The film stars Raymond Massey, Edward Chapman, Ralph Richardson, Margaretta Scott, Cedric Hardwicke, Maurice Braddell, Sophie Stewart, Derrick De Marney, and Ann Todd.
[2] H. G. Wells conceived his treatment as "a new story" meant to display the "social and political forces and possibilities" that he had outlined in his 1933 book The Shape of Things to Come, a work he considered less a novel than a "discussion" in fictional form that presented itself as the notes of a 22nd-century diplomat.
[4] In 1940, businessman John Cabal, living in the city of Everytown in southern England, cannot enjoy Christmas Day as the news speaks of possible war.
His guest, Harding, shares his worries, while another friend, the over-optimistic Pippa Passworthy, believes that it will not come to pass, and if it does, it will accelerate technological progress.
He has started yet another war, this time against the "hill people" of the Floss Valley to obtain coal and shale to render into oil for his ragtag collection of prewar biplanes.
The pilot, a now elderly John Cabal, emerges and proclaims that the last surviving band of engineers and mechanics have formed an organisation called "Wings Over the World".
Gigantic flying wing aircraft arrive over Everytown and saturate its population with a "Gas of Peace" that temporarily renders them unconscious.
By 2036, a stable mankind is now living in modern underground cities, including the new Everytown, and civilisation is at last devoted to peace and scientific progress.
The sculptor Theotocopulos incites the populace to demand a "rest" from all the rush of progress, symbolised by the coming first crewed flight around the Moon.
After the projectile is launched and just a tiny light in the night sky, Cabal debates the desirability of human progress with Passworthy's anxious father.
Posters and the main title bill the film as "H. G. Wells' Things to Come", with "an Alexander Korda production" appearing in smaller type.
[citation needed] After filming had already begun, the Hungarian abstract artist and experimental filmmaker László Moholy-Nagy was commissioned to produce some of the effects sequences for the re-building of Everytown.
The site's consensus read: "Eerily prescient in its presentation of a dystopian future, Things to Come's special effects may be somewhat dated, but its potent ideas haven't aged at all.
[17] Science fiction historian Gary Westfahl has stated, "Things to Come qualifies as the first true masterpiece of science fiction cinema, and those who complain about its awkward pace and uninvolving characters are not understanding Wells's message, which is that the lives and actions of individuals are unimportant when compared to the progress and destiny of the entire human race".
He also considered that "the film's episodic structure and grand ambitions make it the greatest ancestor of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey".
We think it's a disgrace that the most recent science-fiction movie made with a big budget, good actors and an actual sf writer preparing the script, not aimed at a juvenile market and uncontaminated by camp, is Things to Come... produced in 1936.
The two-disc set also contains a "Virtual Extended Version" with most of the missing and unfilmed parts represented by production photographs and script extracts.