The War of the Worlds (1953 film) receives high acclaim from critics: At the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an 85% rating based on 27 critics; the consensus states: "Though it's dated in spots, "The War of the Worlds" retains an unnerving power, updating H. G. Wells' classic sci-fi tale to the Cold War era and featuring some of the best special effects of any 1950s film". "The War of the Worlds" was deemed culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant in 2011 by the United States Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. The Registry noted the film's release
The War of the Worlds 1900 echo scientific ideas of the time, including Pierre-Simon Laplace's nebular hypothesis, Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, and Gustav Kirchhoff's theory of spectroscopy. These scientific ideas combined to present the possibility that planets are alike in composition and conditions for the development of species, which would likely lead to the emergence of life at a suitable geological age in a planet's development. By the time Wells wrote "The War of the Worlds" there had been three centuries of observation of Mars through telescopes. Galileo in 1610 observed the planet's phases, and in 1666 Giovanni Cassini identified the polar ice