In the Storm…
THEY’RE FINALLY LOOSE, THE TRIPODS ARE AMONGST US, HEAD FOR THE HILLS!
The tripods are finally here! In force! Astounding!
Except they’re actually called “fighting machines”. The Martians have machines for everything. There’s even machines for making machines, we’ll see later. Kind of.
I have to admit my own personal first encounter with The War of the Worlds was the George Pal version from 1953. I imagine this was the case for a lot of people born after World War II. Most of the scenes of the book are represented in the movie just fine, albeit in an Americanized-form ala Orson Welles. But the fighting machine, well, while iconic in its own way, is certainly…different.
As someone who loves sound design, the Pal movie is exceptional and iconic. And for the fifties, the hovering mean green machines are still pretty cool. But, imagine one’s surprise upon finally cracking open the book the movie was based on, that the fighting machines had three legs and tentacles and gargantuan fishing pens to hold captured humans in. Not to mention that they are fast as well. The book describes them as gigantic metal milking stools that stride about the country at the rate of an express train, which means an easy sixty miles an hour for the time period, if not faster. For the book’s first audience, this would have been another thrilling angle of the terror that was unleashed upon the Common, and a further demonstration of how like ants humanity was to the Martians.
There’s been many depiction of the tripods, along with a lot of nerdy anger over their mere existance. It’s surprising how angry having three legs makes some people and I’ll let the gentle reader goog that if they have the desire. They’re generally the same folk who are angry the Martians don’t have an understanding of bacterium, but we’ll let them have their quiet corner of the Internet for now. I do want to mention two very excellent renditions of the fighting machines, some of which you may have already seen on this Substack.
The first is from HENRIQUE ALVIM CORRÊA and easily just everything about this guy nails every head on the War of the Worlds corkboard. He deserves his own ‘stack entry, as does our second, possibly more familiar artist:
Both these artists managed to capture the living energy described by Wells that the fighting machines possessed. Yes, they are machines, Wells is saying, but they are really extensions of their owners. Gorey’s version is my absolute favorite, the vibrant colors in stark contrast with the line-work not to mention the sheer psychotic joy the Martians have as they wreak havoc upon the Earth is creepy, astonishing, and satisfying. If I could shoot money back in time to some animation company to get a Gorey-animated feature of this, I would, laws of physics be damned.
I point these two artists out precisely because of the energy they give to the fighting machines, as every other rendition of them, no matter how modern, has the machines as being rather ponderous and slow. They’re still powerful, but you can not only hear them coming, but also get out of the way with a little bit of expediency. Wells’ was going out of his way with the human-to-ant comparison; when was the last time an ant got out of your way? I don’t mean unseen, but rather they see you coming and duck-and-cover? That would be a bit uncanny now, wouldn’t it?
Things are about to go full uncanny valley for our intrepid Narrator. This was all supposed to be a cinch of a job, over and done with, the business of the day to resume as per usual. How dreadfully impolite of the invaders…
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