Now now... We all know Lucas would never stoop to shoving a hand up somebody's rectum. It'd be a writhing CGI monstrosity with twelve hands, or nothing at all!!
Besides, I'm sure it's only a matter of time before Lucas develops a technology that forces all of us to retroactively enjoy his movies.
If Tony Lee is writing this one, it will be awesome. That is all.
Of course, considering that Star Trek (at least TOS) exists as a fictional television series within the Doctor Who universe, I'm assuming that this will be another Doctor Who adventure which features a powerful reality-warping alien intellect.
Perhaps a return to the Land of Fiction or the Dream Lord/Celestial Toymaker?
Either that, or the kid from Night Terrors grows up into a die-hard Trekkie. (The Doctor did say he'd be back to check on him once he hit puberty)
Yeah, that was pretty much my first instinct as well.
Oh yeah. Rest assured, whatever version of this show comes about, it'll be trope central, because that's the only way television gets made any more.
Our ensemble cast will inevitably contain representatives of all officially sanctioned television ethnic/gender/age groups (ie: mostly white, with one or two black guys, an obnoxious Latino lady who everybody hates, and a nerdy "asian" who's good with computers.) Everybody will have some deep-seated psychological trauma or dark and mysterious past which intertwines with everybody else's dark and mysterious past, and it'll only be the cruel hand of fate that led all of our plucky survivors to be on the Moon that fateful day, because heaven forbid anybody just shows up for work like normal.
There will be love triangles, betrayals, hidden agendas, coverups, people who aren't what they seem, complex branching plot points which may or may not be resolved, and lots of shots of cast members running around in t-shirts which are two sizes too small.
Definitely not any FOX-headed ones. (well, maybe if you wanted to have it come about, but definitely not if you wanted it to stick around for more than 5 episodes... three of which would be shown in the wrong order)
I don't know... this could be a good thing. Mainly because I think it's take a herculean effort to produce anything more plodding and narcoleptic than the original.
All kidding aside, as long as they drop all the retarded stuff about visiting other planets and focus more on the primary cast of characters surviving a one-way trip into the void of deep space, I think the core premise could easily work as a miniseries or standard British season of 6 to 13 episodes. (Possibly even an American season of 26 if they pulled the now obligatory Lost trick of wasting half of every episode with character-building flashbacks.)
The pilot could begin with an "accident" in the experimental reactor complex of Moonbase Beta. The resulting explosion is enough to rip the Moon out of orbit and send it hurtling off into space at an impressive, but not light-speed breaking, speed (say bottoming out at about 200,000 km/hr.) This completely obliterates Moonbase Beta and wrecks havoc on the Earth, but leaves Moonbase Alpha (plus a few surviving Eagle and Hawks) mostly intact, thanks to their amazing technobabble inertia dampeners wosnames... or whatever other BS you want to make up which explains how fleshy humans could possibly survive such a disaster.
Now the survivors knuckle down to assess the situation: Moonbase Alpha is almost, but not quite, self sufficient... Unfortunately, almost won't quite cut it. They've got plenty of air, water, and artificial gravity, but food is going to be a problem, as are rocket fuel, building materials, medicine, etc... People are going to have to get creative, and the Earth can only offer limited advice via video uplink (they've got their own problems thanks to the globally devastating tsunamis and other disasters caused by the Moon being blown out of orbit) Also, the ever increasing distance between the two means that communications with our homeworld will become increasingly problematic.
That isn't the worst problem though... The base's built in ultra high impact deflecticators (TM) can protect the Moonbase from collisions with most space debris and small meteors. However, at the moon's current rate of acceleration, they'll reach the asteroid belt in just under 50 days, and assuming they survive that ordeal, face a near certain collision with Jupiter another 60 days after that! If they want to survive, somehow they're going to have to figure out how to steer the moon!
Additional complications that could pop up along the way:
* Slowly piecing together what happened in Moonbase Beta (since the entire complex is one big radioactive pile of debris exposed to the vacuum of space, all exploration has to be done remotely by remote operated probes)
* Finding out that the explosion wasn't an accident, may have been part of a larger conspiracy, and that the saboteurs are amongst the survivors on Moonbase Alpha (and still up to no good).
* A mysterious signal which keep appearing and disappearing across a wide variety of Moonbase subsystems, origin unknown. (maybe it's coming from the moon itself!)
* Finding additional survivors from a top secret government outpost that nobody knew about, but which may be connected with the Moonbase Beta conspiracy, mysterious moon artifacts, and other fun stuff covered up since the first moon landing in 1969.
* A brief window opens up where the moon passes close enough to Mars to allow a single ship to dock with the research base there and return again. This is the last ticket home for anyone on Moonbase Alpha, but Mars Station One can't sustain more than a few dozen individuals, so there's a lot of fighting about who goes and who stays.
* Two conflicting strategies emerge about how to avoid the collision with Jupiter (use the radiation from the Moonbase Beta explosion to power a kind of reverse solar sail, or convert one of the other reactors into an ion pulse drive), and there's only time and resources enough to build one of them.
* As the delay in communications with Earth grow farther and farther apart, it becomes apparent that all is not well on our home planet, that the moon explosion was just the start of much larger societal unrest. The season could even end with the face of Earth-Moon communications sending a hurried panicked message to the crew of Moonbase Alpha telling them to keep going, get as far away from Earth because it's all gone to hell. Find a new home and don't make the same mistakes that we did, because.... oh shit! They're breaking in now! No wait! Stop!!! Arghhhh! (cliche, but you get the idea)
All in all, if they play their cards right, the show could combine everything that was interesting about Outcasts with the slow-burning character development and (mostly) adherence to hard science of Defying Gravity.
Then again, if it's being developed by the team which brought us V, it'll probably be another space-elevator to nowhere.
Meh. The Blake's 7 version was way funkier.
My wife and I will both second that.
I'm pretty sure that we both imprinted on the wrong animal when we were infants, since the sound of a mewing kitten immediately triggers our "pick it up and give it whatever the hell it wants" instinct, but a screaming baby merely results in an overwhelming sense of loathing and desire to smother the offensive noise source with a pillow.
I still prefer the creepy "Milkneto" kid from season 2 of Misfits.
Considering that he managed to take down all but one of the main cast (even including the immortal guy) using nothing but the power of lactokinesis, it all goes to show just how powerful even a shitty super power can be, if you put your mind to it.*
* Just be wary of time travelers who are lactose intolerant.
As it should be, my friend. As it should be. #tips
It's official. Confirming earlier rumors, here's a brief video snippet of the Red Dwarf series X model team, restoring the massive 14 year old model of the titular ship built way back in 1997 for the remastered DVDs and Series VIII.
Can I get a "Hell yeah!"?
Per my previous post, it's been announced that Peter Talbot (best known for his awesome model work on Duncan Jones' Moon) has taken the helm of the new model unit, and that Shepperton Studios has had to remove all the seating from Stage K because there simply wasn't enough room to shoot this big ol' mother any place else!
This may be the first and only instance of the wah-wah-wahhhhhhhhhhh trombone used in a kung-fu action sequence.
And the world is now a much better place.
And the world is now a much better place.
Plus, getting to take over for Peter Cushing and go up against Christopher Lee as Dracula... I'm pretty sure Tennant's geek cred would collapse under the weight of it's own awesomeness.
Okay, I was on the fence about seeing this sucker in theaters, though based on your description and its entry in The Hammer Vault, I think I may have to.
Personally, I hope that this is just Hammer getting a good run-up at a return to the good old days, and their next film will be a direct followup to The Satanic Rites of Dracula, with Christopher Lee donning the fangs for one last outing as the Count. (And this being Hammer, it still counts as a Dracula film, even if Lee only agrees to be in it for 15 minutes of screen time)
I'm not sure who I'd want to see take over Peter Cushing's Van Helsing role, but something tells me David Tennant would make a believable descendant of the Van Helsing bloodline (he's got the right facial features, at least)
Twins of evil?
Somewhat ironically, we've finally reached a point where the technology is good enough and cheap enough that shows like Red Dwarf can afford to use CGI (within reason) without turning out something that looks blatantly like CGI.
The CGI on Back to Earth was good enough, that if they said they were using the same effects team, I wouldn't have been heartbroken. That said, model work always looks better, and it's awesome to think that the original Red Dwarf model has been safely tucked away for nearly 15 years, and only needed minor repairs to get her ship-shape and ready to fly again.
I hate to say it, but I haven't been this excited about Red Dwarf since the end of series 6 in 1996.
Series X seems to have taken a checklist of all the things that made series 7 and 8 (plus the Xtended DVDs) suck, and blown them out of an airlock. The only downside is, of course, that the actors are all getting pretty old, but I can look past a hologram's receeding hairline if it means getting writing on par with the first few seasons.
Series X seems to have taken a checklist of all the things that made series 7 and 8 (plus the Xtended DVDs) suck, and blown them out of an airlock. The only downside is, of course, that the actors are all getting pretty old, but I can look past a hologram's receeding hairline if it means getting writing on par with the first few seasons.
Smegging hell! The official Red Dwarf site has an update about the model work, and they're actually going to be using the original models from the late 90's!! (click on the photo for a nice close-up)
Plus, the new model shooting unit is being headed up by Peter Talbot, who is probably best known for providing all the miniature shots for Duncan Jones' Moon. Score!
I thought I was done with Red Dwarf spoilers until closer to November, but Dave just releases two brand new teaser videos, which give very slight glimpses of Rimmer and Lister in their new costumes, Kryten without his mask, and the new Drive Room and corridor sets. Also, one corner of the quad monitor is blurred out, presumably to hide something spoilery.
Note: Eagle eye viewers will notice that Rimmer is not wearing his H in the first scene, but that's presumably because it's a rehearsal and not final shooting. Since Rimmer was still hologramatic at the end of 'Back to Earth' and an earlier set report mentioned that we get to see a "new feature of holograms" this season, I think it's safe to say that our favorite smeghead is still deader than a can of spam.
At any rate, here's the two youtube links:
and here's a link to the Ganymede and Titan site which has a few blow-ups from the video showing a bit more detail.
The site also confirms that they're currently removing the audience seating from Shepperton Studios to make room for the model unit. This is great news, since Red Dwarf has always had much better luck with models than they have with CGI. (especially if you count the godawful effects on the Red Dwarf: Xtended DVDs)
Oh, and here's a link to the Ganymede and Titan site which has a nice blow-up from the video showing a fairly good shot of Rimmer and Lister.
The site also confirms that they're currently removing the audience seating from Shepperton Studios to make room for the model unit. This is great news, since Red Dwarf has always had much better luck with models than they have with CGI. (especially if you count the godawful effects on the Red Dwarf: Xtended DVDs)
