H. G. Wells’ The Shape of Things to Come (1979)

Beyond the earth… Beyond the moon… Beyond your wildest imagination!

H. G. Wells’ The Shape of Things to Come is a 1979 Canadian science fiction film directed by George McCowan, and starring Jack Palance, Barry Morse, Nicholas Campbell, Anne-Marie Martin, Carol Lynley, and John Ireland.

Although credited as an adaptation of H. G. Wells‘ novel of the same name, the film takes only its title and some character names from The Shape of Things to Come, Wells’ speculative novel from 1933. The film’s plot has no relationship to the events of the book. The book predicts events such as a Second World War and the collapse of social order until a world state is formed, whereas the film involves a high-tech future involving robots and spaceships.

The film was an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of such recent successes as Star Wars, Starcrash, and TV series such as Space: 1999 (also starring Morse) and Battlestar Galactica, although the film had only a fraction of the production budget of any of these.