Set in the year 2089, huge machines known as Tripods have take over earth. Controlling humans with a 'cap' (A mind control device in-planted on the head at the age of fourteen) which erases imagination, curiosity and independent thought, mankind now lives without technology in a rural/medieval existence. Cousins Will and Henry Parker only a year away from being 'capped' hear of a place where free (un-capped) men live and fight the Tripods. Their travel take them from their home in England to France where they meet Jean-Paul'Beanpole'Deliet who joins them on their journey to the white mountains of the Alps, home of the free men.