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                         The War of the Worlds (1953)
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STARS...........: Gene Barry, Ann Robinson, Les Tremayne 
DIRECTOR........: Byron Haskin
WRITERS.........: H.G. Wells (novel), Barre Lyndon (screenplay)
GENRE...........: Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller
IMDB............: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046534
RUNTIME.........: 1h 25mn
SIZE............: 4.81 GB
VIDEO CODEC.....: HEVC (Main10@L4)
BITRATE.........: 7000 Kbps (2-pass)
RESOLUTION......: 1480x1080
ASPECT RATIO....: 1.37:1
FRAMERATE.......: 23.976 fps
AUDIO1..........: English E-AC3 5.1 640kbps
AUDIO2..........: English AAC 1.0 192kbps
AUDIO3..........: Commentary with Joe Dante, Bob Burns, and Bill Warren
AUDIO4..........: Commentary with critics Barry Forshaw and Kim Newman
AUDIO5..........: Commentary with actors Gene Barry and Ann Robinson
SUBTITLES.......: ENG
SOURCE..........: Criterion Blu-ray
ENCODE DATE.....: 2020-08-08


A mysterious, meteorlike object has landed in a small California town. All clocks have stopped. A fleet of glowing green UFOs hovers menacingly over the entire globe. The Martian invasion of Earth has begun, and it seems that nothing—neither military might nor the scientific know-how of nuclear physicist Dr. Clayton Forrester (Gene Barry)—can stop it. In the expert hands of genre specialists George Pal and Byron Haskin, H. G. Wells’s end-of-civilization classic receives a chilling Cold War–era update, complete with hallucinatory Technicolor and visionary, Oscar-winning special effects. Emblazoned with iconographic images of 1950s science fiction, The War of the Worlds is both an influential triumph of visual imagination and a still-disquieting document of the wonder and terror of the atomic age.


Extras

• New alternate 5.1 surround soundtrack, created by sound designer Ben Burtt.
• Movie Archaeologists, a new program on the visual and sound effects in the film featuring Burtt and historian Craig Barron.
• From the Archive, a new program about the film’s restoration featuring Barron, Burtt, and Paramount archivist Andrea Kalas.
• Audio interview with producer George Pal from 1970 at the American Film Institute.
• The Sky Is Falling, a 2005 documentary about the making of the film.
• The Mercury Theatre on the Air radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds from 1938, narrated by Orson Welles.
• KTSA Radio Interview from 1940 featuring a discussion between Welles and H. G. Wells.
• Audio commentary from 2005 featuring filmmaker Joe Dante, film historian Bob Burns, and author Bill Warren.
• Trailer

Imprint Blu-ray Rxtras

• H.G. Wells: The Father of Science Fiction,  takes a closer look at the life and legacy of H.G. Wells.
• Photo Gallery features a large collection of vintage materials from the production of The War of the Worlds.
• Audio Commentary 2 features critics Barry Forshaw and Kim Newman. Recorded exclusively for Via Vision Entertainment.
• Audio Commentary 3 features actors Gene Barry and Ann Robinson