Product Details

• Actors: Gene Barry, Ann Robinson, Les Tremayne, Robert Cornthwaite, Sandro Giglio
• Directors: Byron Haskin
• Writers: H.G. Wells
• Producers: Cecil B. DeMille
• Format: Collector's Edition, Color, DVD, Full Screen, Silent, Special Edition, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: G (General Audience)
• Studio: Paramount Pictures
• DVD Release Date: November 1, 2005
• Run Time: 85 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (309 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000AOEMWS
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,234 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The War of the Worlds (Special Collector's Edition)" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 08/22/2006

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

98 of 102 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Review for special edition: release 11/05, November 6, 2005

By 

R. Gorey "Behemoth" (New York) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The War of the Worlds (Special Collector's Edition) (DVD)

War of the Worlds has been on DVD before, but it's much better in this special edition, restored and presented, thankfully, in full frame, as it was shot. The print quality is just beautiful, and the movie looks as good as it's ever looked. Special features are also of a high standard: especially welcome are the commentaries by stars Ann Robinson and Gene Barry. Barry seems a little less in command than Robinson, but she graciously compensates, by eloquently describing her experiences, her affection for Barry and producer George Pal, and the film itself, with which she seems wonderfully familiar. Her insight is detailed, sometimes funny, exhaustive, and genuinely revealing--even down to the revelation of a cameo by Woody Woodpecker. Images are so crisp that the wires supporting the ships are sometimes sadly visible, but fans will be so caught up in the frightening story that this won't matter much at all. For those who love this film, I'd say get out there and pick this up: someone got it right, and went to the trouble to present this admired film in an edition that can really be called "special". What a pleasure to see old Technicolor the way it was meant to be seen! A great movie, and a great DVD.

179 of 206 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars DVD Does Justice to a SF Classic, January 28, 2000

By 

Blackhawk (Huntsville, AL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The War of the Worlds (DVD)

Based on H.G. Wells' classic novel, George Pal's The War Of The Worlds is a classic in its own right. The movie transfers the story from England and the turn of the century to California and the 1950's. Some people see the paranoia of the '50s in the movie but the novel also had a strong theme of fear of things beyond our ken. Pal often included a religious theme in his movies and this film would have been better without it, but it does not detract from the movie enough to keep it from being a classic. The story is that of an invasion of Earth by coldly intelligent Martians. Told in clear, bold strokes with exceptional special effects (for the time) and fine performances by the two leads, Gene Barry and Ann Robinson, The War Of The Worlds should be in every collection of science fiction movies.

The DVD transfer is excellent. The picture is sharp and clear. The color is strong and rich, as Technicolor should be. Like most people, I had only seen this movie on television and it never looked as good as it does on DVD. The picture resolution is so good that you can easily see the wires supporting the Martian war machines. The sound does not measure up to the standard of the video. It is mono and there are cracks and pops on the sound track during the early part of the movie, though I didn't notice them as much in the later scenes (but that may simply be because I was caught up in the excitement of the story). The disk provides only a trailer as supplemental material (I don't consider scene selection to be a special feature, it should be standard on any DVD). The disk is formatted in TV standard but that is not significantly different from the movie's original ratio, since it was not shot in what we now call widescreen.

Although I would have liked to see more supplemental material, this is still a fine DVD of a nearly fifty year old movie that has not received the special treatment of movies like The Wizard Of Oz.

206 of 245 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Shabby DVD of the 1953 Sci-Fi Classic, July 10, 2003

By 

Gary F. Taylor "GFT" (Biloxi, MS USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The War of the Worlds (DVD)

If you have a VHS version with which you are satisfied, hang on to it: the DVD release of 1953's WAR OF THE WORLDS is a slipshod and very shabby affair.

Loosely based on the classic H.G. Wells novel, WAR OF THE WORLDS moves the original story from late 19th Century England to 1950s California, where a group of scientists confront an invasion from Mars. Arriving in meteor-like projectiles and sweeping across the landscape in strange, birdlike machines armed with death-rays, the Martians prove invincible to human attack. How can mankind survive?

The great attraction of the film is its special effects, which is early 1950s state-of-the-art in its combination of rear-screen projections, miniatures, and truly imaginative design. But the film also has an additional interest, for it is very much of its time, presenting us with some of the most relentlessly stereotypical characters to ever reach the screen. This is particularly true in terms of gender roles, for seldom has any film before or after created such a hysteria-prone and clinging leading lady as Sylvia Van Buren, played here by the hapless Ann Robinson. Not only would the special effects and story prove tremendously influential, so too would the film's gender stereotyping. While the slightly earlier THE THING offered a strong female lead, THE WAR OF THE WORLDS would generally set the tone for every sci-fi leading lady well into the 1960s.

But all of this is analytical criticism. We may hoot a bit at the incredibly broad performances, the frequently silly dialogue, and the truly ludicrous gender roles, but WAR OF THE WORLDS is a tremendous amount of fun to watch. It makes you want to break out a bag of popcorn and curl up with friends and family in true Saturday matinee fashion. And it is a great pity that the DVD release is so... well... dire.

The DVD was transferred from a poor-condition print riddled with artifacts. In an effort to compensate for this, the technicians have toyed with the contrast, and as a result the picture quality varies from foggy to grainy--and in the process quite often reveals the wires used to manipulate the famous Martian machines. Adding insult to injury, the technicians have also fiddled with the color balance, often reducing the film's brilliant colors to a grayish hues. There are also problems with the sound; when I watched the DVD I found that the sound levels of several scenes were so faint I had to turn up the volume... and then, quite naturally, when the soundtrack returned to normal the blast almost blew me through the wall.

It seems almost beside the point to note that there are no bonus features beyond the original movie trailer--which, sadly, is in better visual condition than the film itself. I purchased this DVD with the idea of replacing my VHS copy, but it was money wasted. Get the VHS and hope that someday someone will give this film the DVD release it deserves.

--GFT (Amazon.com Reviewer)--