Rating: 
Summary: This is the DVD edition to buy
Review: Please note that some of the reviews below refer to the two previous DVD releases, both of which are low-priced (one is the double-feature that also includes "Journey to the Center of the Sun"). Picture and sound quality on these other releases is poor; however the Image release, priced at around ..., features a new transfer that boasts a clear sharp picture through most of the movie and an improved soundtrack (on the cheap editions, the dialogue was frequently unintelligible). If you are a fan of this movie, this is the DVD version you should buy.I agree with some reviewers that Wells's vision of the future is fascist in some respects. The vaulting ambition of human PRO-gress depicted in this movie is inspiring to a degree, but is laid on pretty thick. Viewed in the context in which it was made, this is a very enjoyable film, featuring some first-rate production design and visual effects, particularly for the time, along with a lantern-jawed performance by Raymond Massey that is stirring if not always believable. This is a worthwhile film for all science fiction fans, in my opinion, and should be seen at least once. If you're going to buy it on DVD, though, I recommend you spend the extra bucks and buy the IMAGE version.
Rating:
Summary: This is the DVD edition to buy
Review: Please note that some of the reviews below refer to the two previous DVD releases, both of which are low-priced (one is the double-feature that also includes "Journey to the Center of the Sun"). Picture and sound quality on these other releases is poor; however the Image release, priced at around ..., features a new transfer that boasts a clear sharp picture through most of the movie and an improved soundtrack (on the cheap editions, the dialogue was frequently unintelligible). If you are a fan of this movie, this is the DVD version you should buy. I agree with some reviewers that Wells's vision of the future is fascist in some respects. The vaulting ambition of human PRO-gress depicted in this movie is inspiring to a degree, but is laid on pretty thick. Viewed in the context in which it was made, this is a very enjoyable film, featuring some first-rate production design and visual effects, particularly for the time, along with a lantern-jawed performance by Raymond Massey that is stirring if not always believable. This is a worthwhile film for all science fiction fans, in my opinion, and should be seen at least once. If you're going to buy it on DVD, though, I recommend you spend the extra bucks and buy the IMAGE version.
Rating: 
Summary: Crap
Review: Sorry folks, but this movie is only good for the production design, which itself only gets interesting about an HOUR into the film. The characters are negligable and vaguely fascist; the story boring, pretentious, and didactic; and the pacing is glacial. I frankly think that this film's supporters are mainly lured in by a sort of nostalgia for this era of film, more than the film itself. When I rented the VHS of this way back when, it mentioned on the box that it was the Star Wars of its time (it was not, neither in popularity nor quality). Finally, I love old sci-fi movies. Really! It's just that this one sucks.
Rating: 
Summary: Historical pageantry fast-forwarded
Review: The British, for some reason, were obsessed with historical pageants in the 1930s, and this peculiar product (one of the most expensive films made in Britian up to that time) is an odd by-product of that obsession. It plays like Noel Coward's CAVALCADE in reverse. It opens in 1940, when war against a foreign power is declared at Christmastime (these are the best and most famous sequences, and are performed nearly like a kind of pantomime). Then the film advances episodically at first about decade at a time, showing the devastation wrought by war and plague, the barbarian society that becomes built over the carnage, and finally the superscientific cryptofascistic organization that defeats the barbarian power and its own problems. Aside from Alfred Hitchcock's work, british cinema just wasn't very good prior to the Second World War, and this film shows why: everyone from the evil barbarian dictator and his Lady MacBeth to the children in the street speak with absurdly posh BBC accents, and there's a ridiculous amount of posturing and posing. The film is mostly of interest today as a kind of curio, especially in its relaization onscreen of the popular futuristic fantsies of the period: giant Art Deco turbines, and oversized flying wing aircrafts that sweep the skies. The striking visualization of the Wings over the World society, with its towers and plazas, and its citizenry bedecked in caped togas with plastic tubing (the costumes were co-designed by the Marchioness of Queensbury!) clearly provided the inspiration for DC Comics illustrators in the United States in their depictions of Superman's Krypton for the next fifty years or so.
Rating: 
Summary: One star for the Print, Five for the Movie = Three Stars
Review: There are film classics that we almost lost - literally. For one reason or another - mainly, I think, because the available version went into public domain and was abandoned by the studio, or because the nitrate film stock of the master negative disintegrated - the only copy extant for video/DVD transfer is a dupe, and a bad one at that. "My Man Godfrey" and "Nothing Sacred" come to mind. And, of course, "Things to Come". If one could reify the art deco aesthetic into a story, this would be it. If the Chrysler Building really were a rocket ship and could fly past the the moon and stars and comets of art deco friezes . . . if we could look into the mindset of those whose naive and fresh vision of man's destiny had recently been energized by the discoveries of relativity and of deep space and of rocket travel and their implications . . . we would perhaps come up with the image of "Things to Come". Some of the scenes may strike us a corny - much as those in Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" might - but they are no more corny in their context than those in "2001, a Space Odyssey" or, for that matter, "Starship Troopers". Unless you have the discipline to see past the awful print quality of the video and DVD (and even of the versions you see on TV which, presumably can get the best), you will come away with a distorted impression. It took me a number of viewings to discover the greatness of "Things to Come". I give the DVD and video only three stars to encourage the search for a good master from which to transfer a five-star movie.
Rating: 
Summary: Wings Over the World- Peace and Sanity
Review: THINGS TO COME (1936), is H.G. Well's epic story of the destruction and rebuilding of human civilization. Released just three years before the start of the Second World War, it prophecises the coming of a time of perpetual warfare where civilization is almost extinguished by chemical and bacteriological weapons. In fact, his film uncannily presages the blitz, the Battle of Britain, and the great tank battles of WW2. While it is true that the Germans never actually used gas, they did possess huge stockpiles of SARIN. And the years after the war has certainly been a time of unending petty wars- where gas HAS been used. In this film mankind is thrown into a new dark age where the secrets of science and technology are all but lost. Enter the great John Cabel and his organization of united airmen and engineers, Wings Over the World. Cabel and his comrades win back the world from the warlords and bosses while putting an end to the twin evils of war and private property forever. They build a world where their descendents go on to conquer space- yet, even that is just the beginning. I have heard this film described as melodramatic and Ramond Massey's performance as overacting. I disagree. Sometimes great and heroic ideas must be presented in a larger than life manner. One such idea is the Freemasonry of Science, where scientists and engineers owe their first allegiance to Civilization and not to individual states and personal fortunes. After all, if we did not provide weapons to the "bosses" they certainly could not create them on their own. I always wanted to be John Cabel as a boy. Now I would be satisfied if ANYONE stepped up to fulfill the role.
Rating:
Summary: A Window into History
Review: Things To Come is a stunning view of a quixotic future, with an apocalyptic End of Days followed by a millenarian Rebirth. The vision of Raymond Massey staring into the night sky as Humanity's seed is flung to the stars, asking "All or nothing. Which shall it be?" is matched in its emotional power only by Edmund Gwenn's "Nobody can predict" closure in Them, and underscores Mankind's impetus to the stars that drives us today. Behind the images, Things To Come provides a wealth of insight into England's intellectual milieu in the 1930s. Massey's horror at the prospect of a new world war, and his companions' disbelief that any power or statesman could contemplate one, reflects the war-weary nature of the British public in 1935 and the country's refusal to acknowledge that Hitler, who had just come to power, had more in mind than mere bluff. "Another speech by him? It's nothing I tell you. Threatened wars never occur." The subsequent locust-like invasion of England by hordes of foreign aircraft flying over the cliffs of Dover was prophetic in that this actually occurred shortly thereafter in 1940. The film is steeped in Marxist ideology, as were English intellectuals at the time. TTC suggests that war is not waged by particular humans but is a function of capitalism, and can only be prevented by a total transformation of society. The futuristic civilization that finally emerges is the ideal of 1930s English socialism. A society of workers is ruled by a committee of technocrats headed by Massey who defends "our Revolution" by forcibly suppressing all independent states (with "peace gas" thus distinguishing those poorly bred Bolsheviks who actually shot people). One almost sympathizes with Cedric Hardwicke when he leads a new revolution against Massey's descendant, except that his own vision is retrograde and even less tolerant than Massey's, if that were possible. One of my top ten, TTC is worth a close study. Far from detracting, the grainy black and white print adds to the impact.
Rating:
Summary: A fantastic look at the future!
Review: THINGS TO COME is a sweeping look into the future in terms of both scientific/technological progress and the evolution of the city over a century. From war and disease to the first attempt to circle the moon with human beings, this movie penetrates into the human reactions to nerve gas, flight, and the ongoing conflict between science and theology. It is rich in symbolism, including commentary on the vaule of new ideas and the freedom of expression. It is both prophetic and provocative. A wonderful and uniquqe movie.
Rating:
Summary: H. G. Wells' prophetic vision of the future
Review: Things to Come is an unusual film with an unusual history. It plays on several levels, the most important being its anti-war message. H.G. Wells, from whose book The Shape of Things to Come this film was adapted, was a man deeply opposed to war. As the twentieth century progressed, Wells worried greatly about the future of man and society; he studied the past, publishing the impressive nonfiction book The Outline of History, and he began imagining the future - as it might be and how he might like it to be. His embrace of science remained true, but it was a more tenuous embrace, one espousing both fear and hope. Things to Come, released in 1936, takes up these ideas - some of them, anyway, as some of the more controversial aspects of the novel The Shape of Things to Come were ignored in the emphasis on the horrors of war.
The movie opens on a Christmas night in 1940; the residents of Everytown argue the possibility of war among themselves, only to have the holy night shattered by a bombing attack on the town. The world quickly descends into major warfare, and we are treated to a number of images of the spreading conflict. The war is made to look as frightening as possible, featuring frightened masses, decimated buildings, and the curse of gas warfare. Then the movie shifts to the year 1970. Three decades of constant warfare have brought civilization to its knees, and the Wandering Sickness has wiped out half of the human population. Local warlords rule their own little fiefdoms, and the Chief we are introduced to is still dangling the prospects of peace in order to sell continued warfare. The weapons of mass destruction are in short supply now; his only mechanic has been unable to repair the few remaining airplanes, and there is no petrol for them even if they could get airborne. Into this backwards world of modern barbarians comes John Cabal - arriving in a modern airplane, of all things. Cabal represents Wings Over the World, a new society made up of airmen and scientists committed to remolding the world (and social order) and eliminating war. The Chief, naturally, rejects Cabal's overtures, refusing to give up his hard-won authority and martial aspirations. Cabal's friends soon come to rescue him, flying in on a fleet of impressive airplanes armed with "the gas of peace."
The final third of the movie takes place in the year 2030. John Cabal and his scientists succeeded in their mission to reshape human society under their influence. The futuristic city is impressive - immaculate, gleaming white, and technologically rich. Cabal's ancestor now holds the position of authority, and he is totally committed to a new course of space exploration. The "Big Gun" is built and ready to send two intrepid young explorers around the moon. You might expect the citizens to be shining, happy people - but they're not. One man in particular, an artist named Theotocopoulos, leads a reactionary people's revolt against the follies of "progress." He says the time has come to rest on society's laurels, not waste the people's money and energy on frivolous projects such as the Big Gun. Suddenly, it's a race against time to fire the Big Gun before it is destroyed. The drama draws a sharp line between the two choices for the future. Cabal actually comes across here as slightly mad in his final "Which will it be?" moral speech, daring to dream of conquering the entire universe in the name of science, resulting in a sense of ambivalence toward science I found a little confusing.
The filmmakers had no fear of melodrama, as several scenes essentially drip with sappiness. The dialogue is somewhat stilted, as the important characters, particularly the Cabals, give speeches rather than merely speak. As for the look and special effects of the film, we're talking about some amazing stuff for the year 1936 - the film company spent a bundle on this film, and it shows. The scenes of warfare are particularly impressive -so impressive and disturbing that the movie-going public did not really warm up to the film - after all, the horrors of war were still rather fresh on their minds. As things turned out, Things to Come would play better to future generations than to its contemporaneous one. What does the film's lack of success in 1936 mean to you, the viewer? More than you might think. The film was not preserved the way it might have been, and the prints that fell into the public domain were of disappointing quality. I can't speak to the merit of this DVD, but I can say the print of the film I saw was exceedingly dark, making much of the first third of the movie very difficult to see.
This film is a true time capsule, though, and it works much better than most "prophetic" movies of its kind. Much of the acting and dialogue appears quite dated, but the themes of this movie are eternal - in fact, they are probably more important and applicable now than they have ever been. Its endorsement of a one-world government will not go over well in many places (especially my house, as the very idea is anathema to me), and I find its rejection of warfare quite naïve (especially in the world of today), but this is a very important, instructive look at man and society (as well as an underappreciated masterpiece of science fiction).
Rating:
Summary: DATED!
Review: This film is just overall dated. Although I respect the foretelling of actual events that did take place in history, the movie itself is just not up to standards anymore and I cannot relate to it, sorry.
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