There’s a reason the 1953 adaptation of H.G. Wells’ classic alien invasion tale, War of the Worlds, is credited to producer George Pal instead of director Byron Haskin: It’s because Pal put a premium on channelling all the visual effects tools available in the early ’50s to bring an interstellar apocalypse to life. The people in this movie are barely people; mostly they’re as cardboard as the sets that inevitably all go up in amazing flames. But there are images in this movie that aren’t just “Good for the ’50s, I guess.” They’re still good, period. You know that feeling ’90s audiences had during the opening weekend of Independence Day? You remember that story about the yokels at the first-ever movie screening who dived under their chairs because they thought a train was going to barrel out of the screen? War of the Worlds was both of those things in 1953, at the same time, thanks to Pal.