Moth3r said:
Occasionally I return to the Key to Time story arc; tonight I decided to watch the next installment which is The Androids of Tara - and Declan Mulholland appears in Part 1 of that story as well!
Groovey!
DuracellEnergizer said:
The overuse of human and rubber forehead aliens.
This says it all ^.
When the show got so complacent that it would introduce us to new Alien races week after week with ever so slightly different nose jobs, was when the problems started.
Then when it got to DS9 they thought it was exceptable to have the main Alien race (The Bajorans) that the entire show revolved around, have four nose ridges and an earing?! When you had Babylon 5 airing at the same time who had wierd and freaky aliens (with peacock hair, ornate bones growing out of their heads, full reptillian facial appliances or no physical presence at all) then your franchise starts to look tired.
Warbler said:
DuracellEnergizer said:
I want to bitch about how TNG fucked up the ST Universe, but I don't know if that should go here or in the Star Trek thread.
in what way did TNG f*** up the ST Universe. I do think you can argue that DS9 and Voyager and Enterprise did that, but TNG?
Yes TNG was mostly awesome but it layed the seeds for Star Trek's downfall. Too much of the "We can't do that" and "not that fast, you might break something" attitudes and plotlines crept in. Voyager ---> Enterprise just continued the slow downward spiral into boredom started in TNG (Although I'd say that TNG was never swallowed by it, the characters were too good). Those shows after TNG were built on a shaky foundation that was already crumbling and the fans were getting tired of.
Actually, I have to add (After that book cover reminded me) that the mini-terrordactyl puppets used in episode one of IOTD were pretty damn good, almost Hitchcock/Birds levels of scary.
(Ooh look, I accidentaly found the photo that cover was based on!)
Maybe they were constructed by different guys and they were of course photographed by the main unit in camera, unlike the big Dinosaurs, who were shot by the model unit. Plus it helps when you've got a great actor like Pertwee reacting to them live on set (A lesson certain Directors with a penchant for CGI could use).
Wrong thread but I was kinda hoping the final ROTJ battle would have every pilot from every film and TV show from the entire history of Sci-Fi and Fantasy, not just Batman.
Yes I've seen the original ST miniatures from various eras, amazing detail. If anybody hasn't seen them 'in the flesh'... imagine how big you think they are, then quadruple it! They are huge.
Good call on the Henry V quote. Sums it up perfectly...
"Can this cockpit hold the vasty fields of Skaro? or may we cram within this wooden O, the very Daleks that did affright the air at Trenzalore"
;-)
As for the FX shots in TOS. They are good but pale in comparison to the lavish Enterprise sets, the costumes and the vibrant images (Which have barely dated a day). When I watch the Blu-Rays I tend to choose to view it with the enhanced FX turned on. It gells much better with the crisp HD of the rest of the footage.
Plus the first time we meet Lando, Han makes a reference to some incident where Han betrayed(?) Lando in the past...
"That was a long time ago. I'm sure he's forgotten all about that."
Lando forgives Han without a word (Just a gentle joshing) so I expect Han would forgive Lando too. It's that kind of friendship.
More importantly, we the audience had forgiven Lando before the credits rolled on ESB. So bringing it up again during the opening act of ROTJ a couple of yers later would be dramatically pointless.
DrCrowTStarwars said:
the budget for Doctor Who was much lower then even children's shows in the states at the same time.
To give you some idea of just how much lower Doctor Who's budget was then the average American show I will compare the budget of two episodes of Doctor Who to one episode of Star Trek made in the 1960s since they have the same run time. Now remember Star Trek's special effects have been mocked from time to time. Well any way for the same run time Doctor Who had a budget of between five and six thousand pounds converted to dollars that makes just under ten thousand dollars give or take. Star trek had a budget of between one hundred and fifty thousand and one hundred and eighty thousand dollars for a fifty two minute episode. That means that Star Trek had a budget of around fifteen to eighteen times what Doctor Who did.
I know this conversion isn't perfect and that both shows had there own problems to contend with(Such as Star Trek's larger cast and model shots that were needed every week)but I bring it up to demonstrate why some times Doctor Who would come up short in the special effects department. Personally it never bothered me,even as a kid. As long as the actors reacted as if they were seeing monsters and space ships I believed in the monsters and space ships even if they were bits of clay and pieces of old toy. Then again I grew up watching a lot of stuff that had bad special effects and was always more interested in the ideas that made up a story then how it looked on screen so I know I do not represent your average viewer.
I'd wondered what the budget ratio between Dr Who and Star Trek was but never took the time to work it out thanks. I'm surprised it wasn't more.
Other things to consider though. A Dr Who serial is typically 4x 25 minute episodes long, meaning the set building budget is stretched twice as far as Star Trek. However Dr Who had to build entirely new sets for every story and often every episode (Tardis interior console room and The Doctor's UNIT laboratory room in the Pertwee era being two exceptions) where as I'd guess that around 75% of Star Trek is just shot on the single expensive looking Enterprise set every week, dramatically saving costs. On the other hand Dr Who used location filming to save on building sets for it's earthbound episodes, where as Star Trek shot damn near everything in the studio, so it all had to be built and paid for.
Watched the infamous Jon Pertwee 6-part serial 'Invasion of the Dinosaurs'. In many ways it's one of the very best Pertwee stories I've watched so far but by Grabthar's hammer the Dinosaur puppets are some of the sh*test FX I've ever seen x-D
A real shame as the story is brilliantly written, the characters are complex and believable and the politics are really interesting.
The villains are almost not villains, because they actually believe in something, even if it is crazy. They want to save the earth from mankind's 'wickedness' by reseting earth almost literally back to the stone age. Even one of The Doctor's closest friends is in league with them. Oh and they seem to think mankind's new golden future involves wearing top to toe blue denim ;-)
I'd like to see The Beeb do one of those Dr Who Special Editions for this serial. Even if reshooting the Dinosaur puppets was too expensive, the shots would benefit hugely from being digitally colour-corrected and tweaked (Adding film grain, adjusting contrast, masking out clouds, removing CSO outlines etc) to fit better with the location footage. The real shots have the expected blank grey sky of London but the sky on the FX shots is like the Bahamas!
For once with a six-parter, the end was entirely satisfying. Our heroes end by feeling sympathy for the "villains", Pertwee delivers a politically charged speech about where mankind is going wrong (You wouldn't be allowed to broadcast this kind of thing now) then goes off into a poetic reminiscence about some beautiful Alien planet (Gives Roy Batty a run for his money).
I've uploaded it so you can see how great it is...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Jb3te1A-hI
Again tragic that a serial that is so mocked because of it's FX work, has scenes of that quality ^.
I was a bit luke warm about Spidey2 until I saw this clip on TV last night...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiLY8o2IXGw
...makes it look like so much fun. Gonna see it for sure now.
It goes without saying that the action will be good, so it's great that it looks like they've got the much more important things like character, chemistry and fun down. Love the Charlie Chaplin refrence at the end.
If your best bud comes to rescue you but ends up nearly dying by slipping into the Sarlacc pit and you hang upside down held by a Wookie to rescue him. Words aren't needed after sh*t like that, it doesn't matter what went before, you're both cool ;-)
Love it, just love it.
Bingowings said:
I was referring to the deaf lady and the old chap with the microscopic jukebox thing but yeah rail planes are smart.
I'd seen the first clip before but not the old guy listening to music one. Amazing video but I'd need a control subject, because listening to Cab Calloway would make anybody feel better ;-)
Watched the William Hartnell six-parter 'The Keys of Marinus' (Thankfully it was much better than 'The Gunfighters').
The Doctor and his original companions (Grandaughter Susan, Barbara and Ian) land on the planet Marinus and are quickly sent off on a quest to recover the MacGuffin (The titular Keys). What makes it fun, is they escape to a new place (Using some nifty teleportation watches) each week and find another key. So I'll review each episode seperately...
1. The Sea of Death - Very much like a proto-Star Trek TOS episode. The island of glass surrounded by a sea of acid felt just like the kind planet Kirk and Co would beam down onto. It was awesome to have George Coulouris as Arbitan adding some real old Hollywood glamour (My idea of Hollywood glamour anyway). Shame some nice false-perspective sets are shot from the wrong angle and Hartnell keeps fluffing his lines (He cleary needs the holiday he takes during episodes 3 and 4) but nevermind it's still good.
2. The Velvet Web - Snoozzzzze, like 'I, Claudius' on Prozac. After the adventure got off to a thrilling start our heroes sit around on one set eating grapes. They must defeat the inhabitants evil plan, to hypnotize them into thinking they are sitting in a room which has ever so slightly nicer fittings and furnishings than the room they are actually sitting in. Ha Ha Ha! The ultimate evil! Wait what? I got a kick out of hearing the voice of Heron Carvic as Morpho. He was Gandalf in the 1937 BBC radio adaptation of The Hobbit (I grew up listening to that on an almost weekly basis).
3. The Screaming Jungle - Fantastic episode. Reminded me very much of 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' with a hint of 'Night of the Living Dead'. (Another piece of evidence in my "George Lucas was inspired by Doctor Who" theory. More of that in a minute) An Aztec like temple, full of pressure traps and surrounded by a deadly living Jungle.
4. The Snows of Terror - Chaplin's The Goldrush mixed with The Last Crusade. A perilous quest for a grail-of-sorts (Another Key) in a lost cave only reachable across a deep chasm and bridge. At the end is a cave where the Key is guarded by Crusader Knights. (Sounds familiar doesn't it).
5. Sentence of Death - Probably my favourite of the six, Hartnell is back and visibly refreshed (Note - I don't mean "refreshed"). The Doctor is almost just playing Sherlock Holmes (Another favourite character of mine) as he must deduce the facts of a murder to save the life of Ian (He even basically quotes Holmes' catchphrase). Another top quality guest star in the shape of Donald Pickering (Sir Humphrey's sometime nemesis from 'Yes, Prime Minister').
6. The Keys of Marinus - Essentially just part two of the last episode. I liked the look of the black clad Voord, sleak alien Ninja Commandos. One more good guest star, Fiona Walker from 'I, Claudius'.
I still think there must be much better Hartell stories I haven't seen yet but this was damn good anyway. Pertwee's 'Invasion of the Dinosaurs' next I think.
Bingowings said:
These were from a few days ago and I posted them on the youtube finds thread but I think they meet the criteria here.
Rail planes. Why didn't they catch on? Love loony inventions like that. That crazy rocket powered mono-wheel they developed in WW2 springs to mind.
Post here if you see something random, unexpected or comical that brightened your day and put a spring in your step :-)
Here's one I saw this afternoon...
Somebody had scrawled a tiny "They Live!" in red marker pen on the underside of the roof of the bus shelter near my house.
I don't know quite why, but it made me happy.
Jetrell Fo said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-HUgzYPm9g
Very cool.
You just have to take the time to manually link it yourself, like that (Only takes a second). Fixed for anybody interested^
Yes guys, if a Glaswegian offers to give you a 'Glasgow Smile', a 'Glasgow Handshake' or a 'Glasgow Kiss', decline politely (They're not as friendly gestures as you might imagine) ;-)
This strangely beautiful and hypnotic video comparison of 'The Hobbit:TDOS' Trailer vs Blu-Ray was posted over on FE.org:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJFfpIKfMU0
It's interesting to note now much a film can be manipulated, changed and fiddled with when it's shot on greenscreen like the PT. The Hobbit has way more sets than the PT but still so few that it can be messed with like this when only the foreground elements are live action.
It's not just that the PT had a lot of CGI shots, it's that every pixel was meddled with in the same way as The Hobbit so it all looked like fake CGI. And Lucas didn't just use CGI to clean up wig lines like in that Hobbit clip, he was doing crazy sh*t like chopping off actor's heads from one take and switching them to another body.
Without seeing the trailer or reading anything, I'm gonna predict he is a retired Vietnam chopper pilot who went a bit funny on Acid and now spends his days fishing but has come back for one more mission!
From the tone of some of your recent posts it sounds like you are going through some tough times because of this situation. Don't worry you'll soon look back on this as the best decision you ever made :-)
Yeah some of todays comic artists should have read less Frank Miller when they were teenagers.
DominicCobb said:
Here's a random thought: this might seem crazy but for whatever reason when I'm trying to remember something or when I'm trying to think of something to think about, the first thing that always pops up in my mind is "Star Wars."
So, in a way, Star Wars is always my own personal random thought.
I like the sound of that!
"Where did I park my car, again...? erm... Docking Bay 94?" ;-)
Two years old but y'all might find it funny right now...
But Dr House and Gordon Ramsey are both fictional characters.