H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds (Hines film) added scenes, re-edits, and re-tooled special effects; the director says this is the definitive version. "The Classic War of the Worlds" replaces the 3 hour rough cut version, "H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds", that was widely distributed and is now discontinued. In 2012 a re-imagined, re-edited, and re-thought version, with new material added, was released under the title War of the Worlds – The True Story; this new version, again directed by Timothy Hines, is presented as a faux-documentary. It revisits Wells' novel, portraying its events as historical by way of the documented recollections of a survivor of
The War of the Worlds suggests the Martians have left behind. The novel also presents ideas related to Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, both in specific ideas discussed by the narrator, and themes explored by the story. Wells also wrote an essay titled 'Intelligence on Mars', published in 1896 in the "Saturday Review", which sets out many of the ideas for the Martians and their planet that are used almost unchanged in "The War of the Worlds". In the essay he speculates about the nature of the Martian inhabitants and how their evolutionary progress might compare to humans. He also suggests that Mars, being