1898 science fiction story can't be easily transformed into 2005 science fiction

Rating: 4/10 (1 July 2005)

The original story was written for a late 19th century audience. It was wonderful, not just in its time, but in reading it set in that time period and understanding it in its context as early science fiction. It could even be produced again as a 1930 era radio story, and even a 1953 movie, because science fiction was still naive, and we were still naive about space travel. But the story itself is simplistic and naive, and cannot be effectively translated into a 21st century (or even late 20th century) science fiction story. The result is a lot of great special effects (that, the story allows), but other than that this is a silly and simple story that was great as a book, just can't stand up as a modern classic. And, boy, for an advanced intellect, as Morgan Freeman as the narrator tells us they are at the beginning of the movie, are those aliens dumb! Aside from not being well prepared, can't they do better than picking us off one by one? That's their plan?
The story is a typical Spielberg science fiction exercise in smoke, mirrors, and noise, but lacking in substance.