Fighting machine (The War of the Worlds) the machines of Wells' novel. The fighting machines walk upon legs (four legs instead of three) and carry a weapon above their head on a neck, resembling the Martian heat-ray from George Pal's 1953 film adaptation. Fighting machine (The War of the Worlds) The Fighting Machine (also known as "Tripod") is one of the fictional machines used by the Martians in H.G. Wells' 1898 classic science fiction novel "The War of the Worlds". It is a fast-moving, three-legged walker, reported to be 100 feet tall, with multiple whip-like tentacles used for grasping, and two lethal weapons: the heat-ray and a
The War of the Worlds (1953 film) for Pal productions: "Destination Moon" and "When Worlds Collide". "The War of the Worlds" won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and was later selected for inclusion in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. An effort was made to avoid the stereotypical flying saucer look of UFOs: The Martian war machines (designed by Al Nozaki) were instead made to be sinister-looking machines shaped like manta rays floating above the ground. Three Martian war machine props were made out of copper for the film. The same blueprints were used a decade later to construct the alien spacecraft