Some pieces of the past sit waiting in our InBoxes for decades until we get around to seeing them. I watched Steven Spielberg's version of "War of the Worlds" but never this original that crackles like a still raging fire 60 years after the fact. How it does that is a bit mysterious but also just really good storytelling. The aliens are almost completely invisible so we as viewers inch forward in our seats and then fill in the rest of the information as we watch. Their intentions are not fully clear so when the priest approaches them armed only with a bible, the tension is incredible. What we see of them looks like a cross between a cobra about to strike and an advanced medical instrument, incorporating our fears of predatory animals and thoughtless weaponry all at once. Perfect. No wonder it won an Oscar for special effects. The aliens in HG Wells book and in the Spielberg adaptation are giant robot-like creatures on stilts, so this choice comes completely from the minds of the filmmakers and it's a really good one. Of course you can read it as a Cold War analogy of a Communist invasion and "we" the good guys having God on our side, but there's something else going on. It feels like tumbling down the side of a cliff, powerless against the forces of fate and Nature, being spared in the end from destruction by sheer blind luck disguised as faith.