Fighting machine (The War of the Worlds)

The Martian fighting machines, designed by Albert Nozaki for George Pal's 1953 Paramount film The War of the Worlds, barely resemble the same machines in the H. G. Wells novel. The novel's fighting machines are 10-story tall tripods and carry the heat-ray projector on an articulated arm connected to the front of the machine's main body, as well as possessing the poison black smoke canisters fired from gun-like tubes. In the film version, the war machines instead possess two different types of death ray weapons, the first having pulsing wingtip ray emitters that causes molecular disintegration to whatever it shoots, while the second type of death ray each Martian machine uses is a visible, reddish heat-ray, atop a swiveling goose-neck, mounted in a cobra-like head. The film's war machines move about on three invisible legs of energy, which are only briefly visible when moving on the ground upon leaving their initial landing site.[4]

The serialized War of the Worlds (1988–1990) television series was established as a sequel to the 1953 film with much of the alien technology in the first season cued with visual references to the design of those in the aforementioned film. An older model of the 1953 film's craft is shown to have physical legs more similar to the novel version.[5]

There are several differences between the fighting machines as described in Wells' novel and those in Steven Spielberg's 2005 film, which come from an undisclosed alien world. In this version the tripods were long ago brought to Earth, having been buried underground sometime in the past. The aliens instead travel in capsules to their buried machines, which transport them underground. In a published interview screenwriter David Koepp stated his belief that they were planted by these extraterrestrials as a part of some kind of alien "contingency plan" (said plan never being revealed to the audience).[6]

In Pendragon Pictures' direct-to-DVD H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds the tripods have a large, free-moving head atop the smaller main body, giving its sole Martian occupant a panoramic view. It has three thick, metallic tentacles, which are held on high, made up of boxy-looking segments, making them appear like large bicycle chains rather than slim and whip-like, as described in Wells' novel; they are used mainly to capture humans during the film. The tripods have three long, ridged, and stilt-like legs, which occasionally stride with the right and rear leg moving forward together in a clumsy, unconvincing manner.[7]

In the Asylum's 2008 sequel War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave, the walkers are tripods called squid-walkers, and are capable of flight. Unlike the first film, the Martians do not control the fighting machines directly from the inside but manipulate cyborgs by remote control. A heat-ray is attached to the walkers, as well as a kind of ray that teleports humans directly to the alien mothership, where humans are then drained of their blood to feed the invaders. Whereas Wells' fighting machines carried cages to hold captured humans, these tripods place humans directly into the tripods' interiors. These appear organic, with no windows or controls, and the walls absorb anyone unlucky enough to touch them, sending them to an unknown destination.[8]

The fighting machines are described in Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds and depicted on the album artwork painted by Michael Trim. This version of the tripods has major inconsistencies when compared to Wells' description in the novel.

In Kevin J. Anderson' The Martian War the Martians use two type of tripods, the ones from The War of the Worlds and a smaller, "overseer" variant. In Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds, the fighting machines are described as having legs that can telescope down allowing for entry and exit, and as being possibly based upon the original body type of the Martians.