing going to protect them from a nuclear bomb and they being outside not in an underground bunker
Little did they know in 1953 that a nuclear explosion would have created an EMP that would have ripped their shields right off. Nor did they consider using other forms of weapons like chemical weapons.
I think it's a riot how they wrote atomic weapons in most of the sci fi movies during the 1950's.
A classic example is the movie Them where giant ants were the result of nuclear testing.
Don't forget Godzilla.
I actually prefer this version of War of the Worlds to the more recent one with Tom Cruise. The tripods didn't rush around frenetically. They were slow and methodical while going about their work of destruction. They were impervious to anything humans could throw at them and so didn't have to hurry.
This film was way ahead of It's time
CREDITS:
TM & ©️ Paramount (1953)
Cast: Gene Barry, Ann Robinson
Director: Byron Haskin
How did they get the alien ships to all group right there, in one spot?
The Day The Earth Stood Still is another great sci-fi movie in which the original is far superior to the pathetic re-make. Michael Rennie as Klatu was perfect casting. Patricia Neal said, shortly after making the movie, that she thought it was "silly" but, years later realized that she had been part of a classic. True! Locke Martin as Gort was a doorman at Groman's Chinese Theatre when he was spotted by a studio executive and cast as the robot. There's a lot of interesting trivia about Day The Earth Stood Still on the web.
Agreed 🎵
actually if they were like any conventional shields the harder the force they use the more the shields are able to repel them I wonder if they were like the clone wars where a slow-moving object could enter the shield barrier.
only problem I don't think they'll allow anything to get that close.
It's said communications are down yet radar still works even though it uses radio waves.😵💫
Is it just me or is there a voice sync issue? Was this common back then?
Another great 50’s Sci/fi
How did the Martians even know the humans were gonna use a nuke on them?
That's a good question, they easily spotted the plane but how could they tell it was going to drop a nuke and not a conventional bomb? And why didn't they just shoot the plane down before it dropped the bomb?
@@JustRememberWhoYoureWorkingFor perhaps they were curious given that it has some vague resemblance to their own ships
@@JustRememberWhoYoureWorkingFor perhaps to show humanity no weapon on earth could harm them, break mankind's morale.
It certainly does imply that they have sensory instruments beyond what humans understand. Which would be consistent with the rest of their tech.
They were probably tracking the flying wing as soon as it took off, and with their advanced tech could sense the nature of the bomb from long range. Once they realised it was an A bomb they might have been mockingly treating it as like a little testing exercise or something.
I love the general
Can anyone tell me the name of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb.
The plane is a B-49 flying wing.
The flying wing
The flying wing , an early version of the stealth bomber that did not actually fly, like the spruce goose
@@jtinker47 No, they did fly. ruclips.net/video/L_MaG5G46pA/видео.html
Northrop YB-49. Experimental prototype, preceded by the YB-39 that was identical in shape but had turboprops instead of jet engines. Neither made it into production, but did lay the groundwork in terms of role and physical profile for the Northrop Grumman B2 Spirit.
Always wonder why they didn't hit them with repeated nukes, until their shields broke. Also, an airburst EMP prior to a series of ground detonations. If they had hydrogen bombs back then, that would have made a hell of a difference.
Good thought however the discovery of the effects of an EMP wasn’t til the 60s.
@@halo-cn3ku That's a good point, and something I didn't know. Hindsight is always 20/20. It would make more sense to EMP their shields while dumb bomb nukes were already falling on their position. No. More. Martians.
Use more than one nuke. Instead of just one, drop one another another until their shields are gone; better to use up your nukes than let the Martians capture the Earth. Bombard them from 10 to 20 miles away with artillery while doing so. Plant nuclear mines in the path they're heading, so that the bomb blows up under them instead of on the shield.
to much fallout for humanity as a whole, secondly the martians will not give you time to do that very likely next time they will shoot down the aircraft. like they did earlier.
All they had to do was wait a few more years and upgraded that Abomb to a thermal nuclear warhead
The blood analysis was a foreshadowing to the aliens eventual downfall. Behind their invulnerable machines the martians themselves were too weak to withstand earth’s bacteria and viruses.
Unwatchable. Should be 4:3.
This is getting a ton of attention now considering the US government now admits the existence of ufos and is now proving they have a new Pentagon department investigating it.
Roland Emmerich be like: "Write that down! Write that down!"
If that was a atomic bomb then all of the people would of died from the radiation before the Martians got to them.
We’re approaching the precipice everyone.
Hey look it's a Federal Signal model siren at the end of this video
And people think that The Independence Day was the first movie to feature Aliens immune to Nukes, bitch please.
The only good thing about the remake was Morgan Freeman narrating the end of the movie
That's a lie
The remake was scary as hell
And the invasion, and the characters, and the score, and the CGI, and why do you people insist on hating a good film? Because Tom Cruise was a little weird back then?
LOL!
Nuclear double tap. Hit them again.
During the scene where the world map showed all the Martian positions, my son asked me what was up with all the Martians in Australia.
I told him because of the "Sheep Dip".
Six seconds later, he was choking on his mouthful of pizza ...
Love that movie 😁😁😁
I first saw it when I was 6...And many times after that...
I remember that scene...To think that atomic weapons did nothing but in the end it was a common cold that killed them...
10 times better than the Steven Spielberg version with Tom Cruise running with his halfwit teenage boy and Dakota Screaming and 10,000 times better than the 2019 mini-series the BBC crapped out (boring, slow, annoying and distracting between the Titanic love story/social crap and the flash forward and flash back scenes constantly going back and forth. It takes two episodes to actually get to a battle and then you can’t see what’s going on because the damn Titanic-looking swimming/kissing scene between the guy and girl are in the way)
2:02 among us
*Oh go-*