There be very little doubt that HG Wells is the most influential writer of the 20th century . Jules Verne has some claim to be the father of science fiction but his stories were more adventure stories using marvellous inventions as plot devices . Wells was profound and brought subtext to his tales . Perhaps his greatest legacy is that there's very little if any evidence that people believed in life on other planets before the 20th century where as now many people including Richard Dawkins consider it a near certainty . There's no evidence of this of course and one can't help wondering that is was Wells who introduced this to human thinking ? Undoubtedly it was Wells that planted the seed .

THINGS TO COME was adapted by Wells himself from his own novel . It is rather obvious however that he is unable to tell the difference between the technicalities of writing novels and writing screenplays . The dialouge is often laden , heavy handed and unconvincing . One case in point is the two pilots from opposing sides discussing the nature of war " Why must we murder one another . Why ? " This mirrors the criticism , near naked contempt that Orwell had of Wells in his essay Wells , Hitler And The World State and it is true that Wells anti-war message is painfully overstated . It'd be impossible to believe a conversation taking place between an RAF pilot and his opposite number in the Luftwaffe a few years later

That said it is absolutely fascinating watching a film from 1935 predicting a world wide war taking place in 1940 that heralds the end of civilisation . There's a striking and haunting imagery as a child bangs a drum as a phantom army marches in the background and the collapse of society and the fear of The Wanderng Sickness is wonderfully realised . Even the rather lazy storytelling of showing the year of the setting has a compelling nature It's the images that makes this film along with Arthur Bliss score that makes the film so memorable . And to be fair Wells does ask the question " The universe or nothing . What shall it be ? " . In short this is a film whose flaws are easy to forgive

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