The Martians are coming…

 by Ben Soton

The War of the Worlds (2019). Three-part mini-series on BBC1, from Sunday 17^th November, 2019 at 9pm. Also available on BBC iPlayer.
Mini-series written/adapted by Peter Harness from the original story by HG Wells. Stars: Eleanor Tomlinson, Rafe Spall, Robert Carlyle and Rupert Graves.

A good way to start the week ahead is a decent Sunday night of television viewing. With this in mind, BBC1’s adaptation of HG Wells’ War of the Worlds is worth watching. First published in 1898, War of the Worlds taps on the then popular belief that Mars was covered by canals built by Martians desperately trying to save their ‘dying’ planet. It was also probably the first book to take on the issue of ‘contact’ with extra-terrestrial life that inspired a tranche of ‘alien invaders’ stories in the years to come.

In this case it’s Martians in tripods blasting late Victorian London and the Home Counties with lasers; parasites intent on using the human race as food. Wells created a blueprint for future sci-fi stories including the Terry Nation’s Daleks, featuring heavily in Dr Who and 20^th Century Fox’s Independence Day franchise.

Herbert George Wells was writing during the ‘belle epoque’; the bourgeois ‘golden age’ between the last years of Queen Victoria and the First World War when the British Empire seemed to be supreme. The plunder of empire brought great riches to the ruling class as well as rising class tensions at home, in an era that saw the carve-up of Africa by Britain and the other European powers as well as technological change based on continued scientific development. These events inspired Wells’ novels including The Time Machine and The Island of Dr Moreau.    This War of the Worlds adaptation is, in many ways, an analogy of European imperialist culture and the colonisation of Africa that was taking place when the book was written. Khaki-clad riflemen are ineffective against the tripods with laser-firing death rays and poison gas – like spear-throwing natives against soldiers armed with Gatling guns and a hint at horrors still to come in the 20^th century.

Government ministers, used to ruling over an Empire, appear as impotent as tribal chiefs dealing with European invaders whilst the Martians’ desire to consume human beings is a possible reference to the parasitic nature of imperialism. The Martians land on 12^th August – the ‘Glorious Twelfth’ which marks the start of the grouse-shooting season and is possibly a reference to the upper-class obsession with shooting at things that can’t shoot back.

This is the first attempt to present the story as a television series. It has seen two film adaptations, made in 1953 and 2005, a spoof send-up in 1996 as well as a musical, and the legendary Orson Welles radio broadcast that led some American listeners believe a Martian invasion was really taking place.

Unlike previous adaptations this television series is set in the Edwardian era, which is much closer to the original story. All three films were set in the USA, with the 1953 version containing a Cold-War anti-communist theme.

It is good to see a classic novel told in its original form, whilst benefiting from the use of CGI to show the destruction caused by the Martian imperialists. The scene showing the destruction of London resembled the Kuwaiti oil-fields after the US-led invasion of 1991.

This mini-series does seriously depart from the book, however. There’s a sub-plot concerning the marital situation of the main characters. Amy (played by Eleanor Tomlinson) and George (played by Rafe Spall) are an unmarried couple, which was considered scandalous in Wells’ day. George had previously been married to his cousin, ironically considered acceptable, who refused to grant him a divorce.

Ostracised from polite society the couple move to Woking, where news of their situation soon twitches a few curtains. This aspect of the story is a critique of the morality of the period and an argument for reform of divorce law. The implicit homosexuality of their neighbour and scientist friend Ogilvy (played by Robert Carlyle), who describes himself as a “well turned out bachelor”, is reference to the draconian treatment of Oscar Wilde who was imprisoned in 1895.

All of this has come under fire from ‘traditionalist’ TV critics, who cannot see that it is pointless simply to retell a story whose ending everybody knows and which ignores the fact that all previous adaptations have also strayed dramatically from the original. Take no notice. If you’re not already watching it catch it now on BBC iPlayer!

No Deal Trump not welcome here

Donald Trump’s minions tell the world that their boss is a great negotiator. Trump says in a book that he probably didn’t write that: “Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write wonderful poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals.” But what has he actually achieved?

Absolutely nothing. Trump said he was going to make the Mexicans pay for the wall he’s building to keep out illegal immigrants. Well they didn’t.

He unilaterally pulled out of the international nuclear deal with Iran and stepped up sanctions in a bid to force the Iranians to renegotiate on American terms. That didn’t happen.

Despite three meetings with Democratic Korean leader Kim Jong Un on the nuclear issue, Trump’s put nothing concrete on the table and the whole process has stalled. So that’s been a waste of time.

Trump hiked up tariffs to force the Chinese to agree to a one-sided trade deal with US imperialism. All that’s done has been to spark off a trade war that could plunge the global economy into another recession.

And the worthless “Deal of the Century” that Trump’s men thought could bring peace to the Middle East by giving Israel all that it wanted and giving the Palestinians nothing in return died before it even got off the ground.

Whilst his Democrat rivals claim a moral high-ground they simply do not possess, Trump is no saint either.

The Democrats like to portray Trump as a vulgar, corrupt racist unfit to hold public office. But he is so much more than that. The property tycoon turned president represents those who no longer want to pay for wars they cannot win – which has been virtually all of them since the Second World War. They too want US hegemony over the world but they believe it can be won through trade wars and unequal treaties, which was the preferred form of US overseas expansion in the 19th century. This is what Trump means when he says he wants to “Make America Great Again”.

The US president wants to cut his losses in conflicts he did not initiate in Afghanistan and Syria. He doesn’t believe in ‘globalisation’ or the ‘new world order’ of past Democrat and Republican administrations that tried to use US might to establish American hegemony throughout the world.

Trump represents the American capitalists who want to cut back US military expenditure in Europe, Afghanistan and south Korea so that they can concentrate on controlling the global energy market by taking over the entire Middle East and restoring US imperialism’s control over south America.

Trump’s coming to London again in early December for a NATO summit. He wasn’t welcome the last time he came. He isn’t welcome now. It isn’t just because he’s a moronic climate-change denier with sexist, chauvinist and bigoted anti-immigrant views. It’s because he is the Supreme Commander of the most oppressive country in the world.

No US president should be welcomed here until US imperialism ends its occupation of south Korea and closes its ring of bases that target Russia and People’s China. No US president should be welcomed in Britain until the USA ends its support of the fascist regime in Kiev and the Saudi intervention in Yemen, pulls out of Syria and Iraq, and drops sanctions against Cuba, Iran, Venezuela and Democratic Korea. No leader of US imperialism should be fêted in Britain until America ends its support for Zionist Israel and recognises the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.

Animal Magic?

by Ben Soton

His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman. BBC1 at 8pm on Sundays from 3^rd November.

BBC1’s latest Sunday night drama, His Dark Materials, is now on its fourth episode. An adaptation of Philip Pullman’s trilogy consisting of The Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, this is a fantasy set in a strange alternative reality; a dystopia ruled over by an authoritarian regime called the Magisterium, with analogies to the Catholic church or any system of domination and thought control.

This is the second attempt to put Pullman’s works on the screen; the 2007 film The Golden Compass, an adaptation of The Northern Lights, was considered a failure and criticised by some fans of the book. Secularist organisations claimed the book’s anti-religious message had been diluted whilst the religious lobbies predictably condemned it.

In this television adaptation, leading characters are played by Ruth Wilson as Mrs Coulter, James McAvoy as Lord Asriel and Dafne Keen as Lyra. 

In this strange world humans are accompanied by a daemon, some kind of alter-ego in animal form, and zeppelin-style balloons dominate the sky. The attention of the all-powerful Magisterium is drawn to Oxford, which is also the home of the story’s main character, an 11-year-old girl called Lyra.

Lyra holds a secret that could threaten the rule of the Magisterium. The story features a group of people known as Gyptians, a reference to gypsies, who form the world’s underclass. We also see characters travel between alternative realities, including our own. So far, we have seen the disappearance of Gyptian children and talk of a trip to the North Pole.  Large numbers of the Gyptian children have gone missing and they are gathering in London in search of them. Is the rule of the Magisterium under threat?

Pullman’s trilogy has been viewed as a re-telling of John Milton’s 17^th Century poem Paradise Lost. In fact the term ‘His Dark Materials’ features in Milton’s work. Whereas Paradise Lost tells the story of Adam and Eve’s fall from grace in the Garden of Eden by defying God’s instruction, Pullman’s work glorifies a young child who defies a petty-minded god-like institution, the Magisterium. For this reason, the book’s anti-religious and anti-clerical message has brought criticism from some Christian organisations; Bill Donahoe of the Catholic League in the USA described it as “Atheism for Kids”. On the other hand, the books have actually been endorsed by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who states the positives of opposing religious fundamentalism.

Pullman has a relevant message in today’s world. The power of religion is no longer what it was; however, we live in a world where information is controlled by powerful, billionaire-owned media network that presents a world view at complete odds with reality.

In the case of the anti-Semitism row within the Labour Party, we are now seeing lies presented as facts. Meanwhile the supposedly impartial BBC presents articles in the Tory newspapers as news stories in their own right.

Whilst over the last 30 years wealth and power have been concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people, in Britain opposition is seriously limited with even the right to strike effectively illegal. When the head of the Magisterium enters our world, he would not feel out of place. We have our own Magisterium to deal with and if you are reading this paper you are playing a small part in the resistance.