Every War Of The Worlds Adaptation: Ranked Worst To Best

10. The Animated Steampunk One

A link between The War Of The Worlds and the real global conflict of the First World War has become an increasingly common way of reinterpreting Wells's book in the twenty-first century, even in something as fantastical as the 2012 Malaysian animated feature War Of The Worlds: Goliath.

Essentially an alternate reality sequel, this film from Joe Pearson (a veteran of the animated King Kong series) kicks off with a prologue that retells the original novel moderately faithfully. It then cuts to fifteen years later on the eve of the Great War, where Nikola Tesla's reverse engineering of the Martian technology has given people giant steam-powered mechs. These they then use to fight off a second invasion of tougher Martians immune to our bacteria.

It's mostly pretty generic (and surprisingly violent) animated mech fight action, done with efficiency rather than excellence, but it definitely has enough style to appeal to anime fans and steampunk lovers even if it doesn't have much crossover potential.