The War of the Worlds Book v. Movie

I recently had the opportunity to read the book War of the Worlds. This novel, by H. G. Wells has been made into a movie with the same basic ideas. However, it is quite different from the book. I actually saw the movie before I read the book, a major error in many reader’s minds. However, the skill of the director of the movie, Steven Spielberg, did a wonderful job of modernizing the quickly aging text.
The book is set in the late 1800’s. The location is naturally in England, as H. G. Wells lived and grew up there. The movie does a wonderful job of transitioning it to modern USA. Any director less than Steven Spielberg would have completely botched the attempt, but true to his reputation he produced a book that is arguably the best movie based on a book with major changes in time and setting.
There is a problem with the movie, however. Beyond all of the special effects and glamour, it does not have that much of a meaning like the book did. The book’s theme was something like, “Stay to things that have been given to you and hesitate to take from someone else.” You may also put it, “When your time to live is over, do not try to steal another’s life.” This is shown when the aliens try to capture earth they are turned back by viruses. The narrator speculates that as mars was further from the sun than Earth, it had become barren and cold like Pluto. We now know this to be impossible, so the director came up with a different idea. However, with the old idea went the ethical message of the first book.