Posts Tagged ‘Space’
I was so relieved to discover that so many people had the same reaction to the original news about that G-Force movie. Well I remembered something else I had heard ages back and thought it might serve to heal some of the damage done. If I read the website properly then this comes out in just over 8 days in Japan:
The theme music at the end probably made all the bad G-Force stuff …
Tags: Space Battleship Yamato Star Blazers
This is a guest post by long time friend of QYDJ Sujoy who recently launched his geek themed blog aptly called 9e3k. It’s been a Doctor who themed couple of weeks around here so I’m happy to just embrace all things Who’vian and present Sujoy’s take on Matt Smith’s second outing as the Doctor.
Be warned that there are unavoidable spoilers!!
In bed above, or deep asleep
While greater love lies further deep
This dream must end this world must know
We all depend on the beast below.
There are so many good things happening with Doctor Who in the Steven Moffat era so far. After the quite awesome first episode, episode 2 – The Beast Below – takes us to a far far point in space and time when the solar flares have roasted the Earth, and people from different countries have fled in different spaceships. It was quite funny to see Spaceship UK having neon lights in space flashing ESSEX, SURREY etc. And the Doctor trying to explain that to Amy by saying – people living, laughing and shopping (ha!), searching the stars for a new home. Yes, the Doctor and his assistant have already set out for their first adventure (not counting the previous incident) and we get glimpses of the team working in conjunction as well as separately. What is absolutely great here is to see Amy and her curiosity in knowing what or who the Doctor really is, and her attempt at exploring that by asking random questions. Of course, Matt Smith, even though is a new face, we cannot help but believe that he is indeed the Doctor as he smiles as Amy asks him if he had any children.
“The Beast Below” as a story is quite traditional and familiar with previous Doctor’s stories. It is very well layered with clues here and there, as all the mysteries are unveiled one layer at a time to ultimately arrive to the finale. And for the record, “The Smilers” are definitely one of the creepiest monsters and I hate them – even the smiley ones. But the winner of this episode is the Buttons. It is such a creepy concept if you think about it. What would you decide to do, when you are asked that after having known the dark secret of the spaceship and its survival, would you choose to Forget It, or to Protest It, and in the process decide the collective fate of the people. The Queen, Liz 10, when faced by the question decides to keep the status quo and keep reigning, and of course, continue the loop of ‘Forgetting” every 10 years. That makes me concerned about the death-rate and birth-rate of the UK population on the spaceship, as we see that the Queen has survived for quite some time. And speaking of population, I wonder how big the spaceships of India and China would have been.
Yet another outstanding moment in this episode was the Doctor, when faced with the dilemma of either killing the residents of Spaceship UK or allowing the Space Whale to be tortured, makes the uncomfortable choice of saving the people and prepares for an easy death for the spacewhale. Of course, clever Amy recollects all hints and instructions given by the Doctor to “look carefully”. She saves the day by joining the pieces of the jigsaw, although the Doctor does not seem very happy about her stealing the show by risking the lives of people on Spaceship UK. But then, all’s well that ends well. Amy hugs the Doctor in front of a massive and glimmering glasswall and the team is back together. The friction between them and the curiosity of Amy to find out more about the Doctor, while both of them contribute more towards a larger story arc – all of it is so much fun to watch, and we are only at Episode 2 here.
Except for some loose ends here and there, and a not so convincing Queen, this was a step up from Episode 1. And those Smilies should make a comeback. And not to forget, the little clues which might be crucial for future episodes. And by that I mean that crack on Spaceship UK. Does that mean that we will be soon seeing the Atraxi make a comeback?
Saturday nights are indeed becoming harder to wait. And how wicked was the trailer at the end for the next episode – Victory of the Daleks. Yes, you heard that right. The Daleks are back next week, as Ian McNeice plays Sir Winston Churchill and the Doctor punches a weird scientist who calls the Daleks his invention. Can’t wait for that one. But for me now, it’s time for a repeat viewing of the Beast Below. Cheerio!
Sujoy lives in London and works as a Business Analyst by day, but by night turns into a blogger ranting on his favourite topics of Sci Fi, Horror, Anime and all stuff geeky on his blog 9E3K. He is a Bollywood fanatic and he writes about them at OneKnightStands. He believes that he tweets way too much and he is considering getting some help about it.
He is learning to play the Keyboard, and one day hopes he can cover Killer Queen.
This post is a guest post by Suzie. Personally I’ve never been into Red Dwarf at all and it’s something I feel I’ve missed the boat on now so it’s a pleasure to have Suzie here talking about the show and I’d love to hear all your memories and thoughts on it too in the comments!
Red Dwarf is a madcap British comedy. I first saw it when the kids were little, old enough to be left in the bath for a few minutes. I’d put the kids in the bath with some toys and walk away for a short while, the TV was still on after the news and I’d catch a glimpse of something really silly that didn’t make the slightest bit of sense and I didn’t feel inclined to watch it any longer. One memorable day they were screening the episode called Backwards and my life changed. A lot of this episode is run in reverse so you see most things happening backwards and I was totally hooked by the filming of it. I was torn between being grossed out by the eating scene which was being shown in reverse so you saw them uneating and undrinking and absolutely amazed by the fight scene which was, again, screened in reverse. I made the mistake of watching some more while listening out for the kids and was totally stunned with how this episode worked. They did a lot of work to ensure continuity was correct and this was made rather challenging as Lister got some bruises during the fight so we saw him complaining about the pain and watching the bruises get bigger and blacker long before the fight actually happened.
Basically the programme is set 3 million years in the future on board a mining spaceship called Red Dwarf. There is one human left alive, Dave Lister, and a handful of other ‘people’. Arnold Rimmer caused the explosion that killed the rest of the crew is now a hologram, The Cat is a descendent of the cat that caused Lister to be put in stasis and Kryten is an android…sorry, mechanoid. There’s lots of humour in it that will appeal to teenage boys. It was first screened in 1988 and was written by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor with a few episodes by Paul Alexander. Dave Lister is not your normal white hero, he’s a slob, and he’s not white at all but basically he’s a nice guy if you can ignore his dreadful habits.
There are so many things that are different about this series. The first is the language, Grant Naylor were very careful not to write any cliches or ordinary figures of speech or even normal patterns of speech into it, what they wrote doesn’t fit with normal thinking or normal modes of talking. It made it rather challenging for the cast to remember their lines. Chris Barrie who played Rimmer had very few troubles as he has an amazing memory who memorised everyone’s parts. Robert Llewellyn had the hardest times as he has a dreadful memory for lines and would somehow pull it all off at the last moment and if he couldn’t then they had boards with his lines on it just out of camera range. Robert Llewellyn also had a dreadful time with makeup, spending hours getting his suit on and getting his head made up before being able to go onstage – yes, some of it was shot live.
I’m going to have to take a few moments to mention Chris Barrie’s impersonation. You’ve seen him before on The Brittas Empire and have maybe heard him on Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s Welcome to the Pleasuredome where he did an impression of Prince Charles. He is a wonderful impersonator. One episode which highlights his skills is called Queeg. There’s an explosion and his files are corrupted so he ends up doing impersonations of various characters, ones we’ve seen and ones we haven’t, they are spot on. At one point he hovers between Lister and Holly doing one after another and each one is so perfect with the body language, the facial structure and the way each one talked, just brilliant.
Having mentioned Holly I should explain a bit. Holly was the ship’s computer who was played by either Norman Lovett or Hattie Hayridge. Both actors did a sterling job of this part and were only called upon to show their heads so were unable to use their bodies or hands in this role. In the episode, Queeg, mentioned just above we had the pleasure of seeing Norman Lovett’s deadpan delivery and then the double pleasure of seeing Chris Barrie doing Norman Lovett. Just wonderful.
One particular scene called for Chris Barrie, Robert Llewellyn and Craig Charles to really work at their lines as the audience was laughing so loud the actors couldn’t hear themselves. The scene was in Polymorph and we saw this creature which could change into anything, at one stage it had changed into Lister’s underpants and he put them on only to find them getting smaller and smaller while he wore them. He called Kryten to help pull them off and that’s when Rimmer walked in, at this point the audience is in hysterics and Chris Barrie has to keep the same look on his face for 20 minutes while Robert Llewellyn and Craig Charles continue, Craig Charles mentioned in an interview some years later that he couldn’t hear Robert Llewellyn and so was just watching his face hoping he was getting the right lines.
One of the delights of the programme is Danny John-Jules in the role of The Cat. Besides being rather goodlooking with a fabulous figure, Danny John-Jules spent some time dancing in West End productions before landing his role in Red Dwarf. He embodied the role and made it his own so much so that when they tried to reinvent Red Dwarf in the USA in 1992 they had to put Hinton Battle into the role. In my mind he was the only other person who could do the role justice. You might know Hinton Battle from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode of Once More With Feeling, he played the demon, Sweet, and did a wonderful job there. Unfortunately, for him he was not a patch on Danny John-Jules as The Cat. Danny was sensuous and fast in the way that cats are.
Basically, if you like British comedies you’ll most likely like Red Dwarf. If you like clothes and material you’ll love watching The Cat dress. If you like watching really good comedic acting then this is the show for you.
Suzie generally sells pre-loved books and part-work magazines on Suz’s Space when she isn’t scribbling bits and pieces about books on the Suz’s Space blog or hanging out on Twitter. Suzie is addicted to books and TV, more specifically science fiction and fantasy. She has two teenage kids (when will they leave home and create space for more books and DVDs?) despite claiming to be 18.
