A Walking Engine of Glittering Metal – Visualisations of HG Wells’ Tripods
15/06/2010
“…a walking engine of glittering metal, striding now across the heather; articulate ropes of steel dangling from it…a great body of machinery on a tripod stand”
One of the earliest depictions of the Martian war machines, Speenhoff’s tripods are more anthropomorphic than subsequent renderings. It stands as a brilliantly stylised interpretation, despite the peculiar heads.
(left to right):
Blitz 1913!: Although aerial bombing of cities wasn’t a key strategy in the First World War, the conflict did see the first zeppelin raids on London in 1915. Wells describes Martian held London as ‘dead’ (albeit relatively intact), however, this 1913 cover, by ‘Caney’, anticipates the mass conflagrations of the 1940′s blitz.
Keep Calm And Carry On: This Dutch cover from 1939 has more than a hint of propaganda poster about it. This is also one of the few images depicting the Martian’s ‘black smoke’: Wells’ chemical warfare agent. Although chemical weapons were rarely used during the Second World War; nerve gas, of course, found its final, terrible, application during the holocaust, of which this image is luridly evocative.
‘We Will Bury You!’: This cover was painted by V. Noskov for a 1956 Russian edition. That year saw the threat of nuclear war, anticipated by Wells in his novel ‘The World Set Free’, combined with the other ‘Wellsian’ themes of socialism and colonialism as the Soviet Union crushed the Hungarian Uprising, and the British Empire re-asserted itself during the Suez Crisis. Noskov’s Tripods share their industrial, blocky aesthetic with the fighting machines deployed in both conflicts.
With the practical modelling technology of the time insufficient for the purposes of creating large moving tripods, production designer Albert Nozaki instead made the fighting machine his own. Avoiding the, already cliché, flying saucer motif, he instead opted for something far sleeker, and more amenable to being suspended from strings. The (by then technically achievable) tripod designs of the 2005 film retained the flattened, stingray-like features of Nozaki’s designs.
This is a scan of the first copy of The War of the Worlds I ever owned. Inside the front cover someone has written ‘Margaret 1975’. I have no idea how it came to belong to my parents (neither of whom is named Margaret), and subsequently to me. I do remember how dissimilar to Wells’ description I found George Underwood’s bio-mechanical forms, not that this detracts from his wonderful interpretation.
‘Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds’ still enjoys success today with a touring concert, remix album and computer game spinoffs for the PC and PS1; all incorporating Mike Trim’s iconic drawings. The machines in the album art posses the same 70′s-futurist curves as the man made vehicles Trim designed for the various Jerry Anderson marionette action shows of the 70’s.
Woking was home to H.G. Well’s, which did nothing to spare it from the Martian’s heat ray. Few towns have erected monuments to their fictional destruction, however Woking has lead the way with this wonderful sculpture by Michael Condron. This is undeniably the best thing in Surrey.
This take on the Fighting Machine brings together a number of pre-established themes, whilst adding a hint of the insectoid. A perfectly logical development by O’Neil, who’s art accompanies Alan Moore’s re-interpretation of Wells’ story magnificently.
Spielberg, pretentious little tease that he is, never shows the really big battle in his movie rendition, instead focusing on Dakota Fanning getting lost and Tom Cruise’s attempts to restrain his son from seeing the coolest thing ever. With 9/11 only four years previous, and the Iraq War in full swing, perhaps such levels of destruction porn were considered inappropriate? This didn’t stop Gabanna conceptualising it though: here.
Although something of an anti-climax following Gabanna’s work, its still nice to see the Simpsons get things right, now and then. Anything that keeps the image of the tripod alive in the alien invasion aesthetic is all right by me.
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