The War of the Worlds (2019)

Director: Craig Viveiros
Starring: Eleanor Tomlinson, Rafe Spall, Rupert Graves, Robert Carlyle
Unique Angle: Shifts the focus to long-term aftermath, with Amy as the survivor and scientist uncovering the Martians’ true weakness years later.

⚠️ Spoiler Alert!
These reviews contain major plot and character spoilers for both H.G. Wells’ original novel The War of the Worlds and the adaptation being discussed.

If you’re new to the story and want to experience it spoiler-free, consider reading the book or watching the adaptation first.

🎬 Watch the BBC Series on Amazon Prime

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True Adaptation Checklist Evaluation

Martian Invasion Essentials

Cylinders (Martian Landing Pods)

❌ No

Huge spinning spheres arrive that levitate, spin, and dissipate mysteriously, triggering surrounding onlookers to explode in fire. Actual origin of Martians not shown.

Tripods

✅ Yes

Nicely updated 3-legged machines with spider-like leg movement.

Tentacles

❌ No

Martians are 3-legged creatures like their tripods. They extend an appendage to stab and drain victims, but there are no true tentacles on Martians or Tripods.

Red Weed

✅ Yes

Featured heavily. It spreads for years post-invasion, overtaking Earth.

Black Smoke

✅ Yes

Deadly to humans, and reimagined here as part of a terraforming process. Unlike in the novel, it actively triggers the growth of the red weed.

Heat Ray

✅ Yes

Present and destructive, though somewhat overshadowed by other weapons.

Snatching and Feeding on Humans

✅ Yes

Shown graphically. Martians harvest human blood.

Martians Destroyed by Microorganisms

✅ Yes

Yes, with a twist. The Martians die after feeding on typhoid-infected humans. Amy and Ogilvy later develop a bio-agent from this to fight the red weed.

Martian Intelligence

✅ Yes

The Martians cut off communications and wait out hiding survivors. More importantly, the black smoke is part of a deliberate terraforming strategy — triggering red weed growth and altering Earth’s ecosystem.

Essential Characters

The Narrator

✅ Yes

Amy narrates the opening and survives the invasion. Though George and Frederick share focus early on, Amy becomes the main lens.

The Curate

❌ No

A religious figure appears late but doesn’t resemble the novel’s Curate in behavior or role.

The Artilleryman

❌ No

A soldier delivers some familiar lines but dies early and lacks the delusional survivalist arc.

The Astronomer (e.g., Ogilvy)

✅ Yes

Ogilvy plays a central role early on and returns in the future timeline to help Amy find a solution.

The Brother (Secondary Perspective)

✅ Yes

A loose yes. Frederick has his own scenes, but doesn’t offer a fully separate arc. He’s part of the rotating POV but not a true counterpart to the book’s brother.

The Wife (Emotional Anchor)

✅ Yes

George becomes the emotional core. Their love, his death, and Amy’s ongoing hope give the story its heart.

Atmosphere and Allegory

Appropriate Era & Setting

✅ Yes

Set in 1905, still evoking Victorian-era England and its societal tensions.

Societal Collapse

✅ Yes

Mass panic and destruction are followed by years of post-invasion ruin. Society doesn’t bounce back — it breaks down completely, with Earth left scarred and failing under the red weed’s grip.

No Human Victory

❌ No

While the Martians die from feeding on typhoid-infected humans, Britain claims a false military win. In reality, Earth remains devastated for years. The true turning point comes much later, when Amy and Ogilvy find a way to halt the red weed’s spread and begin healing the planet.

Atmosphere of Horror and Helplessness

✅ Yes

Bleak tone, ruined cities, and a constant sense of dread.

Narrator’s Psychological Decline

⚠️ Sort of

George becomes delirious and sacrifices himself. Amy clings to false hope. Their emotional arcs differ from the book, but still show toll.

Cinematic & Immersive Details

Martian Sounds

✅ Yes

The sound design is eerie and atmospheric.

Visuals of Red Weed and Black Smoke

✅ Yes

Both are heavily featured and visually impactful.

Heat Ray Effects

✅ Yes

Distinctive and effective, though takes a back seat to black smoke, red weed, and mysterious spinning spheres.

Desolate Landscapes

✅ Yes

Includes haunting shots of ruined London, decimated towns, and charred wastelands.

Decay and Rot

✅ Yes

Long-term devastation and red weed overgrowth dominate the visuals, far exceeding anything in the novel.

Bonus Features

The Thunder Child (Naval Resistance)

❌ No

There’s no true equivalent to the novel’s heroic naval stand. However, two scenes may serve as vague nods: a beach skirmish where ships fire on a tripod, and an early military mission to destroy a Martian sphere that ends in swift annihilation. Both hint at human resistance, but neither carries the scale or symbolism of the Thunder Child.

Adaptation-Specific Creativity

✅ Yes

Incorporates a long-term red-weed aftermath, biographical details from Wells’ life, and a female protagonist. Creative shifts that complement the source rather than contradict it.

Observations and Analysis

Strengths:

Though set nearly a decade after the novel’s implied timeframe, the story remains grounded in early 20th-century England, preserving the tone, class structure, and social tensions of Wells’ original setting — a choice most adaptations abandon.
Casting Amy as the lead works well. The shift to a female protagonist doesn’t detract from the story’s tone or themes and adds emotional depth to the aftermath arc.
The early production design — including wardrobe, village scenery, and the depiction of London under siege — is richly detailed. The tripod’s black smoke attack is a standout moment, visually impressive and effectively staged.

Weaknesses:

The spinning spheres are visually striking but narratively confusing. No Martians emerge, yet people burst into flames, and tripods appear later with no connection shown. It’s a critical early moment that leaves viewers disoriented. The mechanism of the invasion feels confusing and underexplained.
Attempts to echo key roles like the Curate and Artilleryman are too vague or underdeveloped to carry the same thematic weight.
The shift toward human agency in the resolution changes the meaning of the ending, replacing Wells’ theme of cosmic vulnerability with a more optimistic message of scientific control.

Creative Deviations:

The narrator is reimagined as Amy, a female protagonist who ultimately survives, investigates, and drives the resolution — a significant but effective departure from the original male narrator.
The character of George mirrors aspects of H.G. Wells’ personal life, including a romantic relationship with Amy while still married, and an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. These personal echoes give the adaptation a semi-biographical undercurrent that feels intentional to anyone familiar with Wells.
The red weed is reimagined as part of a long-term terraforming strategy seeded by the black smoke, turning it into a slow, strategic planetary takeover that outlasts the Martians themselves.
Instead of the Martians succumbing naturally to Earth’s environment, this version suggests they could have survived if they hadn’t fed on infected humans. Later, the survivors develop a typhoid-based bio-agent to fight the red weed — shifting the ending from inevitability toward a more human-engineered solution.

Faithfulness Rating

Loose Adaptation

This version includes many core elements from the novel — tripods, red weed, black smoke, heat ray, even the setting — but significantly alters the story’s structure and resolution. The shift to a long-term post-invasion setting, the reinterpretation of the Martians’ defeat, and the replacement or absence of key characters place it just outside the bounds of a mostly faithful adaptation.

Our Verdict

There’s a lot to admire in this one. I was thrilled to see it set back in the period it belongs—about a decade later, for some reason, but still. The setting looks great, the performances are strong, and the female protagonist was a delightful surprise. I loved the little nods to Wells’ personal life—like easter eggs for those familiar with his background.

But as the story unfolds, the adaptation drifts further and further from the novel’s foundation. The Martian arrival is confusing, key characters are missing or minimized, and the ending trades cosmic humility for human triumph.

The black smoke attack on London is a visual high point—hands down the best black smoke visuals I’ve seen. But then they made it weird by linking it to the red weed as part of a terraforming strategy.

A lot of things were simply unclear. What was with those spheres? How did the Martians and their machines physically arrive? Was the black smoke somehow responsible for blocking out the sun, instead of just falling to the ground?

It’s bold and often beautiful, but ultimately as frustrating as it is satisfying. To come so close to a true adaptation—then skew key details in such thematically altering ways. Just… why?

Nevertheless, it’s a well-crafted production. If I weren’t such a purist, I’d probably love it.

Want to see it for yourself? You can watch the BBC series on Amazon Prime.

Curious how other adaptations stack up to our True Adaptations Checklist? Check out these popular adaptations below:

Featured image via TMDb – Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0