Talk:Things to Come

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I replaced this:

Wells predicts a second world war around 1940, originating from a German-Polish dispute. After 1945 there would be an increasing lack of public safety in "criminally infected" areas. The plan for the "Modern World State" would succeed on its third attempt, and come out of something that occurred in Basra, Iraq. The book also states: "Although world government had been plainly coming for some years, although it had been endlessly feared and murmured against, it found no opposition anywhere."

with a complete stub, because the above seems to have been copied from a website; could be any one of [1] [2] [3] or several others. --Camembert

Contents 1 Douhet? was there a specific connection to Douhet? 2 Frayling 3 Influence 4 Predicted World War II?

[edit] Douhet? was there a specific connection to Douhet?

Anyone want to clarify better what Douhet's relationship to the film might have been? I like 80.177.108.194's addition that

The film is notable for its graphic depiction of strategic bombing in scenes where London is flattened by air attacks and society collapses into barbarism. This echoes pre-war concerns about the threat of the bomber and the apocalyptic pronouncements of air power prophets such as Giulio Douhet.

But that sounded almost like a suggestion that Wells had based his ideas on Douhet. I added a sentence to make it clear that Wells certainly had not gotten all of his ideas about air war from Douhet.

But was there a connection? I know nothing about this myself and can't comment intelligently.

Wells was a well-informed man so by the time he wrote the screenplay he might well have known about Douhet (or Billy Mitchell for that matter), and discussions of air war and its consequences could well have been "in the air." Aircraft manufacturers were building warplanes, and by the time the film was in preparation Mussolini's air force would already have been conducting attacks on Ethiopia.

I guess what I'm wondering about is, did Wells get some ideas from Douhet? Did the people engaged in the production naturally turn to Douhet's book for research on what air war might be like?

Or was it more like people watched the film and said, after the fact, "Oh, yes, that's what Douhet was talking about?"

There probably isn't any good answer to this... Dpbsmith 12:31, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)

---

Wells would have almost certainly been aware of Stanley Baldwin's 1932 statement that "the Bomber will always get through". Douhet was just one of several prominent prophets of air power, alongside Mitchell (and certainly the most well-known in Europe) and was part of a general movement that was trying to make the world aware of the offensive potential of air power. I will suggest removing the Douhet reference but leaving the link to strategic bombing in the text. The movie is a document of popular belief in the potency of bombing and a reminder that it was thought to be as apocalyptic a threat as nuclear war is to us today. Prune 15:01, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Frayling

I don't see why the Frayling remark is in 'Behind the Scenes' - it is an opinion so I am cutting it.

• It's a valid opinion and it's from a verifiable source, so I don't see the problem and I'm putting it back. Wikipedia prohibits articles from including Wikipedia editors' own opinions. It does not prohibit what Jimbo has called "facts about opinions." It is a fact that Frayling holds that opinion. If you think this is a disputed topic, if you think Frayling's opinion is wrong, and you want to balance it by adding a verifiable source citation from an authority who has a differing opinion, by all means do so. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:30, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

No problem with it up top. It just was not adding a detail about the production. Frayling showed some footage at the RCA that was a test reel for the effects done by the artist Naum Gabo. Worth an addition?

• Sure. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:09, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Frayling is no longer with the BFI.Piersmasterson 12:52, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

• Well, he was when he wrote that comment... Dpbsmith (talk) 19:09, 22 February 2006 (UTC) Oops, I didn't reference the source when i added the Frayling quote back in 2003. I'll add a reference soon... Dpbsmith (talk) 19:11, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

It was Moholy-Nagy not Gabo so I've fixed that. In the process I found a photo of his test effectsPiersmasterson 17:32, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Influence

After seeing this film for the first time, I was struck by how elements bore similarities to later media. The 2036 portion is a lot like Osamu Tezuka's Phoenix as well as the backstory for the Silver Surfer and Kang the Conqueror. Is anything in print about this film's legacy?--StAkAr Karnak 15:44, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Predicted World War II?

The statement in the article that

The film is notable for predicting World War II; it was only one year off.

seems pretty unconvincing to me. For one thing... it's been a while since I've watched it and I don't feel like watching it right now just to check... I don't think the phrase "World War II" is used. Is it? For another, apart from being a global war in which air power played a role, the resemblance to World War II isn't close. The gas attacks resemble World War I more closely than anything in World War II. There's no obvious political or military similarity. The war is not really presented in enough detail to judge whether it's an impressive bit of prescience or not.

Second, "it was only one year off" isn't very impressive given that the movie was released in 1936, and that fear of approaching war was hardly a unique insight.

Third, and admittedly I'm setting the bar pretty high here; for most writers, I wouldn't have said that they ought to have predicted the use of atomic bombs in World War II, but given that Wells wrote a novel about them in 1914 in his case I'd say that not having them in Things to Come is a failed prediction—if one is measuring the movie as a prediction of the actual historical World War II.

I've always perceived it as a fantasy of the way in which things could develop in some unspecified future... not an attempt at accurate short-term prediction.

Anyway, I think this sentence should go. The film did not "predict World War II" and is far less closely tied to historical reality than, say, Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator. Dpbsmith (talk) 18:50, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

No, the phrase "World War II" isn't used, but while at the time "World War I" was still generally known as "The Great War," the title of the first "chapter" of the shooting script adapated and published by Wells in October 1935 is "Before the Second World War" (page 19). The review of the film in The Times also uses the term "the second world war" in relation to the events in the film.

The fact that gas wasn't used historically in WW2 would surprise most of the UK population before it started, as there was a widespread belief that it would be, as evidenced by the fact that every British citizen was issues with a gasmask in September 1939.

That's my point. It wasn't particularly prescient as a prediction of World War II. The war in Things to Come doesn't much resemble World War II other than being a world war. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:20, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Since the film starts with it's Christmas Eve 1940, it's actually almost 16 months off. However, the original storyline for the film was written in early 1934, i.e. 5½ years before War broke out, which is a bit more impressive than if you take 1936 as start date. Nick Cooper 19:28, 14 August 2006 (UTC)