Yeah, I thought they did a decent job of straddling the George Pal version and the original book version. Right down to the birds flying around the machines at the end (book), and the "eye" probe in the farmhouse (Pal).

Had to force myself to suspend disbelief at the beginning. They went to a lot of trouble to tell us that the alien arrival caused an EMP that fried all electronics, yet when the first machine comes out, we see people using working camcorders.