Prophets of Science Fiction (TV Series) H.G. Wells (2011) User Reviews

If you want to be there, or don't – you have to do something about it

[TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews · 8/10 · 16 November 2013]

This documentary consists of expert interviews, real life footage, reenactments, film clips, narration. It goes into the great predicting power of H.G. Wells(far in advance, on little proved basis, he "called" many things that since came to be), and both the positive(turning actual national genocide into fictional planetary to make people think) and negative(his Utopian vision of a technocratic one-world government) aspects of his work.

Covered in detail are his musings on science and what is to come: time travel(butterfly effect, grandfather paradox), lasers, invisibility, medical progress combining man and animal, tanks, aerial warfare, the atomic bomb even WW2.

Also gone into is his commenting on horrifying future and technology(and that man will misuse it), the British class system, morality and progress: to what end? With War of the Worlds he describes the terror and civilian targeting of the two World Wars.

There is some disturbing and violent content in this. I recommend this to fans of the author. 8/10

For those familiar with H.G. Wells, more interesting for its glimpses of current science

[wlgme · 18 December 2011]

For those unfamiliar with H.G. Wells' life and works, this documentary will be an interesting and generally competent overview, and even for the initiated, it contains some worthwhile tidbits. This reviewer, for example, was unaware that Wells was no fan of Fritz Lang's overrated METROPOLIS and that Wells' own unforgettable masterpiece, THINGS TO COME, was in part an answer to that movie. But in general, the documentary is most interesting for its look at the ways in which modern science is realizing Wells' dreams and nightmares of the future. Some of the latest advances in laser beams, cloaking technology and genetic manipulation are covered in the field, often with surprising insights.

That being said, it must be pointed out that the documentary contains a significant error which seriously calls into question the competency of its researchers. They claim that THINGS TO COME depicts the use of biological weaponry during a world war. In fact, the Wandering Sickness of Wells' imagination was merely a natural outcome of the war - much like the influenza which decimated Europe after WWI - and the gas dropped on Everytown was a tranquillizing "peace gas" which subdued its retrograde population without killing anyone but (ironically enough) the Chief, its quintessentially belligerent warlord.

This lapse of factual accuracy is especially surprising considering that Ridley Scott was an executive producer of the documentary. Surely a science fiction film maker of his stature is more familiar with one of the genre's most seminal works.