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H.G. Wells' Things To Come
R1 - America - Legend Films Review written by and copyright: Stevie McCleary and Noor Razzak (21st May 2008). |
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The Film
 Know this: this review for H.G. Wells’ "Things to Come" (1936) is draining my will to continue breathing, and every word typed on it is slowly erasing my sanity. Seem a little over the top? Welcome to every single phrase uttered by anybody in this film. I’d been looking forward to this as I’ve been watching a few films, like "SHE" (1935), from this production company and enjoyed them. But this film sadly never hit any type of stride. Always stuttering when it starts to get going, the story launches forward in time which yanks you clean out of the moment. It’s an interesting gambit that may well have worked if things had been different. But they weren’t and here we are with a muddle of a mess. The shame of it all is that there are many great ideas presented here, with both sides represented, but this is probably more to do with the dialogue taken from Wells’ "The Shape of Things to Come" novel. The overly dramatic (even for the era) dialogue lets down the script at every opportunity like its actively trying to. There’s nothing like cheery Christmas conversation that starts with “If we don’t end war, war will end us” being boomed at you. One minute later, smugly and arrogantly the phrase is directed at the same man; “War has come.” It starts by being set in 1940 in a city called Everytown….yeah; it’s laid on thick here. They live in the fear of war and, as is boomed at us, it comes for us. Soon the years melt away as people fight off unknown (to us) invaders, until we reach the 1960's. Earth has been ravaged by a pestilence. Soon that gets cleared up as we head to the 1970's. No flower power here, only angry people living in fear of their Chief who rules like a high school bully. “You bully them to much. You must know the right amount to bully!” A lowly mechanic remarks how the human race has lost the ability to fly planes in this wasteland. It is at this stage that a mysterious stranger appears flying a small aircraft. He brings intellect and knowledge from ‘the north’ and wishes to end all war. Everybody freaks out for some reason and his friends are forced to come to rescue him “This seems like a great chance to test out the Gas of Peace.” Now we jump forward to a new heavenly utopia. We only have to sit through a bizarre montage of shapes for about ten minutes. This film claims to have a running time of 100 minutes yet it feels like a thousand to me. And yet I completely lose track in the film as all the time restarts completely ruin the flow. I did begin to think this would make for a tremendous Discovery Channel program about the evolution of a society. In any event, the whole theme of the film is that we have a tendency to destroy ourselves, and yet we can’t stand still lest we forget to move forward into the stars. This is fascinating, yes. “God! Why do we have to murder ourselves?!” I’m just not certain that it translates into the film medium so well. At least not in a way that is larger than life to the point of utter parody. The final line in the film echoes from the voice of its speaker and then becomes repeated numerously by the musical chorus. I won’t spoil it here, but it is too on the nose and it grates obscenely. Especially because they’d had only World War I at this stage. The fear from that permeates the whole production. And we’ve had a whole lot more war since then, sadly, it has been a bigger part of so many more lives than it was it this point. “I’m a master craftsman…I have a right to talk!” The best thing about this film is that it is actually trying to impart a message, which is far more than most other science fiction movies have ever tried to do. The message that reason and logic can be our only saviors is a good one, and one that Wells heartily believed in. It is a shame that this tedious mess is the one that tried to get it across.
Video
Presented in the film's original theatrical ratio of 1.33:1 much like other Legend Films releases comes in two varieties - colorized version and the original black and white. The overall transfer quality (both versions) seem to come from the same source. For a film of it's age it holds up rather well, despite many flaws like occasional dirt and damage, heavy grain and some softness especially when special effects are seen on screen. I've reviewed several colorized films from Legend and I still prefer the original versions, this is because I am a purist and despite whatever Harryhausen or Legend tell me I prefer to watch the film as it originally screened back when it was released. The colorization process has improved over the year but it still doesn't look great. It has an unnatural feel to it, especially skin tones and hair color. If you really can't stand watching Black and White films then this color version is for you.
Audio
A single English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono track is included and appears to be a restored and remastered version of the original soundtrack. I found that the dialogue was clear and distortion, the film's brazen score comes across well as well. As expected the sound mix lacks range and depth, but then again we are talking about a film made in the 1930's. This film does not include any optional subtitles.
Extras
Legend Films has released this films along with an interview, a featurette, some text notes, original commercials, theatrical trailers plus some bonus trailers. Below is a closer look at these supplements. First up we've got an iterview with Ray Harryhausen and runs for 3 minutes 49 seconds, in this clip the special effects master talks about the colorization process, on the film and seeing for the first time as well as comments on how excited he is in seeing his favorite scenes in color among other things. Following that is "Colorization Process with Ray Harryhausen" a featurette that runs for 8 minutes 51 seconds, here Harryhausen takes us through the colorization process as the Legend Films crew also provide some background about the project and the steps taken to colorize this film. It's a neat look for those interested. After that we've got a Ray Harryhausen filmography and biography and consists of 5 text pages of information pertaining to the man's career. There are some Classic Sci-fi toy commercials, this is the same reel as seen on the "Missile to the Moon" (1958) DVD and it runs for 9 minutes 42 seconds and features classic ads for Ideal Toys that include the Astro Base play set, the Countdown Control Play Center, the Sky Sweeper Truck and Blow-up Globe as well as Robert the Robot and Remco's Yankee Doodle Dandy Rocket Test Center. These ads provide a cool look back at how space toys dominated the 50's and the ways in which toy companies advertised to children. As a toy collector myself these were particularly interesting and enjoyed watching them. The disc also includes a Color theatrical trailer that runs for 1 minute 39 seconds as well as the original B&W theatrical trailer that runs for 4 minutes 8 seconds. Rounding out the extras are a collection of bonus trailers for: - "She" which runs for 1 minute 27 seconds. - "Plan 9 From Outer Space" which runs for 1 minute 40 seconds. - "Carnival of Souls" which runs for 2 minute 28 seconds. - "House on Haunted Hill" which runs for 1 minute 41 seconds.
Overall
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