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Narrative
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Tulling: I was wondering: The main article mentions the "Invasion story" genre, but is this the earliest example of an invasion from outer space? Also, I was wondering whether the Humongous Mecha aspect might make it a Trope Maker; I know of no earlier examples of such machines used in fiction. Am I incorrect in assuming that this is in fact the earliest occurence?
Robert: As far as I know, yes to both. It's also most likely got the first death ray, the Martian heat beams. It's conceivable there's some earlier story with these elements, but it would have to be pretty obscure, and probably not in English. However, I don't know if it inspired anime's mecha; they may be an independent invention.
Ununnilium: I don't know if the Martian tripods really count, though; for one thing, they're not humanoid.
Robert: Neither were the Martians. The tripods aren't standard mecha, but they're recognisably the same kind of thing, and of equally impractical design.
Ununnilium: This is true.
Red Shoe: As to Adaptation Decay: I read Global Dispatches and the thing that strikes me the most is how many of the stories change such an important thematic element of the original novel — and they change it deliberately. In a lot of the stories, everyone but England is able to repel the invaders (The Texas Rangers because they shot first and didn't give the aliens time to get a foothold; the French because, irm, the Martians tried to hump the Eiffel Tower; John Carter purely though his own heroic efforts, and Emily Dickenson managed to defeat the entire Martian taskforce despite having been dead for about ten years at the time). It feels rather a lot like the stories are specifically condemning, say, the hubris of colonial powers: England failed where others suceeded because they didn't act soon enough, thinking themselves invincible. Actually, the Thunderchild scene in the musical gives me a similar impression: that Thunderchild (and, by extension, British military might) could have beaten the Martians, had they acted more quickly. I didn't get this impression in the novel, and I find it surprising to find it in so many adaptations.
Alphamone: This troper points out that the tripods that got taken out were only taken out due to VERY lucky shots, and that in the book, the thunderchild is a torpedo ram and not a gunboat, and that it managed to take out two machines, although the second one was taken out because it sailed underneath it after being hit, and it took it out when the boiler exploded.
Just a Fan: After rereading the book, I'm just wondering about the entry that says George Pal shopped around the original tripods to military bases, who said they wouldn't be a threat to 1950s military technology. Using the book's descriptions, they have a top speed of about 80 - 100 mph, their lasers (barring any applied phlebotinum) have a sustainable output of at least 6 MW, and the only impact that takes out a tripod with its hood down is the Thunder Child (the one other casualty was a tripod with its hood up, and the shell killed the exposed Martian without damaging the machine). An alien vanguard composed of all-terrain vehicles that can move at close to 100 mph, ignite forests and towns with the sweep of a beam, withstand seemingly any 19th century military attack short of a torpedo ram, and can apparently build and launch aircraft bombers within three days of arriving sounds like one heck of a threat even today (that H.G. Wells came up with all that at the turn of the century is amazing). Adding in atomic-bomb invulnerability for the movie was pretty much a necessity, but it just seems like the rest of the original novel's portrayal of Martian technology was already more than a match for 20th century tech.
Roihu: I remember my teacher saying something about this story made people kill themselves while it was on the radio (or some other alien invasion story). True or not?
SirFrederick: Surely the Martians' death by Earth bacteria is more than a Deus Ex Machina. The anti-colonialist Aesop dictates that technological superiority does not grant moral superiority - that the invasion of Britain by the advanced Martians is no less unjust than the invasions of much of the world by the British. That the Martians should have eradicated disease on their own planet, thereby weakening their own immune systems, reinforces that such scientific progressivist doctrine is contrary to the common biological needs of life, and ultimately weakens society.
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