BBC drops first trailer for new adaptation of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds

Martians invade Earth in The War of the Worlds, a new BBC adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel.

The BBC dropped the first trailer for its upcoming adaptation of the classic H.G. Wells science fiction novel The War of the Worlds. The three-part miniseries is set in Edwardian England—just a few years after Wells published his novel—and it looks to be a fairly faithful treatment of the source material, as the people of Earth fight to survive in the face of a Martian invasion.

(Spoilers for the 1897 novel below.)

First serialized in 1897, The War of the Worlds was published as a book the following year and has remained print ever since. Told from the perspective of an unnamed narrator, the story opens with astronomers on Earth observing what appear to be explosions on the surface of Mars through their telescopes. Soon after, a meteor falls to Earth, which turns out to be a capsule housing large, tentacled aliens. The creatures do not come in peace; instead, they use their tripod fighting machines to destroy much of the town of Woking and its surroundings with their heat rays and poisonous black smoke.

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