The fantasy about the evolution of Western Civilization over the course of several generations, beginning in 1936. England seems to be at peace. Then, out of nowhere, a ruinous war that wrecks everything, followed by an epidemic that, like the Black Death, winnows the population.
As the disease dissipates, we're taken to Everytown in England, now run by a pompous dictator, Ralph Richardson, who is making war against "the hill people." There is no petrol, no medicine, no chemists, no books, no nothing, except there seem to be plenty of weapons and bullets.
Into this raggedy populace comes aviator Raymond Massey. He lands in town, claiming that he represents an organization call Wings Over the World. Richardson, sneering but wary, promptly puts him in a dungeon and disregards Massey's warning -- "Others know where I am and they will come." Well, they DO come apace. A fleet of large black multi-engine airplanes with open decks like the cruise ships of yore. They brush away the obsolete local air defense and drop "peace gas." It knocks everybody out but kills no one.
Wings Over the World brings prosperity to the people of England. Cities are rebuilt, there is plenty of food, and science charges ahead. Soon, the society, now led by Massey's grandson, is ready to shoot a young couple to the moon. After that? Who knows.
Enter one of the artisans who has constructed the great Cretanesque marble statues of Everytown and Everywhere, Sir Cedric Hardwicke. He's disturbed by this notion of Science with a capital S. Let's stop this nonsense and go back to the old days. Weren't we just as happy then? And this space business. Ridiculous.
Maybe H. G. Welles had just digested Hegel or something. Every time there is an idea, it generates its own opposition. From Ralph Richardson's blind opposition to progress, we move to Hardwicke's opposition to blind progress.
Hardwicke musters his troops and they charge the "electric gun" which is about to SHOOT a bullet with a couple of people in it to the moon. KaBoom.
Science, in the person of one of Raymond Massey's avatars, wins. He stands with a pal in an observatory, pointing out the magic bullet on its way to a lunar landing, smiling and satisfied. We can never go back to the ways of yesteryear. "The universe or nothing. Which will it be?" Compared to Welles, I consider myself a mental midget but it seems to me he's a little confused here. Science, as I know it, endorses no values except scientific integrity. It's a useful tool for finding out things, but it doesn't tell you what to find out, or what to do with what you find out. Yes, Darwin was a scientist but so was Lysenko. Alfred Nobel, a man of peace, invented dynamite, a weapon he thought so destructive that it would put an end to war. Science makes progress of a certain kind possible, but if we want to decide what KIND of progress, we have to look elsewhere, into the more arguable corners of philosophy.
Speaking of that, Welles, and the film based on his story, bring up a lot of social issues for at least a brief treatment, but religion is nowhere to be seen. That's Welles for you.
As the disease dissipates, we're taken to Everytown in England, now run by a pompous dictator, Ralph Richardson, who is making war against "the hill people." There is no petrol, no medicine, no chemists, no books, no nothing, except there seem to be plenty of weapons and bullets.
Into this raggedy populace comes aviator Raymond Massey. He lands in town, claiming that he represents an organization call Wings Over the World. Richardson, sneering but wary, promptly puts him in a dungeon and disregards Massey's warning -- "Others know where I am and they will come." Well, they DO come apace. A fleet of large black multi-engine airplanes with open decks like the cruise ships of yore. They brush away the obsolete local air defense and drop "peace gas." It knocks everybody out but kills no one.
Wings Over the World brings prosperity to the people of England. Cities are rebuilt, there is plenty of food, and science charges ahead. Soon, the society, now led by Massey's grandson, is ready to shoot a young couple to the moon. After that? Who knows.
Enter one of the artisans who has constructed the great Cretanesque marble statues of Everytown and Everywhere, Sir Cedric Hardwicke. He's disturbed by this notion of Science with a capital S. Let's stop this nonsense and go back to the old days. Weren't we just as happy then? And this space business. Ridiculous.
Maybe H. G. Welles had just digested Hegel or something. Every time there is an idea, it generates its own opposition. From Ralph Richardson's blind opposition to progress, we move to Hardwicke's opposition to blind progress.
Hardwicke musters his troops and they charge the "electric gun" which is about to SHOOT a bullet with a couple of people in it to the moon. KaBoom.
Science, in the person of one of Raymond Massey's avatars, wins. He stands with a pal in an observatory, pointing out the magic bullet on its way to a lunar landing, smiling and satisfied. We can never go back to the ways of yesteryear. "The universe or nothing. Which will it be?" Compared to Welles, I consider myself a mental midget but it seems to me he's a little confused here. Science, as I know it, endorses no values except scientific integrity. It's a useful tool for finding out things, but it doesn't tell you what to find out, or what to do with what you find out. Yes, Darwin was a scientist but so was Lysenko. Alfred Nobel, a man of peace, invented dynamite, a weapon he thought so destructive that it would put an end to war. Science makes progress of a certain kind possible, but if we want to decide what KIND of progress, we have to look elsewhere, into the more arguable corners of philosophy.
Speaking of that, Welles, and the film based on his story, bring up a lot of social issues for at least a brief treatment, but religion is nowhere to be seen. That's Welles for you.