War of the Worlds, a review

[Rhydderch Hael]

...  I mean, in the million intervening years the most efficient means you've devised of wiping out a species is a tripod-mounted death ray???  Come on!  (And of course the tripods themselves clank about like so much WWI armor; again, this is the best your advanced science could come up with?)

So the movie is a bit of a disappointing anachronism in that and other respects.  We as humans already know much more efficient ways of exterminating races (including our own) compared to  this "advanced" alien species. ...
[right][snapback]82150[/snapback][/right]

This reminds me of the series of Harry Turtledove books surrounding an alternate history of the 20th Century. It kicks off with an alien invasion of Earth during WWII. The alien race was contrived by Turtledove to be notoriously lacking in innovation. Scientific advancement, as far as they had carried it to that point, crept along at a snail's pace of traditionalism and horror at the idea of change. This gave humanity in the story an advantage due to their radical pace of advancement.

Furthering that, the technology this alien race had wasn't that far advanced compared to your stereotypical alien menace. Their fighter planes and battle tanks were turbine-driven, they had automatic cannon and guided missiles, and they possessed nukes— but basically this was all military technology humanity was fated to explore in the next few decades. The only true technological superiority came in by the fact these boys traveled to Earth in spaceships we have not yet seen here in the early 21st Century.