War of the Worlds, a review

[Rhydderch Hael]

Pfft. You'd think aliens would scan the planet for incompatible pathogens before invading.  This was just as lame as the aliens in Signs who were allergic to water (gee, what's all that blue stuff we see from orbit? naw, it can't be water.)
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You could write it off as arrogance or complacency on the Martians' part. They probably assumed that their bodies had evolved to the point that they could perfectly resist any germs that Earth could come up with. If pathogens were rendered extinct on Mars thousands of years ago, then pathology would have fallen by the wayside as well.

Once they got infected, though, they were doomed. The trick is, that would not have mattered much. They would have undoubtedly soldiered on as best they could until they literally dropped dead from the plague.

The guys in Signs, of course, should have seen their doom from orbit. It's like a human battle fleet rolling up to a planet covered in oceans of boiling sulfuric acid, then dropping troops down in summerweight cotton BDUs.



There was an episode of The Outer Limits that gave the whole War of the Worlds treatment, but reversed the roles. A human invasion force was wiped out by an alien plague. The trick was the disease was not organic, but electromagnetic. A form of disease never encountered by humans. A truly alien disease transmitted in an alien manner. By the time you even figure out the true nature of the plague, you're already doomed— to say nothing about researching a cure.