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Doctor Who: The Enemy Within - The TV Movie Recut [PROJECT DEAD]

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 (Edited)

EDIT: This project is currently dead. One day I may pick it up again, but all work would have to be redone from scratch, so I wouldn’t hold your breath. Sorry to anyone who was looking forward to this.

Well, the title describes this pretty well.  Using my (still not 100% completed) NTSC conversion as a base, I’m going to recut the 1996 Doctor Who TV movie to be more of a bridge from the classic to current series and less of a weird … thing of its own.

List of changes that I can remember, so far:

  • New opening credits and title (The Enemy Within)
  • “New” theme music taken from the Big Finish Eighth Doctor audio dramas
  • Split into two ~30 minute parts
  • Part One opens with Lee running from the gangsters/finding the TARDIS
  • Various trims to this sequence (for instance, we don’t see the bullets hit the Doctor’s shoulder - though it might actually look a little more brutal the way I’ve cut it, so I might go back and change it)
  • Trims to the ambulance sequence (“I’m not signing anything, buddy!” is gone)
  • No cutting back-and-forth between the Doctor getting wheeled into the hospital and the snake-Master in the ambulance - we see the Doctor get wheeled in and X-rayed, then we see the Master slide up into Bruce’s jacket, then we go back to the Doctor being worked on by the nurse/doctor
  • The surgery scene has several trims - the Doctor never sits up, and all he says before he’s knocked out by the gas is “I’m not one of you, I’m not human” (or something like that) - no “Timing malfunction - the Master!” and no sitting up and screaming right before he dies
  • Trims to Bruce’s possession to make it less gruesome; we also don’t see him choke his wife

Part One ends with the Master arriving at Grace’s house to pick up the Doctor - the ending leads you to believe that the Doctor recognizes the Master.  Part Two reveals that he doesn’t recognize him.

As a teaser, here’s the opening credits as I have them now.  Note that I chose Futura due to its use in both the classic series and the current series from 2005-2009 (don’t know what they use now, though it could just be an enlongated version of Futura).

I’ve also used the Big Finish Productions’ Eighth Doctor theme, taken from Storm Warning and Invaders from Mars (much cleaner break for the ending) in particular, instead of the theme used in the film.  This helps to tie the TV movie to the audio dramas, as well, which I think is a good thing.

I’m open to suggestions, of course!

Without further ado, the first glimpse at this edit - the new opening credits sequence for Doctor Who: The Enemy Within:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMgTd1yPYYs

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Wow this edit looks like it'll be fantastic Chainsaw Ash! I'm glad that you're going to break it into parts just like the format of the original series. I always thought that the TV Movie had great potential; it just needed some altering. I bet you're take on it will make it far less cringe-worthy. By the way, I love the new opening credits: a great blend of old series and new series!

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It's looking like it's going to be two ~30-minute episodes at the moment.

As in, part 1 is currently at 45 minutes, part 2 at 37, and I'm going to try to get each down to ~25-30.  They might end up being different lengths, but whatever, right?

Also, Part 1 ends when the Master arrives at Grace's in the ambulance to pick up the Doctor and Grace.  Part 1 ends with the Doctor and the Master looking at each other, the audience believing that the Doctor recognizes the Master.  Part 2 begins with the Doctor not recognizing the Master, and going with him instead.

Also, I've cut the moment were the Seventh Doctor screams while being operated on, and his reference to the Master in the same scene (as the whole opening sequence has been cut, I'd like to keep the audience in suspense as to who or what the snake-looking thing is, until the Master reveals who he is in the bedroom).  The whole scene flows much better.

In fact, the regeneration scene - at the moment - is only 15 minutes into the first episode, so we get to the Eighth Doctor a lot quicker than in the "official" cut.

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Interesting.. I don't think people will particularly mind slightly different lengths. in any case, that cliffhanger sounds great! It's always great to get to the 8th Doctor fast, as the story is really about him so the 7th shouldn't dominate it. 

Is the 7th Doctor still going to be killed by the botched operation? Deep down, I was hoping by some miracle you could make it appear as if the snake killed him, making him die a slow death by poisoning... However, this probably isn't possible...

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The DVD is available in the US now.  There's no need to use a conversion.

 

 

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@OperationBedlam - Unfortunately, there is a need for a conversion.  The Region 1 DVD uses the same PAL-to-NTSC standards conversion the BBC uses for the rest of its Doctor Who DVDs.  This type of conversion preserves the PAL duration and audio speed.  This is fine (in fact, it's great) for regular Doctor Who releases, as every episode of the show is shot at 25fps, and a 25-to-24 conversion would lower the audio pitch awkwardly.

But, since the TV movie was shot in North America, on 35mm, at 24fps - instead of in the UK at 25fps - this means that ALL official retail DVDs of the TV movie, regardless of PAL or NTSC standard, run 4% fast, and the audio is 4% higher in pitch - including the Region 1 release.  I'm also going to be releasing a pure standards-converted DVD of the official cut for those who want to see the movie as originally broadcast at its proper speed - see my other thread in the Other Preservations section for more information on this.

@Aluminum Falcon - Yeah, the Seventh Doctor still gets killed by the exploratory heart surgery.  There really isn't any way around it.  I've cut down that sequence a little bit, specifically cutting the cartoony scream (which was cut in the original UK broadcast, as well) and the "Timing malfunction ... the Master ... " line, since in this cut we don't know that the snake-thing is the Master until Bruce says so.  (I'm also toying with cutting his morning-after conversation with Bruce's wife, but I'm not sure if that's gonna happen or not.)

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Interesting, I never would have guessed that about the conversion process.  Figures that after such a long time getting it out on DVD they'd still find a way to muck it up a bit.

 

Good luck with the edit.

 

 

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 (Edited)

It would be an interesting to see if the TVM could be adjusted to serve as a bridge between the classic and post 2005 series.

There isn't much of a plot other than the regeneration and the Master attempting to steal the Doctor's regenerations (which comes across as almost something the Master comes up with on the spot than part of a larger plan).

The side quest for the atomic clock is pretty uneventful and dull.

It might help to think of an 'ideal' story reworking and then see how the existing footage can be redirected towards it.

The Daleks and The Time Lords are at the cold war stage of what would eventually become the Time War.

Each has been plotting little schemes against each other and hidden their actions behind agents to avoid open hostilities.

The Master has worked with/used the Daleks and the High Council in the past and has a low opinion of both.

I like the idea of the Master working both sides towards his own ends.

The Time Lords make a big deal of 'arresting' the Master and offering him to the Daleks as an olive branch for his past transgressions against their Empire, but secretly have recruited him to give them Time Lord secrets to push them into open war with other races in the hope that they will get rid of the Daleks for them.

The Daleks make a big deal of 'executing' the Master as a representative of their Time Lord enemies but secretly have recruited him to infiltrate Gallifrey by giving him the means to take over the Doctor's body and his Tardis.

In reality the Master has pulled an "Inception" on both of them.

He wants to survive and ultimately get rid of all of them and killing the Doctor and using his heroic reputation to further his goals is just fine by him.

In the new series we have Prisoner Zero, a Multi-form which has a snake body but can take the form of unconscious people.

In the TVM we see the Master take a similar form but to physically enter a human.

In the old series the Master could do this without having to take a snake shape.

The atomic clock is too mundane a quest goal, it would be more interesting if it was a bit of alien technology that has somehow found itself on Earth but linked to time manipulation (maybe a Time War artifact that has fallen back through time, like "The Moment" mentioned in The End Of Time.

We have access to new series elements and also Anthony Ainley in the Destiny Of The Doctors game footage and sound files from the Big Finish audios.

It will take some time for me to iron out how these ideas could fit together into a workable plan but I thought I'd mention them to see if these ideas appeal to you.

I would prefer the Seventh Doctor being shot shielding Chang or one of his friends from gunfire than just opening the door.

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 (Edited)

I really like a lot of those ideas.  Unfortunately, most of them are pretty close to impossible to pull off convincingly.

I'm not trying to re-invent the wheel, as it were, with this edit - I'm just trying to make the TV movie feel more like Doctor Who, and resolve as many inconsistencies between it and the rest of the series as I can.  That's the main goal, to me at least.

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This edit sounds really promising!

I like Bingowings's idea of retooling the film to serve as a sort of bridge between the classic and post-2005 series, though I think that some of his suggestions are a bit... extreme? It would, however, be nice to have something that connected the two series.

In any case, I'm looking forward to seeing how this turns out!

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Pretty sure this is dead in the water.  Last post was nearly a year ago.  Too bad, other than the WhoFlix site, there's not nearly enough Doctor Who edits.  We get like 5 Star Wars edits a month but nothing on Who.  I guess its too much of an undertaking.

 

 

 

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Not dead in the water, I'm reviving it; it's still waiting on my proper PAL-to-NTSC conversion of the TV movie itself, though.

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It might be worth checking out the first episode of the new series as it has a giant arena full of Daleks in it which would be an ideal backdrop for the Master's extermination.

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This sounds like a great idea...any status updates on the project now?

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I like Bingowings’ idea of retooling the footage to tell a different story, though I’m not sure it should necessarily be about the buildup to the Time War. Personally, I think it would be really cool if we could get two stories out of it, just so the Eighth Doctor can have more than one full-length TV outing. We’ve got around three and a half classic episodes’ worth of footage, so I’d say we aim for three episodes. We could also try reworking another Paul McGann movie (Downtime, maybe?) into a Doctor Who story.

Exterminating the Master in the Dalek Parliament from Asylum of the Daleks is a great idea, although we’d have to make sure there’s no trace of the Paradigm Daleks, as they wouldn’t exist yet. We should definitely give Ainley a cameo in that scene.

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Holy shit, this is a bump.

This project (as well as the 24fps preservation of the TVM) was a casualty of a suddenly-dead laptop and poor backup standards.

I’d like to revive both someday, but I’m not sure if or when that might happen.

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I was just trying to retool this into a general thread for discussing editing the DWTVM.

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I mean…you could’ve made a new thread instead of bumping a 5-year-old one for a dead project, but okay. This was one of those things I started but was never able to finish that I kinda hoped everyone had just forgotten about.

Then again, threads like this are the reason I don’t talk about projects I’m working on until they’re basically finished anymore (hence why I have no currently-active project threads, since nothing I’m working on is even close), so seeing one of them rise from the dead kind of works as a “don’t talk about shit you’ll probably never finish” reminder.

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ChainsawAsh said:

I mean…you could’ve made a new thread instead of bumping a 5-year-old one for a dead project, but okay. This was one of those things I started but was never able to finish that I kinda hoped everyone had just forgotten about.

You’re probably right. It’s just that I wanted to show my aproval of Bingo Wings’s idea. Oh well. Would you like me to start a new thread? I guess there wouldn’t be much point now.

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Nah, not a big deal. I changed the title and updated the first post a little. If anyone wants to keep using this thread for general discussion on editing the DW TV movie, by all means, go ahead.

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It doesn’t look like anybody else wants to… Bingo Wings, are you there?