"I claim this planet in the name of Mars. Isn't that lovely?" : H.G. Well's "War of the Worlds"

War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells…sweded.

 Scene: The Turn of the Century, English Countryside.

ENGLISH PEOPLE WITH STIFF UPPER LIPS: tut tut it looks like rain.

MARTIANS: lol nope. *crash land*

FIRST PERSON NARRATOR: Oh look an alien Pringles can.  And since we have just been looking at Mars that must be where it came from.

ENGLISH PEOPLE: tut tut it looks like rain.

FIRST PERSON NARRATOR: we must help the aliens that obviously are inside this cylinder! 

OGILVY: Are you sure there are aliens in there? Shouldn’t they probe the earth with an unmanned vessel first, to see if we even have what they’re looking for?  What if there’s some material or organism here that is deathly to them?

NARRATOR: What nonsense.  Obviously they’re not going to waste the element of surprise with rational things like reconnaissance.  Here, take this white flag to show them we are intelligent.

OGILVY: But what if white symbolically means war to these life forms?  And how does carrying a symbol of surrender show them we are intelligent?  Shouldn’t we play them some Mozart or something?

NARRATOR: Ogilvie, you are really starting to get on my nerves.  Now since you are the only one with knowledge of alien life, you get down there and help them open their spaceship door!

OGILVY: Since I am one of the few people with an actual name in this story, I am too indispensable to die in this foolish attempt at first contact!

MARTIANS: *deathray*

OGILVY: AUGH!  THIS IS NOT HOW STAR TREK SAID IT WOULD HAPPEN!!!

NIKOLA TESLA: *reading Wells’ novel* Ooo “Deathray” would be a cool invention for me to make.

NARRATOR: Ogilvy!  You just died a terrible, horrific death for the sake of humanity’s peace with outer space!  I will keep your sacrifice as a memorial by promptly never referring to you again.

Scene: The next day in the village.

ENGLISH PEOPLE: tut tut it looks like rain.

NARRATOR: Well even though I saw like 50 people get burned to a crisp last night, I didn’t feel it urgent to get out of town until now.  Time to buy a dog-cart. 

LANDLORD: Luckily for you I am selling a dog-cart.

NARRATOR: Thanks.  I’ll pay you double what you want for it.

LANDLORD: Really?  What’s so important that you’re trying to get out of town so fast?

NARRATOR: I’m sure it’s nothing you have to worry about.

LANDLORD: So I’m not going to suffer a terrible demise because I have no dog-cart to escape in?

NARRATOR: I’ll bring it back tonight, thereby ensuring that I am at the forefront of danger throughout the story.

Scene: Narrator takes his wife to Leatherhead.  Wherever that is.

NARRATOR: Honey, I don’t know why you’re being such a womanish wussy and afraid for our safety.  Just because there are some deathray-wielding aliens down the road, capable of interplanetary travel, doesn’t mean they know how to make technology that allows them to adapt to our greater levels of gravity!

WIFE: You’re right, narrator husband.  Since you are a philosopher I’m sure everything you think is practical.  By the way how far away is Leatherhead from our home?

NARRATOR: Can’t you read, woman? It only takes us the afternoon to get there. 

WIFE: Is that a far enough distance away from the aliens?  Or is Leatherhead some sort of alien-prepared bunker, like Area 51 or something?

NARRATOR: Here we are at my cousin’s house.  My cousin will take care of you.

WIFE: Is your cousin Chuck Norris?

NARRATOR: And now it is time for me to return to the scene of the plot.  See ya, wifey.

WIFE: Darling! Don’t go!  I won’t have any more character development if you go!

NARRATOR: I promise to think of you infrequently!  Ta ta!

Scene: The Narrator returns to his home.  The landlord guy is dead.

NARRATOR: Oops.  Maybe I should’ve offered to take him with us.  Ah, home sweet home!  *as he goes inside Martians begin to march around in their mechanical walkers* Look, my favorite show is on!  The Return of the Jedi!  Wait, how come no Ewoks are attacking that AT-AT?

ARTILLERYMAN: *whispering* help. Me.

NARRATOR: You’re not an Ewok!

ARTILLERYMAN: Yes but I have relevant plot stuff to tell you.

NARRATOR: I instantly trust you.  Come in. 

ARTILLERYMAN: Well all I really have to say is that death-ray took out all our military except me. 

NARRATOR: I could’ve told you that was going to happen. 

ARTILLERYMAN: Oh?  How come you didn’t, then?

NARRATOR: I thought you’d figure it out soon enough. 

ARTILLERYMAN: Well I’m not making the same mistake.  Let’s go warn the reinforcements.

REINFORCEMENT COLONEL, WHO I IMAGINED TO BE CAPT. CRITTENDON FROM HOGAN’S HEROES: What’s this you say?  Invisible beam of death? Jolly bad form, what?  Well I’ll have to wait and see for myself, I s’pose.

ARTILLERYMAN: what part of “invisible” death ray do you not understand?

Scene: The Narrator is on his way back to Leatherhead.

NARRATOR: Ugh I’m so tired and thirsty I don’t care if any aliens find me.  I’m gonna sit under this bush and take a nap.  Zzzzzz  WHO’S THERE!

CURATE: It is I, the totally ineffectual, whiney character of all horror movies.  Perhaps you know me better as that Swedish jerk from The Darkest Hour? 

NARRATOR: The guy who redeemed himself later by shooting crazily with a machine gun and pointing out the paranoid Russian guy’s apartment right before he died?

CURATE: Unfortunately for you, H.G. Wells is going to use me as a symbol of the hypocrisy of religion instead.

NARRATOR: Then why do I even continue to hang out with you?

CURATE: You don’t have a choice, because now the POV changes.

NARRATOR: But I’m the narrator, how can the POV cha—

Scene: London

ENGLISH PEOPLE: tut tut it looks like rain.

BROTHER: I am now reading about the aliens, but since my brother the narrator is a complete two miles away I am not worried for him. 

NEWSPAPER: Seriously, people, we are being attacked by aliens.

ENGLISH PEOPLE: ha ha, Newspaper, you are so silly!  Maybe if you didn’t cry wolf by saying that about every stinking thing, we’d actually be worried!

MARTIANS: TIME FOR SOME BLACK SMOKE STUFF TO POISON YOU!

ENGLISH PEOPLE: Uh, this is London.  Smog is everywhere.  How are we even supposed to tell the differen---*die*

MARTIANS: That’s how.

BROTHER: Whew, I barely escaped that.

PLUCKY ADVENTURESS: Unhand me, you fiend!

FIEND: Your pluckiness and possession of a firearm are no match for my hair-pulling skills!

BROTHER: Conveniently I am a prize boxer!  To the rescue! *beats off fiend*

PLUCKY ADVENTURESS: Thank you.  Here have a gun.  I immediately trust you will not steal my money or attack me, even though I am gorgeous and have twice as much money as you.

ANNOYING SISTER-IN-LAW: sniffle sniffle I miss George.

PLUCKY ADVENTURESS: Shut up sister-in-law.  If my brother were at all awesome he would be here with us. 

BROTHER: Your heartlessness is just like how I don’t even wonder about my brother.  We must be soul mates!

PLUCKY ADVENTURESS: let us go in a caravan towards the sea where we will encounter the lowest morale, starvation, and denigration of human society.

BROTHER: sounds like a plan. 

Scene: the seaside. 

The Brother, Plucky Adventuress, and her Annoying Sister-In-Law are on a steamboat.

BROTHER: Shouldn’t there be more ships for this?  I mean, this is still Victorian Britain, and the British Empire has the best navy in the world at this point, so why are we stuck on a steamboat?

ANNOYING SISTER-IN-LAW: Oh no!  Look!  A Martian AT-AT is coming for us!

BROTHER: Oh cowardly lady, don’t get hysterical!  The tripods are made of metal, and as such are unable to go into the water without rusting!

MARTIANS: maybe if we were in the water for like 70 years!  *start walking in water*

BROTHER: Oh snap.

MARTIANS: Instead of attacking the weak vessels like your steamboats, we’ll start with this ironclad!

CAPTAIN NEMO: Oh no you didn’t!  Nautilus Ironclad, ATTACK!

*insert epic sea-battle.*

MARTIANS: Oops, we really should’ve thought this through!  *SPLASH!*

CAPTAIN NEMO: Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

(It would totally have been awesome to have a Vernean crossover, and you know it)

PLUCKY ADVENTURESS: Yay! One alien vanquished, only 25 or so more to go!  Now what?

BROTHER: Now we sail into the sunset, leaving my brother and sister-in-law and cousin and that little girl in the crowd and all those other people to their fate.

PLUCKY ADVENTURESS: How romantic!

ANNOYING SISTER-IN-LAW: What about George!?

Scene: Back with the Narrator

NARRATOR: --nge?!  Seriously?  How do I even know what happened to my brother?  What happened to him?  And how come I’ve been sitting under this heath for like 48 hours?

CURATE: And people think I’M the useless one. 

NARRATOR: Fine, to make up for lost time I will walk to Leatherpants or whatever and find my wife.

CURATE: And I will come with you.

NARRATOR: Are you stalking me, or what?

CURATE: You’re the sane one, you tell me.

NARRATOR: Here let’s go find some food.  *they go into a house and it immediately falls on them*  Worst.  Day.  Ever.

CURATE: But at least there’s tons of food here.  *stuffs face*

NARRATOR: How can you think of eating at a time like this?

CURATE: When I am upset, which is something someone who knows me intimately would tell you, I refuse everything but food and drink.  Right now I am eating because I am UPSET.

NARRATOR: Well you needn’t eat everything in that selfish way!  *joins him in stuffing face*

MARTIANS: Hellew?  We can see you through the kitchen door.  Look at them eat.  It’s disgusting!  Why don’t they transfuse each other’s blood like civilized people?  Well, we’ll go ahead and show them.

CURATE: Aieeeee! *dragged away as the Narrator hides.  Some hero the Narrator turned out to be*

Scene: 14 days later

NARRATOR: Hey look the Martians are gone.  And what’s this red fern stuff?  And more importantly, can I eat it?

CHLOE*: BARK BARK BARK!

NARRATOR: Here, doggie!  Nice doggie!  Nice, yummy doggie!

CHLOE: REJECTED!

NARRATOR: Look at this place.   When I broke into this house a few weeks ago, it was a normal, deserted English village.  Now it’s covered in black powder, red plants, and everything alive is gone. I must be the last man on earth!

ARTILLERYMAN: Sorry but no. 

NARRATOR: Hey I know you!

ARTILLERYMAN: I know, right?  What are the odds that the only random person you can find would be me? 

NARRATOR: You would not believe the terrible things I’ve seen!

ARTILLERYMAN: Nevermind about that.  Let’s drink and play cards while I tell you about how we are actually the rabbits of Watership Down and how I will build this underground bunker where I create a Nazi ubermensch utopia.

NARRATOR: Um, didn’t H.G. Wells already write about this?

ARTILLERYMAN: Not yet...er...I mean, not that I know of.

NARRATOR: Yeah, he did!  It was called “The Time Machine” and the Eloi were like the humans who you say are going to be captured by the Martians, and the Morlocks are the people who will become strong and live underground and…

ARTILLERYMAN: Oh look at the time, don’t you think it’s time you should go try to find your wife, even though it’s doubtful she’s alive?

NARRATOR: My who?  Oh yeah, her. 

A few days later

NARRATOR: Looking around I see no one, so I guess I am the only one alive.  It’s only a matter of time before those aliens with the technical capability of space travel learn how to make flying machines, and then it’s all over.

MARTIAN: *cough cough*

NARRATOR: What’s this?  The Martians have caught the Victorian Cough Of Death? 

MARTIAN: Should’ve…sent…a probe…*cough.*  How embarrassing…to die…from cooties… *dies*

NARRATOR: Wait, how come that didn’t happen as soon as they got out of their cylinders and were exposed to the germ-infested air of Earth?  Oh well, I guess now I’m the only man left on earth alive!  Whoopie!  No more nagging wife!

WIFE: Guess what honey I survived and never stopped looking for you even though you abandoned me and have barely worried about me since we parted.

THE GHOST OF OGILVY: Guess what the Martians have taken over Venus and now have us surrounded.

NARRATOR: Let’s hold hands and think about how we both thought the other was dead.

THE END.